Louis walked out to the gate with their initials on the ranch's archway, and just stared at it long and hard. It made him feel proud, and he again realized, as he did every day, how much he loved his life. How much he loved this ranch, the animals, the trees, the land itself. Not to mention it's owner . . .
And Harry had his head in the clouds. Every single touch that Louis gifted him physically was precious to him. He just could never get enough of him. And now Louis had admitted how much he enjoyed intimacy with him. Things could not be more perfect.
They were unsuccessful at finding out Fletcher's address, if he even had one. They'd visited the library and used a computer there, finding a person with the same name who was about the right age, but there were only old addresses, nothing that was current. For all they knew, he could be sleeping somewhere out in the open at night, or squatting in some abandoned homestead.
There was someone out there who wanted to cause them grief. Nathan, Brian and Fletcher were the prime suspects, since Harry had no enemies. Someone had all kinds of bitter feelings that they were targeting Harry for.
And then, the most bone-chilling of all was the night all the horses escaped from the barn.
They'd awakened to hoofbeats – many of them. Harry and Louis didn't even look at each other. They scrambled out of bed and jumped into their clothes, and grabbing a jacket each, they ran outside, terror clawing at them each step of the way. Every one of the five horses in the barn was gone as if they'd never been there. The only trace of them were the open stall doors and barn door itself thrown wide open and the imprint of many hooves.
Bolt cutters again, this time all the way to total freedom for the horses. Three fences in all had been cut: the fence between one of the pastures and the house, the near pasture fence, and the far pasture fence. Someone had been quiet enough to sneak onto the property after cutting the holes, and then to let every horse out, and vanish before they could be caught in the act.
It was dark of course, and so many hoofprints that Harry and Louis couldn't tell if the perpetrator had been afoot or on horseback. They wouldn't know until morning. But for right now, the most important task was to find the horses and pray they had only been let loose and hadn't been stolen.
They tromped all over, flashlights in hand, but there was too much land for two men on foot to cover much. They looked for nearly two hours when Harry called it off.
"We'll just have to wait until the sun comes up," he said, his face gloomy and his voice solemn. He had never looked so downtrodden to Louis.
Louis wanted to cry, but he held back because he didn't want to upset Harry further. His lover was already almost beside himself. There were no neighs in the night, no sound of hoofbeats, and even Monkey didn't seem to have a clue as to what to do.
Shivering in the chilly night, they made their way back to the ranch, for they had covered nearly two miles. Restless and on edge, they merely laid on the bed, not able to sleep, wondering what the fate of their horses would be.
"They wouldn't kill them, would they?" Harry turned a creased brow to Louis, not thinking clearly because he was so disturbed and fretful.
"No . . . of course not. Those horses are worth money," Louis stressed.
Harry's brain kicked in a little, and he reminded himself that Louis was absolutely right. Only a fool would do something like that.
They ended up pacing the remainder of the night away, not able to keep still any longer, stopping occasionally to hug each other in an effort to provide comfort. Harry shed a few tears; this being the first time Louis had seen him cry. They were devastated, and that wasn't a strong enough word.
When it was light enough to see, they looked at the churned up dirt on their property, but didn't make out any human footprints. They got into the truck and drove out and around the pastures to the area where the furthermost cut in the fence was, and observed the hoofprints, still looking for shoe prints. They thought they saw some, but it was tough to tell with all the hoofprints nearly obscuring them. Then they heard a whinny – a long, plaintive one. They recognized the horse's voice immediately.
Folly.
She sounded distressed, so they parked the truck and ran in the direction where they thought she was. A moment later, she ran out from behind a bush, sweaty and bug-eyed, trotting with elevated steps and her tail carried high. Folly hated being away from other horses, and that was just how she was acting – like she was alone and afraid. That was when they knew for sure that the others hadn't merely been set free – they'd been taken.
