THE ILL WIND

THE ILL WIND⁠[13]

By ROBERT ROBINSON

(From Collier’s Weekly)

As best I can recollect, this is the way it happened:

I got up about the usual time that morning and went out to get some kindling to make a fire with. Well, I noticed that it was kinda still and sultry like, and I told Martha when I got back in that I believed it was going to come a storm. She said she hoped it rained, as the tomatoes needed it bad. You see, we’d set out a five-acre patch of them about a week before. I didn’t tell her that I was afraid that it was going to turn into a sandstorm. I knew she’d have a fit. She always does.

Martha’d worked too hard. You see, we moved on this place more’n fifteen years ago. We were young then, and we figured we’d make no end of money. We came here from Missouri ’cause we wanted to get a start so’s we could give the boy an education. We just had one kid then, Johnnie. We got five now. But that ain’t got nothing to do with the story. As I was saying, Martha’d worked too hard. We had to pay out the place, and it seemed like luck would never break our way. The first year the sod didn’t make enough to pay expenses; then several years we were blown out by sand; the drought got us a couple of times; and then we had a good many other things to happen that kinda took the wind out of our sails.

And then there was another thing that I hate to mention that seemed to worry her no end. You see, Martha was awful religious. She comes from that kind of stock. For some reason or other I ain’t never took to religion much. It always seemed like foolishness to me. That kinda hurt her. And when everything begin to go wrong she laid it to me being so ungodly. I used to laugh and joke her about it, but she took it serious as ever’thing. She’d say:

“All right, you can joke about it all you want to, but some day you’ll see. The Lord’ll exact His toll; He’ll make you pay.”

Well, she got up, and as usual she cried a little. I didn’t blame her. Poor old Martha! She’d had such dreams, and they’d all been blown away, as you might say. Then too she was a sick woman a lot of the time. She had the neuralgia and the catarrh, and between them, with all the work she did, they kept her feeling mighty poorly.

But, as I was saying, Martha got up, and after she’d had her little cry she was all right. She got Minnie up—that’s our oldest girl—and they started getting breakfast. It weren’t daylight yet, but the east was beginning to get sorta rosy like and you could kinda smell the sun a-coming. I rousted out Henry and Johnnie—they’re our oldest boys—and we started to the barn to feed the stock.

Well, I saw that sure enough we were in for something. The red in the east had spread until it covered quite a bit of the sky, and it didn’t look like it usually does. It was as if somebody had hung a thin yellow veil over it. And I noticed that there was a bank of dark-looking clouds hanging low against the northwest sky line. And so I yelled for Martha to leave breakfast alone and come milk before it started raining, or something. I was purty sure by that time that it weren’t going to be no ordinary rain, but I didn’t want Martha to know it till she had to.

I’ve seen a lot of west Texas storms, and I’ve seen them break records coming up, but I ain’t never seen one that could keep in smelling distance of that one that morning. Why, do you know, by the time Martha and Minnie could get to the cow pen and get one cow apiece milked that bank of clouds was halfway up the sky and going so fast you could see it a-moving. The sun was just peeping over the horizon and looking so red and awful, and the air was so still, and you could hear for miles. I made out ever’ word Old Man Holland said to one of his little boys, who it ’peared had done something he shouldn’t, and it was more’n two miles over to their place. The air had a sort of pressing-down effect. You kinda had to put out an effort to get enough breath to keep you from gasping. And sweat! It just poured down my face.

Well, I went on back in the barn and began shucking some corn to shell so as I could take it to town the next day, Saturday, and get it ground into meal. Directly I heard Martha let out a squeal and I knew something was up. I hurried out and saw her standing in the middle of the cow lot looking about her in a wild sort of way. She kinda looks wild, anyway, when she first gets up, with her hair a-stringing down and her dress askew.

“It’s going to come a cyclone!” she yells to me. And then she tells Minnie to come on, and away they goes to the house lickity split. She hollers and tells me to come on and let’s go down the cellar.

I looked about and, by heck, I felt like making a run for the hole myself. The cloud had spread away over the barn, and on both the east and west there was a rolling, working mass of sand a-tearing along the prairie at a terrific rate. Above I could hear the wind rumbling and growling, and about a mile and a half away I saw bearing down on me a black, awful-looking mass. And there weren’t a breath of air a-stirring where I was. And hot! Gosh, but the sweat was just naturally pouring off me!

Well, you can tell the world that I made fast time getting to the house. By the time I was there Martha had all the kids out in the yard. We went down the cellar, and I managed to pull the door too just as the first whiff of wind hit.

