Danger in the Wind and Down Below

The ranch, as we called it, was on the sprawling, wide open, rolling plains of “poor man’s” Texas and dotted with locust trees and cacti.  Summer’s freedom, for five-year old me, was extended to the water’s edge of The Pond, one of seven, but so named The Pond to distinguish it from the forbidden others too far away on our nearly 200 acres. A tiny plot of land by Texas standards, but more than enough for my adventurous spirit to wander. 

The Pond, located straight back the dirt road that began as our driveway and continued past the chicken coop, the barns, and the pig pen, ended here at the edge of the blue green six-foot deep, stagnant water, my playground. Here, if I wasn't riding my pony, throwing crabapples at the pigs, or playing inside one of the abondaoned chuckwagons, many of my summer days of 1967 were spent lazily practicing my rock-skipping skills or looking for frogs I could never catch. As the warm breeze increased, I danced at the water’s edge, the muddy gook squishing up between my toes with that wonderful sound.

I was oblivious as the swirling winds increased their current, tangling my scraggly hair and cooling my dirt tanned legs and my forever shoeless feet. My paisley flowered dress danced around my too skinny thighs as I slapped the large stick “smack, smack, smack” onto the water surface. But when the gusts increased, nearly blowing me sideways, I knew in an instant I had stayed too long. 

Quickly, I squeezed my “nothing but skin and bones” through the gate that kept the cattle in this pasture and began to dash back down the dusty road toward the white shanty of a house my mother would later refer to as “the shack.” To me however, the two bedroom, one bath house held us six kids as best it could, my two sisters and me sharing the attic below the rusting tin roof while my three brothers shared the small bedroom on the main floor and sometimes an old trailer out back. Suddenly the wind began to roar and the sky grew strangely dark for an early August afternoon. As I ran, I glanced to my left, toward the Campbell farm. In the distance a dark form was emerging, one I recognized from the drive-in movie I’d seen the summer before. The black funnel cloud danced across the field, tearing the ground and tossing the harvested hay bales left by Campbell boys for later. My connection with Dorothy was instant.

My feet couldn’t move my tiny body quickly enough to bring me to the safety of my momma’s arms. I ran and ran, past the pigs, the barns, the chicken coup, whose inhabitants had instinctively nestled themselves inside. As the wind roared, I heard beneath it muffled voices of panic calling my name, “Laurlyn! Laurlyn, hurry!"

I ran past the tall windmill, its long metal blades whipping in a frantic blur, the whole lattice tower shuddering on its four spindly legs waiting for the final gust to snap it in two. I ran and ran till finally there they were, Momma and my brothers and sisters, calling to me, waving their arms in a desperate “hurry up” motion that spurred me on even faster.

The doors to the cement tornado shelter were held open by my older brothers, begging my entrance to safety.  The black cyclone was still moving ominously to our left, teasing its inevitable approach with the roaring of a great train.

“Hurry, go down!” one of my brothers yelled above the clamor.  The cement steps led deeply into blackness as I put my foot below onto the first step. 

“I can’t see!” I exclaim, pulling my foot back and refusing to go down. 

Apparently this opposition had been voiced before, as my eight year-old sister suddenly exploded out of the backdoor of the house, banging the screen open and allowing it to shut by its own force.

“I got it, I got it!” she yelled.

She handed the flashlight to my mother who shined it down the steps and commanded me again, “Go!"

But the arm which pushed me forward, downward, suddenly and harshly jerked me back, and I saw the reason reflected in the light of the flashlight.  Scorpions, dozens of pinkish poisonous scorpions were clustered on the walls and half way up the steps of our would-be refuge, their tails curled up in anticipation. The floor below them was covered in black, bottomless water. 

Now, instead of providing safety, our would‑be shelter left us exposed, forced to remain outside and trust fate as we watched the cyclone, a thundering monster, rip the Campbell’s barn from its roots. Clinging only to hope, we waited, unsure what our choice would be or how soon we would have to make it.

* * * * * *

*Though no one in my family has contradicted this childhood memory, prior to posting, I did what I always do with my writing, I researched. I learned that no reported tornados touched down in Cooke County Texas during the summer of my 5th year of life, or anytime in the 1960s. But, according to NOAA many small tornadoes during this time, especially ones that hit only farmland, were never logged. A barn destroyed in a rural area in the 1960s was often recorded as “wind damage.” Cooke County was mostly agricultural then, so a tornado ripping a barn apart could easily have gone unreported.

This memory is vivid. I also remember the very next week, when my brother, determined to “burn the scorpions out,” poured a full gallon of gasoline down the steps of the shelter and dropped a match, or something burning, after it. Momma was furious. The steps and the rounded dome flashed to black, the metal doors scorched and warped so badly they never fit right again. I’m sure the scorpions were gone, but we never ventured down there after that, and fortunately, we never had to.

I'm hoping my sisters will read this and provide their perspective to this story.