Runaway
"I don't know how she got out. All I know is she's gone."
Those were not words that I wanted to hear, especially with a storm comin'. And a six-month-old blue roan Arabian filly missing. "When was the last time anybody saw her?" I'm sure the tone of my voice would have scared anyone to death, much less an already frightened sixteen-year-old. And from the look on Tim's face, that's just what I'd done. Time for me to back up and settle down. I laid a hand on his shoulder and lowered the decibel level . . . a lot. "Sorry, Tim, I know it's not your fault. She's too clever for her own good most of the time. Let's start this over. Was she in her stall with her mother when you came in for supper last night?"
I could see that my change in attitude had a much more positive effect than growling at the poor kid. Very rarely did I lose my temper over something, but I certainly had in this case. My name's Bart Maverick, and at the moment I'm the resident ogre at the B Bar M Ranch.
My brother and me were fairly new at this ranchin' business, and really new at keeping track of rambunctious foals with a mind of their own. And that's just what we were discussing, the first offspring of my mare Blue and our Arabian stud, Cantaro. This little devil had been different from the beginning, a filly that had her mother's blue roan coloring and her father's temperament. And a mind that was strictly her own. She was independent from the start, wanting to go places she had no business exploring and do things no self-respecting filly would attempt. This wasn't the first time she'd gotten out of her stall and gotten away from us, but we thought we'd found a way to keep her from doing just that. Obviously, we were wrong, and now with a thunderstorm headed our way she'd managed to give us the slip once again.
My brother is a little older than me, and sometimes a lot wiser. His name is Bret, and I could see this was one of those cases. Tim Demerest, the sixteen-year-old, is our adopted . . . son, brother, or any other relative you can think of. We more or less assumed responsibility for him after his father was killed in San Antonio while we were trying to retrieve Cantaro. That's another whole story. We'd persuaded Tim to come back to the ranch with us to make a fresh start, and he fit in like he was born here. Sometimes I forgot that he wasn't one of our kids.
"Yeah, Bart, she was in the stall with Blue. I don't know how she gets out. I'll saddle up and go after her."
I shook my head, already feeling guilty over having taken it out on Tim. "No, let me take Blue, and we'll find her. She probably hasn't gone that far. Just like the last two times." She'd disappeared before, and I found her less than a mile away looking for her momma or her papa, unaware that she was the one that was lost. That's when we'd changed her name to Runaway.
"Better take a slicker, you're liable to get caught in it," Bret advised. Leave Brother Bret to state the obvious.
Just as I was tightening the cinch on Blue's saddle we heard a crack of thunder so loud that even I was skittish. "You sure you wanna go out after her?" my big brother questioned.
"I have to," was my quick reply. "We can't afford to lose her. She's just too curious for her own good." Another crack of thunder and I wasn't waiting for the rain to start; I slipped the slicker over me and rode out north, the way she'd gone both of the other times she'd run off.
I was hoping to find her quickly and get us all back to the ranch nice and dry, but there was no escaping this thunderstorm. Blue knew just who I was looking for and whinnied anxiously, but we got no reply from the missing filly. On the heels of the next loud boom came a bolt of lightning so close it made my hair stand on end, and I leaned across Blue's withers, patting her neck and crooning to her, "It's alright, Blue. We're gonna find her." But find her we did not, and the rain was pouring so hard that it washed away any trace of the prodigal child. Me and Blue got further and further away from the ranch, and finally had to take what little shelter we could find in a grove of sycamore trees. It wasn't much but it was better than what we'd put up with so far, and by this time I was grateful for anything. The wind had long since blown the almost freezin' rain in under my slicker, and I was as soaked to the skin as Blue was. I dismounted, and horse and rider huddled together in the minimal respite we got from the break in the elements.
It must have rained for an hour or more like that, with the wind blowin' every which direction and me and the horse gettin' colder and colder. The two of us weren't the only ones I was worried about; Runaway was out in the cold, biting rain with us. I began looking around for a better shelter of some kind, and although I didn't hear anything but the wind and the howling rain, Blue must have. Both ears pricked up and one swiveled south; in just a minute she nickered and got some kind of a reply. I couldn't hear it, and had no idea in which direction it had come, but within five minutes Blue had begun to follow her ears and started to head southwest. I let her walk and tried my best to follow her, until I finally heard the intimate conversation that mother and daughter were carrying on.
Runaway was closer than I'd imagined; Blue took off running and I did my best to follow her, until she stepped sideways to avoid a large hole full of water that I couldn't see in the driving rain. My right foot twisted at some God-awful angle and I went down face first in the water and almost drowned before I could get out of it. I had water and mud in my eyes, ears and nose, and I spluttered and splashed like a cat that had been thrown in the deep end of the river. Then I heard it, at long last, the plaintive whinny of a little lost soul, and the reassuring answer her mother issued, and I wiped the mud from my face and tried to follow the exchange. I got to my knees and was able to grab Blue's reins, lying loose on the wet, soggy ground, and held on for dear life. She lurched forward and it helped me regain my footing, and the two of us staggered to the side of a hill facing away from the downpour. It wasn't much more than a windbreak, but it kept most of the weather away from us.
It wasn't very big and it wasn't very deep, maybe four or five feet, but it was big enough to give shelter to the young lady we'd spent the afternoon looking for. Blue took one look at Runaway and pushed me aside so she could shelter her baby. I didn't care; there was enough room to protect the three of us from the worst of what was left of the storm.
We stayed there, huddled together in the dry cave, until the wind and rain stopped. It was dark by that time, and colder outside than when we'd started, and the only one that wasn't hungry was Runaway. But Blue was dry, and I was mostly dry, and we were ready to set forth in the dark night and see if we could find our way back. I slipped the lead onto Runaway's halter and mounted Blue, then said a prayer of thanks for the shelter we'd been provided and remembered something momma told me when I was little. "Always ask the angels to guide you, Bartley, and you'll never be lost. You might not know exactly where you are, but the angels will."
With that prayer still on my lips, we set off for home. I aimed us in the right direction and then let Blue take the lead. She made a correction or two, and finally, in the dark and mud, found the right road for us to be on. And with angels to guide us, just like momma promised, we found our way out of the woods and back to the ranch. That was the last time Runaway unlocked her stall door and wandered off to see the world. It was my fervent belief the filly decided she didn't like being without her momma. I couldn't say that I blamed her.