Louis ran to the truck to get a coffee can of oats and a halter and lead rope. Folly didn't try to evade them. She was obviously relieved to see them, and also hungry for breakfast. Louis clipped the lead rope to her halter, and then tied the end of it to the opposite side of her halter and swung up on her bare back.
"I'll ride her home and feed her," he said. Harry shook his head in wonder. He, himself, would be hesitant to mount that mare bareback. She was fickle and spirited. But Louis, as usual, was all confidence, and he casually guided her back toward the ranch, the mare accepting his leadership.
"I'll take the truck back, then we can both come back and try to find the others," Harry said. When they reached the barn, Folly was fit to be tied. When she saw the other horses were truly gone, she went into a panic. Louis wrestled her into a stall and fed her. As soon as she was settled enough to eat, they left again in the truck.
It was tough going, and very slow at times, and Harry was grateful to have 4-wheel drive, but still, it wasn't easy to avoid getting stuck when they hit loose dirt. They followed the hoofprints for miles, and they wondered how much longer this would go on until they came upon a clearing. The hoofprints here became bunched together, and it seemed something had happened here.
Upon close inspection, they discovered someone had tried to erase the prints with a tree branch or brush of some kind. There were brush marks all around the area. It had been dark, and the job had been rushed. That was when Louis called out to Harry, who was a few dozen feet away from him.
"Haz! Look! Tire marks! Fresh ones! Footprints too." Even though the area had been swept with the branches, it was a hurried job, so not a thorough one, and they saw that there had been a truck that was pulling a trailer parked there.
Now it was clear that the horses had been loaded onto a stock trailer.
"That explains why Folly was left behind. She wouldn't load onto the trailer," said Louis.
"That's exactly it, Lou. She's never willingly gotten onto a trailer, so they didn't want to fight with her and have us catch up to them, so they just left without her."
They got back into the truck and followed the truck and trailer tire marks for several more miles until they hit pavement and then, of course, the tire marks could no longer be followed. They couldn't even tell for sure which direction the rig had gone. Or maybe it was only because they were in shock and not as observant as they would normally be.
"What now?" Harry looked skyward as if asking God to help.
"Let's call Mr. Hoffman to alert him. He knows lots of ranchers. If the horses show up somewhere, he can give us a heads-up," Louis suggested.
Earl Hoffman was dismayed when he got the call. "No telling where they took them," he said of the horses. "There are quite a few auction yards spread out around these parts though. You can check those out. In the meantime, I'll call everyone I know within fifty miles of my ranch and tell them to get the word out."
Harry couldn't thank him enough. They had him on speaker, so both Harry and Louis could talk.
"What are the names and locations of the auction yards?" asked Louis. Mr. Hoffman provided them with as much information as he could, but warned them that there was a high possibility that the horses had been taken out of state to be sold.
They wrote down the locations of all the livestock dealers and auction yards and then got busy making a plan. They would hit every place they could until they'd checked them all.
Starting that very day, they hit the first place. They didn't even get out of the truck. Looking at the horses milling around in the corral, they saw that none of them belonged to Harry.
They did this routine every day for the next four days. Every time they drove up to a yard, their hands would get clammy, their hearts would pound, and they would be straining their eyes, but each time, none of the horses turned up. They drove at least an hour, and sometimes two hours a day, one way. It was turning out to be a wild goose chase, and Harry expressed his anguish to Louis on many occasions.
"They've been taken out of state, I just know it. We aren't gonna find them."
"Don't lose hope, Harold! We'll do whatever we have to. Even if it means goin' outta state!" Louis was showing his single-minded stubbornness. He was bent on finding those horses.
"What if they're sold before we get to them?" Harry whined.
"We have to try," Louis said simply, kissing Harry's lips softly and trying to give him hope. Louis was steadfast – he was tenacious and wasn't going to give up easily.
After three more days of hitting one and sometimes two places per day, Harry announced, "I'm done. We aren't gonna find them."
"Oh no you don't," Louis protested firmly.
