No Horse Wanted Read Online Free Page B

years. It meant I was being a
spoiled brat, but I didn’t care. I kept most of my attention on the
horse. He flicked his ears and cocked his head my way, flashing a
white blaze, but his big brown eyes nailed me. And there was no way
I’d leave him here to die of starvation. I turned and scuffed
through the dust to the back porch. I carefully climbed the rickety
steps and knocked on the door.
    I’d concentrate on making him look good, like
a horse again, not a skeleton. Later, I’d find him a good home and
sell him. And nobody said I actually had to ride him in the
meantime. He could just hang out in the barn with the rest of the
hay-burners. Once I sold him, I would put the money toward my car. My car, my car, my beautiful car —well, if I got Brenna a
down-payment, she’d save it for me. I knew she would. In this down
economy, she’d take installments if that was the best I could
do.
    I pushed open the back door and saw my mother
sitting at a kitchen table talking to a scrawny, older woman
wearing the worst wig I’d ever seen. “Mom, I’ve found him. I found
my horse.”
    “He’s not yours yet,” Mom said. “Mrs.
Bartlett tells me there’s another buyer coming to see him.”
    “Who else would want him, but me?” I asked.
“He’s a wreck. Of course, once he’s all the way dead, a vet student
might take him to study the bones.”
    “Roberta Lynn, that’s enough. Stop being
rude. You have better manners. Use them.”
    I folded my arms and waited. The door opened
behind me, and I saw Felicia standing there. “What?”
    “A old fat guy just got here with the worst
trailer in creation. And he’s feeding your want-a-be horse grain.
It’s gross.”
    “What’s gross about it?” I asked. “At least
someone cares enough to feed him.”
    “He’s scarfing it so fast he almost chokes on
each mouthful. Every time he spills some on the ground, he eats the
dirt and the grain. He’s going to colic.”
    “I don’t suppose anyone cares if he dies of
that either.” I brushed past my sister and returned to the corral.
Sure enough, she was right. A guy older than my dad stood with a
bucket of feed. “What are you doing?” I asked. “He’s not yours
yet.”
    “He will be.”
    I nodded. “Well, you’re feeding him. That’s
something. He won’t be hungry or abused.”
    “Nope. My partner and I will put some weight
on him and run him up to Stanwood. They’ll ship him to the
slaughter house in Canada.”
    “You can’t!” I watched the horse nudge the
guy for more feed like the two of them were best buddies. “He likes
you. Come on. All he needs is a stall and regular meals for a
while.”
    “And six months to a year’s rest before he
could be trained or ridden.” The man shook his head. “Nope, he’s
history even if he’s too dumb to know it.”
    “Then, why waste grain on him?” Mom asked, as
she joined us, Mrs. Bartlett limping along behind. “Or are you just
trying to win his confidence to make him easy to load?”
    That earned a snort of laughter. “Lady, this
grain is heavily salted. In a couple hours, he’ll be ready to tank
up on water. By the time I run him to Stanwood next week, he’ll be
more than a hundred pounds heavier.”
    “And since they’ll pay by the pound for him,
you’ll make more money.” Mom put an arm around my shoulders.
“Sometimes you need to know when to walk away, Robin. This could be
one of those times.”
    “Or not.” Felicia walked over to the fence
and pushed down the bottom strand of barbed wire with her boot. She
lifted the second line and climbed into the pasture. Murmuring
reassurances, she walked up next to the horse. “I want to see his
teeth.”
    “I’ve looked at his papers,” Mom said. “He is
barely two and a purebred Morab. Half Morgan and half Arabian.”
    “And nobody’s ever faked registration
documents,” Felicia said.
    She sounded almost as snarky as I did when
people irritated me. I saw Mom roll her eyes. Okay, so we were