[Mister Bent]

Waking and saddling up in the cold dark, riding out over the mesa and listening to the sounds of saddle leather, the high pitched ring of bits and spurs, shod hooves over rock, that and the faint glow from a cigarette being dragged on the only way I knew there were other riders around me in the pre-dawn dark. No talking, we weren't quite awake and we weren't to the cattle.

Then the sun broke over the plains, shot clean and undiffused between two volcanic hills, a beacon over the grasslands. I could see who I rode with now, Roger Long, Old Jessie the Drunk, Harvey Shannon, Raymond, and others whose names I've forgotten.

But what I remember most was the way the sound began to rise, eerie, mournful, broken and hopeful as an enormous flock of Sandhill Cranes suddenly made their migratory way above us.

In that moment, I made a mental note, and thanked my favorite and good mare for bringing me there, right then, that day.