He knickers, then nudges my ass.
“I'm not getting you carrots. Escape artists don't get carrots.”
He blows a breath through his lips, making a funny sound, and I can't help laughing. I scratch behind his ear, leaning my temple to his. “Sorry, bud. Didn't mean to be quite so pitiful.”
Done with being dramatic, I take a look at Sisko’s stall door. Well, shit. They've kludged together every kind of lock there is, and somehow this one keeps getting out.
The constant wearing on the door has it hanging kind of funny, so I lift it up to better align it with the locks. The sound of loose metal on metal ricochets through the barn.
Huh.
When I lift again, the locks loosen. Not much, but enough.
I narrow my eyes at Sisko. “What are you doing, troublemaker?”
He knickers.
Looking back at the door, I walk out of the stall and reset the locks that aren’t broken. I'm pretty tall, so I reach for the top of the stall door and pull up. One of the locks pops open, and the other merely comes undone. I yank up even harder, and the door pops open.
Sisko knickers again and approaches, snuffling through my hair. Beverly pokes her head over her stall door, watching me figure it out.
“What in the hell?”
Unlike me, Sisko doesn’t have hands to pull up on the door like I did. Holding on to his reins, I step back and note that the stall doors don’t go all the way to the ground. And they’re a little rough at the bottom.
I look over at Sisko.
“No…”
Knowing that I might accidentally lock myself in the stall and have to call for help, I take a chance. I enter the stall, lock the door behind me, and look at Sisko, who stares back at me. Beverly is tall enough to peek over the sidewall, and this is all starting to feel like one of those PBS mystery series.
I don't think he can scoot under the door. But…I back up to the stall door and kick at it like a horse. Before I can feel like too much of an idiot, the door jumps up, and the telltale metal on metal scrape means that the lock is about to give way.
“Motherfucker,” I say, looking at our resident troublemaker. Sisko blinks at me, and Beverly lets out a whinny.
This time I move Beverly so I can grab the top of both sides of the stall and donkey kick the door with my full strength. Sure enough, it opens right away.
Giving the troublesome horse finger guns, I cackle to myself. “Gotcha, buddy. No more jailbreaking for you.”
I have a few more things to do, but I suspect this is a priority. I pull up my phone and text both Joaquin and Trip.
Colt:I figured out how Sisko is escaping.
Trip:No way! What the hell is he doing?
Colt:He's kicking the door, probably with his back hoof, and the upward motion is breaking the lock.
Colt:I noticed it because the door itself is beginning to list.
Joaquin:Good catch, Colt. Sebastián tried every way he could think of, every lock he could think of. That damn horse kept getting out.
Colt:I know this sounds crazy, but I think just a regular horse stall guard would do the trick. I think I saw them on sale at the supply store. I've got muck-out duty this afternoon, but let me know if you'd like me to go take care of this instead.
Trip:Yeah, that's a priority.
Joaquin:Perfect. Take Wick with you. I think he needs to do a supply run as well.
I was feeling pretty good about myself right up until Joaquin decided to send his little fuck buddy with me to get the supplies.
