Leroy stood in a patch of mud. He looked down at his socks. They were very dirty. He looked up at the sky. He watched as the rain slowed to a trickle. The thunder grumbled and rumbled and then slunk away. The last raindrop fell. The world became very quiet.

The sky was gray, but at the horizon, there was the slightest hint of pink.

“Dawn is coming,” said Leroy Ninker. “And I do not have a hat or boots or a lasso or a horse. I don’t even have an umbrella. I have nothing at all.”

Leroy watched the sun slowly rise; the orange ball of it glowed brighter and brighter. He shook his head sadly. He looked down at his muddy socks again.

And then, in the pink and hopeful light of dawn, Leroy noticed something in the dirt. He bent down and traced the shape that was imprinted in the mud. His heart thumped inside of him.

“Yippie-i-oh,” whispered Leroy Ninker to the hoofprint.

He looked past the first hoofprint, and he saw there was a second one and then a third.

“Maybelline!” shouted Leroy Ninker.

He followed the hoofprints. He started to run. He may not have had a hat or a lasso or boots, but he was tracking a horse.

His horse.

Maybelline was out there somewhere. And a cowboy named Leroy Ninker would find her.

The horse was, indeed, out there somewhere. To be specific, she was three streets over. The horse was on Deckawoo Drive.

She was standing at the window of a house. She was watching a family sitting down to breakfast. Wonderful, wonderful smells were coming from inside the house, and the family looked happy sitting together around the table. Maybelline put her nose very close to the window. She watched the family. She admired the food.

And when she could not bear it any longer, she raised her head and called out. She whinnied long and loud.

Leroy Ninker was following the hoofprints when he heard a sound that made him stop in his tracks. Leroy held himself very still. He listened.

He heard birdsong and the low hum of a train. He heard the whoosh of car tires on the wet pavement.

And then he heard that beautiful, singular noise again: a whinny. A horse. His horse. Maybelline.

Leroy ran in the direction of the whinny.

“Maybelline!” he called out. “I am on my way!”

He leaped over a bush. He ran around a bicycle. He climbed over a fence and into a backyard.

And there was Maybelline! She was standing and looking in the window of a house.

“Maybelline!” shouted Leroy.

The horse turned and looked at him. She twisted her ears left and right. Both ears trembled hopefully. It was obvious that she was waiting for some beautiful words.

Leroy’s throat felt tight.

He smiled. He spread his arms wide. “Horse of my heart,” he called out, “most wondrous, most glorious of all horses, I have missed you so.”

Maybelline nickered. She came trotting toward him.

Leroy put his arms around her. He closed his eyes and leaned his head against her neck.

He had done it. He had taken hold of fate with both hands and wrestled it to the ground. And he had done it without a lasso, without boots, without a hat.

“Oh, Maybelline,” said Leroy Ninker. “I have so many words I want to say to you.”

Leroy’s eyes were still closed when he heard a voice say, “Mister, is that your horse?”