Keeta's Gift (cont'd)
By Eowyn HorseCrazy

Chapter Two:

I looked into Keeta’s big, brown eyes, rimmed with way too much white. 

“Elizabeth.  Can you tell us anything?” Mr. Devine asked me.  He was standing by the stall door with a first aid kit and towels. 

“She… she’s in labor…?” I stammered.  Mr. Devine sighed impatiently, misunderstanding me. 

“We know that much… we need to know what’s wrong!” he was frustrated.  

“She’s having birthing complications… and it could be dangerous if we don’t do this right,” I said, staring at Keeta.  A gush of water made her kick the air for a second.  She stretched her neck back and tried to draw a deep breath, then tried to get up, but failed. 

“Oh, God, save Keeta!” Rachel whispered, crying.  She cradled her mare’s head in her lap.  Keeta began grunting and contracting.  Her eyes widened even bigger as she pushed with all her might.  After about 20 minutes, a little head and both front legs up to the knees where out, and Keeta stood up.  The foal finally came into the world, with the help of Mr. Devine.  Her mother lovingly, but wearily, started bathing her little foal.

“Thank God!” Mr. Devine said, evidently relieved.  

I eyed Keeta.  She didn’t look good at all.  Her legs where wobbly, her head hung, and she still wasn’t breathing right.  Rachel and I helped the mare by rubbing the foal with towels.  After we where done with that, we spread more fresh grass hay in her stall, and made sure that there was warm water.  But, Keeta never got the water.  After we’d watched her foal nurse, Keeta laid down to rest with her baby. 

“What is it?” Mr. Devine asked us girls. 

“A girl!” Rachel answered, smiling.  Mr. Devine started writing something down on his clipboard. 

“Color?” he asked. 

“Black with beautiful white markings!” I said. 

“Good, I’ll be right back,” Mr. Devine said, walking out of the stall.  

I looked at Keeta, then at Rachel.  My friend was beaming.  I gazed back at the pair, mother and child, nestled in a deep bed of sweet-smelling hay.  Keeta’s eyes where closed, and I could see her head lowering over her filly.  I moved silently over to her and stroked her head.  She coughed and licked her lips. 

“Rachel,” I said, “I… I don’t think she’s doing good.” 

“Aren’t you so happy?” she asked me, not hearing what I had said. 

“Rachel  Didn’t you hear what I…” I stopped.  Keeta struggled to get up, but couldn’t.  She settled back down into the hay, looked at her foal and licked her face.  She laid her head on my lap, and took her last faltering breath.  Then she closed her eyes forever.  Tears came to my eyes.  I wanted to say something, but the words stuck in my throat.  Rachel’s blue eyes widened as big as the laboring mare’s had. 

“No!  She’s just sleeping!”  She came and laid her head on Keeta’s chest, listening for her heartbeat.  When she didn’t hear what she wanted there, she felt Keeta’s nose… hoping to feel her mare’s gentle breath on her shaky hand… the breath that we had felt for so short a time.  She started crying and ran out of the stall.  I could hear her footsteps as she ran out of the barn towards the trees on their property.  I looked back down into the mare’s half-shut eyes, and I started crying hard.  I bowed my head, and my tears fell on Keeta’s sweet black face which had a big, white blaze that looked like a question mark.  The only thing that was missing was the dot at the end of her nose.  And now, the only thing missing to me was this beautiful mare, who lay dead in her stall, when she should be up with her foal loving and nursing.  I sat there crying until Mr. Devine came back out to the barn.  There was a smile on his face that quickly disappeared when he saw the mare and me. 

“Rachel… the… Keeta…?” he stammered, rushing into the stall.  He took the mare’s head, looked at her for a moment, and then laid her head down in the bed of straw, shaking his head.  The foal tried to stand up, but fell back down. 

“Beth, you take Chakotay and go find Rachel, would you?” Mr. Devine asked me, his voice quavering.  “I don’t want her alone right now.” 

I nodded and brushed my eyes with my sleeve as I unlatched the door.  I shut it, then looked back at the beautiful mare.  She looked so peaceful laying there in the stall, with her now orphaned foal sleeping beside her, snuggled up against her mother’s lifeless body, not knowing that she would never get to sleep beside her at night.  She would never get to brighten her mother’s life up with her foal-spunk.  She would never get to gallop through the fields with her, with the wind blowing in their manes and their whinnies of happiness echoing through the field, ringing in their ears.  Her mother was dead and the poor filly didn’t even know it. 

