Morena Again

By Peter Zachary Cohen

Alex is lightly dressed for he has been abandoned by careless others to a rangeland blizzard, and he knows there are over thirty miles to town, too far to hike through snow-drifted ravines before the killing subzero night comes down on him. He doesn't know where closer-by ranches might be amongst the hills.
Feeling very alone, he invents a second-self to talk with against that aloneness, and the panic and anger making it hard to think clearly. He agrees with himself that he can't stay exposed where he is, and in trying to guess by the terrain where to search, his hopes soar upon seeing a horse beside a fenceline gate, because he can open gates and the horse will know where to go.
But he can't just open the gate and follow for the wind-blown snow would soon cover her tracks. So when the horse only shies from his approach, without going far from the gate, his other self urges him to keep trying ways to get close enough to get control by sliding his belt around her neck. There begins a maneuvering battle between a desperate yet resourceful human and a willful yet savvy horse who is also seeking a way to shelter but whose priority is freedom no matter the weather. Their efforts become serio-comic despite the darkening sky and deepening cold.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter Zachary Cohen
• Release date: Aug 24, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301003075

Peter Zachary Cohen

I've lived mainly in New York State and Wyoming (with some of their horses and blizzards), with notable time on the muskie waters of N.Y. and Minnesota. After Army service I mixed my own writing with conducting writing courses at Kansas State University, while sharing a small sheep farm with my wife and two sons. Though I considered them of equal interest to adults my printed books were all published for children, receiving various reading list recognitions, two general awards, with three of them as Junior Literary Guild selections. I also conceived and wrote the scripts for two half-hour dramatic films for an Xerox series, and have created and written the book and lyrics for two produced musicals. And am continuing to be active outdoors and at a variety of folk- and other social dancing. Right now Sue and I are involved with our own Ragtime-Roaring Twenties era, choreographing steps to the Tin Pan Alley tunes of those years. I can be contacted at [e-mail].

Book preview

Morena Again

by

Peter Zachary Cohen

Smashwords Edition

Copyright (c) 2013 Peter Zachary Cohen

Smashwords Edition Licensing Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each per you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

******

Chapter 1

In the same instant that she heard before she saw the two horses galloping toward her, in one motion she swung her long head up with bitten grasses dripping from her teeth and she was running.

She wasn’t matching the speed of the other horses, even though they were each weighted by a saddle and rider but she could put some distance behind her. She headed to where one of the juniper-thick draws opened out on the slopes of grass and sagebrush. As she ran she saw that the horses behind had separated and that one off to the side was racing to cut her off from that shelter and could hear the other horse gaining behind her.

Her legs were not reacting as strongly as she’d been used to, but she still knew how to skid to stop and wheel around, again with uninterrupted action, and she ran directly at her close pursuer. That horse was reined abruptly to the side for no sane rider would try to rope a horse that was coming close at him and could pull him backward out of the saddle.

Whether or not she knew the reasons, she’d learned the results of that tactic, and still claiming her freedom she headed toward the edge of another juniper draw.

That refuge was further away and the nearest horse had been swung around and was catching up with her again, with the other one not far back, getting almost even with her right hip and she could see the lariat spinning above it. She shifted a stride to her right and as the flickering noose shot toward her, dipped her head, shifting her stride to the left, hearing a faint hiss and feeling only a part of the rope fall against her flank, and managing to break her stride to kick up both hind legs, having learned how to avoid a pursuer’s hope--having missed catching the neck--of snaring a hind leg as it might step into the fallen noose.

She’d re-opened some distance but it would not be enough to reach the other draw so she swerved to her left and reached a broad area where the sagebrush had achieved robust growth, some of the plants nearly as high as her chest. She stumbled as she first dodged in amongst them, for her pasterns where not a nimble as once, but she held her balance and with twenty-four years of experience in the business of quick maneuvers made her way further into the array of gnarled, tiny-leafed branches.

The closest horse was reined in at the edge.

Screw you! We’re not quitting!

The shout burst from Marv Hannum as he stood in his stirrups, gripping the reins and recoiled lariat, then his weathered face tightened again as the full strength of his voice sounded weak as a bird’s call in that echo-less open country. The worse for being familiar.

Familiar to Gene Wall, too, as he reined up beside him, and with both horses blowing for wind, he said through his own breathing, Like a few years ago, after we brought down your steers.

That’s why I’ve been letting her come down on her own since. But this time, dammit, I need her down today.

You’re sure Wikard won’t wait, with them talking storm tonight. That should bring her down for you.

He says it’s a one-shot deal for him. Got to haul to the packers by Monday.

Well, she’s still there, waiting for us.

