Hex: A Ruby Murphy Mystery

by Maggie Estep

  A frantic-looking groom is circling the horse, holding a bucket of feed, trying to corner the colt. I leave the bike and get on the other side of the horse, helping the groom out. He finally gets to the horse’s head, grabs hold of the halter and gets a lead shank on. After all that, the guy doesn’t even thank me, just shoots me a filthy look like it was my fault the horse got away from him in the first place.

  I hop back on the bike and the rest of the short trip is uneventful.

  Waiting outside the security booth, looking extremely uncertain about everything, is a good-looking woman. I probably do a double take. And then decide she’s waiting for somebody else. I walk right past her, into the security booth, where Marla turns her little eyes to me.

  “That’s her out there,” she says, motioning at the babe. “The hotwalker.”

  “Oh. Thanks, Marla,” I say. She chortles and grunts and turns back to her People magazine.

  I go back outside the booth. The babe has her back to me now. Good ass. I walk around to face her.

  “You’re the hotwalker?”

  “Yeah,” she says, still looking deeply uncertain. “I mean, I haven’t done it before, not racehorses, but I’ve been around horses.” She speaks quickly and looks like she’s expecting me to tell her to take a hike.

  I don’t really need another useless hotwalker but at least she looks good. She has a lot of dark hair tied up at the back of her head. She’s wearing fairly shapeless clothing, but I can tell by the way she holds herself that she has something nice going on under there. As for her face, it’s a great thing. Huge gray eyes and a very inviting full red mouth. The nose is elegant and small.

  I guess I get a little absorbed because I’m startled when she speaks.

  “So what do I do now?” she asks.

  “Oh,” I say, staring at her. “Work, I guess. We’ll try you, at least.”

  “Yeah?” she says, and some life comes into her eyes, making her that much more tantalizing.

  “Let’s go,” I say, a little gruffly because she’s unsettling me. Not the way Lena the émigré does. No. That’s just annoyance and tart tactics. This hotwalker girl is understated. Makes you want to pull her clothes off her. Just what I don’t need in my life. A distraction on the backside.

  I push the crummy blue bike at my side and walk briskly, noticing that the girl, being substantially shorter than I am, has to half jog to keep up with me. Then, the minute we start walking between the rows of barns, the girl goes goofy on me. She comes to a dead stop and just gawks ahead.

  “What’s the matter?” I ask impatiently.

  “Horses,” she says, rapt and breathless, like a lunatic or a visionary.

  “Yeah, you see a lot of that around here,” I say, shaking my head and walking on.

  She takes a deep breath, inhaling slowly and smiling. “I’m Ruby by the way,” she says, scrambling again to keep up with me.

  “So you are,” I tell her.

  We reach Arnie’s shedrow and I lean the bike against the outside office wall, knowing someone else will need it soon. I poke my head in the office to see if Arnie’s come in yet, but he hasn’t.

  Sebastian is just leading Joe, the bay colt, out of his stall.

  “There.” I indicate the colt to Ruby. “Walk him around the shedrow once.”

  She looks startled, stares at me for a second, then gathers herself and goes over to where Sebastian and Joe are standing.

  “Sebastian, this is Ruby, we’re gonna try her out walking hots,” I say.

  Sebastian grunts at Ruby then hands her the colt’s lead shank. I watch. At least she knows to get on the left side of the horse. Once she has a firm grip on the shank, she goes and stands by his left eye, letting him get a look at her. She pats him firmly on the neck. Joe puts his ears forward, seeming to approve.

  “That’s Raging Machete,” I tell her, “but we call him Joe. Nice enough individual. Won’t kill ya. Walk him around the shedrow once then put him up on the wall.”

  The girl blinks at me. “On the wall?”

  “You’ll see a bungee cord on the wall of the horse’s stall. You tie him to that. Okay?”

  She nods then turns her attention back to Joe. She seems far more taken with the horse than with me. Maybe she’ll turn out to be a decent worker after all.

