Broken Horse (7 page)

As she hurried down the aisle, she hardly noticed the friendly and curious heads of the other horses looking out at her. Her eyes were trained on one stall. Finally she reached
it and swung back the upper part of the stall door, which was partially closed. When she saw what was inside, she gasped in shock, feeling as if she had just been punched hard in the stomach.

The stall was swept clean—and completely empty.

L
ISA
JUST
STARED
at the empty stall for a moment, her mind racing. The floor had been swept clear of any scrap of straw, and the water bucket was clean and empty. It was as if no horse had been living there at all. Or at least as if no horse was living there anymore.

Lisa’s heart started to pound so noisily that she could hardly hear herself think. What had happened? The mare hadn’t looked good when Lisa had left the stable the night before, and Max had said her condition hadn’t changed overnight. Had it all finally been too much for her? Had Max called Judy to put the horse out of her misery? Lisa had to know.

She raced toward Max’s office, completely ignoring the rule against running in the stable. But Max wasn’t behind
his desk. Frantically, Lisa started searching for someone, anyone, to ask what had happened. She found Red O’Malley in the tack room.

As soon as Red turned around and saw Lisa’s face, he guessed what she was thinking. “Don’t worry, Lisa,” he said immediately, dropping the bridle he was holding and hurrying over to her. “She’s all right.”

Lisa could hardly believe her ears. “Really? The mare? She’s not …” Her voice trailed off.

Red shook his head. “I’m so sorry to have scared you,” he said, placing a soothing hand on Lisa’s shoulder. “It’s all my fault. Judy came by earlier this afternoon and suggested we put the mare out in the paddock for a little while. Since it’s not too cold today, she thought the fresh air and sunshine might do her some good. While she was out, I figured I’d give the stall a good cleaning. But I got called away before I could put the fresh bedding down, and I haven’t had a chance to get back to it.”

Lisa felt her whole body go limp. She collapsed on top of a trunk filled with spare bits. The mare was all right. She was still alive. “Which paddock is she in?” she asked.

“The little one in back by the garden shed,” Red said.

“That’s why we didn’t see her when we came in,” Lisa said, thinking aloud.

Red still looked contrite. “I’m really sorry I scared you like that, Lisa,” he said. “I know how worried you are about that poor mare.”

Lisa just shrugged. Now that the moment of panic was over, she wasn’t interested in placing blame. She just wanted to see the mare. “I’m going to go check on her,” she said.

“Okay,” Red said. He picked up the bridle he had dropped and hung it in its accustomed spot on the wall. “Meantime I’ll fetch some fresh straw and make up her bed. It’s probably about time to bring her in. Judy said she’d be stopping by again soon to see how the patient is doing.”

“Thanks.” Lisa grabbed a spare lead line from its hook on the wall, left the tack room, and hurried outside, leaving through the back entrance this time. The mare was just where Red had said she would be, in the small, grassy paddock behind the stable building. Lisa called to her softly as she approached. The mare didn’t turn her head, but she flicked one ear in Lisa’s direction.

Despite her relief that the mare was still alive, Lisa couldn’t help feeling a twinge of disappointment when she saw her. She was standing in the middle of the small paddock, seemingly unaware of the bright winter sunlight and the fresh, crisp air. Her head was hanging low as usual, and her scratched and battered body looked even worse in the sunshine than it had in the dimmer light of the stable building.

When Lisa let herself into the paddock, the mare raised her head a little and looked at her, her ears pitching forward.
It was the strongest sign of interest Lisa had seen her take in anything so far, and she felt a surge of hope. The mare’s ears drooped again almost immediately, but the hope Lisa had felt didn’t fade entirely. The horse was in such bad shape that any sign of life was a good thing. Lisa stood near the horse for a few minutes, talking quietly to let her become accustomed to her presence. Then she clipped the lead line onto the mare’s halter and gently, patiently, led her back inside.

The stall was made up as Red had promised, and Carole and Stevie were there waiting. Lisa smiled at her friends briefly, but she didn’t speak to them until the mare was safely in the stall with the lower half of the door closed behind her. Then she quickly told them about her panic at finding the stall empty.

“We know,” Carole said. “Red told us what happened. He feels really bad about it.”

“It’s not his fault,” Lisa said. She sighed. “It’s just that I keep waiting for the worst to happen.”

“It’s hard not to feel that way when she looks like that,” Stevie said, gesturing at the mare, who had returned to her usual position near the back of the stall.

The girls leaned on the half door and silently gazed in at the mare. There didn’t seem to be much more to say at the moment. They were still like that when Judy Barker arrived a few minutes later.

“How’s she doing?” asked the vet, opening her bag and taking out her stethoscope, a thermometer, and some other items.

The girls stepped aside to let her look. “Not much better,” Lisa admitted, half hoping that Judy would contradict her.

But instead Judy just nodded and let herself into the stall. She gave the mare a quick but thorough examination, paying careful attention to the lame forefoot.

When she emerged from the stall, she didn’t look very happy. “Well, the thrush is starting to respond to the medication a little bit,” she said. “But aside from that I don’t see much improvement. The wounds are healing very slowly, and her temperature is on the high side. Plus Red told me earlier that she’s not eating well. Of course it doesn’t help that she pitches a fit every time he or Max has to come near her to feed her. You were right, Stevie. She really doesn’t like men. Red had to hide around the corner when I led her out to the paddock earlier.”

“What else can we do to help?” Lisa asked anxiously.

Judy shrugged. “Just hope,” she said. “That’s about all we can do for her at this point. Think good thoughts. And continue taking good care of her and monitoring her condition, of course.”

