Page 37 of Wild, Wild Cowboy

“Must be.” He frowned as he surveyed the pens. “There should be more. The catalog lists over four hundred horses for sale, and less than a hundred of those are saddle stock. This can’t be the rest of them.”

“Maybe some were sold already,” I suggested.

“The slaughter-bound horses normally don’t get auctioned off until early afternoon,” Zack said distractedly as he looked around. “The transporters prefer to load them up in the evening and drive all night. People don’t like to see trucks of horses being transported like chickens or pigs. Better to do it in the dark.”

I nodded. All animals deserved humane treatment, but Americans felt a special kind of way about horses. It was part of our lore. That was why horses couldn’t be slaughtered in the United States. They had to be taken to Canada or Mexico.

“I hate that,” I said.

He looked at me questioningly.

“I hate that we didn’t solve the problem, we just put it where we don’t have to look at it anymore,” I explained.

He wrapped one arm around my shoulders and rolled me against his body. “I know, Hannah.” He pressed his lips against my forehead. “I hate it, too.”

We searched through the people milling about until we found a man who seemed to be in charge.

“Who are you looking for?” he asked.

“Three hundred sixty-eight.” I pointed to his description in the catalog. “This one.”

The man shook his head. “That lot has been sold already. The driver loaded them up an hour ago.”

14

ZACK

“Fuck!” I roared. “Fuck!”

Hot rage clawed underneath my skin. My vision turned hazy at the edges, the animals and people blurring together like a kaleidoscope. I wanted to rip it all apart with my bare hands. The people, the animals, the auction, the world. Myself, most of all.

I kicked at the ground, sending a cloud of dust and gravel into the air. People shouted; I didn’t care. I did it again. I threw my hat on the ground, and then I kicked that, too.

There was a light touch on my shoulder and then Hannah’s soft voice cut through the storm. “Zack.”

“What?” I shouted, rounding on her, my fists clenched.

“Come with me.”

She didn’t give me a chance to say no before wrapping my elbow in her small hand and tugging me along with her. I could have shaken her off, but even furious as I was, there wasn’t a single part of me that didn’t want her touch, so instead I followed her like a dog on a leash.

Hurricane Red was gone. Loaded up on some single deck trailer crammed full of other horses, most of which he probablyhated, because Red hated most horses. Terrified and pissed as hell. Whether he was heading to Canada or Mexico, he was in for at least a solid twenty-four hours of misery. He wouldn’t be allowed off to stretch his legs or piss. He wouldn’t be given any food or water, because what was the point? He would be dead soon, anyway.

It would have been kinder for me to put a bullet between his eyes than put him through the slaughterhouse pipeline.

“Give me your keys, Zack.” Hannah held out her hand, palm up.

Somehow we had made it out of the auction grounds and to the parking lot without me being aware of it.

I dug the keys out of my pocket and tossed them to her, not trusting myself to put them into her hands. She fumbled them and huffed a little as she scooped them off the ground, then opened the driver’s side door.

How was I supposed to go home without Hurricane Red?

I kicked the tire, and when that wasn’t enough, I slammed my hand against the truck bed. “Fuck!”

She nudged and prodded me until I was seated inside and then shut the door. I gripped the steering wheel with both hands and then thumped my forehead down between them.

“I don’t think I should drive yet,” I muttered. “I need a minute.”

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