“Wise man,” Zach said. Instead of following the dog’s lead, he moved closer and placed his hands against the vibrating metal.
They were big hands, much like his dad’s had been. And like those hands he remembered so well, they’d been prematurely roughened by years of hard physical labor. The pushed-up shirt sleeves revealed the silvery lines tracing up his forearms. A thicker scar formed a ridge that extended above his elbow.
The hands reflected his preferred lifestyle. The scars did not. They were the only visible traces of the accident he suffered as a teen. Not the only legacy it had left him, though. Having his head nearly crushed had unleashed something much deeper.
Zach took a deep, steadying breath and pushed aside his usual state of nervous energy. It would work against him here. He dropped the makeshift mental barriers that had become a necessary part of who he was, and called on what he held inside, letting the mare speak to him.
Rageassaulted him. It forced him back a full step before he braced himself.
Rage. Andhate.
Symptoms. He concentrated and reached for the cause. It took him a moment.
There they were.Fear. Andpain.
Zach always found them, although sometimes it took a bit of effort. He was better at reading than sending, but he tried anyway. He closed his eyes andpushed.
As always, speaking in his mind helped him project.You are safe. Safe. I will not hurt you.
She wouldn’t understand the words, but along with them came thereassurance.Peace.Calm.
The hooves hesitated in their barrage, and the mare snorted. The trailer swayed as she tossed her head.
Zach moved on to the gate. The silence held as he freed the latches and swung it open into the corral.
At first, nothing.
Then, in an explosion of flying hooves and tossing mane, the mare erupted from the trailer. It happened so fast Zach almost didn’t see her pass him. In a millisecond, she stood at the far end of the pen, head up, eyes glinting in the dim light. It outlined every bone in her undernourished frame, every knot in her tangled tail.
He’d outbid the killers for her. There were other organizations that attended, their dedicated volunteers collecting money to save however many they could. But Zach always took the ones labeled unsalvageable. Not physically, but mentally.
Physically, she would recover. Good food and time would see to that. But mentally... a single second in her company, and Zach knew he was her only hope. Somewhere in that fractured mind, there was a horse desperate for stability.
He planned to give it to her.
But first, he needed to attend to the basics. He’d filled the water trough this morning. Zach walked to the hay shed, an ancient structure that had seen better days, and collected a bale. Each weighed seventy pounds, but he’d been lifting them all his life. Born and raised on a dairy farm, he hadn’t lacked for heavy labor. His father had expected Zach, being the oldest son, to follow in his footsteps.
Things hadn’t quite turned out the way he’d planned.
Zach carried the hay to the corral and heaved it over the five-foot panels. Then he pulled a knife from his pocket and reached through the bars to cut the strings.
A blur came at him, all teeth and striking hooves. He’d been ready for it. Had the strings slashed in an instant and his hands back to safety through the panel. She hit it hard, the entire structure vibrating with her wrath.
Zach pocketed the knife and stroked fingers through the stubble on his chin as she took herrageout on the tolerant metal. The posts were sunk four feet down and set in concrete. When he’d bought the place, he had considered the fence’s construction to be overkill. He knew it would hold a rhino if he asked it to.
The current occupant almost reached that status. A bar bent under the onslaught, but it held.
Then she was back across the pen, breathing hard, her one eerie blue eye glaring through her twisted forelock. The other eye, a normal deep brown, was invisible in the darkness.
Zach reached in once more to whip the strings away, and she twitched, but didn’t come at him again.
It was rare for a horse to show so much aggression toward humans. He considered it a miracle, really, that she’d even made it to the auction. But the mare had been pushed to this state. It wasn’t a natural thing.
Could Zach reach through the rage and find the real her?
Something nudged him hard enough to stagger him sideways. Blue eyes blinked at him through a topknot of disorganized white mane.
“Hey, Willow.” Zach scratched between her long ears. The little donkey butted him and snorted again. He’d left her in a stall with lots of hay, but she was an accomplished escape artist. When she bumped him again, she sighed, so he dug in his pocket. He found what she was looking for—sticky and covered in lint, but it wouldn’t matter.
