CHAPTER | TWENTY-NINE
While the riders searched, Charles Carnegie left the camp spot in his Jeep looking for another way into the general area from the highway. He found one approximately five miles down the highway and radioed that information to the others. There was an easy road off the highway that he felt would also be good for Mike to bring the horse trailer to so the horses wouldn’t have to backtrack so far at the end of the day. He took a couple of the colored ribbons and tied them to a stake near the highway so he and the others could find them before heading back to camp. Those on horseback and on foot in the desert were told about the relocation of the base camp with the GPS coordinates so they could use their cell phones to find it if needed. Mike put up a large American Flag on a pole attached to the horse trailer to increase their visibility to the others.
Close to noon, the searchers found the new base camp and stopped for a half an hour for lunch and to rest and water the horses. Mike, Chet, and Skip kept their eye on the sky hoping the storm would pass right on by them. The day was cooler because the clouds blocked the sun and the winds kept blowing which evaporated the sweat from humans and horses. The riders pulled the saddles and bridles off their horses so they could relax and dry off. They tied them to the trailer for their lunch with plenty of fresh water buckets before they ate their lunch. By that time everyone was keeping an eye on the clouds above them. They were getting darker and darker.
Forty-five minutes later, the riders tacked their horses up and began again with Brody and John setting off down the center on a northerly path. Chet’s group searched the western side while Skip’s group searched the eastern side upslope from the others. The footprints they looked for were gone. The wind from the brewing storm erased them. At that point, they were looking for any place they could find signs of habitation, specifically an old mobile home with a corral beside it. Brody and John looked for anything that might look familiar to John, any piece of old junk they may have passed in the night, any shape of rock that he may have seen, any wash they may have crossed. John walked ahead of Brody while he focused on keeping his drone in the air arcing from side to side to cover as much territory as possible.
The riders concentrated on small canyons that might hold the old mobile home. They climbed hills, down into arroyos and washes checking both sides of their trail. They spread out as far as they could and still be visible to others in their group. Becky and Ali took the point position in front of John and Brody, ranging west to east, staying within sight of the others as much as they could.
It was 1:30 p.m. that afternoon when Mike saw the first drop of rain hit the hood of his truck. It made a splat the size of a silver dollar on the dry hood and bounced a foot in the air before coming back down and sliding off the fender. Others followed it at intervals before it became a full-on downpour. The raindrops were huge and pounded on the hoods and roofs of the vehicles and horse trailer. The sound was nearly deafening inside the vehicles. The windshield wipers couldn’t keep up with the deluge. Visibility outside was cut short by the volume of water falling from the sky. The riders, Brody and John instantly soaked to the skin, halted their forward progress and stood still. Brody managed to get his drone down, landed it and picked it up. There was no sense trying to fly it in this.
The raindrops that hit the highest peaks began seeking lower ground and joining with other drops along the way. Trickles of water sought the lowest point and found their way into trenches made by previous rain storms. Small rivulets of water joined others and became small streams. Small streams joined others and became bigger streams. Bigger streams joined together and became rivers. The downhill velocity of the water increased exponentially.
This became Mike’s nightmare. Flash flood! There were two people on foot and seven riders out in this unfamiliar territory. Mike spotted a muddy river heading in their direction and yelled at the other drivers to move their vehicles back ten feet. The channel the water followed was in front of the parked vehicles by several feet, but Mike knew those channels of water could change course at any time and erode their banks. He’d personally seen a car swept off a paved road into a ditch and he’d seen boulders weighing several tons pushed downstream by the force of the water. Once the vehicles all backed away from the stream bed, he got on the radio to the riders.
“Are you guys okay? Can you see the other riders? Remember to stay on high ground. If you are in a wash, get out of it now! You need to stay on the high ground!”
Brody radioed back that he and John were okay and he had the drone. Skip radioed in that he and Suzy and Heidi were standing just below a peak in the clear. He groused about being soaked to the skin. Chet radioed in that he had Becky with his group and they were clear at the moment.
That’s when nature threw them another curve. Lightning streaked crackling across the sky and thunder boomed with deafening intensity. This was now Mike’s worst nightmare! Lightning sought the highest points, and he had riders out there and people on foot as well that would be the highest points in their areas. All the people in the base camp could do was pray.
John knew the dangers, so he and Brody scrunched down close to the ground and huddled together during the onslaught. Brody did his best to keep the water out of the electronics on the drone and its controller so it would continue working when the rain stopped. He made an umbrella out of himself to do that.
Chet understood the dangers they faced. He had three young girls with him because Becky was closer to his group than Skips and joined them when the rain started in earnest. He dismounted and told the girls to do the same. Melissa’s horse bolted at the first flash of lightning. Mighty Max screamed in terror as he ran. Melissa ran into the rain to catch him. Kathy’s horse, Cricket, pulled the reins from her hand and followed the big pinto. Kathy ran to catch her horse as well. Prince Ali stood with Becky, head down and tail clamped to his butt with his butt turned to the wind. Chet didn’t know whether to stay with Becky and Ali or chase the other two girls. Neither was a good choice since he and Becky were in a shallow draw at the moment. They watched as a small stream formed and began to trickle downhill a few feet in front of them. Chet had them move to higher ground for safety. They stood in the deluge halfway up a slight hill. They lost sight of Kathy and Melissa.
