This story won 2^nd prize (a day at the local races) in a Yorkshire local writing contest in 2010.
It was not published.

The End of the Tempest.

A terrified whinny urged Carl out of dreams and into reality, and metal clashing metal in a howling gale finally woke him. He must enter that storm, whether or not the stallion scared him. Virginia, his siren owner, wasn’t home to calm him. And her farmer father would never stir in this weather. In any case, the boss was convinced Shaytan would let no man near him: Virginia blamed cruelty by his former owner. 

Beside him, Melina slept untroubled by tempest, untouched by the crashing iron panels that terrified the horse and that now would keep Carl awake. Her sweet warm breath caressed his cheek as he moved to quit shared sheets and she moaned a light, half-conscious protest at his leaving. He hoped his motive for action was the right one. Sensuous and sultry, Virginia had long been tempting. Rescuing her horse would raise him to hero, making her offers real enough to resist, or not.

Dragging denim shorts up bare legs and forcing feet into cool rubber, he prepared to face weather and beast. Shaytan: the sinister name had come with the horse. Too late to foist change on him now. Melina’s disclosure that, in certain cultures, the epithet was Arabic for Satan had intrigued Virginia. She wouldn’t dispute her horse was Arab, black and sometimes a devil and she accepted his name as a counterpoint to her own misnomer.

Carl clicked the outside light switch and found power denied by the storm. Practiced fingers found the rubber torch and curled it into his fist. Slipping the sneck, he opened the door with a whisper and fought to close it behind him in silence, to leave Melina sleeping. He entered the howling gale.

Shaytan shied again. The misty tunnel of Carl’s torch, lashed with silver slanting strands of torrential rain, gave little guidance as he crossed the drenched farmyard. A warm southerly wind drove the downpour against the skin of his back. Green leaves and living twigs torn from thrashing trees, lurched across gravel, mud and concrete underfoot. Wind-tossed puddles splashed him with brown and, already, he was wet as any swimmer.

Corrugated iron sheets, installed to shelter animals from rain, flapped above the stable yard, applauding the storm and encouraging the wind that brought them temporary life. Threatening escape, they would fly on the gale to slice life from any creature in their path.

Carl’s beam found Shaytan’s eyes, rolling white with terror as he crashed iron shoes against the five-bar metal gate, trying to escape the noise from above.

Approaching cautiously, Carl spoke soft words, sifting sympathy through the screaming squalls. The horse seemed to sense an ally, even through his panic, and stopped his battle with the gate. Carl touched the hard nose ridge with fingers steadied for confidence and care. Any show of fear would have the horse rear above him, crush him with shod feet of terror. He blew softly into warm, distended nostrils, showing the stallion he was friend. 

‘Come boy, come with me.’

No leather halter to lead the beast; only Carl’s hand on his sleek neck. He felt the solid muscle of his flank quiver as he guided the horse beneath the clank clank clank of iron sheets above. The farm hand led the stallion out of rain into a stall without a door but with a solid slated roof above and dry straw below.

‘Stay here, boy. I’ll stop the noise.’

Cast-iron weights, used in pairs to measure potatoes from the fields in their hundredweight sacks, lay where he’d last left them. He set two, each half the weight of his svelte Melina, atop the single brick wall bounding the small yard. Thunder rumbled disapproval of his intent. Lightening fleetingly fixed his shadow, muscles taut and smooth, against rough crumbling bricks and mortar.

A steel-framed feeding trough helped him gain the top of the wall. Rubber torch clenched between his teeth to shine his way, he gripped one weight in each hand and shuffled along his narrow highway to the roof. Wind lashed rain into his face and battered him, eager to dislodge him from the high bricks, determined to prevent his attempt to stop its liberation of lethal corrugated panels. 

The first weight held bent and beaten sheets together, where they overlapped across a joist; mass defeating wind. The clanking ceased. He placed the second weight only as insurance. Lighter now the weights were set, he returned. Vindictive wind swept him off the wall and dropped him onto dung and thin straw overlaying the cobbled floor. The torch fell and bounced, its beam shining into pitch black sky.

Shaytan clopped through the dark from his safe stall, muzzle soft and warm on Carl’s bare back.

