by J A Whiting
“He's a pinto," said Mae, taking a step back from him.
It was true. The horse had a large patch of slightly darker grey covering most of his hindquarters and part of his left front shoulder.
"That's not just mud stain. He's a pinto."
"Grey pinto. Kind of unusual. Are there pinto Saddlebreds?" Ross asked.
"You bet there are. Though I've never seen a grey pinto before. It's gorgeous. I was already all excited about having another grey for the white Landau and the black one, but think how he would look. Oh my goodness, a grey pinto pulling the fairy-tale coach."
Ross just glanced at her. "Got a way to go before he's ready for any of that."
"You're right, of course," she said, chuckling. "Well, this is about as clean as I can get him right now, but at least we know what he really looks like. I'll put a little baby oil on his mane and tail and get the knots out of those, too. It will have to do until I can give him a real bath with lots of soap and some conditioner."
Ross stepped inside and ran his hands over the horse's somewhat cleaner shoulder. "Good job. He's not shivering now."
"I think the grooming helped that. I'm sure a lot warmer myself, after all that scrubbing."
"You were right about his coat. It is pretty light, considering it's the first week in December. "
"It is. They're usually pretty shaggy by now, unless they've been kept blanketed inside a barn like a show horse." Mae shook her head. "Again, it's that odd combination of having a long mane and tail and a fine coat, combined with being underweight and filthy. It's not likely a show horse would have a nice slick coat, but be too thin at the same time."
"Would be expected, though, if a show animal suddenly lost weight due to poor feeding and a lot of stress."
"Like being suddenly shipped off to a muddy auction pen with a bare minimum of water and feed. He'd be cold, hungry, scared, and confused." She ran her hands over the horse and smiled. "But he's none of those things now. I'll get a blanket on him as soon as we're done here. It's supposed to get pretty cold tonight."
"I'll bring two blankets. Show you a trick." Ross left for the tack room again, and when he returned he carried a heavy canvas sheet and a dark green quilted blanket.
Mae had moved to working on the horse's very long tail with a plastic comb and some baby oil. "Another thing that makes me think he was a show horse," she said. "He's got just about the longest tail I've ever seen. It's right at ground level and was probably even longer than that until he got to wherever he's been for the last few weeks."
Ross glanced at her. "Wouldn't doubt it. Here, pull this down on the other side of him."
He threw the canvas sheet over the horse, and once it was fastened into place he tossed the heavy blanket over the top of that.
"Good idea," said Mae. "He could use two layers tonight."
"Not done yet." Ross began picking up big chunks of the clean straw and stuffing it along the horse's back, between the sheet and the blanket.
Mae quickly got the idea and did the same on the other side of him. "Why didn't I think of that?" she marveled. "He'll be warm as toast with that straw to insulate him."
"Straw's plenty warm. I put some in the doghouses, too. They won't be cold."
Ross finished buckling the outer blanket, and then bent down and pushed the straw away from the horse's left front hoof. "You know he'll need shoes to work in the city streets. These feet will have to grow out some before we can shoe him."
"That's for sure. But I've actually got a pair of slip-ons down in a box in the tack room. Got them a while back, just in case I ever needed them."
Slip-ons were heavy rubber boots that could be pulled on over a horse's entire hoof and provide some protection when shoes could not be used.
Ross nodded and stepped out of the stall. "I'll do a light trim on his feet tomorrow, just to even things out. Then you can try the slip-ons when you go to work him. Should be fine."
"I'm sure it will be." Mae gathered up all of her grooming tools, put them into the carrier, and set it out in the aisle. Then she walked back inside and slipped off the horse's halter, leaving him free to work on his hay.
She ran her hand over his long slender neck and then under his mane. "There's one more thing I've been almost afraid to ask about," she said quietly. "Do you think that this horse has a microchip?"
3
Ross was silent for a moment. "You're the expert on show horses. Aren't they usually chipped?"
"Most of them are, for sure. The chip is there for identification and proof of ownership. Some of those horses cost way more than my condo. But I guess I thought horse auctions, especially when they're selling a horse for slaughter, were supposed to use a reader and check for microchips, just in case the animal is stolen or otherwise there by mistake."
"They are supposed to. But these little country places can be hit or miss when it comes to things like that. They're more like private sales that take place in somebody's yard, not so much a well-known private auction. That's why Ray goes to them. He can find all kinds of used tack that most likely wouldn't show up at a bigger sale."
"I can imagine," she murmured. "Sounds more like a garage sale, not a professional auction."
"That's about right."
"But a hand-held reader is cheap and very easy to use. Anybody can get one. I would think that even those little sales would still have somebody checking for chips, since a stolen horse could easily be traced back to them."
Ross glanced at her. "Unless the horse disappeared onto a slaughter-house truck."
"Oh . . . I guess that's right."
"Here. This is the bill of sale." Ross dug into the pocket of his coat, pulled out a folded piece of paper, and handed it to Mae.
She read the sales slip. No chip found. “Well, that should mean they checked. But did you actually see anyone use a reader on this horse?"
"No, I didn't."
