High Hurdles (73 page)

“How about if I bring up some more panels and we fence off the front of the house so we can let the other horses loose?” Ramone suggested.

“Sounds like a good idea. I’d hate for all of Jackie’s shrubs and flowers to get eaten and trampled, but it’s a small price to pay compared to losing any horses. With the panels, we can have it both ways.”

DJ took the bottle into the kitchen and set it to warm in a pan full of water. Her eyes felt so full of sand, she could barely see the numbers on the dial.

The gas lit with a bit of a pop, and she held her hands to the heat. She’d never known the meaning of bone weary before now. She had blisters on her hands from shoveling, and her muscles felt like liquid.

Never had the thought of a soak in a hot tub of water been so appealing. But getting food in that foal was far more important right now. DJ shook herself awake and tested the milk by dribbling some on her skin. Back to the battle.

With the doors closed, the garage had warmed some. She heard the truck drive back up the hill, then the sound of metal posts being driven into the ground. With each 
kathunk
 of the heavy iron sleeve that slammed down on the top of the post, she saw the mare flinch. It felt as if they were driving the posts right into DJ’s skull.

And no matter what she tried, the foal refused to drink.

DJ sank down by the battery-powered lamp in the corner of the stall. “God, what can I do? This baby is getting weaker, and she could get really sick with all the weather problems we’ve been having. Please, please help me. Help us. Thanks for your protection from the flooding. We’d sure be grateful if you ended the storm now.” She rested her head on her knees, her arms wrapped around her legs.

Soda came over and nosed DJ’s hair, then whuffled and nudged her baby. The foal managed to get up on her brisket with her legs tucked under her.

“Come on, baby, all the way.”

The pounding outside stopped.

DJ heard no more.

“DJ. Darla Jean.”

“Huh?”

“You better get to bed.” Brad knelt in front of his daughter.

“I . . . I can’t. Got to feed the foal.” She blinked her eyes and yawned wide enough to crack her jaw.

“Ramone and I will tube-feed her.”

“No, let’s try holding her up in a sling first. You guys hold her, and I’ll see if I can’t get her to nurse on her mother. She’s gotten used to us handling her, so maybe she won’t fight this time.”

“I think you need to go to bed.”

“Please, Dad.”

At the look on his face, DJ realized what she had said. Where had the “Dad” come from? Was that really what she wanted to call him? It must be since it had just come out.

“Please.”

“All right. One more try.”

DJ struggled to her feet. “How are the rest of the horses?”

“Fine. We threw out hay, so they aren’t exploring much right now. The generator at the barn drowned out. If I’d had time, I’d have brought it up to the house. I still might.” He rubbed his forehead and his face. “Only so much you can do, I guess.”

“I’ll get a sheet to use for a sling, okay?”

“Yeah, fine. Ramone, come help us in here, will you?” When there was no answer, he stuck his head out the side door and called again.

Now what?
 DJ wondered as she took a flashlight to go in search of a sheet for a sling. 
Please, there can’t be one more thing to go wrong
.

Chapter • 15

Ramone—where is Ramone?

DJ tried not to think about the missing Ramone as she dug in the linen closet for an old sheet. Nothing looked remotely old in the beam of the flashlight. She finally found a stack of plain, white flat sheets down on the bottom shelf. Taking two for good measure, she headed back to the garage. Only the horses were there.

Setting the sheets on a stack of straw bales, she stepped outside, her flashlight in hand. “Brad?” The sound of her voice sent horses trotting away. They were more spooked than she was. And at this point, that was saying something. DJ shivered. “Dad?” She raised her voice.

More snorts, followed by the sound of hooves 
schlupping
 away.

What could have happened to them?

DJ walked toward the truck, which was parked off to the side to keep the drive clear. Both men were sitting inside. She breathed a sigh of relief. But why hadn’t they answered her?

The truck was running—the drone of the idling engine told her that. Feeling as if she’d learned she was the only human left alive on the planet, DJ forced herself to go toward the vehicle.

Hand trembling, she opened the door.

Rumbling snores nearly drowned out the drone of the engine. They were both sound asleep!

DJ nibbled on her lip. Between the foaling and the flood, the two had gone for nearly two days without sleep. Should she let them sleep? But the filly needed feeding.

