While driving down to New Orleans to pick up the little puppy for Horatio and his CSI team. The pup was going to be the newest member of the team. Renee got a phone call that hit her like a kick in the stomach.
The woman on the other end told her that the mare that had saved her life when Renee was fourteen years old had been severely injured and was going to be put down due to the injury that she had sustained.
Renee was devastated, so she quickly tells her brother that they needed to make a detour so that Renee could be there for the mare that she owed her life too.
While driving to the farm, Renee told her brother about the mare and what she had done for Renee when she was just a kid.
"When I was eleven, my mom took me to a mustang auction, and I was able to buy a yearling black and white paint filly. I named her Sierra Rose. I was going to train her by myself. I formed a close bond with Sierra. Three years later, the two of us were going on a trail ride. Being in South East Texas, you never go trail riding solo without a good hunting rifle.
Out of nowhere, a cougar jumps out and starts to attack the two of us. Sierra could have reared and thrown me to save herself. Most boy horses would have just thrown me and not given it a second thought."
"Sierra didn't throw me, but she rather fought the big cat. I was eventually was able to get my rifle out and kill that big cat. I own that mare my life."
The twenty-seven-year-old mare was injured when she had fallen in the pasture that she was in. The fall had broken her shoulder in the process. The break could not be repaired, so the mare was going to be euthanized soon.
Horatio drives his sister to a beautiful farm just outside of Renee's hometown in South East Texas. Where the black and white mustang paint lived in blissful retirement.
The mare she had served the Border for five years and the NOPD for nine years before she was retired to a farm. Renee paid for the mare to be sent from New Orleans back to her hometown when the time came for the horse to retire.
Renee had a very close friend from elementary school who agreed to keep Sierra at her farm until the mare died.
Renee was devastated at the news of the mare's injury and prognosis. Gently stroking the mare's neck and speaking softly to her when the vet gave her the first of the two drugs used to euthanize horses.
When the mare went down, she laid her head in Renee's lap. Between the tears falling down Renee's face, she leaned in to whisper something in the mare's ear.
"Thank you, you saved my life, and I was able to keep you from suffering. I love you. You are a good girl now go and run free in the green meadows of heaven until I come and find you," she tells the mare when the mare breathes her last breath.
That mare and Renee had been together since Renee was eleven years old.
She bought the mare when the horse was only a year old fresh from the plains of Texas, where she was rounded up along with her whole herd of wild mustangs. Renee bought the filly along with another colt from the same herd to train. Renee could remember vividly the fight that was in the filly.
Nobody could get near her until little Renee walked into the pen, and the filly just calmly walked right up to her. The auction just gave her the baby since nobody could get near her.
This was the start of Renee's long line of training horses for the Border Patrol along with other military and Law Enforcement agencies.
The jet black colt Renee sold when it was three years old, and she kept the filly. Renee never wanted to sell the mare after the horse had saved her life. However, Renee was forced to sell the mare when she joined the Marines.
She was only able to sell the mare to the Border Patrol on the condition that they called her when the horse was going to be retired so that she could come and get the mare since she didn't want anything to happen to the horse that saved her life.
Renee was in Afghanistan when the horse was being retired, so she called a close friend who agreed to drive the mare to her other friend's farm. She had not seen the mare for about two years. Renee did stop by to visit when she moved from Texas to Miami.
Renee was worried that the mare would not remember her, but that fear was erased when the mare let out a loud whinny as soon as she smelled Renee.
When the mare passed away, Renee asked her friend if she still had the mares only foal. About fifteen years ago, between her second and third tour of duty, Renee had bred the mare to Peppy San Badger, a stallion from the famed King Ranch.
Sierra was at the time retired from the border after five years. Getting called back before the foal was born, she sends Sierra to NOPD after the foal was born. Her friend agreed to buy the baby from Renee. Sierra served NOPD for eight years. Retiring when she was 22 years old.
Her friend told Renee that she indeed did still have the colt.
"If you want to ride Starre, just say the word. I will have him tacked up before you can say anything."
"If it is ok with you, I would prefer to tack him up myself for old times sake."
A request that her friend could not deny.
Renee walked into Starre's stall. She stopped to just marvel at the horse. Renee hadn't seen the horse for years. Sierra's foal was a gorgeous grullo colt.
Renee's ride went very smoothly for the first hour of trail riding. Then without warning, the gelding reared followed quickly by a buck so high it threw Renee into a protruding rock hard enough to knock the wind out of her.
Quickly coughing in an attempt to catch her breath. Renee noticed that she was having difficulty breathing but just thought that it was because she had gotten the wind knocked out of her.
Wiping off her pants and checking herself for any external injuries, she remounts Starre and rides back to the barn at a gallop.
Considering that she rode out at a walk and galloped back, it only took her about fifteen to twenty minutes to get back. Renee was by now having a very hard time breathing, but she never said anything.
Renee proceeds to untack Starre and brush him off before leaving the farm with Echo and her brother.
Horatio and Renee went from the farm directly to the NCIS office in New Orleans to help out a friend of Gibbs. It took the pair four hours and forty-five minutes to get to New Orleans. After four hours and forty-five minutes in the car, Renee was barely able to breathe.