Of Horse Thieves and Comets

October 2, 2024

White clouds danced across a blue sky.  Strawberry Peak looked majestic in the afternoon sun.  Chilao wore a cloud hat, keeping the temperature just above 90 degrees.  

The winds had come, leaving the arenas full of tree debris.

​"At least there's still some sand" Skye said.

"Yeah, plenty of sand left, thank goodness. Let's just pick up the big stuff and throw it off to the side."

There were horses coming home. Two trailers. The boss had been bringing horses back two at a time, but when the big stock trailers came, they needed room to unload the horses and get things sorted.

The big strawberry roan shire was first to unload.
"Do you remember this one's name?" Skye called out.

There was a long pause before Grace answered.

"It should be something like Strawberries and Cream."

Skye laughed. "I can't remember his name either."

Next came the palomino Friesian cross, Dream Boat. One of Grace's beloved golden boys.

Next, three mares, a filly and two geldings. All in good shape.

And then, much to Skye's relief, the second of the pair of grulla geldings.  "Thank goodness you're back. This one is Sandstone" Skye said.

A non-equine resident came off the trailer next, which was a bit of a surprise. Toro Toro Taxi.  "Where's his cat? Mojo?"  Skye asked.

"Cats are coming back this weekend" Grace replied. "They'll be busy too. While the cats were away, the mice did play."

"Is that it?" Skye asked.

Grace thought she heard a horse still in the trailer.

Two horses. Moose, the big, colorful Morgan cross, was next, and he looked quite fit... like perhaps he might have gained some weight.

Finally, Rembrandt, the Pintabian stallion. Full of himself, as always.

"Do you think the boss would do it all again?" Skye was full of questions.

"Do what again?"

"Voluntary evacuation."

"Probably."

"But this has been like a major ordeal."

"I think..." Grace paused for a long moment before finishing her thought.

"I think she might have waited if she'd had a better understanding of how well planned out the evacuation regions and warnings were for us on this side of the forest. She saw the fire blow up from four thousand to forty thousand acres and she kind of fixated on that. That, and the fact that the fire made it to Wrightwood in that same burst of growth. And they had almost no warning. So I get it. And yeah, I think she would do it again. Because imagine getting it wrong. Imagine not getting the horses out when you could have."

Skye nodded. She didn't really want to imagine that.

October 7
The sun wasn't yet over the mountain as the trailer pulled in. The biggest one yet.

"This is it" Grace said. "This is the last of them."

Cali Girl, the Araloosa filly, trotted about, fit and lovely. They gave her a few minutes to work out the kinks before taking her to her stall.

Technicolor Lederhosen, the big Noriker cross cold blood. He looked great. Not the set of spots Skye was looking for though. Her gelding Mista Spot was still among the not-yet-home.

Jesse, another one of Grace's golden stallions, was glad to be out of the trailer.  He needed a few moments to burn off some steam before they put him up.

"How many horses are left?" Skye asked.

"Four? I'm not sure. But we need to get Jesse put up pretty quick and get the rest of them."

An appaloosa filly came next.  She was cute, but unfamiliar.  "Who is this?" Skye asked.

"Beats me" Grace answered.

"What if we got the wrong appaloosa?"

"What?"

"What if we got her instead of Spot? What if our horses got mixed up?"

"Oh..." Grace paused. "There's still a few more horses on the trailer. Don't panic yet."

"Where will we put her?"

"Is there room next to Deer Medicine? If there is let's put her there."

Mischief and Precious were next. For a moment Skye stopped worrying about Mista Spot, and ran around with Mischief, who seemed glad to be back home.

Then the big medicine hat drum horse.  A hay burner if ever one lived.

"Did he gain weight?" Skye asked.

Grace laughed. "Looks like it, huh? He didn't lose any, that's for sure."

Then, spry and collected, JM's Fabulous Flash, the bay Morgan gelding that the boss adored.  He was retired, but still quite fit.

"Gosh he's pretty" Skye remarked.

B'zou, the Andalusian stallion, came out of the trailer rather unsettled.

"He looks like he's...seen a ghost."

"He does" Grace agreed.

"Is he the last one?"

The girls listened. The trailer was silent. No stomping, no whinnying.  Skye's heart sank.

And then the wrangler's voice.

"Where do want the last one?"

It was Skye's gelding, Mista Spot. The final evacuee to come home.

As the trailers pulled away and the sun rose, another hot day unfolded on the mountain.

October 13
Dawn came lovely. The girls were out walking while the horses finished their breakfast. They followed Baron and Hobo, who seemed to be keen on something to the west of the ranch.  The dogs led them to something curious on the ground, partially concealed among the rocks.

