New Hoofprints in the Snow, page 6
“Oh, now you’re looking down on me?” Billy asked as he tightened the strap on the saddle.
“That’s not what I meant,” Ramon said and laughed, a playful note in his voice that hadn’t been there in a long time.
Billy laughed, fixing his hat. “I know. I’m just giving you he… ck…. Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Yeah. Thanks for helping out with this. It means a lot to me.”
“No problem. You’re a teammate. Coach is always telling us how important team is.”
Maia and Emma reached the fence and turned to walk alongside it. “How far are we going?” Maia asked.
“Not too far,” Emma replied. “We don’t want to wear either Ramon or Selena out the first day. I think it’s going really well.”
“Me too.” Maia nodded.
“Back this way!” Cassie shouted and waved at them from the barn door where she stood next to Maia’s grinning mother.
The fact that both her mother and brother were grinning like fools made Maia happier than she’d been since she’d had to give up Selena. She smiled at Emma and gave her an awkward sideways hug as they walked. “Thanks for suggesting this. It’s really awesome.”
Emma hugged her back. “I’m just glad it makes you and your family happy.”
Maia wasn’t sure she could explain the happiness she felt right then to anyone, and she didn’t want to try. With Emma on one side, Selena on the other, and Ramon easily riding behind her, everything seemed right in the world.
10
AFTER THE ride, Cassie invited everyone up to the house for refreshments. Emma’s mom had made cupcakes and punch to celebrate the new venture into hippotherapy that Ramon’s ride symbolized. Emma’s mom and Maia’s mom chatted in the kitchen, while Billy, Ramon, Maia, and Emma hung out on the front porch, eating cupcakes and drinking their punch.
Emma laughed at something Maia said and brought her red cup upward. “Here’s to you, Ramon. Our first hippotherapy client!”
Maia was the first to raise her own cup and touch Emma’s. Then everyone did.
“So, Ramon, how was it?” Maia asked. “Do you think it might help?”
“I thought it was great. Finally able to do something—even if Billy and Marco had to help hold me on the horse,” Ramon said, directing his next question to Emma. “Why don’t they use straps and tie my legs on to the saddle?”
“Even as tame and trained as Selena is, she’s still a horse, and horses can be unpredictable,” Emma said, shrugging. “Billy and Marco aren’t there only to hold you on the horse. They’re also there in case something happens and we need to get you off her quickly.”
“‘Something happens’? What do you mean?” Ramon asked, a note of concern entering his voice.
“Like… well, what if something spooks her? We’ve tried to prepare her for all kinds of things that could happen, but she’s still a horse. Something could happen that we couldn’t have predicted. We don’t want you to get hurt,” Emma said then pointed to Maia and herself. “Maia and I have practiced emergency dismounts, but because you can’t move your legs and lower body, you need someone else to help you get off the horse if, as I said, something should happen.”
“That makes sense,” Billy said. “Even after the training we did, I didn’t realize sidewalkers were that important. I kinda thought we just kept him up on the horse if he started to slide off.” He smiled at Maia and she smiled back.
“And you, Maia, if you’re leading Selena, you need to be focused on her and her needs. You should be reading her at all times and if something should happen, you’re to work with her and get her calmed down. Leave Ramon to Billy and Marco,” Emma said, wishing Maia would smile at her instead of Billy.
“I’ve done a lot of desensitizing with Selena to try to make her bombproof,” Maia said.
“I can tell. You did a great job.” Emma grinned. “She was nearly ready when you brought her to us. It took us no time at all to get her ready the rest of the way. We’ve been working with some of the other horses for almost a year since Mom had the idea to help supplement things a bit by doing therapy as well as rescue. Oops and Clover, mostly. Carl isn’t quite that ready.”
“Riding was a lot of fun,” Ramon said. “I’m probably going to be sore tomorrow. I’m pretty sure I used muscles that haven’t been used in a long time.”
