He had grown to dislike the way the men on the ranch rode him, and no matter how hard he tried to do the right thing for whoever was on him, he never seemed to get any relief from the pressure they used. He found, more and more, that he needed to defend himself just to make it through the day. He had started to get a reputation as hard-mouthed and ornery. The men tried to put their signature on the colt, and over time, he had begun to refuse. Because of it, there had been talk on the ranch of having him gelded in order to get him to “calm down” and have him be more compliant. It wouldn’t have helped.

And then one day, a month after branding had taken place, Henry showed up. He had come into the colt’s pen and petted him on the neck as he always had. He led him to a hitch rail, put an old saddle on him with a satchel that held all his belongings tied to the back, and rode him off the ranch. For three days, the two of them headed southeast across the desert, stopping only for water, eating and sleeping. The colt had been defending himself for so long against those that had ridden him that he instinctively thought he needed to be the same way with Henry. So, when Henry first got on him, the colt continuously pushed into the bit, swished his tail in anger and shook his head defiantly. That continued throughout the first day and half of the second. But the longer the two of them rode together, the more the colt began to see that the way Henry always rode him hadn’t changed. Henry was still soft in his cues to him and still dependable in the way he rode. The colt didn’t have to defend himself against Henry, and eventually he began to soften up and travel for him just as he had before the Essex boys got a hold of him.

They had been in the desert for two-and-a-half days when they came across the band of wild horses Henry and Jessie had gone to watch, in a large grassy meadow a half day’s ride from the ranch boundary. At first, the big bay stallion, wearing the scars of all his many battles on his body, approached defiantly, neck arched, front feet pawing at the ground, and snorting menacingly through his nose. By this time, however, the colt had scars of his own, too, and while the bay stallion knew how to fight for his herd, the gray knew how to fight for his life. Normally of relatively quiet and passive nature, the gray had had enough of defending himself from unwarranted attacks. With Henry on his back he spun to face the bay’s challenge. Just as Henry was about to intervene, the bay suddenly, and unexpectedly backed down, ran back to his herd, gathered them up and pushed them away at a gallop.