Chris rolled out of bed, the curved walls of the Quonset Hut confronted him with the flat white that graced his whole place. It was nicer to wake up to than the harsh grey bars from just a few months ago. The furniture in the room was sparse, his grandfather had used the place as a getaway. He was pretty sure that most of the furniture had been retrieved from the side of the road or worse, the middle of the desert.

He scrubbed at his stubble with his hand and blinked blearily. Outside the ravens were raucous in their conversation. The sun was already nearly overwhelming. The clock blinked to 6:15 am—time to feed the horses.

He groaned. It wasn't just his horses now. His brother's flighty mare was out there. As if in answer to his unwanted thought, he heard the loud whinny over the song of the ravens. She was nothing, if not punctual with her demands for food. The fact that she'd lived a pampered life was written large all over her, her tack, and her fancy food.

Damn his brother, anyway, for "gifting" him with her. Sure he had his own horses, but what the hell was a Straight Egyptian Arabian doing out there with his two scruffy mustangs? Apparently, Marc had decided that one more wouldn't hurt since he had horses already. Well, it damn well did hurt. The mare made his head throb.

He tugged on his worn pair of Wranglers and shoved his feet into his boots. On his way out to brew coffee, he tugged on a plain white t-shirt. He had dozens of plain white Ts. Once you were used to a uniform, he mused in an open-ended thought.

The smell of fresh coffee assailed him as he walked into the kitchen. He'd remembered to set up the auto brew. He poured a cup into the dinged-up enamel mug, black. He considered making the bossy mare wait while he made breakfast, but then the air was punctuated yet again by her squeal of protest. Sighing, he slapped his cap on his head from beside the door and stepped out into the blinding light.

The high desert sun was no joke, and he wished that he'd grabbed a pair of sunglasses. The smell of sage and juniper hit him next. He loved the way the air smelled here, warm and tangy. The huge juniper bush that hid what passed as a stable was a deep green, freckled with the odd-colored berries that were popping up all over it.

His feet crunched across the rocky sand. The sound brought his two horses to the edge of the pipe corral that housed them. Their ears, one set red, the other dark pricked forward, and suddenly the air erupted with their calls as well. At least they had waited until they heard him coming.

He entered the cooler barn, the shade automatically dropping the temperature at least a few degrees. He was gratified to see that the wildlife had left the metal can of grain alone at least. He'd need to add doors to the wide aisle of the lopsided barn in the future.

He tossed flakes of hay to the mustangs from the open bale and then carried another over to ZsaZsa's stall. He dropped it into the feeder and the copper-colored mare marched over and looked into her empty bucket. Chris snagged the bucket and walked back to the repurposed trash can that served as his grain container. He scooped the grain into the bucket and added the clumpy powder he'd been told to give her, to the mix. On his way back to her stall he gave the bucket a couple of shakes to mix the powder in.

After he hung the bucket, he stood and watched her eat. She was absolutely gorgeous. Her copper color coat gleamed under the creamy white of her mane. She reeked of money to the point that he was almost afraid to touch her.

What had Marcus been thinking, giving her to him anyway? Just because he'd decided that riding didn't give him enough of an endorphin hit anymore didn't mean he should foist her off on Chris. Marcus was always chasing some extreme sport, he was a junkie too, an adrenaline junkie. The difference was that Chris got past his habit, and his parents kept funding Marcus'.

"What in the hell am I supposed to do with you?" Chris asked the mare who was greedily gobbling her grain. She didn't even grace him with a glance. His brother had ridden the mare in the Tevis Cup the year before. They'd finished, but finishing wasn't good enough for Marc. Chris knew very little of the sport of Endurance.

What he did know was that it gave the mare rippling muscles and a lean appearance that was pleasing. Her long legs were clean-shaven too, which made her look even more odd against his nerf herders. At least she still had somewhat furry ears. She looked like a picture book horse.

