Raising the Bar

by Leigh Dillon

  “You given any thought to selling that Maserati?” Tonio asked with his mouth full.

  “Uh, yes. Eventually.”

  “Two broodmares’ worth, remember.”

  “I know, but that fob—”

  Tonio sat upright and squeezed his eyes shut, irritation bristling up around him like the spikes on a hedgehog’s hide. “Just change the fucking battery! Jesus!”

  Destin also sat up, hot words dancing on his tongue. He longed to tell Tonio he’d already changed the battery, thank you, and that wasn’t the problem. But that would be a lie. It never occurred to him to try a fresh battery.

  “If it’s not the battery, call the Maserati people and have them send you a new fob.” Tonio scraped the last bit of eggs off his plate and jumped up. “It’s not exactly rocket science.”

  Destin glared holes in Tonio’s back as Tonio rinsed his plate at the sink. So much for making friends with this jerk. And here he’d thought they were getting somewhere.

  How wrong he had been.

  Chapter 9

  WHEN DESTIN walked into the barn, Tonio already had Sam saddled. Sam bobbed his head eagerly when Destin approached him. Destin slipped his hand under Sam’s halter and rubbed under his jaw, and Sam half closed his eyes with pleasure.

  I wish I knew what’s going on in there. Destin moved the scratching to Sam’s forehead and imagined the brain nested inside the armor of Sam’s skull, ticking away busily with horse thoughts. Wondering where the day would take him, maybe. Or, more likely, plotting an escape route so he could steeplechase across the farm again.

  “Heya,” Tonio said, emerging from the tack room with a bridle draped over his arm.

  Destin replied with a silent, dour nod.

  “You okay?” Tonio asked, flipping the reins onto his shoulder.

  “Yes. Why?”

  “You look kinda down.”

  Destin blinked and looked up at Tonio. No, Tonio wasn’t being a smartass. He looked genuinely worried, and the jagged lump of resentment in Destin’s chest softened. “No, seriously, I’m fine,” he said.

  Tonio cocked his head and stood there, running his thumb absently over the metal shank of the hackamore and watching Destin’s face. “If it’s about the key fob and all that, I’m sorry. I needed to blow off steam. It’s nothing personal. I’m just an asshole.” He paused, and the rueful, one-sided smile twitched up the corner of his mouth. “We still good?”

  Destin hesitated, long enough for the smile to slide off Tonio’s face.

  This is it. Put the jerk in his place.

  But why does he keep making it so damned difficult?

  “Yes, we’re still good,” he said at last. “Just let me worry about the Maserati from now on, okay?”

  Tonio’s grin almost shone brighter than the fluorescent lights overhead. “Agreed.” He lifted the bridle and moved toward Sam’s front end. “Now let’s see how this goes.”

  Sam laid his ears back and raised his head. When Tonio didn’t take the hint, he backed up, pulling the cross-ties tight.

  “Come on. Settle down.” Destin pulled Sam forward again and stroked his neck. Sam snorted and relaxed a little.

  “Now comes the hard part,” Tonio muttered. He unclipped the cross-ties, looped the reins loosely around Sam’s neck, slipped the halter off, and pulled the bridle on in its place. Sam tensed up again, teeth clamped, but nobody jammed a bit against his lips. His upper eyelids pinched into little peaks of confusion, and he looked around with such a puzzled expression that Destin guffawed. “Fooled you,” Tonio said, grinning, and gave Sam’s forelock an affectionate tousle. “You’re all ready to go to work, and you don’t even know it.”

  Tonio spent a few minutes making adjustments to the hackamore, running his fingers under the straps, making sure Sam’s hair lay straight and flat under the wide noseband. Sam champed and worked his tongue, clearly unsure what all this new gear was about.

  “Now we find out how well Johanna trained him,” Tonio said. He picked up the nearest rein and pulled, gently. Sam swung his head around to the right, exactly as if he had a bit in his mouth. Tonio tried the other side. Again no resistance. Then Tonio held both reins together and pulled back. This time it took a moment or two for Sam to figure out what Tonio wanted, but once he decided lowering his head to his ankles was not the desired response, he took a few steps backward.

