Freedom: An Arabian Horse Novel

By Victoria Hardesty and Nancy Perez

Freedom was abused and betrayed by every human he came in contact with as a young horse. Despite his promise to his mother to grow up and become a “good horse,” he distrusted all humans while harboring the hope he would find his “Heart Human” someday. Nathan was born with Autism. He was brilliant but lacked the skill to communicate. His parents tried many forms of therapy to help their son and couldn't find one that worked for him. He grew up isolated, passing his time on a computer learning about things he'd never be able to do. Freedom's owner donated him to a therapeutic riding center. Nathan's mother got an invitation to a fundraiser for that center and investigated equine therapy for her son. Something finally worked for Nathan. Then Nathan met Freedom and magic happened. Nathan wanted to ride the Tevis Cup Ride, the toughest 100 miles in one day ride in the world. Freedom's previous owner conditioned Freedom for that ride before she donated him. Four new friends stepped up to help join the horse with the boy and help them make their dreams come true.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publication Consultants
• Release date: Oct 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9781594339042

Victoria Hardesty and Nancy Perez

Victoria Hardesty has bred, owned and shown Arabian horses for more than 30 years. She and her husband operated their own training facility serving many young people that loved and showed their own horses. She is the author of numerous articles in horse magazines, was the editor of two Arabian Horse Club newsletters, one of which was given the Communications Award of the Year by the Arabian Horse Association at their national convention. An avid reader from childhood, she read every horse story she could get her hands on Nancy Perez spent 30 years writing, creating and editing advertising content. She's a passionate reader, wrote for herself, and decided it was time to step up into a novel. As Victoria's best friend, she was frequently exposed to the Arabian horse and showing world. Best friends for 50 years, they teamed up to write a series of books about kids and their Arabian horses.

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NOTICE

CHAPTER ONE

At precisely 3:05 a.m. on April 14th, two male infants drew their first breath. While they were unaware, cosmic forces joined and worked in their favor, a fact that would not become apparent for years.

One male infant was born to his loving mother Megan, surrounded by his father Peter, an obstetrician, and several nurses. Upon delivery, he was handed off to the nurses to clean up, weigh and measure, and returned to his mother swaddled in soft blankets as his doting father struggled to get a good look at his tiny face.

The other male infant came into life in a barn filled with soft bedding with his loving mother, Francesca. His owner watched the delivery with interest, checked the baby over, and left the mother to clean up her infant and teach him to stand and suckle. The minute she realized he was a male, she lost interest in him and went back to her home and a warm bed, leaving him in the care of his mother. She shook her head as she walked back to the house. He’d better be spectacular! she thought. Otherwise, he would be just another gray colt she would have to dispose of. She was in the business of breeding horses. In her opinion, gray Arabian colts were a dime a dozen. If he wasn’t something exceptional, she didn’t have the time or money to raise him until he was old enough to saddle train. That cost too much money in the long run. It would have been better if he’d been a filly. A gray filly that was not so special as an individual, with his bloodlines, could have brought a decent price. She was disappointed.

Peter spent most of Nathan’s first day of life passing out blue bubble gum cigars to his coworkers and friends. At 35, his first child was a son! He was immensely proud and celebrated with anyone who would listen. He visited Megan, his wife of three years, in the hospital later that day and snuggled his new son with pride and joy. They talked about having several children before they got married, hoping for at least one son and one daughter. They were off to a great start. Their son was strong and healthy. On the third day, Peter took off work so he could bring his family home.

Peter and Megan McCall spent months preparing a nursery for their child. They wanted the sex of this child to be a surprise. They told the doctor they didn’t want to know the sex until birth. Peter secretly wanted a son first and picked his name out carefully, using a family name from his side of the family mixed with one from the mother’s side. Megan wanted a daughter first and did the same thing. The nursery was multi-colored and filled with stuffed animals of every description.

