How many ominous colors are there? I suppose black is one obvious example. Or maybe some icy shades of blue-grey, reminiscent of a north sea storm.
But yellow-green? That’s the color of life, of spring, of newborn plant growth glowing backlit in the sun. Certainly not the color of death.
But that’s what it was this time. And that’s the color I never wish to see again, a color I wish were stricken from the palette of nature and of man. A color so deceptive and cruel as to engender an almost righteous hatred.
The time was mid-afternoon. The place was central Kansas, a small town that many a highway traveler would mistake for the last town and the next town. The less-than-modernized gas station on the corner of Main and First was surrounded by pickups, only a small portion actually ran. “Live Bait” the sign read, which tempted one to wonder where the fish were, as it was corn that blanketed the landscape as far as the eye could see.
And it was approaching harvest season. More combines and other implements could be seen arriving on flatbeds and being rolled out from under rusty-roofed sheds. I was in town to help my uncle Jason bring in his harvest. He had made some calls and was assured of a good price for his corn this year, as much as one could ever count on that.
I had worked his fields for several years and was growing attached to my uncle and his young son. In fact, being an only child myself for so many years, I realized I had begun to see cousin Henry as a kid brother of sorts. When I wasn’t working I was usually rough-housing with him. throwing rocks at neighbors outbuilding windows, fishing, and the like.
My uncle, who had been a farmer all his life, had an uncanny knack of knowing exactly what day of what week to begin harvesting. And tomorrow was the day. So, for me, it was a busy day of preparing the equipment. Checking connections, tightening various parts, oiling everything. My uncle’s implements weren’t exactly brand new, but they weren’t falling apart either. Part of that was to my credit. I was pretty mechanical. I was even strongly considering working at the local car repair shop in my town when high school was over, though my mom had other plans for me.
“You better hit the hay, Daniel. Tomorrow’s a big day,” my uncle called from the house.
“I will. Right after I get the tractor gassed up.” I called back.
The morning came way too soon. We had an extra big breakfast in true farmer’s style, with enough eggs, bacon, and hash browns to make a cardiologist quit the profession.
“Get your boots on,” was the signal my uncle used every year to start the process of heading to the barn and the tool shed.
By eight a.m. we had our big green and yellow machine lined up with the first row of corn.
We were approaching the end of our first day when we noticed an almost imperceptible change in the sky. What had been virtually a cloudless blue expanse for the entire morning had started to cloud over to the southwest. I almost joked to my uncle that his instincts must’ve let him down this year. We kept at it for a couple more hours, wanting to make a full day of it before nightfall. The Deere had lights on it, but uncle never liked to use them – between the danger and the messy harvest, he just didn’t think it was worth it.
Still, the sky changed. Strange multilayers of gray and green began to swirl together on the horizon. From the tractor I caught my uncle glancing over his shoulder at it more than once from the cab of the combine. He didn’t look pleased.
About four forty-five he yelled down to me that he was calling it a day. My heart skipped a few beats because I don’t recall him ever quitting early, especially on the first day. Heck, one year I crushed a finger to a pulp clearing a stalk jam from a corn head and he simply tossed me a bandana to wrap around it and fired it up again.
We were about a mile and a half from the barn and house and the wind was picking up. Through the open cab door, I could hear my uncle cursing the god-damned weathermen. How could they still get paid when they’re wrong seventy percent of the time, he growled.
The sky was a sickly shade of yellow-green when we reached the enclosure of the barn, shed, and house. The day was both prematurely dark but falsely illuminated at the same time. Like the kid who played with the stage lights at last year’s end-of-the-season barn dance when I finally got to dance with Lacy Henderson.
“Pull the tractor and hopper into the barn. At least we won’t lose this load!” my uncle yelled to me over the gale.
I pulled up to the door, jumped off and ran to slide it open. I could feel the walls swelling in and out as if it were a living, breathing being. Hay blew outward through the massive door as it slid open. I just had time to get the machinery inside before the rain hit. The dusty ground in front of the barn seemed to be steaming as the dust was kicked up by the drops. Then within moments, it began to form a small sea of puddles to run between.
My uncle was just buttoning up the combine and descending its steps as we met up and ran towards the house. A crack of lightning echoed overhead as if bull-whipping us to get inside faster.
We finally reached the porch, leaping the three gray, wooden steps and heading for the door opened to us by my aunt.
“Glad you guys got inside before the worst of it.” she said. “The weather station says that twisters have touched down in three counties to the southwest. Barns and trees are down all over. I’m hoping no one gets hurt.” she continued as she helped us off with our boots, stacking them on a mat by the back door.
“Yeah, I’m so angry I don’t know what to say, at least in polite company” my uncle replied. “We can hardly stand to lose the crop this year. Last year’s return was bad enough.” he sat, dejectedly on a kitchen chair, staring down at his rain-soaked socks oozing gray, muddy rings on the linoleum.
