Fire and Steel, Volume 6

by Gerald N. Lund

  He glanced out the window at the passing landscape. “Did right well for ourselves in those first years.” He sighed, enjoying the memories. “Every Saturday, we’d load up the old Model-T pickup with fresh eggs, ham hocks, butter, cream, cheese, and all the other stuff SuAnn was producing for us, and we’d take it to market and make a poke of money each week. But it was the wheat, that was our real cash crop. Back then, we called this soil ‘black gold.’ We were getting fifty-five to sixty bushels of wheat per acre.” He glanced out the window. “And now look at it. Nothing but blowing dirt for hundreds of miles in every direction.”

  Benji had to smile. Obviously, Garrett was a talker, but he liked him.

  Garrett glanced back briefly. “You boys are dang lucky we saw you. Forecasters are saying this one could be the worst blow yet.”

  “We are most grateful for you stoppin’ for us,” Mose said. “We were just talkin’ about where we were gonna spend the night. It’ll be right good to be in town and not out in the open.”

  As Mose said that, Scooter leaned in, staring at Benji. “What happened to your face?”

  Her mother’s head snapped around. “Scooter Martin! That’s not a polite question to ask a stranger.”

  Benji spoke to SuAnn. “It’s all right. I don’t mind.” He turned back to Scooter and leaned in closer. “You can touch it if you’d like. It doesn’t hurt much now.” Which was mostly true.

  That brought Charlie’s head around too, and he watched closely as Scooter explored the scab with her fingertips, her eyes wide. “And your eye?” Charlie asked when his sister finished. “That’s a real shiner.”

  Benji laughed. “I don’t remember all of it, but I think someone stuck a fist in it. I think he was about ten feet tall. Or,” he quickly added as Scooter’s eyes grew wider, “that’s what it felt like.”

  “What did you do that made ’em mad at you?” Charlie wondered.

  “Asked for a job.”

  “Was that here in Kansas?” Garrett asked over his shoulder.

  “Oklahoma. There in the oil fields,” Mose answered.

  Garrett grunted. “Ah, I’ve heard about that. How many jumped you?”

  “Four.”

  “And you only came away with a cut on your jaw and a black eye?” Garrett was impressed.

  “What happened?” Charlie asked, fully engaged now.

  Benji turned and looked at Mose. “Can’t say for sure, ’cause I was out cold before I hit the ground. But later some of those who were there said that when I went down, that was when Ol’ Mose here got mad.”

  SuAnn had turned around in her seat and was listening as intently as her children were.

  Benji chuckled. “Mose here, he’s a bit like a dormant volcano. It’s best not to get him stirred up.”

  Charlie’s eyes were wide now as he turned to Mose. “What did you do?”

  Mose was shaking his head. “Y’all got to remember that Benji here has a tendency to play kinda loose with the truth. All I did was ask those boys real polite if they would just step on back and leave us be.” There was a twinkle in his eye. “They didn’t seem to hear very well, so I kinda pulled ’em in close, to make sure they could hear me.”

  Garrett laughed. “Meaning you coldcocked them?”

  “Well,” Mose drawled, “they did end up flat on the ground.”

  “Wow!” Charlie exclaimed.

  Garrett changed the subject, looking up ahead. “Not far now. We’re almost to our turnoff. Um . . . you two got a place to stay tonight?”

  “No,” Benji said. “Figured we’d try to find a place to hole up in that town ahead.”

  Garrett and SuAnn exchanged quick glances, and then he glanced back again. “I could use some help getting our place ready for the big blow. It’s supposed to hit about noon tomorrow. Can’t pay you nothin’, but you’d sit at our table and have a roof over your head. That interest you?”

  Mose glanced at Benji, who nodded vigorously, before speaking. “Yes, sirree. We’d be right pleased to give you a hand.”

  May 20, 1934, 8:53 p.m.—Garrett and

  SuAnn Martin Homestead, Pierceville, Kansas

  Benji and Mose were seated at the kitchen table with Garrett Martin, going over what needed to be done before the “big blow,” as Garrett called it, came in. They paused as SuAnn came out of the bedroom and carefully shut the door behind her.

