Gift Horse

by Dandi Daley Mackall

  “Nickers!” I screamed.

  A crow burst from a bare branch. The flap of its wings echoed like the last sound on earth.

  I dashed into the barn, the words pounding my brain: Run to the pasture! Once inside, I had to stop. Snow glare had blinded me.

  In the stillness I heard a nicker, the most beautiful sound in the whole world.

  “Nickers?” Please let it be Nickers.

  She nickered again. The sound rattled my heart. My hands shook.

  Racing to her stall, I spotted her. She was lit from behind by the sun breaking through the connecting paddock. Her mane waved as she tossed her head and sneezed.

  I burst into her stall and wrapped my arms around her. “Nickers, Nickers,” I cried into her already wet neck. Snowflakes from the pasture had melted into her white winter coat. The smell of wet horse filled my lungs as they heaved with sobs. “Thank you, God. She’s all right. Everything’s all right.”

  “Winnie, what’s wrong?” Eddy Barker ran into the barn, stopping like I had, his big brown eyes blinking. His Cleveland Indians cap, worn backward, was white with snow.

  “Barker, over here!” I called. Only somebody like Eddy Barker—or Catman—would have chased me down to make sure I was okay.

  Barker’s dad trotted into the barn, bumped into his son, and almost knocked him down. “Is she here?”

  Like father, like son. Like mother too. The Barkers are the nicest family I know. The parents teach African-American studies and art and poetry and even computer science at Ashland University. Mr. Barker still looks like the football player he was in college. And Barker is getting more like him every day.

  “I’m in the stall with Nickers!” I called. “She’s okay. Everything’s all right.” I swiped my tears with the back of my hand. My fingers were numb and tingly.

  “You had us worried,” Mr. Barker said in his deep voice.

  “Man, Winnie!” Barker came into the stall with Nickers and me. “I thought something awful had happened.”

  “Me too,” I explained. “Somebody played a horrible trick on me.” I could almost feel the knot of fear in my stomach turn into a fireball of anger. “I got this urgent e-mail on the help line, telling me to run to the pasture. I can’t remember the words exactly, but it made me think something was wrong with Nickers.”

  Mr. Barker joined us in the stall. He stroked Nickers’ jaw. I don’t think I’d ever seen him with my horse. It was a nice picture—black against white. I sighed. Nickers was safe.

  “I’m sorry somebody put you through that, Winnie,” Mr. Barker said softly.

  “Why would anybody do that?” Barker asked. “I don’t get it.”

  “Mark’s in the car, Winnie,” Mr. Barker said. “We should get going. You heard that Irene had puppies while we were in Texas over Thanksgiving? One needs a shot. We’re on our way to the vet’s.”

  Irene is Mark’s chocolate Lab, and Mark is one of Barker’s five brothers. Barker trained a dog for each of them.

  “Thanks for following me home, Mr. Barker,” I said.

  “I want to take a look around before we go.” Barker was already moving through the stall toward the pasture. “Somebody mean enough to get you upset like that could be dumb enough to stick around and see the result.” He glanced at his dad. “I’ll just take a minute.”

  “Dad?” Mark Barker shuffled into the barn. He was holding a squirmy, black puppy. Mark’s pretty big for a seven-year-old. He walked over to us, smiling Barker’s smile.

  I had to pet the puppy. It licked my hand. “He’s so cute, Mark!”

  “His name is Zorro,” Mark said proudly.

  “Mark, I told you it might be easier on you if you didn’t name the puppies,” his dad warned.

  “I’m keeping all of them,” Mark snapped.

  Mr. Barker sighed. “We’ve been all through this, Mark. What on earth would we do with three more dogs? We’ll find good homes for them. I promise.”

  Mark shook his head.

  I felt for him. Back in Wyoming, Mom and I had the same problem. We had tried to keep from naming the horses, too, hoping it would keep us from getting too attached. But it never worked.

  “Dad! Winnie!” Barker shouted from the pasture. “Come out here!”

  Mr. Barker ducked under Nickers’ neck to get to the back of the stall where the open stall door led to the paddock. “Maybe Eddy caught somebody!”

