A Horse, A Gate, and a Neighborhood

Sammy, an 11 year old quarter horse, saw her chance. Someone had left the gate open. She looked around, one human was using a maddox to remove a cactus like plant from the ground, the other was watering in the garden. Of course the two children were sitting right there, looking at her, but she knew they would never tell. Sammy took her opportunity and ran with it. She was out the gate before anyone at her homestead was the wiser.

She ran a few houses down, and decided to call in on a few friend of hers. Ones that she sees from only one side of the fence, now she could see what they looked like from the other. She approached the fence, but her friends all seemed to be busy. Clover and her rider spotted her, and they came racing over. The rider gasped Sammy's name, and jumped off Clover to approach her. Sammy wanted nothing to do with the person, and turned. She ran as hard and as fast as she could. She could hear shouting from both humans and horses.

Back at the homestead, Phelan, the human woman that was watering the garden, was walking out from the back of the house when she saw that the front gate was wide open. "Did I lose a horse?" she called out to no one. One of the two children that watched Sammy leave told her that yes, the horse walked right out. Phelan saw the cowboy hat of her horse neighbor "did she come back?" he asked. Phelan was confused for a moment. "Did I lose a horse?" She asked again.

The horse neighbors informed her that the other neighbors said she had ran to the west. They grabbed their lasso's, lead ropes and halters and grain buckets and headed west to find the rogue mare. They walk a half mile, the sun was setting quickly. No sign of the mare. Suddenly headlights lite them up, and another neighbor came pulling up. "You went the wrong why, she was headed east. There was only room for one of the three walkers in the car, the woman decided to stay on foot, while the man in their search party decided to take the ride and get to the east faster.

The two woman of foot chatted, and giggled nervously about what might happen. When they made it to the east, yet another neighbor was standing in the road. Him and his wife told us that there was no sign of her, and that the car and driven around the block. They were getting concerned because twilight was fading, and soon it would be too dark to see.

The horse neighbor and the car returned without the horse called Sam. The horse neighbor decided to get the tractor with the flood light and see if that would help finding her. Phelan walked back home to get a much needed drink, and to get her own car, driving the opposite direction than the horse neighbor.

On her journey west, and then back east on a different road, she found her husband and her two children that had watched Sammy leave. Unknown to her, they too had taken up the search for the lost Sam. They were having no luck at all. Bad thoughts rushed Phelan, like she was in the corn fields. Visions of her being hit by a car swirled in her head. She made it back onto her road, headlights blinded her. Slowly Phelan approached, she could see the outline of some one walking in front of the blinding lights, towards her side of the road. It turned out to be the wife horse neighbor.

"We found her!"

"were was she?" turned out she had been in a field only 3 fields away from her own She was hot and sweaty, for she was enjoying her freedom. The horse neighbor had her with his own lead, and offered to take her home so that Phelan could find her husband and her two children that were walking the dark streets. Phelan offered some milk as a think you, it was turned down. Instead the only reward that horse neighbor wanted was,

"You can't move. We really like you as neighbors".