Wild Horses On The Salt by Anne Montgomery

Author:Anne Montgomery
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Liaison - A Next Chapter Imprint
Published: 2020-06-13T22:00:00+00:00

57

The horse stepped through the river's shallow flow, black tail swishing at flies, the pungent smell of creosote emanating from a rocky area thick with the desert evergreens. The small sheep walked beside him on the riverbank, her recent battle with the stream's current and deep water still fresh in her mind.

The horse recognized the land through which they now walked. His ancestors had endowed him with an excellent long-term memory, an adaptation necessary for animals that roamed over large areas of land. He now sensed he was closer to the mares than he'd been in a long time.

The presence of two humans in folding chairs did not deter the horse from his path.

One man lowered a pair of binoculars. “Did you see that? Over by the saguaro?” the man pointed. “See. Up on the right arm. I swear that's a Williamson Sapsucker!”

“Where?” the other man asked. “Oh! I see it.” He gazed at the mostly black male woodpecker that boasted a red throat, yellow belly, and a large white wing-patch.

“Wow! What's he doing down here?” the first man asked. “Don't they generally prefer Aspen and conifer groves up in the mountains?”

“They do.”

As the horse and sheep approached, both men lowered their binoculars. They didn't speak as they observed the odd spectacle of the two animals walking together on the riverside.

“Now that's something you don't see every day.” The first man slipped on a pair of sunglasses and watched as they moved into a patch of leafy bushes. Then he frowned.

The hungry horse nibbled on the green leaves of cottonwood sprouts. The stallion stepped further into the shrubs and reached for some succulent grasses that had sprung up beneath the brush. His hooves sunk into the wet soil, allowing rivulets of water to pool beneath the plants. When he lifted his feet, sediment-filled water seeped back into the stream. He snapped low-hanging limbs as he pushed into the undergrowth. Several small birds darted from the bushes.

The second man lifted his binoculars and focused on the brush around where the horse was grazing. One of the small birds alighted on a limb above the animal. Fitz-bew, fitz-bew, the bird chirped.

“We can't just sit here and watch. That's a southwestern willow flycatcher.”

The first man sighed. The tiny, endangered bird was under threat from loss of habitat for a number of reasons, one of which was grazing by large animals like cows and horses. Responsible ranchers did not allow their cattle to forage by the river, so the horses were the culprits that destabilized the riverbanks and destroyed native plants that served as nesting sites for the birds. The big animals liked nothing more than to devour the young cottonwood and willow shoots along the river.

The men eyed one another and put their binoculars down. Then they got out of their chairs.

The horse was so engrossed in searching for tender plants to eat that he didn't notice the humans approaching. It was not until he heard the sheep's distraught bleating, that he lifted his head from the thicket.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.