“What was what?”
“That,” said Stevie.
Christine heard it, too. “I don’t know, but it sounds like a horse in trouble.”
“That’s what I thought. Let’s go look.”
The two girls headed toward the back of the lean-to. Carole, Lisa, and Kate had heard the sound, too, and they followed Stevie and Christine.
There in the shelter of the other side of the lean-to, a horse was lying on her side in the snow, her legs splayed awkwardly. Even in the dark, they could see that the snow around her had blood on it.
“It’s the pregnant mare!” said Lisa.
“And she’s foaling!” said Stevie.
“Well, she’s laboring to foal,” said Carole.
“She’s in trouble!” said Kate, and they all knew that was true.
“Well, then, we’ll just have to help her,” said Christine.
In an instant all five girls brought flashlights out of their pockets.
The girls had some experience in foaling, and they knew that the best possible situation was for the mare to do the whole thing without any help from humans. But there were times when the horse couldn’t do it without help. The pained noises the mare was making told the girls this was one of those times.
“Look! A foot is coming out!” said Kate. The girls all looked where Kate pointed her flashlight. They could see a small white-covered object. It was the foal’s front foot, still encased in the birth sac. The mother strained and heaved.
There should have been movement. There should have been more foot showing.
“She’s not making any progress,” said Lisa. “Is she going to be all right?”
“She is if I have anything to say about it,” Carole declared.
Carole crouched down by the mare and waited. She could tell when the next contraction began by the way the mare was straining. But the horse was exhausted and, strain as she might, it wasn’t helping the foal to come out.
Carole took hold of the foot and tugged. She didn’t pull or yank. She just held it firmly, and when she could feel the contraction working to expel the foal, she helped by tugging ever so slightly.
“It’s working!” Stevie said when the contraction stopped. “I’m sure there’s more of the foot showing this time than last.”
“I hope so,” said Carole. The mare lifted her head, turning it toward the five girls. The look in her eyes was anguished. It touched Lisa’s heart. She sat in the snow so that she could stroke the horse’s face.
“It’s okay, girl,” she whispered. “We’re here and we’re going to help you. Nothing bad is going to happen if we have anything to say about it. My friend Carole, she knows what she’s doing. She isn’t exactly a vet; in fact, she’s just a kid like me, but she’s worked with a vet. She’s helped a lot of foals be born. Come to think of it, I’ve helped once and so has Stevie. I bet Kate and Christine have, too. You’re going to be okay and you’re going to have a beautiful baby. We can already see the feet. Your baby has a white sock on one of its legs.”
The mare closed her eyes and relaxed, calmed by Lisa’s stroking and her voice.
When the next contraction came, the mare was strong enough to push hard. Carole was strong enough to pull hard.
“It’s coming! It’s coming. I can see some of the foal’s nose now!” Carole announced. “But it’s tiny, oh, so tiny. I’ve never seen such thin legs on a foal.”
With the next contraction the foal’s shoulders came out, and then something very odd.
“There are more feet!” Carole declared.
“Of course there are,” Stevie said sensibly. “Most foals do have four.”
“Not this one,” said Carole, squinting to be sure she was seeing right. “This one has at least six!”
“Insects have six legs, not horses,” Stevie said, irritated.
“Oh no,” said Kate.
“What’s the matter?” Stevie asked.
“It’s twins. It has to be.”
“Oh dear,” said Stevie. Now she understood why the mare had been walking so uncomfortably with her pregnancy. One foal was a lot for a mare to carry. Two were an enormous burden.
The other thing Stevie knew was that this was bad news. Twins were very rare in horses, much rarer than in humans. Most of the time twin pregnancies ended early in miscarriage. Sometimes one of the fetuses would be miscarried and the other might come to term and be born, but often when that happened the living foal wasn’t a very healthy one. When two fetuses survived a pregnancy, it usually spelled disaster for the foals and often for the mare as well. Stevie was scared for this mare.
