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A limp Cindy hanging over his shoulder, he slipped
from one copse of plantings to another. Benny squeezed her buttock. She
stiffened. A stray dog sniffed at him. Deep in his chest Benny growled a
warning. Backing away in confusion, the dog whined. He watched it go,
passionless in his fatigue.
One last dash and he was in the dark warmth of the
stables.
A saddle would be too much of a bother. With one long
look of distaste at the stall where he deposited Cindy, he slipped out. Benny
eased through the rails of the fence, out into the pasture. He slipped and a
mare whickered, moving away from him.
Creeping along the thick, dew-wet grasses on hands and
toes, Benny sank to the earth. A spotlight gripped him in a powerful beam.
Clamping hard on an instinct to run, Benny pressed his face into the grass. “I
am a rock, unseen,” he whispered to the insects in the grass below him. “A
shadow, unseen.”
A lot of women used his services in the stables at the
Manse. The people running it had cracked jokes about Benny's stud service until
he finally figured it all out. Young Stud hadn't just been his
whoring name, it was his life there.
Friggin' bastards.
Still, a little clean straw, and it was infinitely
preferable to his own bed. A bed that stank of old sweat no matter how many
times he scrubbed the water-filled tubes, or how much deodorizer he used.
Benny's lips curled. The room had been the complete
stereotype of what a boy was supposed to love, all dolled up with tan curtains
with football heroes on it, ditto the wall paper. Trophies on shelves, pennants,
a football lamp, even, for chrisake.
They couldn’t get it through their thick heads he
wanted men for his heroes, not toy soldiers on a football field. But for the
bitches he hosted he had to be the All-American kid. Real heroes were men like
his dads, Ben and Carl. Men like Grampa Wya and Uncle Charlie. Their scars were
real, came from saving lives at the risk of their own. Grampa Wya survived the
last, some said the very worse, days before ‘Nam fell to the Cong. Carl
survived America de Sud and the warlords there. Uncle Charlie still had
bad dreams about Desert Storm.
At the hands of Escobar, the Jivarista drug
lord, his father Ben died. The body was so mangled, his grandfather Grey blamed
him repeatedly, that they didn't even dare open the casket.
God, how that evil old man hated Benny.
After long, heart pounding moments, the light moved on
to quarter the pasture. Swallowing hard against a dry mouth, Benny started
again. This time there would be no sudden moves, nothing to startle the mares or
alert the men hunting him.
The mares dozed under a shrouded moon. He grinned.
Carl loved horses. A few thousand under the hood of an engine, anyway. Live and
running, and Carl would be scowling and muttering. Yo, but he could ride,
though, and real good, too. Benny chuckled. So long as no tree limbs got in the
way. Carl liked but two kinds of saddles, the one on his motorcycle and the one
every woman carries.
One old mare pricked her ears up. Sarafina dreamed of
a cold, biting wind and a decent snow at her rump. She snorted in her sleep, and
her head bobbed. The long night dark mane rippled. Her unshod hoofs moved, and
then he was there. Once she had carried him on her back as easy and gently as if
he had been in his mother's arms. Tonight he would take her back to where the
ridges grew sharp, cutting along the sky, where trees grew from cracks in the
bones of the mountains. There, where the water was always sweet and cold and
hurt the teeth to drink. Almost, almost she could hear the streams as they
tumbled down the mountain, laughing or crying or raging in their haste to return
to the sea.
Sara forced her way through the gaggle of mares. Long
teeth and a sour disposition with these prima donnas were all she needed. They
shied from her, respected her, and best of all, they obeyed her slightest
desire.
She was the oldest, the strongest, the smartest. She
was their mother.
Her head bobbed. She made a bee line for the slight
man and shoved him to the ground with one toss of her age whitened head. Sara
stared in exasperation. Get up, you stupid male, and get me out of this
hot-house! Now! He stank like every stallion she had ever had to suffer.
Stupid males.
Benny heard the mare grumble at him. He bared his
teeth and raised a fist in warning. Then was shoved flat by another push. He
found his mouth and good eye filled with coarse black hairs and fragrance of
horse. He shoved the questing muzzle from his bare chest and stood. She nickered
at him.
Stupid, stupid male. God, Sarafina
demanded in a loud grunt, why didn't you send his mama to rescue me? Benny
forced himself passed her and was propelled away from the mare by one well
placed kick.
Idiot! You were supposed to get on, not be a
dumb bird. Stupid hair-ball colt. Ha, worse than any air head colt, this one.
Sara groaned and sagged. If this was the best the Old
Woman could do, she was glue. Dog food. Maybe Anna Wya was close! Surely the
human female wouldn't let a stupid runt of a hair ball like this out on his own.
Sara raised her head and she neighed, calling for help.
Benny cursed and leaped at the mare. His fingers
clamped down over the muzzle to prevent another outcry from warning the hunters.
He glared and saw the gentle wickedness only a Paso
Fino was capable of. Benny looked over the striking markings of the mare and
strangled a shout.
“Sara? Is it you?” Benny hugged her head to his
chest.
Of course you mangy stinking stupid male. GET ME
OUT OF HERE!
©2003 StoriesByEmail.com
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