Hope Rising (15 page)

N
OTHING IN ALL
my experience of rescuing horses could have prepared my heart for what I was facing. My legs literally gave way, and I dropped to my knees. How could anyone let this happen? Over and over the same thought kept finding its way to my numbed lips.
Lord, have mercy … Lord, have mercy
.

The whole scene was surreal. How was it possible to witness anything so devastating on such a glorious spring day? This was by far the most desperate case of neglect I had ever seen.

The shadow of a horse that stood before me was a seventeen-year-old gray mare. The exotic facial structure proclaiming her Arabian lineage still remained, but her eyes were deeply sunken. I could imagine the spirited fire that had once flashed within them, could see the proud carriage of that sculpted head, the arching of her well-muscled neck.… But now she was only a skeleton with skin, her muscles wasted to nothing more than sinew along bone. Her eyes revealed the dull glow of dying embers.

She made a brave attempt to come to me. Reaching out with one unsteady foreleg, she placed it carefully, testing her footing. Then she heaved her diminished weight over the leg to form a step. She paused, her head swaying
from side to side, struggling desperately to hold her precarious balance. This simple movement—the taking of one step—caused her breath to come in shallow, labored gasps. Then she put her other front leg forward and, with extreme concentration, repeated the same process. The effort left her trembling, weaker than before, yet she stretched her face to me and her quivering lips touched my forehead. Kneeling beside her, I wept out loud.

What made the whole scene unfathomably worse was knowing that this pitiful skeleton of a mare was ten months pregnant. She was very close to death. My stomach clenched and churned as if it could reject what my eyes were seeing. I got back up to my feet and started to run. I cut through the owner’s twenty-acre field to reach my truck as fast as possible, for once not caring that I was trespassing on private property. Time was running out.

I had not been invited to this property by the owners. The Sheriff’s Department and the Humane Society had asked for my help in placing sixteen needy horses. At Crystal Peaks, even if we can’t keep every horse in need, we rescue and rehabilitate them, and then find a place for them through a network we have developed of safe adoptive homes.

This mare needed help
now
.

I reached home and made the appropriate calls. In a whirlwind turnaround, I sped back to the place where Mercy, as we had now christened the mare, was dying. Angela, one of my staff, was with me, and we had our empty horse trailer in tow. My dear friends at the Redmond Veterinary Clinic had been alerted and were ready to receive the mare.

Angela and I carefully guided Mercy into the trailer as
several cars drove by, honking, waving, and giving thumbs-up approval to what we were doing. One woman actually stopped. She powered down the window of her pickup truck and yelled, “I’m so glad that you’re taking her. I’ve had to drive by like this for the last year!” She held her hand up to the side of her face, as if to shield herself from having to see the starving mare.

I watched in complete bewilderment as the woman drove away. All of these people seemed to have known about Mercy’s increasingly desperate condition. But as far as I knew, none of them had done anything to help her. They had stood casually by, watching the starving mare day by day as she slipped away.

Without a voice, how can a horse beg for mercy?

The fifty-five-minute trip back to the veterinary clinic seemed an eternity. “Lord, hold her up,” I prayed, constantly looking back through the tinted windows of the trailer to see if the silhouette of the mare’s ears was still visible.

At the clinic, we led Mercy one step at a time out of the trailer and into a treatment room. Shawn—a pillar of a friend—was the vet who came to attend the mare. Simultaneous anger, sorrow, and compassion vied for expression in his face. He glanced at me over Mercy’s back, and even before he spoke I knew the worst from the deep furrows in his brow.

Yet as hopeless as the mare’s condition seemed, Shawn worked on her, swiftly, with gentleness and care, as if he were treating a beloved child and not merely an abandoned horse. Once he had done all he could, he relayed what he had found. Her emaciated state had most likely
caused her to sustain serious liver and kidney damage. Shawn doubted that she would be able to carry her foal to term simply because she wouldn’t live long enough. We parted with sobriety on both sides. Medically, everything possible had been done. Time now for the dreaded “wait and see.”

Like people, horses are sometimes their own worst enemies. We moved Mercy back to our ranch, but she wasn’t comforted by her new surroundings. She wasted vital energy looking for a companion. We tried putting our old gentle pony in with her, but her monumental efforts to stand with him cost her too much. Time after time she stumbled to the ground. If only we could explain to her, “You need to be still.” But we couldn’t. We could only stand by and watch her struggle.

The next day was worse. Early morning light spread, pale gray, over the land—and over my heart. Mercy had spent a brutal night, falling down over and over, and then flailing about in her efforts to stand up again. Now she was down. Her skin had broken open in many places. Her own blood made startling patterns on her silvery white body. Her head and legs were stained with blood.

Angela, Troy, and I tried to comfort her. She was still struggling to stand, but her strength was rapidly failing. We knelt by her, trying to keep her calm and quiet, stroking her bruised and bleeding body.

That morning we were expecting a group of eight-year-old girls—Brownies who were coming to do volunteer work at the ranch. Troy left Mercy’s side to intercept them and returned later with his cell phone in hand. It was Shawn.

I gave our vet a rundown of the mare’s condition, and then in a broken voice I asked him to come. No living creature should suffer like this.

He quietly said, “I’m on my way.”

I wiped my face and took several deep breaths before I strode over to the little group of Brownies.
Lord, help me to be wise
, I prayed.

“We have a horse that is very sick,” I began, wiping my bloody hands on my jeans. “No one gave her the help that she needed to get well. Now she will never get well. She’s dying.” I heard my voice crack and pressed my blood-smeared hands to my face.