She nodded. "Well, I guess you can put anything on a piece of paper when the truth doesn't matter in the first place." Mae sighed, patted the horse one last time, and left the stall.
"Could be his owners just never got around to chipping him," said Ross, sliding the stall door shut. "Maybe they didn't think it was that important for a gelding and not a breeding animal, where you want proof of pedigree."
"That could be. Not every show horse has a microchip. I don't think it's required for registration." Mae hung the halter back on the stall door's brass hook. "Anyway, I'm very glad he's here now. I just hope he's half as useful as he is handsome."
A short time later, Mae went and picked up her purse out of the tack room. "I've still got three more horses to groom today, plus a Landau to polish and decorate," she called. "I've decided I can't do all that without a chicken sandwich and some fries. Do you want anything?"
Without even looking up from his work, which at the moment was raking out one of the stalls, Ross nodded. "Sure. A couple of cheeseburgers. Those double ones. And extra fries."
"Sounds good. I'll be back in fifteen minutes. Twenty at the most." But just as Mae walked to the front of the barn, she saw a car pulling in from the road.
“Ross? Are you expecting Deputy Blackwood today? Because I'm pretty sure that's him pulling in right now."
Ross immediately left off cleaning the stall, walked into the aisle, and shut the stall door behind him. "Wasn't expecting him at all. Better go see what's happened."
Mae hurried after him. It seemed she was always trying to keep up with his long strides, but at the moment she just wanted to know what had brought the Franklin County Sheriff's Department out to the farm today.
"Mornin', Deputy Blackwood," said Ross. "What can we help you with?"
The deputy held up one hand. "Everything's fine, Ross. I'm just letting some of the local horse owners know about a few problems that have been going on around the county."
"Oh?"
"Yes, unfortunately, it seems we've got some old-fashioned horse thieves on the loose."
; "Horse thieves," repeated Ross. "You'd better come in and have a seat."
"Thanks."
Deputy Blackwood followed Ross and Mae into the barn where Ross pulled out some plastic lawn chairs from the tack room and set them out in the aisle. "So," said Ross, as the three of them sat down. "What do you have?"
"Well, it's nothing new," said the deputy. "We've seen rashes of horse theft before. But there's been five cases in the last month, just in this western part of the county alone."
"Five?" said Mae. "Five horses?"
Blackwood shook his head. "Five different farms have been hit. A total of nineteen different horses were stolen."
Mae and Ross looked at each other.
"Nineteen horses," repeated Mae, with a look of shock on her face.
"All taken from barns?" asked Ross.
"Most of them, yes. At night. A few were outside, either overnight or in paddocks that couldn't be entirely seen from the house or the barn. Some of those horses disappeared in broad daylight."
Though she kept still and listened to what Deputy Blackwood was saying, Mae's heart began to pound.
Nineteen horses . . . broad daylight.
"I'm guessing," said Ross, "that not all those horses were scrubs, either."
"No, they weren't. People often think the only horses stolen are kid's pets and the ones that are hardly ever ridden, but we've found that's not true. I was a little surprised myself to find that it's very often show animals and working horses that are taken first."
"I'll bet I know why," said Mae. "They want a horse that's easy to load. One that will walk into a trailer with the least amount of fuss."
"That's exactly why," said Blackwood. "The last thing they want is a fight with a horse that won't load. Too much noise, too much chance of getting caught. They'll bring a stock trailer with some quiet old horse already in it and throw in plenty of hay and carrots. The stolen horse walks right in."
Mae closed her eyes. "All the work we do to teach our horses to load and to be easy to work with. Now I'm almost wishing we hadn't."
"Any of those horses been recovered?" asked Ross.
"Not one, I'm sorry to say. We think they're – we think they're gone."
"Gone?" said Mae. "I guess that means they were sold for slaughter."
"I'm afraid so, ma'am. They are generally loaded onto trucks and driven south to slaughterhouses in Mexico. Once they cross the border, there's no way to trace them. "
"No way to ever find them again." Mae glanced down toward the far end of the barn aisle where her five horses were in side-by-side stalls. "Don't horses for slaughter generally go through an auction first?"
"Sometimes, as I understand it," said Blackwood. "But most often the truck is waiting at the auction site, the horse is exchanged for cash, and off it goes to Mexico."
Ross nodded. "Plenty of them disappear like that. Just like bicycles. People don't steal them because they want to ride. They steal them to sell for drug money."
"That's right," said Blackwood. "Folks have no idea."
They were all silent for a moment. The only sounds were the horses occasionally moving about and snorting, and, of course, endlessly munching their hay.
"I haven't heard anything about this," said Mae. "I mean, not about a string of local horses being stolen."
"There was a small story in the on-line newspaper, but I realize farm owners are outside like this and not sitting at a desk all day. I've been stopping by places with horses to make sure people know what's going on."
"I certainly appreciate that," said Mae.
Blackwood stood up and walked through the barn, looking outside. "Looks like you have one paddock out back."
"Riding ring, actually," said Ross. "There are two big turnout paddocks over there to the south."
The deputy walked a few steps out of the barn. "Oh, yeah, yeah. I see them now. Well, I'd be somewhat concerned about that. You can barely see those paddocks from the barn and not at all from the house."
