Chapter 4

"This is East Texas. There's bound to be hay everywhere," Sarah said.

"I'm sure there was just a couple of days ago, but after that blast of wind I'm guessing most of it is just scattered dead grass now," I said.

"That's the point though. Most of it probably is, just like most of the buildings are blown down. It doesn't mean all of it is blown away or ruined. We need to at least look around and see if we can find a barn still standing somewhere. Heck, the way they roll it up now we might even find some rolls which were sheltered somehow. You said your pickup was right outside in the open out here and it made it through," Karen said.

"I guess you're both right. We don't have to worry about what happened generally. We have to look for specific things that might be helpful to us.

"I don't think today's the day to get out and drive around though," I said.

"You might be right, but maybe not. In fact we might not be far from a lot of hay. Have you done any driving south of here on the farm to market road?

"I remember daddy telling us there was a big brick barn down here somewhere."

"A brick barn? Why would anyone build a brick barn? I've never heard of it," I said.

"It wasn't built to be a barn. All this area down around here was a giant sawmill in the twenties. They had a brick kiln to dry the lumber. Daddy said his daddy worked at the mill when he was a kid. The kiln was big enough to hold sixteen rail cars of lumber at one time.

"I remember him talking about that big house down here and saying they put a metal roof over the old kiln and made it into a giant barn just after the house was finished. The lake behind the house started as a stream they dammed up to make a mill pond for the sawmill," Sarah said.

"I've never heard anything about all that. I guess we could drive over there and take a look. I think my pickup can still move around even in the deep snow. If we get stuck we might be able to come back and get the wrecker to pull us out."

"We'd better find each one of us one of those snowmobile suits we got in town before we get very far from our little hole in the ground though. Shit, it's cold outside," Karen said.

In the end we decided to wait until tomorrow for the great hay expedition. We did go out and find each of us one of the suits in the trailer. Karen and Sarah picked out an automatic shotgun each and plenty of buckshot while they were at it.

When we got back inside the girls were wound up thinking about what we'd do tomorrow. Ten minutes later they were back in the trailer looking for wool socks and unpacking boots to try on. They kept at it for two hours until they decided we had enough to get by tomorrow and thought they might as well cook something for supper.

It had been pretty damned cold out in the U-haul, but it was worth the time and trouble. We all had new jeans, wool socks, new boots, and even long johns besides the snowmobile suits. When we tried everything on we looked like pictures out of my high school geography book. The ones showing the poor Chinese children dressed up in what looked like quilts with legs and arms sewed on.

We were plenty warm in our little hole though. The heater made sure of it, and our workout on the mattress had our circulation in good shape.

After dressing the next morning I poked my head out our door and damned if it wasn't still snowing and I started the pickup to get it warm for us later. I guess I should have paid more attention to what they'd been saying on TV during the last few days before the big rock hit.

I do remember the Discovery Channel having a show saying this might be something like what they thought happened when the dinosaurs were all killed off millions of years back. Shows like that always pissed me off though. It might be like what could have happened maybe one time a long time ago.

In other words they were taking up air time telling us about somebody's Wild Ass Guess. Right about now I was wishing I'd paid a lot more attention at the time. I did remember there was something about all the dirt and shit being blown up into the atmosphere making it get really cold everywhere and killing off a lot of plants and animals. It was eating on me kinda.

If it was bothering Sarah and Karen they hadn't mentioned it yet. Sarah had bailed off whole hog on gathering some of the roaming live stock if any of it was still around though. She and Karen fixed some breakfast and we headed for the pickup.

It was good and warm by now and most of the snow had melted off around the cab. I had to use the wipers since snow was still coming down pretty strong. Hell, there was already more on the ground here than I'd seen in my whole life to this point.

The ground was now pretty much frozen too, and I had to be damed careful driving. Stopping wasn't going to be like before, so I made sure I traveled as slowly as I could stand. We turned south on Highway 287 when we came to it and we hadn't even gone a mile before we spotted the damned barn Sarah had been talking about.

Now that I saw it I remembered it seemed it had always been there masqurading as an abandoned building. We had to turn around and go back to the driveway for the big house which had been blown down the first day.

The place had always had a remote control gate and it was closed when we got there. It wasn't locked or anything though and I was able to get out and just push it open. There were no tire tracks at all and in fact I had a hell of a time figuring out where the driveway might be since it was covered with snow.

Hell, I didn't need the driveway since it didn't go to the big barn anyway. I cut across the pasture and hoped for the best, but I did it slowly. By the time we made it to the barn there were forty or so cows following us and I was sure they thought we'd come to feed them.

At the barn there were two giant doors. They were a hell of a lot taller than any barn door I'd ever seen and when I went to one I was surprised at how easily it opened. We were all carrying flashlights and we spent the first few minutes looking around with our jaws hanging open.