We were standing outside Mrs. Jones’s house just visiting when we heard the throaty sound of a big V8 engine roaring away down the rural street.  We heard the loud echoes of the horses in the barn stamping and whinneying.  We looked that way and saw smoke billowing out of the front door of the horse barn.  Dad looked at me and my young brother, Joey.  “You boys stay here!  And call 9-1-1.”  He ran toward the barn.

I looked at Mrs. Jones who already had her phone out.  She was old, but she was canny.  She grabbed Joey with her free arm as she dialed with one hand.  I rushed after my dad.  I might have only been sixteen, but firefighting was in my blood.

Dad had already gone into the barn.  The smell of burning hay and the intense heat were almost too much for me when I reached the door.  But I followed Dad in.  I raised my arm instinctively to ward off as much heat as I could.  Dad was opening stalls and trying to get the horses to go out.  I grabbed the mane of the first horse I saw and did what I could to lead him toward the door.  When he saw the yard outside, he ran to safety.

I turned to go deeper into the barn again, but the heat was too much.  I yelled into the inferno, “Dad!”  Five horses came racing toward me, but Dad was nowhere in sight.  I did the best I could to get out of the way of the horses, but they bumped and buffeted me toward and out the door.  I looked back in and saw the flames seemingly engulfing everything.  And then I saw Dad.  He was in a zone where there were few flames.  He was coming toward me.  He was going to make it.

  And then, the ceiling collapsed.

***

Sheriff Noble came up to our family at the funeral.  He took me by the shoulder and led me away from Mom and Joey.  “Listen Jackie…”  He held me at arm’s length and looked at me.  “I suppose I should call you Jack now.  You’ve grown up to be quite the young man.”  He dropped his hands and held his hat in them.

He shifted his feet, and fiddled with his hat.  ”I’ve already talked to your mother.  But now that you’re the man of the house, you ought to know.  We’re sure the Jones’s barn fire was arson.  There was some accelerant along with the hay.  Which means that your dad was murdered.”

I just stood there clenching and unclenching my fists.  I knew who did it.  The whole town knew.  There had been several arsons in the past few years in our small town.  And the main suspects were the self-styled mafia wannabes, Hannibal and Loki.  But there was never enough hard evidence.  The only thing the sheriff had to go on was the throaty sound of Hannibal’s classic muscle car.  People heard it at every arson site.  But Hannibal and Loki always had alibis.

I was not looking in the sheriff’s eyes and saw him rotating his hat that was in his hands.  I knew he wanted to say more.  “Listen, I’m going to do my job.  We’ll get the evidence we need to prosecute the filth that killed your dad.  In the meantime, you need to remember your dad and do everything you can to uphold the values he taught you.  And you need to do the thing you love. He always thought your video work was amazing.  He kidded that the first video you posted was his ticket to stardom.  Who woulda thought that a fireman could train a mare to count and do other tricks?”

I laughed.  I looked up at the sheriff.  “Yeah.  But I told him he was already a star.  All the girls at school want to know is whether I have amazing abs like my dad.  They show me that picture of his in the fireman’s calendar and ask if I can get him to sign it.”  I stopped smiling.  “I guess they won’t ask that anymore.”

We were silent for a moment before Sheriff Noble spoke again.  “Listen.  You keep your chin up.  You keep training that old mare.  Keep making those videos.  You’re the star now instead of your dad.  The guys at the firehouse and the guys at the sheriff’s office will keep watching.  And who knows?”

I smiled.  “Thanks, Sheriff Noble.”

***

Two years later, I was still using horse training and video making as grief therapy.  I had even been livestreaming with Joey’s help.  He was the ultimate producer and technician even though he just turned thirteen.

   In fact, I wondered where Joey was. He was always there to help me set up for the livestream in the barn. I figured he was just late, so I set up the main camera and got the mobile equipment ready.  I led Lucy out of her stable and into the middle of the barn where we did our filming.  We had already filmed the whole training process, and were ready to show our audience the final result.  Lucy was going to give a regal bow fit for a king.
   For some reason Lucy went wild all of a sudden. She was stamping and snorting like when we had big thunderstorms and such.  She was always the first to know when a storm was coming.  But it did not seem like there was any storm on the way.  It was a calm, clear night.  So I kept setting things up. And Lucy calmed down a bit.

