by Lara Sweety
The mare was a big bay reining horse that had never seen a show pen because of a scar on her hock. She was slung low and wide from years of being a broodmare. “Jilly” had raised several quality colts and fillies. The mare had been noticeably nervous at feeding time earlier in the evening.
Derrick had just drifted off when he felt a shake on the bed. He woke up with a start. “Get your clothes on. I’m going to need help with Jilly. I can’t get Doc Ramsey’s answering service, and the other vet is already out on emergency calls.”
Derrick bolted up and threw on jeans, a t-shirt, and boots. He joined a nervous Laurel in the barn.
“Please be very quiet and as slow moving as possible. Jilly really likes us both, but instinct can be stronger than their trust in a human.”
They both moved close to the dimly lit foaling stall. The big mare was covered in sweat. She nickered nervously as she pushed up onto her big belly from lying straight, legs out. Laurel had felt there was something wrong from the beginning when the mare seemed extremely uncomfortable. She normally had easy births.
Laurel had kept her distance watching the mare’s labor progress until she realized they had a big problem.
“Oh Jilly,” Laurel said, as she realized the foals front feet were not both accompanying its nose.
“In between contractions this baby has to go back a few inches so I can grab that other foot.” Watching the mare carefully as she rested between hard contractions, Laurel deftly slipped an arm into the mare’s birth canal, shoved, fished, and then produced another little hoof. Laurel made a quick adjustment and then removed her arm just in time.
“Ow, damn! Mare you could have held out a few seconds longer.” She gave the mare a disapproving look and massaged her arm. Derrick looked at her questioningly.
“A mare can break your arm if you get hung up in her just right trying to adjust a foal.” She stroked the mare reassuringly.
The hard contractions were telling on the mare; the foal was big.
“Derrick, get this baby’s legs and when I say pull, pull gently, and in the same arc as the foal, give a low tug. She’s gotta pass those shoulders.”
Derrick looked at Laurel for a moment and then reached into the torn amniotic sack and grasped the slippery, wet legs of the foal.
“Pull.” Laurel said firmly, but in a hushed tone, watching the mares contracting body, now frothed in sweat, her shoulders and flank, white.
Derrick pulled during the contraction. The mare groaned as she heaved.
“Stop, she’s done for the moment.” Laurel was watching the mare carefully.
It took a couple more tries to get the foal’s shoulders to pass and a few more to deliver its hips.
“Holy shit!” Derrick was wide-eyed at how much space the foal had taken at its hips to pass from the mare. He pulled the foal away slightly and stepped aside. He inspected a trickle of blood from his vantage point.
“I think she has a tear. She’s bleeding.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me. This foal is huge!” A minute later, the foal was completely free of the mare and the mare rested uneasily.
Laurel motioned for Derrick to follow her and they exited the stall. “We have to give her a chance to take it from here and not interfere.”
The mare delivered the placenta in a push, but a large piece hung on and it was dragging from her as she heaved to get up. Weak, she staggered, stepping on it and yanking it free. The mare froze, shuddered, and groaned in pain. She struggled to nicker to her new baby, which was struggling with his long front legs.
Then it began. The trickle became a stream. The mare was hemorrhaging.
Laurel’s voice was one of action, laced heavily with concern. “Try Doc Ramsey on the phone again,” she shot at Derrick, running for the drug cabinet in the tack room. Spurting syringes in one hand, and alcohol pads in the other, Laurel rushed back to the stall and stepped in to shoot the mare with drugs to help with the bleeding and pain.
Within minutes, the mare stopped sweating, but the blood continued. Already weak from the rough delivery and still bleeding profusely, the mare stumbled to her knees, glassy-eyed. Derrick, sensing what was happening, stepped in, and gathered the wet foal, removing it from the stall.
In early stages of shock, the mare rolled trying to relieve the pain, then staggered up to slam against the stall wall in pain. Finally, stumbling, she crashed to the floor. It was the last time she would lay down. She tried in vain to regain her legs and flopped, nearly screaming in pain, blood still pouring from her.
