December, on the bleak, frigid flats of Kansas.
The only grace was that it held the day of Christmas.
Brown, stubble grass, with needle sharp winds sweeping the plains for miles, broken only by beaten wood planks of man’s construction. The winter sun laughed as it disappeared into snow clouds, darkening the horizon.
Livestock, locked into corners of the barn, with cats under the hay, leaving the rats to themselves. Clicking noises of the heater thermostat, connected to the generator battery, barely keeping the thin skin ice off the water trough. The cows and horses weren’t interested in water, pressing each other into one organism for the night.
The farmer stomped his shoes in the mud room with one last glance of the bare light flickering bulb in the barn. He wiped his eyes of tears as he turned to his sister and looked at the radio on top of the icebox, “It’s comin’. We better expect the worse, any word? How’s she doin’?”
“Doc ain’t comin’ cause a the storm, Betty and Bob are on their way. Coffee’s ready, you hungry, you better eat I made food so’s we don’t have to later.”
“Ella, you done this before? We was always in town for this, not like this Ella, not like this.”
“Ernest, you don’t fall apart here now, we’ve been through this before. Your mind’s half froze; out there with those animals so long. You sit down there by that stove, thaw out.”
There was a light outside the door. A hard ticking noise hit at the glass and spits of snow. A flash of lights on the road about quarter a mile down. “ Lord God ! here comes Bob and Betty.” They swerved and slid into the turnabout, snow was coming down heavy now . From the other room a scream of pain and exhaustion cried, "Earnest! Gott damn you!" Bob was in the door and eyed Ernest with a half smile and shoved a bottle into his stomach, "Go see what’s goin on in that mud room of yours boy. You’re in deep enough already!.” Betty rushed by the two men and laughed coarsely, warming her hands, into the birthing room with Ella. Bob poured some coffee and grabbed the whiskey and poured it into his cup and Earnest’s. "Whatcha gonna name this one Mr. Rooster? Ernest looked at Bob, tearing up, and said, “Donnel, Donnel Gene McVicker!
December on the Kansas plains would never be the same again.
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