The second weirdest thing that's ever happened at the 7MSN

It was 9:45 Friday night. I had yet to turn the boys and Lucy out into the pasture for the night. Smooch started barking and carrying on so I walked outside to see what was up. Hank was running around the corral being afraid of something; the burros and Lucy were in less of a frenzy but I could tell they were very worried about whatever had Hank in a panic.

It was too dark to see what evil lurked beyond the fenceline, but I assumed it was probably just a herd of pronghorns. I tossed the boys and Lucy some hay, hoping that food would take their minds off the problem. No such luck. Ten minutes went by and Hank was still in a frenzy, so I figured I'd best go out to investigate. I got my gun, hopped in the Ranger and headed down the road. I truly did not expect to see anything, mainly because it was just too dark.

I got about a quarter mile down the road and saw something large and white in the headlight beams. As I got closer, I saw there were two large white things. Then the two large white things started running. Horses! Wearing white fly sheets and fly masks. Hmm. Where in the heck had they come from? Don't they know this is the middle of nowhere?

I drove back to the house not sure of what I was going to do. My closeby neighbors are on vacation, so I called the 9-miles-away neighbors to see if they might know who the horses might belong to. They mentioned they had seen a truck with two city slickers pulling a fancy horsetrailer coming down the road around 4:00 and theorized they were the type of people to put fly sheets on their horses. That wasn't much to go on, and when we hung up, I still wasn't sure what I was going to do.

I decided to grab a couple of halters and see if I could catch them and pen them up somewhere for the night. When I walked back outside, they were standing behind the house. Alrighty then. I closed the gate at the end of the driveway and now they were safely contained. I fed and watered them, then got out my flashlight to see what I was dealing with – a mare and a gelding. I should mention that by now, Hank had calmed down, though he wasn't at all interested in going over to the fence to check them out. I think he's afraid of the fly sheets.

I called the state police asking if anyone had reported two horses missing, but no one had. Then I got in the truck and drove around for awhile, thinking I might run into somebody looking for their horses, but I didn't. I sure hope this mystery solves itself in the morning. I'll post an update whenever I get it figured out.

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Update: The horses have been reunited with their frantic owners. I went out on the Ranger this morning and followed their tracks. All hoofprints led to a horse trailer down the road. Their owners were horse camping and had set up a hot-wire corral, which the gelding (an off-the-track thoroughbread) broke through, taking the mare (a Dutch warmblood) with him. (Good guess, AutumnSkyRanch!) The owners were relieved beyond measure to learn they were safe. I love happy endings.