Adapted from the Book by Ginger Kathrens

A Family of Wild Horses

Raven, the black stallion, looked over the windswept ridges of an isolated corner of the Rocky Mountains, a flat topped range called the Arrowheads. His yearling son, Diamond, and two of his mares grazed nearby as their filly foals slept on the sunny hillside.

Raven was restless. He was missing his youngest mare. Hours before, I had watched the three year old palomino disappear into a stand of dense firs. She was heavy with foal. The next morning, I caught a flash of light color through the trees as she walked calmly from the forest. Behind her was a spindly colt who took my breath away. He was blindingly white! The little foal tottered after his mother on long, rickety legs.

The band was heading up the mountain to find water. The colt was terribly thin, but was determined to keep up. I wondered how far the fragile youngster could travel. To fall behind was unthinkable, however, and he kept his body against his mother’s as they climbed. They finally stopped at a large snow bank, pawed the drifts and ate huge bites of snow. Exhausted, the white colt slumped near a tree, put his head down and fell asleep. The sun dipped behind a huge thunderhead, and I looked up. In that instant, the wispy, trailing edges of the thunderhead gave me his name.

Cloud. I would call him Cloud. And then, I prayed he would live.

The White Colt

Two weeks later, twenty wild horse family bands worked their way to the top of the mountain and so did I. My four-wheeler lurched and groaned, climbing the two-track road leading—I hoped—to Cloud. Horses caught my eye climbing a distant knoll—dark horses, plus a buckskin, a palomino, and a small white foal. It was Raven’s band and Cloud was with them.

Other horse bands were drinking at a beautiful snow-fed water hole atop the mountain. But they moved off when Raven and his family headed down to drink. Cloud followed his mother, danced into a trot, and then broke into a run, with a little buck of excitement. Raven plunged in and pawed the water, churning it into muddy waves. Little Cloud held back, watching the mares drink and paw. He finally dipped his pink-snipped nose into the pond but jerked back, surprised by the cool wetness. He had tasted only his mother’s milk and an occasional bite of slushy snow.

That evening in the meadows, I found the band grazing in the setting sun and waved as I approached. A wave gave them the opportunity to size me up. Cloud and his dark sisters, Smokey and Mahogany, ran and bucked, then put on the brakes, only to burst off again, racing around a grove of firs. His sisters soon tired of running and nibbled each other’s backs in feel-good mutual grooming. Not Cloud—he ran around and around at top speed, then suddenly quit and nickered for his mother. She nickered back. He nursed for a few minutes and collapsed into sleep.

I watched Cloud grow into a precocious colt who liked nothing better than pulling on his sisters’ manes while they tried to nap. He was different from the other colts—daring and outgoing and nothing could get by him. One evening, as I sat near the band, a full moon edged over the Bighorn Mountains, a chorus of coyote voices echoed across the mountaintop. I looked to see if Cloud was listening. Together we turned in the direction of the calls.

The Bachelors

It was nearly two years before I walked those trails again in hopes of finding Cloud. My work filming animals had taken me around the world. But, no matter where I traveled, I never forgot Cloud.

At the end of May, I returned. Above the water hole, I found Raven and his mares. The black stallion looked magnificent, and the three mares were sleek and healthy. Each had a foal. To avoid any threat of in-breeding, Raven had kicked Diamond and Cloud out of the band when the mares came in heat. Cloud had probably been away from the band for just a few months, Diamond for a year. His sons had no doubt found companionship with other bachelors, young males who join rowdy gangs like rebellious teenagers. They go wherever they want and are very hard to find. So, I began the tedious job of scanning each ridge and valley one small piece at a time. Through my spotting scope I finally saw horses. When the sun broke from the cloud cover, one horse shone white in the brilliant light. It was Cloud. He was alive!

After a five hour drive over horrible roads, I hiked out on a finger-like ridge to Cloud and the bachelors. What a beauty— tall and sturdy, and nearly pure-white. The stallions started to play, biting one another’s necks and legs, practicing for the day when play would turn serious. I watched for hours and thought how important friends and family are to humans and horses.