  I follow her with my eyes until she and the colt disappear around the bend of the shedrow. No doubt when she gets to the other side, where Christopher Murray keeps his string of claimers, she’ll get catcalled by Pepe and the rest of the sleepy-eyed louts Murray has working for him. Murray and his brother Jonathan are decent trainers, but they don’t exactly rake in the big bucks, and this means they have to feed off the bottom of the barrel helpwise. Pepe and the others are lazy and lecherous as all get-out. The bunch of them almost had a heart attack the time Lena the émigré came by to stand around on her wobbly spike heels and exclaim “Ooohh, pretty horsey” until I made her leave. But girls like her live for that kind of attention. Ruby, I guess, does not.

  I put the hotwalker out of my head for a few minutes and go into the office to check Arnie’s notes for which horses are working this morning. While I’m in there the phone rings again. This time it’s Lena, wanting to know what time she should go check on the kitten.

  “You use your judgment, Lena,” I say, and when she doesn’t seem to understand, I tell her to just go check on the cat at noon and I hang up. Arnie arrives, looking like a man who’s slept badly and owes a lot of money. My employer is not a pretty man, but right now he’s unprettier than usual. He’s about five-seven, but he’s at least as wide as he is tall. He doesn’t have much hair and does unusual things with what is there. His nose is bulbous and his lips are fat.

  “Morning, Arnold,” I say.

  “Yeah, what’s good about it?” he demands. He has an unlit cigar stub planted in his mouth. I want to rip it out of his face. I’ve only been working for the man for six or so weeks but I’ve already grown tired of him. Unfortunately, I need the job. So I just grin at him, like his foul mood is a quaint thing I’m honored to be privy to.

  I give him a quick report on how all the horses look this morning. He grunts at me then tells me to get things going, take the first set up to the track to work.

  “Oh yeah, and Ruby showed up,” I tell him.

  “Who?” he says.

  “Ruby, the hotwalker you told me to hire. She seems all right.”

  For a moment he looks puzzled, then he seems to remember. He grunts once more.

  I leave the office, go down the aisle and into Lotus Cat’s stall to start tacking him up. Lotus Cat nods at me vigorously as I pat his neck.

  Most of the time, I prefer the company of horses to that of humans.

  About ten minutes later I have three horses ready to take up to the track. As Lotus Cat is a fairly reasonable young colt, I’ve given him to Ruby to lead, while Sebastian has Cipullo’s Honor, and Macy is trying to contain Miss Seattle, a feisty bay filly who hasn’t raced yet but, we all suspect, will be worth her weight in gold once she starts.

  Gaines has disappeared without offering me a ride up to the track. I consider riding the bike up but then opt for walking along next to Sebastian and Cipullo’s Honor, a decent allowance horse who runs good but is fidgety as hell around the barn.

  Sebastian isn’t in a talkative mood. After exchanging a few thoughts on some of the new exercise riders—he’s very enthusiastic about one particular redheaded lass named Asha Yashpinsky, whom I happened to notice him ogling a few mornings in a row—we fall silent.

  X

  THERE’S FOG hanging over the track, giving the whole place a ghostly look, what with horses and humans suddenly materializing out of nowhere.

  I go over to where I see Ruby standing with Lotus Cat. Both horse and woman are attentively staring at the track. As I go to tighten the colt’s girth, I’m gratified to find that Ruby knows to hold the horse’s head tightly so he can’t take a nip at either of us. I like this girl.

>   Which is more than I can say for Little Molly Pedersen, apprentice jockey and our main exercise rider, who has just appeared at my side.

  “Morning, Molly.” I offer a half smile.

  The girl grunts at me, looks at Lotus Cat, and fusses with the strap on her crash helmet.

  She’d be a real looker if it weren’t for her personality. She’s a small blond woman with bright blue eyes and a pretty mouth that unfortunately is almost always pursed in disgust. She comes from a long line of horse people, each one more unpleasant than the last. Her uncle is head groom for Will Lott, one of the nicest, wisest trainers going. Why a guy like Lott would hire such a surly individual no one knows, though rumor has it that it all started with Fakir, the great champion Will Lott had back in the nineties. Fakir supposedly loved Jimmy John Mancuso, Molly’s uncle. And Lott has kept him on ever since. As for Molly, she’s as grouchy as her uncle, but it all goes away the second you put her on a horse. Maybe it’s why we keep hiring her. For the fun of watching her transform from rabid bitch on wheels to purring kitten the second you give her a leg up.

