Red Outlaw

Life Gets Rough

Around this time, everythin' in Red's life slowed down a bit cause nothin' was as interesting as it was when he was a baby. And the story speeds up, cause we skip over the boring stuff.

Red stood by the treeline and watch the herd for three days. When it become clear to him they wasn't gonna let him back in, he up and left. Simple as that.

His feelins about the situation wasn't so bad after all. He could take care a himself. Except, he never been around all these horses outside the meadow before. Out here it was open plains and basically a predator free for all. Mama cougar didn't just spend all her time at the meadow. There was so many more outside, and she only had to walk another half mile to get there. It was worth it.

Here, the wolves followed the herds. Here, they picked off the weak ones. Red seen them get on a mare earlier that week he been kicked out. They killed her foal too.

Red tried to make friends with the other herds' mares but they all had their babies and kicked him out. He was alone, as he'd gotten used to, when he met Scar. Sad was an ol' gray stallion too old to keep a harem anymore. So he led the bachelor herd. Despite the scary name, Scar took real good care a his stallions till they could get their own harems.

They was drinking from the river, cause the stream thickened out after the meadow, one day when Red met Scar. He was called that cause the Horse Killer done took his eye clean out with her claw. He had his four stallions Badger, a chestnut with a white stripe from his eyes to his nose like a donut with a hole in the middle; Gimp, an old dull bay with a limp on his left hind from a wolf, and Grey, a grulla. Grey and Badger was the younger ones, lookin' for the ladies this year.

At the stream, Red splashed the water on Scar's face where his eye was put out. Scar and him sniffed noses, but there wasn't any tension. The old guy was friendly. Then he round up his boys and head back to their spot. Red followed them.

He sniffed noses with Badger, Gimp, and Grey, and then Scar come back over to him. He made sure Red knowed that he was boss, but Red never had a problem with authority yet.

Red made fast friends with them and joined their bachelor herd. Within a week, they was livin' quite happily.

That is, till the wolf pack done attacked a stallion in open daylight. Course, all the horses scattered in a panic, and returned to find the dogs feasting on his carcass. But the thing was, was that new mares was prime real estate. Specially in spring, when they was comin' to heat.

Well Badger and Grey got real excited, Red couldn't tell what for. He didn't understand it yet. These colts been waitin' years to get some mares. They was three years old and pumped full a testosterone.

Well, they started a brawl right there an' then. Grey was bigger than Badger and he won fair and square. Red didn't see what all the fuss was about, and wouldn't until he was about two. See, these boys been the weakest a their bunch and didn't get to claim any fillies for themselves their first year out.

Well, that summer passed by relatively quickly and one day a bunch a horses come an' join the bachelor herd. All the survivin' colts a that year includin' Dusty, Patch, and Sepia. Dusty seemed to have settled down a bit and Red got with them from the start. The day after they showed up, everyone started to move. It was fall time now.

Red seen the funny tents get packed away when they got to the plateau. The stallions fought hard to gain the right to it, but Red and the other colts knowed their place down here now. They had a hard, stormy winter. Things wasn't always peachy with the bachelors, though.

It was Red's three year old winter when Scar didn't make it. Red was by his side in the last, when the stallion laid down. He gone away from the others, so they wouldn't be et on by the wolves. Red followed him and watch him settle down. He nickered.