“We’ll do that,” Carole promised for all of them.

“Good,” Judy said. She started to pack her supplies back
in her battered black bag. “By the way, you girls might be interested in what the police told me today.”

“Did they catch the owner?” Stevie asked.

“No,” Judy said. “The man doesn’t have a phone, so they can’t contact him that way. They’ve sent officers out to the farm a few times, but he hasn’t been at home.”

“Maybe he moved or skipped town or something,” Stevie suggested.

“They don’t think so,” Judy said. “They’re pretty sure he’s still living there. The mail’s been taken in, and the officers saw fresh dog food set out in the kitchen—the CARL people made sure to have the police check for that. The problem is, the Willow Creek Police Department is so small that they don’t have the manpower to stake out the farm for any length of time. Unfortunately other things are more of a priority.”

Carole frowned at that. She couldn’t imagine anything being more of a priority than capturing someone who would willingly hurt a horse.

Judy must have guessed what she was thinking. “Don’t worry, Carole, they’ll get him. And when they do, he’ll pay for what he did. In the meantime, we shouldn’t waste our energy worrying about it. Our job is to help this girl get better.”

“You’re right,” Lisa said. She picked up the mare’s water bucket, which needed refilling. “Let’s get to work.”

“That’s the spirit,” said Judy with a smile. She hurried off to look in at another Pine Hollow patient.

“I’d better go say hello to Belle before she forgets who I am,” Stevie said. “I’ll be back to help with the mare later.”

“Okay,” said Lisa. She headed for the water spigot. When she returned from filling the bucket, she passed Carole, who was carrying a pitchfork.

“Guess what,” Carole said, rolling her eyes. “I’m on stall mucking duty. Max’s orders.” Mucking out stalls was one of everybody’s least favorite stable chores, but it had to be done. Max was strict about making sure everyone took her turn.

Lisa was glad it was Carole’s turn today. That meant she wouldn’t have to take time away from caring for the mare. After she had replaced the water bucket in the stall, she stood in the aisle for a moment staring at the horse. Remembering how the mare’s ears had pricked forward in the paddock, Lisa wished the mare would make another sign to show that she really was still interested in being alive. But the mare stood perfectly still, head and ears down. The only sign of life was the overhead light gleaming on the clean patches of her coat.

Lisa decided to spend some time making those patches larger. She got her grooming bucket and put the mare in cross-ties. As usual the mare seemed wary about being handled, but she didn’t object much this time. Lisa decided to take that as a good sign. She set to work.

After checking the mare’s feet and brushing the outsides with hoof oil, Lisa decided to try cleaning the mare’s head. She picked up the wooden body brush and held it up so the horse could see it.

“See? This won’t hurt you,” Lisa promised. Moving slowly and talking soothingly all the while, she ran the soft brush carefully over the mare’s face and throat. The horse shuddered a few times but didn’t move. After a few minutes Lisa dropped the body brush back into the bucket and took out a sponge. She dipped it in the water bucket and squeezed it out until it was just damp. Then she very carefully cleaned around the horse’s eyes and nose.

“There, that’s better, isn’t it?” Lisa said. The horse didn’t seem to respond to the sound of her voice one way or the other, but Lisa was used to talking to horses while she groomed them. She decided it certainly couldn’t do any harm to keep talking now. “Your face looks nice and clean now. Maybe we can get the rest of you looking the same way.” Before moving around to the horse’s side, Lisa looked at her face one more time and sighed. The horse’s face was clean all right, but the expression on it was still listless and disinterested. Lisa was beginning to wonder if the ear-flick in the paddock had been a fluke—or even a figment of her too-hopeful imagination.

She decided to stop thinking about that and get on with the grooming. She picked up a rub rag and started wiping down the mare’s coat. Skipping the stiff dandy brush again,
she went over the mare’s entire body with the body brush, paying special attention to the dirtiest spots. As she worked, Lisa saw more and more spots of silver starting to gleam in the overhead light. The mare would really have a beautiful coat if she ever got better. It was a pale but very even silvery gray, which darkened only slightly on her legs and muzzle.

“You must have been quite the glamour girl once,” Lisa told the horse. “A real star. Let’s see what we can do with that mane and tail.”

As she carefully worked the worst of the knots out of the mare’s mane, which appeared to be the same shade of silver as the rest of her, Lisa pictured how the horse would look cleaned up and healthy.

“I bet you’d be the prettiest horse at Pine Hollow,” Lisa commented aloud. Then, feeling slightly disloyal to Prancer, she added, “Well, one of the prettiest anyway.” Thinking about Prancer made Lisa think about the upcoming Starlight Ride. And when she did, another thought occurred to her. “With that silvery coat, I just know you’d be a knockout under the moonlight on Christmas Eve,” she said softly. “I wish you could be part of the Starlight Ride. Maybe I could even ride you. I’m sure Prancer would understand.” Lisa felt a little foolish as soon as the words left her mouth, and she was glad no human ears had been around to hear her. There was no way the mare would be in any condition to be ridden in the Starlight Ride this year. And if the horse was to have any chance of seeing another Christmas Eve,
Lisa was going to have to stop dreaming about it and start working even harder to make it happen.

Shaking her head as if to dislodge any thoughts of Christmas and moonlight, Lisa stepped back to check on her handiwork. The mare might not look any healthier, but she certainly looked cleaner. As she gazed at the gleaming sections of silver coat, Lisa absently picked some stray hair out of the plastic mane comb she was holding. Her thoughts drifting, against her will, back to the Starlight Ride, Lisa didn’t even notice when the mare’s ears perked forward again and her dull eyes brightened just a little as she stared at the comb in Lisa’s hand.