Anne's Courage [Le Club 3] (Siren Publishing Classic) by Skye Michaels Page A

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Chapter Seventeen
     
    Manuel was waiting for Mark when he arrived to clean stalls Wednesday morning. “Hey, man, I’m sorry for getting you into hot water with the boss,” Mark said immediately.
    “It’s okay, kid. Mr. Jamie ripped me a new one for letting your paperwork slip, but he got over it quick. I’ve worked for the Devereaus for six years. I started cleaning stalls at the plantation and worked my way up to head groom and assistant barn manager. I’m just glad Mr. Justin was in France when the shit hit the fan!” Manuel said with a grin. “That would have been ugly!”
    “Well, I’m sorry.”
    “Okay, let’s get started. When you said you’d cleaned stalls at other farms, I thought you knew how to handle the horses. I should have made sure. Let’s get Jester out of his stall. We need to clean his wounds, and then you can clean the stall. First, with Jester, you give him his treat. Sugar cubes are his favorite. There’s a bag of them in his grooming box. Be sure to keep the palm of your hand turned up and your fingers flat, you don’t want to get them bit by accident,” he said. “Jester’s a little spoiled, but he’s the boss’s baby, no question about it.” Manuel laughed as he walked over to the stall and got cubes out of the bag. “After he gets a treat, you get the halter off the door and go in. He’ll lower his head, so you can put it on.” He demonstrated. “Then you take the lead rope and put the chain end through the two brass fittings on either side of his mouth, so it goes under the chin from right to left. With some stallions, you have to put the chain over their nose to keep them under control, but Jester is really a nice stallion, and you don’t need to do that with him. Some of them can be really mean. It’s all that testosterone. You were lucky you weren’t hurt. That’s one of the reasons Mr. Jamie was so mad. Then you stand on his left side and lead him out of the stall door, walking beside him at his shoulder. Make sure the stall door is open all the way and latched so it doesn’t spring back and hit him in the side as you’re going through the door. That could spook him and be really dangerous. Lead him over to the cross ties, and fasten the ties to the halter before you take the lead rope off.”
    Manuel demonstrated the entire process, then put Jester back in his stall, took the halter off, and said, “Now you do it.”
    Mark’s eyes widened, but he sucked in a breath and repeated the procedure as Manuel watched and corrected him as they went along. “Good. It’s really not hard. You just have to be especially careful with stallions. You should do this with all the horses though. It’s not a good idea to clean the stall with them in it. Also, you can do a better job if they’re out of the way. You should try to do the stalls of the horses that are out in pasture first.”
    When Mark had completed the task and had Jester secured in the cross ties in the center of the barn aisle, Manuel got out the medical supplies and showed Mark how to clean the wound and apply the bright-purple antibiotic spray to the area around the wounds and stitches. “Now give him another cube for standing like a gentleman while we did all this stuff. Pat him on the neck, and tell him he’s a good boy. They really respond to praise, just like anybody else,” he said.
    Mark did as he was told, and when he moved in to pat Jester’s neck, the big horse butted him in the chest gently with his muzzle, pushing him off balance, and whinnied. “He forgives you. That’s good. Believe me, if you don’t treat them right, they will hold a grudge. It may take a while, but they will get you back,” Manuel said seriously. “Now clean his stall while he’s out here, and then I’ll watch you put him up.”
    When they were done with Jester, Max who had been out of sight watching the entire procedure, said, “Good job, Mark. You handled that very well, even though I know you were still a