Chapter 14
fourteen
K ristie rounded the bend, and the big red administration barn came into view.
An ambulance had been backed in, lights still flashing, and the seriousness of the situation descended upon her.
People and cars seemed to be every where, and she couldn't find anywhere to park until she had gone halfway down the fence toward the house.
She pulled in and jumped out, the busyness of Pony Power and the farm making the air tight and hard to breathe. One hundred yards away, the ambulance went whoop, whoop and pulled out—siren silent, but lights still rotating. The tension snapped, but Kristie’s emotions still wobbled within her.
Everyone here loved Molly—from her family to the cowboys and cowgirls, to the counselors, to all the kids who came here for horseback riding lessons.
Heck, Kristie herself loved Molly, and all she could do now was pray the woman would be okay.
She did that and forced herself to be calm and rational as she moved with purposeful yet measured steps to the back of her SUV.
She'd been in emergency situations before, and she didn’t need to panic. It never helped anyone. She lifted the gate and shouldered her heavy backpack of medical supplies. She had two cases with more equipment and medicine. She dragged those out, closed the gate, and headed down the fence.
Mission had texted ten minutes ago that they had gotten Lady safely into the last stall in the back stable . That meant Kristie had to walk down the length of the fence and then turn right and walk the entire length of the administration barn, the first stable, and then the second.
She put her eyes on the ground and focused on putting one foot in front of the other. As she walked, she passed the pasture and the two walking circles on her right. All of the buildings were connected by roofs to keep snow and muck off the dirt ground.
Under the roof between the barn and the first stable, she found a second group of horseback riders getting ready to go out for their lesson. The teenagers parted for her, and she gave them a tight smile as she moved through their midst and kept going.
The first stable had pastures beyond it, with the counselor cabins for the kids’ therapy sessions on the other side of them.
Kristie kept walking, the afternoon heat beating down on her and causing sweat to run down the side of her face and the back of her neck. She couldn’t brush it away, so she simply kept going.
She finally ducked into the shade of the second stable and entered the door there, her muscles quivering.
“Hello?” she called, hoping Mission would hear her and come relieve her of one of these cases.
No one answered, and no one came, so Kristie kept going. The scent of hay and wood filled the stable, and she told herself that was better than blood. No one had texted an update on Lady’s condition, and Kristie had no idea what she’d find in the last stable.
Her steps became shorter and more stilted as her body started to protest more violently that she could not continue like this. Exhaling, she paused and set down the cases. She had passed another several stalls, so she tried again with, “Hello?”
“Yep, I’m coming,” Mission called, and his footsteps came jogging toward her.
Relief filled her from head to toe, and she managed to smile at him.
“Hey,” he said, and the absence of his usual grin told her how anxious and serious he’d become.
“Hey.” She shook her hands out to relieve the tightness from gripping the case handles.
“You should’ve texted me you were here.”
Kristie glared at him, because while they’d been dating for almost a month now, she hadn’t told him she absolutely loathed it when someone started a sentence with, You should’ve .
She was the professional, and she wouldn’t have texted other farm owners or foremen to come help her with her heavy equipment.
“It’s crazy out there,” she said instead.
Mission looked beyond her for just a moment. “Yeah. That’s why we’ve got her back here,” he said. “Everyone’s been told not to come into this stable, so it should stay quiet.”
Kristie nodded as he bent to pick up her cases. “She’s back here.” He moved that way, and Kristie went behind him.
“How many people are back here?” she asked.
“Just me and Gloria,” he said.
Kristie nodded. That was good.
“Has Lady eaten or had anything to drink?” she asked.
“No.”
Also good, and Kristie shouldn’t have been surprised.
Gloria Whettstein was a master horsewoman and the barn manager here at the farm and for Pony Power.
She ran a meticulous stable and knew a great deal about horses.
She’d probably already diagnosed the injury, and if she couldn’t take care of it, that told Kristie it would be something serious.
“It’s her front right leg,” Mission said over his shoulder. “We’ve got her in a stall, but she won’t put any weight on it.”
“She’s tied?”
“Yep. She shouldn’t give you a problem.”
Gloria came forward to meet them, giving Kristie a quick hug. “Thank you so much for coming so fast.”
“Of course,” Kristie said.
As Gloria faded back, Mission set her cases down, and Kristie looked at the horse in the stall. “Can we open these doors?”