  “Is she asleep?” Garrett asked.

  She nodded and joined them at the table. “Finally. She is so excited to ‘have them two nice guys staying with us,’ as she put it. It took a while for her to settle down.”

  “We’re makin’ a list of what needs to be done,” Garrett told his wife. “I’ll let you explain about getting the house ready.”

  “Okay. Well, first thing is, when the wind is blowing as hard as it does in a dust storm, even the tiniest crack or opening in the house lets in the dust and dirt. We didn’t know that when the first big storm hit. So we kept the doors shut and the windows covered, thinking that was enough. But when it blew over, we had more than a foot of sand and dust in every room in the house. Took it out by the wheelbarrow full.”

  “Seriously?” Benji exclaimed.

  “That’s not an exaggeration. We need to chink every crack and opening, no matter how small. We also need to dip our bed sheets in cooking oil and hang them in front of the doors.” At their baffled looks, SuAnn smiled. “Dust and dirt stick to the oil, so we cover the doors and windows with the sheets. Oh, and we need to be sure that we have face masks for everyone. You don’t want to be breathing in the dust.”

  “We also need to make sure all water and food containers are tightly covered,” Garrett added. “And to make sure the stock and the chickens have plenty of feed and water before it hits. One storm last summer lasted three days straight.”

  “Three days!” Benji cried. “And you can’t go out and feed them during the storm?”

  “We can, depending on how bad the storm is, but we try to stay in the house as much as possible. When the wind is hitting seventy-five miles an hour or more, you can’t see five feet in front of you, and it’s like someone’s scrubbing your face with sandpaper. So the other thing we have to do is string up ropes between the house and the outbuildings.”

  “Right,” Benji quipped. “Wouldn’t want us getting lost going those twenty-five yards to the barn, right?”

  SuAnn turned slowly in her seat. “Last summer, during one of the bigger blows, a neighbor who lived about five miles up the road from us went out in the storm a little before midnight to check on his stock. When he hadn’t come back after an hour, his family went looking for him. They couldn’t find him. A day and a half later, when the storm was gone, they found him in a field almost half a mile from his house, buried face down in a dust drift.”

  Benji just gaped at her, feeling like an idiot. “I. . . . I’m sorry. I’ve been in some terrible dust storms back home, but nothing like that. Ropes it is, first thing tomorrow.”

  “No,” Garrett said. “Me and Charlie are going to do that tonight, while you help SuAnn get the house ready. That’s why we were down in Dodge City today. Buying more rope. Me and Charlie put in the fence posts yesterday, but we didn’t have enough rope.”

  “You sound like you are pros at this.”

  SuAnn looked at Benji, her expression grave. “In 1932, we had two dust storms, the first ones since the drought began. Last year we had thirty-eight.”

  “Thirty-eight?” Benji yelped. “Separate storms?”

  Garrett nodded grimly. “They just kept rolling in, day after day. We began to wonder if they would ever end.”

  “In fact,” SuAnn added, “one day at church, our pastor quoted a verse from the Old Testament that was quite shocking to all of us.” She went to the cupboard and returned with a leather-bound Bible. She opened the book to a place she had marked. “I
t is from the book Deuteronomy, chapter 28, verse 24.” She began to read, her voice solemn. “‘The Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust: from heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be destroyed.’” She closed the book and set it to one side. “That described last summer so perfectly that it became the final straw for many of our neighbors. They just packed up and left, never looking back.”

  “Tell them why we stayed,” Garrett urged.

  She smiled at her husband and then turned to Benji and Mose. “Garrett and I wondered if it wasn’t time for us to cut and run too. Then one day, as I was praying that the good Lord would protect our family and show us the way, I had a thought come to me. Quite clearly, actually.” She seemed a little embarrassed. “It’s actually from a fairy tale. I wrote it down,” she added somewhat shyly. “It went like this. ‘As we look out across the land in every direction, this country seems to be gripped in the sleep of death, just like when Sleeping Beauty was cursed by a wicked witch. All the land was cursed, too. We share her anxious longing for a handsome prince to come along with footfalls of gentle rain and spring flowers to awaken her from her evil enchantment.’”

