Henry watched the woman he had spent the day with walking away from him, and once again, just as he did when they were in town, he found he wanted nothing more than to follow her. This time, however, he didn’t. “Goodnight, ma’am.”

Henry took his time grooming the gelding, and when he finished walked him to the pen, turned him loose. He stood for a minute watching the buckskin drop his nose to the dirt and walk around the pen trying to find just the right spot to roll in. Once he did, the gelding circled the chosen area several times, getting lower to the ground with each pass until finally his front legs seemed to buckle underneath him and he dropped to the ground. He lay quietly in the dirt for several seconds before rolling over on to his side, then onto his back, exposing his underbelly to the sky. He rolled back onto his side, then over on his back again. He repeated this three times, each time getting more momentum until finally he was able to roll all the way over to his other side, wait for a second and then roll back over again. The gelding, having apparently gotten a sufficient amount of dirt on the area where Henry’s saddle had sat, got back up and vigorously shook the excess dirt from his coat, starting at his head, then his neck and finally his entire body. He grunted as he shook, sending a cloud of dust in the air that surrounded him, before it gently floated to the ground. The gelding blew threw his nose several times, shook a second time, and then wandered off to the pile of hay Henry had tossed over the fence for him.

It seemed the perfect end to the perfect day. Henry took a deep breath of the warm evening air as he turned to head to the bunkhouse, and he had only walked a few yards before stopping again. To his right was the pasture that held the herd of horses Jessie had been in the night before. Although Henry was tired from the long day’s ride, it was relatively early, and there was still a sliver of daylight left. Instead of going to the bunkhouse as he had originally planned, he decided to watch the horses in the pasture. There were several horses grazing by the fence as he walked up, and unlike the past evening when he went in with them, this time he stayed outside the fence.

He stood, quietly watching the horses, when one of them, a paint mare named Fancy, raised her head and looked in his direction. Several of the other horses began to walk off, away from him, but Fancy didn’t. She stood watching Henry for several seconds before slowly making her way toward him. Henry remained perfectly still as she approached, and she ended up stopping about an arm’s length from him on the opposite side of the fence. Henry ever so slowly began to raise his arm toward the mare, and simultaneously, the mare began to reach for him. As Henry’s arm reached its full extension, so did the mare’s neck, and it seemed they were just a hair too far away from one another to actually touch. Just as Henry was about to lower his arm, the mare reached just a hair more, and ever so softly, touched his hand.