Chapter 5 - Eleven DaysThey had eleven days.
That was what Mark finally admitted after Wade left.
Eleven days before the private loan entered default.
Eleven days to return five thousand dollars.
Eleven days to make a past-due payment of twelve thousand four hundred.
Otherwise, the lender could begin proceedings against the collateral Mark had pledged.
Emma stared at the papers.
“What collateral?”
Mark looked at Helen.
“The south forty.”
Helen stood so quickly the chair fell.
“You put forty acres up?”
“I had no choice.”
“You keep saying that!”
“I was trying to rebuild!”
“You were hiding!”
Mark stood.
“So what should I have done? Let the farm collapse after the storm?”
“We could have downsized.”
“To what?”
“Anything!”
Emma watched her parents shout.
She had never seen them like this.
The storm had damaged more than buildings.
It had created a version of their family where Mark tried to protect everyone by becoming the only person allowed to know how frightened he was.
Now the secrecy was collapsing.
Emma left the kitchen.
Raven stood in the paddock.
She leaned against the fence.
Twenty-two thousand dollars.
For him.
Five thousand already spent.
Twelve thousand due.
Thirty-eight thousand remaining.
Eighty-seven thousand total debt.
Numbers surrounded the horse like invisible ropes.
Her mother joined her.
For a while they said nothing.
Then Emma asked:
“Why was Wade willing to pay twenty-two?”
Helen frowned.
“He’s a good horse.”
“He’s not a competition horse.”
“No.”
“He’s never raced.”
“No.”
“No formal show record.”
“No.”
Emma looked toward the road.
“Then why did he bring three vehicles and five tranquilizer guns before we even knew he was taking Raven?”
Helen’s expression changed.
“You think he expected trouble.”
“I think he expected Raven specifically.”
The next morning, Emma called Doctor Samuel Reyes, the veterinarian who had treated Raven for years.
He came that afternoon.
Emma told him everything.
Reyes listened.
Then examined Raven.
“Twenty-two thousand is high for a horse with no competition record.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Not impossible.”
“Could he be worth more?”
“Every horse can be worth more to the right buyer.”
Emma frowned.
“That sounds like a non-answer.”
“It is.”
Reyes smiled.
Then became serious.
“Do you know where Rose bought him?”
“An estate dispersal.”
“Which farm?”
“I don’t know.”
Helen went inside and brought Rose’s papers.
There was an auction receipt.
Lot 47.
A breeder’s abbreviation:
BHC.
Reyes stared at it.
“Black Hollow Creek?”
Emma shrugged.
He touched Raven’s neck.
“Does he have a microchip?”
“I don’t know.”
“Rose might have never checked.”
He retrieved a scanner from his truck.
Passed it along Raven’s neck.
Nothing.
Shoulder.
Nothing.
Then lower.
The scanner beeped.
Emma’s heart jumped.
Numbers appeared.
Reyes read them.
Then scanned again.
Same result.
“He’s chipped.”
“What does that tell us?”
“If the chip was registered, maybe his origin.”
Reyes called his clinic.
Ten minutes later his assistant called back.
He listened.
His expression changed.
“What?”
Reyes looked at Raven.
“Black Hollow Creek was a working-horse breeding operation in Kentucky.”
“Was?”
“It closed about ten years ago.”
Emma waited.
“And?”
“This chip was registered there.”
“To Raven?”
“No.”
“What name?”
Reyes hesitated.
“Midnight Sovereign.”
Emma laughed nervously.
“That sounds ridiculous.”
“It does.”
“Is it important?”
Reyes looked at Helen.
Then Emma.
“The sire listed in the registry is Sentinel Black.”
Helen’s eyes widened.
Emma did not understand.
“Who is that?”
Reyes exhaled.
“A national champion working stallion.”
Emma stared at Raven.
“So?”
“So if the registry is correct, Raven is not an unregistered farm horse.”
“How much does that change things?”
Reyes looked uncomfortable.
“A lot.”
“How much?”
“I would want an equine appraiser.”
Emma’s voice hardened.
“Guess.”
Reyes looked at Raven again.
“With verified lineage, temperament, soundness, and breeding potential?”
Emma nodded.
“Possibly more than one hundred thousand dollars.”
The field seemed to go silent.
Emma thought of Wade’s twenty-two-thousand-dollar offer.
Then of the vehicles.
The tranquilizer guns.
The prepared roadblock.
Wade Harlan had not been trying to help a desperate farmer.
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He had been trying to buy something Mark did not know he owned.
And technically did not own at all.
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