At Risk

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Some mornings, before darkness gives way to light and a cold wind howls across the pasture and presses against the barn like a giant hand, I wonder what in the hell I'm doing working on a horse farm.

A week earlier, the jet stream had ferried a wall of Canadian air down the eastern edge of the Allegheny Mountains, and the mercury hadn't crawled out of the single digits ever since. I yanked a second sweatshirt over my head and walked into the kitchen.

The barn's crossbeams and joists creaked and groaned like a Spanish galleon on the open seas while familiar sounds filtered up through the floorboards. Rustling straw, the hollow thump of a hoof knocking against a wooden plank, a bucket rattling.

I opened the drawer next to the kitchen sink. Buried among a Phillips screwdriver, a past due Gas and Electric bill and a stack of old bank statements, rubber bands, paper clips, and everything else that cluttered the junk drawer, I found a dirty manila envelope with the flap crimped shut. I turned it over in my palm. My boss had printed Stephen in bold black letters on one side along with the horse's name and detailed instructions that I knew by heart. Inside, were tubes of ophthalmic ointment that couldn't be left in a cold barn. I tucked the envelope in my pocket and shrugged into my coat.

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