RIDING WITH THE BEAST
By mid‑spring, the meadows were thick with clover and buttercup, their petals glowing gold and cream against the deepening green of new grass. The air carried the sharp, clean scent of turned earth and drying hay, mixed with the faint sweet perfume of wild hawthorn blooming along the hedgerows. Everywhere you looked, life was pushing upward: buds bursting on boughs, young lambs darting after their mothers, grain shoots standing straight and bright in the sun‑warmed soil. But with new growth came old friction, rising slow and stubborn like weeds through the furrows. For as long as anyone could remember, herders had driven their flocks across the lower slopes to reach the high summer pastures, following trails worn deep by generations of hooves and boots. And for just
