Page 27 of Texas Made
Damaris found the first aid kit and brought it to him. “I’ll see if I can figure out where she hurt herself after I put up the rest of the horses.”
“All right but you don’t have much daylight left. If you don’t find it pretty quickly we’ll look at first light.” They couldn’t use that pasture until they found the problem.
Someone beeped in while he was talking to the vet. As soon as they hung up he checked to see the other call was from Jaclyn. “Hey,” he said, returning her call.
“Hi. Did you want to eat something at my place or would you rather eat the pot roast Ruthie is making?”
Marshall loved Ruthie’s pot roast. “Can’t,” he said regretfully. “I’m waiting on the vet.”
“Oh. Is it routine or serious?”
“Serious enough to need stitches. And it’s Snowdrop. She cut her fetlock.”
“Oh, no. I’m sorry, Marshall. Do you think you’ll have a long wait?”
“Probably. He’s always busy.”
“Do you want me to bring you some dinner?”
He looked at Snowdrop’s bloody leg. “Better not. It’s kind of a mess down here.”
“I’ll have Ruthie make up a plate for you and you can have it later.”
“That sounds good. Thanks.”
Shortly after that Jaclyn showed up at Snowdrop’s stall. “You didn’t need to come,” he said, although he was touched that she had.
“You sounded worried. So I came to see for myself. How did she cut herself?”
“I don’t know. Damaris is looking but if she doesn’t find it soon we’ll have to look in the morning. Don’t want more horses to get hurt.”
“She’s bleeding a lot,” Jaclyn said, entering the stall. “What can I do to help?”
“You’re going to get filthy,” he warned her.
She blew that off with a wave of her hand. “Don’t be silly. What can I do?”
“I used up the saline in the first aid kit. There’s some more in the tack room. Somewhere,” he added. “If you could find that I can flush the wound some more.”
Jaclyn went off, returning quickly with a large bottle of saline solution. “Here, I’ll hold her head while you work on it.”
Marshall didn’t argue. He needed all the help he could get. Before long he’d finished flushing the wound and wrapping it with a fresh bandage. Now all there was to do was wait.
“Snowdrop is your favorite, isn’t she?” Jaclyn was still at the mare’s head, stroking her nose and murmuring to her.
He smiled. “You’re not supposed to have a favorite. But yeah, she’s one of them. Cappuchino, our original stud, is another. But Snowdrop’s a special horse.”
“I could see how important she is to you from the first.”
“Snowdrop is the foundation broodmare. We’ve been through a lot. And her offspring are the best.”
“Been through a lot?”
“When I got her people thought I was crazy. Damaris didn’t, but she was more skeptical than me. Snowdrop had been neglected and was thin and depressed. But from the moment I saw her I knew she was the one.” He stood and patted Snowdrop’s neck. “I guess you could say we bonded right off.”
“She’s beautiful. And she seems to have a good disposition.”
“She does. The best.” He looked away, then back to Jaclyn. “All of our broodmares are good. So far, they’ve been healthy, had great offspring, have been good mothers. But Snowdrop—” He stopped unsure how to go on. God, he sounded like a sap when he talked about the mare.
