What happened next bypassed his senses and went straight into his nervous system. In other words, it was over very quickly; it was pure action, a wild concatenation of events. The storm broke suddenly with a spectacular lightning bolt that traced a zig-zag arc clear across the sky. It came so close that Rugendas's upturned face, frozen in an expression of idiotic stupor, was completely bathed in white light. He thought he could feel its sinister heat on his skin, and his pupils contracted to pin-points. The thunder crashing down impossibly enveloped him in millions of vibrations. The horse began to turn beneath him. It was still turning when a lightning bolt struck him on the head. Like a nickel statue, man and beast were lit up with electricity. For one horrific moment, regrettably to be repeated, Rugendas witnessed the spectacle of his body shining. The horse's mane was standing on end, like the dorsal fin of a swordfish. From that moment on, like all victims of personalized catastrophes, he saw himself as if from outside, wondering, Why did it have to happen to me? The sensation of having electrified blood was horrible but very brief. Evidently the charge flowed out as fast as it had flowed into his body. Even so, it cannot have been good for his health.
The horse had fallen to its knees. The rider was kicking it like a madman, raising his legs till they were almost vertical, then closing them with a scissor-like clicking action. The charge was flowing out of the animal too, igniting a kind of phosphorescent golden tray all around it, with undulating edges. As soon as the discharge was complete, in a matter of seconds, the horse got to its feet and tried to walk. The full battery of thunder exploded overhead. In a midnight darkness, broad and fine blazes interlocked. Balls of white fire the size of rooms rolled down the hillsides, the lightning bolts serving as cues in a game of meteoric billiards. The horse was turning. Completely numb, Rugendas tugged at the reins haphazardly, until they slipped from his hands. The plain had become immense, with everywhere and nowhere to run, and so busy with electrical activity it was hard to get one's bearings. With each lightning strike the ground vibrated like a bell. The horse began to walk with supernatural prudence, lifting its hooves high, prancing slowly.
The second bolt of lightning struck him less than fifteen seconds after the first. It was much more powerful and had a more devastating effect. Horse and rider were thrown about twenty meters, glowing and crackling like a cold bonfire. The fall was not fatal, no doubt because of exceptional alterations to atomic and molecular structure, which had the effect of cushioning their impact. They bounced. Not only that, the horse's magnetized coat held Rugendas in place as they flew through the air. But once on the ground the attraction diminished and the man found himself lying on the dry earth, looking up at the sky. The tangle of lightning in the clouds made and unmade nightmarish figures. Among them, for a fraction of a second, he thought he saw a horrible face. The Puppet! The sounds all around him were deafening: crash on crash, thunderclap on thunderclap. The circumstances were abnormal in the extreme. The horse was spinning around on its side like a crab, cells of fire exploding around it in thousands, forming a sort of full-body halo, which moved with the animal and did not seem to be affecting it. Did they cry out, the man and his horse? The shock had probably struck them dumb; in any case their cries would have been inaudible. The fallen horseman reached for the ground with his hands, trying to prop himself up. But there was too much static for him to touch anything. He was relieved to see the horse getting up. Instinctively he knew this was a good thing: better the solitude of a temporary separation than the risk of a third lightning strike.
The horse did indeed rise to its feet, bristling and monumental, obscuring half the mesh of lightning, his giraffelike legs contorted by wayward steps; he turned his head, hearing the call of madness… and took off…
But Rugendas went with him! He could not understand, nor did he want to — it was too monstrous. He could feel himself being pulled, stretching (the electricity had made him elastic), almost levitating, like a satellite in thrall to a dangerous star. The pace quickened, and off he went in tow, bouncing, bewildered…
What he did not realize was that his foot was caught in the stirrup, a classic riding accident, which still occurs now and then, even after so many repetitions. The generation of electricity ceased as suddenly as it had begun, which was a pity, because a well-aimed lightning bolt, stopping the creature in its flight, might have spared the painter no end of trouble. But the current withdrew into the clouds, the wind began to blow, rain fell…
It was never known how far the horse galloped, nor did it really matter. Whatever the distance, short or long, the disaster had occurred. It was not until the morning of the following day that Krause and the old guide discovered them. The horse had found his clover, and was grazing sleepily, with a bloody bundle trailing from one stirrup. After a whole night spent looking for his friend, poor Krause, at his wits' end, had more or less given him up for dead. Finding him was not entirely a relief: there he was, at last, but prone and motionless. They hurried on and, as they approached, saw him move yet remain face down, as if kissing the earth; the flicker of hope this aroused was quenched when they realized that he was not moving himself, but being dragged by the horses blithe little browsing steps. They dismounted, took his foot from the stirrup and turned him over… The horror struck them dumb. Rugendas's face was a swollen, bloody mass; the bone of his forehead was exposed and strips of skin hung over his eyes. The distinctive aquiline form of his Augsburg nose was unrecognizable, and his lips, split and spread apart, revealed his teeth, all miraculously intact.
The first thing was to see if he was breathing. He was. This gave an edge of urgency to what followed. They put him on the horse's back and set off. The guide, who had recovered his guiding skills, remembered some ranches nearby and pointed the way. They arrived halfway through the morning, bearing a gift that could not have been more disconcerting for the poor, isolated farmers who lived there. It was, at least, an opportunity to give Rugendas some simple treatment and take stock of the situation. They washed his face and tried to put it back together, manipulating the pieces with their fingertips; they applied witch hazel dressings to speed the healing and checked that there were no broken bones. His clothing was torn, but except for minor cuts and a few abrasions to his chest, elbow and knees, his body was intact; the major damage was limited to his head, as if it were the bearing he had rolled on. Was it the revenge of the Puppet? Who knows. The body is a strange thing, and when it is caught up in an accident involving non-human forces, there is no predicting the result.