No Horse Wanted (6 page)

“Makes sense.” Dad came and took the lead
from me, ignoring Twaziem’s snort, and issuing orders. “Jack, get
the powder out of the vet cabinet. Robin, you ladies are headed for
the showers. I’ll send the halter to be disinfected as soon as we
take it off him. Bill, pull the truck around to the other side of
the house and start fumigating the trailer.”

“Come on, girls,” Mom said. “We’ll leave the
messy business to the menfolk. I’m so up for that.”

“I really don’t see the necessity.” Felicia
took on her know-it-all persona, with its irritating, authoritative
tone. “Horses normally have a 101.5 degree temperature and healthy
humans are at 98.7 degrees, so the likelihood that Twaziem’s lice
migrated to us is extremely rare—”

“Except that he’s debilitated,” Dad said.
“I’m not taking his temperature now. I’m just treating the
symptoms, and you don’t want me throwing you into the utility
shower, clothes, and all, Felicia Joyce. Move it. And wash your
hair too!”

Vicky wrinkled her nose in disgust. “I’ll
help with the horse trailer. I’m not hanging out while you shower,
Robin.”

“You don’t have to help,” I said. “You can
watch TV in my room if you want or use my computer to cruise the
Internet.”

“Later,” Vicky told me with a toss of her
hair. “It may be yucky around here, but it’s a lot better than my
sister’s diapers. Hey, can we order in pizzas?”

I had to laugh. Only my best friend could
jump from lice to junk food in less than a heartbeat. “Sure. You’re
the greatest, Vick.”

I got a funny look from her and another from
my sister who waited to walk with me toward the house. “What?”

“She’s acting like such a twit,” Felicia
whispered. “And you’re actually being pretty nice to her. What’s
up?”

“Same old, same old,” I said, with a shrug.
“Vicky’s still picking up all the slack around the house since her
parents’ divorce. And this is the only place where she’s allowed to
be a kid and complain. But, if she stays on my case, I will nail
her. You don’t get to. She’s been my best friend forever.”

Chapter Seven

Saturday, September 14
^th
, 10:15 p.m.

Showers, doctoring Twaziem and moving him
into his stall, then pizzas, sodas, a horror movie—it’d been a good
night. I just wanted to check on Twaz one last time before I
climbed into my jammies. Then Vicky and I would go watch TV in my
room and talk. Okay, I’d tell her all about Harry, and she’d tell
me how wonderful my older brother was, but at least we were finally
having some real best buddy time. Whenever I called, I had to wait
for her to deal with one of her sibs, and that wasn’t much fun.

I hurried into the barn, ignoring the thunder
of the kittens playing overhead and went straight to Twaziem’s
stall. Instead of peacefully eating, he was down on his side. For a
moment, I thought he wanted to sleep. Then, he tried to roll
over.

No, no, no!
I grabbed the extra halter
Dad hung on the peg in the aisle way and unlatched the door. I
skirted the flailing hooves. Once I got to his head, I put on the
halter. “No, Twaziem. You need that powder to kill the lice. You
can’t rub off the medicine.”

He stood still for a moment, shaking. Then
his knees buckled. Down he went. I tugged hard on the cheek strap.
“Get up!”

He did. Now, he kicked at his belly.

Colic
, I thought.

Memories of the way that Cobbie died flashed
into my mind. He’d had colic, something brought on by a variety of
causes. Felicia could list them all, but I knew too. Stress from
overwork. No, all Twaziem had done was eat since he arrived. Moldy
hay—not here. Water right after grain—no, we’d waited two hours.
Rich food—oh my Gawd. Why hadn’t I thought? Twaziem had gone from
nothing in his stomach to alfalfa/grass hay in the trailer. No
wonder his system rebelled.

I backed toward the door, pulled him with me
to the hallway. I grabbed a lead rope, snapped it onto the halter.
“Come on, bubba. Let’s take a walk.”

While he stumbled after me toward the indoor
arena, I dug out my cell phone. My parents were the best. If I’d
been Vicky, I would have a serious problem since they refused to
pay for her cell anymore. It was one more casualty in the divorce
wars. Now at least, I didn’t have to leave him to go for help. I
could call the house from the barn.

Felicia answered. Once she heard my
diagnosis, she said, “Okay, I’m getting the vet. Colic is the
leading cause of death in horses next to old age.”

