Field I
The horses stand in the field. We are hill terrain. We are black and yellow clumps of exposed earth, pounded stone, the ground ragged like something once fell here and petrified. The horses nose the grass. They eat all day, widen, and the hammering continues from the house: windows are boarded up, the people there laughing at one another's smashed fingers, toolboxes shoved into and out of truck beds. The horses nudge against the barbed wire fence, throw their heads. They creep over the ground. We are rocks pitted against nitrogen and lime, nettles and dandelions, forages of early ryegrass, dried out clover, fescue, a mixture of yellow greens and darks, insects all within. The white horse watches a car drive by, kicking up dust. Another car drives by and this one slows down. A woman gets out with a younger girl. She carries the girl to the fence and holds her up to the horse. The girl reaches out her hand and touches the horse's nose. She will one day be afraid of horses: their teeth like granite stones, the idea they could bite her if she puts her hand there, she will always have the same small hand and anything could take it away, and that frightens her more than anything. Later it is dark and windy, and the people have not called the horses up, so they clump together at the corner of the field to watch cars go by; the cars kick up dust and the dust cakes against the hedge bushes and Virginia creepers and cogon grass like paint. The horses are waiting for something.

Field II
The tallest pines near the central dip of field split in two. An oak gathers wind in its leaves, thrums, tears clean from the earth roots and all. It rolls away like a tumbleweed. The barbed wire fence sails like magic across the black and yellow sky, wraps around light lines, cattle, road signs. The horses watch as a panel of wall pulls away from the barn. Wind whips their hair. Debris gets into their big horse eyes. Harnesses rock against the barn walls. They pace back and forth. The wind rips a new hole in the barn like a tuna can. Some of the horses flee through it. The smell of soap, of gray. They run through the field, eyes closed against sheets of rain. They shake their heads against the rain. The white horse rears up to kick aside the stall gate, comes down irregularly, gets its front right hoof stuck in a panel of wood, flops over, twisting itself. It listens to the wind. There are nights when the white horse dreams of running in a field full of horses. And suddenly they are engulfed in millions of egrets, so many that they can no longer run. The horses don't want to run the birds down; in its dream, the birds have stretched their wings to dry themselves; in its dreams, the grass beneath their hooves and talons holds all the water left from a good rain long ago.

Field III
The ranchers come and survey the damage on a four-by-four. Corner posts stand alone in rain-blackened concrete. They whack the ground with sticks. I haven't seen anything like this since Camille, they say. A bull is wrapped in barbed wire from neck to stomach. One of the ranch hands, slender and skin dry as sandpaper, sits on the ground next to the bull holding a stiff strand of wire in his hands. He covers his face with his hat; he's squalling like he hasn't in a long time. The others watch in silence; they've seen men cry before. The horses stand on a hill. They cannot be alive; they are ghosts. The white horse is still in barn. It made it through the night, twisted ankle and all. It had a dream about this once: of standing on hard ground supporting all its weight on what were once legs but were now thistles; one of its legs snapped, the bones inside hollow and dry and black. Then the egrets returned: they landed on the stone in front of him and hopped around, their talons scratching the gray rock. They pecked at his thistly legs, poked holes in him until he broke to pieces. He's afraid to stay down now. Outside, the ranch hand raves over his bull. The others have taken their hats off too, but they're shaking their heads. Maybe there is some embarrassment—they've never seen another man go on like this—but mostly they don't know what else to do with themselves. There's so much to pick up, so many fences to rebuild, cow and horse bodies to shove into holes and burn, surviving animals to get back to the barn—but there is also the barn that needs rebuilding. The white horse looks up around him at the sky through the hole in his barn and he lets himself settle down in the door where the others can see him, where they can know he's still alive. His ear flicks; the flutter of wings, an egret landing in the rafters.