No Horse Wanted (4 page)

I pushed open the back door and saw my mother
sitting at a kitchen table talking to a scrawny, older woman
wearing the worst wig I’d ever seen. “Mom, I’ve found him. I found
my horse.”

“He’s not yours yet,” Mom said. “Mrs.
Bartlett tells me there’s another buyer coming to see him.”

“Who else would want him, but me?” I asked.
“He’s a wreck. Of course, once he’s all the way dead, a vet student
might take him to study the bones.”

“Roberta Lynn, that’s enough. Stop being
rude. You have better manners. Use them.”

I folded my arms and waited. The door opened
behind me, and I saw Felicia standing there. “What?”

“A old fat guy just got here with the worst
trailer in creation. And he’s feeding your want-a-be horse grain.
It’s gross.”

“What’s gross about it?” I asked. “At least
someone cares enough to feed him.”

“He’s scarfing it so fast he almost chokes on
each mouthful. Every time he spills some on the ground, he eats the
dirt and the grain. He’s going to colic.”

“I don’t suppose anyone cares if he dies of
that either.” I brushed past my sister and returned to the corral.
Sure enough, she was right. A guy older than my dad stood with a
bucket of feed. “What are you doing?” I asked. “He’s not yours
yet.”

“He will be.”

I nodded. “Well, you’re feeding him. That’s
something. He won’t be hungry or abused.”

“Nope. My partner and I will put some weight
on him and run him up to Stanwood. They’ll ship him to the
slaughter house in Canada.”

“You can’t!” I watched the horse nudge the
guy for more feed like the two of them were best buddies. “He likes
you. Come on. All he needs is a stall and regular meals for a
while.”

“And six months to a year’s rest before he
could be trained or ridden.” The man shook his head. “Nope, he’s
history even if he’s too dumb to know it.”

“Then, why waste grain on him?” Mom asked, as
she joined us, Mrs. Bartlett limping along behind. “Or are you just
trying to win his confidence to make him easy to load?”

That earned a snort of laughter. “Lady, this
grain is heavily salted. In a couple hours, he’ll be ready to tank
up on water. By the time I run him to Stanwood next week, he’ll be
more than a hundred pounds heavier.”

“And since they’ll pay by the pound for him,
you’ll make more money.” Mom put an arm around my shoulders.
“Sometimes you need to know when to walk away, Robin. This could be
one of those times.”

“Or not.” Felicia walked over to the fence
and pushed down the bottom strand of barbed wire with her boot. She
lifted the second line and climbed into the pasture. Murmuring
reassurances, she walked up next to the horse. “I want to see his
teeth.”

“I’ve looked at his papers,” Mom said. “He is
barely two and a purebred Morab. Half Morgan and half Arabian.”

“And nobody’s ever faked registration
documents,” Felicia said.

She sounded almost as snarky as I did when
people irritated me. I saw Mom roll her eyes. Okay, so we were all
channeling teenagers. What was it about this situation that brought
out the immaturity in each of us?

Mrs. Bartlett leaned heavily on her cane.
“Two people want Twaziem. That’s amazing since I only put the ad in
the paper for one day. Mr. Johnson, you’ve shared your plans for
the colt. Young lady, what are yours?”

Her tone reminded me of my track coach’s when
my times sucked and I needed more practice to be considered for
state competition. I straightened up to my full five-feet-six.
“I’ll put him in a stall, feed him up, and do everything our vet
says he needs to look like a horse again. Once he’s ready for
training, I’ll turn him over to Rocky at Shamrock Stables and
she’ll break him to ride.”

Utter silence, which always made me nervous,
so I added, “I don’t know why they call it ‘breaking’ because I’ve
never seen Rocky do anything mean to a horse or pony.”

The comment led to a lecture from Felicia
about the history of horse training, like anyone really cared.
Blah, blah, blah. I could turn her on, and since she knew
everything about everything, she never shut up. While she
blathered, she looked in Twaziem’s mouth, then felt around with her
fingers.

“What are you doing now?” I cut her off
mid-sentence. “He has teeth or he wouldn’t be able to chew the
horse-killer’s grain.”

Dirty looks all around.
Hey, I calls it as
I sees it.
Most people figured I was charming because I was
blonde. A girl has to use what she’s got.

