Storm Chaser

by Chris Platt

  Mr. Warner clapped a hand on Jessica’s shoulder. She wasn’t sure if it was to comfort her or to keep her from dashing into the burning building to save her horse.

  “Rusty’s okay, Jessica. His stall door must have blown closed during the storm,” Mr. Warner said. “I opened it and he went out into the corral. He’s at the back of his pen, but we’ve got to get him out of there before the barn falls.”

  “Stay here, Jess,” Mrs. Warner ordered. “Let your father go after Rusty.”

  Her father nodded, then began to wheeze uncontrollably.

  “We need a medic over here!” one of the firemen yelled, signaling to the others.

  Jessica waited until someone came to look after her father, then took that moment of confusion to dash to the back of the barn where Rusty’s corral stood. As she approached, she heard the nervous whinnies of the new horses in the round pen. Shielding her eyes from the bright yellow and orange flames leaping skyward, she could see the youngsters were a little further away from the barn than Rusty. They would be safe for the moment. Right now, she had to direct all of her attention toward her old horse.

  “Rusty?” Jessica could just make out his dark shape against the inferno. The horse pushed against the boards of his pen, his eyes wide with terror as he tried to escape the flames.

  She rushed into his pen. “Rusty, come on!” She sprinted to his side, pushing him toward the exit. Rusty balked, afraid to move from his spot. Jessica cried out in alarm as a live ash landed on her horse’s back and his coat began to smolder. She used her sleeve to brush off the hot ash, then pounded on Rusty’s back until the fire was out. The smell of burning hair hung heavily on the air, causing her stomach to roll.

  “Rusty, please,” Jessica begged as she continued to push on his hind quarters. She had to get him to leave his pen before the burning barn collapsed into his corral.

  Wyatt appeared by Jessica’s side with a halter in his outstretched hand. “Put this on him, Jess,” he instructed.

  Jessica looked up in relief, managing a small smile. Wyatt was great with horses. He’d know what to do. “He won’t budge,” she cried in panic, fumbling with the buckle on the halter.

  Wyatt positioned himself behind the old horse. “Just get the halter on him, Jess, and get out of the way. I’ll make sure he moves.”

  Jessica’s fingers shook so badly, it took several tries to get the halter latched. “Okay, he’s ready. What do you want me to do?”

  “Get his head pointed toward the door, then stand back!” Wyatt hollered above the crackling of the flames.

  Jessica did as she was told. She pulled on the lead rope, pointing Rusty’s head toward the gate, then stepped through the opening to wait for Wyatt to work a miracle. She watched as the tall, thin boy took off his baseball hat and smacked it down on Rusty’s haunches, then raised his arms in the air and hollered something in Paiute.

  Rusty balked, but Wyatt smacked him harder on the rear and jumped up and down, waving his arms wildly. The old gelding rushed through the gate, stumbling close on Jessica’s heels as she raced away from the barn.

  When they were a safe distance away, Jessica stopped and threw her arms around Rusty’s neck, burying her face into his sweating coat. She could smell the fear emanating from the old horse’s body. It mixed with the scent of wood smoke, burned hair, and sweat, making her gag.

  Rusty lowered his head to the ground and coughed.

  “Are you okay?” Wyatt joined them, running his hands over Rusty’s body, checking for injury.

  Jessica nodded. “I’m fine, but Rusty’s coughing.”

  Wyatt examined the old horse. “He’s breathed in a lot of smoke, Jessie. Just keep a close eye on him. We can call the vet if he gets too bad.”

  A loud bang issued from the front of the barn. Wyatt and Jessica turned in the direction of the sound.

  “What was that?” Jessica stared at the front of the barn, trying to see what was going on.

  Wyatt shrugged. “It sounded like a gunshot, but it could have been one of the gas containers in the barn exploding.” He patted Rusty again, then pointed toward the pen. “Those horses we sold you are about to jump out of their hides. I’m going to let them out before one of them breaks a leg or the barn falls on them.”

  “B-but they don’t have halters on,” Jessica stammered. “We’ll never catch them. They’ll be out running on the range again.” She thought of the little paint filly and how she’d never even gotten to know her.

