[Phase 1] Homing Pigeon

"Watch that gate!" Dawson barked over the sound of anxious movement in the back of the trailer. Inside, a flashy palomino Loshenka stallion paced like a storm in a bottle, eager to be out of the trailer.

"Yea, I got it," Dylan muttered. "I'm not just going to let him bolt out." He rolled his eyes and inched the paddock gate a little closer to the trailer just in case. No one had told him anything - again. He was just expected to show up and help like always. The teen caught a glimpse of the animal through the trailer window, meeting eyes briefly. That small interaction was all it took for the horse to paw at the side of the trailer and let out a loud, desperate whinny. "Are you sure they said this was a kid's horse?" 

"Teenage daughter." Dawson kicked a coil of rope out of the way and undid the first trailer latch,  nodding at Dylan to get the other one. "Any horse can get riled up in transit, though. He had a long ride from Nevada to North Carolina. Move your foot or it's going to get crushed." 

Another eyeroll, but Dylan did as he was told. The trailer gates were pretty heavy. 

"Go on and open it slowly. It sounds like he might've gotten loose, so there's a good chance he might try to bolt off." Dawson's words were directed toward their resident teenaged trouble maker, but his focus was entirely on the horse now. 

Together, the pair lowered the gate, then sprang back when the horse did.... absolutely nothing except shake his head. Bright eyed and bushy tailed, the palomino dream boat let out a soft nicker of greeting and lowered his head, reaching his neck toward Dylan to sniff at his arm. It was entirely too anticlimactic for all the fuss the horse had been making moments before. 

"Guess you aren't as bad as you made yourself seem, now, are you?" Dylan chuckled, reaching up to grab the horse's halter and clip a lead to it. The remnants of the horse's original tie hung from the d-ring at the bottom. "You were right, Daws," he called to the man, unclipping the broken tether and holding it up. "He did break it." 

"I figured as much. No shipper I know would have left him loose in there on such a long haul, and Eva especially would have been stopping to check on him along the way.” 

Eva Pajari, Dawson’s fiance and primary owner of Illoria Equestrian Center, appeared behind him with her hands on her hips, foot tapping impatiently. 

“You’re correct. I did. So how is it that in the short time I’ve been gone he managed to snap his tie? How is it that he’s only just now coming out of the trailer? This should have been done already.” Eva brushed past Dawson, moving in front of Dylan and assessing the horse. Her eyes skimmed over his legs, his body, neck, head, and tail. The horse had no scrapes or cuts from yanking at the tie, luckily, and his halter was intact too. “You’re lucky, kid,” she told the teen. 

The palomino snorted, bumping Eva’s shoulder with his nose and looking for attention, which he received immediately. 

“Why am I lucky?” Dylan asked, finger tracing the unique plumage marking on the horse’s neck. 

“Why do you think? For one, he’s unharmed, and two - you’re the one who’s going to be working with him.”

Dylan hadn’t been expecting that one.

“Me? I can barely ride.” His nervousness leaked into his voice and his hand stilled on the horse’s neck. 

“What better way to learn? You can learn to ride, he can unlearn the bad habits that got him dumped in the first place.” The look on Eva’s face said that she wasn’t making this a debate. Dylan looked to Dawson for help and got only a shrug in response. There was no arguing with the woman. 

“Get him into the quarantine pen. While you two were fooling around, I put hay and water in it for him. Give him the day to rest, pick out a name, and you can start working with him tomorrow.”

“He doesn’t have a name? I thought he belonged to someone before he went to the rescue?” A heavy weight settled in Dylan’s chest at the thought that a beloved pet had been cast off without so much as passing his name along.

“If he did, he doesn’t need to keep it. It’s a new start for him, might as well give him an identity to match.” Eva’s face softened as she spoke, her hand coming to rest on Dylan’s shoulder. “Think on it, okay?”

Dylan nodded, a crease forming between his eyebrows as he pondered what could make someone abandon a seemingly sweet horse like the palomino splash stallion beside him. 

