Chapter 10
I was wrong about one thing. I did sleep, almost as soon as my head hit the pillow. It wasn’t until I heard Mom clanging about in the front room that I opened my eyes. I jumped out of bed and rushed to the front room. Mom was bending over the stove, shoving in wood. I could smell coffee and oil paints. A canvas sat upon her easel, with her new painting of horses running over the snowy lake already roughed in.
She looked up at me and smiled. “Hi, sleepyhead.”
“What time is it? How’s Twilight?”
“Who?”
“The new filly. I named her Twilight,” I said sheepishly.
“She’s still standing on three legs, but I took her some more water and she drank it. She ate some of her hay too but hasn’t touched the oats.”
“I bet she doesn’t know that it’s food yet,” I said, as I rushed back into the bedroom to get dressed. This was unacceptable. Mom bringing my filly water and feeding her. Twilight was going to think she was Mom’s horse, not mine. “Did her leg look any different?” I yelled and pulled on long johns, then my pants.
“I couldn’t tell. The bandage was still on.”
I tugged a warm sweater over my head. “Can you help me with her?”
Mom hesitated before answering. “Why don’t you wait until Kestrel gets here. She’s coming over today, isn’t she?”
“Yeah.” I hurried back into the front room and headed for the door.
“Breakfast first,” Mom commanded.
I stopped short and scowled. “Do I have to?”
Mom put her hands on her hips.
I stomped to the kitchen area.
“There are fried potatoes in the pan on the stove.”
I love fried potatoes. Maybe not seeing Twilight for another ten minutes wouldn’t be completely unbearable. My stomach grumbled as I dished up my breakfast – potatoes, onions, and moose jerky bits, all fried up in butter and Mom’s special mix of spices. It tastes much better than it sounds, believe me.
“I want you to finish that report on the industrial revolution before Kestrel gets here. You’ve let it drag on for weeks now.”
“Are you kidding me?”
Oops. Wrong thing to say. Mom’s eyes flashed. “I’m not kidding you. Get it done, or I’ll send Kestrel home right after she warms up.”
Okay, so fried potatoes didn’t make up for this torture. I was away from my new horse and being forced to think about the stupid industrial revolution. I carefully kept my opinion about how unfair Mom was being to myself. Then I noticed Loonie looking in the window from the front porch. “Why is Loonie outside?”
“It’s warming up.”
I took another big bite of potatoes.
“If you spent as much energy on that report as you did on avoiding it, you’d have been finished ages ago,” Mom observed.
I took another big bite. I simply had to get out of here.
At last Mom got the hint from my silence and moved to her easel. As I shoveled potatoes into my mouth, she stared at her painting, and then slowly, not taking her eyes from the canvas, reached for her paintbrush. She was off to dreamland again. Finally!
When I left the house, Loonie greeted me as if she hadn’t seen me for months – you just have to love dogs. And Mom was right. There was a change in the air. It was still cold, but I didn’t feel the sting on the skin around my eyes. I sighed through my scarf and tried to cross my gloved fingers. If only the cold snap really was over, the mustangs would be so much better off. They’d easily be able to paw through the softened snow crust to find food, plus they wouldn’t need to find as much food to keep up their body heat. Also, if it continued to get warmer, they might even find melted water on the ice to drink, instead of having to eat snow.
Loonie dashed around like a puppy, sending up sprays of white. I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. The cold had to be on its way out for good; Loonie only acted this silly when spring was on its way.
Rusty and Cocoa neighed enthusiastic greetings when I opened the barn door. I grabbed some hay and carried it to Rusty’s stall, but then realized that his manger was already half full. Of course, Mom wouldn’t feed only Twilight. Still, he looked so eager for new hay that I gave him a thin flake. After returning the hay to the broken bale, I went to Twilight’s stall.
The filly was still standing in the far corner, still glaring at me, and still not putting any weight on her back leg. The very tip of her hoof barely rested on the ground, and her entire limb trembled, though the movement was almost imperceptible.
I unlatched the stall and Twilight’s fearful anger covered me like a fog. Ever so methodically, I went through the mental motions of picking up her emotions and taking them through the back door of my mind, leaving a crack so I could be a little aware of her feelings. Then I took a deep breath and slid the rest of the way through the stall doorway. Twilight hunched up her back.
“Be still, pretty girl,” I whispered. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m going to make you strong again, if I can.”
