Heiress (36 page)

He shook his head with a vagueness that indicated it hadn't occurred to him. "I came straight here."

She tried to check the panic welling up inside her. Grotesque images of the filly down, thrashing in agony, flashed before her mind's eye as she raced around to the other side of the truck yelling over her shoulder at the horseshoer, who had stopped work. "Call the vet and tell him to get over to the Hix farm right away! It's an emergency!"

She scrambled into the cab with a winded Ben right behind her, hauling himself onto the high seat beside her. Before Ben could get the door closed, Dobie stepped on the accelerator and the pickup shot forward, its spinning tires spending up a fresh storm of gravel.

"What happened?" Ben asked the question Abbie hadn't been able to voice, afraid of the answer she might hear.

"I don't know. I'm not sure," Dobie said. "I had hooked up the windrower to the tractor and drove it out of the shed. Maybe it was the noise—all the clanging and rattling from the tractor and windrower. I was already past the barn when I heard this scream. I looked back and—" He cast an anxious glance at Abbie. She stared at him intently, waiting for the rest of the words that would finish the scenario running in her mind, feeling as if her heart was lodged somewhere in her throat. "I'm sorry, Abbie." He looked to the front and tightened his hold on the steering wheel with a flexing motion of his fingers. "She was laying on the ground, kicking and struggling. The bottom half of the Dutch door was sprung open and cracked at the top. I'd left the top of the door open so she could get some air and see out. I guess she spooked at the noise and tried to get out."

"No." She didn't want to believe the accident was as bad as Dobie had described. She was sure the filly wouldn't have tried to jump the half-door; the opening was too small. A bad sprain, some cuts and bruises, that's probably all River Breeze had suffered.

"I think she broke her leg," Dobie added hesitantly.

"You don't know that," Abbie retorted. "You didn't check."

"No. I left her with one of my hired hands and came for you."

"Can't we go any faster?" Outside the truck windows the fence posts were a blur, yet the nightmarish feeling persisted that no matter how fast they traveled, the farm was still far away—and getting farther instead of closer.

All the way, Abbie kept remembering how close the machine shed had been to the barn. Except for a tractor, the filly had never been around farm machinery before. Naturally she would have been frightened by the banging clatter of such strange contraptions. Abbie wished she had thought of that, but she had been too concerned about secreting her horse.

By the time they drove into the yard, Abbie was frantic. She strained for a glimpse of the filly, hoping against hope to see River Breeze on her feet. But her silver-gray Arabian was on the ground. Abbie didn't even hear the cry of anguish that came from her throat. She practically pushed Ben out of the truck in her haste to get to the filly. Her legs were shaking so badly she wasn't sure they would support her as she ran to the downed horse, taking no notice at all of the man standing next to River Breeze.

The filly nickered and lifted her head when Abbie reached her. Abbie took one look at the dark eyes glazed with pain, the neck dark with sweat, and the tremors that quivered through the filly, and knew her horse had gone into shock.

"Quick! Get a blanket," she said to the hired man, then saw the rifle in his hands. She stared at him with a mixture of outrage and shock. "What are you doing with that?"

"The horse needs t' be put out o' its mis'ry. Ain't nothin' you can do fer it. Her front leg's busted." He gestured with the rifle, directing Abbie's attention to the filly's bloodied chest and legs.

Abbie's stomach was heaving convulsively as she almost threw up at the sight of the grotesquely twisted leg, lying askew like some ragdoll's. She fought off the nausea that left her knees weak and her skin cold and clammy with sweat.

"You're not going to shoot her. You don't destroy horses anymore just because they break a leg, so take that rifle and hang it back on your rack. And get a blanket like I told you." She knelt on the ground beside the filly and cradled the horse's head on her lap. "The vet will be here soon, girl," she crooned, reassuring herself as much as the filly. She concentrated on soothing the horse while Ben examined the extent of the injuries. The man left, but it was Dobie who came back with the blanket to cover the filly. Ben draped it over River Breeze, then straightened. Abbie looked up to search his face.

"The cuts are minor," he said. "Already the bleeding has stopped. One, maybe two are deep enough to leave a scar."

