The Horse Saga

The Friday after Christmas was eventful. My parents left that morning, as the roads were finally clear enough. My husband's family was slated to arrive around noon. (They actually didn't arrive until that evening.) I was busy washing linens, setting up beds,  preparing food, and tending children. My husband was on the tractor getting more plowing done.

The doorbell rang in the early afternoon. I opened it to see three scruffy men outside. There was the doorbell ringer, who was the guy I described in a previous post who came to get Cy/Charlie the first time. (If you're not familiar with the ongoing stray horse story, you should go back and catch up on this thread for this post to make much sense: Horsin' Around, Gift Horse, Sorry, Charlie, Charlie, Suzie, and Zebo, Horse Trading) Then there were two more gents strung at intervals down the front sidewalk. They all seemed rather ageless. You may know the type: thin hair, missing teeth, scruffy face, thin, pale and haggard looking. I couldn't tell if they were young and had been living a hard life or if they were older.

"Do you have our horse?" the man on the porch asked me. I told him we didn't. "You don't?" he asked incredulously, looking surprised? I explained that my husband had been out on the tractor all morning and would have seen him if he was around, and that the tractor noise would have probably kept him away anyway. I noticed that I couldn't hear the tractor anymore and told them that my husband was probably in the barn now if they wanted to ask him. They shuffled their feet and frowned.

I saw that there was no vehicle parked on the drive as I looked past them. So I figured that they must have walked. Glancing back at them, I noted that they weren't dressed for so much snow. Two were wearing sneakers and a third was wearing those tan construction-type work boots with the dark brown padding around the ankle. Oddly enough, their feet didn't look snowy though. None had gloves or scarves. The hats they wore were bill caps. They didn't even have coats, just layers of quilted flannel shirts, sweatshirts, and jackets. I told them I'd keep a look-out for the horse and that I was sorry it had gotten loose again.

"Well, give us a call if you see him, okay?" The first man said. I agreed. As I closed the door, I wondered if they were related and living together or just friends. Then I thought that perhaps I could offer them a ride. And I was curious. Did they come through the woods or up our drive? I looked, but couldn't see them anywhere. They must have disappeared into the woods... just like their horse.