"True," said Ross. "But my friend Stan lives in that trailer right out there. He can see them."
"He can," agreed Blackwood. "But those paddocks are still what the thieves look for. Out of the way, with corners that would be hard for anyone to see. And plenty of forest for cover, even in the wintertime like this."
"So I guess they shouldn't be left out overnight," said Mae.
"I don't usually leave them out at night in the winter," said Ross. "But I definitely won't now."
Deputy Blackwood began walking back through the barn. "Are these horses branded? Or freeze-branded?"
"A few are," said Ross. "Except for Mae's five carriage horses, my boarders are older horses who are here as retirees."
"I see. Well, brands will help, and especially microchipping. Any auction is supposed to check for those things before running a horse through, especially if it's going for meat."
"Yeah, I would hope so." Mae glanced up at the deputy. "What happens if the auctions don't check for microchips and brands?"
He shrugged. "Not much we can do unless they get caught. The smaller ones might not have much in the way of regulation. They're supposed to, but that doesn't mean they do."
Mae just nodded in silence.
"Best thing is to have all your animals chipped. Any veterinarian can do that for you. If you get a new horse and you're not sure, they can easily check with a hand-held reader. It's the same kind of thing the grocery store uses to ring up a can of peas."
"I'll speak to all the owners about chips," said Ross.
"Good. Just in case a horse ever does go missing, you'll have a much better chance of getting it back if it's got a microchip."
The three of them walked back to the deputy's car.
"Thank you for coming out," said Ross.
"No trouble. Call anytime if you've got any questions or concerns. We're glad to help with security plans."
"Will do."
Deputy Blackwood got into his car and drove away.
“Wow," said Mae, watching the deputy go. "Nineteen horses. Nineteen. That's terrible. It seems like it would be harder than that to steal a horse, but apparently not."
They walked back into the barn.
“I know your other four are chipped," said Ross. "It's the new one that's the question."
"Well, the auction bill of sale said, 'no chip.' So I guess I could have Dr. Abernathy give him one. Problem solved."
"He'll have to check for one first, though."
"Yes, I know. We'll get to that eventually." Mae stopped beside the tack room door, gazing down the barn aisle at her horses. "I guess I don't have much sympathy for whoever let Silver end up at that auction. I'm just glad you bought him and he's here, and I'm going to leave it at that for now."
"Makes sense." Ross walked down to the far end of the barn again. "Think I might see about installing motion sensor lights back here, too. Already have them out front. And I'll make sure all the horses are in from the field well before sundown."
Mae nodded, gazing at her horses once more. "We'll be more careful, but I guess at the end of the day there's only so much we can do. Lights, dogs, guns, chips, it all helps, but maybe the most important thing is just to watch the place like a hawk."
Ross glanced down at her. "You would have made a good cop, if you'd wanted to." He started walking back toward the house where his truck was parked, and then paused. "I didn't get that lunch yet. Let’s go get it. You coming?"
She grinned and hurried after him. "I'm coming. Police work always makes me hungry."
4
That night was indeed cold, and the subfreezing chill still hung in the air the next morning. Mae found that her new horse, the somewhat-cleaner Silver, was quite warm and snug under his two straw-stuffed blankets.
By the time all of the horses in the barn had been fed and Mae had taken the outer blanket off of her new horse, the sun was high enough that it was not quite so cold outside. She didn’t want to risk having him shiver again, so she left the canv
as sheet on and got him fitted with a bridle.
"I'll have to use Goldie's bridle on him for today," she said to Ross, who was efficiently doing the morning stall cleaning. "The new guy is somewhere between 'draft pony' and 'draft horse' when it comes to bridle size. If he stays, he'll need a whole new set because the harness probably won't fit him any better."
"If he's as good as you think," said Ross, "he could earn himself into a new set pretty quickly."
"He sure could," said Mae, snapping a pair of long reins to the bridle. "Well, let's see what we've got." She picked up the four-foot driving whip beside the door and led the horse outside.
The morning was beautiful, clear and cold and just a little breezy. Here and there the white frost clung to the dry grass and bare trees, and crunched underfoot as Mae and the horse stepped out onto it.
She had thought that the new horse might not be too energetic to start with after all the stress of being neglected and not having enough to eat. But the good hay and secure stall and the nice warm blankets must have done him good, for the moment he got outside he popped up his head, flagged his arching tail, and whinnied loudly to the large open field behind the barn.
Mae kept a good hold of the reins behind his chin and steered his head away from her. He was very excited to see his new home and tried to look at everything at once. His head turned from the fenced arena near the center of the field to the winter-bare forest along the back boundary of Goodnight Farm, and then over to the two large paddocks where the horses were turned out when the weather was decent enough.
In the far corner, just in front of the woods, stood the hay barn and garage. They had been built well away from the barn and the house for safety. And near them, with a nice view of the paddocks and the woods, was the small parked house trailer where Ross's old friend Stanley Monroe lived in semi-retirement. He served as watchman and caretaker whenever Ross was away.
There was no sign of Stanley now, though Mae knew he was probably sitting at a window and enjoying a cup of coffee while watching whatever was going on around the farm.