A few days later, I saw another group of bachelors, including Diamond, on a distant hilltop. Cloud and the his friends were on their way to join Diamond’s group. They touched noses, jerked their heads back with piercing screams, and then whirled around. One would defecate, followed by the other, each smelling the droppings of the last, spinning and kicking and screaming again. Cloud seemed unable to defecate on the droppings of another. I laughed as he missed the target by a foot or more. Once the formalities were over, Cloud scratched Diamond’s neck and back with his teeth. Diamond did the same to Cloud. Mutual grooming is reserved for good friends and, in this case, half brothers. The bachelors’ idyllic summer passed. Their world was about to change.

The Roundup

A golden eagle launched itself from a high cliff as another “big bird” moved in. A helicopter contracted to the Bureau of Land Management swooped over the wilderness and drove bands from the mountain, through the forest and meadows, down the canyons to the red desert flats. A roundup had begun.

I hid behind a fence half a mile from the wings of a trap, which narrowed like a funnel, into metal corrals. Band after band rushed just ahead of the helicopter. When they were within the wings of the trap, a wrangler released a tall bay “Judas” horse, trained to run for the corrals. The wild horses saw one of their own, and followed him—not to safety, but to confinement.

dreaded this day and prayed that Cloud could evade capture. I watched as Cloud’s lovely sisters, Smokey and Mahogany, were captured, along with their stallions. Band after band were capture. Then the chopper drove in a group with no foals. It was Cloud’s bachelor band. I could barely watch as they entered the wings of the trap and frantically ran toward the corrals. When the gate closed behind them, their freedom was swept away. They would never again run across meadows in a carefree dash to the water hole or win a mare and father wild horse babies as their fathers had done.

Later, Cloud was isolated in his own corral, whinnying for his friends. With several other horses, he had been singled out for release—because of his unusual coat color. The BLM hoped he would become a band stallion and pass his beautiful coat on to his foals. The next day, I hid behind the fence near the corrals as BLM workers opened the gate. A stocky bay stallion named Mateo and his mare tore out. Then, hesitantly, Cloud left the corral. The two-year-old didn’t belong in the company of band stallions with mares, and he knew it. Mateo lagged back, laying his ears back as he ran at Cloud. Cloud followed at an acceptable distance until they all cleared the wings of the trap and disappeared into the desert

At the BLM auction, most of the wild horse buyers were local. But, one came from Colorado. Me. A handsome blue roan yearling had caught my eye—and if he couldn’t go free, I would give him a home on my little ranch in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Smokey and Mahogany went to live with my best friend and her son on a beautiful ranch in Florida.

I named my yearling, Absarokee Trace (for the proud Crow Indians who claimed the Arrowheads as their sacred land). Trace will always hold a special place in my heart and I am proud to say he is mine. But, I will always wish he had been allowed to live free on the Arrowheads. I made him a promise—that we would someday go home to the Arrowheads for a visit. And I meant it.

The Search

Fall had been kind to Raven’s band. They were never rounded up. I found them at the water hole atop the mountain, now a muddy puddle in a sea of brown grass. Raven’s three foals cantered into the pines to rub on downed logs and branches.

I found Diamond and his bachelor band in a forest opening halfway up Tillet Ridge. They were playing in a bit of early snow. Diamond and his group must have been far out in the western meadows and canyons during the roundup. Whether luck or instinct had saved Diamond from the fate of the other bachelors, I’ll never know.

And what of Cloud? He seemed to have vanished from the Arrowheads. I searched everywhere I had ever seen him. I walked back into Big Coulee, the canyon that separates Sykes from Tillet Ridge. The farther I walked, the narrower the canyon became—so narrow I could stretch my arms and touch both walls at once. Here I found the tracks of a lone horse, but I couldn’t tell Cloud’s hoof prints from any of the others. I found mountain lion tracks in the mud depression that was once the water hole. An eerie silence wrapped around me. Winter was coming and I feared Cloud was alone for the first time in his life.

There was more snow than normal that winter. It made looking for horses tough. I drove up on Tillet Ridge as far as I could go. The absence of tracks convinced me there were no horses higher up.

I hunted for Cloud in areas where I’d never seen him. With binoculars I carefully searched the remote Lost Water Canyon area to the west of the horse range. Two bands were rumored to live up in this snowy citadel year round, but I didn’t see Cloud or any others. Sunsets came early and sunrises late, making for frustratingly short, unsuccessful days of searching.

By late May, I feared the worst. Around the time of his birthday, I was able to drive to the top of the mountain. As in years past, the family bands were following the greening of the grass and the melting of the snow. I watched the handsome blue roan stallion run down to drink at the water hole. The horses were in high spirits on this cool day.

