Standing on a high windy plain with my first boyfriend in North Dakota as a thunderstorm gathered on the horizon and the light got low, and sickly-green, and so charged with potential you nearly wanted to scream. Waiting for the release. We had been hiking for hours, watching as the day changed, as the sky got more ominous. There had been a massive wind, whipping the tall grass on its side, nearly carrying me away with it. We got some incredible pictures of the approaching storm (we had no business being up on the high plains watching forks of lightning jag their way towards us, but whatever, it was gorgeous) … but the pictures cannot convey the feeling in the air itself . The hairs on my arm rose up, to meet the electricity in the molecules.
There were no people out there but us. (For obvious reasons. We were idiots.) Just a huge sky, changing on a moment to moment basis, getting fuller and fuller, lower and lower, and GREEN – not black, not purple … but GREEN … the sound of the wind in the grass … the feeling that we were about to get caught out in something pretty enormous and spectacular.
And then, I’ll never forget it:
For a brief whooshing moment, everything went still. The wind stopped. As though a giant hand had turned off the wind machine. Hush. A sudden alarming hush fell over the land. My boyfriend and I both stopped, feeling the change. We paused … holding our breath …
We were having the time of our lives. We were watching the storm unfold as though it was the best movie we had ever seen. We kept looking at each other, wordlessly, like: hoooly shiiiiit …
Silence covered the plains (this was the real calm before the storm, turns out – when everything came to a sudden sharp stop … took a breath … and then the heavens opened up) … and in that silence, we heard a sound. Something that, to be honest, I’ve only heard in movies.
The thundering sound of horses hooves … galloping horses … the galloping sound of MANY horses …
It has got to be one of the most exciting sounds I’ve ever heard in my life. Even though I’ve only heard that sound in movies, when it came to my ears, there was a rush of familiarity, and love, and knowing: Yes. That is that sound. I know that sound. Something in my DNA knows that sound intimately. It was thrilling.
We were on the edge of a large dip in the land, a bit off the trail, and the sound came from far below. We walked over to the edge, in the middle of the eerie stillness, all the grass suddenly straight, still, motionless, and looked out over the dip in the land. And there we saw them – we had only heard about them and heard that it was rare to get a glimpse of them – but there they were – a herd of wild horses, racing along the bottom of the plain in a massive herd. There were about 20 of them, galloping like mad things, freaking out because of the storm … their manes and tails flying, their hooves churning up the dirt … neighing and whinnying in alarm, bucking and kicking and running …
I have never seen anything so beautiful, so moving, so unbelievable in my life.
They were fierce, savage, a bit scary, almost mythical. I’ve seen wild horses like that in my dreams. My fantasies.
We got no pictures, obviously. We couldn’t have captured it. We didn’t need to capture it.
I love horses anyway, but … to see wild horses … and not to see them grazing on a hill … but to see them AS wild, to see them running … Oh my God. Like Marlowe said: “the wondrous architecture of the world…”
Boyfriend said to me after we gaped at their frenzy far down the plain for a while, “We should get the hell back to the van. They know something we don’t.”
And we RAN off the plains, as quickly as we could, as the wind started picking up again, alarmingly, this time cold – a whoosh of cold … and we made it back to the van before all FECKIN’ HELL BROKE LOOSE. Massive thunder and lightning and wind storm on the high plains.
But I am glad we took the risk. To see those horses. Those spectacular wild horses.
I had a similar time, biking on the prairie when I was in high school in North Dakota. There is nothing in the world like a storm out there.
As to the horses; in many places on the plains, they are getting so numerous, they’re becoming a serious nuisance. There are a number of wild orse rescue charities that should be dealing with this soon, by paying for capture and relocation; I’ll see what I can dig up.
That’s what it sounds like, Mitch … at least from that one wee article, that there are organizations out there trying to find places for these amazing beasts.
I keep forgetting, by the way, that you’re from North Dakota. I think I told you, right, that of all the states I’ve seen – I loved the landscape there the best? At the risk of sounding like a goofball, I had a transcendent experience in North Dakota.
Nothing goofy about it. I know the feeling. As badly as I needed to get out of there when I was 22, I still love the land and the sky.
I always loved Lileks’ description (he’s from Fargo):
http://www.lileks.com/bleats/archive/02/1102/110203.html#112202
“As for scenery, it takes an unimaginative mind not to see the glory of the prairie – after youve seen the Panavision sky change nine times in the course of a day, mountains look so obvious, so tired. Imagine a mountain range that reshapes itself hourly, and you have the cloud banks of the North Dakota prairie. And this sight is available to all, unimpeded by any signs of civilization, five minutes from the Barnes and Noble. You can put down your Starbucks, drive west, stop, and behold a magnificent void that humbles your heart more than any city skyline or coastal view. Its not for everyone; it has its chilling existential implications, but dont say they dont have scenery. When you hit the Great Plains, the sky is your IMAX, and its open 24/7.”
I’m hoping to spend some time trail-riding in Roosevelt Park, in the Badlands, this coming summer. Assuming I remember how to ride a horse.
I need to send you a copy of that book I mentioned last time the topic came up. “Dakota: A Spiritual Geography”. You’d get it.
One of these days when cash and motivation intersect…
It definitely is “not for everyone”. And “chillingly existential implications” is pretty much right on.
There was something BLANK about the whole thing – a vast blank expanse – and somehow, if this makes sense, because of its blankness, I had this tremendously full response to the landscape. It didn’t demand anything from me, like the Tetons did, or the Grand Canyon. No big “ooh- ahh” response. It just was THERE, blank, flat, hard to take in in one glimpse.
I found that exhilarating.
Storms are just primal experiences. Some more so than others. Rain storm in Phoenix, eh. Thunderstorm at 12,000 feet above sea level in the Colorado Rockies is something else. You are standing in the storm and you feel the thunder clap on all over your exposed skin. Exhilarating is the word.
Would someone PLEASE publish this woman?!!