A Horse is a Horse, of course, of course

Ronnie yawned as he looked down at the sheet of paper in his hands. It was a report Texas had given him earlier that morning. She had wanted to start him off with easier assignments. His mission was to investigate a case of a missing animal. And so here he was now at the edge of town.

The ranch wasn’t very big. A single small home with a decent-sized red bark close by. He headed towards the home, eager to get this over with. As he got closer, he began to notice the smell. He almost didn’t notice it at first. A deep, earthy stench slowly crept up on him until it punched him right in the nose. Ronnie stopped in his tracks and gagged.

“Danm animals,” he muttered under his breath as he trudged on to the house.

The scent only got stronger the closer he got. He could almost taste it once he reached the front door. He wondered how someone could stomach living here.

He knocked on the door. He didn’t have to wait long before someone answered the door. A short cat woman looked up at him. She noticed the star on his chest.

“Ah, you’re here about my missing Precious?” she asked.

“Precious? Is that the name of the animal?” Ronnie asked.

She nodded. “My Precious has been missing for two days! I don’t know how she got out of the barn, but I’ve been worried ever since.”

“Well, that’s why I’m here. I’ll track her down. Is there anything you can tell me about her?”

“Well, first off she’s a pony, white as snow. You can’t miss her. I found some of her tracks behind the barn. I think she was going south. I tried to follow, but I can’t leave my ranch for too long,” she explained. “That’s all I know.”

“South of the barn. Understood,” Ronnie said. “I’ll track her down.”

“Thank you! Thank you!” she said excitedly.

Ronnie tipped his hat and looked towards the barn. He made an effort to give the barn a wide berth. Even then, he almost gagged. If it smelled this bad from this distance, he couldn’t imagine how it smelled inside. After he circled around back, he started walking south. With any luck, it shouldn’t be very difficult to track the pony down.

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As he left the barn behind, the smell slowly began to fade, but it quickly began to pick up again. The same earthy stench of stale sweat from the barn. That could only mean one thing. He was on the right track. He regrettably followed the stench. Unfortunately, the smell was somehow becoming even stronger than it was on the ranch. He pinched his nose, but that didn’t make a difference. The stench was so dense that his eyes began to water slightly.

His mind was so overwhelmed by the smell that he didn’t notice the white pony until he almost bumped into it. True to her owner’s world, her coat was snow white. Her long braided main was swept to the side. She was short, even for a poney. The top of her head barely reached about halfway up his chest. She more than made up for her height through weight. He didn’t know what her owner was feeding her, but it was obvious that it was far too much of it. Her large stomach nearly touched the ground. Her rear end was like a pair of giant weighty, jiggling snowballs. They probably weighed more than him easily. Surprisingly, her thick stubby legs managed to support her heavy frame without any effort. She was too busy grazing at a patch of grass at her hoofs to notice him.

“It’s Precious, right?”

The pony’s watery blue eyes briefly glanced up. She decided he wasn’t worth her attention and focused on grazing once again.

Ronnie crossed his arms. He had found the lost pony. Now all he needed to do was get her back to the ranch. The quicker he did it, the better. The poney’s foul stench was starting to give him a headache. The only question was how. It’s been a while since he had worked on a ranch. His skills were a little rusty, and on top of that, he didn’t have any tools.