High Hurdles (72 page)

Suddenly, the roar of helicopter blades seemed to hang right over the barn. “The river has flooded, and the water will continue to rise,” the voice echoed above. “Please evacuate. If you need help, wave something white.”

Brad went out in the driving rain and waved them off. Even though the sound of the blades disappeared, the rain drumming on the roof and cascading through the downspouts made enough noise to make talking softly difficult.

DJ could feel herself slipping into her own world, a place where the sun shone and foals danced across a fenced pasture. A place where Major rolled in knee-deep grass and then took her jumping over the fences. She fought to keep her eyes open.

Ramone entered the stall. “Would you please hold Soda while I see if I can get some more milk for the little one?”

“Sure.” DJ yawned when she stood up to take hold of Soda, who twitched her tail and shifted her front feet, but stood still for the most part. “Will you put a tube down the filly again?”

“No, this time we’ll use the bottle. You’ll do well with her, I know.”

When Ramone returned, he had the artificial teat connected to a squarish plastic bottle. “Just see if you can get her to suck on it. She’ll probably fight you if you try to open her jaws, but she’ll get the hang of it eventually.”

DJ looked from the bottle to the foal. Why did this seem like it could be difficult? Surely the baby was hungry enough now to take about anything.

But it didn’t work that way. When DJ held the nipple against the foal’s lips, she shook her head. Then DJ held the baby’s head and tried to force the nipple in, but the struggle wasn’t worth it. As the foal fought DJ, the mare grew more restless, finally laying her ears back.

“Don’t worry about Soda. She’s tied up.” Ramone lowered himself down beside DJ. “Try wetting your fingers with the milk and rubbing it on her lips.”

DJ did, but the foal would have none of it.

Once more she tried, this time by pressing down on the lower jawbone and inserting the nipple from the side. Nada.

Pleading, coaxing, dribbling the milk in the cup of the lower lip—nothing worked. Only her jeans grew wet from all the milk that bypassed the baby’s throat.

“She’s stubborn, that one.” Brad returned from making some more phone calls. “Why don’t you call it a day? You look about done in.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Ramone and I are going to move the equipment out of the office and the tack room and store it all upstairs. Just in case.”

“Just in case what?”

“Just in case the water does indeed get up to the barn. I didn’t think it could happen but . . .”

DJ went to stand at the door. Sure enough. It looked like the house and barns were on an island surrounded by dirty brown water all the way around—and coming closer.

Chapter
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14

“Have you ever filled sandbags?” Brad asked in a teasing tone.

DJ noticed the smile never quite reached his eyes. “No, but I did clean up a flood site last weekend over in Napa.”

“Well, let’s hope and pray it doesn’t come to that.” Brad turned back to Ramone. “But better safe than sorry, right?”

Ramone fingered his gray-flecked mustache. “We’d better get started—we have a lot of doors in this barn. And we’d better begin with the well house.”

“You’re right. If that generator gets flooded, we won’t have any clean water. Boiling water for this many horses will be almost impossible.” Brad visibly relaxed his shoulders.

A jingle played in DJ’s head.
Water, water, everywhere—and not a drop to drink.

“Back to the barn,” Brad picked up his train of thought. “What if we laid down plastic and set straw bales on top of it? Do you think that might hold?”

Ramone nodded. “Don’t know why not.”

“It would be faster than bagging. Besides, what are we going to use for sandbags?”

“I have some in my truck.” Ramone motioned outside. “Kept them there just in case it flooded down at my mother’s house. Since I can’t get to her anyway, we can use them here.”

“We could cut squares of plastic, dump sand on them, and tie them.” DJ leaned against the wall of the box stall. “Or we could make tubes and tie them at both ends.” She thought of all the presents she had wrapped both ways.

“Okay. You try feeding the foal again, and Ramone and I’ll get started.”

The phone beeped, and Brad answered it. “Sorry, Jackie, it looks like we’re stuck here. No, we’re safe, but there’s a chance it could get wet in the barn. I know, I never thought it could happen, either, but the water’s already within a couple of feet of the pump house. No, coming home won’t help—you couldn’t get here even if you tried. At least I know you’re safer where you are.” He hung up and looked at DJ.

“Deej, how about filling every container you can find with water while we have it? I wish we’d brought the stock tank up from the lower field. Hindsight is always wonderful, of course.”

“Sure. Do you want me to go up to the house and fill the tubs? That’s what we do at home.”