   That was when I heard the distinctive roar of an old muscle car pull up outside the barn.  Hannibal and Loki swaggered in. 
   “Yo, Jackie.  You streamin’ already?  I thought you didn’t go on until 6?”
   I tried to be nonchalant.  “Yep.  Another ten minutes.”
   Loki spoke and pointed at the camera on the tripod.  “You sure that thing ain’t on?”
   “I’m sure.”  I turned to see Lucy near my computer that acted as our switcher and control station.  She was out of place there, but I figured she was missing Joey. He was not in his spot ready to produce the broadcast.  But I was glad he had not come out yet to get ready for the show.
   I turned to look back at my antagonists.
   Hannibal smiled.  “So you got our protection money?”
   I gritted my teeth before saying, “I told you that I’m not going to pay you anything.”
   Loki laughed with a huge grin.  “Let’s burn this place down.”
   Hannibal just looked at Loki.  “No.  We don’t just burn people out of house and home.  Or even just their barns.”  He looked at me.  “That is, if they pay.”
   “Are you saying you were responsible for the other barn burnings?  Doc Hastings and Mrs. Jones?”
   Loki nodded his head up and down.
   Hannibal just smiled.  “Loki’s just kidding.  After all, we have solid alibis.  We were together fishing those days. People saw our tents and everything.  Plus, we’re solid citizens and we can vouch for each other.”
   Loki did his best imitation of a bobble head.  I said, “But you’re threatening to burn down our barn and our house if we don’t pay you each month?”
   Loki nodded.
   Hannibal pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.  “Oh.  We wouldn’t do it.  We won’t even be around when it happens.  See, we’re fishing now.  We’re at our camp 10 miles out of town in the other direction.”  Hannibal smiled.  “But you know…  It seems you’ve been careless ever since you took up smoking.  Even though you have concrete floors, you’ve got hay all around.”  Hannibal took a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and shook out a cigarette for himself.  Loki had disappeared, but returned with a bunch of hay that he threw around on the floor.  Hannibal lit his cigarette, then handed the closed lighter to Loki.
   Loki did not have a cigarette, but he flipped the lighter open and spun the steel wheel.  Then, he watched the flame with wide eyes.  It seemed that nothing existed for him except the flame.
   Hannibal looked away from Loki back to me.  “One-Thousand dollars a month.  Cash.  I told you we’d be coming for it soon.  And soon has arrived.”
   “And so has the cavalry.”  It was Sheriff Noble.

***


Joey was in the house after Sheriff Noble left. I gave him my thoughts about what happened.
   “Apparently, the sheriff and a few of the deputies had been tuned in to the livestream before it was ready to air.  Sheriff Noble had said they usually tune in before we start livestreaming so they don’t miss anything.  Somehow, today the livestream had started around the time Hannibal and Loki showed up.  The sheriff and a few deputies rushed out to the farm and got there at the perfect time.  I think Loki would’ve burned the barn down around me.”
   “Well, I’m glad he didn’t.”  Joey smiled before continuing, “Or else he would have burned it down with me in it too.”
   “You?”  I was not amused.  “What were you doing in the barn?  And where were you?”
   I was about to ask another question when Joey held up his hand to tell me to stop. 
   Joey smiled.  “I was headed out to get ready for the livestream when I saw the car coming.  Actually, I heard the car.  I recognized that big V8, so I turned to see that it was way out on the road beyond the gate.  So I snuck into the barn and took the portable camera up to the loft.  I made sure Lucy saw me, but that you didn’t.  I turned off all the sounds on my phone and got it set up to remotely control the broadcast.  All I needed to do was have Lucy hit the spacebar on the keyboard to get everything rolling.  Then, I could control the broadcast remotely from the loft.”

My jaw dropped.
   Joey continued, “You’re not the only one who works with Lucy, you know.  I’ve been trying to get her to be able to hit the spacebar so I could film without you knowing.”  Joey’s face turned red.  “I’ve been thinking of doing some hidden camera stuff from up in the loft to film you and Lucy doing some of your early training.  Some of the stuff you don’t want to show people.  The stuff where it seems she’s training you.
   “Well, I finally got her to do it a couple weeks ago.  So tonight when it looked to you and your two guests like she was wandering around by the computer, she had already started the show.  It was great.  I switched cameras to the ones we have mounted on the beams for better shots, and arranged them on the screen to make sure I got their faces.  Of course we already have it wired for sound in there.  I got their voices like they were wired up.  I had my headset on and watched the meters on my little screen.  I just hoped and prayed that the sheriff’s department was watching as faithfully as ever.  And that they would send somebody out right away.  And they did.  The sheriff arrived just in the nick of time.”
   I blinked.  And then blinked again.  Could my barely teenaged brother really have saved the day?  With the help of Lucy?  Our mare?
   It had seemed like a corny story when I thought about it before.  And now that I knew the whole truth, it was even stranger and cornier.  It might not have been a miracle of biblical proportions, but it still seemed like a miracle to me.  Even more so when I found out that my horse knew the storm was coming, and that she and my younger brother were the ones who saved the day.