M. Lush

1.

Crista wasn’t prepared for what she saw when she left the derelict hovel of a trailer sitting on the hill and walked down the sloping field into the barn. She’d seen the animals outside, watched the pigs with their ribs showing and the puppies stacked three high in wire cages, sniffing at piles of their own waste to weigh the possibility of it being palatable. She watched quietly, recording with a small hand-held digital video recorder, when the livestock wandered by, picking through the rusting junk and mud in search of a stray leaf or a spot with mud liquid enough to drink.

The part of her that closed off and let her do her job first, and deal with the horrors that she saw as a cop later, kept her calm through the documentation, the animal welfare raid, and through most of the inspection of the house. When she found the cats–three fur covered skeletons were all that was left–she held solid. But when she walked into the dark barn the wall opened and everything started to spill out.

The word “Cody” was glued onto a wood plate in letters made of thin rope, but the plate itself was half chewed from where the creature within—Crista wasn’t sure she could still call it a horse—had tried to eat the wood planks of the stall because there was nothing else to eat.

Looking down at the horse, shrunken and folded over himself on bare, hard dirt, Crista couldn’t see a single thing right. She wasn’t an expert. She didn’t even consider herself experienced, but she could see so many things wrong.

His hips and ribs were clearly visible. His hooves were long, splintered and turned up at the end. There was a spot on his nose where the filthy, mud-caked halter had rubbed the skin to the point of bleeding. There were other spots along his body where hair was missing and a foul, rotted smell came from either him, or something he was laying on. His head drooped, his coat was dull and flaky. There was no question he’d been sickly. For a moment, she thought he’d died in his sleep maybe, and still sat that way. She hoped it had been that peaceful for the poor thing in the end.

Tears welling up to her eyes she raised her camera to document the scene and Cody jerked his head up in response.

“Son of a bitch.”

Crista set the camera on a nearby dusty box, ironically painted with a faded red cross and mounted on the outside of the stall wall. Then she looked around for a rope of some kind. She found a filthy, rusted lead rope, bull snap caked with mud on the end, in the dirt at the end of the row, snatched it up and ran back to where the horse was struggling to get to his feet.

He was too weak to panic, she noted, trying to shove the tears back down because they were doing nothing but making it hard for her to see. But he was too weak to get up too.

Oakes and Preston found her only moments later as she tried to use her own body to give the horse the leverage he needed to get to his feet. She wasn’t a slight woman by anyone’s standards, but Cody was at least eight hundred pounds, underweight and sick, and her one sixty wasn’t doing much to help.

“What are you doing?” Preston asked. He was three hundred solid pounds of the kind of male strength that defied simpler things like the laws of physics.

“Trying to get him up. Laying down is bad right? And he couldn’t get up on his own.”

Cody doubled his weak efforts to gain his feet. His forelegs shook, his balance precarious at best. Preston didn’t hesitate. He got behind the horse, risking the possibility of being kicked either by accident or on purpose if it flailed. After a moment Oakes, still pristine save for his boots, joined in.

“Come on, baby, you can do it.” Crista didn’t even realize she was cheering the horse on as she pulled. She wasn’t the the type to show more than a stoic face, even to the worst kind of victims, but her secret emotions were safe with the horse, who would never be able to tell anyone. Oakes and Preston could go fuck themselves if they decided to make a big deal about it later.

“Come, Cody. Come on, boy.”

“Shit, she’s already named it.”

Crista gave Oakes a glare, then with a monumental push the horse came up onto all fours, immediately stumbling a few steps to the side before stabilizing. Crista swallowed a victorious whoop then a little shake when she realize that, even though she was a decent five eight, the horse’s dull brown head was about a foot higher than hers. He was big. The intimidation factor tried to kick in, but Crista buried it behind practiced focus.

“Now what?” she asked.

“There’s lots of grass out there, go let him eat some so we don’t have to try to pick him up again.”

Preston glared at Oakes. “Are you an idiot?” He turned to Crista. “Grass is the last thing he needs. It could make him real sick, any food could. Walk him slowly up and down the hall here, just to keep him on his feet. Do not let him eat. After being starved it can make his stomach real upset and cause a lot of problems. I’ll send the vet in as soon as he gets here.”

Crista nodded. Preston glared at Oakes again. “Haven’t you ever heard of founder? Or colic?”

“I’m not a horse person,” Oakes protested as the pair walked out to where the rest of the team waited.

“How do you live in horse country and not pick this stuff up?”

“How did you know all that?” Oakes asked, brushing at the dirt on his pants.

“My daughter’s been riding since she was four,” Preston answered. “Hard not to absorb some of it.”

