Page 16 of The Cowboy Who Came Home
“Yes,” she croaked out as she got closer to him.
“I’ve got a coat for you,” he said. “Just in case.”
“What about Olive and Bandit?” They weren’t leashed, and Edith looked at them helplessly.
“They’ll stay with me.” He reached for her hand with one of his and the back doorknob with the other. “We need to go now. I swear I can hear the water rushing right now.” He didn’t sound scared, but his words held fear inside them, in the curved letters where the emotion couldn’t just slide off slants and straight lines.
Outside, on the deck, Edith could hear it too. “Isn’t the river pretty far from here?”
“Apparently not.” He led them to the edge of the deck, where the roof no longer covered, and one more step and he’d be in the torrential rain. He didn’t hesitate as he led her down the steps, and Edith squinted against the enormous raindrops now pummeling her.
She’d never thought the barn sat too far from the house, but this journey felt like it took a really long time. Finally, Alex pulled open the door and ducked inside, pulling her and the dachshunds with her. “Bandit! Olive! In here!”
Both border collies ran inside, and Alex flipped on the lights. “Electricity is still on.” He handed her the leashes and moved away from her, his long legs moving fast. He flipped more switches, and more light filled the barn and now flowed in from outside.
Edith turned and looked back into the storm. It flowed down in near sheets, and she’d only seen water like this when she’d lived through a hurricane that had hit Long Island. The ground had stopped absorbing the water, and it ran away from the concrete foundation of the barn.
“Close the door, Edith,” Alex said, his voice less barky and filled with far less urgency. “And let’s get on the second level.” He moved toward the aisle that separated a tack room and a feed room from this larger main room. “I’ll get the ladder down. Can you get all the animals over here?”
“What about the horses?” she asked. “What if the stables flood?”
“I’m going to get you all upstairs, and then I’m going to let them loose.” His voice echoed back to her, and for some reason, that only helped keep her feet frozen right where they were.
“You’re going back out there? Alone?”
“It’s not flooded yet. The horses will get to higher ground and stay there. We’ll round them up once the danger passes.” He made a holy loud racket getting down the ladder that led up to the loft. “You go up first, and I’ll hand up Frankie and Otto.”
Alex came toward her, still moving with plenty of urgency. “You turned on the lights. I’ll be able to see over to the stables, and I’ll be back in five minutes.”
“Alex.” Edith trembled with fear, not cold, and she hated feeling this wild and out of control. What if he didn’t come back? She had her phone in her pocket and the clothes and shoes on her body.
“You go up first,” he said. “Take Gumbo with you.” He steered her to the ladder, and Edith accomplished something she’d never done before: she climbed a wooden ladder to a loft while carrying a constantly meowing cat.
When she could, she set him on his feet and said, “Shush.” Gumbo would continue to talk, because he was one of the most vocal felines she’d ever encountered. She turned back and bent down, her legs trembling with the requirement she put on them, and reached for Otto. She then straightened and twisted to drop the black and brown dachshund into the loft. She repeated that for Frankie, and with the mostly brown dog up in the loft, Alex said, “You go up. Bandit and Olive can climb the ladder.”
“They can?”
“They’ll bowl you over if you don’t get out of the way.” He certainly wouldn’t kid about this in such a situation, so Edith climbed the rest of the way into the loft and looked around. Olive came up first, followed by Bandit, and then Alex appeared from the waist up. He took off both coats and handed them to her.
“Five minutes,” he said. “I’ve got a first aid kit downstairs I’m going to hand up when I get back. And we have our emergency binders out here too. They list all of our horses and have emergency tools to fix fences.”
“Okay,” Edith said, because they certainly couldn’t do any of that until the sun rose. If it ever did again.
Of course the sun is going to rise again, she told herself. The rain would stop. The sun would come out. The land would dry up again. Edith knew this rationally, but at four o’clock in the morning with the rain pounding the roof of the barn only inches from her head, it was hard to conceptualize.
“Five minutes,” Alex said again, and then he disappeared down the ladder. She moved over to the big cut-out window where they’d throw down hay bales or load them up using a conveyor belt. She didn’t open it, though she really wanted to. The need to do it gnawed at her, because she wanted to see what was going on beyond these walls.
But she didn’t want to let the rain inside, so she kept it closed, and she paced back and forth a couple of times, wondering how long it really took to run over to the stables and let out four horses.
Her phone beeped, and she tugged it free from her pocket. Finn’s name sat there, but it got sucked back up into the top of her phone before she could read his message. She tapped to open her phone, and she navigated to his text.
Let me know if you’re safe. We’re all on the third floor of the Courage Reins building, and believe it or not, my momma is passing out cookies.
“Oh, I believe that,” Edith said, actually smiling to herself as she typed out the message and sent it. We made it into the loft of the barn. Alex went to put the horses out to pasture, in the hopes that they’ll get to higher ground if we flood.
This is great news, he said. Thanks for letting me know, Edith.
She sank onto a hay bale and sighed. She hated the blaring, unnatural light when the rest of the world sat in darkness, and the beginnings of a headache started behind her eyes. This was going to be a very long day.
