Ozzy: Chapter 1

 By the time the Sierra lurched to a stop beneath the floodlights of the equine hospital, the colt’s shallow breaths were coming in ragged spurts. Mike climbed from the truck, arms stiff from his grip on the wheel, as he tried to make the drive to the hospital as quickly as possible without rocking the trailer any more than necessary. He flagged down the night staff already running toward him in crisp scrubs and rubber boots.

They had the foal on a rolling stretcher in moments, slipping a tube down his nostril and strapping a catheter into place before Mike could blink. Great’s hooves clattered as she followed close behind, wide-eyed but willing, her ears swiveling toward every sound. She refused to be led far from the swinging doors until they finally let her in. They put her in the stall, separated by a makeshift plywood wall from where her colt lay beneath a nest of heat lamps and tubes.

The diagnosis came fast and grim. “Dummy foal,” the vet muttered, frowning at sluggish reflexes, unseeing eyes, and the tremor in his crooked legs. Worse yet, the bloodwork told of sepsis already marching through his tiny body. Antibiotics were started before dawn, followed by the first transfusion, warm, red life flowing through clear lines into his fragile veins.

For days he drifted between worlds, glassy-eyed and weak, never rising on his own. Mike stopped counting the bags of plasma hung on the stand, the syringes discarded in red bins, the vet bills stacking in the office at home. The colt’s breaths rattled, each one seeming more expensive than the last.

But Great never faltered. She stood sentinel, head drooping at times but always rousing when he stirred. She nickered softly at his side, her warm breath fogging on the chilly spring air, as though her voice alone might call him back. Nurses stepped around her bulk, patient with the dam who would not be parted from her foal.

Weeks passed in that sterile cocoon of disinfectant and humming machines. The colt endured another transfusion, then another, until his gums at last blushed pink instead of blue, until his eyes began to follow the light again. And one miraculous morning, with Great urging him on, he struggled onto his spindly legs and stood. He wobbled, shook, and nearly toppled, but he stood.

He had cost a fortune before his knees had even locked steady beneath him, but the look on Great’s tired face and the colt’s first tentative nicker were worth it. It was hard to believe from glancing at this fragile foal with the too-big head, but he was bred from racing royalty. With any luck, he would earn back the money that had been spent to save his life in no time.