SPECIAL MENTION LEWIS EDWARDS MEMORIAL PRIZE 2026
“I am incredibly grateful and honored to be put alongside such talented writers. I’m deeply appreciative of this opportunity for visibility and growth, and hope to see everybody enjoy their journeys with writing.”
Just About worth It
Before the sun had quite risen, down in the southern pastures, a small dun mare gave birth to a three-legged colt. Nobody saw it happen, because she wasn’t meant to foal that night. He was a deep bay, with one wide white stripe down his face and two short socks. He came out struggling, coated in placenta the mare would be quick to lick away. He couldn’t quite get up, but he spent the next several hours trying to. He was able to collect his hind legs up underneath, but without his front left, he simply collapsed back down. This became a sick cycle, but he was patient and enduring, and he would wait for a small moment every time his legs gave way to regain his strength and try again. His mother milled anxiously around him. The sun had well risen by the time the farmhand finally found him, a young man, perhaps 20, with ginger hair and lazy hands.
The lad scooped him up like a child and carried him into the barn, his dam following behind. Her tail swished gently through the air. The only other noise was the soft thudding of the horses milling in their paddocks, the drone of the cicadas, and the quiet huffing of the farmhand, laboring with the weight of the colt. He laid him down gently and watched as he tried to rise again. He called the barn owner, who called the vet. A girl, the daughter of this owner, came down from her room to watch as well. She was the first to go into the stall, stepping quietly through the open gate. She stroked the mare’s head forehead to muzzle as a solemn hello, then reached down to sling the foal against her body. The farmhand, after a moment, stepped in to help. He clipped a halter to the colt’s head and pulled. The foal staggered upwards, tipped one way then the other, and then finally, legs splayed, stood on his own. He could stand, yes, he could stand. He balanced haphazardly, wobbling, then drank and drank and drank from his dam. He would’ve starved if they had gotten to him later. Now, he was here, walking, brown eyes warm and alive, stomach full, legs shaky.
What to do now? When to kill the colt? He was bright and hardy. He had good hooves and a pretty, neat head. Now that he was no longer weak with hunger, he was able to stagger to his feet all by himself, and hop around the small box stall with glee, tossing his head. The vet came in that very same night. He was a tall man, with round-rim glasses and a receding hair line. Earlier that day, he had delivered twins, and both had made it. But here, a 3-legged colt, alive and standing. This, he had never seen before. Dam was healthy. Sired out of… that’s right… a cutting line? No, no reason why this would happen again. Yes, an anomaly, genetic and spontaneous. No, nothing to be done. Yes, it could be scheduled for tomorrow. There wasn’t any pain. Sure, it would be expensive, as all healthcare was… the state of things…
As they discussed, the girl took her hand and wrapped it around the foal’s nose, cinching it tight even when he tried to shake her off. She only let go when he gave in, suddenly, and allowed his head to be pushed and moved about. Then she ran her hands through his soft hair, let her palms brush against his soft, stuck-up mane, let his gummy mouth gnaw at her fingertips. He had the wide, earnest look of youth. She ran her hand down his stomach and felt him breathe. Everything was rhythmic and beautiful: the grinding sound of his dam’s teeth as she chewed her hay, the puffs of air as the other horses sighed, even the buzz of the flies, which the colt couldn’t stamp away.
The vet left, and then the barn owner, and finally so did the farmhand, so it was just the daughter, and the dam, and the colt. He was hopping around, pushing at the girl with his soft muzzle, nipping at her arms. She sat in the straw. The scent of horse and dirt was thick in the air. Dust swirled around them. The mare swung her head and looked at her with a quiet, quizzical eye. Tomorrow, they would ask around for any orphaned foals, and find a filly up in Belmont whose dam had rejected her. They would take the colt out by the round pen and shoot him with a .22 gauge shotgun, skin him, and hang his pelt over the orphaned filly. The dam would take her in. Nobody would die.
