The Hidden Horses of New York: A Novel

by Natalie Keller Reinert

  Ames was interested in the more fit horses—Jenny watched as the man in the duster took three horses in a row who all looked ready to use in a camp, once they were a little cleaned up. He ran his hand over the neck of a small buckskin mare as she was led past him, fingers catching in the big witch’s locks tangling her mane. “You couldn’t at least brush them off, Bev?” he asked as Florence accepted his two hundred dollar bid and marked his name on her tally. “You’re slipping.”

  Bev gave him a glowering look. “One more word from you and I’ll kick you out, asshole.”

  There was a general laughter from the group. It was clear whose side they were on.

  There were a few more buyers standing around, eyeballing each horse as it was led past, but they didn’t make a sound or raise a hand as Florence sold horse after horse to Ames and Lizzette. Jenny was starting to wonder if she’d gotten the wrong idea. If Ames was a rescuer, and Lizzette was only taking skinny horses no slaughterhouse would pay money for, were there actually any bad guys here? Even if Lizzette was running a feedlot, she’d be spending a fortune to fatten these horses up, and there couldn’t be that much money in selling horses by the pound.

  Jenny jumped at a touch on her shoulder, but it was just Aidan. They had backed up to the creaking corral fence to watch the proceedings, keeping their distance from the group of buyers. “I’m afraid they’re going to notice us and start asking questions,” he whispered. “They all seem to know each other.”

  “I know, but if we stay back here at least we can make a quick getaway.” She gave Aidan a tense smile.

  He looked back at her with a measure of surprise, and she knew why: Jenny wasn’t the brave one.

  But something about this night felt like a turning point to her. She had gone to the backside with the full intent of helping cast aside the awful stereotypes about racetrackers: the conception that trainers, jockeys and owners were just all animal-hating, money-hungry bastards who would use up a horse and then toss it aside the moment it stopped earning its keep. She knew there were people like that, just as she knew there were people who dumped their unwanted horses in places like this, waiting for kill-buyers to snap them up and send them to a feedlot before shipping them on to slaughter in Mexico. But she had always believed, having been raised in the racing community, that villains like that were firmly in the minority. A few horribly bad apples, spoiling bushel after bushel of good, hardworking horsemen and horsewomen.

  Yet they’d turned their backs on her, disparaging her ideas from the first, and finally taking away her press pass, and right now, when no one was volunteering to defend little Jenny Wolfe, she held in her hands the power to discredit all of them. Because she knew some of the people standing around Florence and Bev. She knew some of them well enough to keep her face hidden, back here in the shadows by the coral, because they’d not only question what the Wolfe girl was doing in a place like this, they’d believe she was here as a journalist and not a horsewoman.

  And they’d be right.

  She had pictures on her phone, and some video for good measure, of grooms from five different barns—including the Lawson barn. She recognized their faces, even though she had never really spoken to them, because she’d been around these backside regulars since she was a little girl. To Aidan, they were part of the scenery on a sunny trackside day, but to Jenny, they were people she’d been walking past, exchanging nodding hellos, accepting a politely opened door, since she was in grade school.

  And they were clearly on intimate terms with the auctioneers of this place.

  She watched the little group of grooms chit-chat with Bev as they waited for one of the guys in camo to lead up another horse. “I need to know what they’re saying,” she hissed. “How can I get closer?”

  Aidan, to his credit, didn’t question her motives. He knew she was a journalist. He knew what she was thinking. He pointed to the curving fences of the round corrals. “You can go back to the arena, like you’re going to the restroom, and when you come back out, turn left instead of right. You can go right behind them. The double-fences make it too hard to see through in the dark.”

  That was true; they also made it impossible to see what might be on the other side of them. What if the corrals were full of cattle, or goats, or pigs? She had no idea what was over there. But no, she’d probably have heard livestock if there were any. “Be ready to get us out of here,” she whispered.

  Aidan squeezed her hand. “Be careful.”

