Million Dollar Road by Amy Connor Page B

counted on to steer Emma through the bewildering array of farm products, always providing what answers he could to her usual laundry list of questions.
    Ricky reached to get another spray bottle off the shelf. “Now this here stuff’s the top of the line, claims to work longer.”
    â€œWhat you need is some goddamned LarvaStop.” Sarah advanced on Ricky and the girl in wizened determination, her dentures clacking with enthusiasm. Bossy by nature, the old woman positively lived for the opportunity to give unsolicited advice to anyone who’d listen to it, and even those who wouldn’t.
    â€œGotta kill the little bastards before they hatch out in the shit,” Sarah announced. She folded her arms across the sunken bosom of her faded print housedress. “Me, I use it all the time out at my place. Expensive as hell, but it’s worth every damned dime if you hate flies—and who the hell doesn’t?”
    Emma covered her mouth to keep from laughing out loud at the girl’s wide-eyed reaction. Meet my friend, the incomparable Sarah, she thought. She never met a cuss word she didn’t like.
    Ricky looked pained. “Okay, Miz Fortune,” he said. “Thanks for your usual ladylike input.” He turned to the girl. “She’s right, though. I got some LarvaStop right here.” He handed a bright yellow plastic container down to her from the overhead shelf.
    â€œHow much is it?” The girl’s scarred eyebrow lifted as she looked at the box. She handed it back.
    Ricky studied the label. “Forty-four ninety-nine. Like Sarah said, LarvaStop ain’t cheap, but it sure works good. Put a scoop of this in your horse’s feed and the flies’ll die before they can hatch out in the manure. You really ought to get the fly spray, too, if you want to do it right. That should fix you up fine.”
    The girl compressed her lips, frowning as though she faced a tough decision.
    â€œFeed? I don’t know about feed, ” she said uncertainly. She was quiet a moment. “It’s just . . . he’s so miserable, you know?” She paused, then the words tumbled out of her mouth in a rush. “Like, it sucks for him. Every summer, it’s the same. I hate seeing him get all bit up.”
    â€œWho’s this ‘he,’ young lady?” Sarah demanded.
    â€œMose.” With a shake of her head, the girl took only the bottle of fly spray from Ricky. “He’s not really mine, though. Mose’s just an old horse, but nobody looks after him but me. He’s a good person—never tries to bite or kick.”
    Sarah nodded in sage agreement. “Most of them won’t, not if you’re easy with ’em. Where’s Mose stabled, anyhow?”
    The girl hesitated again, seeming to weigh her words. “You’re not going to call the Parish on me, are you? I’m doing my best, okay?”
    â€œNo ma’am,” Sarah said emphatically. “If you’re looking after him, there’s no need.”
    The girl looked relieved. “Okay. Mose doesn’t have a stable. He’s behind our place, out off of Million Dollar Road, on back of the old Legendre property. I think they forgot about Mose when all the other horses went to the sale. He’s been, like, all by himself in the field ever since I can remember.”
    Sarah’s sharp little eyes lit up like road flares. Emma knew Sarah’s real passion was the low-key rescue operation she ran out of her farm, taking in abandoned and abused horses and finding them homes, one horse at a time. “Grew up with ’em,” she’d always said. “Isn’t right, letting these old horses die of goddamned starvation when their idiot owners don’t want to look after them anymore.” There were plenty of hard-luck cases in the Parish and so Sarah’s pasture always had at least a couple of rescues grazing the lush grasses while they waited