Dr. Mac drives without a word, pushing the van above the speed limit once we get out of town. At first I was pumped about going with her and seeing Trickster, but the closer we get, the more I wish I had stayed at home. What if Mr. Quinn kicks me out of the barn?
“Maybe I’ll just stay in the van,” I say as we turn down the lane to the stables.
“Fine,” Dr. Mac says, driving fast enough to create a cloud of dust behind us.
“Or I could just find the girls and, you know, steer clear of Mr. Quinn.”
Dr. Mac hits the brakes, and the van skids to a stop behind the barn. “Do what you want, David.” She grabs two equipment boxes out of the back, slams it shut, and jogs into the barn.
I wish I had the guts to follow her. I want to see how Trickster is doing. I owe him an apology, too. If I had tied him up the way I should have, he’d be fine by now. We might even be out riding together.
I feel like a pile of manure just thinking about it. No—I don’t want to go in the barn.
I sit on the bumper of the van. If my dad were here, he’d tell me to march right into the barn and deal with what’s bugging me. “Get back on the horse when you fall off” was one of his big mottoes. It was easier to do when he was around. Everything was easier when Dad was around.
“Come on, boy, you can do it.”
It takes a second to realize where the voice is coming from. It’s Mr. Quinn, talking to Starfire as he slowly leads the horse into the courtyard. Dr. Mac is behind them, watching closely.
Starfire looks like a different horse from the one who rescued Brenna yesterday. His head and tail are down, and he walks slowly. He stops suddenly, jerking at the rope held by Mr. Quinn, and swings his head back toward his belly.
No wonder Dr. Mac was in such a hurry to get here! Starfire is Mr. Quinn’s favorite horse—his most expensive one, too. If anything happens to him …
“See, this is what I was telling you about,” Mr. Quinn says. “His belly is sore.”
Starfire shakes his head and takes a few steps forward.
“Has he been rolling around in his stall?” Dr. Mac asks.
Mr. Quinn shakes his head. “Not that I’ve seen.”
“Still, it could be colic,” Dr. Mac says. “The symptoms point to it.”
“That’s what I thought at first, too,” Mr. Quinn says. “But he’s not having any trouble going to the bathroom. He’s had diarrhea for the last hour. Do you think it’s colitis X—that disease that kills racehorses?”
“Relax. I doubt that’s it,” Dr. Mac says. “That’s pretty rare. I’d suspect a lot of other things first. Let’s get him in a stall. I’ll start an I.V. to replace the fluids he’s lost. Where can we put him so he’s isolated from other horses?”
“How about the foaling barn?” Mr. Quinn asks as he strokes Starfire’s back. “It’s empty now.”
“Great,” Dr. Mac says. “If he has a virus, or something contagious, we don’t want it to spread to the other horses.”
That doesn’t sound good.
“Come on, Starfire.” Mr. Quinn leads the sick horse across the courtyard. Starfire stops suddenly and whinnies loudly, his neck arching up and his hooves pawing at the ground. While Mr. Quinn is distracted, I slip into the barn to check on Trickster.
My footsteps echo on the cement. The barn is clean and empty, the stalls all mucked out, with hay waiting in the hay nets for when the horses come in from the pasture. The girls must have worked really hard to get all the chores done.
I walk faster.
A familiar whinny comes from a nearby stall.
It’s Trickster.
“Hi,” I murmur as I walk toward the stall. “How are you doing? How’s the leg?”
Trickster bobs his head up and down. His sore leg is wrapped to keep the swelling down, and he’s still not putting weight on it. As I lean over the stall door, Trickster whinnies again and knocks over his empty water bucket with his nose.
Not only is his water bucket empty, but hay from the hay net is spread all over the stall, and the floor has a lot of manure and urine on it. Yuck. Not a nice place to recuperate in.
“What happened? Did the girls forget about you?” I can’t believe they missed Trickster’s stall. That wouldn’t have happened if I’d been here. “Come on, boy—we’ve got to get this place cleaned up.”
First, I lead Trickster into the aisle and tie his lead rope firmly to a metal ring on the stall door so he can’t run off. Then I grab a shovel and wheelbarrow from the supply room and quickly clean the stall floor. Once the stall is clean with fresh straw on the floor, I fill the water bucket.
When I lead Trickster back into the stall, he immediately takes a long drink of water. He lifts his head, shakes his forelock, then drinks again.
“Thirsty, huh?”
He lifts his head for another breath of air, then puts his entire nose back in the water. I’ve never seen a horse drink that way before.
“What are you doing, you goofball, learning how to swim? You are the strangest horse I ever met. Take it easy, there. If you drink too fast, you could get a stomachache.”
I reach for Trickster’s halter to distract him. How long has he been without water? I gently tug his face toward mine so I can straighten his forelock. Wait a minute … what’s this?
Trickster has strange bumps on his lips. They look like blisters—small, clear, and tender.
“I don’t think these are supposed to be here,” I tell the horse. “What have you been doing?”
Trickster snorts and pulls away from me. His ears flick toward the aisle of the barn. Then I hear footsteps. Someone is coming. Good. If it’s Dr. Mac or Mr. Quinn, I want them to see this.
“Hello?” I call, sticking my head out the stall door.
“David!” Maggie says. “What are you doing here?”
The girls are leading their horses in single file behind Jared.
“Hey, how come you guys went riding before you cleaned Trickster’s stall?” I ask.
Jared looks puzzled. “We didn’t. We cleaned everything before we left.”
When I describe the condition of Trickster’s stall, he shakes his head.
“No way, man. I cleaned that one out myself. And I gave him water.”
That sounds like the kind of excuse I’d give if I were caught not finishing a chore.
“Whatever,” I say. “I took care of it. But I think something is wrong. Trickster has bumps by his mouth. They’re really weird.”
Jared frowns. “He’s probably been chewing on his stall. Horses do that when they’re bored. I’ll go get the doc to look at him. Can you help the girls groom their horses? Just a quick brush-down. These critters were acting a little antsy on the trail. I think they want something to eat and a nap.” He shakes his head. “What a day.”
“OK,” I say warily. There certainly seems to be something strange in the air today.