Blown Away

"The way that first breath upon your nose stings and makes you see stars upon your eyes when you do, and then that first rise of steam but not from your bowl of blackwine, but your breath meeting the air" ... That had been Falon's description of snow. We were so eager to see it, to feel it ... not sand, not a blizzard of dust and dirt. Not this.

When the winds began to rise, I saw the boys safely into the wagons and battened down like little rations on a saddle pack. I was about to begin searching for Cana when a rider came to tell me I was needed farther out. Someone had been hurt. I felt the small hairs on the back of my neck rising. I didn't know where Falon was. All I had was a small pack. One turned out to be several and several turned out to be more.

I was not equipped for this ... for any of this. I didn't wait for them to come to me. As soon as one would be settled in I would step back out to help another. My mind just went numb and the faces became a blur, the wounds came and went beneath my hands. At times I had to hold one hand clutched to a wheel or the rail of a platform just to get from one place to the next, from one wagon to next. The ahns stretched into a sandpaper eternity.

"Get them into a wagon ... it doesn't matter whos ... just get them safe." Those words half silenced as a cover shredded from its moorings ... ripped from one of the nearby homes. As it sailed through the air toward me I remember thinking it looked like a used klennex. The slow motion surreality sped into fast forward when it draped over my chest, my eyes, paralyzing my arms and legs. I was sheathed like a mummy, tumbling end over end, rolling, spinning, blown away until the side of a wagon stopped the spiral.