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run.

Chapter Eleven
    Lucky shivered. At first his thick white coat had shed the rain. Now, by the middle of the day, he was wet right down to his skin. He was stiff from standing in one place for so long. He was hungry. And he was terribly thirsty.
    In the morning light he had seen what was trapping him – a coil of jagged barbed wire.
It had been left to rust in the tall weeds and it was now wrapped tightly around his front legs. There was no way he could work himself free.
    So he just stood there.
    Finally he heard something. He swiveled his ears toward the sound of a truck rattling over a gravel road. A few moments later, he heard a door slam at the front of the white trailer. And then nothing.
    He cried out – a loud, shrill whinny, begging for help.
    A man in a dark gray oilskin coat appeared at the side of the trailer. He stared in Lucky’s direction.
    Lucky whinnied again.
    â€œHey! Where did you come from?”
    The man waded through the weeds and stood beside Lucky. He was tall and heavy, with a black beard and a sour smell. He stared at the pony with small bloodshot eyes. “You got yourself in a mess.”
    Lucky trembled. He was afraid of the man’s smell and his rough voice.
    The man muttered, “I’ll have to get my fencing
pliers.” He grinned suddenly, his mouth full of blackened teeth. “Don’t go anywhere.”
    He disappeared around the trailer, but he was back in a few minutes with a halter and a rope and a pair of pliers. He slid the halter over Lucky’s head. “Ain’t taking any chances on you getting away. You’re a good-looking pony. Someone will be looking for you, and that might mean a reward.”
    He bent down, puffing and grunting, and cut the wire away from Lucky’s legs. When Lucky was free, his instinct told him to run, but the man held him tight with the rope.
    â€œWe’ll just put you in here,” he said, leading Lucky to the old shelter. Lucky limped, the numbness in his legs turning quickly to pain. The man yanked roughly on the rope, jerking the pony’s head.
    When Lucky was safely in one of the stalls, the man took off the rope and halter. He kicked forward some of the moldy hay that was piled up in the corner. “You can eat this,” he growled. He shut the bottom half of the stall door, slid the latch across, and leaned on the door to study Lucky. “Just maybe my luck’s changing,” he said. “I bet there’ll be a nice fat reward for you. I ain’t going to give you back for nothing, that’s for sure.”
    Lucky backed into a corner of the stall.
    â€œAfter all,” said the man, “if I hadn’t come back when I did, you’d have died. You could say
I saved your life.”
    The man left Lucky and walked back to the trailer. He planned to go to the store in the morning and ask around to see if anyone was missing a pony. But he wouldn’t admit that he had the pony. Not yet. He’d give the owner time to get a whole lot more worried.
    It had been a few years since the man had looked after animals – a pair of goats, some pigs, and a thin, half-starved dog. He didn’t know that Lucky was desperate for water. He didn’t know that the wounds from the barbed wire would become horribly infected if they weren’t looked after.
    He also didn’t know that Lucky was a master at opening stall doors.

Chapter Twelve
    Tory ran along the rough road into the forest, stumbling over the ruts and bumps. After a few minutes she slowed to a walk, sucking in gulps of air, trying to stop shivering. Rain slithered down her neck and her runners were soaking wet.
    â€œLucky!” she screamed. “Lucky!”
    She peered into the dark trees, afraid of what the forest might hold. Don’t think about bears and cougars , she told herself. Don’t .
    It was hard to keep going. But Lucky was out there somewhere and he needed her. She was certain of that.
    A