The Affected: Dancing Wind Chapter Three

Chapter Three

The first animal that talked to me was my horse Betty.  I named her after that really old actress Betty White  because she really cracks me up.  Well I had just swung into the saddle when Betty told me that the blanket was not smooth under the saddle and it bothered her.  I had already swung back down and had the saddle off when I realized that my horse had talked to me.  And that was because after I smoothed the blanket back down, I asked her if that felt better.  “It sure does, thank ye” she replied.  I had the “no problem…” half out of my mouth when it dawned on me that I had just talked to my horse and she talked to me.  I walked around to her head and took it in my hands and looked her in the eye and asked “did you just talk to me?”

“I always talk to ye but this is the first time ye answered.”

“Why do you have a semi-Irish accent?” I asked her.  She just laughed.   Yes my horse laughed at me.  She really didn’t have any answers but she found me hilarious apparently.

I did not get much done around the ranch for the next few days because I was talking too much to so many animals. Even the wild ones were starting to come to me.  I swear I felt like Eddie Murphy did in that Doctor Doolittle movie he starred in.

I finally talked to my aunt, whose name is Becca by the way, about the whole talking to animals things and she was so excited.  She had me translate all kinds of things from them for the past week!  Here she was concerned about one of the horses and once I relayed that he had a bothersome thorn stuck in one of his hooves, she went and got a huge magnifying glass and some needle nosed pliers and was able to find and remove it. 

Then she had me talk to each and every animal so she could give them all a clean bill of health.  That took a week!  So now she knows all about all her horses, cattle, chickens, pigs and llama’s.  Not to mention all the dogs and cats.  She even knows who wants to “get it on” with who next breeding season.  It got to be downright embarrassing sometimes.

We were watching the news at night and seeing all the “good guys” and “bad guys” who also got “Affected” that day and my Aunt did not want me to tell anyone else especially when we even found out that a couple government agents were asking around about me and where I lived.  We knew they would be finding me soon enough so I decided I would just play dumb and pretend that I was not Affected.  The good thing is that when I talk to the animals, I speak English but the animals speak in their own “tongue” so it just looks like I’m being like any other animal lover who talks to their pets.