Cole Dust Cole

by Micheal Maxwell

  “Listen, it’s hailing,” Mama said.

  I don’t know how long we were in the cellar, maybe an hour, when water began to run under the cellar door. Ma said she thought the cistern over turned in the yard. I was very worried about Marie Louise Nelson and her family. They were from Michigan. In Michigan they don’t have twisters. I asked God to keep her safe.

  I leaned back and closed my eyes and my mind was racing. I saw pictures of houses and barns flying in the air. I saw animals and wagons rolling down the street pushed by the wind. Then I saw the tornado. It was as high as the clouds. It spun and twisted and everything in its path was uprooted and taken into the sky. I tried to shake my head and make the pictures go away.

  Then just as suddenly as it started it was over. The wind stopped. We could hear the rain. I wanted to go outside but Mama said we should wait a little while. After a few minutes, I heard someone knocking on the cellar door. We raised the bar and saw Pa. I was very happy to see him. I don’t know why but I gave him a big hug. He looked very surprised.

  Outside it looked like somebody kicked over a doll’s house. There were pieces of people’s houses and belongings everywhere you looked. Our chicken coop was gone. The shed was blown over and in the neighbor’s yard.

  “Have you seen Effie?” Mama asked Pa.

  “No, I’m sure she is all right dear. Georgie and I will go look for her. “

  The three of us walked around to the front of our house. Our Elm tree fell across the porch and crushed the roof. My bedroom window was smashed in by branches. Effie’s window couldn’t be seen for the branches. There was a section of someone’s roof lying on our lawn.

  As I looked down our street I heard Pa tell Mama, “The twister went right through there, those folks all lost their houses. The Methodist Church lost its roof but the building is still upright. As soon as we can we need to get over there and see if we can help. Bring any sheets, bandages and iodine you have. I’m sure we have lost folks in this Lennie. We’ll have to be strong.” My Pa only called my mother Lennie when he thought no one could hear. It was his way of being tender to her. All other times it was Lena.

  “What can I do, Pa?” I asked.

  “You go on ahead son. See if you can find Effie. Try not to get in the way. If you see someone in need you’ll know what to do. Be careful, you hear me?” My Pa put his hand on my shoulder, “You might see some grim things Georgie; we are safe, others aren’t so lucky. We all got to stick together, so be kind to the people you see. I want you to be strong.”

  “I’ll do you proud Pa. I promise.”

  “I know you will.”

  I took off in a dead run. Our house is only a few blocks from the downtown area. There was broken glass everywhere. Awnings were all torn from the buildings or ripped into ribbons that now dangled in the wind. Shop after shop the windows were in the street. I asked everyone I passed if they had seen Effie, no one had.

  Men from the fire brigade were hosing a fire in the Dentist office. Several men were digging in a large stack of bricks that fell from the front of The Mercantile. I had a sick feeling that’s where I would find Effie.

  I went to where the men were pulling back the bricks and started to help. Within moments the man working next me uncovered a man’s boot. We worked so fast I don’t think I was even breathing. As we pulled away the bricks we saw the man’s belt. Two men pulled the man by his boots and belt. It began to drizzle rain again.

  The man was dead. His face was grey with the dust of the bricks and when the rain hit it the streaks made it look like he was crying. I wanted to cry but I wanted to be a man, so I bit my cheek real hard.

  “Stop!” one of the men shouted, “Listen.”

  None of us moved. I could hear a woman crying.

  “Hear that?” another man asked.

  We very carefully worked toward the sound. As we removed brick after brick the sound got louder.

  “We’re comin’. Hold on.” I could hear men say, but they seemed miles away.

  I knew that crying was Effie. I had heard it many times in the night. My hands ached, but I tore at the bricks. I don’t know how long it took, it seemed like days but finally we saw a blue flowered skirt.

  “Effie!” I screamed, “We’ll get you out.”

  “Stand back son” a large man yelled, “Let me get her out!”