But his failure to comment on the broken leg was a telling omission. "Breeze is young and strong. She'll make it," Abbie said, sounding calm and determined even though, inside she was scared—terrified that she might lose the filly she'd fought so hard to keep. "She'll make it. You'll see. She is descended from the great war mare Wadudda. After a desert raid, she was ridden over a hundred miles without stopping once. Her right leg was injured during the raid, yet she covered that distance in eleven hours. River Breeze has that same courage and heart. I know she does." Abbie clung tenaciously to that thought. She could build her hopes on it. She wasn't going to give up until the filly did.

"We will see what the doctor says," Ben replied.

Abbie refused to hear the doubt in his voice as she sat cradling the filly's head in her lap and brushing away the buzzing flies, mindless of the growing numbness in her legs, her heart twisting at every grunt of pain from the filly. She maintained her vigil, suffering along with River Breeze, while an eternity passed before the veterinarian arrived.

After a cursory examination, he was no more encouraging than Ben had been. Straightening, he looked at Abbie and simply shook his head.

"Broken legs can be set on a horse. They do it all the time," she insisted, challenging the vet to deny it.

"The break in the leg is too high. Supposing that I could get the bone set, I don't see how I can immobilize that shoulder area. I'm sorry, Abbie, but it doesn't look good," he stated reluctantly.

"But there is hope." Abbie grabbed at the slim straw he'd let slip.

"If this was a gelding, I wouldn't hesitate a bit in recommending putting the horse away. If by some wild chance the break healed, the horse would be a cripple the rest of his life. But I hate the thought of destroying a young valuable filly like this one with all her foal-producing years still ahead of her. But I'll tell you like I've told your father, I don't believe in prolonging an animal's agony when I know nothing can be done for it."

"But you don't know that," she argued. "How can you when you haven't even tried? You can set her leg and we'll rig up a sling to keep her off it until it can heal."

"Don't you be trying to tell me my job, young lady."

"Somebody should," she raged in desperation. "Just because this is an animal, that doesn't make you God, holding power of life and death over it."

"In the first place, setting a broken leg and rigging up a sling doesn't solve anything. That's when the problems start. Horses aren't people. You can't strap them in a bed and rig them up in traction and expect them to sit still for it. They're animals—dumb animals. And an animal in pain usually goes berserk. They panic and start kicking and lashing out, and usually wind up doing more damage to themselves. Sure, you've heard stories about horses with broken legs that have recovered and lived useful lives. But you haven't heard the stories about all the ones that didn't make it, that went crazy and had to be destroyed—like that Thoroughbred filly, Ruffian, a few years back."

"But we don't know River Breeze will do that."

"We'll see what we can do, Abbie, but don't get your hopes up."

The rest of the morning and afternoon was a living nightmare for Abbie, helpless to do anything but watch and wait. Since the front leg was injured, transporting the filly to Doc Campbell's clinic in town was out of the question. There was too great a risk that more severe damage would occur on the journey. After a half-dozen phone calls, Doc was able to locate a portable X-ray unit. When it finally arrived at the farm, the resulting X-rays showed both front legs were broken. The left foreleg had suffered only a hairline fracture, but both the ulna and the radius bones were broken just below the shoulder joint in the right leg.

Abbie sat with the filly while Doc Campbell got on the telephone again and consulted with several fellow practitioners whose opinions he trusted. He came back with a course of action, admittedly radical, and sent Ben back to River Bend to fetch the farrier and Dobie to the welder in the machine shed with a hastily sketched diagram of the splint he wanted made. A Thomas splint, he called it, explaining to Abbie that it was an appliance frequently used on dogs and cats with broken front legs. By then, she was too numb inside to object that River Breeze was a horse, not a dog or cat. Reaction had set in, and all she wanted was for him to do something for her filly—anything.

Propped against a corner of the stall, Abbie sat huddled in a wool blanket—the same blanket that had covered the filly earlier. Exhausted from the long ordeal, she let her head roll back against the rough boards and closed her eyes just for a minute. A faint sound, a rustle of straw, and she snapped them open, instantly ready to spring to her feet.

But the filly was motionless, her gray head hanging listlessly, still under the lingering influence of the anesthesia. Both front legs were encased in plaster, with a pair of long metal splints curving in a high hoop up the gray shoulder and extending down to the hoof, attached to the shoe. A belly sling, fastened to a crossbeam overhead, supported most of the filly's weight.

