Gift Horse

by Dandi Daley Mackall

  “Easy, Scar,” I said softly.

  Her forelegs slammed the sawdust and sprang up again. I had to get Richard out of the way. Scar was too upset with him to give me a chance. So I left Richard to struggle with Scar while I went to work on the vet.

  “Winnie, right?” Doc smiled without showing teeth. “How’s that Appy at your place?”

  Hawk’s parents had hired Doc to examine Towaco when the Appy was at my barn.

  “Towaco’s fine. He and Hawk are showing in Florida next week.” I glanced over at Scar, who was in a tug-of-war with Richard. “Doc, can you get Richard to give me a try with that horse?”

  A wave of fear crossed Doc’s face. I figured he, like everyone else in town, didn’t want to risk a falling-out with the richest stable in the county.

  “Please?” I begged.

  “Well, we’re not getting anywhere now,” he admitted. He inhaled, then stepped past me. “Richard! I have an idea. Why don’t you let the girl try to hold the horse. That mare is probably used to females, since she’s Summer’s horse.”

  It was the perfect out for Richard. I wouldn’t have thought of it in a hundred years.

  “Well, okay,” Richard said, pretending not to be relieved. “But I’ll be right here if you need me.”

  “That’s a comfort,” I muttered as I took the leadrope from him.

  Scar jerked back. I kept slack in the rope so she didn’t think it was a tug-of-war, like she’d been winning with Richard. Pretty soon she got tired of backing up and stopped.

  “Good girl.” I edged closer, careful not to look her straight in the eyes.

  She snorted.

  I moved to her muzzle and blew gently into her nostrils. She tossed her head. She didn’t blow back, like Nickers would have or most other horses. But it seemed to calm her. I’d learned the old Native American trick of greeting a horse the way they greet each other from my mom.

  “Doc?” I called. “Slip behind me. I think I can keep her calm.”

  It wasn’t like I thought I was Super Horsewoman. It’s just that sometimes I can tell what a horse is thinking—more times than I can tell what humans are thinking, anyway. Scar knew I expected her to be good for me. Richard had expected her to act up. Horses live up to what you expect of them.

  Doc snuck up behind me. I motioned him to a spot behind my elbow, where Scar wouldn’t see the needle. He moved slowly. Still Scar’s ears flew flat back, demanding, What’s going on here?

  “You’re fine,” I assured her. “Just let me do this, and I’ll get you away from here.” Then I whispered to Doc, “When I lift my arm and act like I’m giving her the shot, you sneak in and do it.”

  I pretended to give the shot. Doc stuck her. Scar jerked, but she didn’t pull away.

  “Good girl,” I cooed, nodding to Doc to give her the second shot.

  “Got it!” Doc announced, stepping away, hiding the syringes behind his back. “I might have to bring you with me for the follow-up booster, Winnie.”

  “Good, Scar,” I said, reaching to scratch her neck.

  Like a striking snake, the mare stuck out her head and tried to bite me. I dodged just in time.

  “Those shots better not swell this time!” Summer shouted from her safe position on the other side of the arena. “We have a show right after Christmas!”

  Doc whispered so only I could hear, “She didn’t tell me her horse swelled up from vaccinations. I could have given the shots on opposite sides of the neck, or even on the rump.”

  I grinned at him, imagining the scene.

  He must have been imagining the same thing. “On the other hand, I’ll live to give another shot.”

  There was hope for this vet yet.

  I led Scar back to her stall. Nobody objected, not even Scar. But when I let her go, her ears shot back, and she tried to bite me again. Like owner, like horse.

  When I came back to the arena, Richard was talking to Dr. Stutzman.

  As soon as Richard stopped for a breath, I jumped in. “Dr. Stutzman, I need you to come by my place.”

  “New problem horse?” he asked.

  “I’ve got a horse I’m pretty sure is close to foaling. But she’s not in good shape.”

  He packed up his doctor’s bag. “I’ll be right over and—”

  “You’re not finished here,” Richard interrupted.

  Doc snapped his bag shut. “I thought that was the last of them, Richard.”

  “Two more in the hot walkers,” Richard said, picking up Doc’s bag and walking out to where Spidells kept their “exerciser.” That hot walker looks like a big wagon wheel turned on its side, with the rim kicked off. Horses tied into it plod around in little circles. That way nobody has to ride them. When I worked at Stable-Mart, I made it my mission to free as many horses as I could from that contraption. I didn’t work there long.

