I’m not sure what’s wrong, but I’ve learned not to draw attention to whatever it is. Kat’s trying hard to live a normal life. I figure the least I can do is go along with it. Still, not helping Kat is the hardest part about living here.
“Kat, could you hold off on the terrier?” I snap the dog’s leash back on her. “Let me take her for a walk first.”
By the time I get back to the house with the terrier, Kat’s gone back to bed and the Pomeranian is asleep on the couch. Kat’s left me a note:
Wes, I had to go to bed. Sorry. The Pomeranian fell asleep, so I think he’ll be okay until you get back. Sorry again.
Love,
Kat
I tiptoe up the stairs and stand outside her room for a few minutes. I don’t hear her snoring, but I don’t hear her throwing up either.
It takes me over two hours to walk four dogs. I have to walk them one at a time. Each dog has a different problem with the routine. All the bulldog wants to do is eat flowers, roll in the grass, and jump on me—a habit I better break fast, before introducing her to old people. The terrier gets frightened by every crack of a twig and rustle of grass. When a crow caws, the poor dog goes to pieces.
The Pom takes so long to do his business that I almost give up. But I don’t. The beagle-Lab, the Blab, chases everything, from flies to imaginary cars.
Poor Rex tags along until he gets bored. He’s got to be wondering why I’m not running him across the field like I always do. But he doesn’t bark or complain.
When I’m done walking all four dogs, plus Rex, I settle the Blab and the bulldog out on the front porch. It’s closed in, so as long as people are careful going in and out, there shouldn’t be a problem.
The terrier and the Pomeranian are too needy to leave on the porch. I can let them stay with Rex and me in my bedroom until they get used to the farm. With one dog under each arm, I head upstairs to my room.
It still feels funny to think of it as my room. This is the first space I’ve had that’s mine and nobody else’s. I’ve lived by myself, but it’s not the same thing. Once, when I was 12, I lived alone for a week. My mom hooked up with a really bad dude, a guy I called “T,” for Troll, although he and Mom thought I called him T ’cause his name was Tyrone. He stole her paycheck once and went off and got high on it. When Mom disappeared with the troll, I didn’t tell anybody. Finally a social worker came to the house and told me my mother was okay and would be in jail for a couple of weeks. I had to stay in a home for boys until she got out. I’m never going back there.
I open the door to my room. Even though I’ve been here a year, I don’t have anything on the white walls except a calendar. And I only have that so I can cross out the days until I see Mom again. Hank and Annie keep trying to give me posters and stuff to put up. But I don’t want to put anything up. I’m not staying. Not like Kat. I’m just passing through. I keep the walls bare so we all remember that.
Wooden beams stretch across the rough, white ceiling and crisscross down two of the walls. It makes me feel like I’m in a castle or one of those old inns you see in movies. You can almost picture knights and dragons lurking outside. That’s something I’d never say out loud though, even if they tortured me in the castle dungeon. I’ve got two windows, a dresser, a desk, a bed, and a huge chest, where I keep my dog aids—things like rubber balls, treats, ropes, and leashes.
“Here you go, little Pom,” I say, putting the dog in the middle of an old blanket and folding it into a nest.
I fish a dog bed out from under my bed and place the terrier in it. “There you go, scaredy-cat dog.” It’s hard not to go ahead and name the dogs. But I want the old folks at Nice Manor to name their own dogs. Naming is one of the most important things a dog owner does.
I sit on the floor for a while, petting and scratching the dogs until I can sneak away from them. Rex is waiting for me outside my door.
“You’re all that, dog. Know what I’m saying?” I stroke his big head until his ears flop back and his tongue hangs out.
Rex leads me on a long walk through the pasture. At the far end of the property, I see Hank riding Starlight, his horse. I know it’s Starlight because I can see the brown and white spots. If I didn’t know the Paint was blind, I’d never be able to tell it by the way Hank’s galloping her now.
The mare was born blind and her owner was going to put her down, but Hank talked him out of it. Still makes me mad when I imagine somebody doing that just because the horse got off to a bad start being blind and all. Hank named her Starlight, and that was the beginning of Starlight Animal Rescue.