I shook myself and ran to Chakotay’s stall.  When I got there, I yanked the halter off of the hook outside his stall, then slipped in and put it on him.  I knew I didn’t need it, but I got a lead rope and made makeshift reins.  He’d been abused before Rachel’s parents had bought him for her and gentled him.  Now he was the sweetest horse in the world… now that Keeta was gone, I added silently.  I walked him into the stall-way and mounted, and then rode him at a walk until we were in the pasture.  I let him canter to the trees.   slowed the paint gelding down to a trot, and we started weaving our way through the trees.  After about 10 minutes, I saw my friend leaning up against a big Oak.  I cantered Chokatoy over to her, and then slid off. 

“Rachel, are you okay?” I asked, walking up to her.  She wiped her eyes off with the back of her hand.

“Beth!  I love her so much!  She can’t die!  And the foal!  She’s so cute, and… and helpless!” she began crying again.  Chakotay nuzzled his mistress’s face, sensing that something was wrong, and nickered.  I put my arm around her. 

“I know. It is real sad.... but we’ve still got Chakotay… and the foal!  They both need us -- especially the foal -- right now.  Just because Keeta died, we shouldn’t forget about them.”  I swallowed.  “You know?”  She nodded and reached up to stroke her gelding’s face. 

“I know.  It’s just that I love her so much, and… and now she’s dead.  Why?” she asked in a whisper.  “Why Keeta?  Why… the mother?”  I bit my bottom lip and fought back tears. 

“Come on, Rachel.  We better go back now.”  I stood on a stump and mounted Chakotay, and then helped Rachel up behind me.  We set off at a trot, but broke into a canter when we got back into the clear pasture.  As our horse flew through the green field, scattered trees blurred by, and the breeze calmed me down somewhat.  Birds where singing in the brownish-green trees, and I barely felt Rachel behind me, with her arms wrapped around my waist, but holding on mostly with her legs.  Chakotay’s long, black-and-white mane tickled my face, and his black hooves pounded the ground.  Somebody should record that sound and make a soundtrack of it.  That’s one soundtrack I would buy.  

When we got back to the barn, Rachel slid off of the gelding and then I followed her into the barn.  Before we got to Keeta’s stall, she took the rope from me and walked Chakotay to his stall, without even a sideways glance at her mare.  I went into Keeta’s stall and knelt down beside her.  Mr. Devine had put the foal in a corner, where she now snoozed peacefully. 

“Keeta,” I whispered.  “You were Rachel’s and my second best friend!  What will Rachel do without you?  What will I do without you?”  I traced the white mark on her nose with my pointer finger. “‘Why?’ is the question, Keeta.” 

Rachel came up behind me.  “She was a wonderful horse, wasn’t she?” she asked, sitting down next to me, fingering Keeta‘s long, silky mane.  

I nodded, starting to cry again.  “A very wonderful horse.  I’ll miss her.” 

Rachel nodded.  She reached out and ran her finger along the question mark.  “I’ll never forget you, Keeta. I promise.” 

“I wonder if God gave her to us so that she could teach us something,” I said quietly. 

“Like what?” Rachel asked curiously.  I shrugged, peeling my gaze off of the dead mare and looking at the little foal in the corner. 

“Maybe… maybe to teach us that… we should give freely to each other.  And, ‘There is no greater love than to lay down your life for a brother’.  She hung on so that she could give us her baby.  And…” I gasped.  “Rachel!  Look!”  I pointed to the foal.  “The marking on her face it‘s… it’s… the same as Keeta’s!  A question mark!”  And it was true.  The foal looked identical to Keeta.  Only she had a small, uneven circle at the end of her nose.  

Rachel smiled through her tears.  “God works in mysterious ways, don’t you think?” 

“Yes, He does.  What are we going to name her?”  We studied the cute little foal that, if taken extra special care of, would someday be a beautiful paint mare. 

“Something to do with love,” Rachel said.  “She’s a dream, huh?”  Rachel was doing a little braid in Keeta’s forelock.  

I blinked back tears. “She’s a dream.” 

My friend looked at the foal.  “She is a dream… a hopeful dream.  I just hope she’s a living dream,” she added, looking back at Keeta.  “I’ll miss her a lot,” she said. 

“Me too,” I answered.  I kissed Keeta’s nose.  “I love you, and I know God will take wonderful care of a wonderful horse… you!”  I turned and hugged Rachel, crying hard.  “She gave us a priceless gift, Rachel…Keeta’s Gift!”

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