Strawberry

The coffee steamed in the cold air, curling up past Eli's weathered face like the ghost of something warm trying to escape. He watched it rise and disappear into the gray morning, then set the cup down on the little table between the wicker chairs. His hat came off next—that old black felt that had seen more seasons than some of the horses in his barn—and he placed it carefully in the empty chair beside him, the way a man might set down a companion.

Two days of snow now. Heavy stuff, the kind that fell slow and fat and made the world feel like it had been tucked inside glass. Like God had picked up his little corner of northeastern Arizona and shaken it gently, just to watch the white come down. Eli had always loved this kind of snow. The way it muffled everything. The way it made a man feel like he was the last soul on earth, and that wasn't a bad thing.

He was forty years old. Forty years of mornings like this one, or enough of them that he'd lost count. Forty years of coffee on porches, of horses that needed feeding, of fences that needed riding. Yesterday he'd taken Satin out to check the lines, all 160 acres of it, and she'd carried him through the drifts like she always did—steady, sure, unbothered by the white that clung to her sorrel coat and frosted her eyelashes. Twenty years, that mare. Sixteen years of trust built one ride at a time. When he'd unsaddled her last night and led her into her stall—the big one, the one with the extra space because she'd earned it—she'd turned and looked at him with those dark eyes, and he'd felt something in his chest that he didn't have words for.

That was the thing about horses. They didn't need your words. They just needed your time.

He'd given Satin her extra measure of grain this morning, stood there in the barn while she ate it, listening to the sound of her teeth working the oats. The other horses were settled too—the young ones and the mommas all tucked into the barn and the mare motel, warm and fat and happy. He'd broken the ice in the water troughs at first light, watched the horses drink their fill, thrown out the morning flakes of rye grass hay. All of it done now. All of it handled.

A week of snow coming, maybe more. The cupboards were full. The wood was split and stacked under the overhang behind the cabin, enough to last him through February if it came to that. Eli was ready. He'd learned a long time ago that you didn't fight winter out here. You prepared for it, and then you let it have its way.

He reached for his coffee, brought it to his lips, and that's when he saw her.

She was standing maybe fifty yards out, just past the fence line where his property met the open range. A red roan filly, her coat the color of strawberries crushed into cream. The snow was settling on her back, on her mane, catching in her forelock and dusting her ears. She stood perfectly still, watching him.

Strawberry. That's what he'd been calling her in his head for weeks now. Ever since he'd first noticed the tracks.

It had started in early November, before the big snow came. He'd wake up mornings and find hoofprints in the frost, leading right up to his porch and then away again. Mustang tracks, he could tell from the shape of them—unshod, a little rough around the edges, the kind of prints a wild horse left when she was curious about something but not quite ready to commit. He'd follow them sometimes, out past the fence, until they disappeared into the scrub oak and the rolling hills beyond his property line.

Then he'd seen her. Just glimpses at first—a flash of that roan color through the juniper, the sound of hooves on frozen ground. But she'd been getting braver. Coming closer. And now here she was, standing in the open while the snow fell around her, looking at him like she was trying to figure something out.

Eli didn't move. Didn't even lift his coffee cup again. He just sat there in his wicker chair, forty years old and patient as stone, and let her look.

She was beautiful. That was the simple truth of it. Built like a quarter horse already, standing maybe fourteen hands, with the kind of compact, muscular frame that spoke to generations of survival in hard country. Mustangs were like that—bred by the land itself, shaped by winters like this one and summers that could crack the earth open. They were tough in ways that domestic horses sometimes forgot how to be. But this one, this strawberry roan filly, she had something else too. Something in the way she carried herself, in the arch of her neck and the set of her ears. She had presence. The kind of presence that made a man stop and pay attention.

Two years old, maybe. Maybe a little younger. Just about the perfect age.

Eli had started horses before. Plenty of them. He knew the work that went into it—the long months of groundwork, the patience required to earn trust that couldn't be demanded. He knew the heartbreak of it too, the ones that never quite settled, the ones that stayed wild in their hearts no matter how gentle your hands were. But he also knew the reward. The bond that came when you did it right. When you gave a horse the time she needed to choose you back.

Satin had been like that. A four-year-old mare with too much fire in her when he'd bought her from a rancher outside of Holbrook. Everyone said she was too much horse, too headstrong, too likely to dump a rider and take off for the hills. But Eli had seen something in her. He'd taken his time. And now, sixteen years later, she was the steadiest horse he'd ever known. The one he trusted with his life on those long fence rides when the weather turned bad and the trails got slick.

He thought about that as he watched Strawberry watching him. Sixteen years with Satin. If this filly was two now, and he was forty—well, he could do the math. He could have her until he was sixty, maybe sixty-five if they were both lucky. A quarter of his life, or close to it. Maybe his last horse, if he was being honest with himself. The last one he'd start from the ground up.

The thought should have made him sad. Instead, it made him feel something like purpose settling into his bones.