“Well, at least you boys and the equipment are in safe. You can spend the rest of the afternoon playing with Henry,” she said, trying to lighten the mood.
“Yeah, I suppose so. Where is he, by the way? He’s usually watching out the window for us.” I asked.
“I let him go outside earlier to play and wait for you out there. He was out by the shed. In all the commotion I thought he had come in.”
“I didn’t see him out there,” my uncle said.
“Henry!” my aunt was already through the door and across the porch, calling across the back lot. “Henry, where are you?!” She could hardly hear herself over the wind. Dried weeds, chips of wood and cornstalks were swirling over her head. The only response was the loud flapping of some laundry still clinging to the clothesline.
Then she looked over at the rusty shed – or at least where the shed used to be. It had collapsed in the wind, the roof sheared off the outer beams holding it up. What was left of it was lying folded nearly in half, half on and half off of the packed-earth floor beneath. There were some empty fuel barrels towards the back of the space and the roof was lying half covering them.
“I don’t see any sign of him. Andy, I’m frightened.” she wrung her hands in a kitchen towel as she returned inside. My uncle was already getting his muddy boots back on. I was close behind. “The shed roof is gone too,” she added as we were halfway out the door.
“Shit” was all I heard my uncle say. He rarely cursed, especially not in front of family.
The rain was subsiding slightly. More like a steady spring rain now. My uncle reached the shed first. I watched as he slowly circled it, assessing the damage.
“Well, I knew I’d have to replace that old roof one of these years,” he mumbled, mostly to himself. He slowly raised one corner and the rusted metal edge nearly crumbled in his hand. He glanced underneath.
As I and my aunt approached him from behind, I noticed he had frozen in his steps. Suddenly it was like looking at the back of a store mannequin, though I don’t recall ever seeing a mannequin in Carhartts, not even in the Farm & Fleet store.
“What is it, uncle Jason?” I got a sudden feeling in my gut that I dared not come closer. As I continued to awkwardly stare at his back his whole stature seemed to shrink several inches, as if somehow the muddy gravel he stood on had turned to quicksand. Then, almost imperceptibly, his torso began to rise and fall, slowly at first, then much more rapidly and rhythmically.
A low moan seemed to emanate from deep inside him, then it formed into a deep curdling cry from deep in his throat. A sound I’d never heard before in my life. A sound which seemed to come from the depths of the ground.
“Noooooo! Henryyyyyyy!” Then his back heaved as he flung the corrugated panel nearly across the lot.
“What hap—”
“Get back! Get your aunt inside the house!”
“Wha… Why?”
“Just do it!” he growled, even louder than the time I nearly burned the barn down.
I rushed to my aunt’s side and, taking her arm, pushed her rudely back towards the house.
“What is it, Andy? What’s wrong?” she pleaded over her shoulder. I renewed my efforts to guide her back to the house as my uncle madly waved her and me away from the scene.
We both stumbled numbly up the porch stairs and into the kitchen. We each slumped into a chair closest to us. For a moment neither of us spoke. Then, being the impetuous youth that I was, I got back to my feet and looked out the back window.
For a moment the scene was blank. Then, I saw my uncle coming from the barn with an old tarpaulin and slowly making his way back across the yard to the now-roofless equipment shed. He went in and bent down. I could see the tarpaulin being raised, opened wide, and lowered over a space in the back of the shed floor. For what seemed like forever, my uncle knelt there motionless, as if in prayer — though I’d never known him to be a praying man.
Finally, when I was about to turn from the window to talk with my aunt, he began to move. Slowly shifting from one foot to the other, he stood. He had the tarp in his hands, and under it, clearly a small form, draped horizontally between his arms. He turned halfway, stared for a long moment out at the field, then hesitantly began to shuffle towards the house. Though he was not an old man, he suddenly looked as if he were a hundred, dragging one foot after another through the now drying mud.
Now I did turn from the window toward my aunt who was still sitting bewildered at the table, fumbling with her favorite red-rooster salt and pepper shakers. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say. All I knew was that her world was about to be crushed. That the storm that had passed outside was soon to be replaced by a storm inside. In the house. In her soul. As unstoppable as a Kansas twister.
One day she was sitting across from him, sharing an old memory. A school dance. Then the nurse came by with meds and broke the spell. The next day he was walking with her. He let her change the channel. He didn’t even like that show. Too sappy, he said. Now his chair was wheeled up next to her.
“How do you think the workflow on those new experiment clusters is set up, Carson? Do you think we’ve allotted enough time between stages this time?” asked my lab mate. He’d been with me on other flights and always seemed the practical, thoughtful type.
He often wonders whether this might have held him back in this career. After all, the clothes make the man, they say. But, too late now. Anyway, the fashions seemed to have changed a dozen times in his lifetime alone … along with everything else.