Cole Ryder's Arc

Chapter 3 of 9

The gash was worse by noon. Cole led the stallion back from the orchard at a slow walk. The horse limped hard on the left foreleg. When Cole knelt to look, the wound had swelled. Heat came off it. Yellow crusted the edges. He knew that sign. Left alone, the leg would rot and the horse would go lame for good. A lame horse was worthless. His family's money died with it. "I can clean it," Lilly said. She pressed her palm near the cut and frowned. "But I don't know wounds. Not like this. This needs someone who does." Cole thought of the clinic in town. He'd passed it a hundred times, the sign with the horseshoes and the paw print. He'd never had cause to knock. They walked the horse there together, one on each side, stopping often to let it rest. The clinic sat neat and quiet, tools hung clean on the porch wall. Before Cole could knock, the door swung open. A small woman came out drying her hands on a leather apron. She was already looking at the horse's leg, not their faces. "You walked him on that?" she said. Her voice was flat and hard. "Every step drove the poison deeper." Cole had heard of her. The widow who set bones and shod horses when no one else would. Folks said she'd buried a husband and kept his forge running alone. "Can you save the leg?" Cole asked. Martha Ironwood didn't answer him. She ran her thumb along the swelling, and the stallion snorted but held still. "Maybe. If you'd come a day later, no." She looked up at last. "Hold his head. Talk to him. He'll want to kick." She worked fast. She flushed the wound with something that stung. The horse jerked and Cole leaned into its neck, murmuring low the way Lilly had taught him. The stallion shook but stayed. Martha packed the cut with a poultice that smelled of tar and herbs, then wrapped it tight. "Change this every day," she said. "Fresh cloth. Same paste. I'll give you a jar." She wiped her hands. "He'll heal. Won't work for a month. You rush him, you lose him." Cole let out a breath he'd held too long. The leg was saved. He looked at the calm way the horse now stood against him, trusting his hand on its neck. "What do I owe you?" he asked. Martha studied him. "The jar's free. But I need a strong back this week. Two mares to shoe, a bull that won't stand." She raised an eyebrow. "You want the paste, you work it off." Cole nodded. He had no coin to spare and a horse that couldn't be sold for a month. Now he owed his labor to a woman he'd just met. But the leg would heal. That was the thing that mattered.