“Thanks a lot. I needed to hear that.” I kept
walking and talking at the same time. I could multi-task. I was a
teenage girl. “How about some help? Muscle relaxants, mineral oil
and people to keep him up and moving?”

“Dad’s on the way,” Felicia said. “Jack’s
hitting the vet cabinet. Bill’s got the fridge, and Mom’s making up
the drench as we speak.”

Twaziem stopped. He sagged in place. He was
going down.

“Gotta go.” I hung up, pushed the phone in my
pocket, and yanked hard on the lead. “Come on. We’re walking here.
If you tear up your guts, you’re dead.”

We made another ten steps. He froze. Went
down.

I jerked hard. Once. Twice. He didn’t
roll.

Pull again. It was like tug-of-war with an
immovable object.

“Get up, Twaz,” I shouted. “Get up!”

I yanked three more times as hard as I could.
“On your feet.”

He gave up, staggered to stand. He struggled
to follow me.

“You’re doing a good job, Robbie.” Dad jogged
toward me, Vicky behind him carrying a stable sheet. “Dr. Tomlinson
is on the way. Your mom is mixing up mineral oil, molasses, and hot
water. Jack will be here in a few minutes with the gas reliever,
and Felicia is bringing muscle relaxants.”

A tear slid down my cheek, and I bit my lip.
“What if he dies?”

“Not likely.” Dad took the rope from me.
“Blanket him so he stays warm and doesn’t go into shock.”

Vicky stepped to the right side, opening the
blanket. “Cobbie died from colic.”

“I know he did,” Dad said, “but he was old.
He had an impaction from the grass clippings someone threw over the
fence. We didn’t find him until it was too late. This horse is
young and strong. He’s tough. Nobody else could have survived
starvation, lice, intestinal worms, and eating half his tail.”

A giggle slipped past. I adjusted the stable
sheet on Twaziem so it hung halfway down his left side. “He didn’t
eat his tail, Dad. That’s just dumb.”

“Yes, he did. At first, I guessed it had been
rubbed out because of the lice. Then, Jack pointed out that the
bottom half is what’s missing and the top is still here.”

“I told you he’s awful.” Vicky passed me the
girth. “You should have picked the best horse you could find, not
the worst.”

“I picked the one who needed me most.” I
lifted my chin. “And I don’t care how many days and nights I walk
him. If it takes a week, I’ll be here for him. He deserves a real
life.”

Vicky gasped. “How long are you going to walk
him?”

“Colic can last from one to three days,” Dad
said. “I’d guess we’ll be up all night with this fella. We walked
Cobbie for two days straight.”

“All day and all night,” I said. “I remember
being so tired that I thought I’d forget how to walk.”

“He still died,” Vicky pointed out. “How do
you know this one won’t?”

“We don’t.” Dad petted Twaziem’s neck. “I’m
willing to bet that he’s a fighter. He’ll try and so will we.”

I sighed and glanced at Vicky. When she was
in a good mood, nobody could be more fun. For the last six months,
since her dad moved out on her birthday, Vicky had done more
griping than ever about how I treated my family, and it was getting
old.

“This is not going to be a fun night.” I
didn’t want to be rude to Vicky, but there was no way that the
family could concentrate on saving the horse and be good company
too. “Maybe, you’d better stay over another time. Would next
Saturday be better?”

“Why don’t I walk Twaziem while you two
decide?” Dad asked. “Vicky, if you want to go home because there’s
too much work to do tonight, I’ll have Jack take you.”

I passed the lead rope to Dad and waited
until he and Twaziem were on the far side of the arena. “Well, what
do you want to do?”

“You invited me to spend the night,” Vicky
said, “and now that you’ve got a horse, you don’t want me.” She
sounded as if she were going to cry at any moment.

Guilt swamped me. Had I been picking on
Vicky? Yes, she was going through some hard times right now. I
should be more understanding instead of trying to get rid of her,
but the constant carping about Twaz got old in a hurry.

I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t
mean to hassle you. It’s just that I’m worried about Twaz, and I
won’t be good company tonight. You can stay if you want.”

“No thanks. I’m going home. You’ve chosen
that awful, ugly horse over me.”

“No, I haven’t.” I watched as she stormed
toward the gate. “Do you want to sleep over next weekend?”

