I wake up to screaming from down the hall. I roll out of bed, to realize it's Colt's voice. I hear him scream Cody's name. Fearing the worst, I bolt out of bed and into the hallway. The yelling is coming from his room. I bolt into his room to see him having a nightmare.
"COLT!" I yell, running over to him. He jolts awake, bolting into a sitting position. His eyes are wide and his breathing super irregular. He looks around the room, scanning for Cody.
"Colt? Cody isn't here, he's not here." I say, grabbing his shoulders trying to soothe his shaking.
"Sarah?!" He mumbles, before he buries his head into my shoulder. I just let him cry, and pretty soon Cash is in the room, joined in the dog pile of tears and exhausted feelings. Pretty soon, everyone's asleep except me. I play with Colt's hair for a bit, seeing as he won't be waking up any time soon. He has super thick and slightly curly dirty blonde hair, almost to the point of being brunette. Cash got his moms hair. Dark brown, almost being black. Forty five minutes later, Colt wakes back up.
"Sarah?!" He mumbles.
"Yeah?" I whisper back. I don't wanna wake Cash up, or I'm scared he won't go back to sleep.
"Can we make cocoa?" He asks. I smile and nod. I ease Cash off of my shoulder and slip off of the bed, Colt following me. Getting to the kitchen, I look outside. No sign of dawn yet, but the snow is still falling. We make cocoa, and talk about the old times, which helps Colt deal with everything happening around him. Pretty soon we both head back to bed. I look at the clock on the nightstand and it's 4 am. So much for sleep. I conk out for about an hour and a half before I wake up to someone coming into the room.
"Sarah?" It's Colt.
"Yeah bud?"
"Can you help me feed the cows I don't wanna try to wake Cash up he'll yell at me." I nod, agreeing that he probably would get really grumpy, and roll out of bed. Pulling a pair of sweatpants on over my gym shorts, I grab my sweatshirt and coat. I get to the door and shove my feet into my cowboy boots, while pulling the sweatshirt on over my head. Do I look ridiculous? Yeah. But I'm in a farm on central Wisconsin I don't think any fashion guru is gonna see me and have a heart attack. I pull my coat on, and my hat. Walking out the door, there's about three and a half inches of snow greeting me. Comanche, the farms cattle dog, runs up to me for some scratches, before I finally make it out to the barn.
"Took you long enough." Colt snickers. "Nice boots."
"Oh shut it ya little crud muffin." I mumble, rolling my eyes at him. I grab a grain bucket and start feeding. Forty five minutes later and Comanche lets out a small woof. I turn to look at her to see Cash coming out of the house. He looks worse than I do. He's got one pant leg tucked into a boot, the other over it, his hats crooked on his head, and his sweatshirt (which has no hood) is on backwards.
"Why didn't you guys wake me up to help?!" He asks, once he gets to the barn.
"We figured you needed a little more sleep." I say, trying to be nice.
"Looks like you had one heck of a night there bud, try lookin in the mirror, eh?" Colt says,
"I'm not sure if your Canadian or just plain weird." Cash fires back, clearly not caring about his appearance. "I'm not trying to impress the cows ya know, I just wanna get them fed so I can get back in the house."
"We still have to feed Loki and Sligo." Colt tells him.
"Loki and Sligo?" I ask.
"Yeah, our draft horses. Dad keeps 'em cause mom loves using them to pull the wagon we have." Colt casually says.
"Hold on, you guys have horses?!" I get overly excited. Can you tell I'm an Equine Animal Science major? Cause I most certainly am.
"Yeah, wanna meet them?" Cash asks.
"HECK YEAH!" I say, a little too loudly. The cow in front of me doesn't like it and bangs her head against the fence in protest. Looking at her ear tag, I realize it's 10x. She's an angry cow and scary based on the stories Cash has told me.
"Let's go see them then." He leads me through the snow to the other barn. He opens the door with a big screech, and I get a look inside. Two large stalls are set up across from each other, and two very large black heads are sticking through the railings, looking at us.
"Hey boys!" Cash calls. Both horses whinny. "They love me." He brags. He leads me into the barn, to meet the two big sweethearts.