Chapter Twenty-Two #2
Nora couldn’t move. Minutes dragged like hours.
The barn had gone even quieter now. Weston crouched beside another stall, checking a gelding’s gums. His mouth was set in a hard line.
Nora stayed kneeling beside Sunny; her knees were aching, her hands still resting on a body that had once been warm and full of life. Rest in peace, my love.
***
Nora looked up as Cade and Doc Harlan thundered into the yard with Duke not far behind. Cade barely dismounted before he strode into the barn. His eyes were all over the place. “What the hell happened?” he asked, breathless.
“Poisoned water,” Weston answered, already back at another trough with a fresh bucket. “Paraffin. We’ve already lost one. Might lose more.”
Doc Harlan, a stooped but wiry man with glasses and a black bag clutched in one veined hand, didn’t wait for more explanation. He dropped beside the nearest downed horse and set to work, muttering under his breath as he pried open one of the horse’s mouth and inspected its gums.
“Bring me charcoal, vinegar, clean rags, whatever you’ve got,” he said without looking up. “And keep the fresh water coming.”
Even though they’d already done what he was about to do, they obeyed without question.
It was a blur after that, and Nora couldn’t keep track of who was where.
Cade was everywhere at once, hauling, dosing, lifting heads, calling out instructions.
Weston worked in grim silence. Even Duke pitched in, running tools and towels between stalls.
Nora found herself back beside Storm, a dark bay who’d been struggling since the start. His breathing was shallow now; it was more of a wheeze than breath, and his eyes kept rolling white.
“Come on, boy,” she whispered, tipping another cup of vinegar between his teeth. “Stay with me. Please, stay with me.”
Cade appeared beside her, crouching. “He’s too far gone.”
“No,” she said, a bit too defensively. “No, he’s not. He’s still breathing.”
“Nora—”
“He’s still breathing!” she snapped, and Storm flinched beneath her hands.
Cade didn’t argue again. He just rested a hand on the horse’s neck and stayed there beside her. But in the end, it wasn’t enough. Storm gave a low, rattling breath, then his legs twitched once…and then, he, too, stilled.
Nora closed her eyes. Her hands went limp on his body. Two. Two are gone now. The number didn’t feel real, but the emptiness in the stalls did, as well as the silence, and the heaviness in her limbs.
Doc Harlan stood slowly, wiping his hands on a rag darkened with sweat and grit. “That might be the worst of it,” he said quietly with a rough voice. “The rest are sick, but they’re strong. They’ve got a chance.”
A chance. That’s not a promise.
Nora rose to her feet, feeling every muscle trembling with exhaustion and fury. “Someone did this,” she said softly, staring at the row of stalls.
Doc Harlan looked at her. “You sure?”
Weston answered for her. “I smelled it myself. Paraffin. In the water buckets.”
Doc Harlan frowned. “No accident then.”
No. It wasn’t. Nora shook her head. The ache behind her eyes built like a storm, but she kept it down, kept it locked tight.
When the last of the buckets had been scrubbed clean, when the horses that could be saved were standing again, shaky, sweating, but alive, Nora stepped outside.
The late light had gone gold across the hills, casting long shadows from the fence posts.
The wind carried the faint scent of dust and sweat.
She braced a hand on the gate and let her eyes close.
Two family members…gone.
She’d raised Storm. And Sunny…Sunny had been born here. Nora had helped deliver her with blood up to her elbows and joy in her chest. She knew her rhythm, her sound, the tilt of her head when she saw her coming. And now, she was gone in a single, brutal afternoon.
Nora dug her nails into her palms. He had walked onto her land with intent, with cruelty. How many more hits can this place take?
The ranch was already fighting to stay afloat.
These horses were part of the daily work, the hauling, the herding, the deliveries into town.
Without them, everything would slow, everything would strain.
Nora thought of winter ahead, of feed bills and broken fences and the way the ground froze up hard and mean when the wind turned.
And worse than all of that was the feeling that she’d failed them, failed to protect what was hers. What she loved.
Her whole body numbed, and she blinked hard against the sting in her eyes.
She couldn’t afford to fall apart. Not now.
Not ever. So she straightened, took one long breath, and went back inside the barn.
The scent of sweat, vinegar, and damp hay hit her before she could even step through the doorway.
Cade was talking with Doc Harlan near the corral.
Duke sat slumped on an overturned feed bucket, loosely resting his hands in his lap.
Weston stood near the last stall. His sleeves were still rolled up, his chest still rising and falling with weariness. He looked up when she entered. Their eyes met. He crossed the space between them and wrapped his arms around her.
Nora froze. Then her body gave in, leaning into the warmth, the solid weight of him. She didn’t cry, but she let her forehead rest against his shoulder.
“We’ll get through this,” he murmured. His voice was now quiet beside her ear. “You already know it, Nora...We’re in this together.”
After everything that had happened that day, after the fear, the heartbreak, the helplessness, Weston’s words sank into her gently, like the hush of a fire crackling in a quiet room.
They were simple, but they were true. Because even if the road ahead was dark…
uncertain…even if more storms were coming and she didn’t know how they’d make it through… I’m not walking it alone. Not anymore.