Instinct had told him to be wary of this place. Not to get too far from the opening in the fence he had come through, as it appeared to be his only way back from where he had come. Instinct also told him to not get too far from the water, and to be cautious about the sounds and smells he was experiencing. Fifty million years of evolution was alerting him to stay with the herd because there was safety in numbers.

Before the stallion attacked him up on the mesa, the gray colt was starting to grow into himself. He was brave, confident and outgoing and had started to learn the skills he would need to be responsible for a herd of his own some day. But since the attack and the subsequent injuries, all that had changed. Since then the colt had become leery, cautious and guarded. Much of it was no doubt due to his new life and surroundings. But much of it was also due to the fact that he now understood he wasn’t invincible. All living creatures know on one level or another that they will die, but because of what had happened to him, because of what he had experienced, the colt understood it, and that was different. Ultimately it would be for that reason that, after three days and nights of being by himself near the water tank, the colt chose to go find the herd. Three and a half hours before Ben and Cat brought their pack string out of the pine forest and through the open gate, the gray colt took one last drink then limped away from the tank and toward the little rise to the north.

Having passed over the rise an hour later, the colt stopped dead in his tracks, raised his head, pricked his ears and let out a loud warning snort. Off in the distance beyond the herd that was spread out and gazing quietly some two hundred yards from where he stood, a number of large buildings stood—something the colt had never seen before. To the east, the tree-covered hill had casually dropped away exposing Nevada State Highway 318, which was now less than a mile away. On the highway an occasional car, pickup or semi zipped past.

The colt let out another loud snort. The horses of the herd raised their heads, and with pricked ears turned toward him. One by one they began trotting to the gray, just as they had the first time they saw him. They nickered and called to him, but this time, instead of approaching him as a stranger, they approached him as one of their own. Upon reaching him they gathered around more trying to be a source of comfort to him rather than with the suspicious nature in which they had approached him the first time they met.

The herd swarmed around the colt, nickering quietly, sniffing at his flanks and nostrils, then slowly dispersing, but staying nearby. The herd went back to grazing, as if to say there is nothing to be afraid of here. The colt, not convinced, watched the buildings and the road cautiously for a good long while before he too, finally felt confident enough to try to graze. He dropped his head, took a few mouthfuls of grass, then raised his head and snorted at the buildings. He would take another mouthful of grass, and then snort at the vehicles on the road. Over time his worry, and so the snorting, subsided and he relaxed enough to graze quietly for several minutes at a time before feeling like he had to check the status of the buildings and the road. After about an hour, the colt had finally relaxed enough to simply drop his head and graze quietly in amongst the others. The quietness would last only a few minutes before, from over the little rise to the south, back toward the water tank and windmill there came two riders on horses towing three pack mules.