Grandpa told the story often.  "Nobody's ever been able to tell me what that was," he'd always say.  It's no great coincidence he told it the day it came back.

It was September, and it hadn't rained since June.  The gravel road in front of the farmhouse was as dry and dusty as it ever got.  Chalky yellow-white dust extended yards to either side.  The winged locusts that would spent the daylight hours in the road were nowhere to be seen.  The green had bled out of the corn plants, and the ears were protruding from the shrivelled brown husks.  The milkweed plants that would dot the roadside were scarce and sickly from the dry air and smothering dust.  Dust sat on the leaves of the big hickory tree like snow.

There was nothing much to do.  I was on the porch swing staring off into the distance.  Nelly was playing with the cats.  Grandpa was on the rocking chair reminiscing out loud to no one in particular.

I was so bored I found myself studying the trucks that went by.  A pair of beat-up silver pickups with flatbeds were hauling haybales from somewhere west to somewhere east.  Every fourteen minutes the silver pickup would pass by, and the white pickup would follow six minutes later.  A billowing cloud would crest the eastern hill and eventually show itself to be a truck loaded with haybales, which would speed on by the farmhouse with a massive scattering of dust.  Fourteen minutes later a cloud would appear at the top of the western hill, and the same truck with an empty flatbed would gradually manifest itself inside the chalky storm before powdering the front yard.

"Nobody's ever been able to tell me what that was," Grandpa said, pointing at a dust cloud one of the times a truck went by.  "That thing I saw that day," he added, as if clarification was needed.

"It was a day a lot like this," he went on.  "I was settin' on this here porch when somethin' strange came on down that hill," he said, pointing to the western hill.  Sometimes he pointed to the eastern hill.  "Now, it didn't look so strange at first.  No, it looked like a dust cloud, same as any dust cloud from somethin' comin' down the road.  Not very big, it wasn't.  I thought it was a motorbike.  Now, it came on down the hill, and I kept expectin' to see somethin' in it, somethin' that was kickin' up the dust, but I just wasn't seein' anythin'.  This dust cloud came on down right right up to here," he said with a willowy finger pointed at the mailbox across the road, "and it stopped. 

"Now that shouldn't've happened.  If a bike or a car or any sorta thing slows down and comes to a stop, the dust it's throwin' out should slow down and stop and start to clear away.  Whatever it was that day it kept the dust movin'.

"That's when I felt like the air was gettin' odd.  Like that feelin' before a storm breaks.  There was a prickle in my hands, and each and every hair stood on end.  The ball of dust hung there, right at that spot.  It didn't move back or forth, but the dust kept flyin' out and it sorta whippin' around itself, like a dust devil if it were kneaded into a little ball.  I didn't see anythin' inside it.  Not clearly, I didn't.  But I felt like a pair of eyes were peepin' out and starin' clear at me.  It was stopped there for a minute, maybe two, and it headed on down the road, and I lost sight of it over the hill.  Nobody's ever been able to tell me what that was."

It wasn't long after he finished the story that I saw another cloud of dust rising over the western hill.  It wasn't time for one of the trucks, so I knew it was something else.  I was only peripherally aware of it, however.  I was looking off into the country where the sky touches down on the field, daydreaming of a place more exciting than Grandma and Grandpa's farm.  The first time I looked directly at the dust cloud, it had come all the way down the hill, and was crossing the wooden bridge over the dry creekbed.  It struck me a bit odd that I couldn't hear the bridge rattle.  It had to be something a lot lighter than a car.

My attention quickly turned to a hornet that was hovering near my face.  I sat up straight and froze, waiting for it to leave, while Grandpa started on his tirade about how the black and yellow wasps were getting replaced by the meaner black and white wasps.

The next time I saw whatever was on the road, it was still speeding toward the farmhouse, and it still couldn't be seen within the veil of dust.  If it were some kind of motorcycle or off-road vehicle, I would've expected to hear the growling motor by now.  This was silent, except for the wheels acting on the gravel, which also sounded a little out of tune.  When it cleared the machine shed, I still couldn't see a vehicle inside the cloud.  Something was wrong.

I wanted comment on the dust cloud, but I stopped myself.  I didn't want to sound like I believed Grandpa's silly old story and was getting worked up about an ordinary cloud of dust on the road.  By that time, Grandpa's wasp lecture had led to a bark beetle lecture that he wouldn't want me to interrupt.  I watched him speak for a few moments, considering my words, before I decided to not say anything.

When I looked back at the road, the thing was about ready to pass us by.  It would have if it were just another machine on the road.  It didn't, however.  The dust cloud stopped in the middle of the road directly in front of the porch where we were sitting.  The dust didn't clear away.  It was a rolling sphere of pale yellow particles that looked not unlike an illustration of the planet Venus.  I could faintly see the last row of corn behind it, but I couldn't see anything solid inside it.

Suddenly the air grew heavy.  The birds abandoned the hickory tree.  The cats scattered.  Grandpa's face turned sober, and he shot out of his seat, then immediately tumbled to the floor when his leg gave out under him.  I leaped to his assistance.  Nelly burst into laughter.

"No!" Grandpa gasped as his terror-stricken eyes met mine.  He pointed to my sister, and I understood that he didn't want me to waste time helping him.

Nelly was sliding across the floor, as if the porch were tilted forward.  I could hear the crackle of the peeling paint as she skidded over it.  I must've looked twice as scared as the old man at that moment, but my sister was giggling with glee.  She missed the steps, and fell on the ground, but she only laughed harder.  She started rolling down the hill.  The grade wasn't steep enough to roll down, but she was rolling nonetheless. 

I ran and tried to grab her, but an invisible force knocked me backward onto the hard dry ground.  I rolled over and picked myself up for another attempt, but it was useless.  Walking down that hill was like trudging through thick mud. 

My sister, on the other hand, moved faster and faster, until she was a rolling tangle of limbs.  It looked painful, but her laughter indicated otherwise.

I was gasping in the strange air, but I commanded my breath to called Nelly's name.  I asked her to come back.  I hoped somehow she could break that spell.  Behind me I could hear Grandpa asking the Lord for help.

The human tumbleweed rolled down into the ditch, and up the other side into the road, where she smoothly entered the whirling cloud of dust.  I could still catch glimpses of her black shoes and hair as she spun around with the tireless currents of yellow-white dust, and could still hear her sing-song laughter.

There was nothing we could do but watch as the dust cloud rolled away.  Soon it disappeared beyond the crest of the hill, the disturbed dust settled on the ground, and there was nothing to see but a lonely road that leads so far away.

There hasn't been a glimpse or a trace of Nelly since that thing took her away.  Nobody's ever been able to tell me what that was.