Growing Up Amish - Ira Wagler [68]
Maybe he had a cold or something. He’d surely get better soon. In the following days I kept an eye on him, led him out each day for water and a bit of exercise. Spoke to him soothingly. But he did not improve, and as the days passed, I became increasingly alarmed. Just once, I hitched him to a light two-wheeled cart and drove him up to Chuck’s Café. He seemed to have lost his sense of balance and staggered alarmingly. After we made it home, I led him back to his stall. It was time to call the vet.
But even then, I hedged. I could not and would not bring myself to make that call. Time heals, I figured. Just give the Stud some time. He’d be himself soon enough.
He wasn’t, of course. The days passed. Then the weeks. His health did not improve. Instead, he became increasingly listless and lifeless. And the day arrived when he could no longer stand when I walked into his stall to feed him. He lay there, on his side, his eyes dull and glazed, his breath coming in slow, rasping gasps.
Now it was time to call the vet. I should have done it long before. I rode up to Chuck’s Café after lunch that day. The crowd there greeted me boisterously, as usual, but I did not respond. Every person there got somber and quiet. My horse was sick, I told them. I needed to call the vet. Mrs. C waved me to her wall phone and I dialed the number. It just so happened he was in my general area, his secretary told me.
He arrived early that afternoon, a young guy from Centerville. The Stud was still on his side in his stall, unable to even get up on his feet. The vet examined him. Poked and prodded him here and there. Pried open his mouth, stared down his throat. And then the vet stood and turned to me somberly.
“He’s done. Your horse is not going to get better,” he told me. “There’s nothing I can do. We may as well put him down.”
I stared at him. I heard the words. He spoke what I had feared would come. And now I’d have to decide. I looked at the Stud, my proud horse, helpless on his side, breathing hard. It could not be. Of all the bad luck I could imagine, this was probably the worst. Something I could not have fathomed or foreseen.
I could just let my horse die on his own, I thought. A natural passing. But as I looked down at his proud head, now sweating with fever, I knew I could not do that. He was as good as gone. There was no sense in prolonging his agony. I turned to the vet.
“Just give me a minute,” I said. He nodded, turned, and walked out of the barn.
I knelt there in the dust and straw beside my horse, cradled his fevered head in my arms, and stroked his long, coarse black hair for the last time. I spoke no words, just knelt there in silence and sorrow. Minutes passed. The vet waited patiently outside. I stood, then bent and stroked the Stud’s forehead one more time. Then I turned and walked out.
“Do what you have to do,” I said to the vet.
He walked into the barn carrying an ominous little black satchel. I crouched inside the doorway of the barn, watching. He set down his satchel and opened it, took out a large syringe fitted with a wicked-looking needle, and a plastic bottle filled with clear liquid. He stabbed the needle into the bottle and filled the syringe. Then he stepped over to my horse, wiped a spot on his neck, lifted the syringe, and plunged the long needle into the hard muscles in the Stud’s neck. Slowly he depressed the plunger, and the evil liquid flowed into the Stud’s veins.
In mere seconds the Stud’s entire body relaxed visibly. He never even quivered. Just relaxed. Then his proud eyes closed in final sleep. It was over. My horse was dead. His body lay there, stretched in the dust and straw, limp and quiet.
I got up and walked outside.
After the vet had cleaned up and left, I hitched a team to our work cart, backed up to the barn door, uncoiled a long rope attached to the