Nothing But Horses (28 page)

“Okay. You go. I’ll bring up a crew to walk
him after practice. Call and let us know if he rallies and you
don’t need us. If you lose him, we’ll help dig the grave.”

“Thanks.” Before Olivia stepped away, I
hugged her. Then, I bolted for the front doors of the school. Robin
paced back and forth while she talked. I saw Jack coming from the
far side of the school, Bill right behind him, Harry a not too
distant third. Obviously, Jack had arranged to miss his basketball
practice to help save his sister’s horse and his friends intended
to help too.

Tears burned, but I didn’t let them fall. Why
did Jack get to have a human being for a coach? Why couldn’t I?

Tom saw me. He waved, then jogged across the
parking lot. He put an arm around my shoulders. “Jack brought me up
to speed. I called my boss and he said that I could have tonight
off and work Saturday night instead. What do you want me to do? How
can I help?”

“Stop by your place. Grab some jeans and your
boots. We’re probably going to be walking this horse for hours,” I
said. “That’s what it takes with him.”

“You got it.” Tom dropped a kiss on my
forehead. “You’re a class act, Sierra McElroy. Not many girls would
drop everything to help their friend.”

“Hey, if it was Nevada, Robin would be there
for me,” I said.

She ended her call and I turned to face her.
“I’m heading for your place right now. Make sure your dad has what
I need and I’ll see you there. Okay?”

“You’re the best. Thanks, Sierra.”

“No worries. This is what I do.” I headed for
my Subaru.

* * * *

When I arrived at their home, I found Robin’s
mother, Maura Gibson in the indoor arena. She struggled to lead
Twaziem forward. A golden bay gelding, he’d gained almost four
hundred pounds since Robin saved him last September. He stopped,
dragged back on the rope. Maura wiped the sweat off her face and
tried again.

I walked into the ring, took the lead line
from her. “My turn. Did Felicia leave any of her dressage whips
here?”

“In the tack-room.” Maura lifted her chin. “I
don’t believe in hitting horses, especially sick ones.”

“I don’t either in normal circumstances.
However, if we let him go down and roll, he’ll twist his intestines
until they rupture. Go get me a whip. I won’t use it unless it’s
absolutely required.”

While she was gone, I stepped up next to
Twaziem’s left side. I clicked my tongue, tugged gently on the
rope, my version of asking him nicely to walk beside me. He
balked.

“Not a good choice,” I told him in a low
voice. “When I’ve had a crapacious day, I don’t recommend messing
with me. Nevada will tell you it never works. Now, walk on!”

He backed up. His knees buckled. Maura wasn’t
in sight, so before he dropped onto the ground and tried to roll, I
whacked him with the end of the lead. He tossed his head, snorted,
and then trotted three steps.

“A much better choice.” I petted his brown
neck. “Let’s start walking, bubba. We’ll trot again in a few
minutes.”

Chapter
Twenty-Six

Marysville, Washington

Wednesday, February
5
^th
, 3:30 pm

By the time that Robin arrived with her dad
and the rest of the troops, I’d sent Maura to the house to mix up
mineral oil, molasses and water. I told Jack and Bill to tack up
Jack’s horse so I could pony Twaziem. Robin was on a turd counting
mission in Twaz’s stall. I assigned Robin’s dad, John to call my
mom and learn everything he could about the training session
Twaziem had with her this morning. I didn’t think it was stress
induced colic. My mother usually did low-impact, natural training
and horses normally didn’t have adverse reactions. This guy tended
to bolt his food most of the time and that could cause
indigestion.

“My turn to keep him moving.” Vicky walked
beside us. “I’ve been teaching him to longe. I’ll get the line and
do that while you go mix up simethicone and applesauce.”

“Sounds like a plan.” I glanced at Tom while
she headed off to the tack-room. “Okay, do you want to walk him
until she gets back?”

“Sure, but what’s going on with him? Why is
colic such an emergency in horses?”

Once upon a time, I probably would have
yelled at him for being stupid, but he wasn’t. He actually didn’t
know why this horse was in such dire straits. Yet, Tom rearranged
his schedule and showed up to help.