Her leg had swollen since last night. I reached out for her, thinking that if she let me scratch her shoulder, I could slowly move along her neck, toward her head and halter where I could control her – but she shied away and hobbled to the farthest corner, then swung her hindquarters toward me and pinned her ears. I almost laughed. Like that was going to stop me.
I edged toward her, whispering as I went and keeping to her wounded side. She wouldn’t want to kick me with that leg, I reasoned. Her head turned farther to the side as I got closer. And then finally, I was near enough. I double-checked her feelings – a bit more fear than anger right now.
She flinched when I touched her. Gently, I scratched the top of her hindquarters, talking to her all the while. Her hair was thick and fuzzy, kind of like Kestrel’s collie’s fur, all soft and poofy. After a few minutes, I moved my hand to her back and stepped closer to her head. Scratched and rubbed and scratched again for long minutes.
Finally, she relaxed her ears, then, her head lowered and she sighed. Her bottom lip twitched with enjoyment. I shifted closer to her shoulders and she instantly stiffened, but then realized that a shoulder scratch felt good too – and then a neck scratch, a chest scratch, a chin scratch, and finally behind her ears.
Her eyes, dark in her golden face, appeared even larger than they were because of the black lining around them. She looked like she was wearing mascara, and as if she’d dipped her nose in ebony paint. The edges of her ears were lined in black and her mane was almost blue it was so black. Her tail was black too, and her legs up to the knees and hocks. She even had a dark stripe down her back. But the rest of her was gold. Not just any yellow gold, but a warm, burnished color, as if the sun had marked her.
“You’re so pretty, Twilight,” I murmured and alarm flared in her expression for a moment. I couldn’t help but smile. We were all going to be best friends, she, Rusty, and I. I could just feel it.
With fingers aching from all the scratching, I finally drew away. I’d decided against grabbing her halter, as she wasn’t trying to escape me anymore. Now, I’d give her a couple of minutes to eat or drink or move about before starting to work on her other side. Horses are weird that way. They can be totally familiar with something or someone being on one side of them, but then act like you’re the scariest thing in the world when you move to their other side. With Twilight being a wild horse, I knew it would probably take almost as long to get her used to me standing on the second side.
I gave her a gentle pat on the rump, then went to the grain bin and measured oats into two buckets. Cocoa and Rusty watched me eagerly, their ears pricked forward.
“Hey, buddy,” I said when I put the bucket in Rusty’s stall. He shoved his nose in the bucket, not bothering to nicker in reply. His pleasure in taking the first oats into his mouth was a lovely lightness, tap-dancing through my awareness. Cocoa nickered impatiently and struck the stall door.
“Coming.”
After the two horses ha
d eaten their oats and received a good grooming, I opened Rusty’s door to the outside. He trotted out and snorted loudly, then leapt straight into the air. I followed to watch him run across the pasture, then went to open Cocoa’s door. She raced after him, twisting her body into crazy bucks. Snow flew around them both like sea foam.
I tipped my head back. A thin skiff of clouds covered the sky. The blue was white now – so it would be getting warmer still. The mustangs were going to be all right.
Even the creature that had attacked poor Twilight would be better off.
Loonie could sleep outside again and guard the cabin and barn – and unfortunately, she’d keep the mustangs away. But maybe that was okay. If they came again to our meadow, Twilight would sense them, and she didn’t need that pull from her old life. She was a domestic horse now.
Another great thing about the warmer weather was that I could go riding without an escort now. I wouldn’t have to wait until I could force Mom away from her paintings. I could even ride over to Kestrel’s by myself. Rusty and I could go exploring again – this time with Twilight too. The thought made me feel warm all over. I felt outrageously free and happy.
But enough time wasted. Kestrel was going to be here soon, and I wanted to teach Twilight that I wasn’t scary before she met yet another beastly human. Also, I eventually wanted to clip the lead rope to her halter and teach her not to be frightened of the rope. It shouldn’t take too long as she already had some experience with it – if she remembered anything from last night. She’d been totally spaced out.
I closed the outside doors to the horses’ stalls to keep the stove’s heat inside the barn, and continued my planning. I wanted to teach Twilight to stand while being groomed. Then, as soon as her leg was better, I’d start the leading lessons. I’d show her to pick up her hooves for me to clean…
So many cool things to do.