He retrieved his mug of coffee from beside the grain container and went over to watch his horses eat. Both had that short, muscular build you found in BLM Mustangs. Thick necks, long manes, and feathery feet. Ranger was a powerfully built red roan, his body shed out nearly white, which only accentuated the marks of rough living. He was just three years old. Scout was a rich mahogany bay. He too had a powerful build though the feathering in his feet was less than the other.

Both horses had their heads down happily munching the hay off the sand of their large corral. They had a shelter, which they used in the hottest part of the day and sometimes, in the rare event of a pop-up rain shower. Mostly they just milled around the enclosure waiting for him to do something with them. He'd gotten in the habit of riding almost every day. He took turns with the sturdy geldings as mounts.

"Be good." he said to the pair before heading back into the house for a big bowl of Cap'n' Crunch and another cup of coffee. By the time he was done, they would be too.

Big bowl of cereal on the breakfast counter, he dragged over his second-hand laptop and fired it up. He just read the news while he ate. Just because he lived out in the back of beyond didn't mean he had to be uninformed. He wasn't a hermit, he just enjoyed his solitude. He liked people well enough, he'd just had his fill while he was locked up. He got human companionship at the weekly NA meetings.

Ben, at the tack shop, had invited him the following weekend to a cookout at their house. The merchant had it in his head that Chris needed friends. Maybe he did, but it had been a long time since he could call anyone a real friend. He'd left all his associates behind when he decided to get sober. He was pretty sure that none of them even knew where he was and he liked it that way. It was the reason he was out here, in the hut his grandfather used to hide from his family in.

He read the news while he ate his cereal. Politics was a real shit show, so he moved on quickly. He opened his email. There was mail from his mother, no surprise there. Then there was an email from Ben at the tack shop. He left the one from his mother until he was properly prepared for a lecture. Ben's email was right to the point, he knew a woman who rode endurance and he'd passed Chris' number along to her. He should be expecting a phone call from her soon. Ben went on to reiterate the invite for the weekend and then closed the letter. Chris liked the man, he liked the fact that he wasn't verbose even more. Perhaps he would go to the cookout, he was sober long enough to deal with people drinking a beer now and then.

After he ate, he closed the laptop and cleaned up the kitchen. He hated leaving dirty dishes for later when there were so few. The house was tidy, and he liked it that way. That was a habit from long before jail. He hadn't been in jail long enough to form those types of habits. He was in just long enough for a thorough wake-up call. He was there long enough to start NA and decide he was done with cocaine.

He was saddling Scout when his phone rang. He dug the phone out of his saddlebags and answered.

"Good Morning, My name is Margo. Ben asked me to call you about your horse." Came the pleasant feminine voice.

"Good Morning, thanks for calling." He answered amiably.

"So, what's the situation?" She asked, pointedly.

"Well," he began, trying to decide what information to impart. "My brother gave me this Arabian mare and I'm at a loss on what to do with her. She's an endurance horse and I'm a backyard rider."

"A lot of endurance riders are backyard riders." She laughed pleasantly. "My horses live in my backyard too."

"I'm not even sure how to use the tack she came from. Would you mind maybe coming over and giving me the rundown on stuff?" He asked.

"I can do that," She said, pausing for a moment to check her schedule. "I have some time tomorrow, it has to be before 3 though, that's when my kids get home from school."

"How about noon?" he asked. "That should give us enough time." He rattled off an address about 5 minutes from Margo's place.

"We live really close together." She commented, surprised. "You live in the Quonset hut?"

"How did you know?" He asked, startled.

"That's the only place with a barn on that road. I do a lot of riding in the backcountry." She soothed.

"Oh, that makes sense." He sighed in relief. He didn't want the world to know where he lived. The woman sounded pleasant though, and surely she wouldn't start trouble. He knew that the high desert had a common methamphetamine problem but she wasn't displaying any of the tell-tale signs of being a meth head. Besides, he doubted Ben would send an addict his way. They'd spoken enough for Ben to be privy to some of his life.

"See you then." She said by way of goodbye and hung up. A woman not to mince words, that was nice, he thought as he hung up his own phone. Stashing it back in his saddlebag, he finished preparing for his morning ride.