Tail Gait

May 10, 2015

A boom, a crackle sent Harry running back into the barn from the pasture. No sooner did her feet touch the center aisle than a flash of pink lightning struck the field she’d just vacated.

Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker, thanks to speed, preceded her into the barn.

Another tremendous clap of thunder was followed by rolling thunder. Another bolt of lightning struck in the back pastures, white this time.

Within seconds the rains began, large drops, each of which seemed to thud when it hit the earth.

The horses in the barn eating their early morning grain lifted their heads.

Tomahawk, the aging gray Thoroughbred, watched. “Blast.”

Shortro, the athletic Saddlebred in the next stall, swallowed his grain, replied, “No turnout for a while. This is going to last.”

As the words left his mouth, the rain intensified, slamming the roof, battering windowpanes. The noise sounded like a steady roar. You couldn’t hear yourself think.

Walking into the tack room, closing the door behind her once the cats and dog came inside, she could hear better. The rat-tat-tat-tat on the roof, loud, let her know the rain poured. The hayloft ran on the opposite side of the aisle, across from the tack room. Over the tack room she stored winter blankets zipped into huge plastic bags. That afforded a bit more muffling, but she sank at the desk, wondering how long this would last.

Her cellphone had a weather map. She punched in the icon, pulled up the map.

“You all, it’s a huge green blob with yellow and red parts. Ugly.” She commented on the radar map, colorized, to help people gauge timing, danger, et cetera. “Yesterday an earthquake. Today, this.”

A warning scroll appeared at the top of the picture. She tapped it, a flood warning.

“Ugh and ugly” was all she said.

The wall clock read 8:30 A.M. Even when the rain passed, which would not be anytime soon, the ground would be too soaked to plow or seed. She didn’t want to turn the horses out until the worst of the storm passed. The temperature hovered in the high fifties.

At loose ends, Harry, never happy without a plan, picked up the desk phone and called Susan. “What’s it doing over there?”

“Unreal.”

“Here, too. I can’t get anything done.”

“You can always clean out your closet,” Susan suggested.

“What an awful thought.”

“Well, if you’d throw out all those sweatshirts, including the ones from high school, you’d have more room.”

“It’s not that bad. I haven’t had time to cut them up for rags.”

“You’ve had twenty-five years.” Susan wasn’t buying it.

“I have not. When we graduated, the sweatshirts were good and so were the tees.”

“Will you just go do it and shut up about it? And after you knock that out, throw out half of your shoes.”

“My shoes! What, do you want me to go barefoot and get hookworm?”

“You won’t go barefoot and you are way beyond Mary Janes.”

“Susan, that’s unfair. I haven’t worn Mary Janes since my mother made me when I was little.”

“Some of those shoes are horrible. Don’t even donate them to Goodwill. Burn them.”

“Aren’t you hateful today?”

“Maybe so, but I have organized closets with plenty of room.”

“That’s because you never come out of your closet.”

“Very funny. You’re certainly peevish today.”

“Am I? Maybe I am. I had the whole day planned to overseed my pastures. Spring is so late this year, I kept putting it off, and I’m glad I did.”

“It’s a good thing you didn’t do it yesterday. It would all be washed away today.”

“I might as well surrender and do paperwork, my idea of hell.”

“Isn’t it everybody’s? Call me when you’re finished and we can celebrate.”

Harry hung up, checked the clock again, pulled out the long middle drawer of the desk and the farm checkbook with it. Maybe she could get a jump-start on the bills.

The phone rang.

Thinking it was Susan, she picked it up. “Now what?”

A long silence followed this. “Mrs. Haristeen?”

She recognized Snoop’s voice, became instantly alert. “It is. Sorry, I thought it was my best friend calling back.”

“It’s hard to hear.” He raised his voice. “Can you pick me up?”

“Where are you?”

“Parking lot at the Omni. I’m inside the downstairs door.”

“Hang on. I’ll get there as soon as I can,” she shouted into the phone, hoping she’d be heard over the din.

Throwing on her old Barbour coat, she hurried to the back barn doors, closing them with a slight opening for air. Then she trotted to the door closest to the house, cats and dogs with her, stepped outside, and repeated the procedure.

The four creatures were soaked by the time they reached the truck. Lifting the dog in—the cats were already there—she hopped in, cranked the motor, and drove slowly. She could barely see, even with the windshield wipers on full force.

Driving down the road, Harry saw few cars. Some drivers had parked under underpasses, others pulled off to the side of the road. What kept her going was worry for Snoop plus the sure knowledge that if she waited the creeks would jump their banks. She wanted to get there and back before that happened. With rain sliding across the roads she figured, at best, she had an hour.

Finally reaching the Omni, she turned off into the parking lane, stopped at the meter, unrolled the window, pushed the button, and took the ticket. Brief though that motion was, the ticket and her left arm from the elbow down were soaked. She drove down under the large overhang. Anyone in this part of the parking lot would be dry.

Reaching the door, she rolled down one window, cut the motor, hopped out, and pushed open the glass door.

“Snoop.”

Crouched against the wall, he stood up. “Mrs. Haristeen.”

“Come on, let’s get out of here. You’ll have a dog and two cats to contend with, but it will work.”

Once Snoop climbed in, she drove out, Mrs. Murphy on her lap, Pewter between Harry and Snoop, and Tucker, heavy though she was, on Snoop’s lap.

Reaching the ticket taker in the booth, Harry unrolled the window, leaned way out to give the lady the ticket. As she’d been there less than ten minutes, the lady waved her on, none too happy about her arm now being wet.

The rain pounded on the Ford’s roof.

“You okay?” she asked.

He nodded. “Before the storm, I don’t know the time but before shops open, early enough, maybe seven-thirty or eight, the Huber truck parked in the lot, the guy came down looking for workmen. I said I didn’t want to work. He pressured me a little, said they had repairs to do because of the earthquake. Didn’t want to go. Picked up three men and left. Not ten minutes later the paving truck came down. Same story. I said I didn’t want to go. Dunno. Don’t trust any of those guys. You know?”

“I can see why.” She stopped at the stoplight at the top of the hill, the statue at the intersection barely visible.

“How’d you call me?”

He pulled a thin cellphone from his pants pocket. “Made enough to get one. A cheap one, but it works. After our talk, I thought I’d better have one. What if something went wrong when shops are closed? I think a few of the people down on the mall would let me use their phone. But I need my own.”

“I’m taking you home. You’ll be safe there. I’ll call Deputy Cooper and inform her.” She thought to herself she’d better inform her husband, too.

“I can work.”

“Good,” Harry replied.

It took her an hour to reach the farm, the waters in creeks and streams at the top of the beds but not over them yet.

Everyone was soaked running from the truck to the house.

“I need a dryer,” Pewter complained in the kitchen.

“Go roll on a rug,” Tucker told her.

As that wasn’t a bad idea, both cats did.

Harry took Snoop into the basement, where a small room contained a shower, a bed, a dresser. She never used it, but sometimes if Fair had a late night and was particularly dirty, he’d shower down there.

“Snoop, clean up. There’s a disposable razor in there and I’ll put fresh clothes at the top of the stairs.”

“Thank you, Ma’am.”

By the time he came up, shaved, in clean clothes that hung on him, as Fair was so tall, he smiled, for Harry had made lunch.

Pewter, fur spiky, sat next to Harry, for she could smell the chicken.

Feeling like a human being again, he finished his sandwich.

“Did the work-crew bosses say what the jobs were?”

“No. Only that there was damage. I don’t want to be out there. I don’t know if they were looking for me exactly, but they knew where I was.”

“How long before they know he’s here?” Tucker sagely commented.