The following day we stopped a mailman and asked him if he could take our letters. He was happy to, and we chatted with him for a while. After the usual questions about where we were going he offered some stories of his own. 

“There was this one guy who was screamin’ down the side of a  mountain when his brakes went out so he tried grabbing the mountain to slow himself down." 

He looked left, then right, then back at us. "Man, he got messed up.” 

I have no idea how one “grabs a mountain,” but we nodded somberly, and would recall his story as we were screaming down our first mountain a little more than a week later. 

“And didja hear about that hailstorm last month? The stones was so big they kilt one of Tom Bolton’s cows.” We nodded somberly, and had reason to recall his story the following day.

Less than 24 hours later we were pedaling along and felt the temperature drop by about fifteen degrees in less than twenty minutes, and when we looked West the sky was filled with an angry Blackness of Death. We glanced that way again a few minutes later and it was much closer, much darker, a massive oncoming maw that screamed “I Am Coming For You!”

In West Texas, there isn’t much of anything between towns… no trees, few shrubs, a scattered cow here and there, and an occasional windmill, so we pulled over to the side of the road to consider our options. We remembered the death-by-hail story from yesterday and wondered things like, “If we just stand upright will our helmets protect us enough? Maybe it would just break our shoulders that way, you know, instead of killing us.” 

Another one of us added, “We’d probably have to lean toward whichever direction it’s hailing.” 

We all nodded in solemn agreement. 

“And what about our feet? Can we still stand up if they’re broken?” 

These are the thoughts of 22-year-old college graduates facing certain death by small town story exaggeration. The wind was picking up now, in gusts, and we knew the end wouldn’t be long.  These were our final moments.

“How did your son die?” my mother’s friends would ask her. She would look around to see if anyone else was listening and reply, “He and some friends were killed by hail.” Her friends would gasp and cover their mouths.

Even as we were considering our uncertain future, an old truck bounced along the road towards us and stopped on the center stripe. We later learned that stopping in the middle of the road was a common phenomenon since there’s just no need to pull over when you can see all the way to the horizon. 

The driver appeared to be a farmer, although for all I knew he might’ve been a bank president. He WAS wearing overalls, but it’s certainly possible that bank presidents in these parts wear overalls to work. 

As he stepped towards us I could see he was gaunt without being cachectic, the lean, determined look of a man who didn’t want to be bothered with things like eating when there’s so much more work to do, or going to the hospital because of a fractured femur when that south fence needs mending. He was in his 70s, with thinning white hair and a few days of stubble on his face. 

“Where you boys headed?” he asked. We answered, and he added, “Well, you ain’t gonna get there tonight, and y’all might wanta get off the road.” He offered us a ride, in either direction, but we were determined to ride every single mile of the trip. Then he said words that caused our hearts to drop like a stone. 

“Well, you should get outta the weather, cuz it looks like hail up there.” 

We were stricken, but after a couple of beats he offered a solution. 

“Looky there, see that house over yonder?” and pointed to a building a bit off the road in the direction we were heading. 

“It’s been abandoned for a while, so y’all just hole up there til the storm blows over.” 

He paused, squinted, then added, “If anyone asks what you’re doin' there, you just tell ‘em Usup sentcha.” 

We thanked him several times as he lumbered back to his truck and drove off, then rode as fast as we could to the farmhouse. We were a hundred yards away when it started sprinkling, and we made it inside just in time to avoid getting drenched. 

It started hailing about five minutes later, although it was only pea-sized chunks. Had we been caught out in it, it probably wouldn’t have caused any damage other than the need to change our soiled shorts.

Heart

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The house’s doors and windows had been removed, and it wasn’t as old or as large as I would’ve thought a “farmhouse” would be. 

On this trip and others, I’ve seen hundreds of abandoned houses along the rural roads and every time I wonder what kind of story they have. Were there children chasing each other around the outside of the house at one time, a puppy in tow? Were the owners successful enough to buy a bigger house and move on? Or perhaps the hardscrabble life of farming and ranching was just too difficult? Did they die, and the children were unable to sell it? Always questions with no answers.  This house gave us shelter when we needed it, but, like hundreds of other abandoned buildings, surrendered no clues as to its history.