Till It’s Gone

I sit on the porch, listening for the sound of Kent and Olive, our two-year-old beagle, returning from the barn on the Kawasaki Mule. The windmill squeaking in the breeze competes only with the rhythmic sound of the chair rocking on the weathered boards now that I've a break from Olive's incessant whining. At one point I told her I'd rather hammer my own thumb than listen to it any longer. Thank God Kent took her with him so my brain could finally have some peace to think about nothing and repeat the same line over and over again of a song I don't even like. I hear the struggling motor of the Mule rev along as they round the bend just before the last turn that shoots them onto the 50 yard straightaway to the house.

A YELP

A sound that can only be the Mule driving itself into stubbornly thick mesquite brush. Then the silence left from an engine that can't idle on its own.

I'm out from under the shade of the porch before my brain can fully process what these noises might signify.

Though my snake boots slow me down, I'm at the cattle guard by the time Kent calls to tell me what I've already inferred. Something went wrong.

I holler "I'm coming! I'm coming" because that's easier than retrieving my phone and trying to speak through ragged breaths into a tiny microphone that will whisper the message into his ear.

I come around the curve and find the Mule in the brush some 20 yards away. Ten beyond that I see Kent. On his knees, blocking me from seeing whatever he is huddled over. Olive.

Oh to hear her whine again.