Wild Horses (Sadie's Montana #1)(36)

Now they surrounded the buggy.

Ezra yelled out as he lost control. Captain broke into a frenzy, lunging, rearing, coming down, and galloping on. The buggy was swaying, bouncing, careening left, then right.

The black horse in the lead was so close, Sadie could have touched him.

“Ezra!” she gasped. “Just try to stay…”

Her words were torn from her mouth as she felt the buggy whipping to the right. Captain was running neck and neck with the huge black horse, downhill now, completely out of control.

Sadie felt a certain pity for Captain, but inside she felt terror and a horrible fear as the black horse came closer, his mane whipping, his long forelock flying, his mouth open, reaching, reaching.

It wasn’t fair. Captain didn’t stand a chance. He was at a severe disadvantage with the blinders on each side of his head and with being hitched to the cumbersome buggy. He strained into the collar and gave everything he had, every ounce of sense and power he owned, but it was not enough. He was so loyal, and it made Sadie sad, this knowledge of how far a good horse would go to protect his beloved master.

The black horse reached out, his long, yellow teeth extended. His jaws reached the top of Captain’s mane and he bit.

Sadie’s world exploded as Captain went down. There was a sickening, ripping sound as the shafts broke, parting with the buggy, and they were thrown to the left.

She remembered Ezra’s yell of disbelief, her own hoarse screams, the buggy beginning to fall, and then she was hurled into a cold, white world filled with jagged pain.

Glass was sharp; rocks cruelly insensitive to human forms thrown against them. There was a roaring in Sadie’s ears, and she felt as if her head was severed from her shoulders. She screamed and screamed and screamed. The pain was excruciating, but she remained conscious.

The buggy! Oh, Lord have mercy! It rolled and crashed and tumbled.

Ezra!

Mercifully, then, everything went gray. A white, hot explosion inside her head turned her knowing into a blessed nothingness. She guessed she was dying now. So peaceful.

Something hurt. It was annoying. Why didn’t it stop?

Then she slipped into that softness again. It was so peaceful there, reminding her of the memory foam pillows her mother loved so much and told everyone about. If you laid your head on Mam’s pillow, it was firm and soft and supportive all at the same time. It seemed impossible, but wasn’t. Sadie’s whole body was made of memory foam. That was nice.

Ouch.

Shoot! It hurts. Stop that, Reuben. That ice is cold.

Reuben wasn’t made of memory foam. Just her. At least, her legs were made of memory foam. That was nice. Nothing hurt there.

Oh, it was so cold. She needed to stop Reuben from pouring that ice on her neck. Why was her voice so quiet? She was suffocating now. Great swells of horrible, dark ink enveloped her, wrapping her in murky, stinking arms.

Get away from me. I can’t breathe! Get away.

Fight, Sadie. You have to fight this.

She was stuck on the bottom, held tight by the inky, black mud. She was clawing, clawing, gasping, using all her strength. Memory foam was better.

Just let go. Let it go. You don’t have to breathe. Just lay back.

A great and terrible nausea gripped her. She clawed, swam, up, up, her lungs like a balloon with too much air. They would surely pop.

Someone smacked an icy rag against her face.

Stop smacking me, please. I have to throw up. Don’t smack me like that.

She burst to the top, retching, her face hitting the side of the cold gray rock. She tried gasping for great, deep, breaths of pure air to banish the black ink forever, but the horrible retching completely overwhelmed her.

Blood!

She tried sitting up, raising herself a bit. Where was all that blood coming from? If she could only stop heaving, throwing up, but her body wanted to rid itself of all its stomach’s contents.

All right. Think now.

She regained consciousness, of this she was certain. She just couldn’t see anything but blood. The ink was still there.

Raising one hand, she slowly brought up her arm. One arm. Okay. She touched her face, then recoiled in horror. The ink was everywhere. No, it wasn’t ink. She wiped weakly at her eyes now. Over and over, tiredly, back and forth, back and forth.

Clear the ink.

Grayish light was her reward.

Keep working.

Painfully blinking.

Why was a blink so excruciating?

Aah, now she could see white. And black. Stones. Rocks. Snow. Snow everywhere.

She reached to the top of her head with a shaking hand. It was still sticky from the ink that had stayed on her head when she burst through it. She brought her fingers down.

Red! Blood. It was coming from her head, falling into her eyes. She had a gash in her head. Oh, it was so cold.

Where were her legs? She better check.

Reaching down, she found one. The other. Was that her foot? Way out here? Turned like that? She better fix it.

Willing her foot to move, she felt a stab of pain unlike anything she had ever known. A scream escaped her, only it wasn’t really a scream, more like a hoarse moan, as she laid her head against the gray, cold stone and fought to stay out of that horrible hole—that place she had been and clawed her way out.

Breathe now. Slowly. You can do this. Count. Just count and bear the pain.

Women were created to bear children, so pain was not unfamiliar or unbearable. It was certainly not going to put her back into the ink. She was afraid if she went there, she would never be able to claw her way to the top again. It had taken every ounce of life and energy she could muster to get out, so she had better focus on staying conscious.