"Is this ours?" Skye asked.
"No" Grace answered. "Not that I'm aware of."

It was something like snow fence, only brown and made of fibers rather than plastic. The posts were rough-hewn rounds. The wood was unfamiliar.

What do you think it's for?"  Skye asked.

"Making a fence. But for what, that's the question. Did the boss mention wanting to do some gardening in the middle of nowhere? Or maybe cultivating native plants? That's the only way I could imagine this is ours. "

"She never said a word to me about anything like that" Skye said. "What should we do with it?"

"Let's leave it for right now. Just how it is. And let's come back in a day or two and see if it gets moved and where to."

The day was busy. Skye's black quarter horse mare had somehow managed to get herself scraped up inside of her stall. Exactly how, Skye couldn't figure.

"She seems fine" Skye said to Grace.

"She'll probably just had some white hairs going in where she's scratched" Grace reassured Skye. "Do you want to see if we can find the comet?"

"Comet? Like in the sky? Sure. You know, that's what we should name her."

Comet? Comets are balls of ice. Generally white."

"She has a white sock..."

"I thought we named her Skye's Black Beauty?"

"Yeah, but I like comet..."

The girls took the pavement queen to the helipad just at dark.  The moon grew ever brighter as the sky darkened.  They searched the horizon line.  Apparently the comet, which had a long and funny name, was only briefly visible, low on the horizon, and because of the moon phase, even more difficult to see.

And then there it was.  The night was still, and silent, and beautiful.  The girls took in the amazing celestial show...all too quickly swallowed by the mountain.

October 19
Grace drove the Jeep as carefully as possible across the rugged terrain.  Five passengers was a lot.  The three youngest ladies had to stand up behind the seats.

"Oh sorry!" Skye's elbow and Anoush's helmet were having a hard time staying separated. The wind was subsiding, but not without a few final vicious gusts. So the girls...all of them...opted for the Jeep rather than riding or walking.

There was a roaring sound that was not the wind. The helicopter swooped in fast, directly above them.  Spun around and headed back toward them.

Made another pass directly over them, at high speed.

"Grace is there something you need to tell us?" Anoush teased.

"It's SCE" Skye said. "I betcha. They're checking the power lines. Pretty soon they'll turn the power back on if everything's good."

The helicopter sped away.

The girls left the Jeep at the base of the monolith.  Skye led the way up the rock face. There were hand holds and foot holds. The granite had a rough enough surface to be navigable.

Not Grace's favorite thing in the world to do, but if everyone else was doing it...

They reached the top. Stared quietly out across the rocky habitat that stretched below them. Listened. Watched. A hummingbird made a rather daring pass at Anahit. Behind them in the chaparral, bluebirds were making a fuss with their deceivingly soft and gentle voices. But there was no sign of horses.

After a few minutes, Grace broke the silence.

"Let's head back to the Jeep. There's another place we need to go."

Grace had a hunch she knew what the roll of fence material she and Skye had come upon a week ago was for. And her hunch was right.  In a crevice between two great pillars of stone, they found the fencing, propped across both ends of the narrow passage.  Stirred up dust met sunlight as they approached.  The sound of hooves moving uneasily.   They had found their missing mustang.

Skye turned to Anahit and Lousin.

"That's Rain Man" she whispered. "Rain Man and Storm were the first wild horses we ever saw."

Rain Man had been captured in that narrow passage between two steep walls of rock. The mesh fencing was layered to give it enough height to hold him in. If he'd charged the fence, it would probably collapse, and he would be free. But he didn't. He moved nervously back and forth, in and out of the shadows, rearing, spinning, rearing again.

The girls watched in stunned silence. Even suspecting as she did that someone was hoping to catch a wildie, Grace needed a moment to get her bearings.

"Should we let him loose?" Skye finally asked.

Anoush answered in what Grace liked to think of as her mom voice. It was level, firm and unwavering.

"Yes. This fence will collapse rather quickly if we remove the poles that are laid diagonally across the others first. The fence has no weight, we'll just need to quickly pull it aside."

Skye looked at Grace. Grace nodded. Everyone got to work.

Anoush and Grace held the stallion back with little more than waving arms. Lousin, Skye and Anahit made short work of dismantling the fence and rolling it to the side. Rain Man was ready to take his freedom.

He made his break. A length of fence unfurled and rolled toward the stallion as he bolted. He slid to a stop, spooked and reared. For one terrifying moment the girls froze, pressed against the rock wall with nowhere to go.

