The curtains were tightly shut against the baby-faced glare of the newborn sun as an absurdly cheerful beeping rang out throughout the room.
‘Morning… already?’ mumbled Rose McEirnan, voice half-muffled by layer upon layer of blankets. With a barely audible grumble and a roll of her eyes, Rose’s hand emerged from the blanket mountain to switch off her phone alarm and check the time.
6am, rise and shine. Hooray.More grumbling and half-formed complaints emerged as she hauled herself out from under the blankets, shivering as she yanked on a clean pair of joddies and threw on whatever else she could find, as long as it was warm. Outside, it was barely even autumn - the few trees around Sunset Lodge that dropped their leaves hadn’t even started to turn yellow yet - but winter was coming fast, and even though the days were still scorching the early mornings had a noticeable chill around the edges.
And, for some god-forsaken reason, horses needed to be taken care of in the mornings, and this particular day Rose had an auction to get to (since all the organisers decided to host these things in the mornings, too. What was it with horsey people and liking mornings so much?). Rose stifled a yawn, scrubbing at her eyes as she tromped through the house and out the screen door with a huff. She loved her tolters, really - more than anything - but sleep was a
very valuable thing.
Jánna the Icelandic sheepdog raised her head as Rose left the house, her long russet fur sticking out in all directions after yesterday’s long hard day of rolling around in the dirt. Rose grinned at the long pink tongue rolling out of the dog's mouth.
‘You’ll get your food in a minute, girl,’ she said as she walked past, giving the dog a scratch behind the ear on her way to the feed shed. Her tolters (of which there were a rapidly growing number - but that was justified, being one of only two certified Icelandic breeders in Australia ...right?) were usually hard fed in the morning and given hay at night for the most part, apart from the more fussy eaters or those that were harder to keep weight on (like Mr. Worrypants Orrin, who took so long to eat anything that the yearlings often stole it from under his nose, or little Penny, who always seemed just a little on the frail side). But, not this morning. Rose was already running late, and her tolters had the run of the paddocks and green pick aplenty. Some biscuits of hay each and a few hard feeds and then she would have to be on her way - the auction opened at nine, and Rose wanted to be first in line.
The gossip had been rife. It was exceedingly rare to find such a cache of beautiful tolters in the wild, rare as they were, and for a few of them to be exported to Australia for the saleyards was practically unheard of. The friendly rivalry (which was mostly friendship, to be fair) between Sunset Lodge and New South Wales’ Invergowrie Stud was the cause of most Icelandic imports to the country, although there were a fair few of the breed competing in local circuits, some privately imported, but most bred by the two registered studs .
The word was out that there were to be two Icelandics in the monthly sales, so Rose’s face was expected to be among the crowd. Not that she needed any more, of course - thirty-seven was more than enough for her to handle on her own, even if some weren’t on her property (being leased out to compete on or breed with) - but it couldn’t hurt to look, could it?
Besides, she liked helping out at the saleyards. Something always seemed to go awry.
There was a fine coating of dust on seemingly every surface in the stables’ feed room, and more than a few motes of the dark-red powder in the air that were caught in the morning sunlight, as Rose brushed off a few stray strands of chaff from the feed bins and scooped out beet pulp and pellets for Pría, Orrin, Penny, and Riverdance. Another bucket was set aside for Koda with only a tiny half-scoop of horse museli and a hefty helping of chaff inside - the mare tended to hold a grudge if she got left out of the morning feed, despite the fact that she hardly needed to be fed anything more than hay. With a huff, and an interested sniff at her ankles from Horatio (Rose’s other Icelandic Sheepdog, a gorgeous white with snatches of blue merle on his coat), Rose hefted the five buckets into a wheelbarrow, followed by several biscuits of hay that would serve to feed the tolters paddocked closer to the house. As the paddocks got further away from the stable complex and farmhouse, they increased in size, with the tolters currently being ridden or worked with spelled closer to the stables and the others spelling quietly on their own. The rest of the tolters were in the two larger paddocks down the other end of the property - Sterling, Vidri, Oskar, and other stallions occupied one, and Elspeth, Titania, Thebe, and Sörli in the other with the rest of the mares - had a large roll of hay in various stages of destruction, and tended to hold their condition well enough with just pasture and hay, especially with summer only just gone.
