The Last Diving Horse in America by Cynthia A. Branigan

Author:Cynthia A. Branigan [Branigan, Cynthia A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2021-09-28T00:00:00+00:00

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The Texan didn’t return to his home state immediately. Who can blame him? When he told me temperatures on the ranch reached well over a hellish 100 degrees during the day, the low 90s here must have seemed cool. Even the gruesome local tour I took him on—a visit to an infamous horse auction; another to a forsaken city zoo; and a stop at a high kill rate animal shelter (that at least resulted in his adoption of a doomed dog)—was preferable to him than returning to the Texas oven. Yet although his respite was short, it was long enough for all other plans to fall apart.

Shiloh had only been with me a few days longer than Sparkplug, and I was still getting to know her. She continued to be demonstrably more affectionate than Gamal. Far from copying his hard-to-get routine, she was ready to nuzzle or whinny at anyone passing her stall. While it would have been easy to get sucked in by her indiscriminate advances (and in fact, I did slip her more than her share of carrots), her attention was almost too easy, too unselective. Gamal made me work for his affection, but when he gave it, I knew it was for me and me alone. But Shiloh was a friendly, outgoing girl, and seemed robust and contented in her new digs. I had no reason to think she would have any trouble on the trip to Texas, nor that she would fit in there equally well.

Then, she coughed.

When I first heard it, I wasn’t quite sure it even was a cough. Horse coughs were something else new to me. It was a hollow, rumbling sound, something that seemed to come from a deep, cavernous place and almost sounded like the woof of a big, hoarse dog. I reasoned that Shiloh could have been trying to clear a piece of carrot from her throat. Or that maybe she was speaking in another kind of horse language I hadn’t heard before. Since I heard the sound only once, I said nothing. I was tired of being the dumb novice with yet another inaccurate observation. Besides, both Wendy and the Texan heard the sound and neither expressed alarm, so I took my cue from them.

The following day, Shiloh coughed again, twice. This time, I spoke to Wendy. She reminded me that Shiloh had come to us with papers stating that a vet had examined her recently. Still, she went into Shiloh’s stall and checked her out. The mare’s eyes were clear, her nose was clear, and she was eating and drinking normally.

“We’ll keep an eye on her,” Wendy said. “But I don’t think there’s anything to worry about.”

Not worrying was never my strong suit. By the third day, Shiloh was still coughing, but still without any accompanying symptoms. I thought about her trip to Texas, only a few days distant. What if she was sick and something happened to her along the way? As much as

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