The colt watched quietly as the man and woman walked away from the pen and disappeared around the corner of a nearby building. He let out a long relaxed sigh and cocked a hind foot. It was the most comfortable the colt had felt since he was first forced into the company of humans some nine months earlier.

CHAPTER 27

As the pickup Jessie was driving rocketed down the rutted and washboarded gravel road, Henry could now see why Mrs. Rodriguez had been so insistent that he drive to town instead of Jessie. It had started that morning over breakfast when Jessie announced that she and Henry would need to go to town and pick up some supplies.

“Maybe you let Mr. Henry drive today,” Mrs. Rodriguez forced a smile as she scraped scrambled eggs sprinkled with jalapenos from a cast-iron fry pan onto Jessie’s plate.

“No,” Jessie shrugged. “I’ll drive.”

Mrs. Rodriguez stepped over to Henry and scraped the remaining eggs from the pan onto his plate. “Maybe you drive today,” she repeated.

“That’s okay,” Henry smiled, taking a sip from his coffee cup. “I don’t mind.”

“Not now, maybe,” Mrs. Rodriguez said not too quietly as she turned and walked back to the stove.

“Did you say something?” Jessie asked.

“No mija,” Mrs. Rodriguez placed the egg pan in the sink and plucked a pan sizzling with bacon from the stove.

“Five hundred pounds of feed, Chicago screws, leather soap…” Jessie read from the list sitting on the table next to her plate. “Sixteen penny nails, power steering fluid for the tractor…”

“Fencing staples,” Henry added as Mrs. Rodriguez slid five pieces of bacon onto his plate.

“Right,” Jessie nodded, jotting it down on the paper. “Anything else?” she asked, turning to Mrs. Rodriguez.

“The bolt of fabric I ordered is in,” Mrs. Rodriguez said, sliding three pieces of bacon onto Jessie’s plate. “Could you get it for me, por favor?”

“Of course.” Jessie jotted it down as well. “Is it at Hansen’s?”

“Si, mija.” Mrs. Rodriguez slipped around behind Jessie, then turned back and faced Henry. “Maybe Henry drives today?” Henry looked up in time to see Mrs. Rodriguez trying to catch his eye. She then glanced at Jessie, shook her head and scowled slightly. She then looked back at Henry and shook her head again.

“You know…” Jessie smiled disarmingly. “If you’re not careful, you’re going to get Henry here all worried that there’s something wrong with the way I drive.”

Mrs. Rodriguez and Henry were still looking at each other, when Mrs. Rodriguez tipped her head toward Jessie, and widened her eyes as if to say, There IS something wrong with the way she drives.

Henry had gotten the hint, but thought, How bad could it be? Now, however, with one hand braced against the dashboard, the other hand braced on the ceiling as Jessie slid the truck around a turn traveling twice the speed of the posted limit, he was beginning to get the idea. The truck fishtailed on the backside of the turn, spraying gravel and dust into the air, and just as Jessie regained control, she hit a three-inch deep, two-foot-wide pothole, which sent Henry’s right shoulder crashing into the door handle. Henry was then catapulted upward when the back tire hit the same hole, causing him to whack his head on the ceiling, mashing his hat.