An arc of lightening crossed the Kansas sky and struck a radio tower off to the south, making it appear to glow from within.  Even with the little engine screaming at 5000 rpms, he could feel the vibration of the clap of thunder on the foot pegs. They say that a bolt of lightening can be as hot as the sun.  That’s too hot.  He knew it was time to get off the motorcycle and off the road.

The man was heading west towards the gathering weather.  Dodge City, Kansas lay just ahead.  In his mind he conjured up vivid images of Wyatt Earp, Marshal Matt Dillon, dusty cows, and the old Chisholm trail.  Maybe he would explore a little once the storm passed, he thought.  Maybe he’d find the Longbranch Saloon and order up a sarsaparilla. Maybe a whisky (leave the bottle…)  Maybe. 

It was late afternoon.  He had already put a solid 400 miles on the little Honda 350 that day, and he was hoping for more.  He had a long way still to go, but he realized by the angry look of the black clouds ahead that this day was probably over.  That would depend on this storm, he thought.  But for now it was time to get off the road and seek shelter.

As the wind picked up, he pulled into a campground along the river south of Dodge City.  Herds of cattle had probably wallowed there for decades in the past - “freshening up” before the last leg into town.  But these days there was a small sandy beach, a playground, a changing house, a lifeguard tower and, down the river beyond the parking lot, about a dozen "rustic" camp sites for campers and travelers.  At the moment the sites along the upper level were all taken by mobile homes but a few spots along the shore remained unclaimed. 

The man pulled his bike into one of the vacant sites, one that was as isolated and as far from the mobile homes as possible.  He had considered pitching his tent right along the river but thought better of that and decided to put some real estate between him and the river.  He selected a site across the road from the river that had a large sturdy white fence lined with bushes running along the back, separating it from the site behind.  From the looks of this storm, thought the man, it’ll be nice to be able to back the tent into the fence and bushes, placing them between the tent and the storm.  It may block some of the hail that’s bound to come and it will provide a study place to anchor the back cable of the tent. 

The wind began to gust and swirl and lightening and thunder exploded in all directions.  The man quickly set up his small nylon tent, tied the back cable to the fence, loaded his gear into the tent, secured the bike on a hard, level patch and then dove in just as the rain began to fall.

It was a dark, vicious storm, the type of mid-plains summer storm that can kill if allowed to.  But he wouldn’t allow it.  He had assured himself that there were no large “widow-maker” branches within falling range, and had glanced at the river to make sure that it wasn’t rising before diving into the tent.  The river appeared to be stable. The low-slung little tent, hunkered down in the bushes and tied to the fence cut the storm like the bow of a ship.  The man was cozy and dry within. He passed the time nervously reading a book while checking the floor and the seams for any signs of water or damage.  There were none.  The storm raged for much longer than the man expected but eventually it ran its course, the wind died down, the lightening ceased and finally the rain stopped falling.

The man loved big storms and was almost disappointed when the worst of it had passed.  He peeked out of the tent and was treated to daring shafts of low yellow sunlight knifing between huge anvil-headed storm clouds that plied the horizon in every direction like cumulous battle ships.  He rolled out of the tent and surveyed the damage.

Branches and leaves were scattered everywhere, a trash can was overturned and one car up near the mobile homes had apparently suffered a broken window.  But his tent and bike had survived the storm, and with the sun now less than an hour from setting, the man decided to lay over and spend the night.  The weather was supposed to be cooler behind these storms - good traveling weather.  He’d be up before dawn and on his way to Santa Fe.

Tomorrow would be a high-miler day for sure.

As the man was warming a small pot of instant rice and vegetables on the one-burner, he heard the gunning sound of two large and loud Kawasaki 900’s down near the park entrance.  On the bikes, two men dressed in wet black leather, scowled as they moved slowly down the lane.  The bikers circled the campground twice before pulling into the site directly next to the man.  Biker solidarity he assumed.  They pulled their large black motorcycles to a stop, shut off the engines and slowly rose from the bikes.  They had apparently ridden through the storm because they were wet and exhausted.  They looked over to the man and nodded, the man nodded back.  The two men walked down to the river to stretch their bones and the man continued to blow on his dinner to cool it. 

When they returned from the river, the bikers quickly set up a tent and got out of their wet gear.  A bottle of liquor appeared and the men began drinking lustily.  Soon they appeared at the man’s campsite and over a bottle of Jack Daniels the three travelers shared their stories.  The two bikers were Mike and Larry from Cincinnati.  They were deadheading their way to Las Vegas, to meet up with some buddies and hoped to make the trip in two days.  They had been pretty much stoned and drunk since they left Ohio and had no intention of letting up now.  After a couple of neighborly shots, the man told the bikers that he was planning to get up early and be out before the sun rose and that it was time for him to sack out.  They said their good-byes and wished each other well.  The man retired to his tent while Mike and Larry stumbled back to theirs and proceeded to get rip-roaring drunk.     

