Helen was reclining on the porch railing, smoking a cigarette, watching the whole thing. Rachel brushed past her and buried her face in her hands.

“What’s it mean to hang a rattlesnake on a fence?” asked Marigold.

Helen smiled. “It’s what old farmers used to do when they needed rain. They’d hang rattlesnakes on fences.”

“Why?” asked Marigold.

“Don’t know, sweetie. Folks always seem to be trying to make something happen that just won’t.”

Twenty-Three
Wichita Dust

A black-and-brown cloud hung over the outskirts of Wichita, Kansas. It terrified Coot to even look at it. In the rear window of the speeding car, it looked like it was only a few miles behind them, and getting closer.

These dusty clouds didn’t swirl like cyclones did, and they didn’t have flat bottoms like rain clouds. These were dark, evil clouds that were black. Only a few days before, a cloud had settled on Kansas that turned the world into midnight. It had poisoned the air so that breathing could give a man dust pneumonia. All the kids Coot knew had suffered from it at one time or another. Coot had dust pneumonia twice before. Once, it got so bad he couldn’t get out of bed for three weeks and had to breathe through a wet rag.

The dust in the rear window stretched for miles and had covered the sun, making it look like a reddish ball, dimming the light above Wichita. It made the town look like something from the book of Revelation. Wind kicked against the Hudson, knocking the car from side to side. The sounds of sand and dust whizzed against the window and covered the highway.

Blake gripped the wheel and made the car go faster. “I can’t see the road,” he said.

“You think we can outrun it?” Coot said.

Blake didn’t answer.

They drove on the bumpy highway through the outskirts of Wichita and into the town. Dozens of cars were pulled onto the sides of the roads, abandoned, already half covered in sand. Coot saw people running into barns, sheds, and homes with boarded windows.

The cloud moved closer. The wind took the roof off a tin building in the distance. Coot saw the roof spin in the air and land in a hayfield, then tumble end over end.

“We’re not gonna make it!” hollered Coot.

Blake hit the gas. The dust was getting so close, Coot couldn’t see the horizon anymore. He only saw blackness. It seemed as though the buildings, houses, and highways had been swallowed by the Devil.