'Face it Lou. It's been a week. We've hit almost every place we've been told about. We've alerted the town of Hereford and Douglas too. What more can we do?"
"Search the last few places," Louis stated calmly. "I'm not lettin' you give up."
It was true. They had worked into the wee hours of the morning making signs to place in business windows, on bulletin boards in town, mentioned it to almost everyone they saw while in town in both Hereford and Douglas, and even posted an ad in the local newspaper and on the internet. Not a single lead had been found.
At Louis' insistence, they set out to go to the remaining three auction yards the following day. This was their last hope. What a very long day it was. The first place had very few horses at the moment, and this just served to depress Harry. He imagined the last two places would be the same.
As they drove up to the next-to-last yard, they were accustomed to scanning the small herd, resigned to the fact that, like countless other times, their horses would be absent, Louis' back straightened. They were still hundreds of yards from the place, driving up on a dirt road when Louis thought he saw Maverick and Comet.
But no . . . his eyes must be playing tricks on him. It had happened before, but this time he thought he saw Monique too. He shook his head to clear it, and when he looked again, they were still there.
"You see what I think I see?" asked Harry a moment later when he took his eyes off the dirt road and into the horse pen.
"Don't get your hopes up, Haz," warned Louis. But the closer they got, the more sure he was of the three horses. That left just Dominic, but there were other horses moving around, so he could be hidden behind them.
By the time they parked, they knew for sure that three of their horses were here, and it was all they could do to keep from cheering or weeping with joy. A few horses changed their positions, and sure enough, there was Dominic! The horses were thin, but weren't injured, and looked to be in good shape.
They approached cautiously, trying not to look over-enthusiastic, asking a wrangler who they should talk to about some stolen horses. The wrangler's eyes widened. He directed them to what they deduced was the head guy running the operation.
"We've had four horses stolen from our property, and we see them in your pen. What would you like us to do?" Harry was especially polite, as he was trying to get on the guy's good side, hoping he would not refuse them.
"Which horses?" Harry pointed out their animals, and the guy hesitated. "Yeah, I noticed what nice horses they were. Wondered why someone was sending them to auction. Rode 'em too, and they all have a nice handle – well trained. Can you prove these horses are yours?" His deep, dark eyes that were almost black bored into Harry's eyes. He clearly had Indian blood in his veins; tan skin with an orangish tint, and long, straight, shiny jet black hair. He looked intimidating - very rigid and unaccommodating initially. He made them feel like skittish rabbits with the way he stared at them. He instilled guilty feelings even though they'd done nothing to feel that way.
"Yes, sir." Harry produced a receipt for every one of the horses. He'd kept them when he'd bought them just in case circumstances like this were ever to come up.
The guy looked over each receipt, gazing at the horses after each one, taking his time, matching the receipts to the animals. The only one Harry had no receipt for was, of course, Monique, Louis' mare. Louis didn't have one either. There hadn't been one in Louis' belongings.
The guy with the penetrating dark eyes stood there for long moments before he spoke. Harry and Louis were dead quiet, afraid to talk at all, waiting for the guy's decision.
"I can get a pretty penny for every one of 'em," he stated flatly, looking at Harry in an almost challenging fashion.
Harry shifted ever so slightly. "I reckon so," he agreed, carefully not showing any emotion.
"How do I know they're really yours?" This was the question both Harry and Louis had been dreading. The horses weren't branded. There was no way they could absolutely prove ownership. The receipts could have been written up by anyone.
"You'll have to take our word for it," Harry said. "But I'm an honest man."
"And no trailer to take 'em home in?" was the next question, asked with a trace of suspicion.
"We honestly didn't think we'd find them here. We've been lookin' at all the yards for the last week, daily, and have come up with nothin,'" Harry explained.
It pained him, but Harry bucked up and asked the question he knew he had to ask.
"How much do you want for them?"
Louis made a small strangled noise in the back of his throat, and Harry knew his lover was feeling a little sick about this whole thing, as was he. Buying back his own horses was the pits, but what else could he do?
