Chapter 2

Ginoza

Summer has only just started and it's already hot for this time of year outside. It kind of makes me dread for what's to come later once summer has reached its climax and right now I almost feel bad for Kougami.

I finished my work earlier this afternoon so I can relax for the rest of the day and not do anything until the sun starts to set but he can't afford to do that. He's got one huge pile of tasks he's been given and they must be all completed by dinner time and grandpa isn't letting up on Kougami either. Poor guy, he has no idea what he's in for that's for sure.

"You are so bad; I can't believe you made that guy ride Cherry all morning as his first time on a horse." Mika says as she joins me outside on the patio and I can't help but smile at the thought of that.

Cherry is a great horse there's no doubt about it but she's very energetic and she loves to jump to the point that she'd make a great show jumper horse. She also has a great personality and a charming temperament and to be honest she's just a very good horse for rookie jumpers with lots of potential but she doesn't give a smooth ride.

Cherry is a rough rider due to how she gallops so Kougami should be feeling a lot of pain below the belt right now and if you count the added pain in his upper body from the work that he'll have to do before dinner time, he's going to be a total wreck by night fall.

"Jealous that you didn't thought of it yourself?" I shoot back at her in a playful manner as we watch Kougami stack up bales of hay in the distance near the barn.

Maybe it was a cruel thing what I did considering that I already knew what kind of work grandpa would give him but I just couldn't resist and the way he kept running his mouth this morning, he got exactly what he deserved.

"So what do you think he did?" Mika suddenly asks. "He's on probation, he must have done something. Have an idea what it could be?" She adds with a hint of curiosity in her tone.

I have absolutely no idea what Kougami did and it's not something that I dared to ask earlier, besides it's none of my business anyway. Unlike him, I know not to cross certain boundaries and it doesn't take a genius to guess that he probably did something pretty bad otherwise he wouldn't be on probation in the first place.

Everything that he does or wants to do needs to be approved by grandpa first and if grandpa doesn't approve well he won't be able to do it. I guess you can kind of say that Kougami is almost under house arrest and he probably deserves it and yet he doesn't seem like a bad person but appearance can be misleading sometimes.

"I don't know and to be honest I don't care." I answer briefly and quite frankly it's the truth. What Kougami did and all, I could care little about.

"Shouldn't you be working with Princess today?" Mika asks after a few minutes of silence and I wish she hadn't reminded me as I let out a long sigh just thinking about that mare.

"Yeah…" I mutter back.

Princess is a gorgeous mare who was brought to Heartland for behavioral problems. The owner is a special friend of grandpa and I like her a lot so it was kind of hard to say no but I have no idea how to help this girl.

She's got a massive behavioral problem that's without a doubt about it and she's extremely hard to predict which makes working with her difficult.

Princess won't allow anyone to saddle her up or even put on a halter which wasn't the case in the past since she was a great show horse and she won many ribbons for Fairfield but it's like Lysa said, Princess was becoming old and her performance on the track started to drop due to her age which is perfectly normal.

After some consideration Lysa decided that pushing Princess to continue show jumping would have been cruel on her part so Lysa removed Princess from the Fairfield roster for future show jumping and decided to keep the mare permanently at Fairfield instead.

Lysa kept Princess active by doing casual jumping around her ranch but little by little Princess became troublesome with her riders and then slowly it jumped to the other horses and now it's to the point that she's dangerous towards people and no one knows why.

"Wish me luck." I blurt out with no enthusiasm as I get up and make my way towards the barn, paying no attention to Kougami as I entered and I can't help but shake my head as I take off my jacket and hung it next to the hung halters.

Nymeria and Cherry are in their rightful stalls which is good but the rest have completely been mixed up and much to my dismay Princess has been placed in the stall between Nymeria and Cherry which isn't good at all. I had put her in the stall at the entrance, away from all of the other horses because she always tries to bite them or kicks in the stall and I really don't want her to injure herself or hurt the other horses.

I don't say anything, I can already guess who it was that mixed up all of the horses anyway and I don't feel like arguing right now so I just walk over to Princess and for some odd reason she seems a bit different today. Her eyes are the same as before but she seems calmer, more relaxed but I don't take any chance and I lead her out of the stall and lead her back to her previous stall that she occupied since she got here.

"Have you started to calm down girl?" I gently ask her as I stroke her neck, carefully observing her eyes but nothing changed but she's definitely different than she was when she first got here. It's the first time that she's allowed me to stroke her like this so it's good.

I can understand why Lysa is willing to try anything to get Princess back to her old self. She's a Camarillo White horse and they are extremely rare. Unlike some typical grey horses who's fur whitens as they get older, the Camarillo White horse are born pure white and remain that way for the rest of their lives.

It's without a doubt that Lysa has spent a lot of money on Princess and Lysa loves her so much. She even thought that maybe selling Princess was her last option and she did try and there were plenty of buyers but whoever bought Princess always ended up returning her back to Fairfield due to behavioral problems.

