“Good. Then it’s a bet?” She offered her hand. Henry looked at it, and as sure as he could be he was in for some easy money, he took her hand a shook it.

“Yes ma’am,” he grinned. “A little one-sided, but a bet just the same.”

“Funny,” Jessie nodded. “I feel the same way.”

Both turned and briefly looked at the colt before Henry stepped back from the fence. “Well, I guess I’d better get to bed. I got a pretty busy day on the end of a scoop shovel tomorrow.” He shook his head in disgust. “I swear, you’d think Chet could get a little more creative when it comes to finding chores for me nobody else wants to do.”

“You mean Chad?”

Henry turned and started walking away. “Whatever,” he shrugged. “Good night, ma’am.”

“Good night, Mr. McBride.”

Henry walked only a few paces before he stopped and slowly turned back toward her. He took off his hat and held it with both hands. “Ma’am,” he started. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, I was wonderin’ if you might could call me by my given name…it’s Henry. Only lawyers and bankers call me by my proper name.”

Jessie turned and faced him, and suddenly, standing there in the ginger-colored light of the fading day, Jessie’s rugged beauty slowly washed over him. It was something he hadn’t really noticed before.

“I’d be happy to, Henry,” she said with a smile. “Providing you call me by my given name. It’s Jessie.”

“Yes ma’am, I know,” he stammered. “I mean, I will. Thank you ma’am. Jess. Jessie. Ma’am.” Henry felt as if someone had just stepped on his foot, and the look on his face showed it. “Good night, ma’am.”

“Good night, Henry.”

CHAPTER 22

Originally, Jessie planned on letting the colt be alone in the pen for a few days to let him settle into his new surroundings before she tried to work with him. What she quickly found, however, was a few days wasn’t enough. Not only was he not settled in a few days, the colt continued to move non-stop for nearly two weeks, pausing only briefly from time to time to eat, drink or take a short catnap before getting on the move again.

The colt was understandably disoriented and confused. Until the last several months, the only world the colt had known was the one he was born into. That of wandering a one-hundred-sixty-mile radius of open country with a small band of horses he’d known all his life. Since then, however, he’d come as close to death as any creature should and still come out alive; he’d become part of a band of horses so foreign to him there were times he wasn’t even sure they were horses. His freedom had been taken from him, and now, just as he had been getting used to the quiet routine of his new, smaller surroundings, even that had been taken from him. He had been forced into a metal box that transported him farther and faster in one day than he could have traveled on his own in a month, and then been placed in the middle of a whirlwind of activity with no way to get away from it. There were humans of different shapes, sizes and ages everywhere, and more horses than he’d seen in his lifetime. Not only that, but both horses and humans were coming and going so often he simply couldn’t keep up with all the commotion, and it caused him a great deal of anxiety.