I don’t ride, but supposedly Hank’s the best at it. Of course. Like with everything else.
“Wes!” Hank shouts. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him wave.
But I’m still mad at Hank for refusing to help me with the dogs. So I act like I don’t hear him or see him. Hank is pretty easy to fool.
Rex and I turn around, and my dog starts barking. I tell him to stop, but he keeps it up. I might have fooled Hank, but I never fool Rex.
Five
When Rex and I get back, there’s a black truck parked by the barn. I recognize the truck from Tri-County Animal Clinic. The Nice vets get called out here all the time.
“Come on, Rex.” We head for the barn. I’m trying to figure out which animal could be sick. Hank’s got Starlight out in the pasture. That leaves the two young horses he’s been training.
Or Blackfire.
Before Dakota showed up at the Rescue, the black gelding was called Black Devil, and he lived up to the name. Old Mrs. Coolidge got him at an auction because she knew that if she didn’t, the buyer would turn the horse into horse meat or dog food. Hank worked with the horse, but it wasn’t going so good. For once, Hank’s horse magic wasn’t doing the job.
Then Dakota showed up. She and Blackfire took to each other, and they’ve been together ever since.
Rex and I squeeze through the side door of the barn. Right away it’s obvious the vet’s here for Blackfire. Dakota has the horse tied to a post in the round pen she and Hank use for training. Even this far away, I can see she’s been crying.
“What’s the matter with Blackfire, Doc?” Dakota asks. She’s holding her horse by the halter, positioning herself between Blackfire and the vet, probably so the gelding won’t take a chunk out of the vet’s back while he’s bent over.
Tri-County Animal Clinic is run by three vets—two women and this guy, Doc Jim. He’s small, wiry, and strong as a pit bull. Blackfire keeps trying to jerk his front hoof away, but Doc manages to keep it up.
“I’m almost done, Dakota,” he says.
Dakota Brown is 16, pretty, with black, curly hair and big brown eyes. I don’t think she notices, but guys do double takes when she walks by. She could pass for an Indian, or Native American, whatever you call it.
I’ve known a lot of kids who’ve grown up in foster care. Nobody tells a straight story about “before”—what their lives were really like before foster care. Dakota told me that she had a brother who was killed in the war and then her mother died because she couldn’t deal. And then her dad died because he couldn’t live without his wife. It’s a good story, but too made-for-TV. I let her get away with it, but I guarantee things didn’t go down the way she says they did before.
I can’t read Dakota the way Rex reads me. But right now it’s pretty clear she’s fighting to keep herself together.
Doc Jim lets go of Blackfire’s hoof, and even I can tell the horse isn’t putting much weight on that leg.
I move up to the pen and lean over the top rail. Dakota doesn’t seem to know that me and Rex are there until Doc nods our way.
“Hey, Wes,” Doc calls. “How’s the dog business?”
“Not bad,” I answer.
Dakota ignores me. “Doc?” she asks, her voice filled with impatience. “What’s the matter with my horse?”
“Well,” Doc says, “I think it’s an abscess, Dakota.”
“An abscess?” Da
kota sounds horrified. “On his hoof?”
Doc smiles at her and strokes Blackfire’s shoulder. The horse backs away from him. “That’s not so bad, really. Could have been a lot worse. We need to locate the abscess, though, and dig it out.”
Tears seep from the corners of Dakota’s eyes. I feel for her. But the vet said it’s not so bad. At least the horse still has four legs. Not like the poor Pomeranian.
“How did it happen?” Dakota demands. “Is it my fault? I try to keep the stall clean, but I know I could do a better job. Maybe if I’d—”
Doc stops her. “It’s not your fault. We’re not even sure how horses get abscesses. Blackfire might have stepped on a stone or—”
“Because I rode him on the road?” Dakota’s face looks like someone slapped her. “Why did I have to do that? We have so much land to ride on, and I had to go out on the road.”
“Dakota, it might not have been a stone,” Doc Jim explains. “And even if it was, it wasn’t your fault. I’m thinking the abscess is coming from inside, instead of outside.”
