Dark Horse

by J. Carson Black

  She had one more thing to do. It was night. The cowboy was gone; probably out tomcatting with Dennis. They were thick as thieves now.

  She went down to the corral and opened the gate. The field behind it stretched for miles, maybe all the way up to the low mountains in the north. All she had to do was make sure the ponies went that way; that they didn't go toward the road. She opened the gate to the field, then went to the corral and got behind the ponies, which were grouped in the center looking at her as if she were crazy.

  "Get out!" she hissed. She threw a stone and they bolted, then slowed to a standstill at the other end of the enclosure, heads stiff at attention, nostrils going like percolators. "Go on, get out!" She ran behind them. They trotted out the gate and she ran alongside them, willing them to turn the right angle into the pasture. The grass shredded at their heels as the ponies funneled into the open field. Once free, they galloped, bucking and kicking in exultation. Eventually they slowed to graze. But they'd be gone by morning.

  Joelle awoke to sunlight slanting across the bed. She looked around, her gaze running the length of the maple-veneer cupboards ranked above the stove. The wood finish was like honey, rich yet mellow. Next to the stove, a window opened out onto a perfect morning. An open fan of green and brown farmland angled toward the mountains—the neighbor's lettuce crop. The mountains themselves shimmered in a light blue haze, the suffused light of the early sun behind them obscuring detail. Her own back pasture was green-gold, partially hidden by the corrals. She stretched her legs under the bedclothes, shifted to one elbow to take in the view better. It was a view she wouldn't see again.

  Just beyond the corrals there was movement. Who would be down there at this time of day? Had the cowboy discovered his ponies were gone?

  She could see shapes now: brown, red-brown, black. A patch of white. Her breath came in sharply as she realized what it was.

  The ponies were still loose. They were walking in a circle, nose to tail, as if they were still giving pony rides.