  And now, as I prepare to do just that, she turns her sneering little visage to me.

  “He gonna fuck with me today?” She indicates Lotus Cat with her chin.

  “Hope not,” I tell her.

  “Where’s Arnie?” she asks as I throw her up into the saddle.

  “He’s coming,” I tell her just as a Mercedes SUV noses up to the rail of the track and my employer, the charming Arnold Gaines, emerges right on cue.

  “You stay on that colt today, will you?” Gaines barks at the blond woman.

  Molly rolls her eyes at him and then launches into a tirade about how Arnie might consider getting his horses out of their stalls a little more often so they might not attempt to murder anyone who gets on their backs.

  Arnie doesn’t like this and issues a few barbs about Molly’s talents. “You think it’s an accident you’re still an apprentice?” he quips, at which point the small woman’s eyes pop with rage.

  She promptly hops down off Lotus Cat’s back, hands the reins to poor Ruby, who’s standing by with her mouth hanging open, and storms away.

  Sebastian, Ruby, and Macy all feign deep interest in their shoes as Gaines stands there, looking like a cartoon character with steam coming out of his ears.

  “Who are you?” he suddenly barks at Ruby.

  “Ruby,” she tells him.

  “You ride?”

  “A little.”

  “You got a license?” he asks her.

  “She’s the new hotwalker,” I intervene, before he tries putting the poor girl up on the colt’s back. “I’ll go retrieve Molly.”

  After asking a few grooms if they noticed where she went, I encounter none other than Asha Yashpinsky, her eyes twinkling with amusement as she tells me Molly has gone into the clockers’ shed.

  I climb the steps and find the unpleasant Miss Pedersen giving the poor clockers a piece of her mind. The two old guys, helplessly clutching their stopwatches and binoculars, are trying to keep their eyes on the horses they’re timing as Molly rants about Gaines like it’s got anything to do with them.

  “I’m sick of that fat piece of shit,” she says, turning her wrath on me.

  “We all are, Molly, but could you please just go out there and get on the horse? I don’t want to have to hire Asha Yashpinsky.”

  This, as I suspected it would, gets her goat. Though Asha is too tall to be a jockey, and until recently was only a pony rider, lately she’s proving to be a fine exercise rider. And she’s likable. Molly looks furious at the suggestion and promptly follows me out of the clockers’ shed and back over to where Arnie and the rest of the group are standing and waiting.

  Ruby and Lotus Cat both appear to be lost in some daydream. Horse and hotwalker are staring out at the track longingly. I startle Ruby by putting a hand on her shoulder.

  “I’ll take him,” I tell her, reaching for the chestnut’s lead shank and bringing him over to Molly.

  Molly spits on the ground once then fits her tiny foot into my palm, letting me throw her up into the saddle once more. Lotus Cat dances and chews on his bit. I watch Molly take a strong hold of him as Herbie, one of the pony riders we use, steers his bay gelding over to Lotus Cat’s side. Lotus Cat, who adores Herbie’s horse, buries his nose in the bay’s neck and keeps it there as the bay leads the way onto the track.

  The sun, struggling out from the cloud bed, is starting to burn the fog off the track, and the geese that live in the pond at the center of the track’s green oval are flapping their wings and honking. I remember one time, during a race, some geese were resting on the track and, as the horses came around the bend, a goose attempted to fly away but didn’t get enough lift and smacked one of the horses between the eyes, stopping the colt’s momentum. All wagers on the horse were refunded, even though he managed to finish seventh. The goose died.

  I focus my binoculars and pick Lotus Cat and Molly out from the pack.

  Sure enough, the little witch is transformed, face split open by a grin—an uninhibited, beautiful grin. She presses the colt into a strong gallop and the pair hit full speed as they pass the five-eighths pole. I get a little pang of envy, like I do sometimes. I ride okay but I’m much too big for exercising. Once in a while I pony one of our horses in the morning, but I’ve never gotten to go full speed. I envy her.