Skip looked for an overhang along the rocky wall of the peak he was on with Suzy and Heidi. He found a small one where a slab of limestone jutted out from the hill. It was only a few feet but gave the three riders some protection from the rain. They held onto their horses, but there wasn’t enough room under the overhang for them too.
The torrential downpour continued for forty-five minutes with lightning crackling across the sky and thunderclaps deafening the searchers. Except for the ones at base camp who had access to shelter, the searchers got thoroughly drenched before the rain stopped. It didn’t really stop, it slowed down, and the droplets got smaller and smaller until they ceased falling. The wind blew hard during the worst of the storm, driving the rain even harder. It stung the skin of those out in it, horses and humans alike.
The group on the western end of the search were the first ones in the clear. Chet and Becky looked around as the rain ceased pouring down. They couldn’t go backward. There was a raging river of mud, sticks, entire Joshua trees and good sized rocks in the shallow draw they vacated during the storm. Becky couldn’t believe how deep it was or how fast the water charged along its course. She’d never seen a flash flood up close.
Chet pulled out his radio and called for Mike. “Mike, we have a problem here. That first flash of lightning spooked two of our horses. They took off to the north. Before I could stop them, Kathy and Melissa ran after them. It’s just Becky and Ali here with me now.”
Mike’s worst fears were hitting him. “Have you been able to spot them yet?” he asked Chet.
“No, the rain just stopped here. Becky and I will mount up and start looking. I’ll let you know right away when we find them.” Chet and Becky mounted their soggy horses and headed
up the rise. Mighty Max was a large bay and white pinto. Chet hoped that would make him easier to find. He and Becky stood at the top of the rise and scanned the horizon. They saw nothing until they looked down. They did find hoofprints in the soggy ground. They began to follow them as Chet radioed in their intentions to Mike.
Mike shook his head as he walked to the group just getting out of their vehicles. “We’ve got a new wrinkle in our search today,” he announced. He filled the group in on Chet’s radio call. “Now we will have to search for the searchers as well as looking for Cutter.”
“Oh, Dios mio, I’m so sorry,” Esteban muttered. “All this trouble because of my horse. Now we must find three horses and two girls,” he shook his head sadly.
CHAPTER | THIRTY
Becky found where horse prints of two horses overlapped each other. She pointed that out to Chet. “Looks like Mighty Max is leading and Cricket is following him. I see boot prints from Melissa and Kathy here too. I think we’re on the right track.” She told Chet.
The two riders followed the trail for quite a ways until they came to a wide wash at the bottom of an arroyo. Water raced through the channel it cut carrying sticks, debris, and rocks with it, crashing into the sides of the wash. The sound of crashing rocks, rushing water and debris made so much noise Chet and Becky had to shout at each other to be heard, and they were standing right next to one another. As Chet and Becky watched, whole sections of the far edge of the wash fell into the water. Chet looked down. His horse and Ali were standing close by the near edge of that same wash. As he looked, he saw a large crack form along the ground just barely in front of Ali’s feet. “Get back!” he yelled at Becky as he pulled his horse backward. She pulled Ali’s reins and sat back in the saddle. Ali stepped lightly back just in time. The whole edge of the wash they had been standing on fell into the whirling water below. Becky’s heart pounded. That was too close!
“Did you see that?” Ali nickered to Duke.
“Yeah, I did. I’ve seen this before. Do you remember the wash that runs beside the ranch back home? Well, I’ve seen that running full with six feet of water in it during one of these storms. If we don’t stay away from the bank, you could get swept in and you’d be taking Becky with you. Stay away from the edges, okay,” Duke explained.
“You bet I will!” Ali nickered back.
“Let’s not get too close to the edge,” Chet shouted to Becky. “Can you see tracks on the far side?”
Becky walked Ali along the wash but several feet from the edge for a way before she spotted something. She stopped and looked as closely as she could. “I think I see something over there,” she pointed across the wash.
Chet joined her and searched the far bank. “Yes, I think you’re right. That looks like a hoof print. Let’s move downstream some and see if we can find a place to cross.”
The two riders followed the stream west until it opened into a wide but shallow stream. “Do you think it’s safe to cross here?” Becky asked looking across the expanse of water in front of her and Ali.
“Let me go first,” Chet said as he slowly walked his horse into the stream. He sank in water up to the horse’s pasterns. The water lost a lot of its velocity when it spread out across the plain. The desert soil began to absorb it as it slowed down. Chet picked his way across the stream and soon reached the other side. “You can follow my path. It’s not too deep here,” he called out to Becky.
Becky and Ali stepped into the water and made their way across. She and Chet changed directions and headed back to the last place they saw hoofprints and followed them. They didn’t have to go far. They saw the two horses and girls cross over the top of a rise in front of them. The girls were on foot leading the horses. Becky trotted Ali to them. “You guys okay?” she asked them. Heidi was a muddy mess top to bottom and favored one leg a little.
