Now that the colt was in the pen, the only thing left to do was get the gate closed and that was one task he wasn’t willing to leave up to anyone but himself. Just after sunset, Tug eased himself into position behind the small shed at the end of the alley opposite the open gate. Less than an hour later, the entire area became pitch dark with the absence of a moon or nearby yard light, and Tug was forced to rely on his hearing to determine when the colt had first entered the alley, then gone into the pen next to the old gelding. He had heard the colt nicker before entering the alley, and the old horse blow in response. He heard the colt cautiously move down the alley and enter the pen next to Zip and he heard him pacing in the pen. Finally, he heard the colt settling in to eat on the pile of hay Cat placed there earlier.

Tug waited nearly a half hour more before he started taking his slow and measured steps down the alley and toward the colt’s pen. He had been lucky in that he was upwind from the colt, which would make it difficult, if not impossible for the colt to smell him. He was also lucky in that the three-inch-diameter lodge pole pine rails that made up the five-rail, nearly six-foot-tall fence of the pens would block most, if not all of his movement from the colt’s sight. The one thing he was concerned with was the colt hearing him. So, like a thief in the night he would take one painfully slow step, and then wait to listen for any reaction the colt gave. Then he would take another step, and another until he had covered the thirty-six-foot distance to the open gate of the colt’s pen.

Even though Tug’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness, it was still nearly impossible for him to see anything unless he was right on top of it. As he neared the gate, which opened into the alley, as did all the other gates on the other five pens on that row, he became even more cautious. He moved slowly, but even as slow as he was moving, he still didn’t want to accidentally run into the gate, which would no doubt spook the colt before he could get it swung into place. Mustangs can be extremely unpredictable, especially when they’re frightened, and while a domestic horse will almost always run away from a noise that scares them, a mustang may not. Knowing the only way out of the pen was the gate he came in, any noise, even if it were coming from the direction of the gate, could send the colt bolting headlong toward it. If Tug bobbled in any way, it could mean a big problem for both him and the colt.

He had walked the distance from the shed to the gate on the third pen hundreds of times over the years, as he had with all the other gates on all the other pens. He never counted how many steps it took to get there, but somehow he knew when he was getting close. When he got to within four or five feet of the gate, Tug began silently sliding his feet along the ground rather than taking full steps, and he reached his hand out in front of him so as not to bump the gate with his body. He was so cautious, it seemed as though it took nearly as long to go the last four feet as it had the first thirty-two.