Third-Time Lucky by Jenny Oldfield Read Free Book Online

gently. “You know what we say when things get a little tough around here?”
    She nodded, but the lump in her throat wouldn’t let her speak.
    “You gotta cowboy-up!” Sandy chanted the Half Moon Ranch mantra. “When the weather turns real cold and we get snow on the trail three feet deep, we keep right on trucking. A horse loses a shoe at nine thousand feet up on Eagle’s Peak Trail, what do we do?”
    “We cowboy-up,” Kirstie answered faintly. For once, she was glad to be treated like a little kid. She liked the comfort of her mom’s arm around her shoulder and the soft look in her kind gray eyes.
    “Sure we do. And it’s no different now that Lucky’s sick. Look, you’ve known this guy for how many years?”
    “Five.” Sandy, together with Kirstie’s grandpa, had bought the palomino as a one-year-old, soon after Sandy, Kirstie, and Matt had come to live at the ranch. Kirstie had been watching from her bedroom window when they’d brought him over from San Luis Sale Barn and opened up the back of the trailer. The youngster had practically tumbled down the ramp on his skinny legs, looking dazed and confused after the rough journey. He had been real cute as he kicked out and bucked, then took in his new surroundings. And the thing that had hit Kirstie between the eyes, that had set Lucky apart from any other colt she’d ever seen, was his amazing color.
    Bright as new gold. They always said that about palominos, but with Lucky it was true. He shone, he glowed, he gleamed. He was like a lucky dollar. Her own lucky charm. Lucky.
    “Five years,” Sandy repeated. “And would you say he’s weak or strong?”
    “Strong.” There was no trail he couldn’t climb, no river he couldn’t swim. They’d survived floods and landslides, gone everywhere together.
    “Yeah. And what about willpower? Would you say he had a little or a lot?” Kirstie’s mom finished drying her hair for her, then put a mug of chocolate in her cold hands.
    “A lot.” Kirstie didn’t call it willpower; she called it courage. Lucky was the bravest horse she knew.
    “Good. And he’s smart, yeah?”
    She nodded. Strong, brave, and clever. It was a great combination. It was what made her love him.
    “So, trust him to get through this, whatever it is,” Sandy advised, allowing Kirstie to take just one gulp of her hot drink then head for the door.
    Halfway across the porch, Kirstie paused and turned. “Thanks, Mom!” She managed a brave half-smile before she rushed on across the dark, wet yard toward the barn.
    “Take a look in his eyes.” Matt showed Kirstie the telltale signs that her horse was sick. “Pull back the lid. You see the lining membrane? It should be a good, deep pink color.”
    Lucky’s was pale, almost white. “So?” she asked.
    “He’s anemic. His temperature’s over a hundred, and his resting pulse is forty-five.”
    “OK, he’s sick,” Kirstie agreed. “But it can’t be equine flu; he had his shots last month.”
    “Yeah, that’s what’s so weird.” Matt ran his hands over Lucky, feeling for swellings in the abdomen. “The symptoms are the same as Moonshine’s, but the diagnosis has to be different. I’m thinking along the lines of a fever brought on by poisoning of some kind. Has Lucky been eating anything he shouldn’t?”
    “No way!” Kirstie was always on her guard. She never let him near any painted fences that might contain creosote or lead. And Red Fox Meadow was clear of plants that were dangerous to horses.
    Matt frowned and stood up. “So maybe it’s a worm infestation. They get parasites in the gut: red worm larvae, lungworm, whatever…”
    More long words. She turned sharply and walked up to him, eyeball to eyeball. “How would that happen? Come on, how?”
    “Hey!” Matt backed off, hands raised in surrender. “Don’t shoot!”
    “Sorry.” Kirstie shook her head. “It bugs me, that’s all, not knowing what’s making him sick.”
    “OK, me, too. Let’s think this