“Probably. Next session, Mom’ll have you do all sorts of things. Raise your arms to your sides, turn around backward on the horse and ride, toss a ball into a basket… there are all kinds of ways to use your muscles on a horse.”
“Emma, that sounds really cool,” Maia said. “How did you learn all of this? Did you watch someone go through a therapy session once?”
“When I was young—really young, mind you—my parents had me go to hippotherapy for physical therapy. I still remember some of it,” Emma said, smiling at Maia. “I’ve also been a sidewalker, horse leader, and all that, so I’ve been through the gambit.”
“Riding backward sounds scary,” Billy said.
“It can be if you’re not used to it, even if you have someone leading the horse,” Emma said as the phone rang inside the house. “But most importantly, it moves your body in a different way and stretches the muscles differently.”
“Still have sidewalkers, right?” Ramon said.
“Of course. They’re not going to leave—”
Emma’s mom opened the door and said, “Emma, we’ve got a rescue call. There’s a horse in Elbert County, up near Kiowa, we need to go pick up. Can you get things ready?”
“Sure, Mom,” Emma said and got ready to walk down the steps on her way to the barn.
“Hey, can I go too?” Maia asked after her, glancing in at her mom behind Cassie. She nodded yes.
“Sure, if you want. C’mon, though, we need to be quick,” Emma said.
IT WAS almost dusk when they arrived at the scene of the rescue. As Emma exited the vehicle, the sweet stench of rotting flesh hit her. Looking at what they were going to have to work with, she wasn’t surprised.
Three horses had been tied up to the same tree, each with its head suspended high enough that it couldn’t reach down and eat the grass under its feet. Two of the horses were obviously dead and had been for a while, heads against the tree and bodies stretched out on the ground. The third was a black-and-white paint, still alive, but, if looks weren’t deceiving, only by a thread. The poor horse was nothing but skin and bones, and if it hadn’t been tied to the tree, Emma would have been surprised to see it be able to hold its head up at all.
“Oh God!” Maia said and turned away. Emma envied her the ability to turn away, something she didn’t do anymore. When she had first started helping her mother, she turned away, sometimes trying not to gag, but her mother reminded her that this was what they were here for: to show the abused horses the attention and compassion they had not been shown in life.
The two dead horses had scattered wounds in their sides that looked like they’d been shot by a shotgun.
“Maia, open the trailer,” Emma said quietly. “We’re going to have to do this very carefully.”
“Emma, do you want to see if you can get her?” Her mom tossed her a halter and lead rope. “You have more luck keeping them calm than I do.” She held out her phone and began taking pictures. “We’ll need to document this. Animal control and the sheriff have already been here and issued citations, but we need these in case there’s any question about where the horse came from.”
“God, this is horrible!” Maia said, coming around to the front of the truck after opening the trailer. “How can people do this to these beautiful animals?” A tear slid down Maia’s cheek.
Emma remembered her first rescue. It had been hard—squalid and festering areas on the horse, scars on the horse’s flank from being whipped until it bled. That horse had died while at the rescue, and they had buried her in the back of the pasture. Nightmares had plagued her for the next few weeks. Then when Carl arrived, she tried to ease her mind by nursing him back to health, which she did beautifully.
It was always disturbing to see animals in distress, but horses in trouble… there was something especially heart-wrenching about that. She’d been on several rescues with her mom when Marco or Larry wasn’t available, and the scenes she saw only convinced her more that some people were simply evil.
Emma walked slowly but surely over to the horse, stepping around the dead ones. The horse’s eyes went wild and showed the whites of its eyes as she approached, but Emma didn’t stop. With a quick glance, Emma knew this horse was a mare.
“It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.” Keeping her voice low and gentle, she held out the hand with the halter to the horse, close enough that if the horse wanted to, she could touch it. She could definitely smell her, Emma knew that. She placed her hand on the horse’s neck and when the mare moved away, she moved with her.