“I’ve got it!” Carole said. She held the legs tightly, and as the mare did what she could to help, Carole pulled. She could tell it was helping because the foal was moving toward her.
“Come on, girl, come on. You can do it!” Lisa whispered in the mare’s ear. The mare looked up at Lisa, blinked, and then shuddered.
“It’s out!” said Carole.
Lisa looked. The foal had been born all right. The little creature was encased in the sac and lay motionless in the snow next to its mother. Kate took a blanket from the sled and wrapped the inert little body in it. Then, using her pocketknife, she opened the sac. There was only the faintest chance that the foal had survived, but if it had, it would need air. The foal didn’t move.
“Here’s the other!” Carole declared. This one came out much more quickly. Before she knew what was happening, the second foal was lying in the snow where its sibling had been just moments before. Again there was no motion.
“How’s the mother?” Christine asked.
Lisa stroked the mare’s cheek and looked into her eyes. “She looks okay. She’s tired, but okay,” Lisa said. The mare put her head down and seemed to relax. In another minute she raised her head and pushed one more time, and the afterbirths were expelled.
“The babies?” Lisa asked, almost afraid, because she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
“I’m not sure,” Kate said. “We’ve got both sacs open, but the foals aren’t moving. It’s hard to tell in the darkness. Ouch!”
“What was that?” Stevie asked her.
“That was a foal kicking me!” said Kate. “One of them is alive!”
The girls turned their flashlights on the now struggling little mass of wet brown fur. They watched it lift its head to take its first deep breaths of cool air.
“Ohhhh,” said Carole. “It’s so precious!”
“It’s a girl!” Stevie announced.
“Let the mare see her filly,” Christine said. The girls moved back and watched the mare touch her nose to the baby. The mare sniffed. The foal sniffed.
The scent of the newborn was just the tonic the mare needed to get her back on her feet. She nodded her head vigorously, shifted her weight forward, and in a matter of seconds was standing. Seconds later she was butting her newborn with her nose to get it to stand too.
The foal began to unfold her spindly legs. They splayed outward. The little baby seemed totally unable to control them. The mare licked her baby clean and dry while the baby worked to figure out why these long, awkward sticks were attached to her body.
The girls stood back and watched. They couldn’t keep their eyes off the newborn foal. She was small but perfect and seemed to be in good health. The mother and daughter kept sniffing one another, and the mother licked lovingly.
“What was that?” Lisa asked.
“What was what?” Kate responded.
“I thought I heard something over …,” she began, looking at the place where they’d left the body of the second foal.
“Kate, it’s moving,” Lisa said.
“What’s moving?”
“The second foal. It’s alive.”
“Oh, no way,” said Kate. “It was still and stiff. I’m sure it didn’t survive. It never happens, you know. Horses don’t have twins.”
“Maybe not, but it’s Christmas Eve. That’s a good time for a miracle, so you’d be
tter take a look,” Lisa insisted.
Kate looked. “Oh, get the blanket!” she said.
The girls turned their attention to see what Kate and Lisa were looking at. By the time they did, the little foal’s nose was sticking up out of the sac and reaching for life-giving air. They could see its nostrils flaring.
It didn’t take long for the mare to realize that her second baby needed some attention, too. The girls stood back while the mother finished removing the sac and began sniffing the second foal. Soon the mare began her cleanup of the little one. The foal’s tail flailed almost like a puppy’s.
“It’s happy!” said Lisa.
“Wouldn’t you be, too?” asked Stevie.
“Definitely,” Lisa agreed. “In fact, I am,” she said.
Carole suggested that it would be a good idea for all of them to move back so that this new family could have a chance to get to know one another. They sat on the bed of the sled and watched.
