Excerpt from HOOFBEATS IN THE WIND:

The blue sky turned black with millions of twinkling stars in the sky.  I envisioned each star as a human. How could there be that many people in the world, yet I was lying alone and dying of a broken life in the arena?  I couldn’t take the loss, the loneliness, and the despair that was slowly killing me.  My eyes closed to hide all those stars.  

I began willing every shallow breath to be my last.  

A breeze swept up small particles of dust and they floated over me.  A stronger breeze blew sand in the air.  I lay focusing on the feel of the tingles of the sand hitting my skin when a large gust of wind swirled around me.  It lifted my hair and it too fell over me.  More dust swirled up and slowly drifted to cover me.   

I could hear the sway of the long grass in the field next to the arena as the wind waved it back and forth.  I concentrated on it and the dust.  

Then I heard it.  My senses honed to it. It was a rumble that was growing closer and closer.  A whinny danced in the wind then another and another as the horses neared.  

Hoofbeats in the wind.  

My eyes slowly opened as I listen to the sound approach.  They ran by the arena, and I could feel the vibration through the ground until they disappeared.  I lay quietly staring at the sky and listening for them again.  

Hoofbeats in the wind.  

They ran by the arena again; the vibration seemed to wake my body as I slowly sat up and turned to the pasture to see them, but they had already disappeared into the darkness as if they were ghosts.   

I slowly stood and looked out into the night, waiting for them to return.  A whinny danced on the wind just before the rumble…the thumping…the heartbeat returned…hoofbeats in the wind.