PRINCESS ducked from under the fence rail and scrambled to her feet, staring down the driveway. Two bobbing helmets appeared, then shoulders, then riders—two teenaged boys on bicycles laboring up the hill. They had barely enough breath to speak. “Out of…shape much, Bill?” panted the one who was slightly ahead.
“I’m not…breakin’ a sweat yet.” Bill, the second one, stood on his pedals and pumped harder, coming up alongside. “Hi, pony,” Bill puffed. “ ’Bye, pony.”
Princess stared at his hunched back and flashing legs. No! Stop! She trotted along the fence till she was ahead of the bikers. As they passed once more, she blasted out a snort. They paid no attention.
Princess had never asked a human being for anything in all her life. She’d never had to. All her needs except the deepest ones had been understood and met before the lack was even felt. But these boys were going away. They mustn’t. She lifted her head and sent a quavering whinny after them.
“Woof!” Bill stopped pedaling and dropped his bike in the ditch. He landed beside it on the ground. “Hey, Corey…wait up! This pony wants…to talk with me.” After a moment he dragged himself to his feet and came to the fence, reached out a friendly hand to Princess, and looked her over. “Wow, you’re an old-timer!”
Princess licked his sweaty palm. The ponies’ salt block had been devoured months ago, and Bill’s hand tasted good.
Corey dropped his bike too and came back, breathing deeply. “Right, the pony wanted to talk!” He leaned both arms on the fence. “Hey, there’s more of them.” The rest of the herd had stepped to the edge of the trees to stare uphill. Now they galloped toward the boys and Princess. She moved out of their way, and the ponies reached through the rails, straining toward the boys’ hands.
“Kind of a ratty-looking bunch,” Corey said.
Bill was staring at the pasture. “These ponies are starving!”
“They are thin,” Corey said. “But I don’t know anything about ponies.”
“Look at the trees!” Bill said. “They’ve eaten all the bark. There isn’t a blade of grass left in this field.” He pulled out his phone and started punching with his thumbs.
Corey said, “There’s grass all over the place out here. Why don’t we just open the gate?”
“I’m not sure that’s—hi, Aunt Tish?”
Corey turned to the overgrown grass at the side of the road, tearing it up in handfuls. The aroma was overpowering. The ponies whinnied and trampled, and Bill pressed one hand to his ear. “About fifteen—they’re so skinny! I can see all their ribs.”
He listened for a moment. “Yeah, that place you took me last summer that was having the auction…Okay, and it’s a bad idea to let them out, right? ’Cause there’s grass all over the place, outside the fence…okay, we’ll do that. See you soon.”
He turned to Corey. “She’s on her way, and we can’t let them out. They’d eat too much, and that could kill them. But we can pick.” He dropped to his knees, ripping at the tall grass.
When he and Corey had their arms full, they rushed to the fence and tried to toss the grass over. A dozen eager muzzles intercepted their hands. The strongest, bossiest mares got mouthfuls. The rest got nothing but kicks. The green grass smell and the sound of chewing were a torment to Princess. But there was such turmoil at the fence, such kicking and biting and squealing, she didn’t dare go close.
“I hate this!” Bill said, almost crying. “They’ll hurt each other! And the old one that whinnied at me hasn’t gotten a thing. I’m taking some in to him.”
“They’ll kill you!” Corey said. “They’ll trample you in the dirt. They’re desperate!”
“You hold a big handful in front of these guys,” Bill said, tearing at the grass again. His hands were streaked with welts from the strong stems. “Tease them—I know, it’s mean, but just for a second. While they’re watching you, I’ll go in.”
He ducked between the rails and raced toward Princess. She shied away from him, confused. He was big and fast—but he was carrying grass. He dropped a rustling armful of it and backed away. Princess grabbed an enormous mouthful.
So good.
“Watch it!” Corey called. Two ponies near the back of the herd had noticed them. They cantered toward Bill. He bolted for the fence, while the ponies shouldered Princess aside, searching out every last blade.
