Hearts of Stone, Hearts of Gold

Chapter Two - Distress

I groaned in frustration as I turned another corner. We had been driving for a little over an hour and had yet to find the place we were looking for.

“Jace, are you sure you took down the right instructions?” I asked him, searching the road ahead for any indication of where we were. “It wouldn’t be the first time you sent us on a wild goose chase in the early hours of the morning.”

“Hey! That was only once. I was having a bad day, okay? Besides, we found the house in the end.”

“Yeah, after three hours of driving around in circles in the dark!" 

“It could have been worse. We could have- Look, there it is,” he said, cutting himself off mid sentence as the SPCA’s white pick-up came into view. It was parked beside a battered gate 

I pulled up on the opposite side of the narrow road, close enough to the gate so that we could walk the horses straight into the trailer. Luke and Andrew both pulled up behind us.

“Hi, Rachel. Thanks so much for coming so soon,” Liz greeted me as soon as I had climbed out of the jeep.

I met Liz a few months ago when her fifteen-year-old daughter came to me for dressage lessons. She explained to me that she worked for the SPCA and that they would love to have the facilities that we had in the center to cater for the amount of abused and abandoned horses they found. Naturally, I offered to help any way I could and ever since then we’d been working alongside each other.

“It’s no problem at all,” I replied as the three guys made their way towards us.

“What’s the situation?” Luke asked, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets in an effort to keep warm.

It was freezing out and I didn’t know how there wasn’t any snow on the ground yet. I knew it was forecasted, so we didn’t have long before it was upon us.

“We found six horses. Initially, we thought there were five, but James found a small Shetland at the back of the barn.”

She paused, as one by one, we climbed over the gate into the field. Once over, Liz continued explaining what we were getting ourselves into as we made our way across the frozen ground towards the small shed.

“The other five; four geldings and a mare, are in an awful state. They all look like they’ve been starved. The mare, from what we could tell in the poor lighting, is in foal. She’s unnaturally small so the foal is either dead, or she’s not very far along in the pregnancy. These animals are really dehydrated.” She paused once more. “I don’t say this lightly, but it’s the worst case I’ve seen in my six years working with the SPCA. One of the geldings is minutes away from his death; I don’t think we’ll be able to do anything for him.”

When we neared the shed, a man about my age came out. Like Liz, he was clad in the SPCA uniform; a pair of black overalls, a sweater and a black jacket bearing their logo. The logo consisted of a white paw print, below it, the society’s name, The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, printed in a small white font.

“Hi, I’m James,” he said, extending a gloved hand out to me.

“Rachel,” I smiled, taking his hand in mine. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Oh, believe me, the pleasure’s all mine. I’m a huge fan of all the amazing work you do.”

“Thank you,” I say, blushing slightly before he moved on to introduce himself to my three friends. I seen him lingering beside Luke for longer than the other two, but didn't think any more of it.

“Did you have any luck with the vet?” Liz asked James.

“Not really,” he replied. “He was called out to assist a cow in calf up the mountain and he can’t go anywhere. Apparently it’s snowing up there pretty bad. He said he won’t be able to go anywhere until dawn.”