It’s late May, the height of the foaling season. Two of Raven’s mares have given birth.

His third, the young Palomino, has yet to foal. Late in the afternoon, she leaves the band.

It’s safer for her to give birth alone, under a cloak of darkness, hidden away from the main predator of wild horse babies—the mountain lion.

The next morning the palomino rejoins her band. The fragile foal at her side takes my breath away. Not at all like his older sisters, or any foal on the Arrowheads for that matter, he’s nearly white.

His band is traveling uphill to the deep forest, and he totters on unsteady legs to keep up.

Besides his two sisters, he has a yearling half brother. But it’s his mother he focuses on... to fall behind is unthinkable for the colt.

After a march of several miles, the white colt sees what all the walking is about.

Water holes on top of his mountain home are still locked in ice and snow. Below they’ve long since dried up. Snow under the dense canopy of Douglas firs is their spring water source.

Finally, the colt can stop and rest.

He’s so thin, I can count his ribs.

His sisters are two months older and robust in comparison.

The colt nurses for a few minutes at a time in the afternoon light.

Would he ever grow to be as sturdy as his blue roan brother? Even the simple act of lying down seems difficult for him.

I begin to worry he might not live. I’d never seen a newborn wild horse foal. Are they all so frail... or just this little one?

And surely his white coat makes him terribly conspicuous.

Mountain lions, though rarely seen, are common, waiting in the shadows. But once detected, the cat has little chance for a kill.

As he sleeps at the feet of his watchful mother, thin clouds sail overhead. In that instant, his name comes to me. The wispy clouds remind me of the upright hair on the colt’s mane. Cloud. I’ll call him Cloud.

Two weeks later I return to the Arrowheads to find the bands trailing to the top of the mountain. The water holes are filling with the runoff from melting snow and family groups are coming to drink.

Most of the horses are small in stature and dark in color. Many are golden duns and a gray color called grulla.

Duns and Grullas have dorsal stripes, zebra stripes on their legs, sometimes even bold shoulder stripes---colors and markings designed to camouflage.

Neither cloud nor his palomino mother are camouflaged. Even from miles away, I can see them coming to the mountaintop. I’m thrilled to see Cloud alive!

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