•     •      •

Just as the man was beginning to fall asleep, a car pulled into the campground and parked with its engine running and its headlights shining into the two campsites.  A car door opened and closed and the crunch of boots on gravel approached the tent.

“Hello the tents!”, shouted a voice that sounded military and authoritative.  It was a man from the Civil Service. 

“There’s a very dangerous storm coming this way,” he warned us, “you’re advised to take more substantial cover.  This river is prone to flooding.” 

The man considered his options.  It was dark and another storm was coming.  Trying to pack the bike in the dark with a storm on the way would be difficult at best.  He might become stranded at worst.  His tent was secured to the fence and snuggled down in the bushes.  He had just weathered one severe storm and had no doubts that he could weather another. 

“Thanks,” he said, “but I’m good.  I’ll stay.”

“I would advise against that,” the officer reasoned, “this is a very dangerous storm, it may contain large hail and damaging winds.  It could contain tornadoes.”  The man had been OK up until the mention of the word “tornadoes”.  This forced him to briefly reconsider, but seeing no clear alternative, he decided to stay put.  Mike and Larry were by this time so drunk that it would be senseless for them to try to go anywhere.

“Thanks for you concern,” the man replied, “but I’ll be OK.  Really.  I’ll keep an eye on the river.” 

The man from the Civil Service looked to Mike and Larry.  They grinned and offered him a drink.  “Suit yourself” said the man as he shook his head, got back into his car and drove away.

•      •      •

The Civil Service man was right of course.  The men should have sought higher ground.  As the car drove away they could hear the low thunder of the approaching storm.  This time however, by some trick of counterclockwise circulation, the second storm approached from the exact opposite direction as the first, and now rather than backing into the storm with a stout fence and fat bush between, the weather was now heading directly towards the flimsy and exposed front of the tent with nothing to buffer or block the wind.  The cord that had so heroically anchored the back of the tent to the fence in the first storm now served no purpose - other than preventing the fence from blowing away.

Whereas the first storm had built up slowly, giving the man time to prepare, the second storm struck suddenly.  The wind blew in fierce clusters and the rain drove down upon the tent with such force that the man could feel the faint spray of fractured raindrops being squeezed through the fabric as they hit.  Huge branches were ripped from trees and crashed to the ground.  Hail the size of jawbreakers bounced off the tent and rolled on the ground like frozen marbles.  At one point, a bolt of lightening struck something less than a quarter mile away, releasing an immediate and deafening crack of thunder that shook the ground.  The resulting crash sounded to the man like the sound of metal beams being wrenched under water.

Whatever that sounds like…

As the storm continued to blow through the flimsy front flap of the tent, the man decided to get out of his sleeping bag, put on his boots and rain coat and pack his gear just in case he needed to move quickly.  You never know, he thought to himself, better to be prepared.  Having packed his gear and stacked it in the middle of the tent, the man leaned against the front tent pole, offering it support against the wind.

At regular intervals, he took inventory of the tent.  He ran his finger lightly along the seams to make sure that they weren’t torn or leaking.  He felt along the bottom to make sure that water wasn’t coming in.  And he tugged on the corners to make sure that the stakes still held.  Everything seemed to be in order. 

Rain was coming down in sheets and flowing, everywhere, downhill towards the river.  The wind, in turn, blew the river uphill, towards the tents.  The tent shuddered and flapped in the wind.  The man, wearing raincoat, boots and underwear, leaned into the front of the tent offering it support lest it collapse, hollering encouragement to his possessions stacked carefully in the middle of the tent.  “It’s OK,” he shouted to his backpack, “we’ll make it.  We’ve been through worse.”

But it wasn’t OK, and the man realized this when he felt the floor of the tent.  As he ran his hand along the floor, it seemed to yield like a slack water balloon. It felt like two or three inches of rain had suddenly materialized in the tent, but when he pointed his flashlight at the floor, the floor was dry.  It took the man only a moment to realize what was going on:  There wasn’t two or three inches of water inside the tent, the water was OUTSIDE the tent, the river was rising.  The tent was floating!

The man’s decision was immediate.

“Abandon ship!”  he shouted.