“Yes, and there are some plastic jugs in the pantry. Put drinking water in those.”

DJ stepped outside. Sure enough, their island had shrunk. Now water covered the long drive out to the county road. She ran up the rise to the house to do as her father had asked.

Without power for heat, the house already felt cold and damp. She turned on the water in the two tubs, filled the jugs, and pulled out all the kettles to fill, too. In spite of her father’s reassuring words, she felt like a rock had taken up residence in her stomach. While the floodwater wasn’t moving fast, its steady lapping up the rise reminded her that they had no control over the river.

On her way back down to the barn, she looked up at the sky, drizzling now instead of a downpour. “God, please stop the storm. I know you can do it. Please.” She put buckets under every spigot and turned them on, hauling the water to the tubs she found for the arena. With everything full, she returned to the barn.

Back inside, an occasional hoof thudded against a wall and nervous nickers rippled from stall to stall as the horses let their fear be known. The sound of the river so close was very different from what they were used to.

DJ heated the bottle for the foal in the microwave and took deep breaths to calm herself. She knew panic never helped anyone, but knowing and doing were two separate things. This was like getting ready to go in the show-ring, only worse.

The filly lay sleeping.

“Ah, little one, please don’t sleep your life away.” DJ entered the stall, petting and talking to the mare first before approaching the foal. Head up, the foal watched her with wide, dark eyes.

“Come on, you’ve got to get used to me. Surely we can be friends by now.” Were the filly’s eyes brighter? Perkier? Or was it wishful thinking?

DJ shook her head at the thoughts that careened through her mind and knelt by the foal. “Do you want me to squirt this in your mouth or what?” Her singsong monologue at least worked to calm the mare. The filly thrashed around, trying to get her feet under her so she could run. DJ sat without moving until the baby’s panic let up.

“Now that you have that over with, let’s try some of this good stuff.” She tickled the filly’s lips with the nipple, but the foal turned her head away. “I know you should be standing to nurse from your mother, but that doesn’t seem possible right now.”

The mare nudged her foal and whickered deep in her throat. “See, mind your mother, you silly thing. Either get up and get going or drink to become strong enough to get up and get going.”

DJ even tried prying open the foal’s jaws and forcing in the nipple, but the baby’s thrashing made the mare nervous. “I wonder if we could make a sling to hold you up.” DJ wet the nipple with the mare’s milk again.

“Give it up for now, DJ.” Brad appeared at the door. “We need your help with sandbagging.”

“The pump’s shot.” Ramone, soaked to his waist, entered at a run.

“Get some dry clothes on, man, so you don’t catch your death. We’ll be filling more bags.”

The horses corralled in the arena stayed in a group at the far end as they shoveled sand up from the arena floor, rolled the tubes, and tied the ends. Ramone pushed the full wheelbarrow out to the barn doors and slung the bags in place. Brad and DJ tried desperately to keep up with the filling.

After an hour, DJ’s arms and shoulders felt six inches longer—and all six inches ached.

Still the water level kept rising.

They scooped, tied, and hauled faster. The helicopter flew over again, the loud voice of an emergency relief worker asking if they wanted help getting out. As before, Brad turned down the offer.

Water crept into the arena, turning the sand to mud. The horses now galloped from one end to the other, whinnying their fear.

One by one, water seeped into the stalls under the doors that hadn’t been bagged or set with straw bales. However, the front and rear doors stayed dry, thanks to the bags already in place.

The team worked on, bagging and hauling, sweat running down their faces, their muscles screaming for relief.

Once all the doors had a double layer of bags in place, they stopped. Dark came early and, with it, an increase in rainfall. Ramone swept out what water had seeped in and threw down fresh straw to replace that which was soaked in the stalls.

Meanwhile, DJ and Brad hung slings of hay from the arena walls and refilled the tubs of water. As the buckets emptied, Brad set them under the downspouts from the barn roof.

“No sense wasting what clean water God sends us.” He dug his fists into his back and stretched aching muscles. DJ did the same.

Never in her life had she been so tired. Every muscle in her body had cramped at one time or another in the last hours. Her feet felt like they weighed forty pounds each, and her hands hung heavy by her sides.
Good thing they’re attached
, she thought, trying to lift them to take her wet gloves off.

“Come on, let’s go make some dinner. There’s nothing more to be done right now.” Brad led the way out to Ramone’s pickup truck, splashing through the water that sheeted the concrete pad. The radio spilled out flood information on the way to the house.

