Page 142

Her breath caught.

“I knew them,” she whispered.

Mac stood right behind her. He placed his hands on her upper arms and held on.

Jodie stared at the filthy washcloth. “Jet kept trying to go back for them.” Her voice trembled. “He kept trying to get his band back together, and they just kept pushing him forward.”

Mac said nothing, just squeezed her arms gently and listened.

“Fr-Frost.” Jodie wiped at her face again, although the tears were already undoing everything she’d cleaned. “For a minute I thought we’d lost him in the dust.” She swallowed hard. “And Echo.” Her voice cracked all the way through. “He ran that whole thing with Cider, Mac. He ran it with somebody else’s mother.”

Then Sierra flashed through her mind. Mare seventy-two.

Jodie’s lower lip trembled.

“They called Sierra seventy-two. She has a name. She has a fucking name.”

Mac pulled her flush against his chest.

That did it. Her last bit of control snapped.

Jodie turned in his arms, buried her face against his chest, and cried. Her sobs came hard enough to hurt her chest as every emotion she’d held down all day finally forced its way out.

Mac held her steady. He didn’t tell her it was okay because it wasn’t. Horses had been a part of Sand Wash Basin longer than any of them. It was horrible and unfair and it was going to happen again tomorrow, and the day after, until they’d rounded up every last horse to meet their damned quota. Then they’d do it again next year, and the year after. In the meantime, horses were being held in overcrowded pens, separated from their foals, their mothers, their mates, their bands, waiting to be auctioned off and sent God-knows-where. The best ones were valuable and might be sold to breeders, but the rest? All the Rosies?

God, she didn’t want to think about what happened to them.

She sobbed until her voice was hoarse.

After a while, Jodie managed, “Maybe I’m too soft for this.”

“Everybody was affected by today. You aren’t the only one. Listen.”

She shook her head against him. “Willow held it together.”

“So did you.” He stroked her hair. “Now listen.”

Jodie stilled. Sure enough, she could hear others crying in the camp.

Mac stroked a hand down her back. “You worked all day. You caught that Cloud’s foal was in the wrong pen. You documented Rosie’s injury and made darned sure she got looked at. You knew every horse coming through when everybody else was looking at numbers and gates.”

Jodie sniffed and hiccupped.

“They need you because you know those aren’t numbers. They are horses with names and families and lives. And because of you, they will be remembered and tracked, and you’ll save as many as you can, you and everyone here.”

Fresh tears spilled down her face.

A faint movement near the tent caught her attention. Goblin lay several yards away, watching her. His ears were halfway back.

Jodie sniffed and wiped her face with the heel of her hand. “Hey, buddy.”

Goblin stared. Then he lowered himself flat to the ground and crawled.

Jodie blinked. “Goblin?” She pulled away from Mac and dropped to her knees, worried that something had happened to the stray.

The dog stretched his front paws forward and dragged himself another few inches, belly scraping the dirt, eyes fixed on her as though approaching Jodie required both enormous courage and absolutely no dignity whatsoever.

He was fine. A laugh broke through her tears.