Further away, a big group of bachelors broke over the hill. In the middle of the band was Cloud! He stood out like a bright light in a sea of dark horses. He was alive, safe, and running to the water hole! What a sight for sore eyes! Cloud! Diamond was there and a dozen more, kicking up their heels and jumping rocks

A hefty black band stallion, Two Boots, came to the water while his family waited on the hill. He approached Diamond first, nudging him out of the way. Then he picked on Cloud, who walked uphill a ways. But the big stallion pursued him, biting his neck. That’s when Cloud came to life. He reared up, squealed and pushed on the bigger horse. Two Boots pushed back, but Cloud had the higher ground and shoved the stallion down the dusty hill. Then Cloud calmly walked a few steps away. This was the first time I’d seen Cloud in a direct confrontation with a mature stallion, and he was impressive. Like his brother Diamond, here was another Raven son who showed real band stallion potential.

The Storm

The next winter passed without a sighting of Cloud. When the snows fell on the Arrowheads, burying the mountaintop in a soft blanket of white, where did he go? I had followed him only from late May until October. Over half of Cloud’s life remained a mystery to me.

Spring came with a fury. A terrific storm—with rain in stinging sheets and ferocious lightning bolts—struck the mountaintop. Days later, I hadn’t seen Cloud, so I pressed forward through the mud. Ravens circled above the water hole as I walked up the rise to get a better view. Through my binoculars, I thought I saw the limb of a downed tree and a row of boulders. Then I realized what I was seeing—horses I had known for years lay dead below me. A black band stallion and two grulla mares on their sides, and next to one mare was a small dun foal, his body nestled close to his mother. All had surely been struck by lightning. Then more birds flew up from the other side of the road. My stomach flopped as I went to investigate. Oh, please, don’t let it be Cloud, I thought. At the edge of the cliff lay the body of a grulla band stallion, a victim of lightning.

The next day dawned clear and calm. Within an hour, I had spotted Cloud on the green hilltop sparring with a black band stallion—and breathed a sigh of relief. When he looked at me, I waved. How remarkable. Cloud was either impossible to find or incredibly easy to spot. His muscles rippled and his luxurious tail touched the ground. I saw many nicks and scabs on his coat. He had been fighting. I didn’t think much about it until I learned that a BLM employee had seen Cloud fighting the day of the storm with the grulla stallion on the very spot where the gray horse now lay dead.

Mateo

Cloud had set his sights on wining mares that summer and he singled out a female belonging to a stallion named Mateo. Day and night, day after day, week after week, Cloud followed the band and Mateo chased him off—Cloud’s strategy clearly, was to wear Mateo down. Both stallions were losing weight under the strain of the chases and skirmishes. Mateo’s band seemed weary, too, for no sooner had they stopped to graze than Mateo herded them away in an effort to keep them from Cloud. And Cloud worked hard to keep other stallions away from Mateo’s band. If anyone won them, it would be Cloud.

At the close of another day of endless chases and fights, I watched him trot across the skyline at sunset. Then he appeared to trip, his head dropping to keep him from losing his balance. The next few steps revealed his injury. Cloud began limping badly on his left front leg. He stopped and looked at Mateo’s band trailing away toward water, but this time he did not follow. After all his efforts, would an injury prevent him from becoming a band stallion?

Cloud had been looking to start his own family and nearly killed himself in the process. What other four-year-old would have tried to wrest a band from a mature stallion in his prime? Cloud’s once pristine coat was a mass of scars, bumps, and open sores. But his sores would heal over in time. His leg would mend if he let it. What worried me most on this beautiful summer day was Cloud’s spirit—had it been broken?

Lost Water Canyon

In August, I returned to look for Cloud, and found a hunk of his once beautiful tail pulled loose in his running battle with Mateo. I wound it up and put it carefully in a compartment of my backpack, knowing how remarkable it was that I found it or had been led to it.

I followed tracks that led toward Lost Water Canyon, a maze of dramatic canyons created when the ocean floor rose up and splintered into crevasses cut deeper by wind and water with each passing millennia. Far down the ridge, shapes moved between the dark trees. Horses—six, including Cloud—leisurely trailed through a sage field to a water hole. Other bachelors pawed the water and played, while Cloud stood listless. When he went off with them, I didn’t detect any lameness, but he was not himself. He had a bump on his nose, perhaps from fighting, and his once beautiful tail was scraggly. He hadn’t gained back much weight. But the outward signs were not as troubling to me as his attitude. I was afraid he lost his will to become a band stallion.

