Then, Lily reached up. She placed her tiny hand directly on his scarred, dusty snout.
The giant horse closed his eyes. He exhaled a long, heavy breath that stirred the dirt around them, and he leaned his heavy head against my daughter’s small shoulder.
He was letting a ten-year-old girl comfort him.
I backed away slowly and ran into the house to call the local retired country vet. When he arrived an hour later, Lily and the horse were still together by the paddock.
The vet didn’t bring tranquilizers. He just brought a worn leather bag and moved slowly, letting the giant animal smell him first.
As the vet ran his hands over the horse’s flank, he suddenly stopped. He brushed away a thick layer of dried mud and gasped.
There was a faint, scarred mark on the horse’s skin. A brand.
“This isn’t a feral animal,” the vet said, his voice thick with emotion. “His name is Buster.”
The vet turned to me with sad, angry eyes and told me the real story. The story the town didn’t want to talk about.
The farm I had just bought used to belong to an old man named Arthur. Buster was his absolute pride and joy.
They had been inseparable for fifteen years. But two years ago, Arthur suffered a severe stroke.
He couldn’t walk or speak properly anymore. He was forced out of his home and put into a medical care facility two counties over.
Arthur’s kids, who lived in a major city, immediately sold the land. When they brought a metal trailer to haul Buster away to an auction, the horse panicked.
He had never been off this property. He fought back. So, the kids simply gave up, drove off, and abandoned him.
The people who bought the house before me were terrified of the grieving horse. Instead of calling for help, they chased him into the woods with trucks and warning gunshots.
