Nature’s Honesty

By Nicole A. Musmanno

Across the plains of Parker, Colorado, the mountains loomed like indigo giants. Their usually snow highlighted features masked by the summer’s melt down. Above me, a blue sky flecked with clouds like an artist’s paintbrush wisps, gave no indication of precipitation. No promise of rain or thought of a storm threatened the pristine calmness of the Colorado landscape. To comfort any doubt, had there been any doubt, no news station was predicting any storm for that day. In fact, Colorado was in the middle of one of the hottest, driest summers it had seen in years, and this was just another day in the high-plains summer.

In my security of the weather pattern, I decided that it would be a nice day to go for a ride. After all, there was only a slight breeze, which made the day a little cooler than it had been recently and therefore very refreshing.
Dakota and I headed out on our usual trail, which took us about a mile down the street before turning off in prairie open space. Oddly Dakota, my dependable horse of five years, did not seem himself that day. Usually, a trail ride to Dakota was cause to be excited. He always enjoyed them because it removed him from the pressures of the show ring and he was allowed to just enjoy being a horse. However, that day was different.

Dakota seemed preoccupied, so much so that he continually swung his head from side to side as if he were looking behind him to see if any one was following us. By the time we had reached the open fields where we take our usual gallop Dakota’s preoccupation turned to paranoia. On any other day, he would be prancing from side to side, tugging at the reins for me to let go of his head so he could sprint the roughly three hundred yard stretch of prairie tundra. But now he was actually spinning back towards home. I could not understand his blatant reluctance to be out on such a glorious day.

I thought perhaps if I just asked him for a light trot he might relax into the moment. No such luck. Dakota reverted to down right disobedience, refusing to go forward and actually backing up in the street in an attempt to run backwards towards home. Now I was concerned. This was nothing like my horse. Not Dakota, never belligerent about what I asked him to do, occasionally disobedient but never out right defiant. Something was wrong and I decided to take the hint.

The whole ride home, which took half the time of usual because Dakota had double-timed his pace, I pondered on what could have caused Dakota’s attitude. We reached the barn just as a wind started to pick up. I however was too engrossed in Dakota’s behavior to notice, and as I proceeded to untack him, I paid no attention to the increasing strength of the wind. That is to say until a gust whipped through the barn with such force it slammed Dakota’s stall door so hard against its frame that it splintered the wood, causing Dakota to leap to one side barely missing my foot as he landed back on earth. I jumped out of his way as he swung from side to side pulling at the end of his rope.

I quickly, but cautiously, pulled the quick release knot and struggled to free Dakota’s flailing head from his halter. He felt the leather slip from his head and bolted out the other stall door which led into the pasture. I followed only briefly to see what was wrong before noticing what nature had created in my back yard. Our fifteen-foot cotton wood tree bent over touching the ground like a child peering at an ant. A stray shovel skipped across the barn’s driveway before crashing into the side of the house. Our thankfully empty rabbit hutch lifted off the ground and flipped over our seven-foot high backyard fence and summer-salted into our pool. Clouds of dust and sand swirl a psychotic waltz around our property. And everywhere was black, the azure sky, the once artful clouds, everything black.

I took one final glance at my horses, hopelessly knowing that I could do nothing for them. They were safest in the field, if they were to be safe at all, where they could at least try to out run the storm. I ran for my house and frantically began calling the operator, information, news stations, my parents, anyone who I thought might know if there was a tornado warning in effect. Of course I knew in my head it meant nothing even if there was not any such warning because there was definitely a tornado occurring. I just wanted confirmation. No one knew or reported anything.

I spent the storm huddle wit my dogs in our 10 x 10 storm cellar. Fortunately, the storm brought little ran or my other companion in the cellar would have been water. I had no way of knowing when the storm passed or when it was safe for me to leave my shelter. I just left when I thought enough time had pasted, or rather when I could no longer take the uncertainty of knowing the condition of my horses. That was in truth what I feared for most.

They were thankfully fine. All four stood in their pasture wide eyed but unharmed. Dust filtered through the air and garbage speckled the ground. Large rain pellets began to fall and bounce across the wind blown earth. I went out to the pasture and brought my horses into their stalls, thoroughly inspecting each one. No damage to any of them. For the first time in nearly thirty minutes, I breathed freely. Even the cotton wood tree survived the storm, standing erect as though the ground were no longer interesting. In fact the only two casualties of the storm, was my rabbit hutch now at the bottom of my pool, broken like the Titanic, and our largest, most magnificent Ponderosa pine tree, which lay like a swizzle stick in our field. Its roots’ dripped dirt like a lost man drips tears of despair, this casualty of nature. And Nature, Dakota, knew what lay on the horizon and got us to safety before nature harmed us. I never questioned his good sense. Dakota NEVER lied.

Nature never lies.