Double Rainbow
The moment came near Glenrock, Wyoming. A double rainbow touched down in a patch of golden light like a dying prospector's vision of Fortune pointing out the location of the Mother Load just before Death knocks the pick and shovel from his hands.
The nearer of the two rainbows was enveloped in a smoky haze as though being pulled smoking hot from a vat of bright, luminous, chromatic colors—the gaudy enamel on prayers answered and dreams fulfilled. The music, if you were scoring the scene, would be deep and sonorous, with much sawing on double bases and beating of kettle drums while the strident notes of a dramatic theme blared from the throats of massed horns.
No, that's not it. The rainbow wasn't smoking hot. It was cool, cool and fresh, emerging from a veil of mist through which fell slanting gray streaks of rain that washed away the soot and fly ash thrown up by the Dave Johnston Power Plant over which the rainbow incongruously arched. It emerged (to the opening bars of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor perhaps) from its cleansing rain shower looking as cool and clean and virginally fresh as Venus rising from the half-shell, her plaits of wind-blown hair dripping lustrous pearls while a Fairy Ring of Elves danced around the Pot of Gold at the rainbow's end. Yes, that's it!
The tall stack of the Dave Johnston Power Plant strobed out a warning to the pilots of low flying planes and daydreaming motorists on the Interstate. In broad daylight, the winking strobe light sparked like the breaker point of an unheard alarm bell signaling danger ahead. But my mind was elsewhere. I heeded it not.
In the back of my mind, I heard "Country" Joe McDonald singing, "Your love is like a rainbow, darling / Falling all around my shoulders," and I thought of a woman I love. I just had to smile. It was one of those rare, serendipitous moments of pure happiness.
Suddenly, my eyes were riveted on a large object lying in the middle of my lane of I-25. I swerved just in time to miss the carcass of a dead mule deer.
It was an Annie Prolux moment.