Mustangs: The Auction begins.
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"It's a bit like adopting a child," Pasquariello said.  A diverse crowd, farmers in dirty jeans, Mennonites in dark religious garb, equestrians in plaid blazers, huddles around a crescent shaped showing pen.  It is cold, the sun blocked by metal roof. Wranglers lead the animals, three at a time, into the pen down a short run.

The burros go first. The dividing is strong. "Umm didda ummm bidda two ten two ten do I hear two fifteen," chatters auctioneer Skip Turnbull, a microphone stuck to his perpetually moving mouth.  Kenneth Clark, a cotton and peanut farmer from Smithfield, is waiting for a pink colored female burro, or jenny, that he likes. He and his wife run a petting zoo each year for the Isle of Wight County Fair, and a jenny might work nicely Clark said.

"thought I'd come out here and find another creature for my wife to fall in love with," Clark said in a dead pan voice that matches his black hat, black sunglasses and pointed goatee.  Finally his candidate arrives. But wait:  It's not a female after all, a farmer's wife shouts out; its a jack, a boy.  Clark smiles and walks away. "Oh well," he says, turning to smoke a cigarette in the warm sunshine.

The Mood shifts when the mustangs come.  They are wild eyed, kicking up dust and they dash into the pen, running to gather, neck and neck, against the fence line. "Now-who'll-start-this-thing-with- one-twenty-five,"shouts Turnbull. "c'mon-we're-looking-at- the-black-mare-with-the-star-on-her-face." The bidding goes surprisingly slow. People are waiting for the younger mustangs, says Kelly, the Chesapeake rider, noting that her favorites are coming later too.  Finally, her first choice bolts into the pen. kelly stands up and raises her hand.

"Got-one-twenty-five," Turnbull says. "Now-who'll-go-one-thrity?" Another hand goes up. the war is on.  kelly gives up at $175. She sits down.  She'll los  another bidding battle, to the same woman. BUT then she sees a nice 3 year old female, a white stripe down its nose.  no one is taking.  Kelly jumps in.  The girl his hers, at $125.00.

"Gotta go," she says with a wide grin.,  She scurries over to pay her money and start the long adoption process. "my life's gonna be upside down for a while."

Nelson Edwards, who lives on a farm in Isle of Wight County, is smiling in line, too.  he has just bought a four year old female, his second choice, for the minimum.  Edward's is a foster parent to children as well as horses and burros.  He purchased two wild burros two years ago, loved them dearly and came back for a mustang.  "Wanna breed ''em, "he says,, "Gonna make a tough jack.

The day ends with the loading   , the scary part.  The part when the power and fury of a mustang is as obvious as a punch in the nose.  One by one, the buyers back up their trailers to a steel gate.,  the wranglers usher the mustangs down a series of narrow chutes, closing gates behind them. finally, the cowboys chase the horses into the open trailers and quickly bolt them closed..  invariably , the mustangs get spooked. Feeling trapped  in a chute, they will kick and jump and buck and bang their heads and flanks against the metal curtain.

Dust flies, eyes bulge, and the wranglers step back, waiting for the sudden storm to calm.  A crowd of onlookers and adopted watches in silent awe.  The storm does subside, though. And the trailers leave, one by one, with excited family members watching their piece of Americana struggle to keep its balance in its strange new world.

THE MUSTANGS WILL SURVIVE.