From inside the old truck heading slowly south on Highway 318, Henry McBride looked out across the open field at the herd of horses being driven by a man on horseback leading a pack string of three mules. Some fifty yards behind the herd was a solitary gray colt, limping heavily on his right front and being quietly followed by another man on horse. It was clear to Henry the horses in the main body were well bred Quarter Horses by their refined heads, well muscled bodies, slick coats and easy way of traveling. It was equally easy for Henry to see the limping colt bringing up the rear was a wild horse, more than likely of Spanish breeding with his heavy legs, rough coat, long mane and tail and roman nose, even though it was more refined than most of the mustangs he’d seen. Probably got hooked up with that herd of Quarter Horses somehow. Henry thought. Ain’t gonna be a wild horse no more. “Poor bastard,” he said under his breath, as he put his attention back on the road and took a small pull from a bottle wrapped in a brown paper sack.

CHAPTER 13

It was the breeze blowing gently through the slightly open window next to her bed that woke her, not the alarm clock on the nightstand. But then, waking before the alarm was nothing new for Jessie. Every night before going to bed she’d set the time she’d want to get up, push the button on the clock that turned on the buzzer, and then the next morning she’d get up forty-five minutes before it was set to sound, and turn it off. Unlike her time in the city where she needed an alarm next to her bed to wake her, and another set across the room to make sure she actually got out of bed, here Jessie could never stay sleeping once the first rays of light started peeking in through her bedroom curtains. Here she wanted to get up and get involved in the day, to be part of it, and let it be part of her.

On this morning, the breeze carried with it a hint of rain. Not rain to come, but rain that had already fallen. Somewhere off in the desert there had been a downpour during the night and its smell had gotten caught on the current that drifted across the parched region like a wave. This wave traveled outward in every direction from its source until quietly, part of it passed over her ranch and a small portion slipped through the open window into Jessie’s bedroom. The air it brought with it was cool, certainly cooler then that in her room, and as it brushed across her bare arms, shoulders and face, Jessie unconsciously drew the blankets over herself and smiled. She breathed the freshness of the scent in deeply before stretching, yawning and opening her eyes. It was going to be a good day.

Seventy-five miles to the north, Henry was waking up on the floor of a cheap motel room he rented for six dollars and fifty cents the night before. He hadn’t planned on spending the money on a room, but after having a meager supper and then bedding down next to his fire out in the desert, it had begun to rain. Lightly at first, then heavier and heavier until the raindrops were the size of golf balls. He had climbed into the cab of his pickup to try and sleep there, but it was raining so hard he couldn’t even do that. He had barely gotten himself and the old truck out of the desert before getting stuck, and stopped at the first place he could find which was a run down, fleabitten excuse for a public inn on the side of the road called the Tall Pines Motel.