The prairie ground thundered like a thousand Navajo drums under Sally’s pounding feet. She breathed in the dry, cool autumn air, and her lungs burned with the fire of youth.
Through a stand of vibrant blue oaks she flew, exploding out the other side onto a carpet of golden rolling grass that swayed into the rocky ranges to the west. And there, shimmering in the morning sun like the spirit of another lifetime, stood her mother.
Tears flowed from Sally’s eyes as she pumped her legs even harder and sprinted toward the loving figure awaiting her in front of the distant foothills.
A sudden stinging pain on Sally’s backside stopped her in her tracks, and she craned her neck backward to find the source of her torment.
“C’mon, girl!” Jackson commanded as he pulled himself up into the saddle. “We gotta move on!”.
Sally winnied into the sky, weeping for her lost dream -- the same one that had visited her over and over these last few weeks.
She reared up, then tore off toward the horizon in a cloud of dust. One of the bags Jackson had loaded onto her back spilled into the dirt behind them, scattering its bounty on the desert floor.
Behind her, Sally could hear the whoops of angry men and she felt the wind of their bullets buzz past her ears.
Jackson guided her through a stand of dingy blue oaks, but the men’s cries grew closer.
When she was younger, Sally could have outrun anyone, anything.
But now her lungs were ablaze and, by the time a hot slug burrowed into her skull, her heart had already begun to sputter.
As Jackson tumbled under her faltering hooves, Sally steeled her gaze on the horizon, where her mother shimmered in front of the western foothills.
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