  Summer, still on the other side of the arena, shouted, “You should stay and make sure those shots don’t cause ugly lumps.”

  Doc scratched his head. “Sorry, Winnie. I guess it will be a while before I get to your barn, but I’ll get there.”

  It was as good as I was going to get. “Thanks, Doc.”

  Outside, Nickers had pulled Catman almost into the stable. I cupped my hands and gave him a leg up. Then I climbed on in front. The temperature must have dropped 10 degrees.

  “Can we stop by my pad?” Catman asked.

  I knew Richard would keep the vet as long as he could, so there wasn’t any rush. I headed Nickers toward the Coolidges’.

  We took the back roads through pastures, across a creek, and up the hill to Coolidge Lane. When Coolidge Castle came into view, Nickers snorted. She’d seen the place before, but even I’m never quite ready for the old house. The first time I saw it, I was sure it was deserted and maybe haunted. All three of its stories need a coat of paint, and a few of the windows are boarded up.

  Nickers pawed the ground and pranced in place as we got closer.

  “What’s wrong, girl?” I asked.

  Then I saw what had her spooked. It wasn’t the house; it was the Christmas decorations. On the strip of lawn where Mr. and Mrs. Coolidge proudly display lawn ornaments for every season, were more Santas than I’d ever seen. More than existed in the whole town of Ashland. More than the whole state of Ohio, maybe.

  “Your folks have outdone themselves,” I told Catman.

  Not all of the Santas were your typical North Pole variety. I recognized the Seven Dwarfs I’d seen carrying shovels and tools for Labor Day. They sported Santa suits now. There were Santa mice, squirrels, porcupines, foxes, wolves, and a moose. And in the middle stood a Santa bear the size of Rhode Island.

  “They’ve only just begun,” Catman warned, sliding off Nickers’ rump before I could tell him not to.

  “Calvin!” Mrs. Coolidge’s voice drifted around the house from the backyard. “We’re back here!”

  I slid off Nickers, and Catman pulled out some hay he stores under his porch just for Nickers’ visits. We left my horse happily munching alfalfa as I followed Catman to the back of the house. There we found Mr. and Mrs. Coolidge, dressed from head to toe in matching red snowsuits. They were patting snow onto the tiniest snowman I’d ever seen, about the size of a colt’s head. With only a dusting of snow on the ground, it was amazing they’d been able to pull together enough snow for even that.

  “Winnie!” Mrs. Coolidge ran at me, flinging her mittens off as she crossed the back lawn.

  I was glad I had my stocking cap on. Claire Coolidge works at a beauty parlor in Ashland, where they still use curlers and make you sit under a hair dryer. For some reason she loves my wild, bushy hair.

  “What I wouldn’t give for just this much hair!” she exclaimed, fingering the ends of my hair that stuck out of my cap. “One of these days when your back is turned, Winnie, I’m going to cut it all off and glue it onto my head!”

  Note to self: Never turn your back on Claire Coolidge.

  Bart Coolidge, owner of Smart Bart�
��s Used Cars, walked toward us, a camera blocking his face. “Say ‘Chevy’!” he commanded. He looked different with his bald head covered by the red hood. But I could see the top of his Tweety Bird tie peeking out of his snowsuit.

  “I take a lousy picture,” I warned. “What’s with the mini-snowman?”

  Mrs. Coolidge gasped and dashed back to the snow figure as if it were a child she’d forgotten about. “Contest,” she explained.

  Catman says his parents earn more from winning contests than from his dad’s car business.

  Mr. Coolidge knelt in front of the snowman, turned the camera in all directions and snapped, like a modeling session, only the model didn’t move. “Vacation for four in lovely Aspen—all expenses paid! First prize for the best snowman. Deadline tomorrow. Not to worry . . . magnifying zoom lens.”

  He stood up suddenly. “Sa-a-ay! What did Smart Bart say to Santa as the famous used-car salesman, in his ’64 Mustang, passed the jolly man and his reindeer on Christmas Eve?”

  I was already cracking up. “I give.”

  “‘You slay me!’ Get it? You sleigh me?” Mr. Coolidge’s laugh came in windy puffs, like a horselaugh.