He'd brought cash, just in case, like he'd done with every other place they'd gone to. He hoped the guy would go easy on him, but knew there was no reason for him to. This would take a chunk of out of his savings, but he could afford it if he had to.
"What about the black mare? I didn't see no receipt for her," the guy threw at them, his eyes forever examining the two of them.
Louis spoke up. "That one's mine, and I lost the receipt. I work for Harry here, and I brought her with me when I went to work for him."
The guy seemed to be still measuring them up. He sure wasn't making this easy on them. Drawing it out, almost. Like he wasn't sure just what to do. It was likely he'd not run across this situation very often. After a long pause where he looked out over the yard and then turned his head and continued to peer at Harry and Louis, who succeeded in not flinching or acting guilty in any way, he finally softened.
"I reckon you don't have to buy 'em back," he said. "I'll give 'em to you on the condition you report 'em stolen."
"We already have," explained Harry. He'd submitted a report when they'd been in town the next day after the horses had disappeared.
"I don't wanna see other people get their horses stolen," the guy explained. "If they're all reported, maybe the stealing will stop."
Harry was confused. "Why wouldn't a person report his own stolen horses?"
"You'd be surprised," the man said. "They figure they'll never find their horses, so they get discouraged and don't report it. Then, when they find 'em here, they're so glad to have 'em back that they forget all about it."
Harry and Louis could see the possibility of that happening. The giddiness of getting them back was already getting to them, and it was very nearly the only thing on their minds.
"Um, can you tell me who brought them in? A name?" asked Harry.
The man silently shook his head, paused, then said, "No thief is gonna give his real name. I knew something was fishy when he and his buddy drove up. I'm not sayin' that John Smith wasn't his real name, but I'm pretty damn sure it wasn't. In any case, it shows he's not too bright. You have any idea who it was?" he asked Harry.
"No. We have some possible suspects, but nothing concrete. What did they look like?
One had dark blonde or light brown hair and the other was really tall and skinny."
Yep, he had described Nathan and Brian.
"What kind of vehicle and trailer did they have?"
"Old beat up white Dodge. Older, maybe made in the 1960s. The trailer was a Circle J Bronco, older. Been kicked up a bit. That's all I remember."
"Thanks, that might be sommat to go on," Harry was stroking his chin. He'd not shaved in a few days, and it was bugging him. How could Louis stand it? Idle thoughts, because he no longer had to worry about his horses, and still being in semi-shock, his thoughts took on strange meanderings. There was a distant grin on his face. Louis could see he was still numb.
"Shit! I was so caught up in conversation that I forgot that I write down the license plate number of every vehicle that brings horses in here," the man slapped his forehead. He rushed into a small building and came out a couple of minutes later.
"Here, here it is. I do this for my own protection, in case I'm accused of horse stealing. You never know. Hope it helps you out in finding the thieves."
"Oh man! This is massively helpful!" Harry was practically jumping up and down.
"Bring your rig 'round here tomorrow and you can load 'em up." The man started to walk away.
"Wait . . . what did you pay for them? I wanna pay you back," said Harry.
"Forget it, man. You've been through enough. I'll just consider this my good deed for today."
Harry and Louis were speechless. He couldn't be serious!
"Oh my God, no! At least let me give you what you paid them, plus their feed for however long you had them."
"No, and I won't tell you how much I paid. Not what they're worth, I'll tell you that. A lot less, in fact. They were in a hurry to unload them, and now I know why. I shouldn't have taken them without solid proof of ownership. That's why I don't want any money from you."
"I can afford it. Just tell me," Harry was pleading now.
"Nope, and I don't wanna hear another word about it."
Harry and Louis shook the man's hand, thanking him copiously. They were barely keeping it together. They got back into the truck and drove off, Harry's foot shaky on the accelerator. Once they were out of sight of the auction yard, Harry stopped the truck, and they turned as one to embrace each other, and this time Harry shed just as many tears as Louis had since they had met.