Page 3 of Touch the Sky
I lift my hand to my forehead to salute her before I start marching across the yard.
Really? A fucking salute?
I can feel heat creeping up my neck, but I blame it on the sun still beating down from the cloudless sky. I swing my arms like a drill sergeant as I stalk along the length of the barn, ordering myself to focus.
He can smell weakness from a mile away.
I round the edge of the barn, praying there’s a chance I can catch him by surprise, but of course, he’s staring straight at me.
And standing knee-deep in shit.
He tips his graying nose up in the air and brays, the wheezyhee-hawechoing over from where he’s perched on the top of the overflowing muck heap like a kid playing king of the hill.
“JOAQUIN!” I bellow.
It’s a pretty dramatic name for a donkey, but in my defense, I didn’t give it to him. Whoever dropped him off at the animal shelter put it down on his paperwork, and it just stuck.
“Câlice de crisse, Joaquin,” I call. “How the fuck did you get out again?”
I’ve never met an animal so good at escaping—from his stall, from his paddock, and even once from a fully sealed trailer. I swear he sprouts demon wings in the dead of night. Just last week, I woke up to thathee-hawright under my bedroom window, after I’d triple-checked he was shut up in his double-locked stall the evening before.
“Don’t make me come up there,” I warn.
The wasteland where we’ve dumped the dirty shavings from the horses’ stalls for decades stretches out like The Place Where the Light Does Not Touch, or whatever they call the evil part of the savannah inThe Lion King. It’s criss-crossed with wheelbarrow trails to avoid disturbing the highest pile, which Joaquin is now standing on top of.
“How did you evengetup there?” I demand, risking a few steps closer.
Joaquin’s tail flicks in warning.
“Look, you’ve got to come down eventually, Mister Drama Queen,” I tell him, “so how about we just skip all the shenanigans, and I’ll get you a nice carrot instead?”
I make it all the way to the bottom of the heap before he tries anything. As I stand there wondering how the hell I’m supposed to climb the pile without starting a poop avalanche, Joaquin rocks onto his haunches and then slams his front hooves down in a bratty little stamp. A smattering of turds rolls down the soggy shavings.
“Ça suffit!” I shout as I side-step out of the way. “Come the hell down,bête, or you’ll never see another carrot in your life.”
He sniffs, his long ears twitching, and then he starts kicking up his front legs and back legs in turn, bobbing like a rocking horse and braying like a banshee as the whole pile begins to tremble underneath him.
“Cut it out!” I bark.
That just makes him rock even faster.
My pulse kicks up as I realize just how bad this could get. He could seriously hurt himself if the pile collapses, and cleaning up the mess would take hours, if not days.
I don’t have days. Every spare minute of my time either goes to the inn, or the farm, orMaman. There isn’t room for any screw-ups.
“That’s it,bête. I’m coming to get you.”
I step up to the bottom of the pile, and Joaquin freezes, like he wasn’t expecting me to make good on my threat. My first step into the shavings sinks deep enough to cover the tops of my boots, but I grit my teeth and take another. Then another.
The higher I go, the less stable my footing becomes, but if I can just get close enough to snag the strap of his halter, we might make it out of this mess in one piece.
I wobble, flailing my arms out for balance. I manage to catch myself before I land flat on my ass, but my windmilling arms send Joaquin into red alert. He snorts and prances backwards, tossing his head out of reach.
Unfortunately for Joaquin, there’s no room left to go backwards.
Unfortunately for both of us, Joaquin’s hind legs slipping off the edge of the pile makes the whole thing quake underneath him, like Mount Fecesuvius about to erupt.
He digs his front legs in extra hard to try to pull himself up, his eyes flaring wide enough to show their stark white edges. The pile trembles even more.
