STORM IN TEXAS
27
the middle of the night a box-car loaded with sheep caught fire while
standing on a siding on the Santa Fe. For some reason, everyone seemed
to think that the car had been fired deliberately. The frightened bleating
of the trapped beasts and the glow in the sky brought the townsfolk out
half-dressed and tousled from sleep; two shirtless men unsealed the doors
of the blazing box with pokers. Then in panic the foolish animals inside
blocked both escapes with their lunging bodies, so that all but haif a dozen
or so were burned to a turn. One old ram butted his way out with his
fteece on fire, racing crazily through the dust of Laredo Street,
bawling blindly all the while, thwarted every attempt to throw water on
him until he fell and was unable to rise...•
I asked to whom the sheep belonged, and a woman standing atop
the railroad embankment called down, "Boone Terry's!"
"Terry's? Are you sure?" I could scarcely believe it, you see,
because Boone is my boss.
"Saw the seal on the car when they opened the door."
After that, somehow, a holiday spirit crept into the night, and a
strange half-religious air. I had the same feeling then as I had had
once when watching a Holy Roller meeting-an air as of something half–
supernatural seized hold of me. Down in the dust of the street below
a living beast was struggling in its own flame, and the fronts of the stores
on Main and Laredo were all aglow with the reflected' flare, like pagan
temples burning. The glass of their windows was shimmering m molten
green-gold streams, and about me the panicky bleating and screams of
the an imals mingled with hard laughter of mountain men and women.
"Boone Terry's !- Are y'all right sure in the face o' thet now?"
"Say now, the jesus-god, wouldn't everone feel downhearten
ef
Boone
has
let the insurance lapse?"
Boone Terry has a great many enemies in our town you see, because,
although he is the richest rancher' in Brewster county, he docs not give
milk: to the charity station. Instead, he gives money to the churches, and
the churches feel it more important to save souls than to buy milk. Boone
has
given to every church in town save the Catholic church, which is
Mexican. To the Mexican Methodists, however, he once gave an organ.
From where I stood I could see that the ram's hindquarters were
already burned black; and as I stood there, listening to the beast's last
.:reams, watching its last dying kicks. I became conscious of a tall dark
figure beside me, and looked up: It was the Reverend Jeff Harrigan, and
I shied away, for I have not been to the church for ._ long time now. The
