As my car bumped up the gravel drive, the rooster came running around the side of the barn. He was crazier than usual, cackling and trying to fly into my windshield. I didn’t even make it up to the carport. When Foghorn flew onto the hood of mycar, I stopped the car and tapped the horn. He answered with a squawk.
I turned off the engine, right in the middle of the side yard. I was plumb worn out, tempted to head straight for the house, collapse on the sofa and steal a short nap. But there were creatures on the land who depended on me. I decided to check on the livestock first. See how Tornado was faring.
The forecast had sounded iffy that morning. The cattle could weather a storm, but not my mare. She would be delivering that foal any day.
Foghorn hopped off the hood of the car and followed as I trudged past the barn, gazed out over the field. The Charolais were there. I even did a quick count: twenty—and my bull was corralled, right where he belonged.
Foghorn stayed with me, dashing back and forth and pecking at my shoes. He was bugging me, so I shut him out of the barn. I slipped off my courthouse shoes and tugged on a beat-up pair of chore boots I kept near the door.
I went inside to Tornado’s stall, where she greeted me with a soft whinny.
“Hey, girl! How you feeling? You get any bigger, I’m going to have to change your name. These days, you’re looking more like a hurricane than a tornado.”
Her belly was swollen, getting ready to pop. I’d been giving some thought to names for the foal. As I stroked her along the neck and shoulder, I turned possibilities over in my head. Maybe Thunder, if it was a colt. Or Lightning if she had a filly.
I talked sweet to her, speaking in a soothing tone. I told her to stay calm while I walked behind her and lifted her tail. It was light enough in the barn to get a good look, and Dr. Nelson had told me what I needed to watch for. There wasn’t any abnormal baggingup. A little vaginal discharge, but nothing major. I checked her belly. Didn’t find streaming milk.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and debated calling the vet, just to check in. Decided to do it later, when I got inside my house. I had a bottle of white wine in the fridge, and I intended to pour a medicinal dose as soon as I made it into the kitchen. I’d put the phone on speaker, talk to the vet while I loaded the dishwasher and sipped that cold wine.
Sounded like a plan.
I was already feeling better, like I’d escaped the grip of that courtroom drama, the unrest in the streets of town. The smell of the barn and the sound of my horse’s snuffling, it was a comfort. I mucked her stall out, since I was already in the barn, wearing rubber boots. Put fresh straw down for Tornado’s bedding, left her with feed and fresh water. Didn’t change into my overalls to do the chores. My courthouse shirt and pants could go straight into the washer.
Before I left the barn, I grabbed a handful of seed for Foghorn. “Crazy bird,” I muttered. I remember thinking right then that maybe I was the crazy one. For putting up with a useless rooster, when I didn’t even keep hens anymore.
When I exited the barn and walked onto the hard dirt, I could see him, sitting on the porch swing, waiting for me. As soon as he saw me coming, Foghorn started flapping his wings. I’d kept his wings clipped since he was a chick, but Foghorn still managed to fly. Short distances, if he was so inclined.
I tossed that handful of chicken feed onto the hard-packed dirt. The rooster squawked at the sight, came running off the porch to get his supper.
The late-afternoon sun cast a glow in the farmhouse, gilding it in golden light.
Time slowed down for me as I stood in the side yard, watching the rooster. Seeing a strange sight.
The setting sun illuminated a horizontal line, so close to the ground that I’d overlooked it at first. It stretched across the ground, all the way in front of the farmhouse. I could see that line where the steps led up to the porch and the front door of my home. When I squinted in the light, I could see something scrawled on my door in dripping red paint.
A giant letterK.
Foghorn hit that shining line before my brain was able to absorb what was happening.
I heard it first, the explosion. The force of the blast lifted me up into the air and threw me backward on the hard dirt between the house and the barn. I landed on my tail, but my head slammed down and took a hit. I guess I blacked out for a time.
When I came to, fire had erupted. I had to crawl away from the house, to distance myself from the heat and the flying ash. Stunned, I watched the flames burn like an inferno. I had my phone with me. My hands shook so violently, it took three tries to make the 911 call.
Wouldn’t have made any difference, though, if I’d gotten through on the first try. The old wooden structure had been built one hundred years ago. I sat and watched my house—the house my great-grandparents had built with their own hands—burn like kindling.
By the time the local fire truck pulled onto my property, with lights flashing and siren wailing, the entire house was engulfed, with flames eating through the roof, black smoke rising all around.
There was nothing left to save.
CHAPTER
71
BULLOCK COUNTY HOSPITAL UNION SPRINGS, ALABAMA
There’s always something to be thankful for.”
My sister Jordan stood by the hospital bed, patting my hand. And making the kinds of observations that earned her the nickname “Saint Jordan” by the time she was a second grader.
