Heart and Soul (rewrite)

Chapter Four

By the time I was five I had been run into the ground. Changed from hand to hand, I slid down the racing pole, experienced painful beatings that left me bleeding, then forced to run the next day. I galloped day after day, ran race after race, and barely won lowly casino races. My neck lost muscle mass until it was thin, and my sides sank in, leaving my withers abnormally high. Of course no extra padding was put underneath the saddle, and painful sores developed. My feet and legs seemed to always hurt, and daily injections left raised marks on my neck.

In those three years I spent with those heartless people I learned a human hand only meant pain, a girth and bit were to be fought, the only acceptable gait was a headlong gallop, and being tied only meant beatings.

One memory remained with me the entirety of my life. Very early on in my career I had lost a race by several lengths, and my owner at the time was none too happy. He took me to a barn in the very back of the race track, where I was alone, and put me on cross ties. I had been taught to stand quietly since the beginning on these, so I lowered my head and closed my eyes, grateful to be standing still.

I heard a clatter as he picked something up. I opened my eyes and raised my head, looking at him inquisitively. He sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I'm so sorry, Charm." My ears perked up at my name. "But the boss wants this done, and I can't lose my job. I have a little boy at home." He lifted the broom above his head, and a tear slid down his face. "I'm sorry..."

He brought it down between my ears. It gave a resounding crack and I threw my head, screaming in pain.

"Please!" He gasped, now crying freely. "Please be quiet! Please!"

He lifted the broom again, and I shied away. He sobbed. Then he slammed it into the soft part of my muzzle and a warm flow of blood gushed from my nostrils. I screamed again. The man hit me again and again, beating me until I bled and my knees felt weak.  I didn't fight as he led me back, and when people around the barn asked what happened he said I'd gotten loose, and scratched myself up in a thicket. Soon after that I was entered into a claims race, and changed hands again.

After three long years of abuse I was on a trailer again, but surrounded by horses just like me. Thin, weary, dead on their feet. I shook as I realized how low I had fallen. I couldn't help but wonder about sweet, naive Blue. Had he succumbed to the same fate, or was he a champion? I felt a strange pang as I realized, as champion, he would be a stud as well. I flipped my head. As another horse, barely more than a skeleton, stepped onto the trailer I sighed heavily. Why were humans so cruel?

We rode for hours, picking up ponies, draft horses, and everything in between. We bonded quickly over our shared experiences, and all shared one thought:

A human can break our bodies, but never our spirits.

Finally the trailer stopped for good. We were at a long white building. Horses and people were swarmed around it, and the parking lot was packed with similar trailers. One by one we were led out into the sunlight, my poorly shod feet echoing on the pavement. The woman leading me carefully tucked my ratty mane on one side of my neck and I pinned my ears at her. She chuckled, but backed away, and turned me loose in my stall.

It was made of tube fencing and bedded deeply with wood shavings. I was too exhausted to watch horse after horse led away, too tired to realize they never returned. The pony beside me, however, watched with interest.

"That one's a pretty little mare. She'll go for something." or, "Skinny little thing, but looks like a little kindness could make a good horse out of him."

One comment jerked my head up.

"The Meat Men will snap him right up. Small hindquarters, high withers, straight shoulder, dead lame. No hope for him. Goodbye, old friend. I hope you don't suffer too much longer."

I looked at her, a shaggy grey pony with neat little ears.

"What did you say?"

She snapped her head towards me. "Huh?"

"About the Meat Men, and goodbye."

"How old are you?" She asked.

"Old enough." I replied. She sighed.

"The Meat Men kill you. Make you into food for humans."

"They turn us into money?"

She gave an explosive snort of laughter. "Who told you that?"

"Flax."

"Well Flax is wrong. Humans use money to get what they eat, and if the Meat Men get you the humans eat you. But they never bid high, and a pretty filly like you should be safe."

She returned to her comments, eating hay in between. I stood silent again, wondering if the Meat Men would buy me. Would this be the end of my story? Cruelly cut short by an execution?

The sun had set by the time I was pulled out of my stall. One man held me while I danced around him and tried to bite him, and another man painted the number 218 on my shoulder. Then I was led down an aisle of horses, all in stalls, all staring at me. I could feel them judging me, just like that little grey pony did. I held my head high and tried to look as I did in the beginning.

I was led through a doorway and into a circular ring, framed by grandstands seeming to touch the sky. Almost every seat was filled, and I balked in fear. Someone behind me clapped their hands, sending me forward, and a man on a platform banged his hammer, spooking me.

"Beautiful green broke filly, five years old, fresh off the track, a wonderful project horse! She may not look good now but a little bit of TLC will bring her right back! We'll start the bidding at two hundred! Two hundred anyone, can I get two hundred?"

Silence.

"One fifty!" Someone shouted. I shivered. The Meat Men would get me after all.

"Two hundred!"

"Two hundred fifty!"

"Three hundred!"

A bidding war had broken out between a woman and who I assumed was a meat man.

"Three fifty!"

"Four hundred!"

"Four hundred twenty five!"

"Five hundred!" Went the woman, and a smaller figure stood up beside her, grasping her hand. The man on the other side fell silent.

"Five hundred!" The auctioneer echoed. "We have five hundred from the woman on the left hand side five hundred who can give me five hundred and fifty?"

"Five hundred and fifty!" Shouted the man. This was it. I was dead.