“Why not? Maybe you can make your horse sick
again, and then you can send me home again.” She slammed the gate
to the arena and stalked through the dark toward the house.

I stared after her, sobs clogging my throat.
The last thing I wanted to do was lose her, but it seemed
impossible to stay on Vicky’s good side lately. No matter what I
did, Vicky chewed me out. Most of her time she was right, I
thought, but it didn’t make my life any easier when I was
constantly in the wrong.

Heaving a sigh, I went back to Twaziem. I
shrugged when Dad glanced at me. “Vicky decided to go home.”

“I don’t blame her,” Dad said. “You weren’t
making her feel very welcome.”

“It’s hard.” I sounded like a whiner, but I
didn’t care. “I was tired of listening to her gripe about how awful
Twaziem was. It’s not his fault that he’s been starved. She was
acting like the guy who wanted to take Twaz up to the slaughter
house just because he looked awful, and she’s supposed to be my
friend.”

Dad kept walking Twaziem around the arena.
“Did you ever think she might be jealous? Vicky loves animals as
much as you do, but she can’t have any pets. She was telling us
that she might not get to do her internship at Shamrock Stables,
and that’s going to hurt her GPA.”

I stopped and stared, then hurried to catch
up with him. “Dad, she has to do it. Rocky arranged special hours
and everything. If Vicky blows off the internship, then she won’t
be able to complete her Sophomore Project, and it’s majorly
important.”

“Really?” Dad said, sounding stupid and not
like himself. “And why is that, Robbie?”

“Because it ties together our community
service obligation, and three of our core classes.” I stared after
him. “Okay, so you’re right. She’s overloaded, and I wasn’t
listening. She’s not really mad about the horse.”

“No, she’s not. Why don’t you call and
apologize?”

“Because she doesn’t have a cell.”

He gave me a look that said I was acting like
a typical blonde, and I caved. I pulled out my cell and called the
house. Felicia answered.

“Tell Vicky to come back and help,” I said.
“I was being mean and I’m sorry.”

“More like the other way around,” Felicia
said, “but you got it.”

I tucked away the phone just as Mom came into
the arena.

“Sorry, I took so long,” Mom said. “Jack
found some laxatives, and Bill is bringing the
Banamine
.
We’ll simply have to walk Twaziem if he starts having cramps and
tries to roll.”

“He’s already been rolling.” I took the lead
rope from my father and led Twaziem toward Mom at the far end of
the arena. “Dad says he thinks Twaz has a better chance than Cobbie
did.”

“You bet he does.” Mom shook the small bottle
holding her home remedy. “Cobbie was a goner when we found him, but
we didn’t want to accept it.”

“It was still hard to accept after two days
of nursing,” Dad said. “Cobbie was a good pony.”

“He sure was.” Mom took the cap off of the
molasses bottle. “I put everything Twaziem needs in here to ease
his constipation. I just hope he takes it better than Singer does
when she has colic.”

“He will.” I stopped Twaz in front of her and
stepped around to the right side, lifting up his head so she could
get the lip of the bottle in the corner of his mouth. “He’s into
food.”

“It sounds to me like you’ve already
remembered how to be a horse owner.” Dad smiled at me. “The good
ones always think that their horses are the best.”

Chapter Eight

Sunday, September 15
^th
, 2:00 a.m.

Although I thought we might have to walk
Twaziem all night, the mineral oil, gas reliever tablets, and
muscle relaxants took effect shortly after one in the morning. He
was pooping up a storm—all of it pretty solid and no diarrhea. As
Felicia said, it took very little to make horse people happy, and
she spent most of the time counting turds, cheering whenever Twaz
pooped again. She so needed to get a life.

Dr. Larry Tomlinson pronounced Twaziem on the
road to recovery after the fourth bowel movement. My horse even
stopped pawing, and trying to roll and lie down. He was more
interested in the scraps of hay he found in the corner of the
arena.

“Go ahead and put him back in his stall,
Robin,” Dr. Larry said. “We’ll watch him for a while and make sure
he’s okay.”

Jack stretched and yawned. “Bill and I can
camp out in the aisle. Then if Twaziem starts rolling again, we’ll
pull him out and walk him. I can med with
Banamine
for the
cramps.”

“We’ll stay too,” I said, looking at Vicky.
She nodded agreement. So did Felicia.