  She slipped back into the shadows of the darkened arena as quickly as she could, hoping she wouldn’t be noticed by the cluster of people. They were watching another horse approach, this one a tall, racy Thoroughbred who had clearly been in training up until the last few days. He had a tragic hitch in his stride which nearly made her pause. This horse was seriously injured. He was in real pain. She forced herself to keep going. If she found just the right spot on the other side of the corral fence, she could take video through the rails.

  She crept out of the arena entrance and slipped through the unlatched gate. The corral was empty, thank goodness. She picked her way through the muddy ground, feeling her way in the dark places where the barn aisle’s lamps didn’t pierce through the fence. In a few moments, she was there: just a few feet away from the little group of spectators, from Bev and Florence, and from Ames and Lizzette. She hid behind a thick fencepost and positioned her phone, with the video on, to capture what she could.

  The limping horse was led past her hiding spot, half-walked and half-dragged in a circle by one of the camo jacket guys. “You say that’s a sesamoid?” a man muttered to his neighbor. “I’m surprised he’s up and walking.”

  “Man, that thing is snapped in two, would I lie to you? I took him out of the van myself. The vet said surgery would save him, but the boss laughed. This horse’s owner hasn’t paid no bills in two months.”

  “Well, he’s not making up the money tonight.” The second guy chuckled. “Ames, you buying this plug?”

  “I’m full up on cripples,” Ames said, shrugging. “Especially if he can’t be fixed cheap. I guess he’s all yours.”

  “Hear that, Florence? I’ll take him.”

  Florence shrugged and marked the horse off without even bothering to take a bid. The handler walked the horse back to the shadows.

  It was all Jenny could do not to scream. The groom who identified the injury worked for Morris Highsmith, and it wasn’t hard to put together the pieces with an accident involving one of his horses during a race last week. The horse was a minor claimer named Dancing Love, and he’d broken down in his race, been loaded onto a van, and later announced to be up and walking under his own power. The crowd had sighed with relief. But evidently, that hadn’t been the end of the chestnut horse’s problems.

  There was barely time to feel rage for Dancing Love, though. Another racehorse was led out, and the gossipy groom let another trainer’s name slide into the dirt. Then another, and another. His friend continued to buy the lame ones, for prices in the low hundreds. When the bay horse was walked out, Jenny held her breath.

  “Rick, is this one sound?” Ames asked.

  The groom eyeballed the horse. “I don’t know this horse, boss.”

  Bev rolled her eyes. “He’s one of the Lawson’s that they shouldn’t have brought to New York. Something tells me Brice is just too broke to take them all back to Florida this winter. You should take him, Ames. He’s sound enough.”

  “I think I will.”

  “I don’t know,” Rick’s friend countered. “He’s in good weight. A little tubby, even. This one’s a quick turnaround for me. I could put him on the truck this weekend.”

  Jenny’s knees wobbled. In the distance, beyond the cluster of bidders, she could see Aidan in the shadows. If she did something idiotic and showed herself, Aidan would run for the car, get it started. She was younger than all of them; she could outpace them and get in the car and—and then, what? Her discovery, her escape, neither did nothing for any of th
e horses.

  “I need one more to fill up my trailer tonight,” Ames said. “You’ve been buying plenty. Give me this guy. He’s not ready for dog food yet.”

  The bay horse turned his head back and forth, swinging his ears in confusion. He whinnied shrilly, and some horses in the darkness behind him replied in kind.

  “See? Too much spirit. Come on, Florence. I’ll take him.”

  Florence shrugged, her interest in the evening long gone.

  Rick spoke up. “Lawson ain’t gonna want it getting around that his horse was here. He’s on thin ice with a few different states, New York included.”

  “This horse tattooed?” Rick’s friend asked.

  “He’s tattooed,” Bev said. “Don’t mean anyone’s ever going to read it.”

  “Bet Lawson would prefer to make sure,” the other man said, waggling his eyebrows. “Don’t you want to keep him sweet?”

  Bev rolled her eyes, bored with the topic. “I couldn’t care less. He wants to move a horse, he’ll call me. He doesn’t have to like me.”

  “I’ll take him,” Ames insisted. “Five hundred, Florence.”