“Okay, first things first,” I said and kept
walking Twaziem. “Because of their body structure, horses can’t
throw up. You can look up pictures on the Internet that show their
internal organs, but that’s a scientific fact. So, whatever they
eat has to pass through their digestive system. And they eat
constantly because they’re so big and their stomachs are so small.
When things go wrong, the food may cause a blockage and they can’t
poop.”

“Can’t you clear that out?”

“Yes, I can. But, a vet does it better. One
should be on the way from the other local clinic. If she doesn’t
arrive soon, I’ll get a plastic bread sack and shortening from
Maura. I’ll stick my arm up his backside and clean him out.”

“No way.” Tom stared at me as if I had just
landed from a space-ship. “You can do that?”

“Yes.” I felt heat warm my face. Luckily or
unluckily, Twaziem tugged on the rope and started to go down. “He’s
cramping.” I hauled on the lead. “Come on. Tom, help me. Pull.”

His hands closed on the line next to mine and
we hauled on Twaziem’s head in a weird game of tug of war. Between
the two of us, we got Twaziem walking again. I handed the line to
Tom when John approached. “See if you can get him to trot beside
you. It will bounce his gut and he may fart. That’s good too,
especially since I think we’re dealing with gas colic.”

“You got it.” Tom went off with the horse,
circling the ring. Twaziem trotted sluggishly beside the big, blond
guy.

“What did my mom say?” I kept part of my
attention on the horse, glancing sideways at John. “Did he seem off
during the session this morning?”

“No. She groomed him, saddled up and did long
line driving. He worked at a walk and trot and learned to keep
going forward instead of stopping to poop. She said that Maura had
her look at the hay we bought from a new dealer. It’s a good
alfalfa and timothy mix. The grass was really nice, no toxic weeds
and the alfalfa smelled fresh, not musty.”

“He undoubtedly ate too fast again,” I said.
“That can happen when an animal has been starved. He thinks if he
doesn’t rush through his food, he’ll lose out. Some human will
steal the food or another animal will.”

“Any suggestions?” John stood next to me and
we watched Twaziem jog around the arena. “What if we divide up his
meals? Jack could give him a flake of hay for breakfast, then Robin
could slide down here right before we leave for town and give him
the second one. We could do the same thing for lunch and supper,
spread out his meals so he has food in the manger all the
time.”

“That may work, but don’t count on it as a
guaranty. Remember, he colicked several times right after Robin
brought him home. Still I’d definitely try it.” I smiled at Robin
when she came back to us. “Okay, what’s the poop report?”

She told me, describing not only the number
of turds, but the consistency. Hey, who said horse people didn’t
have exciting lives? I helped get Vicky started on longeing Twaziem
and then went up to the house to mix up the gas reliever tablets
and applesauce.

When I walked in, Maura was on the land line.
“Rocky, I don’t know what we’d do without Sierra. Now, maybe she
doesn’t have the world’s greatest bedside manner, but she’s a kid.
Mine aren’t afraid to say what they think. And believe me, if this
horse lives, I will have time tomorrow to deal with that stupid
teacher. If we lose Twaziem, I’ll call Coach Norris and tell him to
bring his own shovel and help us bury him along with Robin’s
heart.”

My mother must have had something to say
because Maura waved at me and listened, receiver to her ear. Then
she said, “Okay, I’ll keep you posted. If we need reinforcements
tonight, I’ll call.”

Once she hung up, Maura turned to me. “I
would have been down sooner with the mineral oil cocktail, but your
mom needed to talk to me.”

“We’re fine. Vicky’s longeing Twaz.” I held
up the paper sack from the pharmacy. “Let me show you how to do
this. Do you have a hammer and cutting board? I need wax paper and
applesauce.”

I showed Maura how to read the label and
guess-timate how much to give a horse using the dosage chart on the
box. If a grown man could have one or two pills, then we multiplied
to figure out how much to give Twaziem who weighed almost a
thousand pounds now. I folded six tablets into the wax paper and
beat them into pink powder with the hammer. “You can also dissolve
the tablets in boiling water, but Rocky and I decided not to nuke
them in the microwave because we worried that might do something to
the chemical make-up.”

“How do you know this works?” Maura asked.
“I’ve never seen anyone feed gas reliever to a horse.”

