Lauraine Snelling (6 page)

“We need more time.”

“Time is something I can’t safely give you. Either put him down or I put him back out on the auction.”

Maggie tried to swallow, but her mouth couldn’t even work up enough spit to move the muscles. She stared at the door and stepped back when it opened, staring at Mr. James. When the warden walked out behind him, she found herself walking over to them without ever realizing she was going to move.

“Please, Warden Brundage, please can I have a word with you?” She clamped her fists so hard her nails bit into the heels of her hands.

The man stared at her face, then her name on her shirt. “You know you should make an appointment.”

“I—there’s not time.”

“You’re working at the horse barn, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir. I—Breaking Free isn’t a bad horse, sir. You know people lash out when they’re scared. He’s no different. You’d give an inmate time, solitary maybe, but time. Please, three weeks. Just give me . . . ,” she glanced at Trenton James, “us, three weeks. I know we can bring him around. He’s too good a horse to let go like this. Besides, it might be the Equipoise that’s contributing to his, his . . . and that has to get out of his system. Same as if an inmate got high and turned mean.” She closed her eyes. “Please, sir.”

She could feel his gaze drilling into her so she raised her eyes to meet his, putting please into every muscle and cell of her body. She’d never begged for anything like this in her entire life, as if she would disintegrate if he refused.

The warden turned to Trenton James. “Do you agree with her?”

“Yes, sir.”

Brundage’s gaze swept from James to Maggie and back. “No one else is to touch him or even go near him. I hear of one more episode, and he’s history.”

Maggie fought back the tears that made her need to sniff. She blinked and wet her lips. “Yes, sir, thank you, sir. You’ll see.” She reached out to shake his hand, took a step back but before she dropped her hand, he met her offer and shook her hand.

“I hope to heaven you’re right.” His dark eyes drilled into hers, as if seeking any morsel of doubt.

“Thank you, sir. I’ll keep you posted.” Mr. James nodded to Maggie. “They’re waiting for us. Let’s go.”

Maggie fell into step beside him and blinked in surprise when he held the door for her. No man had held a door for her in nearly eight years. It felt mighty good.

Once outside, her knees went weak, and she stumbled going down the steps. He caught her by the elbow. “You all right?”

“I—I can’t believe I did that.” She laid her hand to her chest, feeling her heart thumping like it wanted to escape.

“Caught me by surprise, too. We sure got our work cut out for us. Come on, let’s get cracking.”

“What happen to you?” Kool Kat whispered as Maggie collapsed in the seat next to her. She didn’t have the strength to walk down the four rows to her usual place. Not past DC.

“Tell you later.”

James ran through roll call and then motioned to the driver to get moving. “We just had a discussion with Warden Brundage and the results are that we have three weeks to turn Breaking Free around. In that time, no one is to touch him or get near enough for him to injure you. Basically he is in quarantine, with only Maggie or me working with him. Maggie will have most of the responsibility for his care and rehab. Any questions?”

“Who’s going to take care her other horses?” Jules asked from the back of the bus.

“I’ll spread them out among the rest of you for now.”

DC’s low remark probably didn’t reach Mr. James’ ears, but it smacked Maggie’s. “Figures Miss Uppity’d spread around her leftovers.”

Mr. James checked his clipboard. “Class is at two thirty today so you need to hustle.”

By the time they reached the barn, Maggie had gotten over the shakes. All but those in her mind. What had she been thinking? She hadn’t, that was the problem. She let her feelings get in the way. She used to show her feelings, her husband used to tease her when she cried at the movies or while reading a book. She cried when she was happy or sad. But back then when she got angry, if she went silent he knew there was trouble.

She thought back to the last several days. Breaking Free had been settling in but then he tried to hurt them. . . . She paused at that thought. Hurt them. He could have caused serious damage, no mistake about that, but . . . come on, think. What all happened? The horse had charged and slammed Mr. James with his shoulder. He had raked her with his teeth but didn’t clamp down. “Freebee, you’re a big fake.”

She heard Mr. James’ boots crunching the dirt and glanced over her shoulder at him. At the same time Breaking Free snorted and slammed one back hoof against the wall. Head high, nostrils wide, ears back, he was now the picture of an angry horse. Maggie stared from the man to the horse. Was the horse only angry because he was so afraid?