  The man lifted a piece of timber up and a section of brick that were still all joined by mortar. It must have been very heavy. The timber, which must have been a beam from the wall of The Mercantile, made a hollow and kept the bricks from landing full on Effie. I heard her scream in pain and then the man lifted her up like she weighed nothing at all. She grabbed him around the neck and buried her face in his shoulder and cried hard.

  The man gently laid Effie in the back of a wagon.

  “My legs!” Effie cried.

  “Be still now.” The man said, “Looks like they’re both broke. We’ll get you to the Doc. You’re gonna be all right but you need to be still.” He took a pint bottle from his hip pocket, unscrewed the cap, and put it to Effie’s lips. “Here this will do you good.”

  “No! I can’t.”

  “Here now. It ain’t like we’re out on a party. This here’s for medicinal purposes.” He lifted her head and poured the amber liquor into Effie, like it or not. “This your ma?”

  “No, my sister.”

  “Go and fetch a doctor. No, better yet, can you drive this rig?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then take her straight away and I’ll stay here and keep workin’.”

  “I drove a wagon in the fields when I stayed with my brother Will in Kansas, but it was only in the wheat field. My Pa let me take the reins on the way home from church a couple of times.

  The doctor said Effie’s left leg was crushed badly and her right was snapped clean in two places. He gave her a dose of something and I held her arms and he set her right leg and put a splint on it. In all my life I had never seen Effie’s legs bare.

  The doctor sent me to fetch Mama and Pa. I used the wagon and when we got back I heard him tell them that Effie’s left leg and knee was worse than he thought and she would probably not be able to ever walk right again.

  A small tent was set up outside the doctor’s office. We don’t have a hospital and his little clinic room was full of hurt people. The tent was just a way of keeping people out of the rain until the doctor could see them. My mama had some training as a nurse and volunteered to stay and help the doctor.

  I left the doctor’s office and took the wagon back to where I found the man who found Effie still working.

  “How is she?” he called out when he saw me pull up.

  “Both legs like you said. The left one is very bad. Doc said she probably will never walk right again on it.”

  “What’s your name son?”

  “George Sage.”

  “Effie? That’s your sister’s name?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m Ezekiel Wainwright. Call me Zeke. I came to work on the rail spur south of here. Came to town for supplies. Twister followed me in.”

  “I sure want to thank you for getting my sister out of there.”

  “Where’s her husband? Does he know she’s been hurt?”

  “She ain’t married. She lives with us.”

  “A fine woman like that not married?” The man acted like I just said she had two heads.

  “She’s a teacher. They kind of frown on teachers goin’ courtin’.”

  “What do you think would happen if I looked in on her? Think she would mind?”

  “Just don’t be bringin’ no whisky.” I laughed, “She don’t cotton to drinkin’.”

  “For a gal that’s pretty as her, I’d join the Temperance League!” Ezekiel Wainwright threw his head back and laughed.

  I just stared at this tall man with the broad shoulders and big arms. Did he say pretty? I never heard anybody say Effie was pretty except Mama.

  I told Zeke where we lived, a
nd left downtown. The twister ripped a path through the very heart of Orvin. The damage was like a war you read about in books. Several times I thought I would cry when I saw folks standing in front of where their house used to stand. All together I counted sixteen houses gone. A bunch more are not fit to live in. It is a very sad time for the people of our town. I am very thankful that Effie is not dead. Her life will never be the same, which makes me very sad.

  Cole stopped reading at the end of Tuesday’s entry. His grandfather had the makings of a fine newspaperman and he wondered why he hadn’t pursued his love of writing. The way he wrote about the tornado showed real promise.

  As he rose to get back to work, Cole was a bit saddened and then angered how such a strong family history was kept from him. Just from the little bit he read he was beginning to feel as if he was getting to know these people whose blood flowed through his veins.