  As the two fly past the wire, Molly stands up in the stirrups, pulling the big red colt down to a slow gallop and eventually a trot. I go back to the rail, where I see Ruby standing, looking rapt and dreamy. I get a very keen urge to just fold her in my arms, maybe pick her up, carry her over into the grandstand and make out with her for several hours, as if we were high school kids.

  Instead, I go stand at her side. I say not a word as we wait for Molly to bring Lotus Cat off the track.

  Ruby Murphy

  14 / Two Ornery Blond People

  I’m at the rail, stupefied at the sight of so much gorgeous horseflesh. The way I feel right now, I’d gladly spend the rest of my life standing right here. But no sooner have I formulated this particular thought than it’s time to make the doughnuts. Molly, the foul-tempered apprentice, is steering Lotus Cat back toward where I’m standing. Though my first impression of Molly wasn’t good, the moment she got on the colt, she stopped spitting expletives and turned gorgeous. And still looks that way now. Until she catches sight of Gaines.

  She’s frowning horribly as she hops down, hands the reins to Ned, and strides off without another word.

  Ned passes the colt’s reins to me. “Take him back to the barn, cool him out. Hold him while Sebastian bathes him,” he tells me, then pulls a little memo pad from his pocket and scrawls something in there.

  I stare at him, feeling overwhelmed. He looks up.

  “Lose something over here?”

  “No,” I say, feeling like a dolt.

  I try to look composed as I take the colt’s lead shank and steer him toward the muddy road back to the barn area. Lotus Cat is tired. His neck is black with sweat and the veins are sticking out. His eyes are bulging a little, like they’ve just glimpsed something unfathomable.

  As we make our way back toward the rows of dark green barns, other hotwalkers and grooms look at me like I’m dessert. There aren’t exactly a lot of women around here, and from what I’ve gathered, most of the workers live on the track and don’t get out much. I think the only women they ever see are owners—who probably aren’t exactly approachable—and the occasional female trainer or backstretch worker, none of them renowned for their beauty. Though I’m not exactly the Sex Goddess of the World, my stock is evidently running pretty high here on the Belmont backside.

  I find Sebastian outside the barn, bathing Miss Seattle, the bay filly who just had a schooling session with the dreaded starting gate—the metal contraption the horses have to learn to pop out of, going from zero to forty in fractions of seconds.

  Macy is holding the filly, talking to
her as Sebastian dunks her tail in a bucket of suds. I start walking Lotus Cat in little circles, not sure if I’m supposed to bathe him myself or what. I keep hoping Macy will look up and volunteer his help. He does not.

  “Uh, am I supposed to bathe this colt?” I ask tentatively.

  Macy and Sebastian both stop what they’re doing and stare at me. They make an abruptly contrasting pair, Macy big and very white, Sebastian thin and black, with most of his narrow face obscured by the brim of a maroon-colored Jockey Club Gold Cup baseball cap.

  I offer a tentative smile.

  “Hotwalkers don’t bathe,” Sebastian says curtly.

  “Ah,” I say. I walk the colt around in a circle.

  Sebastian suddenly wheels around to look at me again. “Get the tack off that horse.” He frowns. “Then unwrap him,” he adds, motioning to the wrappings on the colt’s legs.

  I peel off the exercise saddle and padding. Lotus Cat stands still as a saint as I crouch down and unwrap the bandages from his hind legs.

  A few minutes later I hold the colt as Sebastian starts bathing him. Lotus Cat isn’t very pleased about this and dances and tugs on the lead shank.

  “Stop dancing,” I tell him, tugging back. He flicks one ear forward, like he’s considering my request. He stops dancing.

  Sebastian actually grins up at me from under the brim of his cap. I guess I haven’t ever seen him smile. His whole face is transformed, the narrow severity broken up by a wide grin full of even teeth.

  Sebastian soaks the colt’s red coat with warm water, carefully rubbing between the ears, under the forelock, and down between the eyes. The colt starts snorting and blowing snot on me, then suddenly leans into me and rubs his huge heavy head against my chest, nearly knocking me backward.