By mid afternoon the temperature in the riverbed had reached one hundred ten degrees, and the colt’s only defense from the stifling heat was to instinctively try to make as small a shadow as possible. Every thirty minutes or so, almost without even knowing he was doing it, he would pivot his body slightly so the sun was always on his tail. This kept his head, which by now was nearly down between his knees, in the shadow of his own body and allowed the sun to heat the least amount of surface area along his back, instead of the area on his side.

In between pivoting, he would lock the stifle joints in both rear legs, which allowed him to remain standing as he fell into an almost trancelike sleep. In the weakened state he was in, had he lain down there was a very good chance he would have never gotten up again. So there he stood, hour after hour in the scorching sun, pivoting every thirty minutes. By the time darkness fell, the colt was facing the opposite direction from where he started that morning, even though his front feet had barely moved at all. He didn’t move from that position through the night.

As morning eased its way into the valley, the colt began to dream of his days as a foal, sleeping in the spring grass, playing with the other foals, rearing, bucking, spinning, and racing as fast as his feet could carry him over logs, around boulders and splashing through creeks with cool, fresh water in them. He raced around in the trees, then out into the meadow, then back across the creek and over to the other foals for more rearing and bucking.

In his dream the air was cool and he could hear thunder off in the distance. Long, rolling thunder that echoed through the meadow. It started quietly, came to a loud crescendo, and then quieted again. The meadow would go silent for a second or two, then the thunder would come, almost nonstop, for what seemed like a long time before coming to another loud crescendo. The colt could smell rain, the kind that almost always accompanied thunder like this, and could see flashes of lightning in the distance. In his dream the colt ran headlong across the meadow, jumped a log, then splashed into a creek where he stood for a long time. The water in the creek was shallow, barely making it over the top of his hooves, but it felt cool on his feet and, thirsty from all the running he’d done, he reached down to get a drink.

There suddenly came a tremendous roll of thunder and a massive flash of lightning so bright it woke the colt from his sleep. Startled, the colt quickly jerked his head up and opened his eyes to see the early morning sky dark with real storm clouds. In the distance there was lightning and thunder, but no rain…at least there wasn’t any rain where he was. There was, however, rain somewhere, as he could not only smell it in the air, but he was now standing in a widening, one-inch-deep stream of water running in the riverbed. He pawed the water tentatively to see if it were real, and then pawed it again more vigorously once he realized it was, splashing the cold wet stuff on his legs and belly and up over his head and back. A dark gray wall of water soon poured out of the sky and headed toward him from up the valley. With his body still aching and in pain, the colt turned his tail to the mild wind the leading edge of the storm was producing, and as large raindrops started pelting him on his back, he eagerly dropped his head and took his first long drink in over three days.