The crib contained three special stuffed animals. The yellow rabbit was from his paternal grandparents and sat at the foot of the crib in the right side corner. The tan and white doggy was from Megan’s best friend and was lovingly placed in the left side corner of the crib at the foot. The gray pony was from his only living great-grandparent, the father of Peter’s father. He’d been a horseman all his life. The pony had the place of honor along the bottom rail of the crib, smack in the middle, between the rabbit and the dog.

The nursery was on the second floor of their home right next to the master bedroom with a connecting doorway. There was a large picture window on an outside wall. Outside the window, a large tree shaded the window during the heat of the summer. Birds nested in the tree and raised their own families there. The rocking chair Peter and Megan put in the room for her to use during nursing had an excellent view of that tree. Megan enjoyed the view while she nursed her new son.

The first month of life for Nathan was perfect. He rarely cried and only fussed when his diaper needed changing, or he was hungry. When he wasn’t sleeping, he spent his time staring out that window watching the birds flit from branch to branch. The birds fascinated him. The tree also fascinated him. The breezes blowing off the ocean set the leaves in motion, and he watched them flutter to and fro.

Freedom, as he came to be named, spent the first two days of his life in the stall in the barn with his mother. The stall was bedded deeply, so his amateurish attempts to get up and walk around didn’t hurt when he fell over or tripped on his long legs. When he finally learned how to balance his weight on four stilts and make them move when he wanted them to, he focused on where his mother kept her milk bag. He enjoyed the pleasant sensation of drinking from it whenever he wanted. The barn was warm and dry, and he bonded with his mother, taking in her scent so that he would remember it for a lifetime.

On his third day of life, one of the grooms came into the stall and haltered his mother, leading her outside to the mare and foal pasture. He followed his mother closely. In the pasture, he found other mares with their babies, and he began to make friends with other foals. They rushed around and played together as they learned how to run and jump and scamper through the grass. The mothers stood in the shade of the oak trees watching over them and were there when they were hungry from their workouts, providing nourishing milk for their babies. They grew quickly because of the nutrition from their mothers and the sunshine and grassy pastures, where they exercised their growing bodies. There was always a nice place in the grass to lie in for a nap when they were tired from playing. Their mothers kept watch over them as they slept peacefully protected.

Nathan slept most of the time at first. When awake, he studied the birds in the tree outside his window. Megan brought him to the rocking chair to nurse him. He was upset because she turned him around and he could not see the birds. He fussed until she offered him her breast, and he tasted her milk. Only then would he settle down to the task of eating, falling asleep when his stomach was full.

Being the first child, his parents spent a lot of time with him. Peter rushed upstairs immediately when he got home from work. He came into the nursery, often with little presents, to see his son. He stood over the bassinette staring at the perfect little face in awe. How could the love he shared with Megan create such a tiny creature that looked so much like him? Megan often joined him at the bassinette. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders as they stared at their son together, each wrapped in dreams of the many things they hoped and wished for their son. He had to be an athlete, maybe baseball or football, thought Peter. He must be a scholar and talented in music or the arts, thought Megan. They hoped he would grow tall and handsome and be a good husband and father himself one of these days.

It took a while before his difference became apparent. It was Megan who noticed. She pulled every childhood development book she’d collected before his birth and poured through them again and again. She couldn’t put her finger on the problem and didn’t say anything to Peter about it for several months. After all, Nathan looked perfect in every way. He had ten fingers and ten toes; his weight grew steadily at a normal rate; he grew bigger each day and appeared perfectly healthy in every way. His appetite was excellent, and he slept well and completely through the night within a few weeks.

The things that worried Megan were subtle. She began paying close attention and realized he rarely made eye contact with her. He never smiled when she came into the nursery. He also didn’t laugh or giggle. Peter was a tall, happy, boisterous individual, and he loved to tickle his new son. She realized Nathan didn’t like the attention and began fussing if Peter tried too hard. Peter chalked it up to a hungry baby and handed him off to Megan for feeding, not paying any attention to that fact.

