Chapter 14

Chapter 14
Willie returned from vacation and life began to settle back into a routine. One thing was for sure, we would always take both horses, when we went riding. I told Willie about the things that happened while she was gone. Some of it, she believed, some she did not.


Nancy’s birthday rolled around and all of us girls were invited to her party. We had a great time, cutting up, eating chips and coke and playing our 45 records. I heard “The Little Nash Rambler” for the first time.


That night provided lasting memories. Nancy’s mom couldn’t hold out and fell asleep, long before we girls were ready to call it a night. Then Nancy got a wild idea and we all piled into her mother’s car.


None of us knew how to drive and argued, for the longest time, who would be the victim to climb behind the wheel. They all looked at me.


“Oh no, not me! I can’t drive!” I whined back at them.“Aw, come on….Somebody has to do it!” All the girls were chirping at each other, giggling and prodding. At last, I gave in, climbed behind the wheel and turned the key. What a rush!


I was scared, half out of my wits but determined this couldn’t possibly be as hard as all that. I somehow managed to get the car backed out of the driveway, grateful that we were at the end of the street, where no other cars might come by.



The whole neighborhood was long gone to sleep. We crept along, about 10 miles per hour, down the long, dark street until we reached the last possible turn before the highway. I almost didn’t get slowed down enough to make the turn and all the girls were screaming and yelling out instructions. “More, more. Turn it some more!”

“No, no! Back….turn back….screech!….you’re gonna hit that fence!”

“Ok, back to the right….No! left, left!”

“Stop! Stop! Put your foot on the brake. No! The brake!!”

“Ok, now let’s go but be more careful, this time. We’re doing just fine, you’ll see.”

“Ok, now left at this next street. Left! Left! Dammit!” Slaps across the neck, while girls panicked in the back seat.


Nancy, breathless from screaming said, “I think we better try to get back to the house. This is scarier than I thought it would be.”


So we made it down the length of that neighboring street, made another left and crept back into the driveway.


We all climbed out, grateful to still be alive. Now there was a screaming hissy, as we all blamed each other. There’s nothing quite like a bunch of 13 and 14 year old girls, shaking off a huge dose of dread and excitement. The party was over.


It seemed, at the time, that this routine would go on forever. Sadly, it was about to come to an end. Not our friendship. Willie and I would go on being friends for years. The routine, with both Starlight and Winnie, though, was about to change.


Willie’s parents decided to sell Winnie. Their eldest daughter was no longer interested and they saw no good reason to keep her. My heart was breaking.


I surely didn’t have the money to buy her and my parents gave me a stern, “No”. It wasn’t as easy as all that. Every day, I brought up the subject. I’m sure; I was the family nagger for quite some time.


“Daddy, pleeeaase! There’s just got to be a way. You don’t understand! There’s just got to be a way.” I spent hours, sitting out in the vegetable garden, crying. I couldn’t understand how the world could be so cruel.


My dad’s reply was, “We don’t have a place to keep a horse. Where are you going to keep her, in the garden? Think about it, Judy. Even the septic tank is only covered by boards. You can’t put a horse where they could fall into the septic tank! Right?”


“But daddy. The Morrison’s love me and they wouldn’t care….I could keep her right there, where she is now. As long as I was feeding her and taking care of her, and they didn’t have to bother. They would let me do that.” But still, the answer was “no”.


I was afraid of what would happen to Winnie. Would she be loved and appreciated? All my pleading, fell on deaf ears.


I felt so helpless and small. Anxiety was my closest companion until the day came that I heard it was Mary’s dad, who wanted to buy her. I thought, “At the very least, we can visit her”. I wanted to watch over her and make sure she had a good life. No one understood Winnie, the way I did and I knew there was liable to be trouble ahead.


A few days passed. Willie and I busied ourselves, keeping Starlight occupied. He was lonely without his companion and he was already becoming an ‘old man’ because of his loss. Maybe we were silly girls, but we could swear we saw depression all over him.


It had been only a couple days, when we took Starlight and rode over to the neighbor’s house to visit Winnie. I saw her, at a distance, before we came close enough for her to see us. Her head was down. I had never seen her do that.


We called out to her, “Winnie! Hey, girl!” Her head tossed up in the air and she jerked around to see us coming.


She snorted and ran to the fence, where she and Starlight sniffed each other and both whinnied a greeting. We stepped down, petted her nose, and asked how she was doing.


Another week passed and we again went to visit. This time, our hearts sank as we laid eyes on marks across her nose. While we were there, stroking Winnie’s nose, Mary came out her back door to say hello. We asked her what had happened to Winnie’s nose. Mary told us, her father was trying to train her to polo.


“Polo? Winnie is a race horse. She’ll never train to Polo! Well….what happened? Did she run into something?”


Mary lowered her head in shame and said, “He whipped her."

“With what! A wire!” by now, I was almost hysterical.

“With a clothes hanger.” There was dead silence and then she added, “I’m sorry, girls. He got really, really mad at her.”


After each visit, we went straight to Willie’s parents to report what we saw. They seemed sad about it but did nothing. Our hands were tied.


Each time we went to visit, Winnie was in worse shape than the last visit. First, there were those marks across her nose. Then we witnessed scars across her back. I thought I’d die, when we saw marks across her belly. What was this man doing to our precious Winnie?


We went around to the front of the house, to visit with Mary. We gathered in her bedroom to whisper, outside of her parent’s hearing.


Mary said, “There’s a pond, where they play polo. It seems that when the game went right through the pond, Winnie laid down with my father still on her. He got so mad! I think he kicked her in the face, I’m not sure. When he got home, he took her out back, took away all her food and then he beat her with a board.”


I said, through my tears, “Oh my god! What can we do? How can we stop this? It isn’t fair!”
Willie and I went to her parents and begged them to help. All we got out of them was, “What can we do? We sold her to him. It’s out of our hands.”


Every visit, found Winnie’s spirits lower than before and then we saw that she was loosing weight.


She was no longer the spirited race horse. She was beginning to look like an old nag and she was only 4 years old. What could we do?


This was long before the animal rights people, came along. Long before anyone would do anything about it. We were alone in our grief.