CHAPTER TWO

Just past noon, on a ranch many miles south of us, the first of the government trucks appeared.

Teresa Pineu narrowed her eyes and saw the trail of powder their tires kicked up off the hard-packed caliche road that cut along the wire fence that marked the border between her parcel and the BLM. She dried her hands on a dish towel and reached for the binoculars that rested on the ledge beside the trailer’s kitchen sink.

The trucks bore no markings, but made no effort toward concealment, though their distinctive shape made clear the nature of the cargo they carried.

So this is how it begins, she thinks.

Wild horses had roamed the landscape since the Pleistocene era, but the bloodline that marked this herd could be traced back to the arrival of the first Conquistadores in the fifteenth century. The ocean voyage from Spain was long and arduous, and many of the animals lost their lives, so it was natural that only the strongest, most robust would survive, serve, flourish, and procreate on the shores of the New World.

Somewhat smaller than many of their European counterparts, but larger than the animals favored by the indigenous population, they thrived in the new environment and were prized for their speed, agility, stamina, and conformation.

Battles were fought, wars won and lost, ranches overrun, and rough stock stolen; but the truth was in their blood. They served and died by the tens of thousands in the armies of the Civil War, the Spanish-American and Boer Wars; more than 500,000 of these fine animals perished in World War I alone, thousands more exterminated just for their hides during the years of the Great Depression.

Still many survived and escaped into the meadows and river valleys, gathering into herds of their own construction. Of these, some made it farther west, through treacherous Rocky Mountain passes drifted deep with ice and snow, and on to survive the waterless desert wastes of Utah, Nevada, and Arizona, eventually to find safe pasture in the verdant wilds of Oregon.

The nation was expanding, as well.

Vast tracts of land were purchased, stolen outright, or confiscated and partitioned as a spoil of war.

Some was given away as an incentive offered to adventurers and settlers. Considerably more was set aside as a public trust to be overseen by governmental agencies mandated to preserve, protect, and manage its possessions. Perhaps predictably, it was this third objective which was to precipitate an ongoing struggle between the rights of private citizens and the bureaucracies engaged to oversee the protection of its resources that would engender ironic, frequent, armed, and bloody conflict.

Teresa Pineu put down the binoculars and stepped outside. The air was cool and dry, the dome of sky strewn with a chain of white clouds. She followed the passage of the distant vehicles until all trace had disappeared, the trail of dust torn away on the wind.

She had heard the rumors for some time, but had chosen to believe they were nothing more, and that a more enlightened perspective had gained a foothold in the world. She now believed she had been a fool to have engaged in such a fantasy.

The last time something like this had transpired was just after the turn of the century. Teresa had seen the faded tintypes of the carnage, and had wondered as to why the perpetrators would have failed to do their evil outside the presence of photographers. But this was the vanity of man. The government had determined that the wild mustang population had exceeded optimal allowances, and therefore threatened the viability of the herd’s own survival.

Teresa knew the slaughter would occur much as it had before. This, too, was the vanity of man.

The trucks would be first to arrive, hauling a payload of steel poles and wire that would be formed into makeshift corrals. The private contractors—mercenary drovers and stockmen hired by the government and funded by tax dollars—would follow: accepting their pieces of silver in exchange for scouring the rock-strewn country on horseback, motorcycles, and aircraft for evidence of the herd, then methodically forcing it westward where the animals would find themselves imprisoned inside massive manmade enclosures, denied freedom for the first time in their lives. Some of these men would be issued permits for the privilege of “hunting” the horses with firearms.

When they were finished, the unwanted animals would be eradicated, swallowed up inside refrigerated trucks and processed for use in canned food for our pets, and rawhide chew toys for their amusement.

Teresa turned her head skyward, breathed deeply, and contemplated the flight of a red-tailed hawk as it traced circles on the slipstream. Then she stepped inside and placed a call.