By the time he was six months old, she had discovered another anomaly. Every night when she tucked her son in for the night, she put his three favorite stuffed animals in a row at the end of his bed. She caught him early one morning rearranging them. He put his rabbit on the left and his puppy on the right while his most favorite toy, the small stuffed horse, he put in the middle. She hadn’t paid much attention to the arrangement and lined them up based on which one she picked up first before she caught him doing his rearrangement. She purposely put them in a different order that night. When she came into the nursery the following morning, they were rearranged with the bunny on the left, the puppy on the right and the pony in the middle again. She thought it was odd, but saw nothing in it to worry over.

One morning at 4:00 a.m., she was awakened by shrieking from the nursery. She rushed in fearing the worst. What she found was her son sitting at the end of his bed slapping his hand in the place where his pony should be while the rabbit sat in the left corner and the puppy in the right one. The pony that should have been in the middle was not there. It had fallen out of the crib before bedtime the previous night and lay under the crib. Distracted by other chores, she hadn’t noticed it missing when she stacked his toys at the foot of his bed. She found the errant toy and placed it quickly in the middle of the toys. Nathan stopped crying and shrieking. He grabbed his pony and hugged it like a long lost friend. Then he set it back in its place, crawled to his sleeping place and dropped off to sleep again like all was right in his world again.

That morning, after feeding Nathan his breakfast, she sat over coffee and talked to Peter about Nathan, explaining all the odd things she’d observed. Her brow furrowed as she spoke with him. Nathan was their first child, and she was really worried there was something wrong with an obviously healthy child. Tears streamed down her cheeks when she asked him, What should I do?

I’m sure it’s nothing, Peter reassured her. Maybe it just took a bit more time for him to focus than usual. You know they say babies can only see a short distance at birth and can’t see much farther for several weeks or even months. Maybe you are mistaken about the stuffed toys. Maybe you did arrange them the same way and just didn’t remember.

But, I purposely put them in the wrong order! she insisted.

Honey, it’s okay. If he did rearrange his toys, it was because he was playing with them and you are teaching him where to put them when he’s done playing. You’re a great mother. Your son is learning lessons from you early, Peter suggested.

But that’s not the only thing, Peter, she said. Nathan does not make eye contact with me, even when I’m talking to him. It is very strange. I’ve been with other mothers of kids his age before. When their mothers talk to them, they look at them. Nathan doesn’t even look in my direction. He’s staring out the window at the trees or the birds or his toys. It feels weird to me. Like he’s not paying any attention to me at all.

Didn’t we get his hearing checked when he was born? Peter asked.

Yes, of course, Megan answered. They put him through all the standard tests, and his hearing was one of them. He passed all the tests with flying colors. He’s absolutely normal. All his check-ups have been good. He’s growing at a normal rate.

Are you sure he can hear normally? Peter asked. Has something happened to his hearing since they did the tests?

I saw something a couple of days ago that convinces me he can hear just fine, Megan told him. I put him down on the rug in the family room while I did dishes in the kitchen so that I could keep an eye on him. He was playing with his pony. I washed the lid of one of my stainless steel pans, and it slipped out of my grasp and fell to the floor in the kitchen. You know how that stuff clatters when it hits the tile floor. I jumped and looked at him. He flinched at the sound! I know he heard it. There’s no doubt in my mind. That child heard that sound.

Did he cry? Peter asked, concerned.

No, he didn’t. He sat there like he was listening to the ringing sound it made as it wobbled around on the floor. I mean, he flinched when it happened, but then it was like he was listening to the sound it made. When it stopped wobbling on the tile, Nathan picked up his little pony and hugged it, and that was it, Megan replied.

So, you’re telling me my son likes his toys organized his way, and he can clearly hear but doesn’t listen to you or make eye contact with you enough? Peter asked in a chiding tone.

Are you sure you’re not worrying over nothing? He’s a normal healthy little boy. Personally, I like my sock drawer organized, and I prefer my closet organized, so I don’t have to look through it all for what I wear to work in the mornings. Does that mean there something wrong with me too?

That’s not what I mean at all! Megan said in frustration. I’m worried and kept this to myself for the past few months. I wanted to talk to his pediatrician about it but didn’t want to do that until we talked about it first.

