High Plains Memories

The Shed - 1967
 

I hear Teena’s breath. She’s so close to me. I’m snuggled up under her right arm, not because we’re being friendly, but just to share her body’s warmth. My coat is plaid cotton lined with red fur but I’m still cold. Her wool coat smells like family.

Outside the shed, the blizzard winds cut around corners and abrade the edges of our protective box. Dad built this small shed for us to wait inside for the school bus. Built with rough wood and only painted on the outside – and that only because of the weather. Its colors are blue and brown left over from painting the barn a few years earlier.

A single 6-pane window, frame of peeling white paint, faces the road. From the old ratty couch that window seems to function as an eye into the wider world.

My ears reach out through the wining wind and pick up the peculiar pitch of a motor. Hopefully, then certain, Paul announces, “The bus is coming.”

The other five of us unpeel from the couch and each other like petals of a tulip then wide-eyed and obedient as sheep, file toward the flaking painted door.

Paul holds the weather-bent door open against the wind with his back. He’s only in fifth grade but plays the guardian role here instead of the middle child. He has already been driving tractor in the fields for four years. He’s thoughtful and makes things as right as he can.

He cautions us, “Watch that drift! Walk in that other track, it’s wider.”

Paul follows four of us: John, Kelley, Mike, and me. Teena, the oldest, scans the old couch and shed for any critical belongings and brings up the end.

A single file troop of multicolored bundled penguins curl around the front of the school bus and stretch their short legs up the three tall steps into Percy Shay’s orange carriage.

No one ordered or orchestrated this behavior; it evolved in silence because it worked.

Chickens & Rats

 

   Supper was good. I don’t remember what we ate, but my belly is not hungry anymore. Mom is clearing the table. No one is talking; we don't talk.
  

   Mom mentions, “There should have been more eggs this morning.”
  

   Eggs are gathered mid to late morning, after the hens have picked at the scratch for a couple hours and taken turns in the nest boxes. Eggs matter. They are counted on to help feed these six children and two hired men so a shortage will be dealt with immediately.

  

   (I gathered them today, didn’t drop any, but I still feel heavy.)

   

   Mom doesn't seem to be mad at any of us; it is critter damage. And since the raccoon population is limited to out two pets this season, and skunks are not having babies yet, so that leaves the obvious – rats. Without explanation, we all know the next step.
  

   It's fully dark outside. We equip ourselves with wooden baseball bats and other sorts of clubs and file out the door. I swallow, and swallow the lump in my throat, clench my jaw, and join the line of siblings, somewhere near the middle so as not to be noticed.
  

   “Let's go.” Brother Paul is younger than me by eighteen months but leads the charge – always.
  

   “Get that baseball bat, Mike. You can wash it afterwards if it gets any blood on it. Carol, you stay on this side of the door to the little chicks’ house. Those rats will be trying to get back to their den so don't let ‘em by you. John, you start at the other end and make a lot of noise. Hit as many rats as you can and don't hit any chickens! ”
  

   “Noise. Goodie. Make noise, I can do that.” Johnny is on board.
  

   The boys and I silently creep to our stations; the sound of crunching straw under our feet. I hate this dusty dirty job. Baby sister, Kelly, is too little for this task; older sister,Teena, is too important.
  

   Paul knows when we are in place and flips the switch for the single hanging bulb.
   “Aaaarrrgghh!!!!”

Mom will be happy.
 ͠

Once in a while, I’ll just have to share one of these memories. They’ll resonate with some readers.