Part 3
Ruin ran. Bess stood where she was while he made a long circuit of the field, flinging mud behind him. Ruth closed the gate and kept her hands on the top bar. Wayne moved closer, the whip still pointed at the ground. None of the mares followed the stallion. After another circuit, his stride shortened and he came toward them at a trot.
He slowed again well before Bess. She watched him cross the last stretch of grass. He stopped several yards away, lowered his head, and waited. Bess stepped up until their noses touched. Then she spun and sent both hind feet through the space where his chest had been. Ruin jumped aside. Wayne raised the whip, but the horse did not come back at her. He backed off and put his head into the grass.
Ruth stayed by the gate until her knees ached. The mares spread out, and Ruin kept to the edge of their group. When Wayne finally put the whip in his truck, he told her he still thought she was taking a chance. She agreed. That was the first useful thing either of them had said all afternoon.
She did not leave the horses alone that first evening. From the porch she could see the line of the fence and the movement of dark bodies against the grass. Bess went to water first; Ruin waited until she had walked away. Twice Ruth put down her supper and went out to check the rails. The mares had been Jon’s as well as hers, and she had offered them no say in the wager that might save the farm. She was relieved when they made their own terms plain.
Over the following weeks she watched the field while she drank her coffee on the porch. Ruin did not rush the mares. Sometimes he stood alert while they rested; once, when Wayne’s cattle dogs ran along the adjoining fence, he moved between the dogs and the herd. Bess continued to set the distance she wanted. Ruth could see changes in the herd without pretending she could read every intention behind them.
There were still ordinary problems to deal with. One gate sagged after a rain, and Ruth repaired its hinge before turning the horses back into that section. She kept Ruin’s feeding routine steady so she could watch for any change in his behavior. He came to the fence when she brought hay, ate, then returned to the mares. The repeated days mattered more to her than the one impressive run across the pasture.
Miller returned near the end of May with his portable ultrasound equipment. Ruin moved between him and Bess when the veterinarian came through the field, but he followed the mare at a distance as Ruth led her into the examination area. Ruin watched from the adjoining enclosure while she brought in the others. By the last examination, Miller had checked all five. Each mare was pregnant.
Ruth gripped the fence. Miller wiped down his equipment and looked toward the black stallion. “I was wrong about what you could do with him,” he said. “That doesn’t mean the bank will take a promise of five healthy foals.”
He made notes on the examination sheets while she counted the mares once more. Ruth asked him to repeat which date belonged to which animal. He took the trouble to show her. The small circles on the screen had seemed almost impossible to trust; the written records made them something she could put in front of a loan officer. They still could not tell her what would happen by spring.
“I’ll take the five pregnancies to them,” Ruth answered. She made him show her the records before he left. For years Jon had been the one to carry that kind of news into the house. Ruth put the examination sheet beside the bank notice and went back out to check the gates herself.
The lender accepted a plan built around the expected foals and scheduled another review after they could be sold. It gave Ruth time, though the tractor still knocked and the hay bill was no smaller. During the summer she counted the mares at dusk. By fall their bellies were growing. Ruin had a place near them, but she moved him to the adjacent paddock for the months ahead. He stood at the fence when she brought feed and came when he heard her truck.
Ruth kept a calendar in the tack room and marked each mare’s expected window. She made no mark for a sale. When Wayne noticed the blank space and asked when she planned to advertise, she said she would do it after there were foals to show. He nodded toward the tractor, which had begun to complain again on the hill. Both of them could hear how much time the machine had left before it needed more than careful driving.
Winter broke water lines, sealed gates with ice, and forced Ruth to keep a canvas cot in the tack room. She got up every couple of hours to look in on the mares. Ruin grew a thick winter coat and watched her pass without circling his enclosure. One sleet-heavy night in late March, Bess lay down in the foaling stall and began to strain. Ruth set her flashlight where it would not roll, knelt in the straw, and reached for the phone she kept close at hand.
For a moment the line was busy. Ruth looked at Bess, at the clean straw she had spread that evening, and at the small pile of towels within reach. She dialed again while Ruin called from the paddock. When Miller’s voice came through, she held the phone against her shoulder and told him what she saw.
To read the rest of the story – CLICK the NEXT button 👇👇👇