He stood in the far corner of the pen, his hindquarters up against the fence and watched as humans came and went. Eventually, one of them came in the pen and one by one, caught the horses that were there, tied them up to a post, and trimmed their feet. When the man had finished, he took the horse he had trimmed and turned it back out into the large pasture with the windmill and water tank, although from the catch pen the colt could see neither. At one point, the man had left the gate to the pasture open while he turned one of the horses out, and the colt thought about making a break for it. Had he been healthy, he could have covered the distance from the corner in which he was standing, to the gate easily and before the man—who was outside in the pasture—could have gotten back to get it closed. He even took a quick step in that direction, but the pain in his shoulder made it clear it would just be a waste of energy to try. So he returned to the corner.

It took some time, but before long the only two horses left in the pen were the colt and one old gelding that wasn’t quite as fit as all the others. The rest of the herd had already begun to move away from the catch pen and disperse out into the big pasture with the windmill, grazing quietly as they did. The horses had been turned out and moved away from the pen so gradually, the colt didn’t worry much about them leaving, like he naturally would have had they been turned out all at once. Instead, as the human who had been trimming feet finally left the pen, the colt made his way over to the old gelding and stood as close as the gelding would allow.

The two stood quietly in the middle of the pen until the sun began to go down. It was then another human came in the pen and made his way to the old gelding. The colt immediately bolted for the far corner and watched as the man put a rope around the gelding’s neck and quietly led him through another gate…one that led to an alley with tall wooden fence on one side, and several pens smaller than the catch pen on the other. The man left the gate open as he led the gelding away. Neither the man, nor the gelding came back, and as darkness fell the colt found himself standing alone in the corner of the catch pen, which seemed much bigger now than when all the horses had been together.

The colt didn’t move from the corner for a long time and it was only when hunger overtook him that he ventured out. He slowly and meticulously scoured the catch pen for something to eat, but found nothing. The man who had trimmed the horse’s feet earlier in the day had cleaned up everything, even the manure the herd had left behind. He had also drained the water tank the horses had been drinking from during the afternoon. Finding nothing to eat or drink, the colt eventually made his way to the open gate, where the man had taken the old gelding earlier that evening. He stopped at the opening and sniffed the air, trying to get a bearing on where the old horse was. The light breeze coming from behind him made that impossible, so he then held his breath to hear more acutely any noise or sounds coming from the alley beyond. Out of the dark, but not too far away he could hear the quiet munching of the old gelding. He nickered softly, and the old gelding answered with a gentle blowing through his nose.