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Work was the only thing that pushed the chaos to the back of her mangled head and let her function with some semblance of normalcy, so Phoebe went straight to the stable when she got back from town. She didn’t even bother to change her clothes. Her good boots were suede and sure to get ruined, but right now, that was the least of her worries.
Mickey was in the tack room. His big job for the day was washing the blankets, and Phoebe found him folding a pile fresh from their old industrial dryer.
He grinned when he saw her at the door. “Hi, Phoebe! Did you have fun in town?”
She found a smile to answer his. “I didn’t go in for fun, but I got my errands done, yep.”
“I always have fun in town. Mama takes me for Taco Bell, and then we get ice creams.”
“That does sound fun. I’ll have to do that next time. It’s time for Smoke to come out of quarantine, so I’m gonna work him, see what he can do. When you get those folded, you want to come out and help?”
“Yes I do! I’ll do these real fast, okay?”
She laughed and actually felt a little lighter. “Okay. We’ll be in the corral. I want him to see the other animals while we work him this first time.”
“Okay! Can I bring treats for him?”
“We’ll use the nuggets for training, but you can cut him up some apples for afters.”
“Okay!” Mickey cheered again. Phoebe felt her heart swell and realized, maybe for the first time, that she loved this kid.
Actually, she loved this guy. Mickey was about her age. His cognitive differences made his personality akin to a middle-schooler, but he was, in fact, a grown man. Did she treat him like a child? She didn’t think so; she thought she treated him the way he wanted to be treated, whatever that was. She treated him like Mickey.
He was part of her weird little family of people who fit right here and nowhere else.
Mickey, too, would lose the place where he fit if Lydia Copperman stole the ranch out from under them all.
She had to find a way to keep that from happening.
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~oOo~
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Phoebe always waited until a new rescue was out of quarantine before she made the horse do any kind of work. Most animals who came to her had been in some kind of bad situation, and horses were generally the most abused and traumatized, because they were generally the large farm animals who interacted with humans most directly. A goat or cow or alpaca might well be neglected, might be left trapped in a stall that was far too small and never cleaned, but those animals weren’t usually work animals, so humans didn’t have much cause to beat them—except for those terrible, thankfully fairly rare, instances when a human caused pain for sport.
Horses, on the other hand, were work animals who often spent their days in the company of people, and were thus often both abused and neglected before they came to rescue. So Phoebe focused first on building trust and making sure the animal understood they were safe.
Smoky had shown signs of both abuse and neglect when she’d collected him from that nasty farm. But now, two weeks later, he’d plumped up and calmed down—if the inspectors had seen him when he’d arrived here, they would have been impressed at how much better he looked now.
They would also have been impressed at his psychological healing. Phoebe and Mickey were now both able to put their hands all over Smoky’s head, walk all around him, and lean on him. He didn’t like his feet picked up, but he’d tolerate it with some sweet talk and treats. He’d also abide a halter and lead.
The wound on his leg was healing, and Doc LeeAnn had cleared him for training. It was time to find out what Smoky thought about saddles and bridles. Phoebe wasn’t even sure yet if he was truly saddle trained—his previous owner had said so, but she didn’t trust anything that crusty old bastard had told her.
Before she collected the horse, she carried out her training saddle, pad, and two bridles—one with a curb bit and one with a snaffle. She also brought a hackamore, just in case. A hackamore was a bitless bridle, and Smoky was fairly mouthy; there was a chance he’d resist a bit.
She got everything set up inside the corral and went back to collect Smoky. The first part of understanding what a horse could do and would tolerate was seeing what he thought of the tack. A lot of horses who’d been abused under saddle reacted to the tack itself.
Smoky was in his little turn-out, but he trotted right back into the stall when he saw her coming, nickering and flapping his lips, begging for a treat. Phoebe grabbed a few nuggets from her pocket and palmed them. “You are spoiled already, I see,” she cooed as he shoved his snout into her hand.
“He’s not spoiled, he’s loved,” Mickey said behind her.
“That’s right. You want to lead him into the corral?”
“Yeah!” Mickey grabbed the halter and lead off the hook and approached Smoky. “Do you mind, boy?”