It wasn’t a fast process. Normally a foal would stand within a few minutes of birth, but this pair had had an unusually difficult birth, and because they were twins, each of them was unusually small. The girls reasoned that this pair had less control over their limbs than full-sized foals. However, like full-sized foals, they had a driving compulsion to stand up. Instinct told them that if they couldn’t stand up, they couldn’t get anything to eat, and food was definitely on their minds.
“What are we going to name them?” Stevie asked while they waited and watched.
“They’re both fillies,” Kate said.
“And it’s Christmas Eve,” Lisa said.
“Then there isn’t really any question, is there?” said Stevie. “Their names are Holly and Ivy.”
They didn’t even have to take a vote. Stevie had gotten it exactly right.
“Holly and Ivy it is,” Kate confirmed.
Holly, the firstborn, was the first one to make it to her feet. It took three tries before she could stay up, but she was undaunted. Once she was up, she looked over at her sister.
“I think Ivy is still trying to locate all of her legs and match them up with one another,” Stevie observed.
“Persistence runs in the family,” Carole said. “She’ll do fine.”
Carole was right. In a very few minutes Ivy was standing next to her sister. Both of them looked at their mother.
“I know that look,” said Kate. “It’s ‘Okay, what’s in this for us?’ ”
The mare stepped over to where her two babies waited patiently, as if she were trying to give them a hint about what would come next. They were quick studies. Seconds later the two of them were taking their first sips of nourishment.
Stevie sighed.
“I thought I wanted to be in Willow Creek tonight,” said Lisa. “Now, I don’t think I would have missed this sight for anything in the world.”
“Me neither,” said Carole.
“I think we should leave these guys alone now,” said Kate. “John and his dad can come back for them in the truck later tonight. I think Mama and her babies will be spending the rest of this winter as barn horses. But for now, Mama’s probably going to be hungry soon and she’ll head into the lean-to. The babies will follow. They’ll be warm enough in there.”
As if the mare had heard, she walked into the lean-to with the babies stumbling after her.
The girls remounted their horses. Stevie picked up the torch. They began the return journey.
As far as they could see, mountains encased the land. Beyond and above, the starry sky arched protectively. Ahead of them, the moon laid a path to guide them. Behind them, the bright evening star stood watch over the snow-covered world.
“JINGLE BELLS, JINGLE bells, Jingle all the way!”
The girls were singing at the tops of their voices by the time they returned to the Bar None. It was an easy song for them to sing, inspired by the bells on the sled’s harness. The horses seemed to prance to the music, such as it was.
Back at the lodge, the girls stepped into the warmth of a Christmas Eve celebration. The Devines, the Katzes, and the Finnegans were already gathered there. John and Walter had taken the horses and told the girls to go on in and get warm.
“You’re not going to believe what happened!” Stevie said excitedly as she rubbed her hands together by the fire.
“Tell me you saved another herd of horses!” Mrs. Katz joked.
“No, just three,” Carole said. “And they really needed saving, too.”
“It was twins!” Lisa said.
“What are you talking about?” Phyllis asked as she handed out hot mugs of cocoa.
“Oh, Mom, it was something,” Kate said. Everybody listened in rapt attention as the girls told the story and tried to describe the beauty of the knobby-kneed newborns. “In the end, the fillies were so tiny that they almost seemed to have to stand on tiptoe to get some milk,” Kate finished.
“But they did it,” Carole said.
“And we watched,” Lisa added.
“And it definitely made this the best Starlight Ride ever!” Stevie said.
“Speaking of the Starlight Ride, didn’t you girls say that part of the tradition is singing carols together while you have cocoa?” Mrs. Finnegan asked.
“By the town Christmas tree,” Lisa said.
“Well, this isn’t exactly a town Christmas tree,” Frank said, pointing to the huge spruce in the main room of the lodge, “but it’s the biggest one around. Want to give it a try?”
“Definitely,” Carole said. She could see that the Finnegans had brought their guitars.
The Finnegans led everybody else in a few familiar carols, like “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing,” and “Oh, Come All Ye Faithful.”
