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.