Two nights ago, I woke up at 2AM to the sound of something rubbing against the house, rather loudly. It had a rather rhythmic sound to it, as if it could be wind, but it was also too intermittent a sound to really be the wind. I listened carefully and couldn't hear any of the telltale signs of wind, such as the whoooooo-ooooo sound of it rounding the eaves.

I elbowed Mike and said,"What the hell is that?" He woke up grumpy and listened and said,"The wind or something." The "something" was muffled as his head re-hit the pillow. I said authoritatively,"It's not the wind!" He said,"It's the wind." I said,"Fine, if it's the wind then there' s a big piece of siding banging against the house that's going to keep me up all night. If I am going to be up all night, be assured you will be, too, so you better go out and tuck it back in."

Loud grumbling and cussing from Mike's side of the bed.

A very loud BANG on the outside of the wall.

"THAT was NOT the wind!"

"Okay, Okay, I'm getting up," his majesty said from a supine position.

I sprung out of bed and looked out the window in time to see another face, a horse face, looking back at me in the dark. I stood there dumbfounded,"There's a horse outside our window, Mike."

As I stood there, the horse kicked the side of the house again...WHOMP! I pounded on the window and as I did so, two horses that had been hanging out lower in the yard in the dark, suddenly whinnied and took off galloping through the sagebrush and then circled way back up behind the old barn and then came ripping down the driveway, heads held high. You could tell they were just giddy with excitement about being out. The one still penned horse whinnied a greeting to them, and they whinnied back and then slipped down on the side of the fence to eat the neighbor's lawn and hang out with the one prisoner that hadn't escaped.

I realized at this point that there's someone with a very bright flashlight across the road, shining it on the horses, and I get annoyed. I'm thinking,"That son of a bitch is looking in my window." Of course, it is 2AM, so I'm cussing my ass off, anyhow. I then realize that SOB is in a cop car.

The wallkicker, despite the other excitable two, however, ambled ever so slowly down the hill across the yard, across the road, and down into the driveway of the neighbor's house, like he was just going to go home.

I get on a robe, flip on the porch light, and go outside. I walk down the driveway to talk to the officer. He said that one of the horses was bleeding and that it was probably foaling. Then he said that he thought they were wild horses. I told him I thought they were the neighbors's horses that had gotten out and that he should go knock on their door. He'd called the brand inspector to try to identify them. He was a young cop and very excited. I'm sure in this neck of the boonies that three, not just one, horses getting out was a big deal to him. The blood on the road made me think that the horse probably got hit on our rather blind curve.

Finally, the brand inspector arrived, by which time, I had gone back inside because I was just too damned cold. I watched from the bedroom as they finally woke the neighbors and the neighbors rushed out with ropes and rounded up the horses. I fell asleep after that and was woken up at about 4 by the neighbors banging on the paddock gates.

I went out in the morning and talked with the neighbor because the horse had put a hole in the siding. I let him know I had to call the owner about it and asked after the horses. The wallstomper had been hit by a car and his butt was split open. The poor gelding wasn't foaling. (A gelding is a castrated boy horse.)

In the afternoon, the kids and I walked down to check in on the wallstomper and offer him an apple. He slowly made his way over to the fence to say hello, but didn't eat the apple. (I'm sure there must be a Garden of Eden analogy in there.) I scritched his head and thought, as only a mother can, that he seemed fevered to me. His legs were pretty banged up. I hope he nailed their speeding car pretty well.

The whole thing gives the phrase, "A horse's ass" a whole new context.