HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - Atha Williams concedes she broke all the rules in the book about owning her first horse.
Sometimes, however, life calls for going with your heart. And that left Atha with the heaviest of hearts Saturday and Sunday as she coped with the pain of losing Trigger, her first horse and soul mate despite a rough start, and 11 other horses that died in a barn fire.
She and her husband, Carroll Williams, also lost 13 cats, a dog, and six vehicles, one of which was a regular in the Huntsville Christmas Parade, as well as antiques, collectibles and one of the most magnificent barns you'll ever see.
Listening to Atha recall the past 12 years at Cheval Farm, a horse breeding facility on Green Mountain, it's clear she loved all her animals and aches over losing each one. She laughs recalling how Portia, a dog she rescued in 2013, would slide on her back down the steep slope of their back yard. Then laugh more describing Fang Fang, a 30-pound cross-eyed cat, and Polly, a 5-pound kitty with the heart of a 100-pound mountain lion that preferred a live kill over any store bought food.
But Atha can describe nearly every detail of how she came to own Trigger, even though it was a painful topic Sunday that took her back to 2001.
"It was like I could look into his eyes and see my own soul," she said of her special bond with Trigger.
Atha had wanted a horse since she was a child, but didn't get her first chance until reaching her late 30s. On the way home through Marshall County looking for lake property, she spotted a horse in a pasture near Arab and insisted Carroll stop, turn around and find out who owns the pasture. While Carroll entered a nearby feed store to inquire about the pasture, Atha hopped a fence, sneaked around a stable and suddenly found a small herd coming toward her.
"This one horse, he would walk up to me and drop his head. And when the other horses would come close, he would charge at them to scare them away and then come back to me," Atha said.
Carroll found the owner's phone number, but when Atha called, the owner said the horse was for his grandkids and not for sale. A week later, however, he changed his mind and she found herself the owner of a 3-year-old Morgan-mustang mix that had never been ridden.
"I bought him and then I bought my first book," she said. "And it said I did exactly what I was not supposed to do. It said I should buy an old horse, already trained. Those first months were really hard on both Trigger and me."
It took two trainers and persistent attention but eventually the horse she named Trigger became an animal she could ride or pull a cart in parades.
The horse bug had bit.
Carroll bought a quarter horse and a pregnant miniature mare. About nine months after getting Trigger, her former owner called and offered her a new Palomino mare that Trigger had sired before he left. Suddenly, the Williams had gone from never owning a horse to having five. Before long, the Williams bought 28 acres about a mile from their Green Mountain home and built a two-story, 13,000-square-foot barn with an upstairs apartment. Half the barn was for Atha's horses. The other was for Carroll's cars.
That was far more barn space than they needed at the time, but when Atha got to hold the 30-pound foal from the miniature mare in her arms, she said she wanted to delve into breeding. She and Carroll came home from a Kentucky auction with seven more horses and before 2003 ended, Cheval Farms was off and running.
"I loved it," Atha said. "There's just something about a newborn horse. I just praise God for it.
"What we did is we would stay with the mares after they had the babies and stayed with the babies from birth. They need to be imprinted to humans," she said. "I didn't want them to go through the trauma that Trigger and I went through."
Carroll was able to walk among the burnt rubble with hardly any emotion for the loss of his prized cars, particularly a rare Sparks convertible -- only 300 made -- like Cruella de Ville drove in 101 Dalmations and he drove in the Huntsville Christmas Parade. He repeatedly said "could have been a lot worse" and explaining the luck by which other cars were spared. But when he thought of the pain his wife was going through and how much the animals meant to her, tears began to well up.
"She was just amazing with those animals," he said. "She could get those animals to do things the people we paid to take care of them couldn't do. When she came out here, the horses would run to her."
The horses had been put in the barn Friday night in anticipation of the approaching storm. Cheval Farm was routinely struck by lightning, Carroll said. Bolts previously struck electronic equipment on fences and trees in the pasture.
Because horses take cover under trees during storms, which would kill them if a bolt struck the tree above them, Atha moved them to the barn. She already had a routine to put the cats inside to protect them from night predators.
As he pointed out where a bolt had cooked an electronic box on a fence post, Carroll shook his head said it was just a matter of time before the barn took a direct hit.
That time proved to be about 4 a.m. Saturday.
It's been a rough couple days, and Atha thanked all her friends and neighbors, mentioned Pete Dobbs by name, for emotional support. She also thanked the Huntsville Fire & Rescue and Green Mountain Volunteer Fire Department for doing all they could to save the barn, as well as Huntsville Animal Services and Madison County Animal Services for support. The county department took care of burying the horses.
Carroll said if there was one consolation, it's that the horses probably died of smoke inhalation rather than burning.
"We found them in their middle of their stalls like they would normally be. They didn't run to area like they would if they were stressed," he said. "We haven't found the remains of the cats and dog."