Our lucky day

 He was just the kind of man you might expect to see at a local coffee shop, enjoying retirement and discussing the evils of tourism on the old home turf. And we are just the type of tourists who wrongly think they blend in.

The man smiled, identified himself as Dave, and checked us in for an experience we weren't exactly ready for: Horse hunting.

Specifically, we would be hunting for a glimpse of the wild horses of Corolla, which are thought to be the descendants of Spanish mustangs that were either shipwrecked or left by explorers who landed on the northern end of North Carolina's outer banks in the 16th century. 

Dave handed us a few waiver forms with paragraphs of small-print legalese we would not read in its entirety before we signed in the two places required and initialed in the six more locations he'd have to point out a second time. 

"I need someone to ride shotgun," he said affably, looking directly at my son, who was conspicuously dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, and a straw hat that eclipsed the sun. 

"I'm thinking it's you, bud," he said, handing the boy a duck grey parka from a pile before asking the rest of us -- who did not realize an open truck out on the dunes would get mighty cold -- if we wanted an extra layer. 

Dave warned us from the jump that spotting the mustangs is never certain, and the group before ours had a tough time finding any on the two-hour tour. 

There was something surreal about piling into a truck and winding our way through housing developments that dot the dunes like sandcastles. There were no paved roads, just signposts in the sand. 

Our guide slowed. The truck inched along one stretch of marshland forest after another. No sightings. He gunned the engine and hauled us up over the dune, back to the beach. Over and over this commute continued. Dave drove us past houses owned by the famous and the infamous. He navigated the steep climbs and sharp drops with ease. 

The world was different here. The dune takes what it wants; extending 40 feet farther than it did last year. Its sand covers trees and trails. In a few years, Dave tells us, the dune will reach the sound. 

We move on. 

Dave tracked hoof prints through a scrub of Live Oak, I marveled at the grace of the tree branches. We reach the end of the pathfinding "sand apples" instead of horses.

Dave explains that the winds' shift took with it the water from the sound. "The horses like it there because the grasses are lush when that happens. But it makes it harder for us to see them."

As if on cue, a horse lumbered out of the tree line and onto the path ahead of us. Regarding us blithely before it continued feasting on a nearby lawn. 

It owns this place. 

Dave takes the opportunity to tell us that these horses are miraculous in their ability to exist with the ever-changing landscape and the encroaching humans. They are unique in the horse world, too, having a diet that is entirely restricted to the grasses that grow here. "An apple or a piece of carrot will kill these guys, and every year we find idiots feeding them."

Now that we've seen this "bachelor" specimen, Dave can relax and enjoy the ride. He points out the snake tracks that cross our path as he wheels back to the beach towards Tour HQ.

The wind isn't as harsh in this direction, though Dave doesn't seem to be in a rush. He pulls over askance in the middle of the beach and hops out, returning a few moments later with a hunk of rock he hands to the boy.

"Your lucky day! That's what happens with lightning hits sand." 

Ans then lighting stuck again as we waited to get back into the fray of beach traffic: a herd of five mustangs loped up from behind and galloped beside us along the shore. They slowed to a walk, and we slowed with them, yielding as they crossed in front and headed back to the dune and out of sight. 

It really was our lucky day.