  Benji stared at her in amazement. “That’s a beautiful analogy, SuAnn.”

  Garrett reached across and took his wife’s hand, though he was looking at Benji and Mose. “She’s a catch, eh? My SuAnn. Can you imagine her marrying a lout like me?”

  Charlie cut in. “Dad, you know that Mom hates it when you call yourself a lout.”

  “Thank you, Charlie,” SuAnn said. But she was smiling at her husband.

  May 21, 1934, 11:55 a.m.

  Garrett Martin looked around the circle, his eyes grave. “All right. It’s time. The storm should reach us in the next hour or so. So let’s go through everything one more time. When it gets here, Mama and Scooter will stay inside the house.” He dropped to one knee and took his daughter by the shoulder. “Scoot, I want you to listen to Daddy real good. You are not to go outside the house for any reason. Do you understand me? You are to stay inside with Mama until the storm is gone.”

  Scooter ducked her head. “Yes, Daddy.”

  The Irish setter that had greeted Benji and Mose when they had arrived last night whined softly and came over and nudged her with his nose. She reached down and scratched his ears and then looked up at her father. “Can Rusty stay inside with us?”

  “Of course. Everyone stays inside until this blows over, including Rusty and Midnight.” He glanced at the cat near the stove that was licking its fur, as if this whole thing were a terrible bore.

  Garrett pointed to the kitchen table where there were piles of cloths. “We’re going to go outside in a minute and watch the storm coming in. It is a fearsome sight to behold. The dust won’t come until the winds start to kick up, but the minute they start, all of us will come inside and we’ll all put on our face masks. Don’t wait until it gets bad. And don’t take them off again until it’s all over. I know they smell awful.”

  He turned to Benji and Mose. “SuAnn dips the masks in coal oil because it helps trap the dust and dirt even better than cooking oil, but it’s pretty foul. But we can’t get that dirt into our lungs. If your mask gets so caked with dirt that it’s hard to breathe through, throw that one into the box there by the stove and get another one.”

  Everyone nodded.

  He turned. “Charlie, I want you to stay inside and help your mama. Benji, Mose, and I will check on the stock as needed. If we need you, we’ll call you. Otherwise you’re in here, okay?”

  “Yes, Dad.”

  Garrett turned to his wife. “Anything else?”

  She thought for a moment. “We may lose power when the storm hits, so we have lanterns filled and ready on the shelf. Charlie, we’ll leave you in charge of getting them lit when the time comes. In several of the storms last year, it was very dark when the storm hit. Like midnight at noon.” Charlie nodded, and SuAnn continued. “We’ll take food as circumstances allow. Grab what you can when you can, and try to find a place where the dust isn’t too thick as you eat.” She smiled grimly at Mose and Benji. “But there’s nothing we can do to keep it completely out of our food, so I hope you like a little grit with your supper.”

  Benji grunted. “I live in San Juan County, Utah, which is desert country. Some people have nicknamed it Sand Juan County. I can handle a little grit.”

  “Good,” she said, giving him a warm smile.

  Garrett looked around the room. “Anything else?” No one said anything. “Okay then, let’s go. It is a show like nothing else Old Mother Nature puts on.”

  “Can we have a prayer before we go out?” SuAnn asked.

  “Of course,” Garrett replied. The others gathered in around him. He looked around the circle, stopping on Mose. “I believe you are a man of faith, Mose. Would you pray for us?”

  “I would be honored.” The men removed their hats and all heads bowed. “Dear Lord,” Mose began, speaking very softly, “we bow our heads before you, thanking you for the many blessings that be ours. We know of your power, your glory, and your majesty, O Lord. We know that you created the winds and the waves of the sea, and that they obey your voice. So, O Lord, watch over Benji and me and this fine family that has taken us in from the storm. We ask that you soften the fury of the elements. But we trust in you, Lord, and say, as did your Beloved Son so long ago, ‘Not our will, but yours be done.’ In the name of our Lord Jesus, amen.”