  “Well, that’ll just give me, Dunce, and Gator something to do over the next few days,” Wyatt said as he walked away. “Hey, how do you think we got them to your house in the first place?”

  Rusty broke into another coughing fit and Jessica tried to comfort him. Wyatt opened the gate to the holding pen and stepped out of the way as the herd of young horses bolted away from the fire. The paint filly was one of the first horses to leave the enclosure. Jessica marveled at her speed as she flattened her little fox ears and sprinted away from the pandemonium, her well-muscled haunches propelling her at great speed. Jessica fleetingly wondered if she would ever see the beauty again. The horses were returning to the wild.

  “Jessica!” Mrs. Warner called, rounding the corner of the burning building at a jog.

  “I’m okay, Mom.” She waved as her mother’s shadowy figure moved across the illuminated backdrop of the fire. “How are Dad and Duncan?”

  Mrs. Warner stopped to check Jessica and Rusty. “They’re faring a lot better than this old horse.” She clucked her tongue and ran her hands over Rusty’s singed hide. “Better get him out of this smoke. The front yard is the best place for him. We had to put Duncan’s horse down.”

  Jessica sucked in her breath. That explained the single blast of gunfire. She picked up the lead rope and asked Rusty to follow her. The old horse took several steps, then stopped to cough and wheeze. Jessica put a comforting hand on his neck and encouraged him to keep walking. She had to get him to a safe place where he could breathe easier.

  Rusty continued to cough and she felt an iron band squeezing her chest. Rusty was her very first horse. She knew she would soon have to retire him for riding, but she’d never thought about him dying. She had to keep Rusty safe. She wouldn’t let him suffer the same fate as her brother’s horse.

  Rusty made it to the front yard before stumbling and dropping to his knees. Jessica cried out, bending to help him up, but the old horse rolled onto his side and lay on the grass, sucking in great gulps of air as he continued to wheeze and blow through his nostrils. Even the loud crash of the barn falling to the ground in a shower of sparks couldn’t convince the old horse to rise.

  “Give him a few minutes to rest and then try to get him up,” Mr. Warner said. “I don’t want to have to put another one down tonight.”

  Jessica’s heart tumbled. She couldn’t let that happen. She sat on the ground and took Rusty’s head in her lap, wiping her eyes with her sleeve and speaking words of comfort to him. The lump in her throat threatened to choke her as she swallowed a sob and laid her cheek on Rusty’s neck. She’d give him a little while longer to rest, but then he had to get up. She knew he’d do it for her. She took a deep steadying breath. What was she going to do if he didn’t pull through?

  She gave up trying to be brave. The night had taken its toll. Jessica let the tears flow freely down her cheeks while she listened to Rusty’s ragged breath move in and out of his lungs.

  After a while Jessica sniffed and stared at the ruins of the burning barn with its lost supply of winter feed. Her eyes traveled to the still form of Duncan’s horse. Their mother said that things always looked better by daylight. But this time it wouldn’t matter how brightly the sun shone tomorrow. This disaster wouldn’t ever look any better.

  FOUR

  Jessica woke with a start. She blinked at the bright light flooding the room, making her momentarily disoriented. The big-engine growl of her father’s tractor hummed in the distance, drawing her further toward full conscious
ness. Turning her head, she spotted the smear of soot on her white pillowcase and inhaled the strong smell of smoke that still clung to her hair.

  Memories of the previous night stampeded through Jessica’s mind. She jumped from the bed, pulling back the blue curtains. Her stomach tightened when she saw her father operating the tractor with the scoop attached. He was digging a hole in the south field.

  Jessica dropped the curtains back into place. She knew what that meant. There were already two horses, three cats, and a dog buried in that field. The new hole was for Duncan’s horse. And maybe poor Rusty, too. But he had stood up last night and even walked a bit—enough to convince her dad to give him a chance.

  She got out of bed and reached for a clean pair of jeans and shirt, tossing the dirty, smoke-filled clothes from last night’s catastrophe into the laundry basket. The firefighters had stayed to make sure there were no flare-ups from any hotspots they might have missed. The last fire truck had pulled out just before dawn. The barn was totally gone now, but at least their house had been saved. She pulled boots onto her bare feet, not wanting to waste time with socks. She had to check on Rusty right away.

