Part 4 — I Was Defending My Foal Surrounded by Wolves When a Huge Shadow Appeared on the Hill and Their Leader Stepped Back

Tario shook his head toward the depths of the gorge.

Mara understood immediately.

“Everyone back! To the other exit of the rock!”

“But there is water there,” I said.

“People cannot take the water from us if we do not let them reach it.”

A man’s whistle sounded from outside.

The wolves scattered, but did not leave completely. They watched us from above the rock, as if the appearance of the people had reminded them too that this place was no longer only their hunting territory.

The first man dropped the wire loop.

Tario jerked his head toward him and split the ground with his hoof.

“Jorge, be careful!” the second man shouted.

“Be quiet, this horse is tired!” Jorge answered. “We’ll give him one blow and it will be over.”

I heard these words and covered Canelo with my body.

Tario managed to stand beside me.

The second man came down. He held a heavy chain, and a dark-colored bottle hung around his neck. A sharp, burnt smell came from the bottle.

“Luna, step back,” I whispered to myself. “This time he will protect us.”

But Tario moved forward.

The chain struck his shoulder.

Such a sound rang out in the gorge as if stone had cracked.

Tario shook his head only once and knocked the man to the ground. Jorge began to shout and threw the wire loop toward Canelo.

I saw its shining ring.

I covered the foal with my body.

The loop wrapped around my front leg and the wire cut into my skin. The pain stopped my breath, but I did not fall.

“Mother!”

“Run, Canelo!”

Tario pulled the wire with his teeth. The metal cracked and broke. I was freed, but blood ran warmly down my leg.

Suddenly the sound of a truck engine came from above.

“Jorge, stop!” a woman’s voice shouted.

A woman in a green uniform appeared at the top of the rock. Beside her stood two men holding long, trumpet-like devices.

“Remove the chains and raise your hands!” the woman shouted.

Jorge tried to retreat.

“This is my land!”

“This is a protected area,” the woman answered. “And your traps have already been recorded.”

The second man’s expression changed.

“What recorded?”

The woman raised a small device. From it came the voice spoken several minutes earlier.

“This enormous horse will bring us a lot of money alive.”

The color disappeared from Jorge’s face.

“Turn that off!”

“That is your voice,” the woman told him. “You yourself admitted why you were putting up the wires.”

She put handcuffs on both of them. Jorge shouted at first, then switched to pleading.

“Listen to me, I only wanted to transport the horses.”

“Then why was there blood in the traps?” the woman asked.

Jorge could not find an answer.

I watched him and felt a strange emptiness. I wanted him to feel something for the fear of so many days, but I no longer needed revenge. I simply wanted water and a safe place for Canelo.

Tario stood in the gorge and watched us.

Then, for the first time, he knelt.

His knee rested on the stone, he lowered his head, and allowed Canelo to touch his neck.

The foal slowly approached his father.

“Is he really my father?” he asked me.

“Yes.”

“Why wasn’t he with us?”

I looked at Tario’s scar.

“Sometimes the ones who protect us protect us from a distance. Until they find the way back.”

In the following days, people removed the wires around the spring. They treated my leg too. That woman’s name was Elena. Every morning she came, left water for us, and stopped at a distance from Tario because she was afraid that coming close to him would be wrong.

“You are a very strong mother,” she told me one morning.

I only snorted in response.

Strength was not at all that I had endured the wolves.

Strength was that, despite exhaustion, I stood in front of Canelo.

Three weeks later we went toward a new pasture. The grass was still thin, but green shoots were already coming up. Canelo jumped higher every day. His piece of copper bell still hung from the agave fiber, only now it no longer trembled.

One evening, at sunset, Elena put up a small wooden sign above the gorge. It said that wild horses were protected here.

Then she came to me, holding a small white paper in her hand.

“Jorge’s trial is tomorrow,” she told me. “His traps and the recording were enough. He will not return.”

I lowered my head.

“Are you happy?” Elena asked me.

I stood silently for a while.

“I am happy that no one will have to flee from him anymore.”

Months passed.

The first snow came, rare and light, as if the sky were carefully testing us. Canelo was already almost as tall as me. One morning he began chasing the white flakes and then stopped.

“Mother, aren’t you afraid of wolves anymore?”

“Fear can always return.”

“Then why do you go forward?”

I looked at Tario. He was coming behind us, but he no longer led us. He was simply with us.

“Because the one you love is walking ahead.”

Canelo pressed his head against my neck.

That evening the people left a large open stable for us. The smell of hay was there, the wooden floor was warm, and in the corner stood a deep vessel full of water. Canelo slept for the first time without jumping up at every sound.

Several days later Elena told me that Jorge had sent a letter.

“He says that he was wrong,” she said. “He says that he wants to help your herd.”

I looked at the paper placed in her hand.

“And what do you think?”

“You are not obliged to give a second chance to a person who turned your escape into a source of income.”

I calmly approached the paper, then stepped aside.

“Then you already know the answer.”

Elena nodded.

“What should I answer?”

I looked at Canelo. He stood on the hay and sniffed a small piece of wood, as if he were searching there for all the secrets of the world.

“Tell him that we are no longer waiting.”

That night the wind rose again. The howling of wolves sounded from far away, but that sound no longer resembled an ending. Tario stood at the entrance of the stable, while I lay beside Canelo.

The piece of copper bell moved slowly on his neck.

Ring.

Ring.

This sound was no longer the sound of fear.

It was the path we had chosen ourselves.

And that night I slept for the first time without dreaming of escape anymore.