Missed the beginning? Read Part 1 here.
Last time, I left you on the trail. Gold light through the branches, hoofbeats on soft ground, the creak of leather. I told you it was the best part of my day, and most mornings it is.
What I didn’t tell you is what happened on the way home that morning. I’m Lana, I’m twenty-five, I live at the end of a gravel road with more horses than sense, and I’ve been riding these woods since I was old enough to hold reins. I thought I knew every sound they could make. I was wrong.
Back From the Trail, Not Alone
Raven heard it first. My black gelding stopped so suddenly that my coffee thermos nearly flew out of the saddlebag. His ears swung forward, his whole body went tight, and he let out a low, rumbling nicker into the trees.
Then something answered.
A few seconds later, a horse stepped out of the ferns onto the trail in front of us. A gray mare, dappled like river stones, fully tacked up. Saddle, bridle, the reins snapped and dangling. No rider.
If you’ve been around horses long enough, a riderless horse makes your stomach drop. It means someone, somewhere, is on the ground. I called out until my voice cracked. Nothing came back but birds.
The mare was shaking, sweat dried in white salt lines on her neck. She’d been running, and for a while. When I slid off Raven and held out my hand, she hesitated, then pressed her forehead right into my chest like she’d been looking for me all along.
The Saddle With Someone’s Initials
I walked both horses home, slow, checking her legs every few hundred yards. Back at the barn, I did what anyone would do: cold water on the sweaty spots, a flake of hay, a long look at every inch of her.
She was in decent shape. A scrape on one knee, a loose shoe, nothing a vet couldn’t handle. But it was the tack that had me staring.
The saddle was old, really old. Hand-tooled leather, worn smooth where someone’s knees had gripped it for years. Burned into the back of the cantle were two letters: J.W.
And tucked deep in the saddlebag, under a rain jacket and a crushed granola bar, was a folded piece of paper. I almost didn’t open it. It felt like reading someone’s diary.
I opened it anyway.
Six words, written fast in pencil: If you find her, keep her safe.
Calls, Posts, and No Answers
I spent the rest of the day doing the responsible things. I called the sheriff’s office and reported a found horse and a possible missing rider. I called the two neighbors who ride the same trails. I posted in every local horse group I’m in, with photos of the mare and the saddle, leaving out the note.
Search and rescue drove the trailheads that afternoon. No car left behind. No injured rider. No report of anyone missing.
The comments rolled in. Lots of hearts, lots of “beautiful girl,” a few people swearing she looked like a horse they’d seen at a show three counties over. Nobody said, “She’s mine.”
By evening I’d started calling her Willow, mostly because I needed something to call her. She followed me along the fence line every time I walked past. Raven, who usually hates newcomers, stood at the gate between their paddocks all afternoon like a bodyguard.
A Storm Rolls In
The weather turned right after sunset. If you live out here, you learn to read the sky the way you read your horses. The air went heavy and still, the birds went quiet, and the clouds over the ridge turned the color of a bruise.
I brought everyone in early. Willow walked into the spare stall like she’d done it a thousand times, but she wouldn’t settle. She paced. She pinned her ears at every gust. Each time thunder rolled across the valley, she pressed herself into the back corner and stared at the barn doors.
Horses get nervous in storms, that’s normal. This was different. She wasn’t scared of the thunder. She was watching for something.
So I did what I never do. I made a pot of coffee, dragged a camp chair into the aisle, wrapped myself in a horse blanket, and stayed. Rain hammered the metal roof so hard I couldn’t hear myself think. Somewhere around midnight, I must have dozed off.
Headlights at the Gate
Raven woke me. A sharp, angry snort, then a kick against his stall door that made me jump straight out of the chair.
Through the gap in the barn doors, I saw light. Two headlights, sitting at the bottom of my driveway, engine running in the rain.
Nobody drives out here at midnight. Not in a storm. Not by accident.
A door slammed. A tall figure in a long coat and a dripping cowboy hat walked up the gravel, slow and sure, like he already knew exactly where the barn was. He stopped just outside the light and called out, calm as anything:
“Evening, ma’am. I believe you’ve got my horse.”
Behind me, Willow made a sound I had never heard a horse make. Not a nicker. Not a whinny. Something closer to a scream. She threw herself against the back wall of her stall, eyes white, trembling from her ears to her hooves.
My hand was on the barn door latch. My phone was in my back pocket. And the note was still folded in my jacket, six words burning a hole through the fabric.
If you find her, keep her safe.
So who was he? Was he J.W.? And why was a horse who had trusted me in five seconds flat this terrified of the man who said he owned her?
Part 3 is coming soon. Follow Reiterin on Facebook so you don’t miss what happened when I opened that door.