Explosions were all around her. The world seemed to be screaming with loud booms and screams. Her horse companions were bolting, and Brook wasn't about to stick around either. She kicked up her heels and charged off. Twisted Leaf had to pull on her mane quite a lot and do some fast talking to calm her down and make her about face, back towards the war field. At last, she saw white men charging on their steeds of chestnut, black, and the occasional buckskin into the midst of the Indians. The horses were darting this way and that.

She didn't want to go, but Twisted Leaf coaxed her back into battle. He drew arrows from a barrel on his back and stuck them into his bow. It screamed through the air and struck true, killing a man right off his steed. The soldier slumped and fell off the saddle, laying motionless on the ground. She felt heels press into her, telling her it was time to move on. She clattered through the fight again, weaving her way through the many projectiles that whistled and flew threw the sky, sometimes hitting and sometimes falling short of the intended target, be he red man or white man. Many of her comrades had fallen, bullet holes in them, and even arrows. All the horses, be they mounts of Indian or Soldier, were her friends. And they were dieing.

She weaved through the crowd and her master shot off rapid fire attacks on the surge of the enemy, striking them almost every time with lethal precision. She breathed heavily and leaped through a crowd of horses, jumping carcasses of man and beast. She didn't understand why they were attacking each other. Horses were rarely so violent as to kill one another, and they especially didn't do it in such horrid mass slaughterings. But Shining Brook didn't have much time to think on this. A shock wave went through her and she stumbling, her knees buckling.

She rolled her eyes to her metallic leg. A tiny piece of lead was wedged into the upper portion, causing a large dent in the steel. Luckily, the strength was designed to be bullet proof by the scientists, and no further damage was caused so as the damage the programing and the wiring of her. She slowly rose back to her feet. Twisted Leaf clung to her neck. She felt his heart beating swiftly, even for a human, against her. Obviously, he thought she was going to be lame and die. But now he was gazing at her with wonder and amazement. Then he smiled.

"Shining Brook, you are truly a wonder horse," he laughed softly. And then they resumed the battle, drilling through the throng of beasts that swarmed like flies. "Retreat!" came an echoing command throughout the English company, and the Indians whooped and hollered. Twisted Leaf urged her after them. They flew around corners, and he continued to shoot off arrow shafts into the Calvary. But what he wasn't expecting was for them to turn and shoot off a bullet.

It hit him square in the chest and he fell backward off Shining Brook, flipping onto the ground in a splatter of blood. She screamed and reared up, her saddle slipping off her back with no weight to keep it on there. She about faced, trotting back over to Twisted Leaf. She stuck her muzzle into his black mane and snuffled it, her heart clutching.

"Twisted Leaf?" she muttered in the animal language, stomping her hooves worriedly. She repeated his name, sniffing and nuzzling his neck and back. But her master moved no more, did not respond to her calls and her nudgings. Shining Brook lay beside the poor man and continued to snuffled his hair, chewing it sometimes and otherwise just laying her head on his and moaning. He would not awaken. The blood was pooling about and seeping out from under him. Shining Brook quivered with sorrow.

She could not cry. No equine had the ability to shed tears. So instead the mare could only whisper final words of comfort and shake with the grief that welled up inside and threatened to tear her apart. She, indeed, had not know him for a very long time. But the short month she spent with him had bonded her with a human for the first time. His death had hurt her greatly. It was all their fault, those white humans. They...they were awful. They would have to pay for this horrible crime. She stood and felt a rope swing about her neck. A cadet was mounted on a young buckskin. A very familiar buckskin.

She hadn't expected to see him. But there he was. It was Ranger, in all his glory. His mane was chopping into a zebra crest, a strange contraption in his mouth, and his hooves glittered with metal. He stared at her unblinkingly. Shining Brook could tell he recognized her.

"Hey, Kid," he said, nodding his head.

And then his mount wheeled the two old companions about, and marched them away back towards camp, pulling them along.


Meanwhile, the world was soaked red with the blood on the battlefield. Carcass of red man, white man, and equines of several breeds and colors lay strewn about. The Indians had recoiled to treat the wounded and recover. Tomorrow, they would collect the dead and bury them, and count the missing bodies. Then, they would travel on in their mission. They would not make it to Canada. They would be placed in a reserve, like many Native Americans, and they would lose their homes.

But that night, a big black horse stepped onto the ground. He traced a familiar trail down which a blue mare traveled and found the body reeking of her scent. He sniffed the human stallion, and then raised his head, his eyes fluttered and ears pricked forward as he listened to the wind and watched the horizon with a lonely ache in his heart.