Nobody had come yet, and the rain had stopped a whole day before.
This was a very worrying fact. Of course, any fact at this point was worrying. Red could barely stand lingering around and just waiting for people to arrive. He had nothing to do but check on the horses, and after every check-through, there was nothing to do but sit around and wait. Except Red wouldn't allow himself to sit down, because he was quite sure that if he did, he would fall asleep half a minute later.
Red lingered outside Bella's stall a lot. He wondered what color Miracle would turn out to be. Palomino, like his mother, or chestnut, like his father? Red rather hoped that the colt would turn out to be roan, as he'd always considered roans to be quite pretty, but he thought roans usually started out dark – and Miracle was as light as could be. That meant the colt would likely end up dark.
Other than watching Bella and Miracle interact, Red paced up and down what was left of the main aisle, shivering as he did. He could barely recall the time before he'd been shivering. Had there even been such a time? Or had he always shuddered like this, so hard that even breathing properly was starting to become a difficult task? Of course, all his coughing was of no help.
Red's coughing sounded deep and guttural. He'd thought it was a cold at first, but he was starting to think maybe it was something worse. He had considered tuberculosis before – and he considered it again, until he remembered that tuberculosis involved coughing up blood, not just dry-coughing. Red thought there was probably not enough water in him to cough anything up, much less blood.
He really needed water. Somewhere in the back of his dulled mind, he realized that he was so lightheaded because he was dehydrated. Unfortunately, there was no water around for him to drink, unless he wanted to get poisoned by the stagnant rainwater from the day before. Red thought of the lounge, but he was too tired to try and even walk that short distance. It would've even been short for him with his makeshift crutch.
Red soon set about feeding the horses their dinner. He was extremely grateful that the tree had managed to knock out only the stuff Red really didn't need – like one half of the hayloft, Max's office, Mrs. Reg's office, and the main entrance. If the tree had crushed the feed room, too, Red would have had to give the horses hay and hope they could survive on that.
He was almost done with the feeding when one of the geldings in the wash stall started to whinny. Red put down the bucket he was carrying and dizzily started for the horse. "What?" he asked hoarsely, not even bothering to try and clear his throat. "What's up with you, huh?"
The gelding half-reared up, as high as he could go while still attached to the cross-tie. Red ducked past the other geldings and reached for Topside's halter, aiming to maybe pet his head and try to get him to calm down a bit. But before Red's hands could land on the halter, the gelding right beside Topside started to shift around uneasily, too – and the horse tossed his head.
Hollis's head slammed right into Red's. Red stumbled backward, grabbing his head, tripping over himself and landing on the hard floor. Red squeezed his eyes shut briefly, holding his head as everything seemed to reverberate. Oh, shit, thought Red. I bet he just gave me a concussion.
His ears were ringing. Or was that a phone somewhere, ringing and ringing and ringing? Why wouldn't it stop? What idiot was trying to call when they knew that the landline was done for and so was his cell phone? Wait – then nobody could really be calling – it must have just been Red's brain, telling him funny things…
Red tried to wade through the delirious state he was quickly sinking into. He really couldn't fall asleep now, unless he had a serious death wish for himself. He was almost certain that he had a concussion.
But it was so, so hard to stay awake…
Red struggled upward, trying to get back onto his feet. He was sure if he felt the pain from his ankle, he would be forced into reality, out of this bleary dreamlike world. But when he put all of his weight on his ankle, his ankle just gave way, letting him tumble to the floor. His own body was working against him now.
"Stay awake," Red whispered to himself, too tired to get up from where he was lying on the floor. "Stay awake and everything will be fine. Just stay awake, Red, just stay awake, and everything will be fine. Stay awake and everything will be fine. Yeah, there are people coming to save you. They're on their way right now. Mmhmm, they're on their way…stay awake, Red, stay awake…stay…awake…"
It was growing harder and harder, even though Red was speaking so loudly it sounded as though he was yelling through a megaphone. "Stay awake," he said again, his voice lowering to a murmur. "Stay…awake…please…God…"
His eyelids felt like lead. It was utterly impossible for him to stay awake. Why was he even trying, anyway? The horses were safe and Angelfire had already had her baby, so it was okay to go to sleep for a little bit. That was all he would do, he promised himself. He would just lie here and go to sleep for a couple of minutes. Yes, that would be perfect. He would just take a little nap.
Red felt one last rush of panic before the dark finality of sleep overwhelmed him.
It seemed to have taken forever for them to clear the trees, and now that they had, they couldn't move fast enough. Max was stuck driving behind a dreadfully slow police car. "Come on," he murmured under his breath, revving the truck's old engine. "Come on, we can move faster than this…"
He was exhilarated, exhausted, and anxious all at the same time. He was excited to see Red and talk to him and make sure he was okay; he was excited to see the horses and make sure they were all okay; he was exhausted because he didn't even remember the last time he'd gotten eight hours of sleep; and he was anxious because he had no idea what they were going to find at Pine Hollow.
When Max caught sight of the main barn, he about had a heart attack. The tree looked awful, and there was no way that anyone could get past that without removing it entirely. Doubtlessly once they did, some more of the roof would go out as well. But that was, at the moment, of no consequence.
Max parked right outside the large entrance to the indoor ring. It was open, which probably meant that Red had taken the time to open it once it had stopped raining. That was a good sign – it meant Red was at least all right enough to be able to open the massive door. Max, Deborah and Judy right behind him and police right ahead of him, hurried inside.
What appeared to be most of the mares were standing around in the indoor arena looking bored. Max took a deep breath of relief, glad that they were doing all right. He paused to glance over them quickly, trying to determine which ones weren't there, before rushing onward, down the little hall that led into the main barn.
Topside and Hollis were in the wash stall. Barq and Dime were standing in cross-ties in the hall, and all of the other stalls were filled – except for one. Max would have rushed over and looked into Angelfire's stall if he hadn't been distracted by one of the policemen suddenly saying into his phone, "Yeah, we need an ambulance. We're out at the stable."
Max, alarmed, shoved through the veritable wall of policeman in front of him and followed their gazes. Red was lying on the floor at their feet. He looked absolutely awful. He had a massive bruise on the side of his head, his clothes were soaked through, his ankle was swollen, and he was so pale that Max was under the impression that the eighteen-year-old was almost transparent.
"Red!" Max yelped, when what he was looking at finally sank in. Max started for the kid – but was stopped in his tracks, being held back by one of the policemen. "What are you doing?" Max spat, struggling with all his might. "Let me go!"
"I'm sorry, sir, we don't know if he has any contagious diseases," the policeman explained. Max realized dully that this was true – and he looked down at Red, who looked even more frighteningly lifeless with every passing second.
And Max prayed, seriously prayed, for the first time in years.
A/N: Well, I'm just uploading the rest of this story, so I'll stop forgetting it. :P Seriously though, if you're reading this, it would be great if you could review. Thanks! :) Oh, and I skipped the third afternoon because I couldn't force out a thousand words of Red angsting.