The girls were wide-eyed and silent. Finally, I looked up and suggested to the accompanying parents that the children ought to be allowed to see the mare. They needed to know what can happen when people don’t take care of their animals. The parents agreed. The little procession made its way silently past the dying mare. Some of the girls walked by quickly, without looking up. Others stopped and stared. The adults, more aware of what was really happening, ushered the youngsters by without speaking.

The day had to go on. I set the Brownies to their tasks and then returned to Mercy.

In that short while, her condition had slipped considerably. She could no longer breathe lying on her side, but she was too weak to sit up on her knees. We had to roll her up onto her chest so that she could gasp a few breaths before collapsing back against our arms.

Every movement now was agonizing for her. Her lungs were beginning to fill with fluid. Blood flowed from
her mouth and nostrils. Her fragile skin started to tear just from the pressure of our hands and legs as we tried to help her. Then her belly—the only part of her body not entirely shrunken because of the foal she still carried—began to jerk with violent spasms. Her foal was dying.

Her eyes now were staring, wide and dry, coated with debris because she no longer blinked. Her mortal struggle crescendoed into gruesome attempts to draw shallow, rattling breaths.

“Lord, have mercy,” I sobbed over and over. “Lord, have mercy.”

Shawn arrived.

I stood up to meet him as he crossed the yard, but I didn’t get very far. He took in the blood on my hands and legs and after a quick assessment returned to the corral with a large syringe.

My tongue seemed to detach itself from my brain. Not wanting to accept what was about to happen, I stupidly asked, “Is this the right thing to do?”

Shawn nodded. He didn’t need words to communicate what he, too, was feeling. His blue eyes turned into glassy pools as he knelt down beside Mercy and began to stroke her neck and shoulder. His assistant put her hand on my shoulder.

There wasn’t anything to say.

Stroking the fine, proud contours of Mercy’s bloodied head, I thought about the magnificent Arabian horse she once had been. If we had found her sooner, if we could have rescued her in time, what might have been?

I sobbed for what would never be. She would never again be brushed by gentle hands. Her silky white mane
would never again glisten like spun pearls drifting under a golden sky. She would never prance with flaring nostrils and proudly arched neck, showing all the glory of her heritage. She would never know her foal. She would never feel love again.

It was time.

Shawn injected the mare. We could see the lethal fluid snaking from the needle into the vein in her neck. Her straining muscles relaxed, as though she were at last finding rest. Her indomitable will to live had been overcome.

Her eyes died first. She exhaled slowly as her head and neck crumpled into Angela’s lap. All that remained of this once glorious purebred mare was her torn and bloody body. Angela sobbed as she cradled Mercy’s head against her cheek.

Anguish erupted in my heart—a violent outpouring of sorrow rose up in my throat like scalding lava. I wanted to scream. I wanted the world to know that it had lost a magnificent creature. I wanted to throw my head back and let out all my futile rage.

In the distance I heard children laughing as they played. A gentle breeze moved through the tree over our heads. I closed my eyes and envisioned Mercy galloping with her face to the wind, her newborn foal at her side.

They were finally free.

Time slipped away. Together, Troy, Angela, and I covered Mercy’s body with a tarp. It was spring, and I could find only three flowers blooming on the ranch. Daffodils. We placed them carefully on the dead mare’s shoulder.

I was leaning heavily on the corral fence when I felt something hugging my thigh. An eight-year-old girl was
looking up at me with enormous brown eyes. Her cheeks were smudged with tears. With the sweet innocence of a child, she said simply, “I’m sorry your horse died.”

I knelt down to hug her and whispered into her hair, “Me, too.”

Thinking back to my first moments with the mare the day before, I remembered praying through my torment, “Lord, have mercy.”

My prayer had been answered. The good Lord is ultimately merciful. I asked Him to have “Mercy.”

Now He does.

A Perfect Match
 

J
UST WALKING
up the hill that leads to our ranch made Mary’s breath come in shallow pants. Her skin was deathly pale, and a bluish cast covered her eyes and lips. During our simple greeting, it was very apparent that this woman was gravely ill.

Mary had come to Crystal Peaks from Washington State with her husband and two children. After we made our introductions, one of my staff quietly brought a chair so that Mary could sit down and catch her breath.

Although her body had been ravaged by illness, there was something remarkable, something indomitable about her spirit. Her expression, though worn on a tired face, was always one of absolute contentment. She radiated the deep sense of thanksgiving known only to those who realize how precious every moment of life is. I was in awe of her. Later in the day, Mary shared with the kids and staff that she had a rare and progressive condition for which there was no cure.

The ranch was humming with children, leaders, and horses working together in a concert of dust and giggles. Mary watched peacefully as her children were caught up in the happy tune. They were beautiful, quiet kids. Beyond their bright smiles and inquisitive questions lay a faint,
somber maturity that young children seldom possess. It was obvious that they were fully aware of how sick their mom was, of how short their life with her might be.

Chairs were strategically placed about the ranch to ensure that Mary would always be able to sit and have a clear view of her children’s progress. She and her husband moved from the hitching area to the arena, stopping from time to time to chat with the special friends who had brought them.

A high layer of clouds stretched across the sky, washing our world below in soft violet light. I was in the arena helping one of my leaders with Mary’s children when I noticed that she was gone. Perhaps she needed to use the restroom, I reasoned. Not wanting her to miss any of her children’s experiences, I was a little hesitant to start without her. I turned to go look for her when suddenly, to my enormous surprise, Mary herself walked in. She was wearing a helmet and leading a fully saddled horse! Kelsie, an exceptionally efficient junior leader with all the wisdom of a fourteen-year-old, was cheerfully leading Mary and the horse to the center of the arena. When they stopped, I could hear Kelsie explaining how to properly mount a horse.
She’s really going to ride?
I both asked and told myself.