  “Time to split,” Catman announced.

  I tried to follow Catman, but Mr. Coolidge wouldn’t let me.

  “So,” Mr. Coolidge bellowed, like he was playing to a comedy club, “Santa Claus moved to the rain forest and traded in his sleigh for a Chevy convertible from Smart Bart’s Used Cars. ‘It will be just the thing,’ Santa explained, ‘for delivering presents all over the world on Christmas Eve!’ Mrs. Claus shook her head, obviously not convinced. ‘Only if it doesn’t rain, dear.’ ” Mr. Coolidge laughed so hard he choked, and his wife had to whack him on the back. “Get it? ‘Reindeer’? I got a million of ’em!”

  Once inside Coolidge Castle, a dozen cats swarmed past Catman as he made his way toward the phone. I looked again at the closed red velvet drapes, the huge chandeliers that shone light on the wood floors, the winding staircases, and the old-fashioned furniture that always makes me feel like I’ve stepped inside a 100-year-old book. Then I ducked down the hall, past tapestry-covered walls, to visit the newest litter of kittens.

  I recognized three of the four kittens who came to greet me—Hanson, Griffin, and Miffin. Believe it or not, they’re named after the first presidents of the United States. Catman taught me that. Under the Articles of Confederation, eight men were elected president for a one-year term each. John Hanson was “the first President of the United States in Congress Assembled.”

  Catman finished his phone call. Then we took off. I let Nickers trot and even canter back to the barn. I didn’t want to miss the vet, just in case he got away from Spidells’ sooner than expected.

  But when we got there, nobody was in the barn except the poor mare. While I cooled off Nickers, Catman jumped into the stall with Gracie and brushed her.

  When I finished with Nickers, I joined Catman in Gracie’s stall and examined her for myself again. “I think she’s really close, Catman.” When horses are about three weeks away from dropping foal, the udders swell with milk, then go down again. Hers were staying swollen.

  When the vet finally showed, he went to the house first, and Lizzy and Dad walked him out to the barn. Doc looked the mare over, took her temperature, and drew blood.

  “I’ll take this back and run it through the lab,” Doc said, holding up the tube of dark red blood. “I could do an ultrasound, but we don’t need it. “I think it’s safe to say Winnie’s right. She’s with foal.”

  “Sweet!” Lizzy exclaimed. “A baby horse! Not that I’ll want to cuddle it. I know it’s silly, but they still scare me, even the little ones. Still, this is just so . . . so . . . Christmasy!”

  “Well, don’t get too hopeful,” Doc said, stroking the mare’s neck. His face looked pained, like he’d seen too much already.

  It’s what people say about me sometimes. “I can see the pain in your face, Winnie,” Pat Haven had said only a week after we’d moved to Ashland.

  “I knew it,” Dad muttered. “That horse isn’t going to make it, is she, Doctor?”

  I glanced at Catman. Then we both turned to Doc Stutzman. I could feel my heart pounding like horses’ hooves against my chest. “Tell Dad he’s wrong,” I whispered.

  Doc pressed his lips together, turning them white. “I’m sorry, Winnie. This poor mare is used up. I don’t think she can deliver the foal alive. I’m afraid you’re going to lose both of them.”

  “You’re wrong!” I screamed. “She’s not that sick! And the foal—”

  “The foal may be fine now,” Doc admitted. “But that doesn’t help us much if the mare’s too weak to give birth. And she is too weak. I think you know that, Winnie.”

  I wanted to hit him, to make him stop.

  “Is there anything you can do?” Dad asked.

  Doc shook his head. “I could try a C-section, but the mare would never survive cutting the foal out. And even if we were willing to sacrifice the mare for the foal, I don’t think it would work. As malnourished as this mare is, her foal needs every possible day in the womb if it’s going to survive outside of the womb.”

  “Man. Bummer. Downer.” Catman paced the stall like a nervous Thoroughbred.

  Doc rubbed the mare behind the ears. “They’ve got a facility at Ohio State that does some experimental procedures. But it’s a lot for a mare to go through.” He glanced at Dad. “And your bill would be in the thousands. I’m willing to do whatever you decide, hear? I don’t like losing an animal any more than you do.”