Too dangerous to step inside, Laurel watched in horror as the mare thrashed, slamming against the stall walls over and over. She was reduced to twitching and groaning, as she died, blood pouring from her torn uterus. Tears streamed down Laurel’s face as she watched in horror as Jilly took her last breath. There hadn’t even been time for Laurel to get her pistol.
The new foal’s first attempt at a nicker brought Laurel’s eyes to Derrick. He was still standing in the aisle-way, watching the events unfold. Derrick stood covered in blood and soaked in sweat from holding the huge foal in his arms the whole time. His muscles were quivering, tears in his eyes, the wet foal resting against his straining body.
“Oh God, the baby.” Laurel spun around and went to a nearby stall that was clean, and prepared for foaling.
Derrick followed her, straining to walk, his arms, legs, and back tired. Sweat pouring from him, he walked into the stall and slid down the wall, foal in arms. The foal struggled as they landed. Realizing his position, he slid gently from underneath the baby. He stood, shaking out his arms.
Laurel had disappeared only to reappear with clean, old towels to dry the foal. “Here, I’ve got phone calls to make.” Her voice was dull, her face expressionless. “I’ve got to milk that mare, too, if this baby is gonna live.” Derrick shuddered at the thought of Laurel having to handle the dead mare.
By late morning, the vet had reassured Laurel that she couldn’t have done anything differently or better than he could have. Doc Ramsey had been all over the foal pronouncing him “healthy as a horse” in an attempt to cheer Laurel up. The foal had been aptly nicknamed “Big” and the little wobbly brown beast was full of his own mother’s colostrum, nursed from a rubber lamb’s nipple, attached to an old soda bottle.
Derrick had been amazed with each step the new baby had taken. He didn’t leave the stall until the foal had eaten and finally plopped down to rest.
Looking haggard from lack of sleep and the loss of the mare, Laurel inhaled deeply. “Derrick, I can’t thank you enough for stepping in to help me. I couldn’t have asked for anything more from Ja--, anybody...” her voice trailed off and she looked at the aisle floor. “The hard part isn’t over. It’s going be a challenge to save the little,” she chuckled softly, “uh, big guy.”
By mid-afternoon, sharing watch and feedings between other chores, both were exhausted and sat in the aisle way, leaning against a stall. An extra tall trailer rattled into the drive.
Derrick looked at Laurel, eyebrows raised.
“Wet nurse.”
The steps into the barn were accompanied by gentle nickers, “Laurel, I brought you Betty Jean.”
“Did you?” She grinned at the name.
“Yeah, she’s low to the ground and a good milker.”
Ty Laird had the area’s largest supply of nurse mares. Mostly Clydesdale and draft horse mixes. Off the trailer stepped a sweet-faced bay mare with long white socks but no blaze on her face.
“Thank you for coming so fast, Ty. This baby is huge and we got colostrum in him, but he needs a mama.” Ty assured her that the unusually short, but stout, Clyde would work. She seemed to love all of her adopted children.
Ty tried to get Laurel to laugh. “Or, you could always try a goat.”
“I hate goats.” She said flatly, and they all three shared a laugh. Ty had watched her get head-butted hard by a goat when they were on a high school agriculture field trip.
Away from Jilly’
s stall, they placed the mare with the laid-back attitude, and worked to introduce the foal to her, smearing her udder with the dead mare’s milk. Big reached the mare easily and it was love at first nicker for the odd pair. Had it not been for, his refined head and the absence of long feathering hairs on the back of the colt’s legs, Big might have been mistaken as actually being the nurse mare’s foal.
When evening finally came, a neighbor arrived with a backhoe to bury the dead mare. Laurel stared in anguish, watching Derrick and the other man open up the barn to drag the mare’s limp body to her final resting place. Derrick had designated a place well away from the house. As the backhoe went to the task of digging the deep grave, he went to check on Laurel.
She sat on the deck, not enjoying the breeze that brought the drone of the backhoe to the house. Laurel was numb from the pain of losing Jilly and the lack of sleep. Derrick trotted up to the house in a tired lumber. He pulled up a chair facing hers. He looked at her with sorry eyes, not knowing what to do or say. Piercing the silence with its somber roar, the backhoe droned on, laboring in the heavy dirt. Laurel began to cry, and then sob uncontrollably. He pulled her into his arms.