  Jessica pushed open the front door, startling her mother who stood on the walkway. “Is…is Rusty…?” she stammered, not wanting to say the words she feared might be true.

  Mrs. Warner smiled in sympathy. “Rusty is still with us, Jess.” She tucked a lock of her daughter’s hair behind her ears and smiled encouragingly. “Marybeth called this morning, but you were sleeping so soundly, I didn’t want to wake you.”

  Jessica nodded. “I’ll call her later. Right now I’ve got to see how Rusty’s doing.”

  “The vet is coming to check him,” her mother said. “Your poor horse inhaled a lot of smoke last night, and he’s still coughing and wheezing, but he’s up and walking about a bit. Your father’s afraid he might have singed his lungs.”

  Jessica tried not to panic, but she knew that could be a serious problem, even for a young horse. At Rusty’s advanced age, it could prove fatal. “I’ll go wait for Dr. Altom,” she volunteered and hurried out to the corrals.

  Jessica stopped in her tracks when she rounded the corner of the house and was hit by the full impact of the burned-out barn in broad daylight. What had once been a beautiful two-story wooden structure was now little more than blackened ashes and fragments of charred boards. She wrinkled her nose at the lingering scent of the fire and wondered how long it would be before the awful smell would go away.

  A soft nicker drew her attention to the front corrals. “Rusty!” Jessica ran to her horse, throwing her arms around his neck and burying her face in his ragged mane. “I’m so glad you’re all right.”

  She closed her eyes, feeling a hot trail of tears course down her cheeks. The familiar smell of Rusty was marred by the acrid odor of smoke and burned hair. She lifted her head and ran her hands over his body. Last night, in all the confusion, it had been difficult to tell just how injured her gelding was, but in the full light of day, Jessica could see the marks the live ash had seared into his coat.

  In the distance, the tractor engine hummed, reminding her that Duncan’s gelding hadn’t fared as well as Rusty. She ached for her brother and his horse, but she was glad Rusty had been spared.

  She scratched the old gelding behind the ears and straightened his forelock, looking into his kind brown eyes. “I’m so sorry this happened to you,” she told him. “If you’d been in the front corral here, you wouldn’t have been in danger.”

  Rusty nuzzled her cheek as if he understood her sadness. Jessica heard the rasping of his lungs as he whuffed soft breaths across her face. Another pang of guilt washed over her. If only she’d left him in the front corral! But she had done what she thought best for Rusty at the time. Her father and Duncan had put their horses in the barn, too. No one had expected a fire!

  She cupped Rusty’s muzzle in her hands and planted a kiss in the center of his whiskered nose. It made no sense to cry over what had happened. It wouldn’t help Rusty get better. Right now she needed to concentrate on helping him.

  Jessica rubbed Rusty’s withers. He flicked his tail and bobbed his head, letting her know she’d hit a particularly sore spot. “Don’t worry, ol’ boy,” she assured him. “The vet will be here soon and he’ll make you all better.”

  But Rusty wheezed again, and Jessica wondered if she’d be able to keep her promise to her old friend. Would Dr. Altom be able to help the gelding?

  The crunch of tires on the gravel driveway signaled the vet’s arrival. Jessica stood on her toes to see over Rusty’s back. She smiled and waved at Dr. Altom as he parked his truck in front of Rusty’s corral.

  “Guess you had a little excitement around here last night,” the vet said, stepping from his truck and walking to the back to open the doors of his medical supply unit. He glanced at the area where the barn once stood and shook his head.

  “Just a little,” Jessica said with a weak smile. She liked Dr. Altom’s sense of humor. He could lighten the mood of almost any bad situation. She watched him run his hands over Rusty, feeling the places where the sparks from the fire had burned his coat.

  The vet pushed his wire-framed glasses up further on his nose and put the stethoscope to Rusty’s girth, checking his heart and lungs. He listened at several different areas of the horse’s body so he could get a complete diagnosis. After several minutes of examination, he pulled the stethoscope from his ears and pursed his lips.

