Third-Time Lucky by Jenny Oldfield Read Free Book Online Page A

thing through: a horse can ingest—eat—the larvae via grass. They damage the gut lining and cause infection. They can even get into the blood vessels and cut off the blood flow. That gives a horse bad colic. He gets a potbelly, anemia. But that’s not the problem here, I guess …” Matt’s frown deepened, then he dug into his kit for a stethoscope. “Did you notice Lucky coughing at all?”
    Kirstie took a sharp breath. “Once or twice maybe.” Why hadn’t she paid any attention at the time, she wondered. Why had she been so busy worrying about Moonshine and neglecting her own horse? She waited while Matt listened to Lucky’s chest.
    And as she stood anxiously in the pool of yellow light cast by the overhead bulb, she heard footsteps and saw her mom and Hadley come into the barn. Their wet jackets and hats showed that it was still raining outside, and their quiet voices told Kirstie that they, too, were concerned.
    “What’s new?” Hadley asked as he drew near Lucky’s stall.
    Matt straightened up and let the stethoscope dangle from his neck. “Lungs don’t sound too good,” he told them. “There’s a mucous discharge from the nose, too.”
    The wrangler nodded abruptly, leaning over the stall door for a closer look at the patient. “Listen, I heard Glen Woodford’s out of town for a day or two, so how about you giving him penicillin to clear up the discharge?”
    Under the circumstances, Matt agreed to use the ranch’s own antibiotics. “We can give him 30ccs of procaine twice a day to see if it helps. Plus a shot or two of benzathine into the muscle.”
    “And how long do we rest him?”
    “Seven days minimum.”
    Kirstie listened without taking in the details. It bothered her that Hadley, with a lifetime of dealing with horses behind him, had only needed one quick look to decide that the situation was serious.
    Perhaps it was Lucky’s body language that sent a strong message. He’d backed off into a dark corner of the stall, head hanging, so unlike his usual inquisitive self that he hardly looked like the same horse.
    “Let’s leave him to get some rest,” Sandy suggested after the men had stopped talking and a tense silence had developed. She led the way toward the barn door, while overhead the rain fell steadily on the corrugated tin roof.
    For a while, Kirstie held back. She checked the bedding, the water feeder, reluctant to turn off the light and leave Lucky in darkness.
    “Kirstie?” Sandy called.
    One last look, trying to convince herself that he wasn’t as sick as they were making out, that his coat wasn’t so dull, his eyes not so lifeless as they might think. It was the way the shadows fell, a trick of the light.
    From the far corner Lucky stared back at her. His pale mane hung lank over his face; he made no effort to move.
    “Kirstie!” A more insistent call from her mom.
    “Coming!” Quickly she switched off the light above the stall and plunged the barn into total darkness.
    Monday, the first day of June, dawned bright and clear, with little sign of the rain of the night before. When Kirstie looked out of her window, Eagle’s Peak basked in early morning sunlight, and the sky was a delicate bird’s egg blue.
    It was a day when she would normally call Lisa and say, “Come ride up to Eden Lake with me. You take Rodeo Rocky. (No need to say that she, Kirstie, would be riding Lucky.) We’ll make a sack lunch, take swimming stuff, and stay out the whole day!”
    Lisa would answer in a sleepy voice from her bedroom above the End of Trail Diner in San Luis. “Jeez, Kirstie, do you know what time it is? It’s six thirty, for heaven’s sakes! This is a vacation. Just give me a break!”
    But she would put down the phone, pull a comb through her wavy hair, stick on a T-shirt and jeans, then grab a lift from a truck driver friend of her mom’s taking breakfast in the diner. She would show up at Half Moon Ranch still grumbling about a girl needing her beauty sleep. It would