Honey, please talk to the pediatrician if you want to, Peter soothed her ruffled feathers with his tone. I’m pretty sure we have a handsome and healthy baby boy, and there’s nothing wrong with him. If talking to the doctor will make you feel better about it, please do it as soon as you can.

Megan watched her husband with her son every time Peter came home from work. She saw how Peter felt about Nathan. He loved that little boy. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe she was taking little things too seriously. Maybe Peter was right. She choked down her concerns and had another sip of her coffee. She promised herself she would try to see only the positives with her son, the way Peter did. She would not call the pediatrician, at least not about this.

CHAPTER TWO

Freedom, as part of a herd, soon found out about pecking order. One of the colts a few weeks older than him bullied him. Freedom asked his mother about it. "What did I do to him anyway? He acts like I’m in his way and tries to run me over."

That’s the way in the wild, son. In every herd, there is a leader. The leader gets their authority from making good decisions for the herd and by not allowing any other member of the herd to bully them, she told him. In this mare band, I am the lead mare. When I decide it is too hot to remain in the sun, I walk to the shade of the trees, and the other mares follow me. When I decide it is time to get out of the shade to graze, they follow me. When I decide it is time to go toward the gate so the grooms take us back to our stalls, the other mares follow me. But I didn’t get that authority by making bad decisions.

"Why is that colt trying to bully me, then?" Freedom asked.

He’s trying to be the herd stallion; he’s trying to make you follow him, she answered.

"What does the herd stallion do if you are the lead mare?" he asked.

The herd stallion is the one who sires the babies in a horse herd. He doesn’t live with his herd of females, but he is their protector from the outside. He will attack anything that tries to hurt his ladies and their babies. He will attack any other stallion that tries to get control of the herd, and he will chase off any predator that becomes a threat to them. He lets his herd know when there is danger around, so they have time to get away.

But we don’t have a herd stallion here, do we? Freedom asked.

"I got a lot of my information from my mother. She got the information from her mother, and so on. Before humans began to provide for us, we lived out in the open, without fences and barns. We had to find our feed and water and shelter. We lived free, but I think free isn’t always free. At least now we have fences to keep the predators away. The humans see that we have feed and water and a warm place to sleep at night. But humans become the ultimate herd leaders. We give them that authority."

"Well, what about that bully, Mom. What should I do about him?"

"You have a choice. You can let him bully you, or you can decide not to. You are the son of the lead mare in this band. You may be a little younger, but you have the right of your heritage. You are strong, and you are smart. But it is your decision. If you want to follow him and let him lead, it is easier. If you want to be a leader, make good decisions, and don’t let him bully you," she answered.

Freedom solved the problem the next day. When the colt tried to bully him again, he found out how hard Freedom could nip his hip and shoulder and how strong Freedom could kick. He never bothered Freedom again. Freedom listened to his mother and soon became the leader of the band of babies. He never bossed the fillies around because his mother would never permit that, but he led the colts, and that was just fine with her.

The breeder spent hours studying her current foal crop when Freedom was six months old. He was one of the last foaled in her barn for the year. She was there to evaluate them and decide which breedings to do again and which ones to change up for the year after next. She had been especially looking forward to seeing Francesca’s baby this year and already bred her back to the same stallion. She felt the breeding should give her a lovely young halter baby that she could sell for quite a bit of money. She was disappointed at the six-month mark. Freedom was short backed, compact, and lovely as a baby, but he didn’t have the sparkle she thought he should. He just wasn’t spectacular to her. There was nothing wrong with him except for his coat color. His face was broad between large dark eyes; his muzzle was small, he had twin scimitars for ears all set on a long slender neck. His legs were perfect and straight with the right amount of bone for sturdiness and the form to function most performance trainers would be looking for in a couple of years. He also had attitude in abundance. He earned his place in the herd, and he was proud of it. But he was a mousy gray color, and that turned her off completely. She decided to give him three more months and see if his looks improved. Francesca overheard part of her conversation with the barn manager and was dismayed and disheartened. She hoped she’d heard wrong.

Freedom picked up on his mother’s sadness and asked her, What wrong, mother? Have I done something to upset you?

