Page 69 of Trickster King

I laughed, waved my hand to acknowledge the boy’s comment, and headed for the distressed animal.

Had I been paying less attention to the horse and more attention to my feet, I might have noticed the ground turn muddy before I stepped into a water-filled ditch. I yelped, submerged, flailed, and swam for the surface, grateful the RPS had insisted on throwing me into a pool and attempting to drown me until I could swim rather than sink. Once confident I wouldn’t be caught in something under the water, I spit, angled for the ledge, and felt around, determining I’d fallen into a collapsed shaft of some sort. Once I found a solid spot, I hauled myself out. “I found some mud.”

Eddie smacked his forehead. Randy took pictures of me on his phone, likely for my wife. Once he put the wretched device away, he lifted his hand to his ear and said, “His Royal Majesty has located a rather deep hole filled with water and has decided, for reasons I cannot fathom, to fall into it. Please disregard any alarms from his phone. Also, please look into a more durable phone for him, as it seems he has decided to become adventurous on us. While wet, he is fine. It seems he has successfully been taught how to swim.”

Grunting over his commentary, I circled around the hole, taking more care to watch my steps. I dodged two more muddy messes en route to the distressed animal. The horse spotted me coming, standing and waiting for whatever would come. According to the brand, I dealt with either an escaped ranch horse or yet another consequence of neglect on the property.

After a quick check, I determined I dealt with a mare. It took all of five seconds to come to the conclusion she’d been injured and the swelling was due to an infection. In good news for her, Gina likely still had the bone menders on hand who might be able to deal with the problem. “Randy, get them to lower the sling,” I hollered.

Randy waved at me, and a moment later, the helicopter began to descend. While the mare lacked a halter, I was able to wrap an arm around her neck and hold her in place, talking to her in soothing tones. Once five feet over the ground and a safe distance away, a pair of RPS agents hopped out of the helicopter and hauled out a reinforced sling.

One of the agents went to work securing the sling to the helicopter while the other hauled the contraption over.

“Randy, call Gina and ask her to get those bone menders ready for her arrival. I can’t tell if the leg is broken under all this mess, but what’s one more in my collection of rescues?”

Eddie ran over, and like we’d taught him, he stayed far from the helicopter. “How can I help?”

“If she’ll let you pet her nose and comfort her, do so. If she shows any sign of aggression, stay back. She’s not feeling well, and she’s probably exhausted. She must not have been let loose too long ago.”

She hadn’t gone truly feral yet and likely understood we would help her.

Eddie obeyed, and the horse lowered her head for the boy.

I blamed my empathy, which was likely flaring left and right, for the horse behaving in a rather unnatural fashion. As my magic meant the horse might make it through the rest of the day, I would accept a scolding from my RPS agents—and I would turn myself in to check for talent exertion.

“Normally, we’d sedate the horse, but Senator Padrino will take care to crawl to the animal hospital,” Randy shouted to be heard over the helicopter. “I’ll call as soon as they’re en route.”

I nodded, working with the RPS agent to ease the sling into place around her belly and secure her into the contraption. As I beat most of the RPS agents in the general brawn department, I had the job of holding the sling up while the mare was strapped in.

Throughout the entire process, I reminded myself that the mare would die if we didn’t get her moved.

It helped some, but I still worried. Within ten minutes, we’d done everything we could for the mare, and we stepped out of her kicking range while Randy handled giving Senator Padrino the signal to leave.

The mare snorted when the sling hauled her off the ground, and while she was tense and her ears turned back, she didn’t flail, kick, or attempt to run. Most importantly, she didn’t attack the sling holding her secure.

All I could do was watch as the helicopter lifted her and eased away, taking her to either her doom or salvation. We’d find out soon enough.

In an effort to control my anxiety, I turned away and said, “Well, that was entertaining. What do you say we go explore one of these holes?”

“Dad!” Eddie stated, and he fisted his hands, pressed them to his hips, and stomped a foot. “What are you doing?”

“Finding out why my ranch is full of holes. I thought that was obvious.” I pointed at one of the nearby holes, which had collapsed in such a way we had an easy way down. As I might get my way if I went ahead and did what I wanted, I headed to the spot, poking and prodding at the landslide leading into the hole, which was all of eight feet deep. When it seemed stable enough, I picked my way down to get a look at the wall.

A glint of something in the sunlight drew my eye, and squinting, I went closer to investigate. Cold metal against my hand startled me, and I brushed away more of the dirt to reveal a large nugget of gold. As gold wasn’t found often in Texas, I assumed I’d located a pyrite deposit.

I popped the nugget out of the wall, scrambled out of the hole, and held out my prize to Randy. “Fool’s gold, and it ain’t better named right now.”

Randy narrowed his eyes, took my nugget, and bit on it before examining the metal. “No, Your Majesty. That would be real gold.”

I stared at him. “You’re shitting me.”

“I’m really not.” Randy turned the nugget and pointed at where he’d left a scuff on the gold from biting on it. “Gold’s soft. Pyrite can’t be damaged just from biting on it, but gold can be. You have to apply a lot of force, but the bite test is a real thing, and that passed.”

I pointed at where I got the nugget. “Here?”

Randy raised a brow at me. “Apparently.”

“I bought a gold mine?”

---