“We used it on Luchenbach, Nevada’s mom when
she colicked three years ago and darn near died on us. Believe me
when she goes down, it’s like trying to get a mountain up on her
hooves and we didn’t want to dig a pit for a Belgian cross. It’d be
different if we had a backhoe or a bulldozer, but we can’t dig with
the garden tractor. It would have meant digging forever with
shovels. Dr. Larry said that simethicone couldn’t hurt Luchenbach.
We mixed it in applesauce and water so I could get it in the
syringe and paste her with it.”

Maura pried the lid off the jar of homemade
applesauce. “What did Rocky do while you pasted Luke?”

“Held her head still so Luke couldn’t spit
like a llama. That horse has some major issues when it comes to
deworming and any kind of oral meds. Luckily she thinks that Rocky
is bigger than she is.”

Maura didn’t laugh, but she managed to smile.
I’d have to work a bit harder on my delivery. Like Grandma always
said, we needed to do psychological first-aid on the owners at the
same time that we helped the horses. Otherwise, we had more than a
four-legged patient.

Carrying the mineral oil cocktail, Maura
walked beside me toward the barn. “I appreciate you coming so
quickly, Sierra. I never intended to mess up your basketball
practice.”

“It’s a game,” I said. “This is a life or
death situation. I couldn’t live with myself if Twaziem died while
I bounced a silly ball around a gym. I’m glad you called for
help.”

“I meant what I told your mom. Once Twaziem
is back to horsy normal, I’ll help you.”

A tear slipped down my cheek and I bit my lip
hard. “I appreciate it, Maura, but there’s nothing anyone can do. I
yelled at Coach and ran out of practice. He has to kick me off the
squad, although he may let me off with a warning and bench me for
the next game.” Another tear and I wiped impatiently at my leaky
eyes. “It’s worth it as long as we save Twaz.”

“And you.” She put an arm around my
shoulders. “We’re saving you too. If adults like me and John can
ask for help when we need it, you can too. I’m not weak and neither
are you. Do you want me and John to run interference?”

She made all kinds of sense and I nodded.
“Yes, please. Asking for help is new to me. I’ve never done it
before.”

“Don’t worry. It doesn’t hurt as much as when
your horse steps on your foot, or kicks you, or bucks you off into
a barbed wire fence, or gives you flying lessons to the moon.”
Maura grinned at me and opened the barn door.

During the next three hours, Dr. Cathy called
three or four times and checked in with us. She was dealing with
another colicked horse on the far side of Pine Ridge and didn’t
know how long it was going to take to save the day and the horse
there. Her partner had gone to Pullman for the same veterinary
conference that Dr. Larry had.

We managed to get most of the mineral oil
down Twaziem’s throat. He’d had one dose of simethicone and
applesauce. We still didn’t have any gut sounds and that meant he
had a major impaction blocking his digestive system.

Finally, I put a plastic bread sack over my
hand, coated it with shortening and stuck my arm up Twaziem’s rear
end. I cleaned out clumps of manure while John and Tom held him
still. After that, I told Robin her horse needed a massage and went
to the tack-room to bring back a groom kit. Before I came back out,
I heard Harry and Tom in the barn aisle.

“I can’t believe you actually want to go out
with a girl like her,” Harry said. “A girl who can stick her hand
up a horse’s butt isn’t afraid of anything.”

“Why would I want a woman that has to be less
for me to be more? I’m not so insecure,” Tom said.

“Are you saying I am?”

“Hey, you’re the one she scares, not me. I
can handle dating a hero.”

I knew my face must be as red as my hair. At
least it felt that way. I couldn’t hide in the tack-room. When I
walked out in the hallway, Tom waited for me. I took a deep breath,
“So, I’m a hero, huh?”

“You are to me.” He grinned down at me.
“What’s the plan now?”

I pulled a rubber currycomb out of the
plastic tote-box. “We take turns using this in a circular motion on
his sides. Hopefully, we’ll get something to work inside him. I
would love to hear his gut rumbling.”

Another hour passed without any improvement.
Olivia, Kanisha, Cedar and Zoey arrived. They brought pizzas and
sodas. Olivia told me the other girls would be here soon. She’d
told them where I was and why I hadn’t come to practice. “I waited
until we finished. Then, I passed the word that Kanisha’s dad would
bring us here on his dinner break. He says as soon as he finishes
his shift, he’ll come back and help.”