Wild

Chapter Nine

By the time they got back it was getting to be night time again and the moon was shrouded with clouds. Like the moon the horses mood was shrouded by dark thoughts.

The bleeding had stopped on Moon's cuts, though he winced when he moved around. He longed for Rose's kind nature and reassuring faith in situations such as this, surely she could have fixed his wound. He realized his thoughts were irrelevant, Rose wasn't there and if she was they wouldn't be in this mess. Directing his thoughts toward other things he trailed at the back of the herd as they searched for refugee from the cold night wind.

Moon stopped dead as everything began to make sense to him, horse smell, footprints, noises behind them, the sleek "tree" he had bumped into, and even a black shadow had appeared to follow them away from the fire! How could he have been so stupid, Eagles was following them! Only he and Royal knew.

No wonder he didn't want to be caught, though Eagles was Moxie's son, she and Samurai had a secret dislike of him after he turned into a big shot national dressage champion and had been sent away for the very best training. Moon admired Eagles modesty over it, but Moxie had felt it a betrayal of sorts that he wouldn't acknowledge their blue blooded skill that ran through the family. Though he thought it crazy to hold such a grudge.

Phoenix turned to see why he'd stopped, so he trotted along briskly to keep up, without really thinking of his motions. He ran into Moxie who turned with a look to say 'why'd you do that?' He shook his frazzeled head and searched for the reason for their stopping. A huge fenced in area lay ahead with a white barn to the left of them. It took him a minute to register the horses grazing throughout the field.

Phoenix called out to the horses, hopefully they would know the way to get around it. A tall dappled grey called back gesturing to the far right"I'm not sure I just got here and the other horses usually go around when they go trail riding, hey where are you're people, anyway?"

Phoenix called back with a royal air that they were trying to find their way back to them. The other horses having heard the conversation rushed to the fence to greet the brave horses. Two stable hands happened to see the commotion and rushed to find lead ropes and other people to catch the escapees.

They even didn't notice that the stable hands were jogging towards them as they greeted the other horses. Phoenix spotted them and tried to back away, but a tree was right behind her and she couldn't turn around with the other four horses clustered around her. She bolted forward and the others were soon racing after her except for Royal and Moon who had bolted back into the forest.

This had been expected by the stable hands who herded Moxie and Samurai into the pasture by opening the gate and chasing them in.

Phoenix flung her head up to avoid being grabbed by her grimy old halter. She darted past the two people and galloped easily over to the barn. She was met with other grooms who managed to block her path. The fence ran on either sides now with horses looking at this strange occurrence.

Moon moved swiftly, dodging between trees and rocks, his feet placed purposefully and accurately. Royal on the hand was clumsier and had trouble keeping his over grown feet under him, much to his disgust. Moon slowed allowing the roan to catch up.

A smaller swifter boy managed to put a lead rope around Moon and Royal's neck by coming from ahead on a parallel riding trail. The two were well trained enough to behave for the boy. He patted Royal affectionately and pulled a carrot from his pocket for each of the horses.