He checked for broken bones, finding only tenderness. Morning would colour him with bruises. Carl groaned and winced, moving upright. Shaytan let him pat and stroke the hard bone of his nose before he backed into his shelter, snickering his thanks.

As he leapt the gate, a call battled through the pitch-black night. ‘Carl, where are you?’

The tight beam of his recovered torch shone through sheets of rain to light pale undefended skin and bright cascading hair. Melina sheltered just within their open doorway.

‘Coming.’

Her hands rose to shield her eyes from the shaft of light and he lowered it to guide him back. Black puddles merged into shallow lakes, shattered by his running boots.

Thunder grumbled round the farm; boomed and blasted against solid earth. Darkness split with lightning, slashed from sky to ground, fixing pale Melina on his eye in blue-white clarity.

He rushed to reach her, knowing that rumbling noise and searing bolts always disturbed her. But she remained; defenceless, bravely waiting.

As he made the sanctuary of their home, the sound of splintering, living wood rent the night nearby. The ground trembled with falling weight. 

He closed the door on drenching rain and howling wind. She stripped muddy boots and soaking denim from his wet body and towelled him, laughing as escaping drops surprised her warm dry skin. She required no explanation of his apparent madness. Dry, she urged him lie in warmth and love with her above the sultry covers of their bed until sleep eventually reclaimed them.

#

‘Carl!’

He lurched into wakefulness, listened to silence for a spell, struggled from the bed and pulled dry denim shorts up bruised legs, frowned at the soreness in his back. Morning brought blue clear sky, a gentle breeze and the cleansing light of unrestricted sunshine. 

Melina had her camera to her eye, picturing the scene for history and art. ‘Look what the storm’s done.’

He followed where her lens pointed at the dark and ugly shape, huddled at the far end of the farmhouse. The tempest had felled the ancient walnut tree, broken it and spread its ruined limbs over muddied yard and drive.

He cupped her shoulder with his palm, felt the soft warm curve of skin and drew her close. He circled her small waist with his free arm and kissed her slender neck, her gentle torso underneath her long, crushed curls of morning gold and stopped her going further for her pictures.

‘Wait until you’ve had breakfast.’

She slowly turned within the cocoon of his arms until she faced him, and her eyes looked into his. ‘I know it isn’t going anywhere, Carl. But the light’s just right now. Later it’ll be too full of contrast’

He kissed the tip of her small nose. ‘I wish I understood such things. My world’s all hard angles, mechanical devices, aching muscles from hard labour. Light’s just light to me.’

‘But you understand everything you do. And I love the way you do everything.’

The warm air of her speech breathed against his chest and he smiled at how she always said the right thing and meant it. 

‘Go on, then, Mrs Photographer. But don’t be long; I’m hungry.’

‘I’m not surprised after your mad act of courage for Shaytan last night.’

He shrugged, pleased she, at least, knew he’d calmed the horse and understood his real motive. He would tell no one else what he’d done, especially Virginia, in case she misconstrued his reason.

Melina took her camera across a yard strewn with debris, in search of scenes to illustrate a feature on wild weather. He watched her with pride and delight their years together bestowed.

Virginia emerged from the farmhouse, eyes dark from all-night partying. She prowled close and caressed the bruised skin of his back with exploratory fingertips. ‘You’re hurt. My hero.’

He faced her and let his face reflect puzzlement.

‘You can’t deny it. Daddy watched you through the window. Told me when I got in. Thank you, Carl. I’d very much like to reward you.’ Her eyes, lively with want, offered more than he now desired.

More, he realised, than he had ever wanted of the boss’s daughter, with all her promise. ‘Can I ride Shaytan sometime?’

‘I rather hoped you wanted to ride…’

His expression stopped her finishing the wish.

She shrugged her disappointment. ‘If you think he’ll let you.’

‘He will. Now.’

She looked across the yard to where Shaytan waited, passive by the gate. ‘Not what I had in mind, but…’

Carl gentled her questing hand from his skin and let it fall to her side. He smiled his understanding without regret. ‘It’s not you, Virginia. You’re exciting but you’re not Melina.’

He left her softly, without a backward glance, and crossed the debris to embrace his wife. He was hungry, and there was work to do, clearing up the fallen tree. But the storm had cleared the air and he now knew he could battle any tempest.

– Ends –