The other officer’s voices faded until the barn was quiet, save for the soft steps of hoof and boot in loose dirt and Crista’s quiet murmurings of encouragement. She felt like she had stumbled upon the steed of Death himself. Barely more than a rug over an equine skeleton, Crista had the sick feeling this would be the last time she’d see Cody.

The cavalry arrived in the form of a convoy of trucks and trailers from a local riding stable. A series of frenzied calls for help had ended with the senior officer in charge nearly in tears of desperation because they had over two dozen animals that needed to be transported and provided for immediately, not to mention needing vet attention, and there was no organized farm animal rescue in the area. The animals could not stay in pens that were nothing but mud and rusting junk. But city animal control firmly told them they didn’t have the facilities for pigs, sheep, goats, horses, and what looked like a mud covered ostrich. The puppies and near feral barn cats they’d agreed to accept though.

What started as a raid on a potential illegal puppy mill had become a cobbled-together attempt to save a farm full of animals.

The barn manager at Deepdale Acres, a few miles away hadn’t hesitated. She took down the address and fifteen minutes later eight trailers pulled up. It was clear the manager had roused a fleet of volunteers because nothing matched, save for the biggest truck and trailer combo in coordinating colors.

A woman in jeans, a T-shirt and a brown pony tail jumped out, followed by at least two people from each truck. Crista hid a weak in the knees feeling behind a scowl as Cody, despite his weakness, tried to bulldoze his way toward a weedy patch of grass again. The ponytail woman caught Crista’s eyes and made a beeline for her.

“Please tell me you’re a vet,” Crista said.

“No. Dr. Julie is on her way to the barn. We’re just here to help. You look like you need it.”

“I have no clue what I’m doing. I found him in the barn, laying down and barely moving.”

“Do all the animals look like this?”

Crista shook her head. “There are three other horses who were out in a paddock. They’re not this skinny, but one of them is very pregnant. They had grass and weeds to eat though. He was locked in a stall inside.”

The woman nodded. “Okay, some horses have a problem with trailers. Do you think you could try to lead him up onto one, or would you prefer someone else do it? If he starts getting scared or pulling away, just tell me and we’ll get someone else to help.”

Cody rested his head against Crista, smearing slobber and dust over her uniform. “I can do it,” Crista answered.

Crista and Cody followed the woman over to the largest trailer. She undid a few latches and the whole lower half of the back of the trailer lowered down like a ramp leading inside. Crista didn’t know what came next. Did Cody just walk up the ramp?

She walked forward and Cody followed. His front hoof hit the fiberglass of the ramp and he immediately stepped back away from it.

“Just walk right in. There’s a door near the front for you to get out through.”

Crista took a resolved breath and stepped up onto the ramp. Cody stretched his neck as she moved, then took a heavy, tentative step into the trailer. The woman from the barn appeared behind him and gave him a good shove.

“Come on, it’s okay.” Crista found herself saying. Then she made herself shut up, because she didn’t even talk to the kids she ran into on the job like that.

“Keep encouraging him,” the barn woman called.

Crista rolled her eyes, and felt like a fool, but started talking again. There was no way the horse knew English, but her voice kept his ears pricked forward toward her, and it kept him walking.

Cody’s heavy steps clanked into the trailer. Crista led him as far as she could then, sweating and sneezing from the dust and bits of hay that lifted into the air with any movement inside the trailer, she leaned against the wall. Cody kept coming until he couldn’t any more, butting his head against her to demand more scratches. The barn woman stepped up behind him and released a metal gate from the wall. It swung closed, clanking into place and trapping Cody in the trailer at a slant. Cody shifted his weight.

“Get his head up!”

“What?”

But it was too late. Cody tucked his back legs under him and went down to a laying position on the trailer floor. Crista didn’t see how there was enough room for him to lay down, but his big body folded on itself.

The barn lady cursed.

“This is bad isn’t it?”

“Yes!” The barn lady took a breath. She unlatched the metal divider and it sprung back from the pressure Cody was putting on it. There hadn’t been enough room for him to lay after all. “Horses weigh a lot,” the barn lady was saying. “Any time they lay down it puts pressure on their organs, so it’s not good for them to do it for long. But this guy here–”

“Cody,” Crista said.

“Cody,” the woman accepted with a nod. “Cody is weak, starved. He’s laying down because he doesn’t have the strength to stand anymore, and if he keeps going down eventually it’s unlikely he’ll have the strength to get up. Ben!”

The last word she shouted. But Crista crouched down at Cody’s head, stroking him and whispering gently. She didn’t know which words were spilling out of her mouth, she was overwhelmed by the thought that Cody had just laid down to die.