It was after the storm May Sue and Charles Ray sloshed down from the highway and looked for Jim. They did not know what really to expect. It was way after midnight before they could see well enough to find their way from the house to the car. There were torrents of water with lightning splitting a giant oak up by the house.

Jim never knew how old the tree was, but his great‑ grandfather mentioned the tree being there before Texas became a state like it was now. It was odd about Texas; some thought it to be one of the newer settled parts of the United States, but there were European settlers in Texas way back before the time of the Pilgrims coming over on the Mayflower.

Anyway, May Sue had heard stories of the giant oak every since she was a little girl when Jim's grandmother was still alive. There was one story about cattlemen stringing rustlers up from one of the massive lower branches. It was the one that came crashing to the ground when the tree exploded from the intensive heat. One of those blue lightning bolts that stood Jim's coon hound's hair on ends, hit.

May Sue and Charles Ray got the children settled down and then sat in the front room as though they were attending a wake. Somehow they knew Jim would not last through the night. Both agreed death was the only thing possible for the pain‑ridden man. They both hated for it to come.

"Charles Ray, he is not here where we left him. You sure he ain't in the pickup?" May Sue searched around frantically.

"Positive, May Sue. His sleeping bag's still rolled up in a knot just like you left it. Looks like he did not bother to come and eat his supper, either."

"Poor man, I knew I should have stayed down here with him." She spoke in a real mournful way.

"Don't you go blaming yourself. He is a grown man and all. He knew what he was letting himself in for when he stayed out in this storm. After all, the two of us grew up camping out on these river bottoms." Charles Ray could hardly see through his tears.

"His mind has not been right, Charles Ray. Sometimes I wish I made him go on back to the V. A. hospital at Waco and stay."

"You know as well as I do that he would not go. Best thing is for you to quit blaming yourself. Maybe he sought shelter somewhere else. You sure he is not curled up asleep under the cottonwood tree?" Charles Ray asked.