New lecture from Felicia. This one was about
how horses had two sets of teeth in their lifetimes and how the
permanent set came into the mouth in a certain order. Twaziem would
get so many as a two-year-old, more as a four-year-old, some kind
of hook when he turned five and he’d really groove at seven. Yeah,
yeah, yeah. So, what? Who really cared?

I turned to Mrs. Bartlett. “So, who gets him?
Me or the guy who thinks
The Godfather
was a great
movie?”

She eyed me, then looked at Mom. “Do you
really want him?”

“I’ll be honest with you,” Mom said. “I
prefer horses to the teen boys who chase my daughters and most of
the girls who constantly call and text my son. This is the first
horse we’ve seen all day that Robin has wanted. She’s got a mean
mouth and a crappy attitude, but she’s the best person I’ve ever
seen with a sick or needy critter.”

“She brings home every stray in the world,
and then she visits them when she finds places for them to live.
None of them ever go to the pound or shelters.” Felicia picked up
Twaziem’s left front foot, inspecting the hoof. “I was really
surprised she hadn’t found any more puppies or abandoned dogs when
I got home from college.”

“I probably will before too much longer,” I
said. “What are you looking for now?”

“Stone bruises, abscesses and chipped or
cracked hooves.” When she finished with the hooves, Felicia moved
onto the horse’s legs. He continued to ignore her, hassling the old
guy for more grain. “Well, he doesn’t have splints.”

I dreaded the next lecture, but I really
wanted to know. “What are those?”

Mr. Johnson answered before Felicia could.
“They’re bruises or swellings that become permanent growths on the
cannon bones. And they’ll limit what he can do.”

My sister nodded agreement, but before she
could add to what he said, Mr. Johnson hurried on, “I sympathize
with your desire to save this horse, but it’s not very
economical.”

“My husband’s an accountant,” Mom said. “He’d
probably agree with you about the cost of saving him.”

Felicia and I shared a look. Was she talking
about our father—the guy who always quoted Sir Winston Churchill at
us? “The outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man...”
Before either of us could say anything or argue with her, Mom gave
us the evil eye and we shut down.

She turned on Mrs. Bartlett. “I’m sure you’ll
agree that the horse hasn’t done anything to deserve death, and if
he did, he’d have a more humane end if you just turned him in with
your cougar.”

I almost cheered, but I didn’t.
Go,
Mom!

“You have a point.” Mrs. Bartlett glanced
past us to Mr. Johnson. “I appreciate you coming out, but Twaziem
should have a chance for a happy life. And Robin will give him
one.”

“Got that right,” I said. “Nobody will ever
hurt him again. I swear it.”

Chapter Five

Saturday, September 14
^th
, 5:05 p.m.

Mom went off with Mrs. Bartlett to sort out
the registration papers. Mr. Johnson handed me the can of grain.
“You got yourself a horse, missy. Take good care of him. Don’t
water him for at least two hours.”

That was a weird thing to say. I watched him
leave, and then turned back to Twaziem. “What do you think?” I
asked Felicia. “Should I give him the rest of this?”

“Sure. It can’t hurt him, and he’s already
had enough that he has to stay away from water anyway.”

“I don’t get it. Why?”

“Colic, Robin. If he waters up, it’ll flush
the grain into his gut and cause an impaction. So, we’ll feed him
when we get him home, but we’ll wait to fill his tub.” She headed
off to the truck and came back with the halter and lead I’d gotten
for my birthday. “Okay, he’s all yours. Get him ready to go.”

She held the barbed wire strands apart so I
could climb through them. I walked up next to Twaziem and slid the
noseband of the halter over his face, buckling the headstall behind
his ears. The whiskers on his nose tickled my hand when I offered
more grain. He didn’t care who fed him. He kept nuzzling me. Now, I
was his best buddy.

Felicia walked away to meet Mom, and while
she was gone, I told Twaziem about not particularly liking horses
or really wanting one. “I want my car. Well, it’s not mine yet, but
it will be. I just have to start earning money for it. No offense,
Twaz, but I stopped loving horses when Cobbie died. Even if I don’t
love you, I’ll never let somebody kill you or starve you or abuse
you. Deal?”

