Nobody Could Touch the Wild Mustang I Adopted From a Government Roundup. Then a Flash Flood Hit the Canyon

A flash flood in the desert doesn’t rise slowly. It comes all at once.

A wall of brown water, five feet high, full of rocks and branches and mud, came around the bend of the canyon.

There was nowhere to go. The canyon walls were sheer rock on both sides.

Trueno didn’t wait for me. He spun around and ran.

I grabbed his mane and held on with everything I had.

The water hit us from behind. It knocked his legs out from under him, and suddenly we were both swimming in a churning brown river, slamming against the rocks.

I went under. Came up. Went under again. I lost my grip on the rope.

I felt something hit my ribs. Hard.

Then something grabbed my jacket. I thought it was a branch.

It was Trueno.

He had my jacket in his teeth, by the collar, the way a mare grabs a foal. He was swimming toward the side of the canyon with his head high, dragging me along.

Fifty yards downstream, the canyon widened. There was a rocky ledge on one side, a few feet above the water.

Trueno scrambled up onto it, still holding my jacket, and pulled me out of the river.

We lay on that ledge for an hour, soaked, freezing, watching the flood roar past below us.

He never once tried to leave.