Even though River Breeze had always been gentle and well-mannered, Abbie realized that it would take a horse with the tolerance of Job to put up with all those contraptions. Maybe she was wrong to put the filly through all this stress and pain. Maybe she should have let Doc Campbell put her to sleep. She stubbornly rejected the thought, determined that her filly would live no matter what it took.

She heard a footstep and called out softly, "Dobie, is that you?"

"It's me," MacCrea answered, coming around the corner of the stall's partition, his tall shape backlit by the bare bulb overhead.

"How—" She was suddenly too choked for words.

"I called your house earlier to let you know I was a man short on the afternoon shift and would be tied up tonight." He moved quietly over to crouch down beside her, sitting on his heels. "Your mother told me what happened. I'm sorry I couldn't get here any sooner."

"There wasn't much you could have done anyway, except maybe given Dobie a hand welding the splints." She was just glad he was here with her now.

"How's she doing?" He nodded at the filly.

"She's going to make it," Abbie asserted, again feeling that swell of determination.

"What are you going to do now?"

"Stay with her." She stared at the young filly all trussed up in the sling and splints, a sorry-looking sight. "I have to. A lot of horses go crazy with the pain and trauma and try to destroy themselves. I have to make sure that doesn't happen."

"That's not what I meant," MacCrea said. "Everybody knows the horse is here."

She hadn't thought of that. "So help me, MacCrea Wilder, if you say ‘I-told-you-so,'" she threatened angrily. Too many times today she'd wondered whether an accident like this would have occurred if she hadn't brought River Breeze over here. All day she'd lived with the terrible irony of knowing she had done it to keep the filly and might lose her as a result.

"I'm not. I'm only wondering how you're going to handle the situation now."

"I don't know. Who would buy a cripple? Doc Campbell warned me that even if she makes it, there's no telling how well the bones will knit. There's a chance her legs will never be strong enough to support the weight of pregnancy."

"Make a full disclosure of everything the vet said and put the filly in the auction," MacCrea said.

"What?" She stared at him, regarding his suggestion as tantamount to betrayal.

"You said it yourself: Who'd buy her now? You should be able to pick her up cheap."

"I could," Abbie mused, then sighed. "The auction is only a day away. There's so much to be done yet. I know Ben can handle it, but I should be there to help." She was tired and confused, torn by responsibility. Too much had happened today, and it left her feeling drained and numb inside.

"You look tired. Why don't you get some sleep?"

"I can't." She shook her head, weighted with weariness. "I have to stay here and keep an eye on Breeze."

"I wasn't suggesting you should leave. Move over." The straw on the stall floor rustled with their movements as MacCrea wedged himself into the corner and shifted Abbie inside the crook of his arm, nestling her against his shoulder. "Comfortable?"

"Mmmm." She snuggled more closely against his side, drawing the blanket over both of them. Absently she rubbed her cheek against his cotton shirt, soothed by the warmth of his body and the steady beat of his heart. "I suppose you think I'm crazy for sitting up with a horse."

"Would you sit up with me if I was hurt?"

"Probably not." She smiled.

"That's what I thought." His voice rumbled from his chest, warm with amusement. Then she felt the stroke of his hand on her hair, lightly pressing her head more fully to the pillow of his chest. "Try to rest, Abbie."

Obediently she closed her eyes and felt the tension, the need for watchfulness, slipping away. MacCrea was here and she could relax.

Slowly, gradually, he felt her grow heavier in his arms and the rhythm of her breathing deepen. He tried to ease the cramping in his muscles with a flexing shrug of his shoulders, but there was no relief from the hard boards pressing into his back. He didn't know why Abbie hadn't chosen to keep watch from the soft comfort of a haystack instead of this damnable corner of the stall.

A scrape of metal against the cement floor of the stall was followed by the sound of hooves shifting in the straw. MacCrea glanced at the silvery horse. Her head was up, her ears were pinned back, and the white of one eye showed in alarm. Twisting her neck around, the horse made a weak attempt to bite the splint's iron hoop that rubbed against her shoulder.