Wild Horses Live

Part 1

The scents of sugar maple, pine, Douglas fir, and red cedar trees permeate the air and act as an umbrella of cover, under which: shrub, wild oats, mustard and pansy inundate the area that is the Catskills, in New York State.  There in the forest amongst: beaver, squirrel, rattlesnakes, and snowshoe hare, is one Blake Corey Greystock.  Blake, a sturdy young man of twenty-five, is watching over five quarter horses, all of which he has a vested interest in.

The horses are descendants to Swift Snow, a horse raised by Jim Flathead Smith, a Shinnecock from New York, and a veteran of the Korean War.  Jim returned in 1953 to work his farm in Far Rockaway, Queens.  Swift Snow gave birth to a mare he called 'Ghost Runner', but Swift Snow died.  Jim gave Ghost Runner to Blake's father Corey Walker Greystock.

Blake, here in the Catskills with a home nearby, lets his horses run loose and express their inner selves in an untamed environment.  The area does have its natural predators such as wolves and Black bear, but the greater concern is for the two-legged type, like one Carter Russell.  Carter is a wrangler and trapper for the Carlson Company.  The Carlson Company formed by Jim Carlson, originated when its owner started capturing animals in the wild and displaying them in his roadside zoo.  Carlson wasn't without opposition to this enterprise.  His most intense foe was Joe Wilson, a local farmer, but Joe moved to Maine with his daughter Rene who got a job teaching there; which paid well.  So with the seemingly obsessive constraints, and retaliating tactics, such as sneaking about and releasing his caged animals, gone, Carlson has expanded.  He's ballooned from a roadside zoo to several complete zoos, an amusement park, a dude ranch, and a rodeo in the summer months.

Carter Russell, was for Carlson, a dream hire, because of his own ruthless and relentless way of going about the business of securing animals.  Carter had already run up against Blake regarding those animals that were in his ownership, care and concern.

Blake, an army vet who served in Iran was in no way intimidated by Carter, and the two had exchanged words after he'd made a feeble pass at Blake's girlfriend, Helen Utrect.  Helen and Blake met at Syracuse University a year ago; she with family from Chile is a talented painter.

But on this day, with a high sky overhead, Blake returns to his place with his remuda of quarter horses, him riding a saddled Appaloosa, to find Reilly, his Collie dog, dead.

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To be continued. . .