She was trying to walk a fine diplomatic line here, when in reality she desperately wanted to knock some heads. But it had taken hours to convince these people to surrender the horse they were neglecting to death, and if she wasn’t careful she’d get run off their property at the point of the shotgun the guy had resting in his arms like a newborn baby.
Beginning to feel that burble of anxiety-induced adrenaline that made her snappish and impatient, she pulled up a trick she’d learned in therapy, closing her eyes, taking deep, slow breaths—four beats in, five beats out—and silently repeated the mantra the therapist had taught her: I am calm. I am strength. I am compassion. I am patience. I am resolve. I am the power of good. I am love.
A lot of that was new-age bullshit, but, maddeningly, it worked. “Can I take a try, sir?” she asked when she was sure her tone would be gentle and friendly.
“That old cuss is mean as shit,” spat the so-called ‘owner’ of the poor boy at the back of the pasture. The horse had bolted for the treeline as soon as he’d seen the man. “I don’t want you suin’ me if he kicks you in the head. He’ll come when he’s good and ready. You ain’t got time to wait, you can leave the same way you came.”
“I promise I won’t sue if he hurts me. And I’ll be careful. I’d just like to see if I can get close.”
“Let ‘er try, Ricky,” the man’s wife said. “We’ll be standin’ out here all night otherwise, and I’m cold.”
Ricky glared sourly at his wife, at Phoebe, and out at the skeletal horse. “Fine. You best not fuck with me if that bastard fucks with you.”
Leaving that threat to lie where it dropped, Phoebe went to the split-rail fence and clambered over. She had her pack on her back, with the gear she’d need to get hold of a traumatized thousand-pound beast.
This guy looked like he might be more of a traumatized six-hundred-pound beast. If that. His entire skeleton showed through his dapple coat.
The hardest part of this kind of rescue work was being nice to obviously evil people. Phoebe did not give one single stunted fuck that the couple who owned this land had fallen on hard times. If they couldn’t care for their animals, they should have asked for help right away, or surrendered them while they were healthy. Instead, because they hadn’t wanted to give away ‘good money,’ they’d sold their stock off piecemeal, in the meantime leaving them to live off what they could graze in the fucking winter. The old dapple was the last one left.
As Phoebe crossed the frozen mud of the pasture, she seethed. They hadn’t even moved the poor baby to a different pasture. This one hadn’t had grass, even dried winter remnants, for probably weeks. It was like they were intentionally letting him starve to death.
Thankfully, the last person who’d bought stock from them had called the SPCA and reported the dapple. Phoebe was on the call sheets of most rescue organizations in and around Oklahoma, on the short list of people who could foster and/or keep large animals. She’d gotten the call late last night and had spent now more than twelve hours preparing, traveling, and cajoling to get this boy safe.
For the first half of her trek across the pasture, the horse watched her, head drooping. As she got closer, his head came up, and he took a couple wary steps backward. Horses hated walking backward and generally did it only under rein or when they were frightened and cornered.
Phoebe slowed up. Keeping her movements measured and relaxed, she reached back to the side pocket of her pack and snagged the baggie of apple slices from it.
“Hey, handsome,” she cooed, probably still too far away for her voice to make much impression, especially since she was walking into the wind. But she wanted the sound to come to him gradually. “Hi, Smoky. You’re a such a beautiful boy. I’m Phoebe.”
Smoky tossed his head and took another backward step. He heard her, and he was scared, but he wasn’t running. Instead, he stretched his neck a little toward her. He smelled the apples.
Setting an apple slice on the palm of her gloved hand, Phoebe smiled. “Are you hungry, baby? I have some apples here. Would you like some apples?”
A stomp of his overgrown hoof. Then another. Phoebe stopped where she was. It was time for Smoky to come the rest of the way on his own. It was always better to have the horse come to you if possible; it wasn’t a guarantee that they’d be calm when they got there, but that likelihood was exponentially greater if they’d had a part in the decision.
She stood completely still, her arm outstretched and her hand flat, offering that apple slice, while January wind buffeted her and the sun clocked out for the day. She was not leaving without this goddamn horse. When she ran out of sweet nothings to coo, she started singing, the first song that came to her mind that was quiet and calm: “A Thousand Years.”
She didn’t personally like that song (it was too dang sweet, and her taste ran more to the ‘everything sucks so fuck it’ genre), but Margot freaking loved it, and it was therefore a regular worm eating straight through Phoebe’s ear into her brain.
Apparently, Smoky was a Christina Perri fan, because halfway through the song, he took one tentative step forward. Toward Phoebe and her apples. By the end of the song, he’d come about ten feet closer, and his neck was fully extended, his nose quivering.
Fuck, it was cold out here.
“Come on, baby. You’re safe now. I’ve got a warm blanket for you, and some good hay in the trailer. All the apples you can eat. When we get you home, you’ll have friends, and so much good shit. And I’ll sing sappy songs the whole way. Come on, baby. Come on. It’s okay.”
He nodded his head and nickered softly but didn’t come closer. Thinking—hoping—she knew what he wanted, Phoebe took a risk and tossed the apple slice, aiming for the ground halfway between them.
The horse flinched at the toss, but he didn’t run. He hurried to the apple and snarfed it up. Then he looked at her again and did the same thing, nodding and nickering. She took another slice from the baggie and tossed it between them again.
In that way, she got Smoky to come almost within reach.
“Well, hi, baby. Here.” Again she set a slice on her palm and held it out. He stretched his neck and pooched out his lips, trying to reach it without moving closer. When he couldn’t quite make it, he did the nod-and-nicker thing again, but this time she shook her head.
“Not this time. Now you’re gonna have to trust me. Come on. You’re okay.”
They stood at an impasse for a few more minutes. Twilight was starting to fade away. Pretty soon she was going to be doing this in the pitch dark of an overcast country night.
“Come on, sweetheart. I know you can be brave. Look how much you’ve survived already.”
After one more attempt at stretching enough to reach, Smoky took the last steps and snuffled the apple from her palm.
“Good boy! Good boy!” She snagged another slice and held it out. He shied a little from the sound of the baggie, but he didn’t bolt or charge. As he took the apple, Phoebe carefully set her other hand on his nose. He shied, tossing his head out of her reach, but he didn’t step away.
By the time the baggie was empty, Smoky was all up in her business, looking for more, nibbling at her gloves, her pockets, her hat—and Phoebe was stroking his nose to her heart’s content.