In the weeks that followed several members of the band would cautiously approach him, one at a time, and slowly introduce themselves. Their cautiousness only made him more nervous, and even though it was clear to him that he could join them at any time, he still kept enough distance from them to feel safe. He moved when they moved, ate when they ate and slept when they slept—all from two hundred feet away. He had become part of their band, but did not allow himself to become a member.

Days with the little band turned into weeks, and weeks into months. Eventually the cold weather began to set in on the high country they were passing through, and the herd, in one of their more decisive actions, moved to lower, more sheltered ground. The gray colt moved along with them, staying always at their flank, and always two hundred feet away. After three days of nonstop travel, the little band came out of a pine forest and into a large open grassy field surrounded by barbed wire fence with an open gate in one corner. The colt had never seen fence before and didn’t know what to think of it. As the herd quietly walked along the wire barrier and headed for the open gate, the colt followed, snorting warily at the horizontal wire attached to vertical posts and staying far away from it.

The little band walked through the gate single file and went directly to a large round tank filled with water and a tall windmill standing next to it—also something the colt had never seen—and began drinking. The colt was thirsty too, having not had anything to drink for the past thirty-six hours since the herd had decided to take a route that didn’t include any water sources. The band of horses drank their fill, and then meandered off, spreading out inside the fenced in area and grazing on the tall grass that was there. The colt stayed outside the fence for the rest of that day, watching as the little band drifted farther and farther away from him. Occasionally, one of the horses would nicker at him, but other than that, they didn’t seem too interested in his coming or going.

The colt slept outside the fence that night, and in the morning, with thirst overtaking him, he very cautiously slipped through the gate, went to the tank and began to drink. It had taken thirteen men on horseback, four more operating the gates and a helicopter to capture the band of horses the colt grew up with. For the colt, it had simply taken a tank full of water. He didn’t know it at the time, but the gray colt, a direct descendant of the stallion ridden by Raúl Gómez Mendoza in 1532, had just begun a life in captivity.

CHAPTER 8

Jessie put the phone down gently after speaking to Mrs. Rodriquez and knew she was going back home. Although she had been away from the ranch since she was 19, the ranch had not been away from her. For ten years she had lived in Denver, Colorado, where the only sign she had of horses or cattle were on the billboards sprawling by the freeway, showing a Hollywood cowboy tugging on a cigarette. Ten years of nonchalant jobs and several equally nonchalant boyfriends could not erase the throbbing she felt in the middle of her chest for the endless azure skies and the earth that rose up to meet it. At the same time, ten years of festering anger would not let her loose from the city.