When it rains ...

It comes fast and furious, sometimes, and sometimes it doesn’t come at all.
I heard the thunder for most of the afternoon, rumbling in the south, like it was over the flats of the Creek, or maybe up in Freizeland. It was moving my way, whatever it was, some huge anvil shaped thunderstorm or something. Good. I need rain. The soil in the upper field was so dry this morning I couldn’t sink a plow into it, and the tomatoes are waiting to go into the ground. A good thunderboomer is just what a need – a inch or two, all coming down at once, to loosen things up.
The rain got here at two or three. Not a whole lot, but fun just the same, accompanied by a little thunder and some wind gusts. It cooled things off nicely, and left the fields looking just the way I want them.
Around five I headed down to S**’s for a little porch time.
"It’s comin’," K** said. "It just passed the Methodist Church at the head of the Flats. You just sit there another ten minutes, and watch it come. I’ll make you a cup of coffee."
The phone rang and she ran inside.
"Oh, it’s comin’, son," S** said. "Sit tight. It’ll be here directly."
Upper Spring Creek, I found out, got a downpour. Sheets of water fell all through Sugar Camp. The bridge up Jimmy Moore road was under water. The creek coming down from Doggett was muddy, brown like chocolate. And the water was coming our way. People kept calling S* and K* to let them know of it’s progress.
K* came out with my coffee. "That was J*D*," she said. "It just passed their house."
I looked down at Spring Creek. It was fast and it was muddy, but really didn’t look unusual. We didn’t get that much rain.
"Oh, it’s comin’. I’ve seen this happen before," S** said.
Through the trees I could see a small stretch of the Creek up near S*’s old cabin. The water was tumultuous, white as it poured over the rocks, moving very fast.
Did it look like that a minute ago?
I could hear it.
"It’s comin’,"S** said.
The creek started to move much quicker beside the house. It started to rise. Then it was just as fast and tumultuous and frothy next to the house as it had been up near the cabin. It kept rising. It carried pieces of wood with it, and old soda bottles and then a basketball. It got faster and faster and browner and browner. Logs came down. And an old barrel. It rose up against the sandbar and then covered the sandbar. It had come up several feet in just a few moments. The barrel bonged against rocks and we could hear it round the house and continue downstream. More logs came and the water got higher. It crashed against the rock cliff below S**’s shed and bounced back in a white spray. K** showed me how the main current of the creek was going over the sandbar now, and the bank near the house was an eddy moving backwards. The water hit up against the cliff and bounced back upstream. It left debris on the edge of S**’s yard and pushed a few logs up past the bamboo patch.
It got even higher, and started to back up the tractor road against the sand bar. More plastic bottles and pieces of wood and logs raced past us. Another barrel bonged past..
"Gonna make a hell of a racket goin’ through the gorge, isn’t it, son," S** said.
K** brought me another cup of coffee and some pineapple upside-down cake.
"Lordy, it came up fast," she said.
"Sure did," S** said. "Reckon it’ll be in Hot Springs by dark."