‘Good morning, sweetheart,’ said Rose as she approached Pria’s paddock and the blue roan mare whinnied, her ears pricking forwards. One of the only foals of her prize stallion Riverdance she had kept for herself, Pria had inherited her father’s calm temperament and coat colour, and despite her congenital hearing loss she had also inherited her father’s movement and was to be talented dressage prospect. The mare had recently turned three and so had moved up to the house to start being backed and get a little more condition on her before she started being ridden regularly.
Quickly making the rounds, Rose abandoned her wheelbarrow near the stables and dashed back to the house, Horatio and Jánna gambolling at her heels, and she took a glance back at the paddocks full of happily munching horses as she yanked off her boots at the door. The dogs were fed and chained up, and Rose swung into the front seat of her faithful (if long-suffering) Toyota, the float already hooked up and and an old halter stashed in the backseat.
Just in case.★
The sun had already made some progress into the sky as Rose’s 4WD rolled into the saleyards at a quarter to nine. The auction itself wouldn’t begin until ten, but entry into the yards was already open, and crowds were milling around the pens, examining
(some taking notes) before the upcoming auction. Rose loved doing the rounds of the outdoor pens and visiting all the horses up for sale before the auction began - although some were underweight and obviously not well cared for, others were sleek and well-fed, clearly having been washed and brushed carefully to look good for the sale. Petting the nose of a (frankly adorable) palomino Welsh cross, Rose rested an arm on the pine railing and surveyed the pens, grinning at the overbearing noise of the saleyards and looking out for the telltale barrel and kind eye of an Icelandic. There were supposed to be two at the sale today, and, spotting a likely candidate on the fringes of the saleyards, Rose picked her way over to the stall. The stallion raised his head as Rose approached, pacing the confines of his stall with hooves that looked cracked and worn. He was black with a dusting of rabicano markings that curved up over his hipbones and into the whorls of his fur, and seemed friendly enough for a wild-caught, but Rose watched him flatten his ears at a Shetland pony who came too close to the fence next to him and immediately knew he wasn’t for her. He would go to a good enough home, but it wasn’t Sunset Lodge.
Casting an eye over the rest of the pens, Rose stifled a sigh, until, craning her neck, she spotted a splash of colour right near the other edge of the yards. The loud white spots on a luscious, bright dun coat seemed to belong to the curvy body that was a Tolter hallmark, and Rose’s heart made a leap into her throat.
Oh. Wow. This mare just
had to be the second of the imported tolters - you didn’t get patterns like that on just any bred horse (as a pinto breeder, Rose ought to know), and she’d know that type of thickset conformation anywhere. From here, the mare looked a little uneasy, and perhaps skinny - but that was to be expected with all the commotion, and possible rough handling on the plane. With a sinking feeling, Rose glanced down at her phone - there were only ten minutes to go until the auction began and the pens would be closed to possible buyers. The mare was penned right on the other side of the yards, close to the entrance to the auction barn, and had a rapidly thickening group of people milling around her waiting to get in. With such a crowd, Rose would never reach the pen in time to get a look at the tolter up close before the auction began. It grated on her not to have a chance to examine the mare’s condition or any behavioural issues beforehand (not to mention a look at her information card for any medical problems), and she wavered, looking back towards the rabicano stallion as if he could offer her advice. The stallion was now sulking in a corner with his ears pinned back, and looked close to cribbing at the fence posts.
Well, that answers that one.Should she take a leap of faith?
‘We’ll find out, won’t we mister?’ said Rose softly to the rabicano, and he jerked his head away at her voice, snorting as though he was offended.
The inside of the barn was positively cosy with the sun brightening outside, and Rose settled on a bench close to the action, resting a notebook with her bidder number scrawled on it on the bench beside her. The barn, rough-timbered roof hanging high above the proceedings, was more like an amphitheatre - a cluster of benches for the bidders to sit on faced an oval of dirt that handlers would lead the horses around. Sometimes the horses were ridden, if they were broken, but more often than not they were shown by hand in laps around the ring as the auctioneer decided their futures for them.
