Stable Vices (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 21) Read online

  STABLE VICES

  BY

  CLAIRE SVENDSEN

  Copyright © 2015 Claire Svendsen

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the Author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Your support of author’s rights is appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, places or events is purely coincidental.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The second show of the Talent Scout series had been a wash out. I’d scratched Bluebird before the class anyway because I knew that something was wrong with him but the fact that a torrential downpour had occurred just before and during the class definitely made me feel better about my decision.

  I was pretty sure that Bluebird would have tried his best but we never would have won. But my toughest competition hadn’t won either. That meant that I still had a chance if I won at the next show but only if Bluebird was better by then. I didn’t even know what was wrong with him. All I’d known was that he wasn’t right.

  Before we left I’d found him lying down in his stall and it wasn’t his stomach that was bothering him either. He had a fever. We’d dosed him up with meds and now he was in the trailer with all the other horses as we made our way back to Fox Run but it was taking forever. Traffic was horrible thanks to the wet roads and we’d been stuck in a traffic jam for half an hour because of an accident on the highway.

  I glared out the window as the rain trickled down the glass, willing the traffic to clear. All I wanted was to get back to Fox Run, tuck Bluebird away in his stall and call the vet, who was probably already there.

  Faith had called Missy all hysterical because Jupiter was foaling and no one was there to help her. Sandy, Missy’s once upon a time friend had dumped the mare on us and now she’d disappeared and so had my father. Apparently my dad wasn’t home when Faith banged on the door. Missy seemed worried that they’d run off together. I told her that she was being ridiculous. Thanks to my father’s broken ankle he couldn’t run anywhere, all he did was hobble from the living room to the bedroom and back again. It was more than likely that he’d taken too many of his pain meds and passed out. Besides, it didn’t matter anyway. He was still on crutches so it wasn’t like he could get in the stall and help pull the foal out anyway. Jupiter was stuck just like we were.

  “Can’t you drive on the shoulder?” I moaned. “Get around all this traffic?”

  “Yes because getting arrested will definitely get us back faster,” Missy replied.

  “You could tell the cops you have a medical emergency,” I said.

  “I don’t,” she said.

  “Bluebird is sick. Jupiter is foaling. Sounds like a medical emergency to me,” I said.

  “Somehow I don’t think the cops will see it that way,” she said. “Horse emergencies don’t count.”

  “Well they should,” I mumbled. “It’s not fair. Why is everything going wrong?”

  “It just feels like that right now,” Missy said. “Everything will be okay.”

  “But you don’t know that do you? You don’t know for sure that Jupiter will foal just fine without us or that Bluebird will get better.”

  “No but I can try to look on the bright side,” she said.

  I knew that she was only trying to be nice and comfort me but trying to be a ray of sunshine in the middle of my thunder storm was not helping and I wasn’t five. I didn’t need to be lied to and told that everything was going to be okay when it wasn’t. They’d told me that when my sister was in the hospital. They said that she would be fine and then she died. I’d never believed anyone ever again when they said that everything was going to be fine. It was a lie told to little children who were gullible enough to believe it. I knew better. Nothing was going to be fine. I could feel it in my bones.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Going back home after a show was usually my favorite part of the day. It didn’t matter if you’d won or not because there was nothing that you could do about it. Your horses were tired and so were you but if you were lucky, you’d placed and it had been worth it and if you hadn’t, then at least hopefully you had learned something from the experience that you could use at the next show.

  The horses were always happy to go in their stalls and the trailer was sometimes left to be unloaded the next day because everyone was too tired but this time was different. I hadn’t learned anything except that people didn’t seem to believe a word I said. Missy hadn’t believed me when I told her that Sandy was no good and she certainly hadn’t believed me when I told her that Bluebird was sick when he was. Did I have a dishonest face or something or was it just that fourteen year old girls were expected to lie because they were teenagers who didn’t know any better?

  While we were stuck in traffic, Missy had called the vet’s emergency number but of course he was at his cabin in the middle of nowhere fishing or something and couldn’t be reached. They promised to send the vet who was standing in for him, a woman we hadn’t heard of before.

  “What if she isn’t any good?” I said.

  “A crappy vet is better than no vet at all,” Missy said, tossing her phone down.

  It landed in the middle of a mess of baby toys, fast food bags and empty candy wrappers. I’d never noticed before but when Missy was stressed, she was kind of a slob.

  “We can’t just let Jupiter suffer, even if Sandy has abandoned her.” She sighed.

  “We don’t know that she’s abandoned her,” I said. “Maybe she just has her phone off. Besides, I’m more worried about Bluebird. I don’t want some sucky vet examining him. What if she can’t figure out what is wrong with him?”

  “He has a fever. I bet he just picked up a virus at the show. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

  Missy dismissed my concerns. She wouldn’t have if it was her horse that was sick and if Bluebird did have a virus, what if he was contagious? What if he gave his horse show germs to all the other horses and the barn ended up locked down in some awful quarantine?