  “Good boy!” Tonio gave Sam an enthusiastic pat on the shoulder. “Reins are reins, bit or no bit. Let’s try this outside.” He led Sam out of the barn, keeping a firm grip. Destin followed, braced for trouble, but Sam seemed to have accepted his new equipment.

  “I wish you hadn’t soured Sam on the round pen,” Tonio remarked as they walked past it on their way to the practice arena.

  “I didn’t have much choice,” Destin replied. “The round pen is about the only place on the farm he can’t jump out of.”

  Tonio sighed. “The only thing worse than a stupid horse is a horse who knows his own power.”

  “You think Sam is that self-aware?”

  “I think he’s figured out that he’s bigger than you or me, and we can’t make him do something he doesn’t want to do.”

  Destin looked at the black beast striding along so easily between him and Tonio. One enormous coffee-brown eye looked back at him, deep, dark, and calculating, and suddenly Destin had a sense of presence he had never experienced before. Argento had never refused to obey his rider. Maximus had been tamed with curb bits and a running martingale to do his rider’s bidding. But Sam needed something more. He was a lock with a hidden key, a tavern puzzle whose solution pattern of loops and twists had been lost. They were there, that key and that pattern, somewhere in the depths of that liquid eye. So how were they supposed to reach them?

  “All right.” They had reached the practice arena, and Tonio pulled Sam to a stop. “This is where we either get a breakthrough or a rodeo.”

  Destin closed the gate and took hold of Sam’s reins. Tonio swung into the saddle and clamped himself securely to Sam’s body. Destin let go and stepped back, and Tonio urged Sam into a walk. Sam took two steps and shook his head vigorously, as though something large and irritating had landed on his face. Destin sprang forward, heart pounding, but Tonio waved him off.

  “It’s okay. The hackamore feels different. He just needs to get used to it, is all.”

  “If you say so.” Destin retreated, unconvinced. Sam’s body language did not say he was adjusting. It looked a lot more rebellious than accepting.

  “All right. Circle around….” Tonio pulled Sam’s head to the right. Instead of yielding, Sam threw his head up and danced sideways. “No, no, no!” Tonio loosened the reins. Sam’s head came back down, but he kept fidgeting, ears back and tail swishing.

  “I don’t think he likes the hack,” Destin said. “Let’s put him back on a bit.”

  “Give ’im a chance,” Tonio replied. “He’s only had the hackamore on for, like, five minutes.” He urged Sam forward again. This time he gave an obvious leg signal before pulling the rein. After a rebellious second or two, Sam gave in and turned. “Good boy! Now you’re getting the hang of it.” Tonio leaned forward and rubbed Sam’s neck.

  “Now let’s try a left turn.” Tonio tugged the left rein. Sam shook his head again and started backing up, fighting the weird contraption squeezing his nose. Tonio loosened the reins and kicked Sam forward. Sam lunged, bucked, and struck out with his hind feet. Tonio pulled the reins back to stop him. Sam stopped, all right, and rose onto his hind legs like a circus horse, pawing the air and shaking his head. Tonio pitched himself forward and grabbed Sam’s mane, waiting for Sam to return to all fours. Instead Sam began walking backward, still on his hind legs.

  “Destin!”

  Destin ran forward, not sure what he could do among the thrashing, steel-shod hooves and massive, upright body. Before Destin could make up his mind, Sam dropped back on four legs and took off, Tonio clinging to his back like a jockey on a runaway racehorse. De
stin scrambled to the top of the rail and prayed until Sam finally wore himself out and cantered to a halt.

  Tonio slid out of the saddle and stood next to Sam, clutching the saddle skirt for support and leaning his head against Sam’s sweat-glossed, heaving flank. “All right,” he said, his words coming in quick pants. “It’s not the bit. I guess I’ll try something else.”

  “Yes. I think you should.” Destin hesitated. “Don’t worry too much about it, though. You have plenty of time.”

  Tonio nodded and handed over the reins to Destin. Destin took them and began the short walk back to the stable, trying not to feel like a liar. They’d only been working on Sam for a couple of days, but from what Destin had seen so far, there wasn’t enough time in the world to turn Black Sambuca into a show horse.

