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 We watched the thunderstorm growing, building, off
to the west. As we sat on our tailgates sipping coffee and wishing
we could be inside at the Mule Barn counter, we just sipped and
looked in awe.
When the show began, we’d get in the pickups and drive off home, but
there’s no harm in watching the weather’s overture to spring
violence.
“You boys been out on the plains in spring, right?” asked Steve, our
tall, mustached cowboy member of the vaunted world dilemma think
tank.
We nodded and sipped and glanced up at the roiling blackness.
“Always wondered what it would be like to be caught horseback out on
the plains in one of these storms. Not something I’d look forward
to, I can tell you.”
“I know what they do, Steve,” said Doc. “Had a patient who punched
cows out that way. He said when it rained, he’d get off his horse
and sit on the ground under his belly.”
“So the horse would get wet and he’d stay dry?”
“More or less, I suppose.” [to top of second
column] |
“But the lightning,” Steve said,
“what about the dang lightning?”
“Doesn’t sound like any fun to me,” Herb said. “But I guess it’s
some consolation that the horse, being the highest point for 15
miles, would get struck by lightning first.”
“See, Steve,” Doc said, grinning. “If lightning goes through the
horse and hits you on the ground, you don’t have anything to worry
about, but if it just strikes the horse …?”
“Yeah, Doc,” Steve said, “then you’d have the honor of being killed
by a falling, fried horse. I think I’ll stay off those plains for
now.”
[Text from file received from
Slim Randles]
Brought to you by salmon fisherman, pastor and friend to all, Mark
Henry Miller’s book River Runs Through Me. At
markhmiller@att.net.
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