"That horse shouldn't be in the corner by herself."

I look over my shoulder to see Kougami leaning against Princess's stall, his shirt soaked in sweat and a bit breathless.

"She shouldn't be near the other horses, she bites them." I reply back, not removing my eyes off Kougami who's grinning like an idiot. He doesn't know anything about horses so he should mind his own business. "Each horse have their proper stall, you can't just put them wherever you want." I add as I return my gaze onto Princess and I try to stroke her head and much to my pleasure she allows me.

"Well she's lonely." He states and emphasizes the word she and continues, "There's not a spectre of dust on her, let her be a horse for a change. If she gets dirty I'll clean her up, I don't care."

I quickly look down at Princess's hooves and noticed that they are pretty filthy and I turn back to look at Kougami.

"I was asked to keep Princess clean by its owner. Thanks a lot, now you've just given me more work." I tell him and I can't believe that he let Princess out of the barn. He knows absolutely nothing about horses, what would have happened if he would have lost control of her? He doesn't think!

"I'll help clean her up Ginoza, don't stress it." He casually says like it's nothing and just as he finished talking his expression went from calm to alarmed in a matter of second as he violently opened the stall and before I could even move away it was already too late as I'm clutching onto my right arm, trying to ignore the throbbing pain as Kougami quickly pulls me out of the stall and drags me away after he closed the stall.

"Are you okay!?" He asks and I can sense the nervousness in his tone as he pulls my hand away to inspect my arm and it's a complete mess.

The bite mark has broken through the skin and blood is gushing out but it's nothing too alarming, I've seen worse but it stings and it feels like my heart has changed places and is now in my arm.

"I'm fine…" I say as I walk away into my mom's old office with Kougami following me closely mumbling something but I'm not listening as I search through my mom's old stuff for the first aid kit that's lying under a pile of paper work that still needs to be filled.

"No you're not. Sit down!" He orders and gives me no choice as he practically forces me to sit down and he opens up the first aid kid and quickly takes out a few things and starts tending to my wound and I have to say that I'm kind of impress.

Kougami was nervous only a minute ago and now he's completely calm and he seems to know exactly what he's doing as he cleaned the wound and then carefully disinfected it before covering it with a compress and then wrapped it up securely with a bandage wrap.

"Ginoza I had no idea that horse was unpredictable like that. She was fine when I took her out into the pasture and she was constantly with Tempest. Actually she was playing with him." He tells me as he puts everything back in order into the kit and closes it.

"I was told that she bites but she never tried to bite me before now…" I say, my mind half gone as I try to think of a reason why she bite me. I don't recall doing anything to provoke her to do that or maybe it's just something else but I have to find out what that is.

"That horse is dangerous; she could have done much worse than bite your arm. I don't want to tell you what to do but you can't go near it again. If she bite you once, she'll do it again." Kougami further tells me and it's not like I'm not aware of that possibility.

When working with horses that have problems, you have to consider the risks involved. Sometimes you can heal a horse with no problems but it's not always the case with all of them. Some are more challenging and sometimes you do get hurt trying to heal a horse but I'm perfectly fine with that. All horses can be saved, you just can't give up on them that's all.

Mom wouldn't give up on Princess if she was still here so neither can I.

"This is her last chance; if it doesn't work out here she'll be put down." I admit and just thinking about that happening is enough to leave a bad taste in my mouth. I don't want Princess to be killed, she deserves to live and I know there is still some good in that horse.

I get up and walk out of mom's old office with Kougami following me a bit too close for my liking.

"Ginoza you can't do miracles." He tells me and I felt a hint of frustration in his tone. "That horse is crazy." He adds and glares at Princess.

Princess is a lot of things, I'll admit it that she is unstable right now but she's not crazy. She bite me for a reason, she can't talk to tell me what is wrong but she's trying to tell me something and that's what I have to figure out.

"Kougami…"

"What?"

"Don't tell my grandpa about what happened." I mutter the request as I put on my jacket.

"Are you out of your mind, I have to. That's a serious injury; I have to alert Pops just in case it turns bad." Kougami exclaims and I want to cringe as he raised his voice and praying that grandpa wasn't around to hear him just now.

"I'll be fine, it doesn't hurt that much anyway." I reply as casually as I could manage without wincing from the constant throbbing in my arm but Kougami doesn't seem to buy it much to my dismay.

"You don't get it; I'm in a sensitive spot here. Ginoza if it doesn't work here I have nowhere else to go. If Pops finds out that I failed to report an incident I'll be out of here and I'll be thrown to jail." He further tells me and I get that, I really do but grandpa can't know. Well not right now anyway.

"Can't report an incident if you didn't see anything." I say, giving him a smile and hoping that he'll agree to that but his facial expression basically gave me an answer.

"I'm not going to lie for you if I'm asked about it." He tells me before walking out of the barn.

Well that could have been worse but I can't blame Kougami for not wanting to cover for me but it's not like I'd let grandpa throw him out for that but anyway I have more important things to worry about right now.