With the other horses stopped, Morena had stopped, too; taking the chance to rest, and, with the dense sagebrush as her shield, to watch for any other pursuers.

For those few moments a well-placed photographer might have perceived a wall-calendar display with a wide span of the Finger Hills as background. The top ridge, tan and thinly green against the lower part of the blue sky to westward, would show fully lighted, with such shadows as could be seen revealing the sun to be just half-risen. Across the span sloping downward from the ridge, a few of the eroded draws, choked with junipers, would appear as dark fingers clawing at the pale colors of autumn rangeland. Other draws would be angled so that only sharp and knowing eyes could distinguish where they would lay hidden. Some of the trails made by grazing cattle would be noticeable, more so than the regularity of the thin posts of a fenceline. And amid that scene, likely only experienced eyes would fully recognize the tension in the peaceful-seeming presence of two paused riders at an edge of a large patch of sagebrush and a loose horse standing quietly amid it.

Ain’t worth the risk, chasing her through that stuff, Marv Hannum chafed. I’ll drift in to keep her moving. She’ll probably try to stay up high, so you swing back the way we came. Gotta keep her away from the draw she aimed for first. He pointed downslope. There’s a draw there you can’t see from here. There’s a ditch-creek in it but no trees. Then there’s a long go to more trees. If I can get her going that way, we’ll have a chance to run her down.

See you later, Gene Wall nodded and reined off. Marv Hannum set his horse to dealing with the heavy sage.

When that horse started closer Morena resumed her passage through the brush so quick-footedly that Gene Wall, off to the side, spurred his horse into a lope to get around ahead of her, and Morena began swerving and sprinting through the brush in another race for the refuge of that first-chosen draw, though it was clear she would have to survive more close-range dodging to get there.

Then she heard faint sounds of voices and swerved away from that goal and headed downslope, emerging into lesser brush and now running straight toward the draw that was out of sight. Right away Marv Hannum turned his horse after her at the fastest trot he dared till he too got through to the lesser brush and then dug in his spurs. By then Gene Wall was riding at a gallop to get all the way around the thick sage to keep after the horse who of a sudden disappeared downward as if consumed by the earth.

A whole disorganized chorus of male, mostly teenaged, voices arose as Morena thumped down the steep side of the hidden draw. At the bottom a spring-fed creek, barely a yard wide, flowed through its winding trench, cold and deep enough to support a population of very wary trout. The accustomed method for landing one was to approach the trench amid the low brush from either side on hands and knees or a deep crouch, and by using any manner of a rod flick a hook with some kind of bait onto, or into, that water from back far enough that no trout could spy some suspicious shape or movement. A platoon-sized group of teen boys and two adult men from a camp-out were spread thinly along the creek, practicing the art, and two of them, Alex Jaynes and a younger pupil, directly in line with the horse’s swift arriving, felt a need to jump up, leap over the creek, and spring aside for their lives.

But before reaching them Morena stumbled through another hunching, halting yet swerving turn, getting balance restored. A bursting of yells was announcing her arrival and upstream the men and boys were rising from their fish-stalking like so many giant prairie dogs propping up in alert response to a communal excitement. She headed toward them and with all their eyes upon her ran past them along a path that years of fishing people had worn fairly straightly several paces back from creek’s twisting course. The thudding of her hoofs on the bared earth were still audible and the rhythmic bobbing of her diminishing form was still visible, thinly veiled by the dust she banged up, when all those eyes and ears were turned by a double barrage of thumpings on softer ground as two riders came swiftly down into the draw from different angles so that two different sets of boys and one of the men felt themselves, bewilderedly, the targets of charging horses.

Marv Hannum and Gene Wall were both forced to rein in to avoid any chance collisions, without noticing anything but the people in front of them.

Milt Toppen was clearly one of the men among boys, full-bodied in khakis. His softly-jawed face under a dark green floppy-brimmed hat spoke out,

You fellows looking for something?

Marv Hannum gave the age-old reply. Which way she’d go?

Milt Toppen swung an arm in the upstream direction and Gene Wall immediately reined his horse to the direction but Marv Hannum felt obliged to hold back a moment.

Trying to get her in before the storm, he said loudly. You people know they’re predicting snow tonight?

We’re watching about it, Milt Toppen said. His tone seemed to resent the question.

Okay, Marv Hannum shrugged him off, then called out at the others, Now look out of the way kids--

The two riders lined single file on the pathway at a fast trot till they were clear of their audience, then both held up to confer, looking up the creek’s open draw.

She’s not down in here now or we could see her. Gene Wall said.

She’s gone back for those other trees, Marv Hannum bet, and on his lead they went forward till they could drive their horses up a groove in the draw’s side to come back on top among more low-growing sagebrush and