Mission moved to do that, and Kristie took a breath to calm herself even further. Horses could feel energy, and she wanted Lady to read nothing but a calm, powerful, caring presence from her.
The horse stood in the center of the stall, trembling.
Her eyes were too wide and rimmed with a little bit of white.
That didn’t settle Kristie’s worry. Lady was one of the most beautiful horses Kristie had ever laid eyes on, and it felt like a punch to the chest to see her like this—hurting and afraid and unable to stand on her own.
Gloria and Mission had put her front leg in a sling, with the knee resting there and the hoof pointed toward the back. Other than that, she didn’t look injured, and Kristie stepped over to her with her palm forward.
Lady’s nostrils flared and her ears twitched, but she didn’t move, as she’d been tied in cross ties.
“Hey, Lady,” Kristie said in a calm, even voice. “Remember me? We’re friends.”
She placed her hand on the long bridge of the horse’s nose, glad when Lady pressed into it. She ran that hand up and over Lady’s head, down both sides of her neck and over the left shoulder, simply feeling and connecting to the animal.
“I put a blanket on her,” Gloria said. “Just to keep her warm.”
Kristie nodded. “It’s okay,” she said, though she really would rather analyze a horse’s injuries without any interference. “Heard you got spooked by some snakes,” she said, smiling at Lady.
The horse blinked, but her eyes didn’t soften; her anxiety remained.
Kristie turned and gathered all of her equipment closer to the right front side of the horse. Since she didn’t have to work behind Lady, she wasn’t worried about getting kicked or hurt.
She met Mission’s eyes, and she didn’t ask before he moved to Lady’s left shoulder and put one quiet, firm hand against her neck. His expression had been carved from stone, drawn in that way that Kristie had learned meant he was trying not to feel too much.
Gloria simply stayed out of the way and said nothing.
“All right, Lady,” Kristie said. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”
She knelt down on the right side and looked at her injured leg. Sweat, dirt, and blood streaked the horse’s rich brown and white coat, starting at about the knee and moving down and over the hoof.
Kristie reached to unzip her backpack, which she did slowly, so as to not startle anyone with the noise. She pulled out the spotlight and set it up so she could see better. She opened her case and pulled out her cleaning supplies.
“I’m going to clean and flush this to see what I’ve got.”
“Okay,” Gloria said, while Mission grunted.
Kristie pulled on a pair of gloves and worked quickly and efficiently from there, noting that Lady’s shoe was completely gone. She didn’t look up as she asked, “Did either of you take her shoe off?”
“No,” Mission and Gloria said together.
“She got into something, then,” Kristie said.
“She has one tiny scratch along her chest,” Gloria said. “Clyde found her by the wood pile.”
Kristie immediately thought of anything sharp that could be near a wood pile, and an ax or a hatchet came to mind. Lady would have had to step on that exactly right—or exactly wrong—and perhaps she had.
With everything clean, Kristie could easily see the wound, and it wasn’t good. She reached for a syringe and rattled through her medications to find the numbing agent.
“I’m going to numb this,” she said. “I can’t stitch it. There’s too much movement and risk of trapping bacteria inside.”
“What do you see?” Gloria asked.
“She’s got a deep laceration,” Kristie said, keeping her voice low, even, matter-of-fact. “It went into the laminae.”
She glanced over at Gloria, who exhaled a slow breath, her eyes narrowing slightly. Mission didn’t move at all.
Kristie focused back on the hoof. “The laminae connect the hoof wall to the internal structures. They’re too delicate to stitch, and the risk of infection is huge. When they’re injured like this, it can go south really fast.”
“How fast?” Mission asked.
Kristie hesitated—not because she didn’t know the answer to his question, but because this horse mattered. To the farm, sure, but also to Molly. To Hunter. To Mission. And likely to a whole tangle of kids who came through Pony Power and found their courage from seeing Molly sitting on Lady’s back.
“We’ll have to watch this closely for infection,” she said. “And we need to get the inflammation down. If we can’t control both of those, we’re looking at laminitis. It’s painful. Very hard to recover from.”
She paused and looked at Mission, then Gloria.
“Some horses don’t.” She had to be honest; it wouldn’t be fair to give Molly and Hunter false hope. Silence settled over the three of them like a wet blanket on a dark night.