The cowboy walked through the dark and stormy world, shouting, “Maybelline, Maybelline, Maybelline!”

In his haste to find his horse, Leroy had left Unit 12 without his boots and without his lasso. He was not at all prepared to go on a horse search, and he had no idea where to begin.

Patty LeMarque’s face appeared before him and said, “Don’t forget the compliments, Hank. And the grub.”

“Maybelline!” Leroy shouted. “You are the queen of yippie-i-oh-ness! You are the most beautiful horse in all of creation.”

No horse appeared.

“Maybelline!” Leroy shouted. “There will be unending pots of spaghetti if only you come home to me!”

No horse appeared.

Leroy thought about Maybelline and her bony spine and her four teeth. He considered her whiskered, velvety nose. He cogitated upon her twitching, twisting ears and how she bent her head down to listen to him. Oh, she listened to him so well.

“Maybelline,” Leroy whispered into the darkness, “you are the horse for me.”

The rain came down harder, and the wind blew meaner. Leroy’s socks were soaked through.

This is the worst night of my life, thought Leroy. If there is anything worse than being a cowboy without a horse, it is being a cowboy who had a horse and then lost her.

The wind howled and whistled. And then the wind grabbed hold of Leroy’s hat and tossed it away.

“Dag blither it, you, you, wind, you . . .” Leroy shook his fist at the wind. “What am I going to do without my hat?”

Leroy Ninker was now hatless, bootless, lasso-less, and horseless.

He had never felt less like a cowboy.

“I want my horse!” Leroy Ninker shouted into the wind and rain. He sank to his knees. “Give me back my horse. Please, please. Maybelline, I promise that if I find you, I will never leave you alone again.”

These words seemed so sad to Leroy that he started to cry. The wind blew stronger. The rain beat down. The world was very, very dark, and the cowboy was lost.

Oh, he was lost.

And where was the horse?

She was lost, too. She was as lost as she had ever been in her life. She was soaked to the hooves, and she was very afraid.

She was also tired.

She stopped running and held herself still in the darkness. She whinnied. And then she neighed. And then she nickered. Finally, she sighed.

The horse wanted many things. She wanted the rain to stop falling and the wind to stop howling. She wanted the little man to appear out of the darkness holding a gigantic pot of spaghetti.

But more than anything, Maybelline wanted to hear the little man’s voice.

The horse needed to hear some beautiful words.

But there was no little man, and there were no beautiful words. There was just darkness and rain and wind. And since Maybelline couldn’t think what to do, she started to run again. She ran without thinking or hoping.

In the darkness, the horse went one way.

And the cowboy, alas, went the other.