The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans Page A

kill the horse?
    “By injection I imagine.”
    “And what if I say no?”
    There was a pause at the other end.
    “Well, I suppose they’d have to try and get him somewhere they could operate on him. Cornell maybe.” She paused again. “Apart from anything else Annie, it would end up costing you a lot more than he’s insured for.”
    It was the mention of money that clinched it for Annie, for the thought had yet to coalesce that there might be some connection between the life of this horse and the life of her daughter.
    “I don’t care what the hell it costs,” she snapped and she could feel the older woman flinch. “You tell Logan if he kills that horse, I’ll sue him.”
    She hung up.
       “Come on. You’re okay, come on.”
    Koopman was walking backward down the slope, waving the truck on with both arms. It reversed slowly down after him into the trees and the chains hanging from the hoist on its rear end swung and clinked as it came. It was the truck that the mill people had standing by to unload their new turbines and Koopman had commandeered it, and them, for this new purpose. Following close behind it was a big Ford pickup hitched to an open-top trailer. Koopman looked over his shoulder to where Logan and a small crowd of helpers were kneeling around the horse.
    Pilgrim was lying on his side in a giant bloodstain that was spreading out through the snow under the knees of those trying to save him. This was as far as he’d got when the flood of sedative hit. His forelegs buckled and he went down on his knees. For a few moments he’d tried to fight it but by the time Logan arrived he was out for the count.
    Logan had got Koopman to call Joan Dyer on his mobile and was glad the hunter wasn’t around to hear him asking her to get the owner’s permission to put the animal down. Then he’d sent Koopman running for help, knelt by the horse and got to work trying to stem the bleeding. He reached deep into the steaming chest wound, his hand groping through layers of torn softtissue till he was up to his elbow in gore. He felt around for the source of the bleeding and found it, a punctured artery, thank God a small one. He could feel it pumpinghot blood into his hand and he remembered the little clamps he had put in his pocket and scrabbled with his other hand to find one. He clipped it on and immediately felt the pumping stop. But there was still blood flowing from a hundred ruptured veins so he struggled out of his sodden parka, emptied its pockets and squeezed as much water and blood as he could from it. Then he rolled it up and stuffed it as gently as he could into the wound. He cursed out loud. What he really needed now was fluids. The bag of Plasmalyte he had brought was in his bag down by the river. He got to his feet and half ran, half fell back down there to get it.
    By the time he returned, the rescue squad paramedics were there and were covering Pilgrim with blankets. One of them was holding out a phone to him.
    “Mrs. Dyer for you,” he said.
    “I can’t talk to her now for Christsakes,” Logan said. He knelt down and hitched the five-liter bag of Plasmalyte to Pilgrim’s neck, then gave him a shot of steroids to fight the shock. The horse’s breathing was shallow and irregular and his limbs were rapidly losing temperature and Logan yelled for more blankets to wrap around the animal’s legs after they had bandaged them to lessen the blood flow.
    One of the rescue-squad people had some green drapes from an ambulance and Logan carefully extracted his blood-soaked parka from the chest wound and packed the drapes in instead. He leaned back on his heels, out of breath, and started loading a syringe with penicillin. His shirt was dark red and sodden and blood dripped from his elbows as he held the syringe up to flick the bubbles out.
    “This is fucking crazy,” he said.
    He injected the penicillin into Pilgrim’s neck. The horse was as good as dead. The chest wound alone wasenough to justify