“He was calm and fine, at ease, until you came up.” She kept her tone low and conversational.

“You were talking to him?” Mr. James stood back from the stall door.

She nodded. “And while he didn’t come to me, he didn’t attack either. He even licked his lip.” She paused at the next idea, catching it to let it grow. “Maybe it’s men.” Of course it is. Her voice gained both surety and excitement. “Men abused him. Makes sense, given his prior life.”

Mr. James was silent so long Maggie ever so carefully turned her head toward him. “So what do we do?”

“You’re going to have to out-horse him,” Mr. James said once he’d thought a bit more. “You are the leader here, and he has to understand that. But men have mistreated him so he takes out his fear on all humans. It’s our job to show him that he can put away the fear and anger.”

“I don’t blame him for being angry.”

“Me either, but Maggie, it’s us or him.”

“So what do I do?”

“Well, when a stallion wants his herd to move, he nips the other horses on the rump and drives them forward.”

“You want me to bite him on the butt?”

He glanced at her, then a smile broke his face. “Smart aleck.”

Maggie stared down at her shoe, digging a dent in the hard-packed dirt. She fought the smile all the way up from her toes and finally trapped it before it reached her face. He then reminded her of her work with Dancer, how she’d used the whip to move him forward.

“We’ll do the same with Breaking Free, only in the beginning I’ll keep another rope on him to keep him from charging you. And no audience, other than JJ. We’ll need her to slip the gate bar in place.”

When Maggie walked back to the stall with the lead shank and lunge line, Breaking Free had his head out of the upper door, watching both her and the other activities. His ears pricked forward. But as soon as Mr. James walked up, the ears went back, and the horse withdrew into his stall.

“You ready?” Mr. James asked, stopping at the stall.

She nodded.

He unlatched the door, and Maggie eased into the stall and stood beside the wall. “Easy, fella, no need to get all heated up. Just take it easy.”

Breaking Free snorted from his retreat in the back corner. Swallowing hard, Maggie felt the throbbing of the bruise from the attack and hoped today would be different. For her and Breaking Free.
C’mon, boy, you can do this
, she telegraphed to him with her eyes.

Mr. James entered the stall, taking the other wall, and JJ slid the bar in place. “We’ll just stand here a minute and let him settle.”

“Good boy, see you can behave yourself.” Maggie kept her gaze on the horse, noting his heavier breathing, shifting front feet, and swishing tail. When he threw his head up and snorted, she wanted nothing more than to reassure him that all was well. “Easy now. Easy.”

“Okay, be ready, we walk forward together and take hold of his halter like we do this every day.”

“Right.” Her heart picked up and her mouth dried. She kept up a singsong murmur as she moved forward and grasped his halter with a firm hand. James did the same and quickly snapped the lead shank to the ring under the horse’s chin. “Now you thread yours up and over, then I’ll do the same.”

Breaking Free tossed his head, stepping backward at the same time. His ears flattened and he shook his head, jerking to shake them off. If this big horse decided to lift them both straight up in the air, he could do it, but Maggie sincerely hoped he wasn’t in the mood. When she tightened the lead shank over his nose, he stopped. A small victory.

“Good, now we’ll walk him out to the round pen and see how he does. Pay attention to his every move.”

She didn’t need to be reminded of that. Reaching up, she stroked his neck. “Hey, fella, do you ever need a good brushing. Would make you feel lots better.” Keeping one hand close to his halter, she held the lead firmly with the other.

“Let’s go.”

No one else showed a face as they led Breaking Free to the round pen. JJ followed to close the gate behind them, just like she had the stall door. Once in the round pen, the horse stood with head up, like a king surveying his kingdom. When he snorted, tiny drops spattered her face. While she wanted to wipe it off, she kept both hands on his lead shank.

“All right, boy, you’ve had a look around, now let’s walk.” Mr. James rubbed the horse’s cheek and neck with his knuckles as he talked. Breaking Free’s ears lay back for a moment and then returned to attention.