They sat, knee between knees in sad embrace, Laurel’s tears mixing with the sweat, blood, and dirt on Derrick’s arm. Neither had the strength to care. Her sobs eventually quieted, he held her gently, and the noise of the backhoe came to the forefront as it finished its dreary task.
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Darra Thomas came that evening with her daughter, Ellie, to spell the two. Ellie made a pot of coffee in the tack room, sharing duties with her mother, taking turns on watch. The women kept a knowledgeable eye on Big and his new mom. They finally gave up trying to switch off. As soft giggles filled the air, they caught up on life as only a mother and daughter could.
With nothing else to do, they talked the night away offering constant background noise for the barn until the nurse-mare came up behind them, at the front of the stall, snorted, and shook her head. Her little watch was snoring softly in the fresh straw and that was the nurse-mare’s signal to the two women to pipe down.
Realizing they had just been given “what for” by a horse, they burst into stifled laughter. Darra covering her mouth with one hand and Ellie with two. Speaking softly though the rest of the night, they drank coffee and attended to barn chores with plenty of girl talk in between.
Ty came back about six the next morning to relieve them and check on the newly paired mare and foal. Derrick was already up working over the ruined foaling stall, ridding it of the blood-soaked bedding, sanitizing, doing whatever he could to rid it of the previous night’s horrific ordeal.
Repairs would come later in the day when a hammer wouldn’t wake Laurel. Sleep be damned for him, he wasn’t going to let this woman endure anything else right now. She’d done nothing to deserve the pain and nothing to deserve dealing with him being an ass. His shoulders slumped at the thought and he decided, from that moment on, to show her the real Derrick. She deserved him.
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May turned into June. The hay field that Laurel loved to watch so much from the kitchen was topping out. The orchard grass and timothy were thick, moving in undulating waves on the breeze in gentle hues of green with hints of blue. It was a Thursday morning when Laurel told Derrick that the hay crew would be there that evening to cut.
“Derrick...," she dropped off in thought, “these boys are not used to anyone who is different, in any way, from them.
“I’m betting that one of them will say something we won’t like. They usually do.” She studied his reaction. He winced a little, but remained quiet. Laurel knew they could be a challenge of character for anyone; the Smythe boys and crew were rough, crude, belligerent, and—racist.
That afternoon, Gerald Smythe and his crew arrived, big black diesel pickups rattling, with custom trailers hauling big new tractors, a haybine, mowers, rakes, and bailers. The mowers, having massive span, had sides that folded in.
Gerry wasn’t the most congenial person. He chewed while he worked, and his leathery face sported lips always stained with tobacco juice. Gerry and his crew ran a streamlined custom hay operation that could make short work of the largest hay field.
“Cut it, boys!” He swooped the air in a circle with his hand. Two tall young men she knew to be around Derrick’s age were already unloading the machinery. When Gerry saw Laurel step off the porch and head toward him in the drive, he grinned. She’s a sight for sore eyes.
Laurel watched Smythe’s face change. He scowled when he saw Derrick, “What the hell is this?” He spat out a wad of thick brown juice on the ground.
“You mean who is this?” Laurel retorted with a disgusted tone.
“This is Derrick Jones.” Derrick nodded to Gerry from his position on the porch.
He turned, “Watch yourself, Laurel.” His bow-legged saunter took him toward his equipment.
She shook her head, waved off Derrick, and took off after Gerry, prairie skirt billowing in the breeze. Derrick watched her carefully.
Derrick had grown protective of Laurel. He wasn’t sure why, but he wasn’t going to let some drooling redneck get handsy with her or push her around, he knew that much. He stared intently at the man she was giving hell to.
Derrick’s big stride had taken about two steps to reach the porch swing. He saw Gerry Smythe looking over Laurel’s shoulder and motioning toward the porch. Derrick stood his full height, squared his shoulders, and walked to the edge. Leaning on a post, he propped his left leg over the rail, tilted his dusty cap back, and pulled out his knife to clean his nails. It was a show of bravado as much as a necessity.
