Braiding Sweetgrass

I remember a night when my five-year-old woke afraid of the
thunder. It was only as I held her and came fully awake that I
thought to ask why there was thunder in January. Instead of stars,
the light outside her window was wobbly orange and the air vibrated
with the pulsing of fire.
I dashed to get the baby from her crib and led us all outside
wrapped in blankets. It was not the house on fire, but the sky.
Waves of heat came billowing across the winter-bare fields, like a
desert wind. The darkness was burned away in a massive blaze
that filled the horizon. My thoughts raced: a plane crash? nuclear
blast? I bundled the girls into the pickup and ran back in for the
keys. Thinking only to get them away, to go to the river, to run. I
spoke as calmly as I could, in measured tones as if fleeing an
inferno in our pajamas was no cause for panic. “Mama? Are you
afraid?” asked the small voice at my elbow as I tore down the road.
“No, honey. Everything is going to be okay.” She was nobody’s fool.
“Then Mama? Why are you talking so quietly?”
We drove safely to our friends’ house ten miles away, knocking
on their door for refuge in the middle of the night. The flare was
dimmer from their back porch, but still flickering eerily. We put the
children to bed with cocoa, poured ourselves a whiskey, and flipped
on the news. A natural-gas pipeline had exploded less than a mile
from our farm. Evacuations were underway and crews were on the
scene.
A few days later, when it was safe, we drove to the site. The hay
fields were a crater. Two horse barns were incinerated. The road
had melted away and in its absence there was a track of sharp
cinders.