He gave himself over to the race, pushing farther down, laying his shoulder into the horse's lowered neck. His body was tense, nearly horizontal, and his heartbeat sped up to match that of his horse. There was no controlling the horse now. The horse was in full run, operating on a combination of terror of whatever was behind them and the desire to outrun the other horses. The horse was far beyond any commands a human might give it, and that suited John fine. Once the decision to let the horses run had been made, there were no other decisions to be made. He pressed himself into the horse, trying to make himself one with the animal.

They were on flat, rolling prairie, with little to impede the horses—small stands of mesquite, bits of saltbush, but mostly grass. The horses ran into and out of small swales in the landscape, but there was no protection here—but no obstacle, either. There was no shelter or camouflage or deceit, only the full-out run to save their lives.

John was not even looking ahead. Half the time, his one good eye was blinded with dust from the other riders. He looked up once in a while to see the hills growing closer, to see the mesquite trees go by, and then he put his head down again. He heard the explosion of breath, probably a curse from Tom, and that brought his head up, and he saw the danger. A three-wire fence. And he was out of his saddle and standing in the stirrups, bracing himself. Whether the horse saw the fence or felt John come up out of the saddle, he couldn't tell, but they were flying over the fence, and then he was flying over the horse until he hit the ground hard and rolled several times.