“Dad?” Calling him that was getting easier.

DJ waited and noticed something felt different. She looked up, and her face stayed dry. It wasn’t raining!

“Dad, it quit raining!” She touched his shoulder.

He jerked as though she’d poked him with a cattle prod set on full force.

“Wha-what is it?” He peered at her, eyes owl round and blinking. “DJ, are you all right? Wha-what happened?”

“You fell asleep.”

Brad let his head fall against the back of the seat. “I came to find Ramone, and he was asleep. So I thought I’d just sit in the warm cab for a minute or two before I woke him up.” He scrubbed his face with both hands. “We need to feed the foal.”

“Yes, we do, but guess what else is up?”

He looked at her as if answering would take too much effort.

“It quit raining!”

“Thank you, heavenly Father.”

Brad’s heartfelt praise brought him out of the truck, hands raised palm up.

DJ wasn’t sure whether he was praising God or testing for rain, but his next words clued her in.

“No more rain. Thank you, God!”

She guessed it was both.

At his shout, Ramone jerked upright. “What’s happening?”

Brad pointed toward the sky.

Ramone climbed stiffly from the truck. “How long have I been asleep? I didn’t mean to do that—fall asleep, I mean.”

“No problem, Ramone. Look!” Brad pointed upward again.

“The rain stopped! Look, there’s even a star up there. I was beginning to think they had all disappeared forever.” Ramone thumped a hand on the hood of the truck, the noise spooking the curious horses that had gathered around them.

“Well, that’s one of many major prayers answered. Now, how about the foal?”

Brad turned to Ramone. “DJ thinks we should try a sling. It might make sense now that the filly has been handled so much. If Soda will cooperate, too. . . .”

“Whatever. I’m game.”

The three entered the garage, and DJ picked up the sheets. “I hope these are okay to use.”

“Deej, honey, anything is okay to use at this point. Everything but us and the horses are replaceable.” He took the sheets. “And you and Ramone are more important than thousands of horses—hands down.”

The glow around DJ’s heart radiated clear to her fingertips.

The men stroked Soda first, then approached the filly. She raised her head and appeared to be studying them. But when she didn’t thrash her legs, DJ began to wonder if she was too weak to fight.

They folded the sheet the long way and slid it under the foal’s belly. On three, they gently hoisted her into the air, letting her feet touch the ground. The foal scrambled for a moment but quieted again. Head up, she looked toward her mother.

“Oh, wow.” DJ led Soda over to the trio. “Come on, old girl, let’s make this count.” 
Please, God, please
, marched through her mind as DJ guided the filly toward her mother’s udder.

“Please, God, let this work,” she heard Brad murmur behind her.

DJ stroked the filly’s head, crouching down so she could see what she was doing.

The filly started to pull away, bobbing her head and bumping the mare’s flank.

“Easy, now, little one, you can do this.” 
Please
.

“If you can, Deej, squirt a little milk on her muzzle.”

DJ aimed a teat toward the filly and squeezed. She missed.

The men moved the filly an inch or two closer.

Bump, nudge, bump. DJ pulled another stream of milk from the mare. It hit the baby’s muzzle and dripped down over her lips. A pink tongue peeked out and licked the milk.

DJ held her breath.

One more bump, and the filly found the teat. She wrapped her tongue around it, pulling it into her mouth.

She began to nurse.

DJ swabbed away the tears. “She’s doing it,” she whispered around a throat so tight, she could hardly swallow.

“I know,” Brad’s voice came, reverent as a prayer. “Thank you, Father, for big favors.”

“Amen to that.” Ramone’s voice resounded with the same awe as Brad’s and DJ’s.

When the foal dropped her head a good time later, the men lowered her to the straw. She sighed and lay flat out on her side.

“You earned a good rest, little one. Sleep well.” Brad got up from his knees. “And speaking of sleep, I vote we all do that. Ramone, I’ll pull the Murphy bed in the rec room down for you. Sorry I can’t offer anyone a hot shower, but warm covers will have to do.”

They trooped into the house, jerking off their boots at the bootjack by the back door. DJ moved woodenly to her room, where she stripped off her filthy clothes with her eyes already half shut. She struggled into her sweats and, sitting on the side of the bed, pulled heavy socks over her freezing feet. She hung her head and sat there, as if frozen.