  I wanted them all to leave. Even Catman. I couldn’t stand seeing the pain in his face.

  The vet told us to talk about it and let him know if we needed him to “take care of it.”

  It wasn’t until I’d gone to bed and Lizzy was making her weird snoring sounds that Dad tried to talk to me. He must have heard me thrashing around in bed because he tapped on the door and called, “Winnie?”

  I pretended to be asleep, but he didn’t buy it. He sat on the foot of my bed and said what he’d come to say. “Winnie, I think the best thing is to let the vet take care of this. He’ll know the best way to handle the situation so—”

  I sat up so fast the bed shook. “Handle it? The way animal control would handle it? Gracie’s not an it! And neither is her foal! You can’t—!”

  “And I won’t,” Dad said so calmly I wanted to throw my pillow at him. “I won’t make you call in the vet. But I will make you face reality. That horse is almost guaranteed to die, no matter what we do.”

  “No!” My chest hurt, as if I’d been kicked in the windpipe.

  Dad went on like he hadn’t heard me. “And the longer you hang on to it—her—the more pain you’re going to cause yourself and others. We don’t need more pain and grief, Winnie—not you, not Mason, not any of us. Not this Christmas.”

  Tears choked me. I coughed out words like shotgun pellets. “I . . . you . . . don’t understand. You don’t care! I wish . . . I wish Mom were here. She’d know. She’d be on my side.”

  Dad’s eyes misted over. Then he got up and walked out of the room.

  I threw myself down on my pillow, sobbing, gasping between sobs. At least he wasn’t going to make me do it. At least that.

  Sunday morning Lizzy made raspberry pancakes in the shape of Christmas wreaths. I tried to swallow a few bites, but I was too anxious to get out to the barn.

  “Too bad I’m so scared of horses,” Lizzy admitted, pouring homemade syrup on a stack of pancakes. “I could help you more with Gracie. I don’t know why horses give me the willies. Anyway, I guess I wouldn’t have that much time to help. I’m so busy making Christmas gifts.” She set down the bottle of purple syrup. “Are you done Christmas shopping, Winnie?”

  I shook my head. I hadn’t done a thing about shopping since I’d found the mare in my pasture.

  Gracie and Nickers were waiting for me in the barn. I hung out with them until I heard the Barker Bus.

&
nbsp; When we moved to Ashland, Lizzy started babysitting for Eddy Barker’s little brothers right away. She’d been the first one to go to church with them. After a while, I started going too. Now that Dad was going regularly, we could have driven ourselves. But the Barkers still swung by every Sunday in their giant yellow van we dubbed the Barker Bus.

  Lizzy, Dad, and I squeezed into the middle seat with Matthew and Mark. Mr. Barker sat in the back with the littlest Barkers—Luke, Johnny, and William.

  We greeted each other. Then I turned to Mark. “How are Irene’s puppies doing?”

  The van went silent. You’d have thought I’d asked when the world was scheduled to end.

  “My puppies are just fine,” Mark answered.

  “Mark,” Mrs. Barker said, tightening her grip on the steering wheel, “we’ve been over and over this. You’re helping Irene take care of her puppies until they’re old enough to give away to wonderful homes who don’t already have five dogs. Right?”

  Matthew, the only Barker who doesn’t smile a lot, actually chuckled.

  “Guess who came over to play with the puppies,” Barker shouted from the front. “M!”

  “He seems like a nice young man,” Mrs. Barker added.

  Nobody spoke until Granny B turned from the front seat and said, “Winnie, you’re looking troubled, girl.”

  I nodded. Something about Granny B always makes me feel like she’s been discussing me one-on-one with God and he’s been telling her things nobody else knows. Even her white hair, sticking out like fresh cotton, looked like the breath of God had just blown right on her.

  “I should have called you, Winnie!” Barker shouted over Johnny’s demand to be freed from the car seat. “But I’m no closer to finding out who left that horse than I was yesterday.”

  “You mean horses!” Lizzy exclaimed. Then, faster than a horse’s trot, she explained all about Gracie and the foal, while Dad stared ahead, stone-faced and tight-lipped.

  “Imagine that!” Mrs. Barker, who was driving, peeked at me in the rearview mirror. It framed her face like a movie-star picture. She’s really pretty, with deep brown skin, wavy hair, and huge brown eyes.