“Are you saying Blackfire has sores inside of him? How can that happen? He’s such a good horse.” She hugs his neck, and her shoulders heave.
“Not like that,” Doc explains. “Blackfire doesn’t have sores inside. I meant that a change in feed or grass can get into the blood vessels and result in an infection. Pus forms and tries to push out through the hoof. Does that make sense? We just need to coax out the pus, the infection. Then we can treat it better. First, though, we’ve got to find the point of origin.”
He digs into his doctor’s bag and comes out with a silver instrument that looks like large wire cutters or blunt-end scissors. “Hold him, Dakota. But don’t let him hurt you. If he rears up, get out of the way. I have to find out where the hoof’s the most sensitive. He’s not going to like this.”
Doc’s right about that. He presses the clipper thing into different spots on the horse’s hoof. Blackfire flinches every time. I wonder if his whole hoof is bad.
I want to get a better look, but I don’t want to go inside the pen. I don’t trust that black horse. As a rule, I stick with dogs and have as little to do with the horses as possible.
Doc Jim presses the silver thing on one side of the hoof. Blackfire lets loose a squeal and jerks back. Doc drops the hoof. “Guess we found the problem,” he announces.
“Easy, boy.” Dakota mumbles other things to her horse until he calms down. She strokes the sore leg all the way to the hoof. Then she lifts the hoof and nods for Doc to take over.
Doc slips in and takes the hoof from her, giving Dakota a weak smile.
“Go ahead, Doc,” she says. “Do what you have to do. We’re ready, aren’t we, boy?” She stays close to Blackfire’s head and leans her cheek against his.
Doc pulls a curved knife out of his pocket and goes to work. Strips of hoof fly to the ground. “I have to get as deep as I can,” he tells Dakota.
He keeps digging.
Dakota winces with every slice of the knife, like she’s the one getting cut.
Suddenly, Blackfire squeals and rears. Rex and I jump back. Even the vet backs away, pushing Dakota aside.
“I have to stop,” Doc says. “I can’t go any deeper.”
“Did you get it?” Dakota asks. “The abscess?”
He shakes his head. “It’s really in there deep. I could feel pus under the membrane. It’s soft and squishy. But I don’t want to go deeper.”
Dakota swallows so hard that her neck quivers. “So how do we get it out?”
“You’re going to have to soak the hoof in Epsom salts a couple times a day to draw the infection out of there.” Doc studies Dakota. “You think you can do that?”
She nods and scratches Blackfire under his mane.
I, personally, can’t even picture this. Soak that horse’s hoof? I wouldn’t touch that hoof with a 10-foot leash.
Doc gives her more instructions. “Soak the hoof for as long as you can each time. Shoot for 20 minutes. Twice a day.”
Right on cue, in walks Hank, leading Starlight. “I didn’t know you were here, Doc,” he calls from the doorway. “I thought you weren’t coming by until later.”
“I juggled a few things and got here early,” Doc says. “Dakota sounded pretty desperate.” Doc grins at Dakota, but she doesn’t give it back.
Hank leads his horse toward her stall. “Just a minute—I’ll be right back.” When he returns a minute later, he’s carrying his saddle. He chucks it into the tack room and jogs over to us. “So, what’s the verdict?”
Hank makes the vet go through the whole diagnosis and treatment again. What’s he think? That Dakota and I are idiots? That he’s the only one who can do anything around here?
Rex nudges me. I know he’ll start barking any minute if I let big-brother Hank get to me. I reach over and scratch my dog’s chest and behind his ears until both of us calm down again.
“I’ll go ahead and give Blackfire a shot of penicillin now,” Doc says, digging the syringe out of his bag. “Can you give him another shot tomorrow, Hank? Saturday too, just to be on the safe side.”
“No problem.”
Hank helps Doc steady Blackfire for the first shot. Doc Jim keeps the syringe behind his back, pats the horse’s neck, flicks a spot with his finger, then slips in the syringe.
Blackfire whinnies and jerks his head up, but he’s better than I thought he’d be.
I wait around while Hank walks Doc to his truck. Then I clear my throat and ask, “You okay, Dakota?”
