Restive

Simply put, the horse refused. Carolyn tried everything she knew: hay, carrots, sugar cubes. She even left the stable completely open all night and camped out behind a bush, hoping to catch sight of the stallion sneaking a midnight stroll. Nothing. This horse was the stubbornest she had ever met. Since setting foot in his stall he had not come out. He barely ate. He drank his water with disdain, as if continuing to live and breathe was itself an imprisonment. Carolyn had never known anything like it.

And she was concerned. Not just because the Crabtrees had purchased him as their new breeding stock. Not just because he was supposed to produce a litter of colts and fillies to rival the fastest and sleekest of racing horses. Not just because she might lose her job if she couldn't figure him out.

The first time she had seen him run, she'd fallen in love. She'd been nearly sixteen hundred miles away, in a dusty trailer with a small black-and-white television with bunny ears that barely worked, but even from that distance, through that static, she could see his spirit as he streaked across the race course. There had never been -- and might never be again -- a horse with so much potential. Whether or not he lived up to it, it was in him, and it would never die.

But now, he was letting himself die. At this rate he would perish in a matter of days, quickly atrophy until he couldn't lift his tail much less his head. He still had pride -- oh, she could see that. But his spirit, that was what was missing. His will and drive to run.

What had happened to break his spirit? That was what Carolyn had to find out. And she had to find out fast.