Playing Hide And seek with the wildies

October 12, 2025
The wind was blowing. The girls milled about inside, slow to come up with a plan of action.

"Where did this unicorn come from?" Skye asked.

"Anahit and Lousin" Grace answered. "It came with that truck and trailer set, and the pink unicorn, but they thought this white one was too nice to be a toy."

Skye decided to bring The Black down to the indoor arena, where she could roll in the deep, soft sand.  But this morning, the old mare was very slow.  Bringing her down to the arena was difficult.  She seemed reluctant to move.  There wasn't much to say.  She was so old.  

"Is she okay?"  the boss asked.  

"I think so..."  Skye answered, then noticed the blue covering over a portion of the arena wall.

"What's this?"

"Oh it's my...fake sky" the boss replied, a bit self-conscious.

"Where in the world did you get that?"

"I made it" the boss replied. "When we first got here I didn't have a place to get pictures of the horses. So I painted this on some scrap foamcore, and then I'd tack it up to the side of the house...the house was about falling apart and it needed paint, everything looked like that, so I made this fake sky and I'd stand the horses well enough in front of it that it was out of focus in the background."

The Black walked slowly past the boss's make-believe sky. She took a picture, looked at the results, smiled, showed Skye.

"Oh! It works!"

"I'm not crazy about it. I want to be outside. I want to build another arena with a beautiful natural background. But for today we'll try this."

The mountain was unusually quiet for a Sunday. Except for the birds and small mammals, and particularly the squirrels. They were acting downright odd. Picking up pinecones, then rocks; running around in circles, putting their tails over their heads as if that made them invisible, drumming on wood with their front paws. The girls hadn't seen anything quite like it before.

Eventually the wind resided. The girls took note, and mounted up.

"Are you gonna spend the next six months in pajamas?" Grace asked. ""We're supposed to have a La Nina winter. Warm and relatively dry."

"No, but I just wanted to go for a ride, I didn't want to fuss with changing. I'm actually kind of warm already."

The girls rode through the lower portion of Mustang Rock. Aside from the occasional lizard, nothing stirred.

"Are we spoiled?" Skye asked.

"What?"

"Are we spoiled?"

Grace paused for a moment. "Yes." And then "Maybe spoiled isn't exactly the right word. We are...blessed. Fortunate. Insanely lucky. We're getting to live a life that most people only dream about."

"But it's a lot of work too!"

"And dirt. A lot of dirt. You need to be okay with breathing and wearing a lot of dirt. So we're not exactly spoiled because we have to do the work. No one is saddling our horses for us or mucking stalls or..."

"Cleaning the tack room..." Skye interjected.

"Right. But still. I wouldn't trade it for anything."

"Me neither" Skye agreed.

Back at the ranch, the boss was outside in the little arena. It wasn't a great place for photographing horses, but at the moment it was all they had.

"She must have a thousand pictures of that horse" Skye whispered.

"Let her be" Grace whispered back. "She's outside, in the sun, working out some of that angst. She needs this. Besides, if that was your mare you'd have a thousand pictures of her too."

Skye thought about it for a moment.  Grace was most likely right.

October 20
It was morning, the sun was well over the ridge, and their domestic horses had been quite clear about the location of the wildies.  The girls didn't have time to get to their usual observation ridge. They were in the shadow of the pines, but Skye was highly visible. And it wasn't long before she had been noticed.  

"Well this is kind of different" Grace whispered.  

The horses had been moving more or less in unison until Wind In Her Hair stopped at the sight of Skye's shape on the rocks before them.

There were the first three horses, whom the girls knew little about; Wind In Her Hair, Smoke Signals and Ochre. Then Crazy's band along with Rain Man, still riding shotgun. Then Highlander's band of three.

There was some shifting around in the open space. A new order emerged. Lady Godiva took the lead, and the rest of her family band followed.

The Dun Mare and Piper fell in behind Lady Godiva. 

Katana fell in behind The Dun Mare. Highlander followed close on her heels.

Grace and Skye scrambled to a new position, where they could watch the horses file through the narrow rock passage.

For a moment Lady Godiva could not see her foals, and she stopped. Mares, stallions and foals found themselves confined against each other within the rock crevice.

Grace and Skye were silent, breathless. Mares could be fierce enough. There were five stallions squeezed into that mix.

Lady Godiva continued forward again, her foals in front of her now.

"Why do you suppose they come together like this sometimes?" Skye asked.

"I think it's just the herd instinct" Grace replied. "They are all doing their little separate things but they are close enough to see or hear each other. And one band of horses starts moving. And so they all start moving. Because you don't want to be the one that didn't move and got eaten by a mountain lion or a bear. Or whatever. Or maybe one of them says hey, let's run! And they all go okay! Let's run! I'm not really sure but I'm guessing it's probably simple like that."

Skye counted them. Five stallions. Five mares. Four foals.

"Fourteen horses" she said softly. "Petrichor's band is missing. And the Unhappy Campers. Shoot. There's probably...twenty five horses?"

Grace tried to count horses that were not there in her head while watching the horses that were there go by. It was difficult. But Skye was probably pretty close.

October 26
Afternoon shadows fell long and soft on the rugged terrain.  Grace and Skye were pretty sure they'd be catching a glimpse of wild horses any moment.  The girls scoured the landscape for movement, listened intently for sounds. A lizard ran up a Coulter pine. In the distance, a motorcycle plied the highway. Somewhere in the campgrounds to the south, laughter. But overall, it was still, and predominately silent.

"I'm thinking if there were wildies here, we missed 'em" Skye said.

"You know what i'm thinking?"

"What?"

"I'm thinking where's my horse?"

It was a beautiful afternoon. The wind had calmed to the softest breeze and the air temperature was comfortable. Indeed, it would have been an exceptional day for riding.

The girls took their time heading back to the ranch. The day was almost over. It was too late to worry about getting anything done, and too beautiful to hurry.

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