  “Stay, Nickers,” I whispered, hurrying out to the paddock after Mr. Barker. I didn’t want to miss this. If it was Summer Spidell, she was really going to be sorry.

  I stopped beside Mr. Barker. We shielded our eyes from the glare and gazed into the pasture.

  “Eddy?” Mr. Barker called.

  “Over here!” Barker’s voice came from the back of the pasture.

  I took off running for him. “Barker? Who is it? Don’t let ’em go!”

  I glimpsed Barker next to somebody . . . or something. As they came into focus, I could see that he was standing next to a horse!

  “Look what I found!” Barker shouted. “I didn’t know you got another horse, Winnie.”

  I walked up to the horse, a dapple-gray mare, her head hung low, eyes half shut. Her tangled mane twisted against the thickest winter coat I’d ever seen. The poor thing looked beaten down, even though she stood at about 16 hands. Her backbone stuck up, and her belly sagged down. Even under the fur, ribs showed high on her sides.

  Amazed, I stared into her glazed eyes.

  “Is it sick?” Barker asked, his hand on the mare’s withers. “It doesn’t look that good to me.”

  Mr. Barker walked up. “Another horse? Where did you get it, Winnie?”

  “I didn’t,” I managed to say. “I have no idea where this horse came from.”

  “You’re kidding!” Mr. Barker said.

  Barker was pulling at something caught in the mare’s mane. “Hey, look at this!” He pulled at a skinny red ribbon. A tiny bow appeared. Below it was an index card with a message scrawled in pencil:

  To Winnie the Horse Gentler—Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

  I stared at the crooked letters dangling from the red ribbon. “It doesn’t make any sense. Who would give me a horse?”

  “Maybe it’s an early Christmas gift from your dad?” Barker suggested.

  I laughed. “No way. Not my dad.” Dad didn’t like horses much more than Lizzy did. It was Mom who loved horses. Dad already thought I spent too much time with four-legged creatures. He always accuses me of having more horse friends than kid friends, which is true. But it’s not a bad thing. Horses have noble character.

  “I don’t think Winnie’s dad would pick this horse,” Mr. Barker reasoned. “It really doesn’t look healthy, does it?”

  “Easy, girl,” I murmured.

  The mare jerked away, nose to the sky.

  Barker scurried out of the way.

  “Careful, Winnie!” Mr. Barker cried.

  “I won’t hurt you,” I cooed. “Poor baby’s been hurt by humans. She’s headshy, that’s all.” I scratched her withers, but she didn’t seem to notice. She was too intent on keeping her head out of reach, safe from whatever people had done to her.

  I tried scratching her back, her shoulder, her rump, and her neck before finding her soft spot on her chest. My mom had taught me that every horse has a secret spot that feels so good when you scratch it they’ll forget everything else and be grateful.

  As I scratched her chest, the mare slowly lowered her head. Without stopping my scratching, I reached my free hand to scratch her jaw too. She jerked away but lowered her head again. After a minute she allowed me to stroke her forehead.

  I traced my finger to the top of her head, over the poll, to a spot just behind her ears. She let me rub her ears and get a good feel of them to tell if she was cold or feverish. She felt okay.

  “What’s wrong with her, Winnie?” Mr. Barker asked. He glanced back toward the barn, where Mark stood with his puppy.

  “I think sh
e’s starving, for one thing.” I eased past Barker and pointed to her sharp backbone. Part of her rump had bare patches on it, where she’d rubbed the hair off. “She’s probably dehydrated too—not enough water.” Gently I pinched a fold of skin in front of the flank, then let it go. “See? If the fold flattens out right away, she’s got enough water. But it’s holding the wrinkle. I have to get her to drink.”

  I led her toward the barn by her crude, dirty rope halter. She stumbled and heaved. A rasping came from her belly and nostrils. I could tell by the slope of her jaw that she was old. But her legs were surprisingly well muscled, as if she’d been fit once upon a time.

  She followed me inside, past Mark. Zorro yapped, but the dapple didn’t care.

  “Whose is it?” Mark asked.

  “I wish I knew, Mark.” I put her in Towaco’s stall, next to Nickers, who was snorting and pawing the ground.