Horses came and went - a vertiable rainbow of browns, yellows, and reds as off-the-track racehorses, ponies, and the occasional part-bred draught paraded past. The rabicano stallion was brought into the ring not long after the beginning of the auction, and Rose thought half-heartedly about bidding, but passed him by. He went to a young family of three - she knew them from a breeding deal a few seasons ago, when she’d bred a nice chestnut tobiano filly for the mother and her two young children. The family was nice enough, and it mollified Rose somewhat to know that the rabicano stallion was in good hands.
And now for the moment of truth, she thought to herself, her gut clenching with anticipation as she watched for the mare - no, not her mare, she couldn’t think of it that way yet - to be brought into the ring. But the mare didn’t arrive - the slot after the rabicano was taken by a gangly-looking yearling, and so was the next. Where was she? She couldn’t have been withdrawn from sale… could she?
Finally, as the auction began to draw to a close and the warmth of the daytime petered out, Rose’s head snapped up from scrutinising her booklet as she heard;
‘And, after some technical difficulties, we have entry #2858, a green Icelandic mare.’
Whispers rippled through the crowd, and Rose realised that her entry had been delayed.
They must have had some trouble getting her out of the stall, she thought to herself, watching the near-palpable tension and anxiety in the mare’s every muscle as she stepped knock-kneed into the ring.
Probably scared of the halter halter. Poor girl, that hardly helps anything.Shellshocked was one of the only words Rose could find to describe her - seeming to want to react at the same time to both the human at her side and the pressure from her poll from the halter, as well as the rustling and murmurs of the crowd. She seemed completely overwhelmed by the information all of her senses were giving her, and walked jerkily around the ring, trying to get her head as far away from her handler as she could with the short leadrope she was given. But the mare was in decent (if scruffy and a little malnourished) condition - the wild-caught tolters were hardy things - and there was something about her that made her stand out beyond her flashy coat. The mare refused to give in - both to her own fear, even though she jerked at every tug on her halter and any movement of her handler, and to the commands of the human beside her. She didn’t spook or shy, but watched everything warily and with obvious intelligence.
Spirit, said Rose to herself.
She’s got spirit.‘Opening bids?’ called the auctioneer from their podium, although his expression looked dubious. ‘Opening bids at $200.’
The crowd, initially drawn in by the mare’s colour and breeding since Icelandics were still a relatively rare sight, were clearly none too impressed with the mare’s behaviour (although it was blindingly obvious that she was straight from the wild and not entirely been halter broken properly), and there was an overbearing silence around the ring.
Rose grinned to herself, shrugging as those close to her turned a speculating gaze in her direction, and raised her bidder’s card with an amused finality.
★
The colours of the sky had started to soften around the edges, piercing wintry blue turning to a pooling gold at one end and streaky indigo at the other, by the time Rose left the bidding hall. The actual auction had taken far longer than usual, and Rose had been inside for even longer, signing all the requisite paperwork (and digging her already-complaining bank card out of her wallet). She stretched, yawning, as the barn door closed behind her, and jogged towards the pens. Not many of the horses were left - most had been taken to their new homes (or back to their old ones) before the auction even ended - and besides, the mare’s coat was hard to mistake.
Even under the dusky light that was fast disappearing, the mare glowed with promise. She looked almost out of place all cooped up in a pen, and Rose’s expression softened in sympathy for her. The mare blinked at the world around her as though she was still making sense of it all, and shifted uneasily in her pen, anxiety plain in her tense muscles and ears that flicked backwards and forwards at any sound. Behind her, in the scrubland that surrounded the auction house, fireflies danced around the creek in an amber echo of the spots on the mare’s coat, and something settled into place in Rose’s chest. She let loose a contented sigh, and the mare turned towards her as she clucked under her breath, the mare’s ears tilting backwards with uncertainty.
‘Come on, Firefly,’ said Rose quietly, her voice approaching a whisper. The mare started backwards, teetering on three legs with a forehoof raised as if to run, but there was a spark of interest in her bright amber eyes, and Rose smirked.
You’re going to be fun, she thought.
Now let’s get you home.
