(Recollections from my daddy….)
Took a bit, who knows, but the red spinnin’ dust from our Missouri clay frothed up from Judge Huger’s shiny black Caddy’s wheels stopped headin’ skyward, u-turnin’ back to the ground in twistin’ spirals. Almost purty, if you was to think about.
If you was to care to.
Which I did not.
All the hollerin’d quit. Couldn’t say things was quiet exactly, what with the mooin’ and bellerin’ and stompin’ and rustlin’ of the cattle in the pens. Their cozy, comfy day of bein’ groomed and spit and polished come to a abrupt end when that horse and rider (was there a rider? I’d have to stop and ponder that!) burst through the corral and out the other side.
But all us farm folk, we had no words, no whistles, not even a cough.
The feller who got trampled never made a sound, neither. We were quiet outta some respect for him bein’ the one hurt and not one o’ us, I reckon.
We stared down the road for some time. How many of us were there, I wonder? Fifty? Twenty? A bunch, all told. Somebody somewhere stirred a little, kickin’ his boot a bit ag’inst a cowpie. Somebody else stretched his neck right and left, just to hear it pop.
I heard it, it popped.
Urged me to to the same. Mine popped, too.
Daddy moved not a muscle, I checked, but law, if his face didn’t look a little tenser than last I looked. Didn’t look right on my Daddy.
It couldn’t be he was afraid, not my Daddy.
It could not be. He didn’t know how.
…..law……
*********
Belles and Whistles 