I’m Pat Tyrer from Canyon, Texas, for the High-Plains-Public-Radio-Readers Book Club. The novel I’ll be talking about today is by Texas author, Elmer Kelton. The Time it Never Rained was published in 1973 and republished in 1984. Although the novel is fifty years old, the issues of weather, water use, and drought, are still highly divisive issues across the high plains making Kelton’s novel as timely as it is enlightening and entertaining which is not to say that it’s a light-hearted journey in any way.
In fact, it’s the story of a West Texas rancher barely eking out a living in an already unfriendly environment of wind, dust, and desert, who must go up against Mother Nature’s withholding of rain for a seven-year period in the 1950s. Kelton notes in the introduction, it could be argued that it wasn’t the “most devastating drouth they had ever seen, [but] it was by all odds the longest in memory” (ix).
I’m not sure why I connected to this story so quickly, but I was completely engaged from the moment I began reading about the small town of Rio Seco, Texas, and its ranchers, the “home of 3,000 friendly people—and three old cranks!” as the sign reads at the city limits. I’ve lived in West Texas for nearly thirty years myself and have learned to adjust to high winds, the shifting hot and cold temperatures, and of course drought, which brings on water rationing and an acute awareness of the weather. However, I’ve always lived in a city, having never experienced the weather as have the ranchers around the fictional town of Rio Seco.
We meet Charlie Flagg at the beginning of the novel and it is through Flagg’s experiences that we experience the “time it never rained.” Charlie is acknowledged as number one of “the three old cranks” noted at the town’s entrance. Charlie is just past fifty and believes in running Brushy Top, his ranch, his own way. He has refused to accept government subsidies and relies on his own understanding of the land and the weather. Called a “rugged individualist” by the government agent, Charlie is much more than that—he’s a man who lives by his own code of ethics and beliefs. His clear love of the land is shown by his upkeep of the grave of an aging Comanche warrior who two-hundred years previous had made his way back from the reservation for a final hunt on ancestral grounds when he was surrounded by two Rangers. The old warrior leapt from his pony and stood his ground before charging the Rangers with his bow in hand. “His bones were still scattered on that hilltop when August Schmidt had bought the land,” and had later sold it to Charlie with his promise to respect the landmark, a part of the land that those before him had cherished.
The residents of Brushy Top include Charlie’s wife, Mary, and his son, Tom, a rodeo cowboy quickly gaining a reputation for excellence on the circuit. Two houses sit on the land, Charlie’s and Mary’s home and a well-built white frame house Charlie had built for his help, Lupe and Rosa Flores who had lived and worked the ranch for seventeen years, as their family grew with five children. As the novel progresses, the fate of Charlie and Mary along with the Flores will be determined by the weather and the rain the time it never rained.
This is a story of survival, determination, and purpose covering themes that continue to plague West Texas: drought and water shortages, weather, illegal immigration through the southern border, the expansion of cattle ranches, and other central issues related to the ever changing environment. In my next two discussions of The Time it Never Rained, I’ll talk about the major themes of the novel. I hope you’ll tune in for my next discussion on the use of private lands and government policies that help or hinder.
The Time it Never Rained is one of those books I can recommend without reservation. Until next time, I’m Pat Tyrer from Canyon, Texas for the High Plains Public Radio Readers Book Club.
