Story written for "Gloves Up | A Multi-Genre Smackdown Contest," Round 2.1 (August 2022). Genre: Historical Fiction that includes a significant weather event.
Story word count = 1996
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The dust was an insidious killer. Driven by parched winds across the terrain, it sucked life from both land and soul. Dust to dust, the funeral litany went.
My six-year-old daughter, Mary, wearing her new flour-sack dress, and I had gone to church earlier this morning. Ruth stayed at home with our two-year-old son Tommy. Dust pneumonia wracked his poor body with fever, dry cough, and wheezing, turning a happy, boisterous little boy frail and withdrawn. Innocent pleading eyes begged for a relief that we could not deliver, breaking my heart.
"God tests us, like he did Job," the preacher bellowed from the pulpit earlier this morning to a packed congregation. "And by faith and prayer, we shall endure!"
I prayed, but part of me doubted it mattered. Would not God do as he will, regardless? Would he take our precious son away, despite our earnest prayers?
The periodic Black Blizzards that tortured us seemed more satanic than divine trials.
Mary dangled her legs from a chair at Doc Graham's office in Boise City, happily sucking on a lollypop and thankfully unaware of my desperation. Rumpled clothing and dark circles under droopy eyes showed Doc's weariness - so many were ill. Unsure of the date, I looked up to a tattered calendar, where red X's marked off days leading to the present: April 14, 1935.
Doc shook his head and let out a ragged breath. "I'm sorry, Frank. There is nothing I can do. Tommy is in God's hands now." He stood up and rummaged through a white cabinet, removing a corked glass bottle. "Here, take this. Camphor oil from the Orient. Rub some on his chest. Might help him breathe better. I'll swing by in a few days during my rounds."
"Thank you, Doc." My words hid disappointment. Wasn't there more he could do? I swirled the thick liquid, hoping it worked better than the turpentine and lard balm our neighbors suggested.
On our way out, Doc forced a smile and gave Mary another lollypop. "For your little brother."
As I hoisted Mary into the cab of my rusty Model A truck, a stiff north wind ruffled my hair, decidedly cooler than the earlier south breeze. Trees swayed and dried leaves skipped across the gravel road. "Best we get on home, little one," I said, casting eyes to a darkening northern sky.
As we rumbled out of town, my neck hairs stood up and my heart raced. Something about this felt ominous, as if God's wrath came. The wind picked up, trailing streamers of soil across the road and painting the air in a brown haze. I pushed down on the accelerator, urging the truck to go faster. Mary giggled each time the truck bounced, tossing her in the seat, blissfully unaware of my trepidation.
A decade ago, younger and eager, Ruth and I arrived at our Oklahoma panhandle half-section, claimed under the Homestead Act. Flat and nearly treeless, we could see for miles - so different from the Missouri hills from whence we came. Rain follows the plow, they promised, and for a several years it did, yielding bumper wheat crops and newfound wealth. But then the rain stopped and the wheat price plummeted. Some of our neighbors abandoned their farms and fled, going back east or westward to California. Determined, we stayed, eking out a living by diversifying.
