Midnight Lady Read Online Free PDF

frowned but said nothing. Kirstie looked on in horror.
    “Now watch him use the rope to lasso her hind leg!” Donna told them. “He’ll tighten the noose, pull the leg clear of the ground and fix the other end of the rope in a second noose around her neck. See, now she’s well and truly hobbled!”
    Kirstie felt she could hardly breathe, as if the noose was tightening around her own neck, as she saw Midnight Lady struggle bravely, pitifully on three legs to resist the tarp as it landed yet again on her back.
    “But it’s hurting her!” Lisa protested.
    “Only a little.” Donna assured them that the horse would soon learn to give in.
    “There’s a rope burn around her back leg!”
    Donna ignored the protest. “Watch. See how the fight’s being driven out of her.”
    It was true; Midnight Lady’s kicks were more feeble. The hobble strained the muscles in her leg and neck, made her groan with pain.
    Give in!
Kirstie pleaded silently. Submission was the only way of making this torture stop. At a certain point the terrorized mare would have to recognize the fact.
    Five minutes went by, then ten. Leon persisted in throwing the tarp and tightening the hobble with cold determination.
    “Give in!” Lisa whispered out loud.
    The horse’s head was low, her sides heaved with exhaustion. Now, when the tarp landed on her back, she couldn’t summon the energy to buck it off.
    “OK, enough!” Donna decided at last. “End of session.”
    Leon showed no reaction. He simply gathered up the ropes and tarps, loosened the hobble, and walked away. Midnight Lady was left tethered to the post, trembling miserably in the evening sun.
    “Unbelievable!” Lisa cried.
    After the sacking out demonstration, as soon as Chuck had finished his work, Donna had taken him and Hadley into the ranch house for coffee. Leon, TJ, and Jesse were nowhere to be seen.
    “I mean, really…I cannot believe it!” Furious, shocked, unable to find the words to match how she felt about the treatment of the horse, Lisa paced up and down the corral.
    Kirstie could hardly bear to look at Midnight Lady.
    “That they do this to her and then leave her standing here. It’s disgusting!” Lisa kicked a post, turned and strode back. “Why didn’t Hadley do something?”
    “It’s not his horse,” Kirstie said quietly. Nothing in the world could be sadder than seeing an animal lose her will to fight. It was as if the flame of life went out.
    “Even so!” Lisa’s eyes blazed.
    “Donna’s the boss around here. She believes in it.”
    “Yeah, and since when were you so reasonable? I thought you’d feel the same way I do!”
    “I do, believe me.” Slowly, cautiously, Kirstie was moving closer to the exhausted horse. Defeat was written over every inch of Midnight Lady’s trembling, sweating body: in her hanging head, her lank white mane, her dull eye. “You know almost the worst thing?” she whispered to Lisa, as she paused and quietly watched. “It’s that this feels like my fault!”
    “No way.” Suddenly Lisa stopped being angry. She stared at Kirstie. “You couldn’t know this would happen. No one could.”
    “It still feels bad. Like, this wouldn’t be happening if we hadn’t picked her out to come to Circle R. It means we let her down in some way.”
    “That doesn’t make any sense!”
    Kirstie glanced at her friend with the ghost of a smile. “Like you say, since when was I reasonable, especially when it comes to horses?” Turning back to Midnight Lady, she noticed that her head was coming up a little, and her ears were beginning to pay attention to the sound of their voices. “Saying sorry might not make any difference,” she told the horse softly. “But I am awful sorry.”
    “Now I
know
you’re crazy! Crazy girl talks to horse.”
    “I’d rather be crazy.” Rather talk to horses than people who saw life as a battle of wills. Rather reach out a hand like she was doing now and let the animal get used to her scent, the