A Gentle Rain by Deborah F. Smith Page B

eyes."
    I looked where they pointed. A young gray mare stood out from the herd. A nasty scar ran across her forehead from just below her left ear to the right side of her muzzle. She stared at me with pitch-black eyes. Yeah, she hated people in general or probably men in particular.
    "What's the story on that gray mare?" I asked the livestock broker.
    He shrugged and looked at a sheaf of notes. "She's about five years old. Come out of a ranch around Apalachicola. Been roughed up pretty bad. Owner beat her with barbed wire. Sheriff confiscated her. Couldn't do nothing to rehabilitate her, though. She's head shy and mean as a snake. But lord, they say she can turn on a dime. Look at them hindquarters. She's got the booty to be a fast horse. Tough mare. A Cracker."
    "Cracker?"
    "Yeah. Ayers line, this says."
    "Got a gait to her?"
    "Naw. Couldn't coon rack if you paid her to. Oscar! Put a lead on that gray mare and bring her thisaway so these folks can get a better look. But be careful!"
    As we watched, an auction worker tried to get a line on the mare's halter. First she snapped at him, then she tried to kick him. He swiped the line at her and hooked her halter ring. She threw her head sky-high. The lead line zipped through his hands. He hollered and blew on his palms.
    The broker sighed. "See there? Dog food. She's dog food."
    He walked off.
    "Dog food!" Lily moaned. "No!"
    Joey gazed intently at the mare. "Don't be scared ofus," he called. "We love you just the way you are. We know what it's like to be different."
    The mare pricked her ears and looked at Lily and Joey, like she understood. My gut twisted. Gimme five minutes alone with the man who'd beat a horse that way, and I'd put some scars on him. But the mare was a lost cause.
    I'd seen her kind, before. You can't rehab an animal that hates people that much. She'd be a danger to everybody at the ranch. If I tried to breed her with Cougar, she might hurt him. Besides, she didn't even have a coon rack to pass on.
    "Poor baby," Lily whispered, never taking her eyes off the mare.
    "We love you, you're not dog food," Joey called.
    "Let's buy her," Dale whispered.
    I shook my head. "Nope. Just say a prayer for her. Maybe Jesus'll find her a good home. That's all we can do."
    "Maybe Jesus sent you to take care of her!" Dale said hotly.
    I just walked off I couldn't save every wounded soul. Not the mare's, not Joey's, and sure not my own.

    My yearlings sold easy, for over one-thousand dollars each. They went to good homes, on ranches I could vouch for. I wished them all a nice life with a pat of my hand, then took a seat in the bleachers to watch the rest of the sales. My crew sat on either side of me, eating sugar-dusted funnel cakes and drinking chocolate Yoo-hoos, except for Cheech, of course, who ate candy bars and bottled iced tea from his snack bag.
    The gray mare went up for bids near the last, along with old horses and the lame ones. I hated this part of the auction, and so did my hands. We usually left before it started. But Lily and Joey wanted to see the gray mare one more time.
    When two workers led her into the ring-well, not led, exactly, since she dragged them-the auctioneer banged his gavel. "Fifty. Do I hear fifty dollars?"
    Yep. Dog food prices. The meat brokers started lifting their hands.
    "Fifty," Lily called out. Then she covered her mouth and hunkered down. Mac and the rest of us craned our heads to stare at her. Mac said, "W-what are you d-doing, honey?"
    Tears filled her eyes. "They're gonna turn that sweet baby into dog food. I can't let them. I just can't."
    "L-lily! We c-can't b-buy... Glen said we're not s-smart enough to t-take care of our own h-horses ... and he doesn't want to p-pay their feed b-bill-"
    "Fifty-five," a meat broker called out.
    Lily moaned. She looked at me. "Ben! Fifty-five dollars isn't very much, is it?"
    Not for nine hundred pounds of dog chow, I thought grimly. "It's not the cost of the mare, Lily, it's the danger. She might