“We’re going to get you out of here.” Moving with the horse, she took a deep breath. “You’re going somewhere safe. I promise you, you’ll never go through anything like this again.” First things first, she needed to get the horse under control and untied from the tree. She snaked the lead rope around the horse’s neck and slipped the halter over her nose as the mare braced against her. She wasn’t worried about being kicked or trampled—the horse had been tied too high for that to be a worry as long as she stayed at her shoulder.
“Easy there, girl. Hold still for me.” She slipped the other end of the halter around the top of the horse’s head and tied a quick knot on the side of her face. The mismatched black-and-white ears twitched as she worked, and the horse trembled under her hand. Then she flipped out a pocketknife she carried with her and began to cut through the rope attached to the tree.
The mare stood, wide-eyed and stiff-legged, and Emma knew she was scared to death. This horse had given up—given up hope of being rescued or surviving. Emma’s chest ached for the horse, for everything that she’d suffered, and then she cut the rope and continued to murmur comforting words to the mare. “It’s okay. We’re almost done. You’re almost free of this awful place.” The horse was ragged, worn, and scared, but Emma was confident she could help her regain her spirit—as long as she regained her health as well.
Emma pulled gently on the lead rope and the horse walked to her. Some of her fear seemed to dissipate as they walked away from the remains of the other horses.
“That’s a good girl. You’ve been through a lot. Now let’s get you home.” She gently scratched the mare’s forehead and the horse moved closer to her. She led the horse up the ramp and into the trailer, then took off the old halter and tossed it back out of the trailer so the horse wouldn’t get tangled in it. If she had her way about it, she’d burn the old halter and everything she could get her hands on that had any connection to the horse’s situation. A whole new start was what the paint mare needed, and she was going to do what she could to make that happen.
After Emma jumped down out of the trailer, Maia helped her slide the ramp back into place and shut the trailer doors.
“My God, that was beautiful—how you treated that horse,” Maia said, a tone of admiration coloring her voice.
“Yeah, Emma tends to be very good with them,” her mom said. “I’ll call the county to have them clean up this area.” She walked off, cell phone in hand.
“Thanks, Maia,” Emma said and was thankful that it was getting darker so Maia couldn’t see her blushing. “You’ll have to help me come up with a name for her.”
“She’s a mare? I can do that, but we’ll have to think of just the right name for her.”
“Come on, let’s go get back in the truck and head back to the ranch. We’ve still got some work ahead of us,” Emma said as she and Maia walked to the truck. “I’m just glad we’ve got a clean stall already available.”
“Do you always have an open clean stall?” Maia asked as she opened the back door.
Emma shook her head. “Not all the time. There’ve been a couple of times that we’ve had too many rescues come in at once and fill up the barn.”
“But they all survived and got fostered out, right?”
“Yeah. We’ve only lost a few. Sometimes the horses are too sick or have wounds that, even if we fix them all up, they’ll still have pain. They’ll still be suffering.” Emma sighed and looked at the paint mare in the trailer. Her condition was going to be touchy for the first few days. Her mom would be calling the vet on the way home to get the horse checked out as soon as possible.
“Do you think we’ll lose this one?” Maia’s voice cracked slightly, and her chin quivered.
Emma couldn’t resist. She wrapped her arm around Maia’s shoulders and pulled her into a hug. “We’re going to do our best. It’ll be questionable for a little while.”
Warm tears hit Emma’s neck, and Maia shook slightly as she wrapped her arms around Emma. “If she doesn’t make it,” Maia stammered between sobs, “at least she won’t die out here tied to that tree with people shooting at her. Some people are horrible.”
“No argument here.” Emma stroked Maia’s hair. She couldn’t stop herself. The smell of Maia welled up around her and made her happy. She kissed the top of Maia’s head. Maia laid her head against Emma’s shoulder. “She’ll be in a better place. Period.”