“Deej, getting into the bed before going to sleep would have been a good idea.”

She felt her father lift her legs and swing them up on the bed. She tried to say thank-you when he pulled the covers over her, but the effort was too great.

When she woke, weak sunlight cast a square on the hardwood floor. “The filly! She should have been fed again long ago.” DJ threw back the covers and leaped into her clothes, hitting the floor running. Without waiting to put on her boots, she opened the door to the garage.

The filly stood at her mother’s side, head up and under the flank, nursing on her own, her brush of a tail flicking from side to side.

DJ glanced at her watch. Nearly noon—she’d slept for hours. “Why didn’t they wake me?” she muttered as she shoved her feet into her boots and pulled them on. Snagging a jacket off the peg, she stepped outside.

The clouds looked like old dishcloths, tightly wrung and tattered. But the sun managed to find the holes between them and beam its warmth down onto the soaked earth. Horses nickered, and a pair of crows flew overhead, their caws sounding more like a song of rejoicing than a threat of doom.

A line of broken sticks and grasses lay in a mud coat that showed the highest reach of the flooded river. Now the water lapped a good foot below that mark.

DJ looked down to the barns. Water still stood well up the walls, the gray mud line above showing how far the water had already receded.

DJ drew in a deep breath of fresh air—and wished she hadn’t. After working on the cleanup last weekend, she knew the smell would only get worse. Small breaths would serve her better until her nose decided to ignore the stink.

“So, everyone, where’s my dad?”

“Right behind you.” Brad draped an arm around her shoulders. “I’d still be sleeping if the phone hadn’t rang. Your mother called to see how we are. All in all, I think she is handling this fairly well. When I said you were still sleeping, she said for you to call her back. Then I found your room empty.”

“I should have called her before I went to bed.”

“At 3:00 a.m.?”

“Was that what time it was?”

“Mm-hmm.” Brad stretched his arms above his head and yawned. His arm thumped back on her shoulders.

“Did you see the foal nursing?”

“Yup. I checked on them around six, and she was up then.”

“You coulda told me.”

“What? And wake the sleeping beauty? Even I’ve got more sense than that.”

She dug an elbow into his ribs, but not too hard.

They heard a click and a buzz behind them. The spotlight between the garage doors went on.

“Power, we’ve got power!” Brad spun her in a circle, then wrapped her in a bear hug. “Come on, daughter, we’re going to have a 
real
 breakfast.”

Ramone came to the door. “You have a phone call, boss.”

“Thanks. How about you and DJ feed and water the horses while I make breakfast?”

Ramone nodded to where a couple of the loose horses were drinking from the dirty floodwater. “You told them that plan yet?”

“Well, at least water the two mares from the water in the bathtubs.”

The other foal was born late that Saturday night. Once again, Brad woke DJ in time. An hour later, he said, “This is what a normal foaling is like—the mare does all the work, and I cheer her on.”

DJ looked over to where both Soda and her baby lay sleeping. “I’ll take this kind of delivery any day. But that baby over there sure stole a piece of my heart.”

“Yeah, I know. I kind of think she should be yours.” At the look on her face, he put up his hands. “You earned her, you know. I might have ended up putting her down just because I didn’t have time for her with all the other stuff going on.”

“Dad!”

“Well, you never know. What do you think would be a good name for her?”

“Soda’s Storm Clouds. I’d call her Stormy for short.”

“Sounds like a winner to me.” Brad shook his head. “I think I’m going to keep you on retainer as horse namer.”

“Did . . . did you mean it about her being mine?” DJ was almost afraid to ask. Surely he’d been joking.

“Yes, I did. I mean I do. You’ll be on her registration papers as the legal owner.”

“Wow! That’s so . . . I—it’s just awesome.” DJ turned and gave him a two-arm, rib-crunching hug as hard as her sore arms could squeeze. “Thank you. A gazillion times over, thank you!”

“Once is enough. If you squeeze my aching ribs again, I’ll have to scream. And I doubt it’s cool for a father to scream because of his daughter’s hugs.”

DJ grinned and leaned into the warmth of his side.