Lost Boys: On a Hidden Fraternity of the Forsaken in the American West

All images from The Crick , published by Twin Palms Publishers. © Jim Mangan. 1. The boys arrive slowly, appearing one by one on horseback over the lip of the ravine, plunging down the steep banks with their mounts sliding on their hocks, or in the case of Ephraim arriving in a truck pulling a long stock trailer full of horses including seven mustangs, a pack horse, and a pony. In the morning light, the horses are unloaded, hooves clattering as they emerge, their pale breath hanging on the cold December air. More boys show up, including Trayl who rides in on a yellow horse leading his “zorse,” a cross between a zebra and a horse that he is still training and which he keeps snubbed up close. Most of the horses the boys own are mustangs, hardy animals taken from the open range and rescued from government holding pens. All the mustangs have been freeze-branded on their necks and the white numbers stand out against their dark winter coats like the script of some long-forgotten language now no longer decipherable. The boys are dressed in attire from another century, buckskin shirts and vests they have stitched and decorated themselves, wearing hats with stained brims pulled low against the bright sun now shining down upon the boisterous scene. A small brown mustang is saddled for me and we set off in bunches of twos and threes down a sandy path along a stream running low this late in the year. 2. The boys intend to ride down the crick today, the stream that comes out of the mountains to the north and cuts through the small town of Short Creek—or Colorado City, known locally as the Crick—before crossing under the highway where it’s channeled into a wide wash with high sandy banks on either side. It’s late in the year and the water is low and the same red color as the dirt that surrounds it. When it rains the creek rages and sweeps away all in its path and collects detritus from far away washed down into its […]

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