  Nickers squealed at the intruder. But when she stuck her head over the divider to see the enemy, she changed her mind. She nickered like she knew the mare was in trouble.

  “You know . . . ,” Barker said, as if thinking out loud, “maybe somebody dumped the horse in your pasture because they knew you’d take care of it.”

  Something clicked inside my brain. “That’s it! Barker, the Pet Help Line!”

  He frowned at me.

  “This morning! I got an e-mail.”

  He nodded. “You told us. An e-mail that said to run to the pasture—”

  “Not that e-mail! Before that one! Somebody wrote me about a horse that was about to go to slaughter. I told them they should give it to somebody who could take care of it! You think this is that horse?”

  We all turned to the old mare, as if she could give us the answers.

  “Makes sense,” Barker commented.

  “Were both e-mails from the same person?” Mr. Barker asked.

  I tried to remember. “I didn’t even look at who sent the emergency message. I was so worried about Nickers, I just ran out of the store.”

  “Who sent the first one?” Barker asked.

  I offered the mare water and tried to think. I repeat: Having a photographic memory is not the same thing as having a good memory. If my brain doesn’t snap a picture—and it hadn’t—I’m on my own. “Something like . . . upside down . . . no, that’s not it. Topsy-turvy! It was from Topsy-Turvy something, Barker!”

  “I’ll check the help line e-mails on our home computer,” Barker offered. “At least we can find out if the messages came from the same person.”

  The mare drank in long gulps. I pulled her head up so she wouldn’t choke.

  “Let’s get going then,” Mr. Barker said, herding Mark and Zorro out of the barn. “I’ll bet you can track those e-mails as soon as we get back from the vet’s, Eddy. Maybe your mother can help.”

  I heard them drive off. If anybody could use the computer to track down the owner of this “gift horse,” it was Barker.

  The mare stretched her neck and coughed, gagging at the end of it. I wanted to help, but all I could do was watch and scratch her. She closed her eyes, and her ears lopped to the sides, meaning I don’t feel good, and it doesn’t even matter.

  If I ever found out who’d taken such rotten care of her, they’d be sorry.

  I fed the gift horse the richest feed we had in the barn. She nuzzled it but didn’t take much. I’d only had her for a few minutes and already my heart ached for her. “You’re safe now, girl,” I murmured.

  A cat mewed. Then several cats growled. I knew without turning around that Catman was in the barn.

  Note to self: Catman Coolidge could grow up to be a successful cat burglar.

  “Look at this, Catman,” I said, without turning around.

  He moved soundlessly to the stall. “Far out!”

  “Can you believe it? Someone just left this poor, sick horse in my pasture—with a bow around her neck!” I turned back to the horse and inched my hand up her chest to her cheek.

  She jerked her head up. I waited until her muscles relaxed and her head drooped back down. Then I tried again, moving my fingers slowly until I reached her muzzle. I lifted her lip and checked her gums, which had shrunk, making her teeth look long.

  Catman stepped right up and peered into the mare’s mouth. “Long in the tooth?”

  “The older a horse gets, the more the gums pull up. It makes the teeth look long.” I pressed my thumb against the gum above her front teeth, held it a few seconds, and let it go. “Look how the gum stays white. The color should have come right back. Whoever had this horse didn’t give her enough water.”

  I told Catman about the e-mails. “Barker thinks they’re from the same person. He’s trying to track whoever it is on the Internet.”

  I slid my fingers to the sides of the mare’s mouth. “See the spaces between the teeth and the way her lower incisors are worn almost to the gums? She’s old, all right.”

  “How old?” Catman asked.

  I increased pressure on the sides of her mouth until she opened for me. I pointed to the groove on the surface of the upper incisor. “That’s the Galvayne’s groove. It’s the best way to tell a horse’s age. The groove doesn’t even show up until a horse is 10. Then it works down the tooth a little each year. Halfway down is 15. At 20, the line reaches the bottom. Then the groove starts fading again. At 25, you can only see it in the bottom half of the tooth, and it’s gone by age 30.”

  I let go of her mouth and scratched her chest. “She’s about 21.”

  “Groovy!” Catman exclaimed.

