Henry shifted his arms to get a better angle with the binoculars and accidentally bumped a rock that began rolling down the hill. The horses in the valley snapped to attention as the rock hurdled toward them. There was one, loud, unified warning snort that went up from a number of the horses and echoed off the three hills surrounding the valley before the entire herd turned and ran. In an instant, with heads and tails in the air, babies and mares calling to one another, and the stallion bringing up the rear, they were all gone from the valley leaving nothing more than an ocean of waving grass in their wake.

“Wow!” Jessie exclaimed. “Aren’t they something!”

Henry and Jessie both climbed to their feet. Henry put his hat back on and knocked the dust from his chaps and shirt, while still looking in the direction of the Mustangs. “Yes ma’am, they truly are.” He turned to look at Jessie, who was still watching the valley, as if they might return. She was smiling broadly, and it was the sight of that infectious smile that stirred something in Henry that had been dormant for many years. He suddenly found that no matter how hard he tried, he was simply unable to take his eyes off of her, and he couldn’t keep himself from grinning because of it.

Jessie turned toward him and their eyes met for a brief second before Henry, still grinning, turned and slowly began to make his way back down the hill.

“What?” Jessie asked, having seen Henry’s grin. She began to follow him down the hill. “What are you grinning at?”

“Nothin’.” There was a slight chuckle in Henry’s voice as he carefully picked his way through the rocks and cacti. “Nothin’ at all.”

It took less than half the time to get off the hill than it had to get up it, and once back to the horses, Jessie got busy putting the binoculars back in her saddlebags and Henry tightened the cinch on his saddle.

“I could watch a herd like that all day,” Jessie said closing the saddlebag cover. “You know?”

“Yes ma’am, I do.” Henry hadn’t taken his eyes off of what he was doing. “I guess its like ol’ Winston Churchill once said…there’s somethin’ about the outside of a horse that’s good for the inside of a man.” He went to put his foot in the stirrup, but as he did he glanced over at Jessie who was looking at him with a slightly astonished expression.

“Winston Churchill?” she asked, somewhat surprised Henry knew who Winston Churchill was, much less that he was able to quote him. Most of the cowboys she had been around, particularly lately, bordered on the illiterate.

“Yes, ma’am. He was quite a horseman.” Henry slid effortlessly into the saddle. Jessie slid into hers, smiling and shaking her head as she did.

“What?” Henry asked.

“Oh…nothing.”

They hadn’t gone far when Jessie realized that she would really like to know more about the man she was spending the day with other than his name and what he did for a living. Of course there was the story she had gotten from Leon, about the accident, but it wasn’t until Henry’s statement about the former English Prime Minister that she realized he’d never really spoken about himself. She didn’t know what he liked or disliked, where he was from or anything about his family. She was now understanding there was much more to him than what she was seeing on the surface, and by taking a slightly longer route on the way back to the ranch, Jessie was hoping to perhaps engage Henry in a conversation in which he might open up a little.