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Spot, another of their barn cats, slept in a curl in the middle of Smoky’s back.
She rapped on the post beside the stall door, and Smoky’s head popped up. He looked back at her and nickered at once. Phoebe smiled. He knew her for a true friend already.
Spot woke, stood, stretched, yawned, and hopped down to start her workday with some breakfast. She paused to wind around Phoebe’s boots. Phoebe bent and gave her a scritch.
When she stood straight again, Smoky had turned and come to the door. “Hey, baby. How was your night?”
His head came over the top, and he pushed the side of his nose against her head. His version of a horsey hug. Moving with careful attention, Phoebe eased her hands up his neck, just behind his ears. She got most of the way around his neck for her version of a hug before he shied, raising his head out of reach. But he didn’t jump or scoot away.
“Not ready for that yet, huh? Hey, I get it. No worries.” Pulling her glove off with her teeth, she dug into a pocket of her coat and drew out a handful of treats. “Got some dried apples this morning. How’s that sound?”
Smoky thought that sounded great. He snuffled them up and went looking for more.
“Okay, hold on.” She pushed his head back a bit. “We gotta get some work done first. And then you can have a few more yums.”
She pulled off the other glove, shoved them both into a pocket, and snagged Vin’s phone from another. Keying his passcode in, she opened the camera and set it to video.
For this first take, she focused on Smoky’s face. “Say hi to Smoky,” she spoke aloud as the horse tried to nose at the camera. “He says hi back. He’s a big ol’ love, and I think he’s beautiful, but he’s in really bad shape. I rescued him from an abuse and neglect situation yesterday, and we’ve got some work to do together.”
She stopped recording and put the phone away. “Back up, baby. Let’s get that blanket off you for a second. You gonna be okay with that?”
He was fine with it, except that he kept swinging his head over to nibble at her beanie, her braid, her coat, her pockets.
The jerkwad she’d rescued him from had told her he was a ‘mean old cuss,’ or something like that. No, the jerkwad was a mean old cuss. Smoky was a sweetheart—whose spirit was strong enough he could fight back when somebody was shitty to him.
With the blanket off, she got some more footage—TikTokkers loved their trauma porn—then checked him over carefully for wounds, signs of illness, or any other indications of special needs to address. She’d call the vet out to do a full workup, but her practiced layperson’s eyes said the boy just needed some meat on his bones and some kindness on his heart.
With all that done, she covered him up again. He was too skinny to go without in this cold. Then she refilled his bag and water tub. In winter, her stock got a ration of feed as well as sweet alfalfa hay, but a starved horse got only hay for the first several days no matter the season. Anything more was carefully portioned treats for rewards and encouragement only.
As she closed Smoky’s stall, she heard the weary grind of Mrs. Hicks’ ancient Country Squire wagon. Leaving the rest of the animals to wait a little longer, she went out the side door and smiled as Mickey clambered out of the passenger side of his mom’s car.
“Hi, Phoebe!” Mickey called, trotting straight for her.
“Hey, Mickey!” she called back.
“Mickey! Your hat!” his mother yelled from the driver’s window. Mickey pulled the beanie in his hands over his head.
Satisfied, Mrs. Hicks waved at Phoebe. “Hi, hon! I gotta get back to town. I’ll pick him up at three, right?”
“Right. Sounds good.” She and Mickey stood and watched his mom turn around and drive away.
“Did you buy that big blue truck, Phoebe? It’s pretty. It’s blue like the Kansas City Royals. Royal blue!”
“It is pretty, like the Royals. I agree. But no, it’s not mine. That truck belongs to a friend. My truck broke down last night, and he brought me home.”
“Oh no! Your truck broke? Did it hurt you?”
“Nope, I’m fine. Everything’s fine. Come on, you can meet Smoky. That’s the horse I rescued yesterday. And I haven’t fed anybody else yet, so we’ve got a lot of work to do this morning.”
“It’s after seven a.m., because I start work at seven a.m. and I been here”—he checked his digital watch—“for three minutes. It’s 7:03. We need to feed everybody right away!”
Phoebe hooked her arm around Mickey’s. “Let’s get to it!”
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~oOo~
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