  “You don’t think its strangles, do you?” I gulped.

  “Don’t even think it,” Missy said. “Did he have a runny nose?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said, trying to remember.

  “Well, did you see any neck swelling or giant pockets of pus waiting to explode?”

  “No.” I shook my head. I definitely hadn’t seen anything like that.

  “Well until you do, try to imagine that it is not something that is going to cause everyone a lot of grief.”

  “But that barn over in Scottsdale,” I said. “They had strangles last year and were quarantined for ages. They couldn’t go to shows and nearly half the horses got sick. I think one of them even died.”

  “No one is going to die,” Missy yelled at me as the traffic started moving again. “Now stop talking about strangles.”

  “Okay but you’re not a vet so you don’t know,” I added stubbornly.

  “He’s been vaccinated,” Missy said, gripping the steering wheel like she wanted to strangle me. “All the horses have. The chances of him having strangles is very low. Almost nonexistent. Okay?”

  “No,” I said. “Not okay.”

  We spent the rest of the drive back to Fox Run in a sort of frosty silence. I knew that we were both tired and grumpy and that everything that had happened had set our emotions on edge. Every time I thought about Bluebird being sick, I wanted to burst into tears but I knew I had to
stay strong and I didn’t want to look like a blathering idiot in front of the new vet.

  By the time we got back to the barn the rain had stopped but the sky was gray and dull. The lights blared out into the dim evening and I could see that the vet’s truck wasn’t there. Instead Faith came running out of the barn, her face streaked with tears.

  “Hurry,” she said. “Jupiter can’t get the foal out.”

  “I can’t hurry,” I told her as I jumped out of the truck. “Bluebird is sick.”

  “Oh no, what’s wrong with him?” she said, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Well is he going to be okay?”

  “I don’t know that either.”

  “What should I do?” she asked.

  “You know that stall way in the back? The one that is on the other side of the tack room away from all the other stalls where we keep the spare pitchforks and brooms?”

  She nodded.

  “Go and clear it out and toss a few bags of shavings in it. I want to keep Bluebird away from all the other horses in case he is contagious but I can’t just put him out in the back paddock because it looks like it is going to rain again and he has a fever. I don’t want him catching pneumonia on top of whatever else he has.”

  “But what about the foal?” Faith said.

  “Do it fast,” I told her. “The sooner I can put Bluebird away then the sooner we can look after Jupiter, unless you want to stand here and hold him for me the whole time?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I’ll do it.”

  She ran off into the barn while Missy undid the trailer ramp. It thumped down on the ground with a dull thud and one of the ponies inside nickered.

  “Let’s get these horses and ponies inside,” she said.

  “What about Dad?” I asked her as she went inside. “Shouldn’t one of us go to the house and see if he is okay? What if he’s fallen and he can’t get up?”

  “Then he’ll just have to stay there until we get all this mess sorted out,” she said, backing Popcorn out of the trailer. “I can only deal with one crisis at a time.”

  “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” I said.

  “It’s okay. Let’s just try and stay calm, alright?”

  “Fine,” I said, staring desperately down the drive. “But where on earth is the vet? Doesn’t the word emergency mean anything?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  By the time we got all the horses unloaded and Bluebird settled in his new stall, the vet was pulling in. She had a battered old truck, which didn’t give me a lot of confidence but by this point I was desperate for any vet to show up.

  We’d been standing outside Jupiter’s stall watching her struggle. It was awful, not knowing what to do. The mare was sweaty, her chestnut neck and flanks dark. She kept getting up and then lying down again. Every now and then she’d grunt. Missy had wrapped the dock of her tail to keep it out of the way and we’d seen one tiny hoof and a nose but one hoof wasn’t good. There were supposed to be two, the foal’s head resting on its outstretched legs as he was born. One hoof could only mean one thing. His other leg was tucked back behind him and he couldn’t be born that way. Not without ripping the mare in two.

  “I’m Mary,” the vet said, sticking out her hand to shake Missy’s. “How long has she been like that?”

  She was a big, muscled woman with long dark hair pinned back in a braid. Her jeans were worn, her shirt stained but right now I had more confidence in her than in any of us.

  “I don’t know,” Missy said. “We just got back from a show. She’s not even our horse. Faith? How long?”

  Faith looked at the time on her phone. “A couple of hours at least,” she said.

  Mary went into the stall and placed her calloused hand on Jupiter’s neck.

  “Don’t you worry,” she said. “We are going to take care of you and your foal. Everything is going to be fine.”

  Jupiter sighed and lay back down as Mary went around to check out the foal.

  “He’s stuck,” she said.

  “He?” I asked. “How can you tell?”