No, son. I’m very proud of you. But there are a few things I should tell you, so you know when the time comes.

Okay, what are you so sad about? he asked

There may come a time that you leave here. I love you, and I will miss you if that happens. But I want you to know how much I love you, so you will remember that for as long as you live. It’s important. She told him.

"How will I leave here without you?" he asked, puzzled by the very idea.

Humans sometimes sell us to other humans. When that happens, other humans take us to where they live, and they become responsible for feeding and caring for us. It is often a sad thing when you leave a place you’ve known, grown up in, or become close to the human who cares for you there. I know. It happened to me. I was born a few years ago to a nice couple who had three horses. I became their fourth. They planned for me for two years, and they were so happy when I foaled. The woman, Ann, was the one who became my Heart Human. I would have done anything for her. She loved me and took care of me and spent a lot of time with me from the day I was born. It wasn’t like it is here at all. I knew I was loved, and I would have died to protect Ann. Francesca told him, closing her eyes at the end of the sentence like it was too painful to see and remember.

What happened, and how did you get here? Freedom asked.

I never did know the details, but something happened with Ann’s mate. Ann had to sell all the horses right away. She cried and cried as I was walked off the property and loaded into the trailer to come here. I knew it was breaking her heart as much as it was breaking mine, but there was nothing I could do about it. You learn to adjust and try to find happiness where you can. I find my happiness in my children. Son, I’m very proud of you. Don’t ever forget that. And I hope you find your Heart-Human someday and know the kind of feeling I had with Ann. I also want you to make me a promise. I want you to promise me that you’ll grow up to be a good horse around people. I want you to promise me that no matter what happens, you will always do what they ask of you, you will pay attention to your training, and you will never try to hurt a human. Promise me you will be the kind of son I will always be proud of. Can you do that?

Of course, Mother, Freedom said, confused.

Freedom pondered the information his mother gave him for the rest of the day. What would it be like to have a special person like Ann in his life? How would it feel to be sold to someone he didn’t know? How could he stand it if he couldn’t talk to his mother ever again? He was all mixed up. He finally laid in the grass for a long nap.

CHAPTER THREE

Nathan was very attached to his stuffed pony. It was with him at all times. If his mother took him downstairs with her while she attended the laundry and other household chores and forgot the pony, Nathan threw a fit until she walked back upstairs and retrieved it. She thought it was odd he was so attached to that one stuffed animal. He played with the others often, but he was now sleeping with the pony tucked under his chin, in his armpit, or somewhere close to his body. When she took him to the doctor for his check-ups, she had to include the pony in his car seat with him, or he screamed the entire time. She did that once and never again.

The poor pony got pretty bedraggled looking. The first time Megan put it through the washing machine, she had her hands full with a screaming, crying baby the whole time. The fit ended the minute she handed the pony back to her son, still warm from the dryer. She talked to Peter’s great-grandfather about where he’d purchased the pony so she could buy a second one. She did, a brown pony, but that didn’t work. He refused the brown pony. He threw it out of his crib and would have no part of it. Her work-around for that situation was to put the pony in the washing machine and dryer while her son was napping or after going to bed. It was the only way to get through the two hours in peace, and it only worked if he didn’t wake up and find it gone.

The fact that her son would never look directly at her when she was speaking to him was unnerving to her, despite Peter’s assurances that their son was just fine. She finally took Nathan to his pediatrician and talked it over with him. He examined Nathan’s eyes and ears, tested him with several simple tests, and found his vision and hearing were perfectly normal. He discussed Nathan’s behavior with Megan. She explained how her son had a penchant for organizing his toys in a certain way, didn’t like the feel of certain cloth against his skin so he would refuse to wear certain clothes, didn’t make eye contact when she spoke or sang to him, and his strange attachment to his stuffed pony. She also mentioned his throwing fits over small things that upset him, which seemed out of proportion to the situation. The pediatrician listened to her carefully and watched Nathan as she spoke. He saw a lively young boy who looked perfectly normal, but he suspected the wiring in his brain was a little different than