  Chapter 10

  AFTER THE hackamore fiasco, to Destin’s relief, Tonio gave up on the new equipment experiments. He also dropped the cocky attitude, professionalism overtaking his normally colorful personality like a drab, gray moth emerging from a gaudy cocoon. Professionalism was good. It meant Tonio focusing his full attention on Destin’s problem, just as he had been hired to do. But brushing by him in the aisle, or speaking with him in the office for a few minutes a day about Sam’s progress, felt more like estrangement than progress. Destin found himself sifting Tonio’s words and parsing his body language for—what? Encouragement? Hope? Maybe it was there and he just couldn’t see it, but outwardly, at least, Tonio remained cool and preoccupied.

  Tonio had every excuse for being preoccupied. On a good day, when Destin trained his field glasses on the practice arena from the office, Sam and Tonio looked like a Longines commercial, black horse and black-clad rider ticking over the jumps like fine-tuned clockwork. On bad days, brightly colored rails lay strewn across the arena like a game of pick-up sticks. When Al stopped by to chat and catch up on Sam’s progress, he and Destin made a morbid game of betting on the exact moment Sam would stop jumping. Over the course of the next week and a half, Destin came to excel at this game.

  For most of that time, as though Tonio had brought Miami with him, the weather remained warm and fine. Destin daringly pulled his pleated khaki shorts out of storage and wore them to the office with polo shirts and loafers, and Tonio appeared out in the open with only his jersey hoodie to protect him from the elements. But those little bursts of Indian summer never lasted, and one morning, after a cold, drizzly night, Destin woke up to a world white with frost.

  Tonio strolled into the office that morning, armored to the eyeballs in insulated nylon.

  “You riding today?” Destin asked.

  Tonio unzipped his jacket enough for his mouth to show and made a beeline for the cheery gas logs burning in the old office fireplace. “Yeah,” he said. “I had a couple of ideas last night. I’d like to try them out.”

  “That sounds like a plan.”

  Invite him to the house when he finishes riding.

  Destin blinked. Where had that come from?

  Light the fireplace. Make coffee and warm up some cinnamon rolls.

  “Uhh…,” Destin added. The invitation balled itself up in his throat, a choking tangle of optimism and uncertainty. Maybe, with both of them relaxed and comfortable, they could open up to each other a little. Or maybe it would turn into a repeat of their first dinner together, complete with embarrassing silences and botched advances.

  Tonio looked up from the fireplace, eyebrows raised, his angular face expectant.

  Uncertainty won out. “Never mind,” Destin said. “Good luck with Sam. I hope your ideas work out.”

  Why did this seem so easy with Tom? The question ran through Destin’s mind as Tonio walked out of the office. Maybe because Tom was a colleague and they spent so much time together. Tom was always approachable, not prickly and volatile like Tonio. Calm. Familiar.

  Boring.

  No, that wasn’t fair. But yes, it was. Destin had liked Tom because he was boring, and Tom liked Destin for the same reason. Because boring was safe. They both understood boring. Boring was so deeply ingrained in both their natures that it felt like home.

  Coffee by the fire is boring.

  My stupid khaki pants are boring.

  Destin strolled over to the trophy case and peered at his reflection in one of the engraved silver trays. Everything it reflected—Destin’s hair, his face, his jacket—was beige.

  I am boring.

  Destin pushed away from the display of silver and wandered over to the fireplace. The heat felt good on his legs, and he put one foot up on the stone hearth. Over the mantel, the hunters rode through their eternal autumn forest.

  I need to get out of here. Even with the large window overlooking the pasture, the office had turned into a claustrophobic cell. No, a dungeon filled with electronic instruments of torture. Phones that jabbered legalese in his ear. Computers that poured out financial problems like rivers of molten lead. The Spreadsheet of Woe and Despair. If there had been a way to crawl up on the mantel and fall into that long-ago hunt in the painting, Destin would have done so.

  But I could….

  Destin spun on his heel and peered out the window.

  And maybe Tonio would like it too.

  Destin held up his inspiration and examined it from all sides, looking for flaws. He saw none, and gleefully slipped his idea into his mental pocket, waiting for the right moment.

