David Thornwood's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

David Thornwood had been tracking the black stallion for three weeks when the late spring storm broke the mountain open and sent the wolves down with it. He crouched now behind a wet pine, rifle across his knees, watching the horse he meant to tame. The stallion stood in a clearing below him, favoring one hoof, ribs showing through a rough winter coat. David had promised Elna a wedding gift worthy of her, and this animal was it. He had six months of savings tied up in the stretch of range beneath his cabin, and every free hour spent learning the stallion's routes. He could not afford to lose the horse now, and he could not afford to shoot it either. A silver rabbit with one folded ear broke from the brush at his boot and shot across the clearing. The stallion's head snapped up. That was when David saw the wolf. It came down the slope on the far side, low and unhurried, silver fur wet against its ribs. A second wolf moved behind it, then a third, spreading wide the way wolves do when they mean to finish something. The stallion wheeled and tried to run and stumbled on the bad hoof. It would not outrun them. David had maybe twenty seconds to decide whether the horse he wanted lived or died, and the rifle in his hands only held four shots. He fired the first into the dirt in front of the lead wolf. The animal flinched and did not stop. He fired the second into its shoulder. It dropped and thrashed and went still. The other two broke off and circled, then charged together from the left. David stood up so they would see him. He shot the nearer one through the chest at thirty feet. The third wolf skidded, changed its mind, and vanished back up the slope. His hands were shaking when he lowered the rifle. The stallion had not run. It stood at the edge of the clearing, sides heaving, watching him the way a thing watches whatever just decided its life. David did not move for a long minute. Then he set the rifle down and walked back through the wet timber to the log house at the foot of the ridge, where his cart of trade berries sat covered under the eave. He filled a basket with the sweetest of them and carried it back up the trail. The stallion was still there when he returned, still favoring the hoof, still watching. David set the basket down at the far edge of the clearing and stepped back. The horse did not come forward. But it did not leave either, and for the first time in three weeks, David Thornwood and the animal he wanted stood in the same open ground and looked at each other without a hunt between them.