Well, we stayed down there for I guess as long as thirty minutes. By that time the hardest part of the wind, it seemed, had passed. Now, that doesn’t mean that it weren’t blowing yet. Gosh, no! It was still moaning and whistling, making the craziest sound in the cellar flue. I stayed down there till I judged that it was safe to come out, and I started to open up. Martha she kicked some, but I told her I wanted to see what the wind had done to everything. I raised the door a little, and the wind got a whip at it. Danged if it didn’t tear it right out of my hands and bust it into a dozen pieces against the ground. Then there weren’t nothing else to do but come out.

Martha she grabbed the kids and said she weren’t coming out, but when she saw me standing up she judged it was safe, so she took a chance and came about halfway up the steps. There came a moment’s lull about that time. Now, I don’t mean that the wind quit blowing. Land, no! I just mean that it didn’t blow so hard for a minute or so. Martha saw that I knew what I was talking about, so she hustled the kids out, and they got ready to make a run for the house.

Well, about that time along came a hard gust and caught Molly—that’s our second girl—right in the middle and blew her sky-winding. It didn’t hurt her none, and I saw it, so I laughed. Now, maybe that didn’t make Martha mad. Gosh! She started after Molly, who couldn’t seem to get her feet, and danged if Martha didn’t get turned over. Then I seen that it was time for me to take a hand, so I did. I got ’em both on their feet, but Martha, she couldn’t seem to stand. She said it’d hurt her back; that she guessed that I was satisfied now that I had probably killed her; that that’s what I’d been trying to do for a long time.

Now Martha she knew better than that, but when she gets all wrought up she jest has to say something like that. Of course her back weren’t broke. It was just her imagination. She’s got anything beat for imagining things that I ever seen. But you can tell the world that she gave me Hail Columbia just the same.

Well, I finally got ’em all safely in the house, and then I begin to try to see what damage had been done to the other buildings. I expected to see every one of ’em laying slap on the ground. I couldn’t see very well from the window, but I could tell that at least a part of the barn was standing. Then I looked for the chicken house, but it weren’t nowhere to be seen. Right then and there I said to myself that I had to go out and see about it.

Martha she didn’t want me to.

“That’s it. Go out and get yourself killed and then what’ll become of us?” she says with the tears a-running down her cheeks.

Just for fun I put in, kinda innocent like:

“Why, Martha, I didn’t think I amounted to much around here anyway, to hear you tell it.”

Well, sir, I hadn’t no more’n got that out of my mouth than I was sorry as heck that I’d said it. She begin to cry and take on something terrible. Said that I was just making that up; that it was me that didn’t care anything for her; that I’d go out and get my neck broke and leave the poor little children to be orphans. To quiet her I told her I wouldn’t go. And then I begin peering out of the windows of every room that gave me a view of the lots and chicken house; and I begin to wonder out loud what had become of them chickens. D’rectly Martha she says:

“Looks like you’d go out and see about them instead of setting around in here and letting ’em blow away.”

Now, that’s just like Martha. It hadn’t been five minutes before that she was crying because I was thinking of going out. Anyway, I went.

Them chickens was a sight to behold. When the wind took their house and sent it flying from over their heads they was sent rolling and tumbling every which way. Least, I guess they were from the way they were scattered. Some of ’em had caught against the garden fence—it was made out of hog wire—but most of ’em had been blown out across the field where they’d been able to get protection behind some new listed furrows that I had plowed only a few days before.

The cow shed was gone and the fence was down. The cows had drifted up against the wire fence that separated the pasture from the fields. There they stood, their heads down, all hunched up like they used to do on cold winter days. But now, instead of snow caked on their backs, it was sand. Every once and a while an extra hard puff would send ’em forward like it was going to make ’em get in the fence. That kinda skeered me, so I went back to the house and got Johnnie to come and help me put ’em in the horse lot. Martha objected to him going out, but he didn’t listen, just came a-tearing. He was tickled to death to get out. It was a kind of picnic for him. Least, he ’peared to take it that way. All the kids seemed to be having a rip-roaring good time out of the storm. But you can tell the world that I weren’t.

Well, we tried to drive them cows in the lot. Every time we’d turn them against the wind they’d blink their eyes, shake their heads, go a few paces, and then turn around and start tearing back to the fence. About the third time we tried it one of ’em went too far and got in the wire just as I was afraid she would. We tried to get her out, and she pulled and sawed about, which made it all the worse. She got all tangled up and tore down the wire.

We tried to get old Boss out of the fence, but she was helpless. Poor old thing! I seen that she was a goner, so to put her out of her misery I sent Johnnie in the house to get the gun. I told him not to let his ma see him, but it was wasted breath. She spied him on the road out and follered him just a-boiling. Of course she didn’t know what he’d come after the gun for, and it skeered her. Then she saw what’d happened. Of course she laid it on to me. Land, how she did carry on!

We shot Boss. Then I went down and found out that the horses were faring purty well, considering ever’thing. They were all covered in sand, but that weren’t nothing. I fed ’em and killed as much time as I could, ’cause I wanted to stay away from the house as long as possible. I knew good and well that Martha’d pour it onto me hot and heavy when I came in.