  “Big feet,” she said. “Looks like a boy. I could be wrong.” She looked up at me and smiled. “But I’m usually not.”

  Mary was relaxed and calm. She didn’t freak out like we’d done when we’d seen that the foal was stuck. She just went to her truck and brought back all her supplies, humming a show tune under her breath.

  “Is she really going to be okay?” Missy asked in a low voice. “Because if not, I’d like to get the kid out of here.”

  She motioned to Faith who was texting on her phone, standing off to the side with her face still all blotchy and pale.

  “Does she ride?” the vet asked.

  “Yes,” Missy replied.

  “Has her own pony?”

  “Yes, I have my own pony,” Faith piped up, realizing that she was being talked about. “He has anhidrosis so I have to take extra special care of him.”

  “I bet you do,” Mary said. “And if you are old enough to have your own pony and know about anhidrosis then you are old enough to know that sometimes horses get sick and sometimes bad things happen to them, right?”

  “Yes,” Faith said solemnly. “I know.”

  “Really,” Missy said. “Faith I think you should call your parents to come and pick you up and I want you to go and wait in the office.”

  “No,” she said. “I want to stay.”

  “I really think it would be better if you went in the office,” Missy said, trying to sound firmer.

  I knew she was only trying to protect Faith but it was a little late for that. She was already here. She’d seen half of it. There wasn’t much point in not letting her see how the situation played out and what was Missy going to do anyway? Drag her into the office and lock her in there?

  “The kid says she’ll stay,” the vet said, pulling on rubber gloves. “So she might as well help.”

  “Really?” Faith said.

  “No,” Missy said. “Absolutely not.”

  But Faith just ignored her. “What do you want me to do?” she said.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It was Faith’s job to sit by Jupiter’s head and keep her calm. Missy had the job of trying to make sure that the mare didn’t get up and I was going to help the vet pull the foal out.

  “I have to find that other leg first,” Mary said, lubing up her gloved arm.

  She lay on the floor of the stall, her arm inside poor Jupiter, pushing the foal back in so that she could get him into the right position. It looked awful and painful and horrible.

  “I am never having kids,” I said.

  “Well human babies don’t come out hooves first,” Missy said.

  “I don’t care. I’m still never having them.”

  “You’ll change your mind,” she said with that look that all new mothers got on their faces when they talked about babies. “When I held Owen in my arms and he looked up at me, I knew it was all worth it.”

  “No thanks,” I said. “Not happening, not ever. I’m never having kids.”

  “Me either,” Faith added.

  “Yeah, I’m not too keen on the whole idea either,” Mary said.

  “See?” I told Missy. “You are outnumbered.”

  Missy just shook her head. I bet she knew that she couldn’t win this battle.

  It took so long that I thought that maybe Mary wasn’t going to be able to do it and if she couldn’t get both the foal’s legs out then I didn’t know what she was going to do. Jupiter had already seemed distressed and now she just seemed tired, like she’d given up. Faith sat by her head and stroked it gently, telling her that everything was going to be okay because that was what Mary had told her but what if it was a lie? She didn’t know that it was going to be alright. Missy had said the same thing. All these people going around saying things were going to be fine when who knew if they were or not. I felt like I’d fallen into a motivational video or was stuck in one of
those cheery posters with the rainbow and the kitten and the words of encouragement that told you to look on the bright side. I mean there wasn’t even really a bright side anyway. There was just this muddy gray patch in the middle where we were all stuck, just like the foal. I was just about to ask Mary if she should call someone else to come and help when she pulled her arm out.

  “Got it,” she said.

  But by now, Jupiter had given up pushing.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  There were cuffs that were wrapped around the foals legs and ropes that we held.

  “Don’t pull until I do,” Mary said.

  We were going to have to help the foal out. Jupiter was tired. The struggle had been too much. She couldn’t get the foal out on her own.

  “He’s a big one.” Mary shook her head. “Don’t worry though girl,” she told Jupiter. “We’ll get him out.”

  “Should I help?” Missy asked. She was lying across the mare’s belly, her weight keeping Jupiter down.

  “Should I help pull?” Faith asked.

  “Everyone just keep doing what you are doing,” Mary said, then looked at me. “Ready?”

  “Ready,” I replied.

  “Okay, now pull.”

  It was harder than I thought it would be and we couldn’t pull too hard because otherwise we would hurt the mare. We started with gentle tugs and then Mary told me to pull harder and the next minute the foal was out. He slithered onto the bedding with a soft plop but he wasn’t moving.

  “Is he dead?” Faith cried, looking at the foal.

  Mary got to work clearing the gunk off him and cleaning his nose. I held my breath, waiting. If he was dead then it would have all been for nothing. But the next minute I saw the twitch of an ear and then he was moving his legs, trying to get them under him to stand. Jupiter looked at him and sighed, then she got up and went over to the other side of the stall where she sent him a glare. Mary frowned.