They made a circle around the pen, three dancers tied together by tension. When Breaking Free tried to pull away, both humans tightened their leads, keeping a firm pressure from either side. Maggie sang her litany of encouragement as Breaking Free did a high stepping tight walk.

“Time for a bite on the rump,” Mr. James said.

Maggie jerked her head toward him, then nodded. “Like yesterday?”

“You don’t want to nick him with it, just pop it near him. That whip is the same as a bite on the butt.”

When they came back around to the gate, Maggie exchanged the lead shank for the lunge line, and together they walked back out. While she let the line out trailing it through her fingers, Mr. James led Breaking Free out toward the edge of the pen. With ears flat against his head, Breaking Free pulled against the lead rope, all his attention focused on the man walking beside him.

“Let him go,” Maggie called.

“What if he charges you?”

“I think it’s you he’s fighting.”

Mr. James considered that for a moment. “If you get hurt, you know it’s over for him.”

“I know.” Maggie inhaled courage and exhaled fear. “Let him loose.”

As soon as the lead shank was removed from over his nose, Breaking Free shook his head and jigged around a bit, but when Maggie popped the whip right behind him, he leaped forward and ran around the circle, head high, neck arched, staring over the walls, ignoring Maggie. It struck her she’d spent her years in prison that way—until the morning DC shoved her against the fence—running in circles, staring over the walls of her heart, ignoring everyone. She and this horse definitely had a connection.

After half an hour of back and forth turning and popping, she thought her arms would fall off at her shoulders. But when his head finally went down and he walked forward flat-footed, her chest swelled like she’d just crossed the finish line at a marathon. She stepped back, and he kept on walking.

She caught Mr. James’ thumbs-up sign and wished she could throw the line to the outside and go hug on that beautiful horse. She nodded her gratitude. When she took a couple of steps toward him, Breaking Free moved forward, but when he turned to look at her, full face, not just furtive glances, she took a couple of steps back. Any time he responded the way she wanted, she took the pressure off by stepping back. Just like in the book she’d read, he came forward. How often did things happen like they were supposed to? Not much in Maggie’s recent life. This was a nice change.
Breaking Free, you are breaking free of your past.
Like partners dancing the cha-cha, they moved two steps forward, two back. She gathered in some of the lunge line, turned around, and walked away. She could hear him following her.
I’m communicating with him, talking the language of horse, and it is working.
A thrill, almost unidentifiable since it had been so long since she felt it, tickled her backbone.

When she stopped, the horse kept on coming. He stopped so close she could feel his heat. She was trembling, her mouth dry as a Santa Ana wind.

“Okay, fella, looks like we did some joining up. Good thing, ’cause I don’t know how much longer I could have kept going.” She turned slowly. He stood still except for his ears that swiveled to catch every nuance. When she tugged on the lunge line, he came forward. “Good boy. Ah, what a good boy you are.” He tightened up when she reached for the snap under his halter and shook his head when she released it. But now, when he could have run away, he chose to stay. When she stepped back, he came forward. He wanted to be near her. He was beginning to trust her. Tears of joy erupted inside her, but she clamped both eyes and hands so they wouldn’t escape. Because she and Mr. James chose to try to understand him and his fears, they had given him a chance to live.

Mr. James’ voice interrupted her thoughts. “Send him around again, make sure this imprints on his mind. You all right?”

She nodded and stroked the horse’s neck. “About as all right as I’ll ever be, long as I’m still an inmate. But that won’t be for long.” She kept her words low, only for the horse’s ears, and he’d never tell. Having witnessed the horse’s willingness to overcome . . . Well, that bore thinking about on lots of levels, especially tonight, when sleep ignored her summons.

“Use your lead shank instead of the whip to keep driving him forward.”

She did as Mr. James told her, having more trouble schooling her face into blankness than the horse. Breaking Free watched her, and he stopped when she stopped, each time turning slightly so he could see her with both eyes. When she turned and walked the other way, he followed.

Never before the other day with Dancer had a horse followed her without a lead shank. She picked up a jog. So did the horse. She did a figure eight, so did he. Her trembling had ceased and adrenaline surged through her clear to her fingertips. Surely climbing Mount Everest would be no bigger thrill than this.