“No. How would you be if your dog had an abscess?”
I don’t take the bait. Dakota and I got off to a bad start, and we haven’t exactly bonded since. People expect fosters to act like brothers and sisters, but we’re not.
I knew from day one that Dakota Brown was planning on running away from here. I could see it in her eyes. I could hear it in what she wasn’t saying. Didn’t matter to me. In fact, I would have been glad to see her go.
She planned her getaway perfectly, and she almost pulled it off. She would have too, if I hadn’t given her away and told everybody what she was up to. I’m still not sure why I stopped her. But since then, she’s fit in better than me around this place.
Dakota leans her head against her horse’s shoulder. “Maybe I did something wrong. I’m no horse whisperer. Not like Hank. Or Winnie.”
Winnie again. Winnie the Horse Gentler is famous around here, even though I’ve never seen her. She lives in Ohio and hangs with Hank’s cousin, a guy they call Catman. They don’t have an animal rescue, but they’re into animals like we are. Hank and Dakota e-mail Winnie for horse advice, like she’s this big horse genius.
“I heard Doc say it wasn’t your fault. Besides, nobody else could ride that horse.” Two months ago Dakota hadn’t even ridden a horse. Now she rides Blackfire bareback at an all-out gallop.
She hugs Blackfire’s neck. “Guess I won’t be riding for a long time, will I, Blackfire?”
“You won’t be riding?”
“Not hardly.”
I hadn’t thought of that. I wasn’t even going to bother asking Dakota to help me with the dogs. She spends every minute with the horses. But if she isn’t riding Blackfire, then she’ll have more free time.
“Listen,” I begin, “since you’re going to have extra time on your hands, I just picked up four dogs from the pound, and—”
“Extra time? Are you kidding? I’m going to spend every minute of every day with my horse until he’s well.”
“You can’t be here every minute.”
“What would you know about it?” She spits the words at me. “You have no idea what it’s like to have an animal need you and—”
“Are you crazy? I’ve got five dogs depending on me. Five! Not one.”
“I can’t believe you’re trying to dump this on me!” Dakota shouts. “Never mind that my horse can’t even put weight on one leg.”
“Your horse is going to be fine.” I heard the vet sa
y so, and so did she. “At least he has four legs. My Pom—”
“Me, me, me! It’s always all about Wes, isn’t it?” Dakota screams.
My heart is slamming in my chest. Why did I even try to talk to her? “Just forget it. I’m sorry I said anything.”
Rex is barking. He springs at my leg, then bounces down.
“Sorry?” Dakota says. “Even Rex knows that’s a lie. You’re not sorry. You’re angry.”
I can’t argue with that. Now I am angry. “Dakota Brown, I should have let you run away.”
Six
Dinner is a noisy event at the Coolidge table. Dr. Annie quizzes us during the whole meal. I think she’s afraid that while she was in town doing surgery, she may have missed something really important on the farm.
“Hank,” Annie prods, “how are the two young horses coming along?” She’s sitting so close to Popeye that I don’t know how either of them can eat. But they do. Dr. Annie isn’t skinny. She’s shaped kinda like a bowling pin.
Once Annie and Popeye dragged Kat and me to a carnival. The whole scene was pretty lame, except for this loud dude who guessed people’s weight or what they did for a living. Annie wouldn’t let the guy weigh her, so he tried to guess her line of work. He examined her hands, studied her up and down. Then he took a stab at what Annie Coolidge did for a living. He guessed grocery store clerk, elementary school teacher, and homemaker before Popeye proudly told the little crowd that had gathered that his wife was a surgeon.
The guy busted out laughing. He turned to Popeye and said, “And I’ll bet you’re a rocket scientist.”
Annie was the one who set him straight. “Much more important than that,” she told the guy. “My husband is a fireman.”
When Annie talks, Popeye stares at her, like every word matters. He hands her the butter for her third biscuit the instant she finishes her second.
Hank takes another bite of the tuna casserole Popeye threw together. “I saddled both of the new horses, but I haven’t mounted either of them yet. They’re too skittish. Starlight and I went for a long ride instead. I almost missed Doc Jim.”
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