  Chapter 11

  THE RIGHT moment took another week of wavering and agonizing to arrive, but finally, on the evening before the halfway point of their association, Destin took his pride in his hands and asked Tonio if he enjoyed trail riding.

  “Sure,” Tonio replied. “Is there somewhere around here to ride?”

  “Yes. There’s a state park just beyond Paris, where we went for dinner that time. The park’s called Sky Meadows. Do you want to give Sam a day’s rest and trailer the riding horses over there?”

  Tonio cocked his head and gave Destin one of those long, inscrutable looks. Just about the time sweat began popping out on Destin’s forehead, Tonio gave a brisk nod. “Sounds fun,” he said. “When do you want to leave?”

  They met in the house early the next morning while the mist still hung heavy over the dew pond down in the pasture and the tang of fireplace smoke flavored the crackling-cold air. Tonio showed up in the kitchen in a flannel shirt, puffy vest, and fleece-lined riding breeches with neoprene no-slip patches inside the knees.

  “You aren’t going to be too hot in those?” Destin asked, indicating Tonio’s pants with the piece of toast in his hand. The double entendre hit him as the words left his mouth. Tonio was hot in those pants. Really hot.

  “Nah. I’m from Florida, remember?” Tonio said. “This is like a freezing-cold winter day where I come from.”

  “Okay, if you’re comfortable.”

  The riding horses seemed to know something was up. They stretched their necks over their stall doors when Destin and Tonio came in, and Destin’s father’s horse, a splashy bay appaloosa gelding, neighed loudly.

  “That’ll be your horse,” Destin said, pointing to the appaloosa. “Dad usually rode Spot with a Western saddle, but if you prefer English….”

  “Spot? His name is Spot?”

  “No, that’s just his barn name. He’s registered, so his real name is Bar Doc Something Something Spottiswoode. I don’t really remember.”

  “Western’s fine.”

  “Spot’s a good saddle horse. Dad rode him drunk half the time, and he always came back safe.”

  It wasn’t until they were some way down the road, horses loaded and peering out between the bars of the trailer windows, that Destin realized he probably shouldn’t have given Tonio that particular nugget of information.

  Sky Meadows was always one of Destin’s favorite places to ride. Not in the summer so much, when the brush along the trails crawled with ticks. The best time was autumn, when the trails through the woods turned from green tunnels to cathedral aisles made entirely of stained glas
s, and a few sharp frosts put the tick problem to bed for the winter.

  He pulled the truck and trailer into the parking lot beside the old barn at the trailhead and stopped beside the only other rig there. The nearly empty lot promised a certain amount of solitude. Destin’s buckskin, Butternut, tossed his head and pawed while Destin tacked him up, eager to be on his way, and even the normally phlegmatic Spot pricked his ears, snuffing the mountain air as Tonio tried to tighten his girth.

  Tonio swung into his saddle. Destin mounted Butternut, and they started down the trailhead exit. The first leg took them on an old gravel road bed, hemmed in on one side by thick shrubbery and by fencing on the other, including a length of the ubiquitous drystone. They rode single file to avoid the grabbing, slapping branches and leaves, but Tonio pulled up next to Destin as the trail opened out onto the flat grass of pasture land.

  “So did you want to powwow about Sam now or save it for after the ride?” Tonio asked.

  Destin gave a guilty twitch. “We don’t have to talk about Sam at all unless you want to.”

  “Well, we’re halfway through my contract. If I were you, I’d want a progress report about now.”

  “All right.”

  “So here’s the verdict.” Tonio stood up in the stirrups, readjusted his position in the saddle, and sat down again. “I have no idea what’s going on with that horse. There’s nothing wrong with him physically. He’s great. Strong, sound, coordinated, athletic—everything you could want in a jumper. He’s smart too. The whole time we’re going around the practice course, I can hear his brain whirring away. When I line up for a jump, Sam’s ahead of me with everything all figured out. He is a….” Tonio tipped his head back and squeezed his eyes shut, apparently straining for some elusive superlative. “Superhorse,” he finished with an emphatic nod.