The cat had been observing from his hiding place in the weeds. Now he came forward to introduce himself, stroked against their legs, and purred loudly. “Nobody’s fed him either!” Corey said. He opened his pack and took the ham out of both sandwiches, fed it to the cat, and gave the bread to the ponies.
A few minutes later a pickup roared up the hill, pulling a battered horse trailer. It stopped near the fence, and a gray-haired woman got out. As she looked at the ponies, her mouth thinned to a sharp, angry line. Without a word she opened the trailer. Bill and Corey rushed inside.
They came out with two hay bales each. Tish followed with one. They opened the bales near the fence and began throwing sections of hay over the ponies’ backs, scattering them widely across the bare ground. “More piles than ponies,” Tish ordered. “That way they won’t have to fight.”
The ponies fought anyway, at first. They thought they still had to. But soon each one settled down—even Princess, at the far edge of the herd. The hay was fragrant with summer sun, with herbs and flowers and sweet, sweet grass. No one came to take it from her. Across the pasture, all movement had stopped. The grinding of teeth on hay stems filled the air.
After a while a siren screamed up the hill. The county sheriff had arrived, and a few minutes later a woman came from the animal shelter. They talked to each other. They talked on their phones.
“So the owner had a stroke?” the sheriff said.
“That’s what I heard,” Tish said. “I don’t know him. I live a couple of towns over, and these ponies are in a different league than mine. Or they were.”
“The trainer and his wife were still living here,” said the animal-shelter woman. “They were supposed to be taking care of things.”
“I’ll go have a look around,” the sheriff said. He came back in a few minutes to say, “They took care of things, all right! This place is stripped!” He gazed grimly at the ponies. “There’s a story here. Those two gone, one pony with a rope on…Someone tried to catch that one, I’ll bet, and when he couldn’t, he left them all to starve!”
“Who would do that?” Bill asked. “It’s the cruelest thing I ever heard of!”
“Maybe we’ll find out someday,” the sheriff said.
Tish said, “Meanwhile, the real question is what to do about these ponies.”
“We’ll get a vet up here this afternoon,” the animal-shelter woman said. “And we’ll figure out how to contact the owner, or whoever is acting for him if he’s incapacitated. These guys are thin, but they’re alert and energetic. I’m guessing we’ll be able to feed them in place.”
“What about that one?” Bill asked, pointing to Princess. “He looks pretty bad.”
“She,” Tish said. “That’s a mare. But you’re right, she does look bad.” Tish ducked between the rails and approached Princess, holding out a hand. “May I touch you?”
Very little could have moved Princess from her hay pile. She chewed steadily, while gentle hands pressed against her ribs and probed her knobby backbone. Then Tish bent to look at the wound on Princess’s chest.
“Okay, you need a vet right away.” She turned to the sheriff. “This pony has an infected wound that needs immediate care. I’d like to take her home with me.”
“Normally that would be a problem,” the sheriff said. “Animals are property. I can’t just take them from an owner. But there’s no one here to take her from and nobody living here to provide medical care. So I’d say go ahead. If that’s the wrong answer, we’ll sort it out later.”
Tish got a rope out of the trailer and clipped it to Princess’s halter. “Bring the hay, Bill. I don’t want her to have to stop eating even for a second.”
Bill gathered the hay in his arms. Princess lifted her head to follow it, and Tish read the nameplate on her halter. “ ‘Princess.’ In quotation marks, so it’s probably a stable name. Maybe you were a princess once, darlin’, but that was a long time ago!” She led Princess through the gate to the open trailer. “Ever been in one of these?”
Princess had been riding in trailers since she was a month old. Trailers meant shows. They meant clapping and blue ribbons, an old man’s proud voice, brown sugar.
Her mane was tangled. Her hooves were ragged. She was skinny and scarred, muddy and cold. But she lifted her head and walked proudly up the ramp.
Bill opened the front door and climbed into the front compartment. “I’ll ride in here and hold the hay for her. Corey, throw the bikes in the truck. You can ride up front with Aunt Tish.”
“What about him?” Corey asked. The cat was exploring the empty half of the trailer, which smelled appealingly of mouse.
“Bring him along,” Tish said. “I can always use another barn cat.”