“That antelope is acting a little weird,” Aria said, resting her arm on the open window frame. The car was covered with pink dust from the Badlands, but she’d wiped it off two days ago when the buffalo herd had galloped past. “Antsy. You think a storm’s coming?”
Jad barely moved his head from where he was answering a work text. “Sun’s out.”
“Not over there.” She studied the shades of yellow and brown grasses with roots touched with a hint of green, deep black Ponderosa pines scattered in clumps across the landscape.
A prairie dog unblinkingly studied her with shining eyes while steadily devouring a flower, shoving the plant inside its mouth before cheeping a warning and darting inside his burrow.
“Smells like honey wheat bread,” she murmured. “And those are definitely storm clouds.”
This time Jad put the phone on his lap and poked his head out his own window. “Bright blue sky, occasional puffy clouds.”
“And on this side,” Aria said, “a wall of dark, ominous, deepening grey almost touching the ground, quickly shading to black.”
“What?” Jad tossed his phone into the car’s console. “A prairie storm? For real?”
“And rapidly approaching.” Aria rolled up her window, wincing at the taste of recycled air. She hit the gas, looking for a place to pull off the road rather than their casual stop in the middle of the path. “No shelter.”
Rain started in hard, fat drops, bigger than she’d ever seen before, taking the summer heat with it. Jad hit the button for his own window as the auto-wipers kicked on.
Aria pulled off the main road just as thunder and lightning split the sky. Rain pounded down, quickly turning to hail with a steady tink. She turned the wipers off.
“Wow,” Jad said in a hushed tone. “Impressive. That lightning…”
“Gorgeous,” she agreed, then screamed as hail pounded the vehicle. It shuddered from the impact, sounding like thunder that didn’t stop. She cut herself off and gave her husband a shaky grin. “Really coming down.”
“What?” He was shouting, and she could barely hear him. Slushy hail slammed against the windshield, rattling the car like a snare drum, a dot of dark impact bursting into formless water rivulets before melting into an opaque grey slush. “This’ll leave a few dents.”
“I know we talked about moving here, but I don’t know if I can get used to this,” she shouted back. “Is this normal?”
The storm passed after about ten minutes, leaving her ears ringing from the silence and a rapidly melting dusting of snow and ice underneath the trees.
He let out a shaky laugh. “That was intense.”
“Just weather,” said a prairie dog from the backseat, dancing futilely on the window buttons without effect. “That was a wild one, eh? The burrow’s under renovation. Appreciate you letting me stick it out with you two.”
Jad’s eyes were wider than the Montana sky. “Did…did I get a concussion?”
The prairie dog stuffed a flower in his mouth. “Thanks for the lift, but if you wouldn’t mind getting the door, please? You’re both kinda twitchy about the weather. Maybe you shouldn’t move here after all.”
***
Thanks to Padre and a storm at Wind Cave National Park for the inspiration for this one! My prompt went to Becky, who’ll explore a cursed vintage…check it and more out over at MOTE!
