No fear

strawberry roan and little joe

We got home and had just finished the chores when the skies decided to open up and flood. It rained and poured for about three hours.

  "Wait, are the foals in the summer foaling pasture?" I asked suddenly, fearing for the foals lives if they were.

  "Shit, yes, they are and they will die if we don't open the gate and get them out, because the pond will flood it!" He said with an anxious aura about him.

  I jumped into action and yanked my boots and Stetson on in one motion. I ran to the barn and grabbed Sanny from her nice dry stall. I didn't bother to put her saddle on, the rain would ruin it anyways.

Ryder worked right beside me, getting Sargon ready as he was the most steadfast mount he had.

We rode as quickly as we could without putting us or our horses into unnecessary danger, we had plenty of that just being out here. We finally reached the pasture.

  "Ok, Alex, you go and ride down and check for any stragglers!" Ryder yelled at me.

  "Ok!" I replied over my shoulder as I rode into the pasture. When I got down there, most of the place was flooded, except for the highest ground. I rode Sanny into the water and I spotted a foal up to his scrawny neck in the water.

I waded into the water with a rope tied around my waist so that I could get the foal and myself back to Sanny. I slipped a little in the mud, Nealy falling onto my butt. I reached the little foal and realized that it's dam, Delilah's Luck, was dead beside it. I pulled the rope tied around my waist as I grabbed the foal. The foal fought me with the little strength he had left.

"Back," I commanded Sanny as soon as I reached the foal and pulled him onto my lap. The foal's legs were put safely in my lap so Sanny could just pull us back to higher ground.

"Whoa," I say as soon as she reachs higher ground. I pick up the small, scrawny foal and put it in front of me on the saddle. I ride back to where I last saw Ryder.

   "Was it the only one that was left down there?" He asks me, concern written on his face.

  "There was about four foals and dams dead, it was the only one that was left alive," I replied with a robot like voice, trying not to show how much I wanted to cry.

    "Well, let's get this little one back to the house and check on her and feed her, since we don't know the last time she ate."

I just nodded and was about to keep riding, but an arm was wrapped around my shoulders and Ryder pulled me into him gently. I molded into his hug and accepted his comfort. I ended the hug by riding away from him and back to the barn.

With the little foal, it took about thirty minutes to get to the barn. When we got there, I led the little foal into a stall to see if he was healthy. I laid my hat on the shavings in the stall and walked out to get milk formula for the foal.

I walked back to his stall, bottle in hand, and the little foal had my stetson in his mouth.

"The little joker," I thought.

Ryder was laughing his ass off, thinking it was the funniest thing in the world.

  "So have you decided what her name is," Ryder asks after we concluded that she was a girl.

   "Yeah, her name is going to be Delila's Lucky Mischief. Delila for her mom, Lucky for that she is lucky to be alive right now,and Mischief because she is into everything."

   "I like it," he replied. "You know she has imprinted on you, right?"

     "Yeah, looks like I am going to be a nurse mother to another baby foal," I said, with a small laugh.

   "It's not like you can't ever get anyone else to feed her. You are just the most important thing to her unless you want to find her a nurse mare that will accept her," he told me.

  "I need to find her a nurse mare because she needs a horse mom," I said, calmly. We started making phone calls to people we knew to see if they had a horse that could nurse Mischief.