  “Sold,” Florence said, and made a tally.

  “Fucker,” Rick’s friend snorted. “Bleeding-heart Ames.”

  “I might sell him to you in a month,” Ames said mildly. “Could be dead lame. You never know.”

  “That’s true,” he agreed. “I’ve gotten a few of your mistakes after all.”

  “Are you boys done?” Florence asked. “There are six more and I’m ready for a beer and my bed.”

  Jenny looked at the phone in her hand. She had video, and probably sound, of multiple horses being sold straight from the racetrack to slaughter. The fact that the bay horse had escaped that fate, at least for now, was almost besides the fact. All of those other horses were going to die, and they’d been sent there by people she knew, people she had trusted, people she had been working to exonerate from these very crimes.

  She put her phone in her pocket and began to pick her way back to the arena entrance. Whatever she’d been looking for, now she had enough.

  In the car, her head against the glass, she listened to the radio as Aidan drove in silence, but she didn’t hear the words. The horses she’d just seen, the grooms she’d recognized, all working for trainers she knew and had respected… there was no forgetting what had just happened. She knew there was a sleepless night was ahead of her, but with no early morning alarm, no press pass, no reason to go to the track, what difference did it make?

  What difference did any of it make?

  She straightened in her seat.

  Aidan glanced at her. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Jenny said. She took out her phone.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  She had declined six calls by the time they pulled up at the Victorian, tapping her thumb on the red button every time a new number sprang onto her screen. All they served to do was slow down the task she’d set herself, and she wasn’t about to be stopped.

  Jenny hopped out of the car and ran up the walk, her only thought to get to a phone charger and an electrical outlet. Aidan trailed her more slowly, softly jingling the keys. She waited impatiently at the door. “Come on, Aidan,” she hissed, keeping her voice low—most of the other houses were dark for the night. “My phone is dying!”

  “What’s the rush?” he asked suspiciously. “What were you doing while we were driving home?”

  “Nothing.” She shoved through the door the moment he unlocked it, and went flying up the stairs without bothering to slip off her muddy shoes. She knew Aidan was watching her, but for once she didn’t care. She was in the middle of something much bigger now.

  Another call from Lana filled her screen as she plugged the phone into the plug next to her bed, and she slapped the decline button without hesitation. There’d be another voicemail, another demanding tally added to the notifications lighting up her screen, but she wasn’t about to stop what she’d started, and that was all Lana would tell her to do. Already she’d turned off her notifications on Twitter, where she was doing most of her damage. The dozens of tweets she’d already sent were going viral, spiraling out of control into the hot summer night, her naming of trainers and her photos of their horses being led through the shabby auction house scattered across social media like candy flung from a plane. Or maybe not candy. Maybe bombs.

  She was ruining careers tonight, and she was immensely pleased with her decision. When everything was ripe to be burnt down, why not light the match? She’d realized back in the car that everything was over: her friendship with Aidan was too ridiculous to carry on after they’d had what was clearly a meaningless night to him, and the culmination of years of frustration for her; her press pass had been rescinded by the horsemen who had been her sources and her friends; her illusions about the good stories of horse racing had been shattered at the auction’s little afterparty of meat men and the mysterious Ames. What was the point in worrying about who outed who, now? She wasn’t going to be employed at Full Stride much longer, and she didn’t care. That was all in her past now.

  Or it would be, as soon as she finished tweeting all the photos and video (with audio, thank the gods for her excellent phone mic!) from this evening’s events.

  By midnight, it was over—or her contribution to it was, anyway. She knew the tweet storm she’d unleashed amongst the horse racing social media community would spread to the other equestrians, and then to non-equestrians, and there would be hell to pay. She deleted her Twitter app, and the red badge of unread messages disappeared.

  A few minutes later, when Lana called again, she hit accept.

  “Hi, Lana,” she said cheerfully. “You’re up late!”

  “Are you high?”

