At one of their summer's revivals there was a guest speaker from a town close to Louisville that made a testimony of the devil's hand in Louisville without naming names because he was afraid of law suits from that community. He spoke about how the devil had gotten his hold onto that town making several families running for their lively hood out of the biggest close to his once little community. All three grandpa Henry, grandpa Thomas, and grandma Karen looked at each other and knew he was talking about Louisville. Grandma Karen had a quiet little talk with that preacher alone.
She gave him a little piece of paper that she wrote Louisville on and asked if that was the town he was referring to. He confirmed it by nodding to her . She tossed the little paper into the grill the church was fixing for after the revival's picnic. On the way home they were quiet but the minute Victoria got out and was giving Skippy hugs they opened up and said they needed to make sure Victoria was safe.
In the summer before her seventh year of school Victoria saw the school's junior high school rodeo competition and wanted to participate in their school rodeo and their competitions going around barrels. It was a little risky but all three grandparents agreed that it might be good for to learn how to ride and take care of a horse. there were two horses that the local vet had seen at Coon County Vet's barn who needed some tender Loving Care. Grandpa Thomas called him. Both of the horses was ready to go to a good place where they could be taken care and have a good pasture they could get all of the exercise they needed.
Grandpa asked the younger men at church if they could help get their barn ready and a corral . One of the farmers who helped get the barn ready young sons taught Victoria how to care for the horses while his father a professional horse trainer taught her the what she needed to do during the competition He told all of her grandparents that it was a breeze teaching her. That she was a natural. They burned the old bales of hay and alfalfa and restock that area with new hay bales. The smoke from the fire was black due to a combine's old tire thrown in with the hay.
She loved both of her horses. Her black horse had big dark brown eyes. She had a shinny black coat. The only white that could be seen was her hooves. She was lightening fast. She remembered how black the smoke was plus she had seen dark black clouds in the sky when storms was going through their area. She was having trouble naming her because of her two sightings. it was a toss up of Smoky or Stormy. She finally decided to call her Smoky. Skippy loved to run with the horses but with her age she wasn't any threat to them.