Fire and Ice, continued...
We roughed her up with towels, shook her, pumped her chest, and everything stayed the same. We stopped while I looked up a nostril but couldn’t see so much as one hair quivering. Tears streamed down our cheeks. “Wait,” I said. “I think I saw a hair move.” We rubbed her some more. The hairs in her nostrils fluttered and and her chest began to move visibly. Then she opened her eyes, lifted her head, and abruptly lurched to her feet. Only then did I realize a star marked her forehead.
“We should name her Miracle,” said Mikki. We laughed and hugged each other.
The mare still lay on her chest, asleep, I thought, resting nose down in the straw. Mike lifted her head and placed her muzzle in the electrolyte drink. She wiggled her nose, then began drinking in great gulps.
Near sunset, Mike and I went back out to the barn. The mare still lay in the same position. Miracle had to get her first colostrum soon or she would die. The mare had to get to her feet or she would die. We helped the mare heave to her feet. Miracle began nosing around her flank. Within minutes she found a nipple and began nursing. Her dam turned and sniffed her, then licked her.
When we checked an hour or so later, the mare finally had expelled the placenta. I laid it out in the bathtub and washed it off. It was the usual a butterfly shape with a tear at one end where the filly had come out. The edges of the tear fitted together perfectly. Nothing had been left inside her uterus. The mare would be OK. I thought.
That night we left the barn and her stall open to the quarantine corral so they were free to join the other mare and foal. New mothers usually feel safer that way.
At sunrise the next morning, I walked out the south living room door into the corral. I called out, “Horses,” which is how I let them know I'm there.
Little Miracle, glowing like a new copper penny, galloped out of the barn to my side, whickering and cuddling with me. Inside the barn, I heard her dam begin hollering. I herded the filly toward the barn and just then her dam’s head poke out the door, then she bared her teeth and charged me. I ran like heck, and barely beat her to the nearest gate.
That’s how Dragon Lady won her name. It didn’t take too long to figure out that she was entirely wild. When I bought her, she had seemed tame only because she was too near death to flee or fight.
Like most any wild horse, she calmed down on a pretty good schedule. One day just two weeks later, while I was grooming off the greasy thatch of hair was on her back, she began leaning unto the rubber currycomb to let me know it felt good. From then on she came eagerly whenever I called her.
Dragon Lady is now an old lady’s pet. Mikki bought Miracle and registered her as a palomino. Mikki’s filly became a star of sorts when a gag photo of her in my living room ran on page 101 of the Sept. 28, 1998 issue of Time magazine. Also, a few less cans of dog food – or perhaps pounds of protein meal -- got made.
All this pivoted on a $60 whim, a dumb stunt that got lucky. A miracle, perhaps.
Ah, but now back to what else happened that brutal drought year...
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