  At ten o’clock the job of preparing the house for paint began. Face mask in place, a cap pulled tight down on his head and scraper in hand, Cole began the long hot job of scraping the house. Scrape, brush, scrape, brush, on and on he went. The face of the house was easy to reach and the porch provided much needed shade. With only a break for water and a run to the bathroom, by noon the front of the house was free of all loose paint scraps.

  Cole stepped back to admire his work. The familiar ring tone of a call from Kelly came charging through the front window. Cole raced into the kitchen where he left the phone.

  “Hey, how’s the farmer?”

  “Painter, thank you very much! I have been scraping the front of the house all morning.”

  The phone crackled and Kelly’s voice drifted in and out. Cole realized he was shouting into the phone. “I’ll call you back!”

  After three attempts and a total of zero service bars on his cell phone, Cole gave up. He planned to go into town later for dinner so he would call Kelly on the way. The house was beginning to heat up so he went about closing the windows and trying to conserve as much of the cool morning air as possible. The phone rang once again but it was impossible to hear Kelly on the other end of the call.

  Back in the kitchen Cole got a soda from his new refrigerator and smiled with the pleasure of having a modern appliance that worked after living for three days in the nineteenth century. He popped the top of the can as he passed the table. He began to rationalize to himself that it would be hard to scrape and drink his soda at the same time, so reading a bit more about the “Twister of 1914” really wouldn’t be a waste of time. He got a lot accomplished already and deserved a break. Cole smiled, who was he kidding? He wanted to read, it was his time, he was the boss and he had a month to kill. So, he sat down and picked up the notebook. The date showed that George didn’t write anything from Tuesday until Sunday of the week of the twister. Cole noticed a change of tone from the first sentence.

  Sunday May 3, 1914

  Today we bury the dead. I am not at all happy about going to the memorial service. I am growing weary of sorrow. As I write this I can hear Effie moaning in the room next door. Effie is in a lot of pain. The doctor has given her morphine but she won’t take it. She screamed at Mama last night. I have never heard her say anything mean to Mama ever. She said she didn’t want the medicine the doctor gave her. She said she didn’t want to end up crippled and a drug addict. Zeke came by to check on Effie but she wouldn’t see him. He said he would come back. I bet not.

  There is a smell of rot and smoke in the air that won’t go away. A group of soldiers from Fort Sill arrived on Thursday. They have been in charge of clean up. They have large sections of town posted off limits.

  The first thing they did was start a fire. It has burned ever since without stopping. They throw everything on the fire. Many animals were killed in the twister. They stink when they burn. Everything that was damaged or destroyed in the twister goes on the fire. A fight broke out between the soldiers and some men who were trying to salvage things from the rubble. Two of the men have been sitting in jail ever since.

  Tom Wilkerson was caught stealing from the Carrington’s house. When they searched his room they found more things he had stolen. He claims he found it all. He is a liar and now a thief. I wish they would hang him.

  There has been no school all week. Four of my classmates were killed in the twister. Mary Jane Peters, Billy McCarty, Alton Thomas and Carrie Sullivan. I will miss Carrie most of all. She was my lifelong friend. I think she is the real reason I don’t want to go to the memorial. I wish we could go back to before the twister. I would tell her what a good friend she was.

  Cole could almost feel the pain rising from the pages. The sorrow made him long for his family. For the first time since he had been gone he missed Erin and Jenny. Cole grabbed the phone from the table and went to the car.

  He drove nearly a mile before he got a strong enough signal on the cell phone. He dialed Erin’s number and pulled to the side of the road.

  “Hello.”

  “Ahh, what a wonderful sound!”

  “Dad?”

  “Hi sweetheart, how are you?”

  “Great, how’s it going back there?”

  For the next ten minutes Cole talked about his “Oklahoma Experience” complete with exaggerated descriptions of all the people he met and the work he did. Most of all he told Erin about the notebooks. Erin was excited about the stories of her great grandfather. To Cole’s delight she asked to read them when he got home. Jenny took the phone and told about going to Taco Bell, a caterpillar named Millie she found and how Dora the Explorer on TV went fishing. Erin said she would call in a couple of days. Then the bomb dropped.

