The Cowboy, the Dying Girl, and the Horse No One Could Ever Move

The entire barn went completely silent. The hospice nurses stopped breathing. Jax stood ten feet away, his muscles trembling, ready to dive between them.

Lily didn’t scream. She didn’t cry. She just reached her tiny, fragile hand forward.

Jax tried to shout, to tell her to pull back, but the words choked in his throat.

Goliath let out a low, rumbling breath that stirred the dust. He leaned his enormous head forward, carefully bridging the gap, and rested his velvet nose directly onto Lily’s empty lap.

He closed his one good eye and let out a long, heavy sigh. The terrifying, aggressive giant was acting like a gentle puppy.

Lily smiled. She gently stroked the thick, white scar between his eyes. Goliath leaned into her touch, completely surrendering to the little girl in the chair.

Then, Lily looked up at Jax. Her eyes were huge and incredibly serious.

“Mr. Jax,” she whispered, her voice barely carrying over the quiet barn. “My Sunday school teacher says animals don’t have souls. She says they don’t go to heaven.”

Jax swallowed hard. He stepped closer, unable to take his eyes off the horse whose head was still resting peacefully on the dying girl’s lap.

“Well, sweetheart,” Jax managed to say. “I think your teacher is dead wrong about that.”

Lily’s lower lip trembled. She kept running her pale fingers through Goliath’s thick black mane.

“I hope she’s wrong,” Lily said softly. “I’m going to heaven soon. The doctors say my body is too tired to fight anymore.”

She paused, taking a shallow breath. “I’m not really scared to die. But I am scared of what happens when I get there.”

Jax knelt down in the dirt next to her wheelchair. The dust coated his worn jeans. “Why are you scared of heaven, Lily?”

She looked down at the empty space where her right leg used to be.

“Because I only have one leg now,” she said. “They say heaven is huge. They say the angels fly and everybody runs and plays.”