Startled by the Sun-Drunk Jackrabbit

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The horse had been steady all morning, a dark streak of muscle moving through the dunes as if sand were just another kind of water he knew how to cross. The rider trusted him—trusted his instincts even more than his own. Out here, where the heat shimmered and the horizon swayed like a slow hallucination, a man lived or died on the back of what his horse felt before he did.

They were cutting across a pocket of low sage when it happened. A jackrabbit—lean, wide-eyed, and shimmering like it had been carved out of sunlight—shot from beneath a clump of brush. It didn’t move so much as explode, scattering dust in a small comet’s tail. Its hind legs kicked wildly, not in fear but in some strange midday frenzy, as if the heat had soaked into its bones and convinced it that flight was a kind of joy.

The horse saw that flash of impossible brightness and panicked. His whole body bunched, then sprang forward, hooves churning sand as if trying to outrun the sun itself. The rider barely had time to clamp his legs around the saddle. His hat nearly flew off; his breath did.

He knew this land—knew that a jackrabbit could get reckless in the midday heat, running in crooked arcs, startled by nothing but its own heartbeat. But knowing didn’t help him much now. The horse had folded the world into a single instinct: run.

For a moment, man and horse were weightless, suspended above the wide desert. Sagebrush blurred into green smears. The sky sharpened to a hard, perfect blue. The rider could hear the horse’s breath, ragged with adrenaline, and underneath it the faint mad patter of the jackrabbit still bolting across the sand.

Gradually the horse slowed, each stride loosening, fear burning off like morning fog. The rider leaned forward, whispering reassurance into its ear. The horse shuddered once, then steadied, nostrils still trembling.

When everything quieted again, the desert felt even larger than before—an enormous empty stage on which the tiniest creature could still cause chaos. The rider glanced back. The jackrabbit was already gone, swallowed into the dunes, leaving only a disturbed line of tracks that wiggled like a child’s scribble.

He let out a slow breath.

“Sun-drunk fool,” he muttered—not sure if he meant the rabbit or himself.

The horse snorted softly.

Then, side by side, they moved on into the shimmering heat, a little wiser, a little humbler, and grateful that sometimes the desert’s wildness announced itself with nothing more dangerous than a rabbit full of sunlight.