  Jessica didn’t like the way the vet’s brows drew together as he frowned. “What is it?” she asked in alarm.

  Dr. Altom patted the old horse on the hip. “It’s nothing we can’t take care of,” he said. “It’s just that…” He paused and gazed off toward the nearby sagebrush-covered hills, then looked her straight in the eye. “Jessie, your dad’s been hinting at getting you a new horse for a while now.”

  “But I don’t want a new horse!” Jessica said in defense of her old friend. She pushed aside thoughts of the new paint filly, wanting to remain loyal to Rusty.

  The vet walked to Jessica’s side and leaned against the fence. “Rusty’s been a good horse for you all these years, Jess. He made a great first horse for you to learn to ride on.”

  “But he’s only twenty-two,” Jessica countered, feeling the tears begin to burn the backs of her eyes. “Lots of horses can be ridden for years past that age.”

  “And some horses don’t even make it to twenty-two.” Dr. Altom shook his head and sighed. “Jessie, twenty-two is probably the youngest Rusty could be. Once a horse gets to the top of his years, it’s a lot more difficult to read their teeth and determine exactly how old they are. Your parents had only a vague idea of Rusty’s age when they bought him. He could be as old as twenty-eight.” The vet paused. “And now he’s got serious problems.”

  Jessica flinched. “How bad is he, Doc?”

  The vet placed a boot on the fence and turned to look at Rusty. “He’s got some serious damage to his lungs. I’m going to give him a steroid to help with any swelling he might have, and you’ll have to keep him on a regular dose of antibiotics for a while. He should heal, but you won’t be doing him any favors by riding him.” He placed a fatherly arm around her shoulder. “It’s time to retire the ol’ boy, Jess.”

  Jessica choked back a sob. “He won’t have to be put to sleep, will he?” She looked pleadingly at the vet. She could handle not being able to ride Rusty because of his health, but she’d miss him terribly if he had to be destroyed.

  Dr. Altom smiled. “No, Jess. Just retire him out to pasture with your cows. You can feed him carrots every day and watch him be fat and happy. Consider it his reward for all those years of taking good care of you.”

  Jessica took a steadying breath. She would miss riding Rusty, but at least he’d still be around.

  Her father joined them, sweeping his hat from his head and wiping a sleeve across his sweating brow. “Duncan’s horse is taken care of. Please tell me we don’t have to do the s
ame for this animal.”

  Dr. Altom gave Mr. Warner a good-natured slap on the back. “I was just telling Jessie here that it’s about time you made good on your promise to get her a younger horse. This ol’ boy will live, but he won’t be fit for riding anymore.”

  Her father stroked his mustache. “Well, we might have to put the new horse off for a little while, Jess. Our first priority’s got to be getting that barn back up and restocking our winter feed supply.”

  Jessica nodded. At the moment, she didn’t feel much like riding any horse but Rusty.

  Mr. Warner nodded toward the corrals at the other end of the barnyard. The pens had small lean-to sheds that opened into the big front pasture. Several ranch horses grazed on the sparse grass in the fields. They hadn’t been in any danger from last night’s fire.

  “We’ve still got a couple of old ranch horses you can ride,” her father said. “Duncan’s in the house getting ready to go round up the young ones. He’s taking Grizz.” He paused for a moment and smiled. “After this trip, that old bay ought to be ridden down enough for you to handle.”

  Jessica frowned. Grizz was short for Grizzly, and he pretty much lived up to his name. Being part quarter horse and part draft with a dash of Arabian made him a very large horse with a very large attitude. The big bay couldn’t be beat as a cow-horse, but if a rider’s attention dropped even a smidgen, he would find himself on the ground watching Grizz’s hindquarters disappear over the ridge as the animal hightailed it back to the barn. Jessica didn’t trust the unpredictable horse. She had to admit that he scared her.

  Maybe it would be best to just wait and see what happened. Besides, she didn’t want to jump right into getting a new horse. She’d spend the next few weeks helping Rusty get better. Maybe after that she’d feel like picking a new mount.