It is evening. I walk slowly out of the house, glad to be outdoors after a long day of schoolwork. As I swing open a gate, I hear the high pitched whinny of horses. My horses.

They aren't mine in name or deed, and you won't find any papers stating me as the owner, but for the past six years or more, these have been my horses. Their official owner lives many miles away and doesn't have time to take care of them. No, wait, he throws a bale of hay over every couple months. He rescued them long ago from the Humane Society, and he is under a contract that says he can never sell them unless it's back to the Society.

These horses, these two wild sister mustangs, live on the five acres of land next to our ten. A creek runs across it in the winter--sometimes. There is green grass on it--in early spring. It is up to me to water and feed them, a job I dearly cherish. Somehow I live out my cowgirl dreams through them, with thoughts of springing lightly onto one's back and galloping away. I know it will never happen, but it is a dream nevertheless. Something in me loves the feeling of the old corral; the hard-working, hair-burning, bath-needing cowboys; branding day; and all the other implements of the Old West. I guess living in a place with fences and families a hundred years old helps.

A soft wind rustles the leaves of our poplar trees as I walk down the shady path to the horses. A line from "Don't Fence Me In" runs through my head: "Let me be by myself in the evening breeze, list'ning to the murmur of the cottonwood trees, send me out forever but I ask you, please; Don't Fence Me In." Songs move me deeply, I love the freedom, the near-longing, in that verse, and it fits my surroundings beautifully.

Then I realize that *she's* been here.

The new owner of the horses. My horses.

I set my jaw and move on, no longer singing; afraid to show emotion lest I lose control of it. Despite the horses' owner's contract, he is selling them to someone who owns a ranch with many horses. The worst news is this: She's going to break them.

I met her one day, as she was trying to get close to them using some horse-trainer tricks and I was filling their large water basin.

"Hi," she said.

I replied, "Hi." I wanted to tell her how I felt about those beautiful, wild mustangs; how I'd kept them from starvation; how I'd often gone trespassing on their land to bring them to the fence for their evening meal. I wanted to tell her how proud I'd been of myself the time I'd thrown out a whole bag of moldy grain against everyone else's advice and later found a warning tag about feeding moldy COB to horses. I wanted to speak of that very cold past winter and spring, when I'd worried about the horses and researched different herbs and foods to plant for them the next year. I could throw all that information out now. I wanted to tell her of the many times I'd gone down to feed them after dark, in rain and freezing cold and magical star sprinkled nights. I wanted to tell her that she couldn't break my dreams at a whim.

I nearly said, "I hear you've bought these horses,"; but before I could, she accidentally frightened them and they flew away up a hill with a cloud of dust and the speed of light and I nearly cried then and there. They were magnificent in the setting sun.

I can see these animals now from my bedroom window as I type this. I don't know for how much longer they'll be there; supposedly til the end of summer, but you can never tell. I keep hoping that she'll change her mind, proclaim them untamable, and leave us by ourselves in the evening breeze, list'ning to the murmur in the cottonwood trees...

But that's probably just another of my cowgirl dreams.

LaZorra