Page 29 of Saddle and Scent
THE STORM AND THE STALLION RUN
~JUNIPER~
The truck dies a mile from the sanctuary’s battered front gate, and there’s a perfect, cinematic moment where I’m convinced I might catch fire along with it.
The dash lights flicker a desperate Morse code, then snuff out. The engine chokes, bucks once in a last act of defiance, and leaves me stranded in the world’s most depressing diorama: one Omega, a cab full of impulse-purchased supplies, and a gravel road so empty it seems hostile. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear the Bell Ranch was actively repelling me.
I pound the steering wheel, a wet, meaty sound, and snarl out a curse that’s more bestial than human. The word echoes in the dead air and dies somewhere out by the fence line. There’s nobody to hear me but the vultures, and they are already circling, literal and metaphorical.
The phone is dead, because why not make this cinematic more of a disaster…
The jumpy bar of reception from town is a distant rumor out here, as useless as the motivational quote taped to the dashboard.
“THERE IS NO PLAN B.”
Thanks, Aunt Lil…
I let my head drop back against the headrest, the smell of vinyl and sweat and frustration mixing in the hotbox of the cab.
It takes a solid sixty seconds of sustained self-loathing before I gather the will to even look outside.
The storm is almost here, roiling like a deep bruise overhead.
The first fingers of wind rattle the truck and set the supply bags in the back seat rustling—fencing wire, a plastic bucket, a five-pound sack of flour, a bag of off-brand tortilla chips, and the world’s most underwhelming cucumber.
The old starter, now a paperweight, had gotten me all the way to the far side of town and only decided to give up the ghost after I’d spent an entire morning getting my ass handed to me by Saddlebrush Ridge’s parade of predatory Alphas, judgmental Betas, and the ghost of my own bad decisions.
And—most insultingly—I’d said no to the free cinnamon buns at the bakery, because I was “in a rush.”
A rush to what?
To break down in the exact spot where even the livestock refuse to graze?
I fumble the door open and spill out, boots crunching on the gravel, sky gone green and ugly above me. It’s the kind of light that makes everything look a little sick, a little unreal.
A few yards away, the ditches are choked with early wildflowers and the crisping bones of last year’s thistles.
The ground is hard, dust layered over stone, and the wind pulls at my shirt with the insistent hands of a bratty child. I check the hood out of habit, even though I don’t know the first thing about engines.
I stare at it for a full minute, pretending to troubleshoot, before dropping it shut with a clang that rings down the valley.
The silence is total.
No passing cars, no birds, not even the crackle of static from the useless phone.
Just me, the sickly sky, and the distant pulse of thunder.
I square my shoulders, trying to convince myself that this is a setback and not a total systems failure.
Worse, I can already feel the smell of defeat rolling off my skin—the telltale sweet-and-sour tang of Omega panic, rising like a beacon for any passing Alpha within a half-mile radius. I try to get a lid on it, but the more I focus, the sharper it gets:sweat, frustration, and a tickle of something spicy, like chili powder on a paper cut.
I glance up at the horizon, squinting against the wind.
A shadow moves out there, low and fast.
My heart spikes.
For a second, I think maybe the storm is closer than I thought, that the sky itself is coming down to swallow me whole.