And then Rain Man lunged over the roll of fence, and away, a spray of dirt and pebbles pelting the girls as his hooves dug into the ground and propelled him back to freedom.

October 21
As soon as the morning chores were done, the girls rode out, back to where Rain Man had been captured. They took the high road, coming around above the place where they had found him, just in case someone was there.

All was quiet.

There was nothing left of the enclosure. All the fencing was gone. A spot of green on the ground against the black ash-laden earth was all that remained...a bit of alfalfa hay.

They looked all around. There were no hoof prints.

"It's been swept clean" Skye whispered. "And I don't even see any broom marks."

Grace studied the ground as they existed the rock crevice. Not even their own footprints remained.

"Kind of creepy" Skye said in a low voice. "I feel like...I don't know."

It took Grace a while to respond. "Yeah. Definitely creepy."

October 26
Skye never got tired of of the evening light in the trees. Or the grass. Or on the rocks. Nor did Grace. But she was focused on looking for signs. Signs of the would-be horse catcher.

Dani Girl, the appaloosa sport horse mare, was a lively ride. It had been a little while since they'd been off the ranch and on a trail ride.

Skye looked at the dry grasses to their right.

"This is mostly deer grass" Skye said. "And I know what we're supposed to understand about deer grass, but it's not looking too lively to me."

Grace glanced to the right. She had a point.

"If we got off and looked closer to the ground, close to the roots, we might find a little green at the base" Grace replied, but her answer wasn't terribly convincing.

The girls took to higher ground, bringing their mounts down to a walk once they crested Mustang Rock. The view of the grass was not much more promising from their new vantage point.

Spent yucca lay like bleaching bones on the dry grass.  Textile tendrils slowly slipping back into the soil in a decomposition process that might take decades.

"Well, we'll see how it goes. I know the boss wants to transplant a good little patch with deer grass, and I suspect we'll be helping with that at some point or another" Skye continued. "I mean, I know it comes back every year, I know all the things about it, and I know it transplants. I guess I just didn't expect it to look quite so dead after all the water we've had the last two winters."

"Yeah but the heat" Grace reminded her. "It was hot. And no summer showers here at all. Once the rain and snow stopped, we went into summer. And it's still hot. And still dry."

Skye had a lot of questions. The answers would reveal themselves over time, surely, but right now, looking at the landscape, it did seem unlikely that even the native grasses could keep their grip if it didn't rain soon.

October 27
Petrichor and Highlander's bands traveled together, in close proximity to each other.  And save for their footfalls on the rocky ground, they were silent.  Grace and Skye stood still, watching the horses from a jagged rock outcropping.

"They see us" Skye whispered.

Grace was focused on Petrichor.

His hooves sank deep into the dry ravel. He glanced their way briefly, as if acknowledging their presence, but his own focus was on his lead mare. Which way was she going?

The sky was a mixture of clouds, and things that were not clouds. Grace hadn't said a word about it, but Skye knew. It was difficult to tell the one from the other now, but the dark layer moving toward them was a welcome respite from the heat.

The sun broke through again, illuminating Highlander's band of brown and gold.

Skye struggled to see another horse. Blue-black, and well integrated into Petrichor's small band. A mare, certainly.

For a moment the horses circled in the clearing, uncertain. A single gunshot broke the silence. It was distant, perhaps two miles away.

The bay mare changed her course, and the others followed. From the clearing there were a number of options, including going back the way they had come, up onto a ridgeline, or downward into a maze of rock outcroppings where the horses would sometimes take shelter from the wind. The bay mare would choose. Petrichor's band was in the lead today.

The moment of indecision gave the girls a clear view of both Petrichor and the blue mare.

She was big. And from her robust head to her low set tail, she exuded "mustang."

And then, after what seemed like a long moment of indecision, the bay mare made her choice, and headed toward the rock maze. The other horses followed, maintaining their silence.

"Thorn's coat looks dull" Skye whispered. "She used to look better."

Grace nodded silently. Skye was correct.

There was a sound. Soft. Then a few drops of rain. Just a few.

Skye smiled.
"It's a good sign" she whispered to Grace. "The little bit of rain. It's like everything will be okay. And now we know for sure that at least some of what is in the sky is clouds."

"Yes" Grace whispered in agreement. "I think the horses are trying to find a quiet place to hide" she added.

"I think you're right" Skye whispered. "Probably trapped here in the middle ground. Hunters above, hunters below...there's no water here so that's probably it."

The bay mare picked her way across the rugged ground. Four mares, three foals and two stallions followed her.  The girls watched until the horses had all slipped out of sight.

​                                                                                                    #