“Okay, you two, let’s go.” Her mom appeared from the other side of the truck. “The sheriff assures me they’ll have a cleanup crew out here to take care of everything, but they’re going to do a more complete site investigation Monday when they have more people on staff. He apologized for not staying. They had a shooting a few miles away they had to deal with. People before horses.” She paused. “Everything okay?”
Emma gave Maia’s hair a final stroke, then stepped away reluctantly. “Yeah, everything just got to be too much for Maia. It’s her first rescue and all.”
Maia sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to lose it. I just can’t believe that people would do this to a horse. It’s horrible.”
“Yeah, it is. Let’s get going so we can get her home and cleaned up before the vet shows.” Her mom came over and gave both girls a quick hug. “If it helps, Maia, it never gets any easier. Things like this are always horrendous.”
“How do you do it?” Maia asked as she slid into the truck.
“I know that we’re helping these horses to have a better life. It’s better than leaving them tied to trees.” Her mom walked around the truck and got into her own seat behind the wheel. “I keep hoping that one day we’ll stop getting calls for critters being abused, but I doubt that will ever happen.”
By the time Emma settled into her seat and clicked her seat belt closed, her mom had the truck headed out of the drive. “Now, let’s hope there’s still a few cupcakes left at the house. I bet Ramon and Billy ate them all.”
A sad smile crossed Emma’s face at her mother’s attempt to lighten the mood. She didn’t want to be reminded about Billy, especially after Maia not pulling away from her hug, or when she kissed the top of Maia’s hair. She wondered if she’d have been able to kiss Maia if her mother hadn’t shown up then.
Her mom handed her the phone. “Emma, call the vet and see if she can come out and see our new girl this evening.”
Emma accepted the phone. It gave her a distraction. “Okay.” She knew the speed dial for their regular vet. By the time they reached the pavement, she had the appointment set, and they started making plans for getting the new horse settled. The regular talk seemed to make Maia more at ease, and her tears dried up. Emma felt better now that Maia was relaxing. But in her heart, she still wondered what it would be like to kiss Maia.
11
MAIA STARED at her mirror and tied her long black hair into a ponytail. She wanted to look nice but didn’t feel the need to look too nice. She was only going out with Billy to pay him back for helping Ramon, but she really didn’t want to disappoint him since they needed him to keep sidewalking. It had been a long time since she’d seen Ramon as happy as he was on Selena. Ramon’s ride had been the highlight that day, followed by the horror of rescuing Georgia. She’d named the paint mare after Georgia O’Keeffe, a woman whose paintings of flowers her mother loved. Somehow the name fit.
What stood out so strongly from that day was how good Emma’s arms had felt around her. She hadn’t even freaked out when Emma kissed the top of her head. Tess probably would have freaked, but it was comforting to Maia. The motion was so like something her mother would’ve done, but felt vastly different. Emma’s presence at the place they rescued Georgia made the whole ordeal bearable, and the way Georgia had responded to Emma was almost a magical thing. She’d checked on the mare every day, mostly calling instead of texting, as long as neither she nor Emma had too much homework to talk. The phone calls always started with how Selena and Georgia were doing, but they branched out into other things, like the basics of life for two horse-hungry teenage girls. She felt like she’d known Emma for years, and wished that she had.
Downstairs, the doorbell rang. Maia’s heart revved and she gave herself a last glance, making sure everything was ready.
“Maia!” her abuela’s voice rang out. “Billy’s here!”
“Be right there!” she called as she hurried out of the bathroom to grab the blue sweater she’d laid on the bed a few minutes earlier.
Her flats clumped as she ran down the stairs, reminding her how much her mother had tried to talk her into wearing heels, but she didn’t want to. She wanted to wear her boots, but they’d compromised on the dress flats she’d worn a few times when she’d gone to mass with her Abuela Sylvia.
“Chica, wear your coat.” Abuela Sylvia held out her long dress coat that was a lot nicer than the other clothes she had on.
“I’ve got my sweater,” Maia objected as she spotted Billy standing there in his green-and-gold school jacket.
