Today’s post is written by author L.D. Bergsgaard, who currently lives in sunny Arizona, but for many years braved the Minnesota winters. Larry is a retired Special Agent with unique experiences adding a rare dimension to the crime story genre. Fellow writer William Henry says, “There are many authors who dream of being cops. Few do. There are many cops who strive to write. Few can. L.S. Bergsgaard is the rare exception of a street harden cop who can write like a poet.”...

This was the rule: if you made it past the pigpen, it was a qualified ride. My initiation into grown-up rodeo wasn’t exactly a high-toned affair with banners and flags and crowds and queens. One summer during my early high school years, I would load up with a handful of older boys from my hometown for a trip to a ramshackle ranch about thirty miles south to attend “rodeo school.”The place was home to a cowboy—he seemed old at the...

In 1989, the Bureau of Land Management shipped 1500 wild horses to my ranch in South Dakota, the first government-sponsored wild horse sanctuary. These were “unadoptables,” the horses that the public did not want to adopt. Many were one-eyed, crippled, scarred, and just plain old. But some of the horses were young, and some of them even beautiful.One horse in particular stood out in the herd. He was a strong black and white paint about 18 hands tall. He had...