Keith T. Bishop
Dust
Dust
Amarillo, Texas; September 1936
Dust, wind, heat. The rancher surveyed the blighted landscape as he grudgingly sipped from his contaminated canteen.
“Be damned. Ain’t nothin’ no good no more,” he thought.
The week’s second boiling black wall of dust rose thousands of feet into the air and descended upon him like a blanket of death. Battered tumbleweeds collected along the fence lines, providing a netting to accumulate more dirt. The amassing topsoil left waves of earth where fences once jutted out from the landscape. Piles of dirt six, seven, eight feet high leaned against the west side of his home and barn. How much more could he take? Brown water, decimated crops, his barn on the verge of collapse, and fencing buried like an above-ground grave. The only thing fresh was the smoke from the bonfire fueled by dead brush from the previous night.
His two remaining cattle were feeble and disease-ridden while the hogs suffered from flystrike. The grotesque lesions and the maggots feeding in the swine’s open wounds turned his stomach. Their only relief from the insufferable heat was wallowing in their own wastes. The cattle looked on in envy.
The healthy left long ago—Central California—in pursuit of their last remaining dream. He, like the remaining ranchers, suffered the same plight. Weakness from lingering illness bound them to what had become a vast wasteland.
“When the hell’s it gonna rain again, bless God? Give us a damned gullywasher? Fill up the cricks and the ponds again? Git me some sweet water back in my well? When the hell? Ain’t there no God no more?” he wondered.
Abigail had mercifully died a few years earlier in this godforsaken drought. The thought of her trying to endure the foul-tasting water brought bitterness and despair. Death surrounded him. Earlier that summer, only a few parcels to the north, the oldest and the youngest of the Bernhardt family died just days apart, while the Roberts family suffered the unthinkable; in despair, Mr. Roberts slayed his own wife and three children before turning the rifle on himself. A buzzard that had made its presence known in the past week brought unease.
The sun hadn’t even risen yet, and it was already hot. Slowly, the rancher parceled out a portion of feed that was only a fifth of that needed for healthy livestock. It was certainly more than he fed himself. The hogs skirmished over the last remnants of scraps; the few buckets of filthy water would be depleted soon after sunrise. Chickens scurried around him, pecking at illusions of feed.
As the rancher looked over his pasture, he squinted to see through the early morning dawn. The aging man shuffled closer to the field and through the gate, where he grimaced at the sight of what had transpired just hours earlier. His two remaining cattle, dead. Their carcasses nearly picked clean and fluids drained; the parched soil absorbed the tainted juices. Coyotes—not the first time they had ravished his livestock.
Morning light. The rancher harnessed his beloved horse to the cart. As they trampled across the cracked earth, the wheels creaked, and he felt as if he were riding on solid rock. He begged forgiveness for straining his already lame horse and prayed it would not be its last effort. Favoring his right front hoof, the horse haltingly approached the two dead cattle lying feet apart. No doubt the coyotes had surrounded them and had sunk their teeth into their frail legs while the pathetic animals offered little or no resistance. The rancher collected the remains, leaving nothing behind. The sight of the ever-present buzzard circling above the spoiled dirt haunted him.
Balance. The cattle’s loss would be the hogs’, horse’s, and the human’s gain. What little remained went to the survivors. It was the way. The rancher saved the best of the inedible meat for himself, and the rest of the remains went to the swine, allowing more corn for the horse. Every ounce, including bone, was ground up and mixed with a little wheat, corn, and water to create what he thought would be the best slop the pigs had had in months. Not equals, the chickens would die next.
The rancher wearily glanced at the damn buzzard perched in the tree just across the hog pen. The scavenger eyed the frail one’s every move, patiently waiting. Knowing it was only a matter of time.
Dust. No one, no thing could escape it. Winds incessantly whipped across the lands, transforming daylight into dusk, smothering everything in its path with coat after coat of dust. Crevices overflowed. The constant taste of dirt reminded most living things that their lungs were quickly filling too, causing mass sickness as the environment spiraled out of control. The buzzard thrived.
Several days later. Although the dust provided relief from the blistering noon sun, its curse continued. Dust caked the rancher’s nostrils, ears, and mouth. Suffering from dust pneumonia: fever and periodic coughs, producing yellowish-green mud-like mucus brought anguish with every breath. The well still provided water, but it was unbearable to see or smell, let alone drink. The heat, dust, and lack of rain had also taken its toll on the small abode, the barn, the gates.
The rancher deliriously stumbled around his tract, gasping as he stood amidst ruins, wondering if the next black blizzard would mark the end of the world.
He could feel the relentless scavenger. Like always, it was perched in the tree alongside the pen, waiting, knowing. Understanding the dire circumstances, the lifelong homesteader unlatched the pen’s gate and turned away without looking back. He untied his horse and withdrew back to his home.
Staring out the dust-coated kitchen window, the rancher watched as the hogs began to wander, rooting for anything. The horse remained close. The chickens, long dead, were only an image in his mind. The buzzard stretched its wings.
The next morning, nothing moved on the property. The hog pen abandoned, the horse gone. A new veil of dust obscured any trace of their existence. No signs of life existed, except for the buzzard. The rancher, motionless in bed, collected his first layer of dust. The buzzard knew.