Grabbing his backpack and sleeping bag, he bolted from the tent and ran through ankle-deep water for the only security there seemed to be – the tiny changing house uphill from the beach.  The man crossed the parking lot and entered the hut.  He tossed his gear upon a wooden bench and then ran back to the tent to retrieve his motorcycle helmet, some pads and miscellaneous gear.  By the time he reached the tent it was in about 6” of water and rising fast.  After running his remaining equipment to the hut, he made a third trip for the motorcycle.  The water continued to rise and now submerged the bike to its axels.  But it was an off-road bike and the ground was firm.  He started the bike and quickly rode it out of the water to the highest ground he could find and parked it in a protected place amongst the mobile homes.  He then ran down the hill to retrieve his tent only to find it hopelessly mired in mud and river current.  The water was now two feet deep and rising rapidly. It would be impossible to remove now.   He elected to abandon the tent and retreat to the safety of the changing hut to check on his gear.  

Upon reaching the hut, the man found that it too was partially flooded with about 3” of muddy water covering the floor.  Because it was only a changing hut, it was open at the bottom and the river water passed easily into and out of the building.  The man suspended his equipment from the rafters and stretched out as best he could on the narrow bench to take stock of the situation.  His bike was safe, his equipment was wet but securely stowed, at least for now in the rafters, and he was safe.  Chances were that he would lose the tent, he thought, but if that was the worst to come out of all of this then, all things considered, it was a deal he was willing to make.

Suddenly the door of the changing hut kicked open and in stumbled Larry and Mike, sopping wet and carrying what few possessions they could carry.  In the excitement, he’d forgotten all about them.  They had been nearly passed out drunk when the river rose and were caught completely off guard by the water.  They had essentially swam from their tent and run for shelter.

When they’d taken stock and realized that they stood to loose everything, including their bikes, the man followed Larry and Mike back out into the storm to their camp site to salvage whatever they could.  Larry and Mike tried to wrestle their bikes to higher ground but by this point they were buried waist-deep in mud and water.  Larry was able to get his started and managed to drive it part way up the hill before it stalled out.  Mike’s heavy bike fell over and was lost in the mud.  Meanwhile the man grabbed articles of clothing, sopping sleeping bags and anything else that he could find swirling in the tent and hustled it back to the shed.  Soon after, Mike and Larry followed. 

And then, until dawn, the three men huddled on the wooden benches, alternately talking and trying to catch a little sleep, listening to the gurgling river and the raging storm outside.  The man had been keeping a journal of his trip and sat on the bench jotting down notes about this latest adventure.  Mike looked up from his bench and asked what he was writing.  The man read him a paragraph about the storm. 

“Are you going to write about us too?”, he asked, incredulous that the man would even think of such a thing.

“You bet,” said the man, “this would have been a pretty lonesome party without you two cowboys.”

“Wow,” Mike said, “make sure you mention that we’re riding Kawasaki 900’s!”  

“Duly noted,” the man smiled and wrote it down in his notebook.

•     •      •

It was a long, long night, but morning finally arrived, and with it came bright sunlight and crystalline blue skies.  The river had receded significantly once the storm passed and a slimy, thick layer of Kansas mud coated everything.   The man pulled his gear from the rafters and carried it to the top of the hill and spread it out in the sun next to the Honda to dry.  Although his tent appeared to have disappeared, it soon turned up about a quarter mile downstream, caked in mud and wrapped in the low branches of a tree.  The tent poles and stakes were gone but the fabric of the tent was intact.  The man hosed out the tent and laid it in the sun to dry.  By 10:00 a.m., it too was dry enough to pack.

Larry and Mike were another story.  Their tent and the bulk of their gear was completely gone.  One bike was running but the other sustained considerable damage and would require serious work to get it back on the road.  They had managed to salvage one wallet, less than $100 in cash and a credit card or two.  They had wired home for help, but wouldn’t be making Las Vegas in two days.

The man helped Mike and Larry rinse out their remaining gear as best he could, but there was really little he could do.  Eventually he packed up his bike and hit the road.  On the way out of town he stopped at a camping supply store for tent poles and stakes, but other than that he was no worse for wear.  He decided to save the Longbranch Saloon for another trip.

He was lucky to be alive.  He had weathered the two storms unscathed.  The bike was humming smoothly, his gear was intact, and he was once again heading west.  Somewhere up ahead the mountains loomed.  The morning sun was warm upon his back and he had a crystal clear day and nothing but open road from here to Santa Fe.  Things could be much, much worse.

And then for years afterward, whenever the man thought back upon his trip, the one single, comical, image that summed up that evening more than any other was of a wet and bedraggled Larry, with a soaking wet sleeping bag draped over his shoulders, ankle deep in muddy water sneering in mock disgust:

“I guess this is what you call ‘get the hell out’a Dodge!’”