There was not the slightest hint of breeze as the sun crested the eastern horizon, the Saturday morning calm and still wrapped within a late-winter chill that had yet to warm. Wednesday’s snow lingers in the deep shadows, and overnight frost had laid gentle upon the blackened landscape.
I felt like a stranger in an alien world.
I no longer knew the land.
My heart ached for it---
For those who live upon it---
Who have worked cattle on it for generations---
Who have known the bluestem grasses and the sage and the wild plum since birth---
Those who sweated the salt of the earth back into the land and etched out a life.
My heart aches for them.
I am indeed a stranger in a strange land.
I am not of them.
But I am here, nonetheless.
Neighbors help neighbors.
Strangers help strangers.
Hearts heal.
Time marches on.
Nature recovers and provides again.
People are stronger than what we can imagine, especially in this place.
-
The familiar sound of GEVOs under duress was heard long before they were seen, the tell-tale throb rolling around the bend and over the sandhills before even the headlight could be seen in the lower reaches of the valley.
There is just no mistaking a brace of four-stroke diesel motors as they heave 8,301 tons up out of the river; a throbbing of 24 cylinders that beats the still air, and the whine of turbochargers melding with that of a/c traction motors more resembles an eerie mechanical howl than anything. A beast, laboring hard, winded with its tongue hanging out of the side of its mouth, clawing away up the grade and sounding like it’s got nothing left to give and will, at any moment, squat on its haunches and sit right down on the creosote.
But there’s still plenty of Building 10 hay left in the barn, and they never quit.
-
On the afternoon of Monday, February 26th, 2024, north of Stinnett, Texas, a fire sparked in the dry grass of Hutchinson County. The Panhandle had seen little rain or snow throughout the fall and winter, and the dry conditions coupled with a warm 50mph west wind quickly fanned the flames down into the Smokehouse Creek valley, and birthed a monster.
At its height it would consume 2 football fields worth of grassland every second and thousands of livestock animals would be unable to escape the flames as it marched eastward on the dry winds.
By Tuesday afternoon, February 27th, the fire had burned its way east through 60 miles of Texas, scorching over 500,000 acres of land, jumping the Canadian River in the process and completely encircling the town of Canadian, roaring across the BNSF railway and US Highways 60/83 both north and south of town, cutting off the only escape routes for the 3,000 citizens.
Those trapped in town endured a hellish nightmare scenario of ash and thick smoke that blotted out the sun.
Even though firefighters fought a valiant battle against the flames, 30 homes around the outskirts of town were lost.
The city itself was spared.
That afternoon would see the arrival of a strong cold front, shifting the winds out of the north and changing the dynamics of the fire. This, coupled with the heroics of firefighters from all around the area, saved the tiny town of Glazier, 10 miles northeast of Canadian on Hwy 60. The fire came literally up to their doorstep, and was stopped.
-
At 8:08 am on Saturday, March 2nd, 2024, ES44C4 6519 and ES44AC 6372 bring the 10,356 feet of manifest H BELKCK1 29A up the grade out of the Canadian River valley and to the literal doorstep of Glazier, Texas, the sandhills blackened with the soot of burned bluestem grass and sand sage, the daggers of dwarf yucca burned down to stumps.
On the far horizon, 14 air miles distant, are the bluffs that form the southern heights of the Canadian River valley, still with a slight blue haze of smoke hanging in the air, the soil now denuded of vegetation and charred black by fire. Just ahead of 6519’s exhaust plume is US Hwy 60/83 as it climbs its way out of the valley toward a notch at the top of the bluff. Fire roared across it on Tuesday, sealing off any escape for those who hadn’t yet evacuated south towards Wheeler. The fire would continue raging south on the winds of the cold front, and those in Wheeler would evacuate south towards Childress before they could find accommodations.
Had I been standing knee deep in sagebrush and grass, the morning would have been perfect.
But I wasn’t, the soot clinging to the soles of my boots as I walked away, leaving footprints in the sand, and sadness in my heart.
At noon on Saturday the winds would return out of the southwest with a vengeance, turning the sky brown with great clouds of dust lifted from the land. In Hemphill County, there would be little left to burn, and nothing to hold the soil in place.
By sundown, the winds had scoured the sandhills of soot, sculpting and polishing them in the same fashion as the dunes at Giza.
It was an alien landscape.
There were no cows.
---Rick