The knife and cap had been gifts from Laurel after a rare day of shopping that Derrick had tolerated easily. They’d shared a quiet laugh when she’d stood on tiptoes to put a flat-billed hat on him sideways and he’d removed it to replace it with his rolled bill hat from the feed store, squaring it over his brow. The exchange fueled a bond of trust and understanding. She told him of the knife, “Every man should have one.”
There was something about her that stirred Derrick, and he couldn’t quite place it. She was much older, but the difference seemed lost between them. Laurel was naturally beautiful in the jeans, t-shirt, and ponytail, which she felt at home in. She felt so right—at least he imagined she would feel so right against him.
Getting on very well, they had worked every day side-by-side, laughing at each other’s jokes, bouncing off each other when they didn’t have a good day. The give and take had become comfortable—easy. At least until he would catch her bent over in the barn aisle, then he’d have to excuse himself to calm down. That problem was showing up more frequently.
He’d analyzed the hell out of it. Was he just hot and bothered in general, or was it her that he truly desired? Each time he’d come back to just wanting her. Not wanting to break her confidence, he wasn’t going to act on it until the time was right. He’d be a gentleman if it killed him in the process.
“Gerry, you’ll keep your boys in hand, or so help me, I’ll find someone else to bale my hay.” Laurel warned Smythe.
“What, Laurel, is he more to you than a hired hand?” He smacked snidely.
Quietly, removing her hands from her hips, she said, “He’s just a man who needed a different place to be. You know about that Gerry, or have you forgotten?”
Gerry’s had been a similar story when they were in high school. He was the son of a woman with a dark past, and he’d been in a lot of trouble before moving to Summerville.
It was a town you didn’t move into easily. Taking him at face value, Laurel had been one of his best friends in high school, at least until he’d tried to kiss her one night after a football game. She’d resisted his advances, and it burned him. He’d never forgiven her and was still jealous of any man that could get her attention. Gerry had eventually married old money. If he hadn’t, Laurel figured with his attitude, he’d still be standing on the outside looki
ng in.
Gerry had turned away from her to unchain equipment.
“Yeah,” she said looking back over her shoulder as she walked back toward the house, “…he is more to me than a hired hand, and he’s more of a gentleman that you will ever be.”
He didn’t look at her, but was loud so she could hear him. “We’ll have you done and in the barn by the end of the weekend, Laurel. That is, as long as you keep him away from things.”
Laurel tossed her hands in the air signaling surrender. She was disgusted. Some never learn. She trotted back toward the porch to stop Derrick from advancing. “Let’s go out for dinner.”
“Why?” Derrick growled. “What did he say to you?”
Laurel noticed his hands balled into fists and his jaw clinched. She glanced over her shoulder, then back. “It doesn’t matter—I was planning on going out anyway.”
She caught him by the arm as he started past her.
“Derrick, please. Don’t. For me? Look, there are times when you need to avoid trouble instead of walking right into it. You wouldn’t walk into quicksand if you knew it was there, would you?” He stared at her for a moment, and she could see the inferno behind his eyes begin to cool.
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They hit the highway as she turned right and took the on-ramp to head west. He looked at her with raised brows. “I want to show you a few things,” she said.
Derrick had noticed she looked a little different that evening. Her lips looked a little fuller, her eyes sparkled their hazel green a little brighter from under thick, dark lashes. Her high cheekbones were accented with a hint of blush and her usual flyaway ponytail had been replaced with gentle waves. Silver crosses dangled from tender lobes.
Her colorful deep rose and black shirt was splashed with rhinestones, in a paisley pattern in just the right spots. The low cut revealed what he’d already assumed. Beautiful, soft but firm and just the right size for his hands. Her jeans were newer and hugged her curves. Her boots had carved overlays in different colors of brown and tan leather. She looked and smelled incredible. He sunk down in the seat a little and pulled his cap over his head, feigning a nap. It was going to be a long ride with her that close.