  “Not so groovy when you’re starved, dehydrated, and who-knows-what else.” I didn’t want to feel so much for the mare already. At least I hadn’t named her yet.

  “Winnie, are you out here?” Dad walked into the barn, carrying Mason on his shoulders. “Mason wanted to—” Dad stopped cold.

  Mason squirmed off Dad’s shoulders and wriggled to the ground. Dad didn’t seem to notice. He was staring at the old, gray mare.

  If I’d had any doubts whether the horse could possibly have come from my dad, there was no doubt now.

  “What’s that?” he finally asked.

  “Horse,” Catman answered.

  Dad walked closer, frowning at the horse as if he’d never seen one before. “Where did it come from? Did you get another problem horse?”

  “Well, she is a problem,” I admitted.

  Mason ran to the stall. “Towaco?” he asked. But you could tell by the way his shoulders sagged as he peered into the stall that Mason knew the horse wasn’t his beloved Towaco. Still he didn’t leave. He stared at the mare, his blue eyes huge through his glasses.

  “What’s going on, Winnie?” Dad’s voice had an edge now.

  So I told him the whole story, except for the part about how scared I’d been when I thought something had happened to Nickers. “She’s really sick, Dad—starved and dehydrated, but maybe worse. I’m just trying to get her to eat and drink.”

  The whole time I was talking, Mason kept saying, “Horse! Horse!” and getting louder and louder. He stuck his hand under the stall door and tried to pet the mare.

  “Mason!” Dad scooped the kid up and held him like a football. “Winnie, I’m going to Loudonville for a while. This horse cannot stay here! Find out who dumped that animal here and give it back.”

  “We’re trying to find—,” I started.

  “Not good enough.” He glanced at Mason, who twisted in his arms, trying to get down. “This is all we need—a sick horse to get attached to.” He hoisted Mason higher. “Winnie, if you haven’t found the owner by the time I get back, we’ll have to call the animal-control people in Mansfield. This isn’t our problem.”

  “That’s not fair!” I cried. Everybody knew how the animal-control people controlled unwanted animals.

  Dad started off, then turned back. “Life’s not always fair, Winnie. You have until I get back.”

  I wanted to run after my dad, but I knew it wouldn’t have done any good. He was on a mi
ssion—Madeline’s mission—to protect and defend Mason, no matter the cost.

  Even though it made me as angry as a weaned colt, I understood what Dad was afraid of. He didn’t want Mason to get attached to this horse and then have it . . . I couldn’t finish, couldn’t go there. Life would be a lot better if horses . . . and people . . . never had to die.

  I don’t remember fighting with Dad in Wyoming. But then I don’t remember seeing much of him either. He’d leave for his insurance office before Lizzy and I got up, and sometimes he wouldn’t get home until we were in bed.

  After Mom died, Lizzy was about the only thing holding our family together. Dad and I stopped trying.

  It wasn’t until we’d settled in Ashland that things started getting better between Dad and me. But even now, every time we start “joining up,” which is what horse people call it when they bond with their horses, something like this happens.

  “Gotta split.” Catman set down Nelson, my black barn cat.

  “Catman, help Barker find the owner of this horse!” I begged.

  He shrugged. Then he left.

  After giving the dapple more water, I went in the house and phoned Barker. Matthew, the nine-year-old, answered, and I asked for Barker.

  “He’s gone,” Matthew informed me.

  “Where?”

  “To see Ralph at the shelter.” Ralph Evans is the in-between pastor at our church, but he also runs the local animal shelter.

  “Did he track my e-mail from the help line?” I asked, hoping Barker was hot on the trail.

  “I’m not my brother’s secretary.” Matthew is the only Barker who says stuff like that. I could picture his face, scrunched into a frown, kind of like his bulldog’s.

  “Thank you, Matthew,” I said sweetly and hung up. I hustled back to the barn, grabbed the hackamore, and hurried to Nickers. “Let’s go see Barker.”

  “Me too.” Catman appeared in the stallway, scaring the life out of me. He walked to the bale of hay at the end of the aisle and stood on it. “Double.”

  I’d only ridden Nickers double once, a short ride with my dad holding on for dear life. And I was pretty sure the Catman had never ridden double or single. But I could use all the help I could get.