Strawberry took a step forward. Then another. The snow was coming down heavier now, those big fat flakes that seemed to fall in slow motion, and she moved through it like she was walking through a dream. Eli held his breath without meaning to. He'd been still before, but now he was frozen, every muscle in his body locked in place so he wouldn't spook her.

She stopped at the fence line. Maybe twenty yards away now. Close enough that he could see the details of her—the white mixed through her roan coat, the dark points on her legs, the way her breath fogged in the cold air. Her ears were pricked forward, trained on him like he was the most interesting thing she'd ever seen.

Maybe he was. Out here, a man sitting still on his porch might be the most interesting thing for miles.

"Hey there, girl," Eli said, and his voice came out rougher than he meant it to. Too long without talking to anyone but horses. "You keep coming around here, people are going to talk."

Strawberry's ears flicked at the sound of his voice, but she didn't run. Didn't even take a step back. She just stood there, considering him.

Eli reached for his coffee, slow as molasses, and took a sip. The filly watched every movement like she was memorizing it.

This was how it worked. He knew that. You didn't catch a mustang—not really. You let her come to you. You made yourself safe, made yourself steady, made yourself the kind of presence she could trust. It took time. Weeks, sometimes months. You had to be willing to sit in the discomfort of wanting something you couldn't rush toward.

But that was the beauty of winter out here. Time was the one thing you had plenty of.

Eli thought about his five mares, the ones he'd spent good money on for his breeding program. Solid horses, every one of them. Good lines, good conformation, the kind of stock that threw athletic babies who'd grow into cattle horses worth their weight in gold. He was proud of those mares. Proud of the little operation he'd built out here on his 160 acres, just him and the horses and the hard work that came with them.

But Strawberry—she was something different. Something that couldn't be bought. She was wild in a way his mares had never been, shaped by the high desert and the cold winters and the long summers when water was scarce and survival wasn't guaranteed. If he could earn her trust, if he could bring her into his world without breaking the wildness in her—well, she might be the best horse he ever had. Better than Satin, even, though it felt like a betrayal to think it.

Not better. Different. A different kind of horse for a different chapter of his life.

The filly shook her head, snow flying from her mane, and for a moment Eli thought she was going to bolt. But she didn't. She just settled again, shifting her weight from one leg to the other, and kept watching him.

"I'm not going anywhere," Eli told her. "You take your time."

He meant it. He had nowhere to be, nothing to do but sit on this porch and drink his coffee and watch the snow fall. The chores were done. The horses were fed. The world was quiet and white and still, and he was exactly where he was supposed to be.

Strawberry stood there for another ten minutes. Eli counted the time by sips of coffee, by the gradual cooling of the mug in his hands. Then, without warning, she turned and walked away, disappearing into the snow like she'd never been there at all.

But she'd been there. And she'd come closer today than she had the day before.

Eli smiled, just a little, and reached for his hat. The felt was cold when he settled it back on his head, but he didn't mind. He had all winter to sit on this porch. All winter to drink his coffee and watch for that flash of roan color through the falling snow. All winter to be patient.

That was the secret nobody told you about this life. It wasn't about the big moments—the breaking, the first ride, the day a horse finally trusted you enough to follow you anywhere. It was about the waiting. The quiet mornings when nothing happened except the snow coming down and the coffee going cold and a wild filly standing at your fence line, thinking about maybe taking one more step.

Eli thought about his ten head running the land, the young horses and the mommas and the five prized mares. He thought about Satin in her big stall, warm and fed, resting up from yesterday's long ride. He thought about the wood stacked behind the cabin and the cupboards full of food and the week of snow still coming.

He thought about being forty years old, sitting on a porch in northeastern Arizona while the world turned white around him.

And he thought about Strawberry. About the way she'd looked at him. About the tracks in the morning snow, leading right up to his porch and then away again. About the bond that might grow between them, slow and patient, if he gave it enough time.

Two souls, he thought. That's what this was. Two souls circling each other in the quiet, figuring out if they belonged together.

The snow kept falling. Eli stayed on his porch, watching the place where the filly had disappeared into the white. He'd see her again tomorrow, probably. Or the day after. She'd come a little closer each time, a little braver, until one day she'd step right up to him and let him run a hand down her neck.

That day might be weeks away. Months, even. But it would come.

He was patient. She was curious. And out here, in the high country where the winters were long and the silence was a living thing, that was enough.

The coffee had gone cold. Eli drained the last of it anyway, then stood and stretched, his bones popping in the cold air. Time to go inside. Time to put another log on the fire and warm up before the next round of chores. The horses would need their evening hay in a few hours, and he'd want to check the water troughs again, make sure the ice wasn't forming too thick.

But he paused at the door, one hand on the frame, and looked back out at the falling snow.

Somewhere out there, Strawberry was finding her own shelter, settling in to wait out the storm. And tomorrow, or the day after, she'd be back at his fence line, watching him with those dark curious eyes.

"I'll be here," Eli said to the empty porch, to the silent snow, to the filly he couldn't see but knew was listening. "I'll be right here."

He went inside and closed the door behind him, and the snow kept falling, soft and slow, covering the tracks that led to his porch and the tracks that led away, making the world new again for tomorrow.