Read All the Sky for Free Online

Pop says there’s doin’s in here.” He walked up to her side and looked into the stall. Mabel, a beautiful, white leopard Appaloosa mare with black spots, was lying on her side in the clean shavings. Soph had wrapped her white tail in bright pink flexible tape, and Havoc saw two little black hooves already out. Mabel lifted her head and looked back. She started to roll, as if she wanted to stand, then fell back, her body clenching. With an irritated huff, she laid her head back down, and a little nose peeked out the other end.
    Having been raised on this farm, this wasn’t Havoc’s first birth, but it never ceased to amaze him. Watching a totally new, separate life moving out of its mother’s body, enclosed in a pearly, semi-transparent sac, unmoving at first, but soon to take its first steps on its own out in the world—it gave him a feeling of warmth and power that he didn’t entirely understand. Always had. He’d always been fascinated by animals and the simplicity with which they lived their lives. All instinct. Pure. And yet he’d seen animals exhibit what he could only think of as devotion.
    Mabel contracted again, and the head was out—mostly black, with large patches of white.
    “Pinto,” Havoc whispered.
    “Yep, looks like. Pretty baby.”
    For several long minutes, there was no more progress, and Mabel started to fuss. Sophie pushed herself up to look more closely over the wall. “She’s having trouble with the shoulders. I’m going to help a little.”
    “Need backup?”
    “You could keep her calm so I don’t get a hoof in my ear.”
    “You got it. I got a way with the ladies.” He went to the stall door.
    Sophie rolled her eyes. “Sure you do. I hear that all the time.”
    When Havoc opened the door, she went in first. She went to the Mabel’s business end, and Havoc went to her head, squatting down and rubbing her nose. “Hey, lady. Rough day, huh?”
    Another contraction with no progress, and Mabel huffed and tried to roll up again. Havoc laid a hand on her shoulder. “Easy now.” With gentling pressure, without restraining her, he stroked her, head to shoulder.
    Sophie had her hands on Mabel’s rump. “On the next one, I’m going to give her just a tiny bit of help.”
    She did, and the foal’s shoulders slipped free. Hard part over. Havoc and Sophie both stood and moved out of the way. As Mabel seemed to sigh with relief, the foal stirred to life and raised its head, still closed in its amniotic sac, and not yet entirely free of its mother.
    Sophie grinned. “Nice spirit!”
    “That’d be a good name, Spirit. You keeping this one?”
    “Don’t know. Probably not. You know Pop. Gotta have a use.”
    Mabel contracted again, and the foal was free. She stood immediately, and the sac broke as the foal stretched its forelegs and looked around. When Mabel circled to get a look at what she’d made, the sac pulled away completely.
    Havoc nudged his sister. “Colt. Pretty one. You should train him up for barrels. Pop would let you, I bet. Bring him home some ribbons, he’d be cool.”
    “Yeah, well. We’ll see. Someday I’d like to be out on my own, and I doubt I’ll have a place that will let me keep a horse.”
    “I’d help with that, you know—getting your own place. Just say the word.”
    She shot her elbow into his gut, and he grunted. “You know that shit’s not gonna happen. I’ll work it out. I’m saving, and it’s not so bad here.”
    “You still looking to teach?”
    A shrug was her only answer—no, then. Havoc knew Sophie had gotten frustrated and demoralized by her search for a classroom of her own. She’d worked for awhile as a classroom aide, but that had only been more depressing. So she contented herself selling used crap on Main Street and helping their parents out.
    He bent down and kissed her cheek. “I’m gonna go in and see Ma—anything good in there today?” Their mother was a pro in the kitchen. Havoc’s mouth watered in