  “Amen.”

  “Okay,” Garrett said after a moment of silence. “Let’s go face the dragon.”

  12:18 p.m.

  The first thing that struck Benji as odd when they stepped outside was how normal everything seemed. Except for the massive dark wall that towered skyward about five miles to the west of them, everything was peaceful and calm. But the wall was ominous. It appeared to be made of grey stone, until you looked closer and could see that it was in endless movement, churning, swirling, boiling like smoke from a forest fire. There was a gentle breeze coming out of the south, but nothing more. Also off to the south, a freight train was rumbling through Pierceville, headed east. Trying to outrun the storm, Benji guessed.

  No one spoke. All were quiet. Watching. Waiting.

  Then Rusty whined. When they turned, they saw that he was no longer basking in the warm sunshine near the front door. He was up now, looking to the west, his whole body stiff as he sniffed the wind. He whined again and came over and pressed up against Garrett’s legs.

  “He feels it coming,” Garrett said. They looked around, almost sniffing the air themselves. The air was still now, and an ominous silence had settled over the land. Benji felt the hair on the back of his neck prickling.

  To the west, the storm was moving steadily toward them. Garrett was right. Benji had seen a lot of bad storms in his lifetime, but nothing that even came close to this. It felt like some gargantuan tidal wave bearing down on them.

  “That’s gotta be at least a mile high,” Mose murmured.

  Garrett shook his head. “The radio said it was more like ten thousand feet high.”

  Mose shook his head, muttering something under his breath. Benji was filled with a sense of both awe and dread unlike anything he had ever experienced before.

  “Listen!” Charlie cried suddenly. He had turned around and was looking toward the barn and the outbuildings. As the others also turned, they heard the muffled but shrill whinny of horses. Quickly the lowing of cattle joined in.

  “They’re feeling something,” Benji said. He had seen that more than once on the ranch. The animals could sense something that humans could not, and it really agitated them.

  They all whirled back around as they heard another sound, this time coming from the west, but from high above them. It was the faint but distinct squawking of birds. When Benji looked up, he stiffened and gasped. The others did the same. The whole sky ahead of the storm was fille
d with birds. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands! Large and small. And all of them were racing eastward as fast as they could fly.

  “I can’t believe it,” Garrett whispered. “They know they’re not going to find shelter in this blow. They’re trying to outrun it.”

  “Look, Daddy,” Charlie said, pointing out in front of them. “There’s the first dust devil.”

  Sure enough, about a mile away, directly in front of them in the vastness of the denuded landscape, a miniature tornado was forming, rapidly swirling upward and expanding outward in a vortex that danced across the ground. Even as they watched, another one sprang up, and then another and another. Soon there were a dozen of them doing a sinuous, eerie dance across the land. Two merged together, quickly doubling in size and strength. Others were being pulled in too. Around them the wind was starting to gust.

  “All right,” Garrett snapped. “It’s time. Inside. Remember to put Vaseline inside your nostrils before you put on your masks. That will stop the dust from going down into your lungs.”

  Benji was the last one in. He pulled the door shut and locked the deadbolt. There was a sheet tacked to the top of the doorframe, which Charlie was holding out of his way. When he stepped through, Charlie let the sheet drop so that it fully covered the doorframe. The smell of kerosene was pungent enough to sting Benji’s nose.

  The others were quickly tying their cloth masks on. SuAnn held two out for Benji and Charlie. As they put them on, a particularly hard gust of wind hit the house, rattling the windows. Scooter jumped back gave a low cry.

  Garrett moved quickly to one of the kitchen chairs and sat down and patted his lap. Scooter was instantly on it. She threw her arms around her father’s neck and buried her face against him. “I hate it! I hate it! I hate it!” she cried over and over.

  He looked up at the others. “It’s here,” was all he said.

  May 22, 1934, 1:06 a.m.

  From somewhere far, far away, Benji heard a voice calling to him. He groaned. Go away! It didn’t. It called again. It was Mose’s voice. He tried to get up, but it was like someone was sitting on his chest.