Fire and Ice, continued...

August 8, 1996 – I'll never forget that date – I was home alone. Not long after noon, a low black cloud settled in, quiet and still. It seemed as if it swallowed every sound. I went outside and tightened the bungees holding the tarp over the haystack because I expected that at any moment, that cloud might erupt with gale force winds and explosive lightning.

As I worked the hay pile, nearby, I saw four black-chinned hummingbirds feasting among the scarlet runner beans that twined up the cornstalks of our garden. It was so still, the leaves of the corn leaves arched motionless, not a flutter.

I thought I heard a distant sound like white noise. I looked up toward it, to the southeast where Arlene’s place sat on top of a hill, a third of a mile across our valley. As I tried to figure out what that growing sound was, in an instant, a wall of gray hid her home.

Holy cow, a cloudburst, I thought.

I hustled inside, pulled up a chair to a window and watched that gray, seemingly impenetrable wall approach. Show of a lifetime, I thought.

Still not a hint of lightening. Just a white noise that I could now hear even from inside.

Then I saw my horses all, as one, raise their heads, and then they wheeled and stampeded to the northwest. That was when I realized that white noise, formless as the black above, was now a roar and above it I heard the first “pock” sounds as hail the size of golf balls hit and bounced.

And then it was a continuous deafening roar as hail pounded down and I cried and shouted prayers.

Finally the hail slowed enough that I could see our horses galloping blindly, each alone, running in a different direction. I put on a helmet and leather jacket, ran out and shouted for them, hoping to persuade them to shelter in their barns. The pain of the pummeling hail made my voice kind of crazy and the horses were panicking. I realized that even if they could hear me over the roar of hail, they would heed no one.

And then, and then, a new sound drowned out that of the hail. It was the thunder of great waters converging on our valley. I saw logs tossing on dark waves as they rolled over most of our land. The horses ran to the high ground.

Finally, the hail stopped falling and it was washing away on the flood waters and lay in heaps on the high ground. Now the horses came to my calls. Painted Lady and Flair were fine. Flair was actually dry. I figured those two must have out-raced the hail to our barns and stayed inside.

The others, however, suffered great lumpy bruises all over their top sides: Gitano, Dragon Lady, Ginger, their foals, and Coquetta.

I turned to go inside to call our vet, Dr. Harold Bobbit, but just then Gitano lunged at me, ears pinned.

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