“Alright,” he answered after a pause. “I’ll think on it.”

-------------------

Later that night when the sun had begun to sink into the horizon and Dylan had reached the point of exhaustion that he could barely keep his eyes open, he went to see the palomino stallion again.

“He bud,” he called as he approached. “You doing alright?” He crossed his arms on the top fence board, resting his chin on top of them. 

The horse stopped his anxious pacing and trotted over to Dylan with a soft nicker. When he reached the fence, he tossed his head over the rail, lipping at the back of Dylan’s shirt. It startled the boy at first, but, when he didn’t feel any teeth, he straightened up and patted the horse on the neck.

“You don’t like being in here alone, do you?” His fingers traced the feather like markings on the stallion’s neck. “Can’t say I blame you.” A sigh fell from his lips and they enjoyed each other’s quiet company for a while. It was only when Dylan felt himself nodding off and heard the doors of the main barn being closed for the night that he realized how long he’d been sitting there, petting the horse. 

“Alright, bud, I think I gotta call it a night. Dinner and bed for this guy.” The teen patted the horse on the neck and rested his head against the stallion’s briefly before pulling away. “I’ll see you in the morning. You be good, okay?” One final pat and Dylan was on his way back to the utv and the promise of a comfy bed.

A sad nicker stopped him in his tracks. He should have kept walking, but it sounded so lonely and desperate that Dylan turned around. The sound had reminded him too much of his own loneliness after his parents died for him to ignore it. 

“Alright, let me put the Kubota up and I’ll be back, okay? Eva doesn’t like us driving it after dark because the lights need to be fixed.” He smiled at the horse like he would understand it. “I’ll be back in a little bit.” 

The palomino stallion didn’t look convinced that Dylan was being truthful. In the horse’s hooves, Dylan probably wouldn’t have believed it either. 

Twenty minutes later, Dylan returned on foot with a treatball under one arm and a few grooming tools in his pocket. The closer he got to the gate to the paddock, the more he could see a rut forming along the fenceline. A few teeth marks had appeared in the top board of the fence, too. Eva was not going to be happy about a damaged fence. 

“Hey, bud,” he called to the horse as he reached the far end of the field. The stallion turned so quickly he stumbled, luckily catching himself, and trotted over to Dylan as he entered the pen. “Told you I’d be back.” The stallion stopped right in front of the boy, shaking his head and snorting in his face. Dylan was not a fan of hot horse breath in his face.

“Maybe… don’t do that,” he grimaced, pushing the horse back a step. “I brought you something, though. I figured if you had something to entertain you, you might not get so stressed being by yourself.” He held up a bright yellow treat ball stuffed with chopped hay, treats, and the alfalfa pellets they used for feed. “I also think I figured out a name for you,” Dylan continued, holding the ball out for the horse to inspect. As soon as he got a whiff of what was inside, the stallion tossed his head up and down, then shook it. A smile found it’s way onto Dylan’s face at the horse’s antics. “Alright, alright, here you go,” he dropped it to the ground and nudged it with a filthy boot, sending it rolling to the side. “You gotta push it around, then stuff will fall out.” The horse inspected it, lipping at the opening, then pawing at it when he couldn’t get anything out. The ball rolled over and spilled a few bits of chopped hay and pellets out. Delighted, the horse quickly scarfed the treats down and resumed his attempt to get more out. 

“Glad you like it, Pige,” Dylan said with a tired smile. “I think I’m going to call you Deputy Pigeon, you know, since you’re always pacing around, yelling at us, and shaking your head.” The horse, now dubbed Deputy Pigeon, flicked an ear toward Dylan, but was far more invested in his newly gifted treatball to react otherwise. 

With a snort, Dylan went to check the horse’s water and patted him goodbye before heading in for the night. Two more weeks of quarantine would give them plenty of one on one bonding time. For now, Dylan needed to bond with a bologna sandwich and his pillow.