Finding Home by Lois Greiman

Author:Lois Greiman
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Kensinton Publishing Corp.
Published: 2012-10-25T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

It was Saturday morning, more than twenty-four hours since Emily had found the orphaned calf; Casie had put off the inevitable as long as she could. The dead cow would have to go.

The weather was still chilly. A sharp rain stabbed in from the northwest, driving needles against her face as she headed for the tractor shed. The old Farmall groaned when she turned the key, huffed once, and fell silent. Stifling a curse, Casie scrambled down from the cracked seat, found the plug-in that hung down beside the oil pan, and attached it to an extension cord that only had one dangerously rodent-gnawed spot. Plugging the cord into an outlet, she reminded herself to find the electrical tape at some point, but in the meantime, while the engine warmed up, she threw hay to the horses and dumped grain in the bunk for the weanlings. The pinto was getting fat and sassy. The grullo, however, still looked knobby kneed and sharp ribbed. Both of them watched her with gleaming eyes, standing back against the wall of the barn.

“Come on,” she crooned. “Do I have halitosis or what? Come on over. I’m not as bad as you think I am.”

The grullo remained where he was, but the pinto tossed her head and advanced until Angel thumped a hoof against her stall door. Startled by the noise, the filly spun away, tail flipped over her back as she raced a quick circle around her buddy.

Casie turned toward the mare with a grin. “I’m coming,” she said, and opening the gate that separated the weanlings from the open area of the barn, went to feed the gray. The goose honked, precariously perched on Al’s hairless back, and the goat, always an early riser if there was the possibility of food, grinned at her over the gate. Someone was always hungry on the farm. “So Ty hasn’t been here yet, huh?” she asked.

The mare banged the door again, impatient and demanding as only a healthy horse can be.

“Maybe he has finals today,” Casie guessed and reached over the uppermost plank to dump a can of oats into the old mare’s bucket. Then, finding a wooden-doweled tote filled with ancient grooming tools, she creaked open the door. Stepping inside the stall, she ran the curry along the gray’s reedy neck.

Angel snorted, blowing oats across the legs of Casie’s jeans. She smiled at the mare’s contentment. Okay, so maybe the Lazy was all but bankrupt, there was a dead cow not five hundred feet from where they stood, and she still wasn’t mature enough to talk to a teenager about sex, but at least the mare’s condition was improving. “So things are good, huh, girl?”

Angel sighed contentedly and thrust her knobby head back into the bucket.

“If you don’t watch it, you’re going to get as fat as Al over there,” she said and motioned to where the goat stood with his front hooves wedged between two planks in an effort to gaze over the top of the fence.

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