Crooked Wind

Goodwell, OK

As a fierce storm rolled out its overt intention above my head, I headed southwest out of Guymon. Cart and backpack were maxed out with food, faithfully well worn gear, and water, making the darkening clouds moving up from the south appear heavier. When all of daylight was spent I was just pulling into the driveway of a horsebarn and a small modular home, six miles south on route 54, desperate for cover as ice began to lightly peen the metal roof of the three sided barn. It was the only hope that I saw on the long stretch. Miles of field and oil pump stations had been passed with no hope of concealing me from the 30mph winds, and coming of ice and snow that were predicted to last for days. I can count on a couple fingers how many times I have gone to a strangers door on this journey requesting a barn or a hide beside an out building that would shield me for the night, from bears,from weather, from the sprawl of city that lingered on seemingly forever sometimes at night fell. Although I saw movement at the home this night, no one would answer the door. A car with people watching me sat in the yard. The mother of the woman in the home was sitting behind the wheel. She called her husband from her car in the driveway via cell phone while she spoke to me through the three inches of open window of her locked car,"My daughter doesn't want to answer the door. She's more than a little freaked out that your here." I gave my story as I stood far away from the car to lower her own fear. "Oh, we know who you are. We've seen you walking." Car window closes. More calls made. In a half of an hour the father shows up at the house. I expect heavy lines in his brow, and closed tight hands. My expectations are wrong. He is a kind friendly man, close to my age, and his hands are open. In minutes I am shown to the horse barn. It is in a state of neglect except for a new steel roof. To me it is a prayer answered. My tent is set on powered dung in less than a thought as the storm begins to turn up the volume. The father returns with potato soup, buttered bread and small hand tools to open a locked tack room so I will have four walls around me although I am delighted to have a horse stall out of the wind. Three days of snow, ice and wind do come with all the temps from 30 degrees falling at times to single digits, or so the radio tells me and I believe. I have no one to talk to except a lone wild rabbit that huddles outside the door in feathers it has collected in a cup around himself. Gear is tweeked. My journal is fed thoughts to chew on later. I never go near the house, nor do I step out on that side of the barn. I become a ghost listening to the wailing of the world outside. In solitary confinement I listen to the moaning winds and give truthful thanks for my protection, to be warmer, and dry.
It is on this third day that the door is pounded by a fist. When I step into wind that a man could lean against and not fall, I see a Guymon police sgt. standing with his hand on his polmer handled pistol. When he sees me his hand falls from his sidearm. "Thought you were the guy who is walking across America? Well, if what you do is walking...why aren't you walking?" The police officer steps out of the wind that is peeling his hands and face and casts a recognizing look at the elements around him that just stole all his warmth. He rethinks his words while I watch.
"I am the man walking across America. I was given permission by the family that owns this place to stay in this barn until the storm passes. The radio said stay put, and if you didn't have to go outside for anything..Don't." My voice was calm as it tried to decern why once again I was down range from a police officer sizing me up in his own personal trial, a trial I would surely be convicted as 'not like the others,' or 'colors outside the lines.'
"That's why I'm here. The house hold is more than a little concerned about your intention..well, they're uneasy. They want you gone." My face is hit with surprise. A family that gave me permission to get out of the storm in an unused barn littered with old roof debris and scattered with dried horse manure called the police because a storm was still hitting the region, and I was still quietly in their barn three days before Christmas.
As I processed this truth, the police officer got to process the air that was putting the hurt on his unprotected skin, and evaluate the man that was of no threat to anyone hunkered away in a cold barn.
"Do you have food, water, asked the sgt. who warmed up to me a little as the air continued to take all the external warmth he arrived with?"
Through eyes that still held the weight that comes with realizing you've been betrayed I answered in a quiet and disappointed voice. "I don't need anything. If today I have to leave in this weather, I will walk if you let me.
"I would not send an animal out in this cold wind, let alone a man." The gun on the officer's side disappeared. The patches on his heavy coat became just thick cloth. The officer that fist hammered the door was no longer standing before me in fists. This was a brother that began to open envelopes of concern for me that I did not know he carried.
In the end, even after the police officer went back to Guymon to get a police van to carry me and all my gear to the shealter in Guymon, I asked permission to simply walk on into the staggering 18 degree wind.
"You haven't broken any laws. I can't stop you, but I wish you'd come back with me to town. Nobody should have to walk in this. I'm more than a little concerned." My identification was run over the radio and returned to me once again. Clear, no warrants. "I have to wait for you to get your things together and leave so I can escort you to the highway(route 54 sw)."
Trying not to feel dirty and like a lowlife by society's standards, I shoved my world into Crow Dog with the same punch I still carried in my stomach. I would not look at the house as I walked my cart to the road with the police van following me. Never did I turn to see my escourt drive away as I pulled remnant cloth over my mouth and nose thinking about the idea of people celebrating 25 December in three days, steaming warm food, and that dull blade longing to feel wanted.