A/N: This chapter is the whole reason I rated this story PG-13. It is graphic, as in a horse slaughter scene. I do not advise anyone under ten, or who is especially sensitive to this kind of thing, to read this. You can skip to the next chapter without missing anything important, because I will run over what you missed in the next a/n (minus anything graphic). IF SENATOR CONRAD BURNS IS READING THIS STORY I DEMAND THAT YOU READ THIS CHAPTER! (Not likely, but one can always hope.)
That day dawned cold and wet. It was raining. It always rains when something bad happens to me. I was dozing as well as I could with all the horses making so much noise all around me. Quite suddenly, I heard my sire whinny. I opened my eyes in terror. Two men had thrown ropes around my sire's chestnut neck and were trying to drag him into the "kill box". The proud horse was not giving in. He was fighting up a storm. He reared, lunged at one of the men, kicked, bucked, and pulled every trick in the book. But it didn't help him. They dragged him into the pen and shocked him with an electric prod from behind, but no one could get near enough to kill him. Then he reared. I saw it all as if it happened in slow motion. The humans jerked the rope that was around his head. My sire's eyes were filled with more surprise than anything else as he fell, his long mane swirling around his neck and his forelegs clawing at the sky. As soon as he hit the ground I knew it was over. One of the men leapt forward with a "stun gun" as they call it. It's really more like a nail gun with nails roughly four or five inches long. The man shot three bolts into my sire's head. He screamed. I will never forget the way he screamed. The humans stood there, watching him, completely unmoved by his scream for release, not caring that he was in unbearable pain. They dragged his body to a machine that looked like a crane. They ignored the way he was still feebly struggling, ignored the fact that he was still very much alive and was not stunned as they pretend that all the horses are before they die. They lifted him up by a rope around his hind legs and slit his throat. It made me sick Blood was splattering all over the ground; I suddenly noticed the bodies of dozens of horses. I don't know why I never saw them before; perhaps it was because I didn't want to see. I didn't want to know.
By this time all my herd mates were dead, even the pregnant one. She had been almost ready to have her foal, and they murdered her. It didn't register in my mind. But then, all humans are ruthless killers, according to mustangs.
Three days after my sire died, they came after me. I was standing near my mommy, and we hadn't noticed that the other horses had slowly been pushing us closer to the kill box. I vaguely remember a man snapping at someone else, and a sharp shock from the electric prod. I bolted to the side, away from the prod and the kill box. My mommy defended me. It was all a whirl of movement. The men whipped me and my mother and the horses around us, my mommy kept coming between me and the men, and I kept trying to get away. I suddenly saw a gap in the mass of horses, a way out of that battle and a flicker of hope for me. Behind me my mother screamed. I checked in mid canter. The men had a rope around my mommy's neck, and were dragging her towards the kill box. I started to go back…
"No! Run! Get away from here!" she yelled at me as I came forward. The ropes were slowly choking her to death. No one cared. The horses just wanted to stay alive, even in the living hell we were in, and the men just wanted us dead. They watched without pity as my mother kicked me away. They whipped a horse next to me, and it moved between me and my mother. The other horses were spooked by a trailer that had suddenly pulled into the "driveway" where the double decker trailers parked. They moved like a giant wave, slowly but surely pushing me away from my mother. I could still hear her screaming for me to get away. Then her scream was cut off, leaving behind a terrible silence.
The trailer that had spooked the other horses was parked not far from the back fence, where I had taken refuge from the darkness of that day. I saw someone come out of the cab of the truck that was pulling the trailer. It was a tall, elderly man. He looked at us and shook his head sadly. My ears twitched as he walked closer, my head lifting a couple inches. I was terrified that this man was here to kill me. He slipped his hands through the bars of the fence and patted my neck. I couldn't move because I was boxed in. The mare next to me thrust her head at him, begging for attention. The man patted her too. He walked off and talked to one of the men for a moment, and then he came back and helped two of the men get a halter and lead rope on me and the other mare. They led us out of the paddock and into a two horse trailer. I was too upset and tired to fight…
A/N – The good news is, the story gets happier from here. The bad news is, 50,000 horses are slaughtered every year in the exact same way the kill the ones in the story. DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! I should not be the only one writing on this subject…(hint hint)