STORM IN TEXAS
Nelson Algren
INTO THE MIDDLE OF AUGUST OF LAST YEAR
there came to West Texas
days hot beyond bearing. Every morning the sun rose red as blood, as
though intent on scourging every living thing off the earth before it set.
The cotton growers along the river saw their crops wither before them
in the red heat. In town none ventured out save he who must; our streets
were deserted. On the ranches the cattle sought escape by lying all day
in the long shade of the barns, but there was no escape. The blood-fat
green bottle flies tortured the cattle where they lay. Boone Terry, my
boss, lost over a dozen head through the milk fever ... the
cows~
bags
became caked and heavy and dried up; then they had to be amputated to
save the animal's lives. Every night a hot, foolish small breeze would
come skipping and hissing out of the east, running like an evil little
buffoon from doorstep to doorstep, as though to tell those witl1in of the
coming of rain; but everyone knew the small breeze lied, even the cattle
mocked it with lowing. So it would whisper away to · the west, like a
cat racing out from under a henhouse with feathers in its fur.
Into the limitless yellow sky the steam from the roundhouse rose
slowly, slowly; straight up into the air it rose, more like a pillar than
the tossing white plume which one always sees there when there are clouds
in the sky. But there were no clouds-day after day the sky yawped
hungrily for them, yellow and threatening. And, watching that white
pillar rise against that yellow wall, I remembered a proverb my mother
once taught me:
"There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four things that
say not, 'It is Enough', the grave ; and the barren womb; the earth that
is not filled with water; and the fire that saith not,
'It
is enough'." I
thought: "'Vhen the, sky is yellow and has no clouds it is like the earth
not filled with water."
And I wondered, too, if it is true what people are saying, that soon
there is going to be war again.
During this spell fires broke out in the town and in the fields. In
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