By September, the snow began to fly. The bachelors were hanging out on Tony’s Island in Lost Water Canyon. This is where I looked for Cloud in January when I returned. Snow drifts were six feet deep in places, and I waded through them in my snowshoes. My heart leapt as I caught a distant view of wild horses. All were dark but Cloud could be in the trees behind them. I noticed a golden eagle soaring low over the treetops. How I wished she could carry me down deep into the canyons. I would be sure to find Cloud then.

The Battle

In late May, a half a dozen bands were congregated at the end of the open meadow, milling restlessly. Nearby, in the middle of a sea of green grass, was Cloud! He was sparring with a big dun bachelor. A patch of sunlight had fallen on the rearing white stallion, and on this huge mountain landscape, Cloud was again center stage.

Racing for my camera gear I set up in a spot where I could film the action. It was chaotic, with band stallions trying to steal each other’s mares. The blue roan band stallion was fighting another stallion and here came Cloud, charging up from the valley, whinnying as he ran. Had he sensed an opening? The blue roan and Cloud battled toe to toe for a few seconds until both noticed that the dun stallion had started to drive the mares away. The blue roan started chasing the dun and Cloud. He stretched out his neck, and with barred teeth, ripped a hole in Cloud’s rear. Blood spurted from the wound.

Cloud raced back toward the blue roan, who trotted out to face him. But as they got closer, Cloud suddenly veered right and the blue roan gave chase, both in a dead run across the meadows. Then, the blue roan stumbled. His left front leg gave out and he skipped to a stop. Blood ran down his leg.

Looking over his shoulder, Cloud watched his injured rival lick his wound. Cloud dogged the blue roan and his band, keeping all other stallions from the group. Cloud baited the brave roan into long runs—and he followed on three legs. The wind had picked up, blowing in thick fog, and I lost the two stallions as they again took up the chase. But I could hear their eerie screams through the fog.

The storm lasted for days. I huddled by the stove in the cabin but jumped to look out the door when horses trotted by. Sometimes I could make them out, passing like ghosts in the mist. My supplies were dwindling, and I had to leave the mountain without knowing what had happened to Cloud and the blue roan.

The Journey

In late August, I made good on my promise to Trace, and we traveled to his home to look for Cloud. One cool, windy morning, we saw bachelors, who kept a cautious distance, and Diamond with his mare and foal. Nearby was Raven, looking as magnificent as ever. His band was nearly. Trace and I stood very still and watched and listened. There was movement behind the trees in front of us. Carefully and quietly, we circled the area, and as we broke into the clear, I saw Cloud.

“Hello, boy,” I whispered and waved. He looked at the familiar gesture and snorted. He was fatter than I’d ever seen him and, though alert to our presence, he seemed calm. I saw a mare walk from the trees behind him. When Cloud turned to follow her, I knew I was looking at Cloud’s family.

Ironically, she was not a mare from the injured Blue Roan’s band. Cloud had not won her in a furious clash of teeth and hooves, but in a moment of stillness. She had given birth to a sickly foal and stayed with her newborn when her band moved on. Cloud found her and stood quietly by her side. When the foal died, the mare, her yearling son, and Cloud stayed together.

I followed the threesome and watched from far away. Cloud and the yearling groomed each other—clearly the yearling liked his young stepfather. I wasn’t so sure about the mare. She was older and no doubt set in her ways. When Cloud tried to snake her, she ignored him.

As the mare and yearling trotted ahead, Cloud ran to catch up, kicking like a colt. It seemed like only yesterday I worried the fragile white newborn might not live. I remember how he endlessly pestered his sisters. And, how one evening when the sky was crimson, and I sat quietly on a hilltop near Raven and his band, Cloud had come and touched my hair, his warm breath grazing by cheek. Now, Cloud and his family grazed peacefully. “Stay safe,” I whispered. I rode my blue roan down the trail where generations of his ancestors had walked, leaving the Arrowheads behind.

Seasons will pass and spring will bring a new crop of wild horse babies. And maybe, just maybe, a Cloud colt will prance across the Arrowheads, as precocious and proud as his remarkable father—and, I hope, forever free.