  “Dad, are you and Kelly getting serious?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Don’t play innocent with me. She’s coming back there right? That seems like a pretty big move.”

  Cole paused for a long while before he spoke. “I guess it is. I am a bit surprised she asked to come. I really like her a lot, Erin. But I am very concerned about what would happen if it didn’t work out. I mean, I would, that is, if it meant hard feelings with Ben, I would cut it off right now. You know?”

  “I love Kelly. I couldn’t ask for a better mother-in-law, but I worry that she is too, I don’t know, flighty. You’re so solid. I just...”

  “What about opposites attracting and all that? Look, she can be a little goofy, but we seem to speak the same disjointed language, you know?”

  “I guess I just worry about you,” Erin said shyly.

  “Somebody needs to.” Cole paused. “I miss you, Erin. It’s going to be a long month.”

  “I’m sure Kelly will keep you occupied,” Erin said, bypassing Cole’s change of subject.

  “Not the same.” Cole sensed a note of melancholy in Erin’s voice.

  “I just don’t want you hurt.”

  “I’m pretty thick skinned kiddo.”

  “Hearts break, not pierce.”

  “See you later,” Cole said softly.

  He clicked the phone closed and took a deep breath. The discussion of Kelly was always of a jovial nature and for the first time Erin gave him a glimpse into her feelings. As he opened the phone and scrolled to find Kelly’s number, Cole nearly closed it again. He cared a great deal for Kelly. This wasn’t Jerry Springer. Their dating was unusual but there was nothing odd, immoral or even fattening about his relationship with Kelly for that matter. He hit the call button.

  “I thought you about forgot me!” Kelly said coyly.

  “Hardly. Out here in the Indian Nation, phone service is a scarce commodity, ma’am.”

  “Are you getting lots done? I can’t wait to get busy helping. My flight arrives in Oklahoma City at 2:30 Wednesday afternoon. How far is it from there?”

  “It will take you pretty close to three hours to drive here. Are you sure you don’t want me to come get you?”

  “It would be nice but I really want the experience of navigating it myself. It’s part of being an independent woman.”

  The
conversation lasted almost a half hour. Cole spun a great tale of finding the trunk and, then in his best storytelling mode, related the stories of the notebooks. Their talk was free flowing and spiked with wit and good-natured teasing. The disjointed way they had of communicating was a constant delight to Cole. The times when he felt he was running to keep up with Kelly’s hopscotch thought process was invigorating and unlike anyone else he ever met. The fact that Kelly was vibrant and beautiful just completed the makeup of a woman he was both fascinated by and infatuated with.

  Ernie Kappas was standing on the porch when Cole returned. He was dressed in a green khaki uniform. In all their conversations Cole never asked where Ernie worked.

  “Hey, where ya been?” Ernie called out.

  “Had to make some phone calls. My cell phone wasn’t getting any signal out here so I drove up the road.”

  “The hell you say. Thought you might like some water.”

  “Yes sir!” Cole replied.

  “Ernie bent down and picked up a red tool box and headed for the pump. Next to the pump was a fuse box mounted on a four by four post. Ernie reached in his pocket and pulled out two objects that looked like shotgun shells. They had copper caps on each end which matched the fuses behind the lid Ernie lifted on the rusty fuse box.

  “Cross your fingers,” Ernie said as he pulled down the large switch on the side of the box.

  A high pitch squeal came from the pump, then the whir of an electric motor.

  “Needs a bit of grease!” In Ernie’s hand was a caulking gun with a tube of yellowish lubricant. Moving quickly and with the ease of one who’d done the job a million times, Ernie set about to pump lubricant into all the proper places, and then probably a few that weren’t so proper. “Open up the valve. Let’s see what we got.”