  “I am high on life,” Jenny said gravely, unplugging her phone and leaning back against the high wall of pillows that guarded her antique bed’s wooden headboard. She looked at her toes and felt like a teenager in an 80s sitcom. Too bad her phone wasn’t fluffy, or shaped like a pair of red lips. “How about you? Everything good on Manhattan Island?”

  “Jenny, tell me why you did this.”

  “It had to be done. I went, I saw, I reported. That’s my job.”

  “This is most certainly not your job!”

  “Because I’m fired?”

  “No—I mean, yes, obviously my father is furious and is demanding I fire you, but no, it was never your job. You aren’t just a reporter out on a beat. You had a defined purpose, and it was not to name and shame trainers selling off horses at auctions—”

  “You say ‘name and shame’ like it’s a bad thing to out people for doing immoral, disgusting, and illegal things,” Jenny interrupted, raising her voice to match the strength of her conviction in this. “Every one of those trainers deserves to lose their license and with my evidence, I’m sure they will, and that’s justice, not shaming.”

  Lana took a deep breath. “Jenny, please delete the tweets and issue an apology.”

  “Nope, definitely not doing that.”

  “Jenny, my father said I have to fire you. Please try to fix this overnight, so I don’t have to do that. This is your project, too.” Lana’s voice turned pleading, and Jenny thought she heard a little sob in her throat—wasn’t that sweet? Wasn’t that nice? Lana was remembering they were friends. It was about time, Jenny thought darkly. “Jenny, we were in this together.”

  “Now it’s just you and Aidan,” Jenny said. “I hope you forgive me. I miss being your friend.”

  She ended the call.

  Almost immediately, Aidan was knocking at her door. “Come in,” she called. “Were you listening in the hall?” she asked as he opened the door.

  “I was as soon as I saw what you’d been doing,” he said shamelessly. “And I got a call from Lana begging me to get up here and make you stop.”

  “Is that what you’re here to do?” she asked him quietly.

  “No,” he said. “She called me an hour ago.”r />
  Jenny’s shoulders sagged; she felt as if someone had lifted a weight from the back of her neck and she didn’t have to hold herself so rigidly anymore. “Thank you.”

  Aidan sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at his hands, as if he didn’t know how to make eye contact with her anymore. She waited while he gathered his thoughts, in no hurry to do or say anything. This was the last time they’d spend together. She was already making plans in her mind, her escape route already plotted out, but she could enjoy a few more minutes beside Aidan. She would always make time for him, if he was there, if he wanted to be with her.

  “Is this really what you want?” he asked eventually. “To just blow it all up and leave?”

  Jenny considered the question. She didn’t know if there was an honest answer. No, she hadn’t wanted this—but yes, right now, she wanted it so badly. “It was the right thing to do,” she said finally. “Maybe it wasn’t the best way for me to do it… but when these things go through official channels, they get covered up. I’ve always known that. I just didn’t want to admit it. I didn’t want to believe it was this big, but it is and… that changes things for me.”

  “What things?”

  She shook her head sadly. “All my fairy tale endings, for starters. The idea that there are a million good stories worth telling. I’ve spent this entire summer prying details out of these trainers, trying to build good stories, and they’ve acted like I’m trying to sell their trade secrets. They’re horses, for god’s sake! There shouldn’t be any trade secrets! If there are, they’re probably inhumane or illegal. So you know, I just decided… I’d had the wrong idea about it all. It sounded good, it looked good on paper, it got me an A on the final project, but… we’re not in college anymore. And the real world kind of sucks.”

  Aidan looked at her curiously, almost as if he’d never seen her before. And in that look, she thought she felt something deeper, stronger, something that made her toes press into the carpet, her fingernails dig into the bed cover. He was peering inside of her, looking more closely than he had ever bothered to look before. His face shifted, the lines around his mouth and forehead smoothing. He’s going to kiss me, she thought, and she stood up so quickly that he fell back, nearly tumbling off the bed. Now wasn’t the time to let feelings get in the way. He should have looked at her this way a week ago, before she’d been set on this course. Before she’d realized her ship was leaking, foundering, and decided to plow it straight into the rocks rather than wait for it to sink.