Northern Nevada. Almost 4,000 feet above sea level. Scrubland that doesn’t hold a bit of moisture, except in occasional crevices where the sun doesn’t get to most of the day. Then there’s maybe a trickle that flows year-round, a few low-green things, and a couple wasted trees. And maybe there’s a bit of clay that goes muddy once or twice a year after rain.
It’s in such a crevice, between two hills, and at a time when the mud is there, that a young mustang, not a year away from its mother and inexplicably traveling alone, happens to come down to the water for a drink and gets his front legs stuck in the mud up to just over the fetlocks. It takes a few tentative pulls until it discovers it’s really stuck, and then panics. It panics, very understandably, and winds up getting its back legs stuck too.
Two hours after getting its back feet stuck it gets off balance and winds up on its right side. Its left legs are pulled free of the mud, only to kick vainly for purchase in the air. The right side of its face is in the mud. Its right eye is blinded with mud. Its right nostril is filled with mud that works its way slowly inwards and then stops and sets up like a cork. Its left eye can see just the azure blue of the sky arching over from ridge crest to ridge crest. That and the filigree frame of its own eyelashes, and the red-black insides of its own eyelids when they flutter periodically: closed-open.
The mustang kicks and squirms and tries everything its simple mind can concoct and instinct can instinctually do. Then it runs through the whole repertoire again. And again. This goes on for the remainder of the first day. Then a night. Then another day. Then another night. There is moisture in the mud and the mustang gets some of it inside and down its throat. Not enough to quench the thirst, but enough to keep it alive. It can smell the stream nearby but it has fallen in such a way that it cannot reach the clear water. At night the stars come out brilliant. The stars are reflected in the pulsing brown marble of the horse’s eye. The air is cold and the skin of the horse contracts rapidly in shivers. The mustang sometimes loses consciousness for a moment or two and then lurches again into a spastic struggle. It is remarkable, absolutely remarkable, how many times it raises its head and arches itself up in massive powerful contortions. Its body is powerful and young. It’s from a long line of survivors. But when dawn comes for the second time the horse is still more often than it is moving. The sweat has dried to salt swirls on its flanks.
It still manages to struggle mightily, but not as often. It churns enough to prevent the mud from setting up around it, which is its only hope. Otherwise, it will set up like a bone in a plaster cast. But the horse doesn’t know this. It just struggles. It just tries to get out of the mud and it can’t understand why it can’t get out. And it hurts. And it thirsts. And it fears. And it struggles to alleviate all those things.
Sometimes it really seems like it might do it. It arches itself right up and there’s space visible between the barrel of its torso and the surface of the mud, and then it arches itself the other way and its legs and neck lift clear and it seems, ah, it has only to roll over now and be free, but either it doesn’t see this is what it needs to do or for some reason, it can’t do it. The mud’s hold is absolutely uncanny. It is not malignant, but it is horrifically neutral. The horse whinnies often, and the noise ricochets around a little between the hillsides and dies. The crickets sometimes saw a little because of the disturbance, but this is not a real reply. The mustang’s left eye blinks continually to drive away flies that gather there for the moisture. The horse’s exhalations sound like a working fireplace bellows.
The crows arrive late on the fifth day. They perch in the low branches of some wizened trees and shift their weight from foot to foot with their feathers bristled up. Watching. Their eyes are like little black beetle backs. They have some sense of time, and they have some sense of traps, and they’ve been dealt these cards often and played them winningly. They wait.
It’s six days gone. Somehow the horse still struggles. Somehow it keeps its left nostril free. But it’s got no violence or power left in its movements. It’s got a kind of addict’s jerking caste to its movements. Its right legs randomly fire in a tortured caricature of…what? Running maybe? It’s lost so much weight, its ribs stand out starkly through its flesh, and its pelvis juts grotesquely. The mud has splattered onto its left side, and dried to a fine white powder, like chalk. It looks a million years old. Fossilized, then exhumed. There are long periods now where it just lies still.
