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Beauty was on the ground, rolling back and forth, a sheen of sweat covering her glossy coat and a pinkish foam at her nostrils.
Quick as she could, Isobel wrapped Sugar’s lead around the stall peg and then opened the door.
“Beauty!” she went down on her knees.
Oh God. Beauty had seemed fine only hours before—though granted Isobel had barely peeked in to call out hi before her ride. Dammit. She’d been so involved in her own worries she hadn’t been paying attention.
Beauty tried to roll but couldn’t get very far in the confines of the stall. These were all the classic signs of colic. Which could kill a horse within hours if not treated correctly.
Isobel swiped at her eyes and tried to think. First, she needed to get Beauty back up on her feet. Then take her vitals. Okay. She could do this.
Isobel jumped up and grabbed Beauty’s halter from a hook right outside the stall. She slipped it over Beauty’s head, buckled it, then attached a lead to the halter.
“Come on, girl. Up.” She tugged on the lead rope with all her might. “Up you go.”
Beauty pulled against her. Isobel dug in and tugged hard. And finally, after a few more tense moments, Beauty climbed to her feet. She immediately yanked against Isobel’s hold though, twisting her head toward her flank and dancing back and forth.
Then she reared back, kicking at her own stomach with her forelegs.
“Whoa, girl!” Isobel cried, letting out more slack on the lead and flattening her back against the stall door as Beauty came back down again.
Crap. Having a twelve-hundred-pound horse rear right in front of you was never a comfortable feeling but Isobel knew showing how freaked she was would only make Beauty more tense.
“Shhh, shhhh,” Isobel tried to quiet the horse down. She drew the lead rope back in and stepped close to Beauty’s nose. “Shhh, that’s right, girl. I’m going to figure out what’s wrong and make you feel better, okay sweetheart?”
Maybe it was just her imagination but she thought Beauty calmed a little at her voice.
“That’s right, that’s right,” Isobel soothed.
She ran to grab some equipment and then hurried back so she could take the rest of Beauty’s vitals. Her temperature was okay but her heart rate was almost double what was normal.
Not good. Not good at all.
Then Isobel did an internal examination. Was it just gas? That was the best-case scenario. Or was there a twisted intestine causing the blockage? That was the worst-case scenario because it required surgery.
What she discovered instead was the middle possibility. There was an impaction—a thick section of intestine that was hard with what was most likely undigested feed that had gotten all clumped up in a six-inch section.
“Okay,” Isobel whispered. “Okay, okay, okay.”
She withdrew her hand and peeled off the glove, taking both it and the thermometer out of the stall. She rushed back over to the sink, throwing out the plastic glove and scrubbing both the thermometer and her hands.
“Okay,” she whispered to herself. “You can do this. This is going to be your job.” But somehow it felt like there was less at stake with other people’s animals. And Hunter was always there if she screwed up.
She paused mid-scrub. She could go call him. Get a second opinion.
But no. She’d felt the impaction. She knew what to do next. And she’d just helped him with that other colic case the other day.
Yes, that one had been a little different. They’d suspected it was a twisted intestine but the owner hadn’t wanted to pay for surgery—understandable since it could cost more than the horse was worth.
When Hunter had called later to follow up on the case, the owner told him the horse hadn’t lasted the night.
Isobel squeezed her eyes shut against the possibility. No. That wouldn’t happen to Beauty. Beauty had already survived so much—a cruel owner who had held her to an impossible standard, pushing her past her limits even when she was injured.
Now Beauty was finally getting the life she deserved. She was getting her happily ever after here on this horse farm with owners who cared about her and were happy to just let her be herself.
Then to have that all threatened now, right when her legs were barely even healing up so she could actually enjoy her new home?
It was cruel. It was wrong.