“Yeah, we’re good. We caught the horses and got back on to bring them back when another crack of thunder spooked them again. We held on and tried to stop them. Heidi took a fall, but she’s not hurt bad. We finally got these poor babies under control and just stood with them until the thunder stopped,” Melissa explained.
“They never heard thunder like that before,” Heidi said. “It scared them to death!”
“Was that what that noise was?” Mighty Max asked Cricket. “I thought something was coming to eat us whole in one bite.”
“Well, you certainly screamed like a mare!” Cricket chuckled under his breath. “You ran like the hounds of Hades were on your heels.”
“Don’t forget you were running for your life right with me!” retorted Max. “And you were screaming like a little filly at the same time.”
“Okay, my friend. Let’s just say we were both scared of the loud noise and leave it at that,” chuffed Max. “We need to help get our girls back to camp.”
“We found a place to cross a stream a little ways back. Do you think you can mount up and ride?” Chet asked Heidi and Melissa. “You need to get back to base camp and have someone look at that leg,” he told Heidi. “Can you find your way back?”
“Yes, I can if the wind didn’t blow the ribbons off the bushes. You guys should keep looking for Cutter. Maybe this rain is helping him. If those creeps left him a bucket or barrel, it should have rainwater in it now.” Heidi said.
Chet handed his reins to Becky. “Hold this for me, will ya?” he said as he walked toward Heidi and Cricket. He gave her a boost up into the saddle while Melissa climbed back into hers. Chet mounted and led the way back to the stream he and Becky just crossed.
“Look at that!” Becky exclaimed when they reached the stream. The water was less than half as deep as it had been only a few minutes before. The parched desert soil was soaking the water up quickly.
Chet followed the tracks left by his horse and Ali back to where the other two horses spooked. He thought he could see the base camp from there and pointed it out to Heidi. “You be alright to ride back there by yourself?” he asked her.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Why don’t you three go back and see if you can’t find Cutter? I’ll be fine.” She turned her horse toward the base camp and set off at a slow trot.
Chet, Becky, and Melissa turned their horses around and continued the search. It was no longer possible for Becky to join Skip and his group. The washes higher up were still flowing strongly. She headed slightly east and north and continued searching while Chet and Melissa stayed a bit more to the west.
Skip, Suzie and Heidi had a more difficult time. As long as they stayed to the higher side, they could cross the many trickles they came across. They just couldn’t move much lower without running into flooding streams for a while. They were all soaked to the skin, as were their horses, but they continued looking.
Redd groused about the water running into his ears. He hated that and there was nothing he could do about it. “Darned rain. Makes it hard to hear sometimes,” he said to Schultzy and Dreamer, shaking his head to clear his ears.
“I hate all this mud myself,” Dreamer nickered. “It is slippery and hard to get my balance on because it oozes out from under my shoes. I don’t want to slip and fall and take Suzy with me.”
“Well, one thing that was not hard for any of us to hear were those thunder boomers,” Schultzy muttered. “They about scared the hair right off my hide. I wanted to run away but couldn’t because we can’t run down these hills with our riders. I’ve never heard them so loud before, have you?”
Redd stopped shaking his head and looked thoughtful for a minute. “Nope, I’ve never heard them this loud before. Sounded like they were right on top of us. But the lightning is what gets ya, ya know.”
“Really?” asked Dreamer. “I thought it was just bright light that hurt your eyes.”
“When I was a youngster in Texas, before I came to the ranch, I saw a bolt of lightning come out of the sky and hit a young steer in the next field over from us horses. That steer dropped like a rock. His legs twitched once or twice. I think the humans call
it dying. The life left it, just like that. I saw smoke come off that poor steer and it never moved again. That was more frightning to me than the loud noise of the thunder,” Redd explained. “I ran to my mother and huddled next to her in fear.”
“Oh, my goodness. That would make me afraid of lightning too,” Schultzy nickered. “I will never look at lightning the same way again. I’d rather be inside in my nice safe barn stall than outside when lightning and thunder comes.”
“Just be glad you have a nice safe barn stall to be in when the storms like this come,” Redd suggested. “It makes you appreciate your owner a lot more.”
Schultzy and Dreamer thought about what Redd said. His comments convinced them they had to take care of Heidi and Suzy. They were good owners who looked after them well and loved them. They would be very careful while Heidi and Suzy rode them.
The search continued on the upslope. There were no footprints to find, so they began looking for any sign of habitation. They did find several old mine shafts on the upper slopes which Skip urged the girls to avoid. They also saw the rubble left from a couple of old cabins originally made of wood which had fallen in on themselves. There was generally a debris field around them of old pieces of metal, rusted out tin cans and the like. Over the next hour, the rushing water reduced to trickles everywhere and was no longer a threat.
Brody and John dried off the drone. Brody replaced the batteries and resumed flying it. They saw more destruction from the flooding than anything else.
Becky climbed a slight hill and stopped Ali. She sat there looking around when she thought she heard something. Ali heard it too. He recognized it as the snort of another horse. He lifted his head and blared out his stallion challenge in the direction he thought the snort came from.
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