Meet Prancer

They were way out there. I couldn't tell how many, but I saw mustangs in a huddle. So, I grabbed my camera and started walking out on the raw sienna colored sage flats, pleased that I wouldn't be going home without seeing a horse. I turned around as I got about halfway out and took this picture of the speck of a Subaru I'd left behind me on the side of the road.

I see you guys, and I'm coming to check you out!

The closer I get the faster my heart flutters.

Right about now, they start to recognize my presence.

They squeeze in tight and at a fast trot, they come in close to check me out!

That's when I saw him. The leader of the band. Strutting his stuff, prancing and dancing and keeping his gals in line, in perfect step.

Oh, that Stallion can prance! He lifts his front legs, his hooves curl as he paws the air, and he shakes his head, a tangle of mane covers one eye. He sizes me up, but I'm just a calm and gentle figure, with wild hair myself. I try not to stare. I nonchalantly look side to side, and I slowly crouch and kneel in the rabbitbrush. My camera clicks at the same time I greet him in a low tone. "Hey, boy." After he prances back and forth, in front of his family, blowing short deliberate puffs through his nostrils, he finally stops, rests, and all eyes are on me.

Seven beauties. In rich and shiny colors, with a dusting of prairie dirt. Like a box of oil pastels, I choose white, cream, taupe, gray, charcoal, rust and lots of black.

Seven beauties with hairdo's to die for.

We all get comfortable with each other and the sound of the shutter becomes more familiar to them, like a soft click of a metronome, keeping beat with the wind. Prancer has let down his guard somewhat, never completely, but now the line loosens up, and a mom and baby trot off on their own, a few feet away. A mostly black youngster nurses, while the others start picking through tiny clumps of green grasses and crusty tumbleweeds.

I spent the rest of the afternoon just admiring this new wild family that I found. Watching them, wondering what they think, where they'll spend the winter, and if they have a favorite place to go when the snow drifts? I wonder if they head back up the mountain, to take cover under the ponderosa pine trees? Or will their manes be braided with icicles as they stand out on this open prairie, with the unforgiving blizzards that will surely pass through.

Wild things.