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12 - Five and a Half Years

Published: Nov 13, 2012

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We'd had a bad rash of storms that summer. Rain flooded much of the pastures and, I found out later, wiped out a stretch of fence in one of them. The storms in our area tended to hit suddenly, with almost no warning and absolutely no mercy. We were unprepared for one such thunder storm, which started flash-flooding the pastures. Jason and I worked hard to get all the horses into the barn as quickly as possible, but came up short one mare who was a notorious bolter.

You have to understand something about our storms. When the rain really got going it might very well be impossible to see three feet in front of you. Wind speeds could get up to fifty miles an hour. I was ready to give the mare up as a lost cause, at least until the rain stopped and we had half a chance of finding her, but Jason was determined to set out right then and there. I pleaded with him while he saddled up Hawkeye but he insisted that he could find the mare and get back safely. I think I might even have tried crying but nothing could sway him. He promised he'd be no more than an hour and then disappeared into the sheets of rain. I realized after that in his hurry he'd forgotten a radio.

I waited just over an hour but neither they nor the missing mare straggled in. Heart in my throat I saddled up a retired draft and set out into the still-whaling storm.

It took almost twenty five minutes to find the lost mare shivering under a tree. Scouting around I almost tripped over a still form, battered by rain. Jason lay on the ground, Hawkeye sprawled with his wings twisted under him a few yards away.

I don't remember much after that.
I must have called someone.

The vet said that Hawkeye's feathers were nearly all snapped, his wings broken in multiple places. Numb, I gave permission to have them both amputated, one because it would never heal, the other to keep from unbalancing him.

The doctor said that Jason died quickly from a snapped neck. There probably wasn't even any pain, and maybe the shock of falling hadn't even registered.

There was a funeral four days later.

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Comments10

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DreamKeeper--Stables

Nov 14, 2012

I have to be honest.... I teared up.

Poor Jason. Poor Hawkeye.