Spirit Horses by Alan S. Evans

Author:Alan S. Evans [Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oceanview Publishing
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

As the three men rode into a clearing at the end of a trail, they cringed at the sight. There were five dead horses on the ground, including three mares, two with their weanling foals lying beside them. Shane noticed a third foal nearby. This weanling was still alive but had a gaping gunshot wound at the base of his neck. The colt was suffering terribly, and Hawk, who was able to move in close enough to assess its injuries, quickly made up his mind. He wasted no time in raising his rifle. With careful aim, he shot the young horse between the eyes, immediately putting it out of misery.

JB, still up on the ridge, fired off some furious rounds in the direction the shooters had fled, then rode down toward Shane and the others.

“Those sons of bitches!” JB yelled, as he rode in at a fast trot. The expressions on JB and Hawk’s faces were of pure rage. Ivan and Willie sat in helpless disgust as they stared at the senseless slaughter.

The shooters were long gone by now and had probably made it back to their trucks. It was a good thing they had already left the area, because JB and Hawk were mad enough to kill.

They soon discovered the tracks of three men and their horses, who had been waiting on a small cliff overhanging the trail’s end. Once the mares and foals made it into the clearing, the shooters had them clearly in their sights. This was a sad, inhumane scene and all five men stood there in quiet disbelief for some time.

Hawk suggested they backtrack this doomed part of the herd to try to find out how they’d been separated and forced into this ambush. The five rode back to where the herd had split and started scouring the woods for clues. If they could find out how the shooters set up the hunt, it would be easier to prevent this from happening again.

All four Shoshone got off their horses and began looking for signs. What they found suggested there were six other men on horseback chasing the mares and foals into the clearing. They used at least ten dogs to move the whole herd in the direction they wanted. Obviously, the men did not plan on Naatea leading the main group of the mustangs off to the northwest. Further down the trail, Hawk found a dog violently stomped to death.

Shane was amazed at the tracking skills these Shoshones naturally possessed. Before long the four confidently determined what had occurred. The whole group of nine men used the dogs to track and to find the horses. They patiently kept their distance after locating the herd, in order to give themselves time to set up the ambush. Once they had sent the three snipers ahead to open ground, the other six men and dogs pushed the horses toward them. During the frenzy the smaller group was cut off by the dogs from the rest of the horses that narrowly escaped to the northwest.

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