The crows stir themselves and land next to the mud pit and hop delicately onto the horse’s body one after another and move up along the neck to the horse’s head, scattering the flies flitting around the brown marble; the brown marble that still looks upwards at the clear sky and the ridge tops where the horse used to run. It’s the slight glossy glint of the horse’s eyes that draws the crows to it. It watches as the black heads arch over with their beetle-back eyes. The horse’s left eye sees the beaks coming down and tries to protect itself, hardly even consulting the horse’s mind, by closing up. But the eyelids are too soft and the beaks are too hard and deliberate. The horse shakes its head, but the crows, sink their claws into the hair of its cheeks and weather the bucks, and then go back to eating. The whinnies echo around while the crickets saw, and the crows peck morsels out of one another’s beaks and squabble. They eat it right down to the socket. Then go back to the tree.
The horse is still for a few minutes. Then the left legs start to work the air. The muscles along the right flank contact and lift the horse’s middle from the mud. Then it lies still and lets its lungs work slowly like bellows. Tries again.
The seventh day dawns clear and crisp in the way that brings Nevadan fathers and sons together over the idea of some sort of brisk outdoor activity. There is a pick-up truck churning its way along the bottom of the gulch. The crows rouse themselves and cock their heads. The truck pulls into the small widening of the gulch where the mud and the trees are and stops. The father and son get out and walk over to where the horse is. The father stands on the edge of the mud hole with his feet apart, looking down blankly until the horse starts to kick a little. Then he jumps back and looks disgusted.
Oh naw, he says.
The son keeps a little distance and looks from the horse to his father. His father puts his hands on his hips.
Go get me the shotgun, he says.
The boy goes to the truck, reaches behind the passenger seat, pulls out the nylon gun case, and takes the shotgun out, and a box of shells, and brings it over to his father.
Naw, his father says, pushing the box of shells back into the boy’s hand. Get me the slugs.
The boy goes and gets the heavy shells with the big single balls of lead in them.
I want to give the horse some water, the boy says, while his father loads the shells into the magazine, and goes and gets a bottle of water from the truck.
He dribbles it down into the horse’s mouth and the horse convulses senselessly along its whole length a few times until suddenly it starts to work its tongue and slurp some of the water down. But most of it runs between the horse’s teeth into the mud.
The boy pours until half of the water in the bottle is gone and his father puts a hand on his shoulder and says that’s ‘nough, and then the boy stops pouring and sits looking straight down into the horse’s empty eye socket.
Can’t we save it? he asks.
Naw, it’s too far gone.
The boy nods.
So we have to kill it.
Yes, we do.
Okay.
The boy takes a few steps back and the father takes aim with the end of the shotgun’s barrel only just a centimeter or two above the horse’s temple. And the horse starts to kick. The crows break away from the tree and wing west, and the boy’s eyes flit upwards to them briefly before settling back on the horse, and his father, and the gun.
After they do it, the father and son will go to a nearby hot spring to camp. They will build a fire with wood they have brought with them, and they will sit and look into the flames. There will be long silences filled only with the crackle of burning wood. The father will sit feeling justified. Having dished out mercy. Having showed his son something very important and grand. The son will think of the last moment, when the horse began to kick — before the first massive boom echoed around and the horse’s head slammed downwards into the mud — when it began to kick, seemingly trying to escape.
The boy will never feel closer to his father than he will on that night by the fire, but his father will from then on scare him in a new and terrible way he will never ever be able to explain. The boy will be haunted by this fear until he is a young man carrying his father’s casket out of the church on his shoulder. He will look up and see a pair of crows sitting idly atop a set of power lines, and for some reason, the fear will leave him then. Just like that. He will grow old and have kids of his own whom he will try to teach everything he knows. In his life, there will be laughter, and revelry, and joy. There will be unbearable pain, born nonetheless, right up to the end.
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