“The Santa Rosa area should get some relief by midnight tonight as the river crests at an anticipated twenty-five feet above flood stage. The actual crest will depend on the rainfall we receive in the next hours.”

“Twenty-five feet! Last I heard we were at twenty-two. Three more feet.” Brad thumped the steering wheel with the heel of his hand.

“We have to get the horses out of the barn.” Ramone slumped against the door, looking as exhausted as DJ felt.

“If we let them loose, they’ll all come toward the house. There’s no way the water will go that high.”

“What about the foal?” DJ asked.

Brad thought a moment while parking. “We’ll move the mare and foal into the garage—the other one, too. With our luck, she’ll drop her foal tonight.” They climbed from the truck and hobbled wearily toward the door.

Brad turned on the battery-powered lamps he had set out in the kitchen. “Good thing we have a gas stove. DJ, dig under that counter, will you? The old coffeepot should be under there somewhere.”

While she was searching, Brad hunted in the freezer section of the refrigerator. “I know Jackie left us some frozen soups. We better use as much frozen food as we can in case the power is off for a couple of days.” He handed Ramone the sandwich fixings and took the plastic pouches of soup to the stove. Plopping them into a pan of water, he turned on the heat.

Before long, they sat down to vegetable soup and ham-and-cheese sandwiches. DJ even drank a cup of coffee well laced with hot chocolate mix.

They ate without talking, as if they hadn’t seen food in a week. “Just put your things in the sink,” Brad instructed.

“Ramone, we’ll haul up straw first for DJ to put out in the garage while you and I bring up some of those aluminum fence panels. All those mares need to do is bang into some of the stuff on the shelves and they’ll go right through the roof.”

He hesitated a moment. “On second thought, Ramone, you get the straw while DJ and I move the stuff from the garage into the house. That’ll give us more space. We’ll worry about the fence panels once that’s done.”

DJ felt herself sinking down into the chair. Her head jerked, and she blinked. 
No time to sleep now
. She picked up her dishes and carried them to the sink. Amazing—she’d never fallen asleep that fast in her entire life.

Ramone dumped off the bales of straw and went to pick up the panels while Brad and DJ moved storage boxes, Christmas decorations, gardening supplies, and other stuff into the house, stacking it down the hall and in the living room. She drove the lawnmower out, and Brad backed out Jackie’s car.

“Okay, let’s put the panels up here.” He indicated the separation between the garage doors. “That way the mares will each have an entire bay.” While the men fastened the fence panels, DJ spread the straw good and deep.

Back down in the barn twenty minutes later, Brad brought out blankets for each of the mares and one for the foal. “DJ, if you lead Soda, I’ll carry the foal. Ramone, you bring Hannah.”

They buckled the blankets around the mares and added leads with chains to loop over their noses. “Just in case we need more control,” Brad said, noticing DJ’s reluctance.

“Now, let’s get this little one on her feet so I can pick her up.”

DJ held the mare while Ramone got the baby into an almost standing position so Brad could slip one arm around her rump and another around her chest. For some reason, the filly stopped struggling, and they started the long parade up to the house. Halfway there, Brad paused to catch his breath.

“You want to trade?” Ramone asked.

Brad shook his head. “I’ll make it. Let’s not take a chance.”

DJ lead Soda into one section of the garage and loosened the lead so the mare could investigate the surroundings. She checked on her baby first, then nosed at the aluminum panels. She took a place right beside the foal, standing guard in the strange place. With Hannah moving around in the other pen, Soda kept her body between the foal and the other horse.

“You watch them, and we’ll start hauling hay. We need to get enough up here to feed everyone for at least a couple of days.” Brad climbed back in the truck and waved at DJ as he and Ramone returned to the barn.

DJ shivered in the wind that blew in the open garage doors. If she was cold, what about the foal?

With bales of hay and straw stacked outside the aluminum panels to provide insulation and inside the garage to keep dry, Brad and Ramone held the mares while DJ punched the button to close the garage doors. Soda rolled her eyes at the sound of the motor and the sight of the lowering doors, but Brad kept her calm with a firm hand and his soothing voice.

“Why don’t you warm the bottle up in a pan of water on the stove, DJ? If the filly won’t drink it this time, we’re going to have to tube-feed her again. I hate to have to do that in case something goes wrong.”