Shortgrass Country

By Monte Noelke

On the last week of May, late of an evening, Mertzon reeled under volleys of hail stones severe enough to crumple trailer houses and motor vans into jagged piles of metal. Roofs were beat down to the lathes; sleek new automobiles lost every coat of paint down to the bare steel. The only car in town parked outdoors not beaten to smithereens was a 1936 Hudson that deflected the ice like a plate of armor. Home air conditioners faltered and burned out breaker switches; telephone and utility crews were to be days restoring service around town.

No casualties occurred. All night long, Mertzon-based services and volunteers, aided by agents and agencies from out of town, helped the victims find shelter and board up windows. Folks living in unanchored trailer houses were miraculously spared by evacuating minutes before the structures rolled like airborne tumbleweeds. The window panes on the west side of every frame house in town were blown inside the adjoining rooms, forming carpets of shattered glass. Wind-driven rain shredded the tar off the roofs to splatter on sidewalks and driveways. Traffic in and out of the houses trailed in slivers of glass and grains of pulverized shingles to further stain wet floors and rugs.

Daylight after a storm of such proportions brings the same sensation as awakening after a long night in a hospital waiting room. First, the dawning of the new day, and, "Oh, this isn't so bad after all." Then a glimpse out the window of an oak tree 200 years old stripped bare of every leaf and a fruit tree left without a shred of bark changes the picture. Next, a walk out on the front porch sets the scene for the first look at the school buildings domed in crushed vents and decorated in storm gutters hanging down over battered athletic logos.

By 8 a.m., sightseers and contract people jammed the streets for linemen and the busy citizenry in a procession of idleness akin to Sunday around a lake drive. Two out of town ladies cruised by my place four times, blinking their hazard lights to assure the right-of-way. Some wise guy in the neighborhood posted a sign on the four-way stop leading to the school, offering sight-seers authentic Mertzon hail stones, suitable for framing for $150 apiece. More cars stopped to read the sign than had ever halted for the intersection. Later in the day, a deputy took down the sign to return motorists to a normal flow, so we'd know who was going to stop and who wasn't.

All the strangers in town made me uncomfortable. I had heard the Department of Corrections was bringing out prisoners to clean up debris and open various channels needing physical force. The Red Cross and Salvation Army, I knew, was up on the hill at the courthouse. Roofers, real or imposters, were easy to spot by the ladders in back of their trucks. The established ones had old tar-stained tools and the ones spawned by the storm hauled shiny new aluminum jobs.

Fallen power lines were no longer a danger, but roof flashing and shingles studded with nails slowed down motorists. I kept watching for the prison gang, hoping to find a story of an ex-burglar who had defied the guard to take a washed-away toy back to a little kid the age of his son; or a tale of a bank robber reporting the side door being left open to the local jug after closing time. I knew if a convict escaped, he was going to get out of Mertzon as fast as possible. As bare of cover as the landscape was from the hailstorm, he would have to run at least three miles to find a bush to hide behind.

Late one evening, a suspicious looking character walked by my house. She was slipping along casing the street. We have a neighborhood alert agreement. But before I called the sheriff's office, I recognized it was one of the neighbors walking home from helping put a roof back on the old lady's house down the street. She was so tired from two days of mopping tar and lifting shingles, she just looked like she was serving a sentence.

The weeks have worn on. The town smells of hot tar and resounds in roofing crews hammering into the night. I have been warning these people that all that Saturday night dancing and weekend calf roping was going to come to a certain Fellow's attention. I go around a bit myself, but that's mainly to lend the stability that age gives to the dances and ropings.