He nosed me for more food, and I figured we
understood each other. I scooped out more grain. He wouldn’t ask me
for a lot of emotional stuff, and I wouldn’t let anyone hurt him.
He’d been hurt enough. He nickered softly and nudged my arm. I gave
him the last of the grain from the coffee can and began talking
about the Thunder Kittens, who lived in the hayloft and stomped
around on the ceiling above the stalls.

“You just have to remember that to them it is
the floor. They like to make noise. If you ignore them, you’ll be
fine. They love to annoy Singer because she always has
conniptions.” He didn’t care about kittens or my talking. He pushed
at me with his head. “There’s no more grain, but we have a lot of
hay in the trailer. Come on. Let’s go find that instead.” I led him
over to the gate, unlatched it, and gave it a push away from me.
The bottom hinge let go and the thing fell partway on the ground.
Twaziem looked at it like the gate was some kind of performing
clown. He snorted, but he didn’t spook. He just stepped around it
and followed me to the back of the horse trailer.

Loosening the rope so he could graze beside
the driveway, I unlatched the door and opened it. I stepped up into
the two-horse trailer and gave him a little tug. “Hey, you. Step up
here.” He did. He balked at the opening, but I pretended not to
notice. I could reach the hay in the net and grabbed a handful. I
held out the alfalfa to him. “Want it? Come here and get it.”

He stretched out his neck and tried to reach
the hay in my hand. When he couldn’t quite get it, he hesitated.
Slowly, he lifted one foot and cautiously placed his left front
hoof up inside, on the trailer floor. He tried again. The hay was
still too far out of his reach. He picked up his right front, put
it beside his left. Okay, so now he was halfway in the rig. I held
out the hay, and he got a taste. He wanted more and I wanted him to
come the rest of the way so I backed up. With a sudden scramble of
his hindquarters, he followed. I gave him the handful of hay.
Crunch, munch, and it was gone. Then, he found the hay net and the
rest was history. He started pulling out a mouthful and chewing. If
a horse could look blissful, he did. I praised him, ducked under
his neck, and tied him securely to the ring on the wall. He not
only had the net of alfalfa grass hay, the manger was full too.

How far had Jack thought we’d have to go to
find a horse? Canada? Petting Twaziem’s neck one more time, I eased
past him to the back door of the trailer. Mom waited for me,
Felicia beside her with a file folder of papers. “What do you
have?” I asked.

“A bill of sale,” Felicia said. “I made sure
that his poor condition was detailed. We don’t want a hassle from
the Animal Control people. And his papers are in order. You just
have to send them to the registry to transfer him to your
ownership. His registered name is actually
Twa Ziemlich
Sonne
, which is a bit strange.
Twa
means ‘two’ in old
Scots and
Zeimlich Sonne
is ‘pretty sun’ in German, but
normally you’d say...”

I tuned her out again and locked the trailer
door. Hmm. I wanted to make money, but I didn’t have to buy a
lottery ticket. I could just sign her up for
Jeopardy
. She’d
win thousands. Would she give me enough for my car? While she
blathered about Twaz’s name, I eyed Mom.

“Can we go now? Or do we have to stay
forever? And do we have to take her? Maybe, they could feed her to
the cougar.”

“I don’t think so.” Mom patted my shoulder.
“And I’m proud of her. When she and Mrs. Bartlett got to talking
about cancer, Felicia provided some very good resources.”

“Who has cancer?” I blinked and looked back
at the trailer. I could hear Twaziem chewing away. “Is that why he
didn’t get fed? Was she in the hospital? Now, I feel really bad for
getting on her case.”

“That’s kind of you,” Mom said, “but she
could have had someone check up on her grandkids and make sure they
were feeding the horse.”

“Well, who fed the cougar?” I asked. “And
why?”

“He hasn’t been here that long,” Felicia
said. “The animal rescue people brought him when he was injured in
the woods. They fed the horse when they came to take care of the
cat. It’s the only reason Twaziem made it. And can you imagine what
would have happened if they hadn’t fed the cougar, and he got
loose? He’d have gone hunting, and it might not have been your colt
that wound up as dinner.”

Those were all good points, but I didn’t tell
Ms. Knows-Everything. Her head was big enough. She didn’t need me
saying she was smart. She already knew it. In our family, Felicia
was the brilliant one, Jack was the brave one, and I was the
beautiful one. We all had our roles to play, and they didn’t
change.