I stuck the hammer back into the tool box, and stuffed my hands into my pockets. I walked around the side of the farm house, and towards the fields. I pulled out the keys to the truck again, and pulled the handle to the car. I climbed in and began to drive across the fields. Occasionally, I would think I see a hoof print, but then again, it could just be my imagination.

I drove to the end of our fields, and looked into the neighbors’ fields, but saw no sign of a horse. I could see the cattle and the occasional wandering rooster, but nothing that looked anything like Champ.

I climbed out of the truck and began to walk against the fence line of my family’s property. As I was walking, I heard a rumble and felt a drop hit the top of my head. I began to run in search of Champ, and eventually I came to the creek flowing through the edge of my property and through my neighbor’s property. I grabbed the top rail of the fence, and began to pull myself over it. I quickly hopped over, feeling a sudden pain shock through my hand.

I looked at the palms of my hands and saw several punctures, but strangely there was almost no blood.

I searched the fence, looking for the cause to my pain, and saw a line of barbed wire going down along the fence line. “That wasn’t there a week ago,” I thought to myself. “Oh well.”

I shook my hands off against my shirt and began to trek through my neighbor’s fields.

I searched for Champ for hours, but I saw nothing to show that a grazing horse had gone through.

As I continued walking, lightening began to strike the sky, and I heard the whinnies of the terrified horses still in my fields. I swore under my breath, thinking of what Ma would say about me trekking through the neighbor’s fields during a thunderstorm in search of a wild mustang.

When I reached the car, there was a dent, about the size of a soccer ball on the side of the truck. “What the…..” I mumbled, trying to understand where, in the past fifteen minutes, my Ford would have gotten beaten up.

“Dad’s gonna kill me.”

I opened the car door and grabbed the steering wheel, feeling the pain in my hands from my injuries. As I began to drive along the muddy grass, the rain suddenly stopped, and hail began to pour down. I could hear the pelting of golf ball sized ice clumps hitting the roof, and could see in my mind what Dad would say to me when I got home.

As I pulled up to the house, I parked my car in the field and sprinted towards the back door to my house, trying to avoid getting hit in the head with a clump of ice. I clasped the doorknob and lifted up on the one hundred and fifty year old door, hearing a creak.

As I walked in Ma was frantically yelling, “Where’s Ryan? Ryan, is that you? For God’s sake, where have you been? Didn’t you know there’s a tornado warning? I sent Cody and Jake out to search for you. Now I’ve got you here, but they’re gone.”

“Do you want me to go get ‘um?”

“No. You’ve caused enough worry already. Your father will have to go retrieve them.”

“But Ma, Dad’s out herding the horses in the barn, and some of them are in the far pasture.”

“Fine, go get your brothers. But don’t show any more irresponsibility young man, or you’ll lose your free time for a month and will have to muck stalls for the rest of August.”

I snatched my jacket to protect from the hail, and ran out the door, after listening to Ma give the “don’t slam that door,” command every kid hears.