That’s when it happened. From the opposite direction, the Meadow Gold truck, which hardly ever came by anymore, was heading down their road to pick up the jugs of cream they’d left in the creekside cooling box. At the sight of the truck, Bucky panicked. He jumped the fence, into the field, and took off at a gallop. And then, suddenly, he was not simply running fast, he was out of control, as if his tail were on fire.

“Oh, man,” Nate said. He could see Junie leaning against Bucky’s withers with her whole body, trying to get a better grip. He imagined how hard her heart must be pounding. She was pulling on the reins, but the motion had no effect. Bucky was running like a horse that knows the glue factory has his number.

Nate pulled himself up tall in the driver’s seat, gripped the steering wheel, and put his foot to the floor. A person had to be careful on dirt roads like this one not to let a vehicle skid out and spin, or even flip, his father had told him: “You’ll want to brake on a curve, but that’s exactly what you shouldn’t do. To maintain control, keep your foot on the accelerator.”

Even though Nate couldn’t see his sister’s face, he was near enough to register—from how she held herself on the pony, her legs wrapped tight against his midsection and her hands clutching handfuls of mane—the full scope of her terror. “I’m coming, Junie!” he yelled into the wind. Still flooring the gas pedal, he watched the speedometer climb to thirty-five, then forty miles per hour.

When he got close to the field where Bucky was—galloping and lurching wildly, snorting and shaking his head—Nate brought the car to a halt and jumped out. He vaulted the fence and ran across the field till he was up in front of Junie, with Bucky flying toward him headed for the line of wooden fencing that separated Nate’s family’s farm from the big, wide-open section of land that was his grandfather’s ranch. At the far end of the fence lay an open gate, so there was nothing stopping Bucky from flying straight through. And once he did, Nate knew, there would be no opportunity to hold him back, with a thousand acres of open fields beyond. His sister would be halfway to Wyoming before Nate could catch up with her.

Unless he could get to the gate and get it shut before Bucky reached it.

Nate shot across the field like Mickey Mantle rounding third. In his whole life he never ran so fast, but he made it, moments before the pony did, and slammed the gate. When Bucky got there, he reared up and turned in a wild, confused half circle, snorting and whinnying. Junie held on for dear life and called out, “Whoa, boy.”