Somehow, the day flew by and it’s nearly eleven at night.
I’m in my quarters in the bunkhouse—small, clean, spartan. Bed. Desk. A single photo of Rose on the nightstand that I can’t look at and can’t put away.
I’m sitting on the edge of the bed in jeans and no shirt, staring at the wall, debating whether tonight’s the night I ride or the night I sleep, when my phone lights up.
Grace.
I answer immediately because Grace doesn’t call this late unless something’s wrong.
“It’s the gray mare.” Her voice is tight. The vet voice, not the friend voice. “Passage. I was doing late rounds and she’s down in her stall. Rolling. Pulse is elevated. Gut sounds are absent on the right side. I think she’s colicking.”
Colic.
The word every horseman dreads.
A displaced colon in a twelve-year-old rescue mare who’s been on the property for eight months and was just starting to thrive.
“How bad?”
“Bad enough that I want someone in the stall with her while I manage treatment. Shadow’s with me, but I need someone who knows the horse. She trusts you.” A pause. “Banshee, I’d be in there myself but?—”
“You’re six months pregnant. You’re not getting in a stall with a colicking horse.” I’m already pulling on a shirt, shoving my feet into boots. “I’m coming. Five minutes.”
“One more thing.” Grace’s voice shifts. Careful. The voice of a woman who’s about to say something she knows I don’t want to hear. “I called Bex. She’s closer and she’s got experience with colic episodes. She’ll be here in ten.”
I close my eyes and open them. “Fine.”
“Lee.” Gentle. “The mare needs both of you. Your ego doesn’t get a vote tonight.”
She hangs up before I can respond, which is probably strategic.
Grace knows she didn’t need to call Bex. Hell, we both know it.
Passage is in trouble.
I see it the moment I hit the barn aisle.
Shadow is standing outside the stall, arms crossed, his face set in the grim, helpless expression of a man who will fight any human threat on earth but can’t fight what’s happening inside an animal’s gut.
Grace is at the stall door with her kit, stethoscope around her neck, gloves on.
Inside the stall, the gray mare is down.
On her side, flanks dark with sweat, breathing in the short, sharp pants of an animal in serious pain.
Her legs extend and retract, extend and retract—the restless, helpless cycling of a horse that can’t get comfortable because the pain has no position that eases it.
As I watch, she tries to roll—the full, violent roll that a colicking horse does to try to relieve the pressure, and the roll that can twist a displaced colon into a torsion that kills.
“Don’t let her roll,” Grace says. Already moving, already working. “Get her up if you can. Walk her. I’m going to tube her and get fluids and mineral oil in. We need to keep things moving.”
I go into the stall and crouch beside the mare.
Her eye rolls toward me—white-rimmed, frightened, searching for something familiar in the pain.
I put my hand on her neck.
Warm. Damp.