Lisa loved to sing, and it was fun with such truly good musicians. Whatever her feelings about country-and-western music, she had to admit that the Finnegans knew what they were doing. It was a treat for everybody there. In years past, Lisa’s favorite Christmas carol had always been “What Child Is This?” This year, however, the one that moved her the most was “Away in a Manger.” Somehow the night’s experience of helping in the foals’ births and watching them take their first sustenance gave Lisa a new view on what the stable might have been like on that winter night so many years ago. When they sang “The stars in the skies looked down from above,” Lisa looked at her friends. She knew they were all thinking the same thing. They were seeing the same stars she’d seen.
When the last strains of the song were finished, Phyllis announced that dinner was ready.
The Bar None guests followed their noses to the dinner table. They were greeted by a dinner that made Lisa gasp with pleasure and the Katzes grin with joy.
“It’s pot roast!” Lisa said. “You remembered that that’s what we always have! It’s my Christmas Eve tradition!”
“That’s not a pot roast. That’s a brisket,” said Ellen Katz. “It’s a Hanukkah tradition!”
“It’s both,” said Phyllis. “It’s two traditions in one, plus I’ve made what some people call potato pancakes and others call latkes, depending on whether it’s a Christmas or Hanukkah tradition, I guess!”
“Whatever it’s called, it smells wonderful!” Stevie said. “Can we start helping ourselves?”
“Please do,” said Phyllis.
The guests passed the platters around, and for a moment there were few sounds except that of silverware clinking on plates. Then came the “mmms” and other happy noises.
“What’s the significance of pot roast—er, brisket—and potato pancakes on Hanukkah?” Christine asked Ellen.
“It has to do with oil,” Ellen explained. “The holiday celebrates the miracle of oil, recalling when there was only enough oil to burn in lamps for one night, but the short supply lasted eight nights. We light the candles in the menorah to remember that, but we also eat foods high in fat, like brisket, or cooked in fat, like latkes. Some say we do that to remember the oil in the lamps and I suppose that’s true, but it’s also a reall
y good excuse to eat something our doctors might tell us isn’t the best for us. Who can argue with religious tradition?”
Everybody laughed. Stevie reached for the latkes.
“Seconds already?” Carole asked.
“I have to have seconds,” Stevie explained.
“Why?” asked Lisa.
“Because they come before thirds,” Stevie reasoned, making everybody laugh.
After dinner came plum pudding—a Devine family tradition—and then it was time for the next part of the Hanukkah celebration: the lighting of the menorah.
The Katzes had brought their own menorah, one that had been in Fred Katz’s family for generations. They asked the girls to put the candles in the holder and then asked Carole, who was the youngest person there, to light the shammes—the tall candle in the center—and to use it to light all of the other eight, each representing one of the eight nights of Hanukkah, while Fred and Ellen recited the traditional prayers in Hebrew.
When they were done, Carole told everyone more about the Kwanzaa candles she and her father always lit together.
The Finnegans sang a song called “Light One Candle.”
Ellen spoke when the music was done. “I think this pair of newlyweds has just found a new Hanukkah tradition for our new life together. Thank you all for helping us celebrate.”
“Our pleasure,” Stevie said. “And besides, now you get a chance to help us do some celebrating. I saw a pretty tree over there. It’s got a few strands of popcorn and cranberries on it, but I think it needs some other stuff, like lights, decorations, more garlands, and tons of tinsel. Will you help us?”
“I’ll hold the ladder while you decorate the top!” Ellen offered.
It didn’t take long before the bare spruce was totally covered with decorations. Some people might have thought that perhaps there were a few too many, but nobody at the ranch that night would have agreed. To those who helped and those who watched, it looked beautiful.
“Perfect!” Stevie declared, climbing down from the ladder.
The Finnegans, who had been singing “Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly” while the others had climbed to perilous heights, put away their guitars and applauded the decorators. Stevie took a bow.
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