But, do you know, when I got in she didn’t say a word for a long time. She was a-setting in the sitting room rocking back and forth in a chair that we’d got from Chicago a couple of years before. She just set there and rocked and looked at me so funny I felt downright creepy. I’d a whole lot druther she’d ’a’ give it to me hot and heavy. Fact is, I tried to start her. I says, kinda funny like:

“Well, it looks like the good Lord don’t like us none a-tall. Don’t look like He’d ’a’ treated you this way, Martha.”

I thought sure that’d make her boil over, but it didn’t. She just kept rocking back and forth and looking at me in that strange sort of way. I noticed a couple of tears that were running down her cheeks. They made little clear streaks through the dust. Maybe you think I wasn’t getting skeered.

“What’s the matter, Martha?” I asks in an anxious voice.

She didn’t answer a-tall.

“Do you feel bad?”

Still no answer. She just kept right on a-rocking and a-rocking, and she kept right on looking at me in that crazy sort of way. Then she says in a awful voice:

“The Lord’s judgment has fell upon us.”

Gosh, but I felt creepy! It was so gloomy there in the room in spite of it being broad open daylight. You see, the sun was hid behind dust clouds and the windows didn’t let in much light, they were so dirty. The sand was a-drizzling down from the ceiling and a-coming in through the cracks around the windows and doors; the wind was howling about the roof of the house; and there she set and just rocked and rocked, and every now and then she’d say:

“The Lord’s judgment has fell upon us.”

I tried to get her to go to bed, but she wouldn’t make a move; I got up and traipsed around trying to stir up some noise so’s I could drive away that creepy feeling that she gave me with her rocking and saying in such a awful voice that the Lord’s judgment was upon us. But somehow it didn’t do no good. I began to be afraid that she was going crazy, and the more I watched her the more I believed it. I had often thought that she’d do it some time when she’d get on one of her tears.

Every now and then she’d raise her hands up toward the ceiling and make the craziest motions and mutter something under her breath. And all the time she just kept a-rocking and a-rocking.

I tried several things to arouse her. The kids were beginning to notice it and to get scared and to cry. Leastwise, the youngest ones was. Finally I happened to think of a bright idea. If I’d pretend I’d suddenly got religion, thinks I to myself, maybe she’d get cheered up and get over her spell. I kinda hated to do it because I hated to be a hypocrite, but, thinks I, circumstances alter cases, so I decided to take a shot.

I went around where she could see me and got down on my knees and begin to pray. I asked her to help me; said I felt the spirit of the Lord descending upon me. Then I knew at once that I’d hit the nail right on the head. She let out a shout and fell on her knees by my side, and such praying I never heard before. It actually skeered me, she was so wild about it. She’d throw up her arms and cry out at the top of her voice for the Lord to send down His blessed healing power and wipe out all my sins. The little kids, they got skeered and begin to squall with all their might, and Johnnie, Minnie and Mollie were struck dumb at first; then they fell on their knees and begin to pray. That only added fuel to Martha’s praying.

“Lord,” she screamed above the roar of the storm, “Thou seest this man’s children on their knees to you pleading that you wash away their papa’s sins; you see his wife that has lived with him in all his wickedness all these years, kneeling and asking you to send your healing grace.”

About that time she got all choked up, and I decided it was time for me to give up, so I suddenly got up and told her that I saw the light; that I was saved.

Well, I’ve seen some wild ones in my time, but never one as crazy as she was for the next ten minutes or so. She begin to shout and jump around; then she threw her arms around my neck and praised the Lord so loud in my ear she nearly busted my eardrum; she sang and she shouted hurrah, hosannah, bless His precious name, and other such things, until the house fairly rung with her voice above the shriek of the storm. And Minnie, who is kinda like her ma in being religious and excitable like, begin to shout and sing too. Maybe you think that between them and the storm and the kids a-squalling there weren’t some racket being made. I felt kinda foolish.

The rest of the day Martha was so cheerful it made me ashamed of myself.

Thinks I: why, if I’d ’a’ known that it’d make so much difference to her I’d ’a’ confessed a long time ago. I’d ’a’ been a hypocrite to give Martha that much pleasure because she ain’t had any too much joy in this life, anyway.

Well, I joined the church, and I ain’t never had the nerve to tell Martha what a hypocrite I’ve been. She’s been much happier. Of course she gets on a spell now and then, but not near as often as she used to. She’s feeling much better too. I guess, all and all, it’s a good thing, a mighty good thing. Anyway, that’s how I come to be such a church-goer. They elected me deacon not long ago, said I was the regularest attending member they had. I don’t feel near so bad about being a hypocrite, any more. The fact is, I don’t know for sure that I am one.

FOOTNOTES: