by Maggie Estep
“Frank didn’t say nothing about feeding,” the cowboy grumbles.
“It probably wasn’t foremost on his mind. Please. Joe’s hungry.”
“Joe?”
“The colt.”
“Oh yeah? I used to have an Appaloosa named Joe,” Coleman reflects, turning back to look at Joe and me. “That is one hungry-looking horse,” he concedes.
After a few more moments Coleman comes into the stall and unceremoniously dumps a scoop of grain onto the floor under Joe’s water bucket. Joe, who’s not accustomed to eating off the floor, actually pauses and looks confused for a minute before finally putting his nose to the ground and eating.
“Thank you,” I tell the cowboy who just grunts, then shuffles down the aisle and goes back outside.
I watch Joe eat, which makes me wonder if my cats have eaten. I’ve still got my phone in my pocket but I can’t reach it with the handcuffs. I start picturing the cats, starving, scared. I obsess on this image. Maybe because it beats wondering what’s gonna happen to me.
Before I’ve had time to go too far into my dark thoughts, Coleman returns and, ignoring me, starts halfheartedly raking the dank narrow aisle—though to what end I’m not sure, it’s a hopeless murk down there.
I feel like a zoo animal as I stand looking over the top of the stall door, watching Coleman, who seems completely unfazed by this, like I really am just another animal, and not a particularly noteworthy one at that.
“So where do you ride around here?” I ask conversationally, figuring I ought to shoot some questions at him, try to make him warm to me.
He looks up from his raking. “Everywhere,” he says.
“Oh yeah? Trails?”
“Trails?” He looks at me like I just fell out of the sky. “I guess you could call it that. You know. Over in the flatlands. Along Jamaica Bay some.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Sunday, though, we ride to the projects.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean me and ten or fifteen of the others spend the whole of the day Sunday riding through the projects, so the kids in there can get a look at the horses.”
“What others?”
“Other fellas from the Federation of Black Cowboys, what’d you think?”
“Oh,” is all I say, but my mind starts racing. Sebastian is a member of the Federation of Black Cowboys. What does this mean? Sebastian is in with Frank and Coleman? What? My head starts spinning.
“You mighty curious,” Coleman says now. “You thinking you gonna get out of that stall and ride away on Joe there and leave me in a pile of shit with Frank?”
“Oh no. Nothing like that.” I smile.
“That’s good, ’cause that ain’t happening. I owe that man, and he’s waited a long time to call in the favor.”
“Oh yeah?”
“That ain’t none of your business, nosy lady, now you just be quiet in there. I’ll be out of here soon. You’ll have the place to yourself awhile.”
“You’re going to leave me here like this?” I say imploringly.
“I’m gonna leave you here exactly like that, ’cause that’s the way Frank wants you. He’ll be back for you soon enough.”
I look at Coleman, and whatever tiny blossom of hope I’d felt shrivels up and dies. Though he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who goes around doing a lot of favors for white male sociopaths, neither does he seem like someone who’d welsh on a promise.
“All right, miss, you and that horse be good now. Frank’ll be back for you soon,” Coleman says, then waves and walks out of the dank little barn, leaving me there, cold and damn scared.
Sebastian Ives
32 / Extra Heat
It’s taken some serious dedication on my part, but I’ve finally got Asha giving me the time of day again. After our disastrous picnic, I couldn’t find her anywhere. Then, this morning, she was riding a few for John Troxler so I saw my chance. I got the girl hotwalker, Ruby, to do a little extra work so I could take time to hang on the rail with Troxler, on the pretense of thanking him for Pedro’s help the previous day. Of course, I was really putting myself where Asha couldn’t ignore me when she hopped down off that crazy filly Troxler had her working. It was already ten-thirty so I knew this had to be Asha’s last mount of the morning. Sure enough, she handed the filly to the groom and came over to have a word with Troxler. She did a little double take when she saw me, nodded at me curtly, then talked with Troxler about the filly’s problems. I pretended to be intensely interested in the conversation, and I think it made Troxler suspicious. He was probably wondering if I was spying for Arnie, trying to find out if we should claim the filly if ever Troxler ran her for a tag.
As soon as Asha finished talking with the trainer, I wished Troxler a good day and followed the lady down the way, calling after her.
She turned around but didn’t look happy. “I’m in no mood for insults,” she hissed like a beautiful tiger.
“You would be the last person in the world I’d ever insult, Asha. I think very highly of you.”
“Then what was all that about yesterday? Huh?”
She was speaking very loudly and I don’t like attracting attention, but hey, if I had to do it, it might as well be because a good-looking woman was yelling at me in public.
“Can we talk about this?” I asked in a calm voice.
“That’s what we’re doing, mister,” she said, her voice still pitched pretty damn loud.
“Asha, please, can we go somewhere and speak privately?”
“Why? So you can shove me off you again? I’ve had enough of that.”
“Please?” I said softly, trying to look handsome.
She pouted, then shrugged. “Okay.”
I took her back to Gaines’s office, offered her a seat, and laid it all on the line. I told her I liked her a lot but that she came on a little strong and it made me wonder if I was just one in a string of half a million innocent men.
And then I thought she was going to kill me.
She hissed and spat that I was accusing her of being a sex maniac when in fact she simply liked me.
After that I believed her and willingly put my head on her chopping block.
When I’d finished up work for the day I drove right to her place in Floral Park—a cute little one bedroom above an electrolysis shop. I half expected to find her lounging naked on a bearskin rug, but I was off the mark. She was dressed in pretty velvet pants and a nice white top. She’d brushed her hair out so it was almost tame.
“Hi,” she said, voice gentle, seeming nothing like the hissing firecat she’d been earlier.
She showed me in. Her place was a little cluttered but clean. Two large furry cats rubbed against my legs and I saw approval on Asha’s face as I bent down to pet them.
Standing up, I looked around and complimented the apartment. “Who’s that?” I said, pointing to an enormous photograph of a racehorse that hung above the fireplace.
“That’s Xtra Heat, of course,” Asha said, and I remembered her mentioning she’d worked the champion mare a few times down at Laurel Park, in Maryland.
“You remind me of her,” I said then, not sure what I meant by it.
“Thank you.” She gulped in the compliment, which could have been interpreted the wrong way since Xtra Heat, for all her heart and speed, wasn’t the prettiest mare in the world.
We stood looking at each other for a while, then Asha made us some food. I’m not sure what it was exactly—no meat involved—but it tasted okay.
Afterward I helped her with the dishes, and for a moment I felt like we were an old married couple. It wasn’t a bad feeling. When the dishes were done, Asha took my hand and led me to the couch. I could sense she was a little afraid to make a move, so I did the work. I pulled her underneath me and kissed her hair and her neck and her cheeks and her mouth. She purred.
Eventually, I got up from the couch, pulled Asha to her feet, and led her toward what I presumed was the bedroom.
&nb
sp; It was a tiny room, mostly taken up by a big soft bed with lots of white bedding on it. We stood there, wedged between the bed and the wall, looking at each other. Again I tried to look handsome.
I started pulling her pretty shirt over her head. It got stuck in her mane and she laughed a little as she extracted herself from it. She wasn’t wearing a bra and had a lovely little chest. It was startling, though, to see how white the skin of her breasts was. Nice, but startling. Pretty soon I was pulling her velvet pants down over her splendid hind end and at last I had those gorgeous muscular thighs under my hands. I kneaded them. This made her laugh a little, like maybe I was touching them like I would a sore horse.
She pushed me backward on the bed and removed every stitch of my clothing. She inspected me from head to toe, kissing her way south. I think she was liking what she found. Her body was moving in what seemed like sort of involuntary spasms, and pretty soon she’d put a condom on me and was climbing on top of me. Her thighs were wrapped around my hips. White on brown. It was very beautiful. I sighed.
We stayed in the bed a long time. Slept some. Woke up and made love again. At one point Asha got up and made us some toast with jam.
Around eleven at night I was feeling guilty over not having tended to Prince. Neil had fed him, but I was guessing my horse was mad at being in his stall all day. When I tentatively proposed driving out to the Hole, Asha literally jumped up and down with happiness, like all her life she’d been waiting to get up in the middle of the night and go driving to the end of Queens to see a horse. Like she didn’t see enough horses as it was.
In no time we both had our clothes on and we were in my car, driving.
“We won’t stay long,” I told her. “I’ve gotta be back at the track at four-thirty.”
“Sleep is overrated,” Asha informed me, squeezing my thigh.
“Not at my age,” I told her. She laughed.
We pulled into the Hole about twenty minutes later. It was a dark night with a lot of moisture in the air. I nosed the car down the dirt road and noticed lights on in Coleman’s barn. I thought about going in to make sure everything was okay, but Coleman’s a strange man and strange men keep strange hours. I figured he just had insomnia and was checking on those natty horses of his.
I parked a few feet away from the big manure pile, just in front of Neil’s barn. Nunu let out a low growl at the strange smell of Asha, but I quickly reminded the rottweiler that she was A-okay. Nunu didn’t seem that convinced but she let the lady pass unmolested.
Prince, hearing my voice, was practically kicking his stall door down, and as I turned on a light, I saw him shaking his head like some kind of half-wild stallion.
“Wow. He’s glad to see you,” Asha commented as she went right to Hanover’s stall and let herself in. I saw her drape her arms around the huge horse’s neck. Hanover didn’t look unhappy about any of this.
“I think I’ll put him in the paddock out back, let him stretch his legs a little,” I said. “Neil probably thought I was gonna come by, so Prince probably hasn’t been out of his stall.”
I might as well have been talking to the sky, though, for all the attention Asha was paying.
I put my horse’s halter on and led him out the back of the barn and down a little path to the small paddock. The moment I let go of his halter, Prince lay down on the ground and rolled, delighting in dirtying himself up. The horse had no dignity whatsoever; he kept rolling, kicking his legs up, squealing like a foal. I stood there, watching Prince carry on, thinking about the sweet redheaded woman inside the barn. My luck was definitely on an upswing.
Ruby Murphy
33 / Panic in a Haystack
The one thought that’s kept me from completely losing it is that, for the first time, my yogic talents are going to pay off: I’m not actually handcuffed to anything, and I can probably jump through the cuffs.
As Joe finishes nuzzling at the now bald spot of dirt where his feed was, I bend forward to start warming up. I feel my hamstrings burn as I flatten my torso against my thighs and dig my chin into my shins. I slowly lift my arms up behind me, rotating them over my head as I do almost every day at the beginning of my yoga practice. I bring my arms to touch the ground. The handcuffs are actually an effective tool for keeping my hands joined the way they’re supposed to be in a perfect rendition of Prasarita Padottanasana C. As I swing my arms back up and stand, I manage to spook Joe, who lets out two short snorts and looks at me with huge eyes. I start talking to him as I go through a few more standing poses, moving slowly so as to not spook him again. I work up a light sweat, then kneel, lower my butt to the ground and, stretching my arms as long as possible behind me, crunch my torso up and start scooting my ass backward through my arms. In a few seconds I have my hands back in front of me, where they belong. I stand up, then reach both arms over the top of the stall and feel for the door latch. Which is not within reach. I spook Joe again by jumping up and draping my torso over the top of the stall door. I lean forward and unlatch the handle. The door creaks open.
I shut it behind me then make my way to the front door of the barn and think for a moment. I don’t imagine I’ll get far through the wastelands of outer Brooklyn at dawn in handcuffs. I pull my phone out, feeling a bath of relief wash over me now that help is imminent. I try turning the phone on. Only it’s not working. I push the On button several times to no avail.
Panic comes back.
I push the stable door open and look out into the weedy yard between barns. Two very serious pitbulls are chained to the stable yard fence. The beasts just stare at me, knowing that’s all they’ve got to do to keep me rooted to my spot. One of them, a honey-colored dog with a deceptively sweet face, licks her chops at the sight of me. There’s no growling. The dogs’ bodies don’t even tense up as they stare with hard marble eyes.
I look from the dogs to the road beyond the fence. The sky is starting to fill with light, wan bits of pink streaking through masses of gray. An airplane passes overhead, flying so low it seems like it’s going to land right there on the little nameless road in front of the stable. The air smells of seawater, and there are gulls arching low in the sky, just below the airplane that now dips into the horizon.
I try calculating the exact length of the pitbulls’ chains, wondering if I can make it to the opposite side of the yard and inside the other barn to look for an alternate escape route. Then there’s a flood of headlights on the dirt road and I see a compact white car nose into view. It’s probably Frank. In a borrowed car. Coming back to do what he’s going to do to me. I retreat back inside the stable and look for a hiding place.
Just above Joe’s stall is a small hayloft with two sickly bales of straw protruding over its edge. I shove a ladder against the edge of the loft and climb up clumsily, cuffed hands in front of me. Outside, I can hear a car door slamming, then the pitbulls growling a warning. I settle flat on my stomach, reach down and push the ladder away. This probably isn’t a terribly effective hiding place and will just further infuriate Frank when he finds me. But I refuse to be a sitting duck.
I hear the dogs growling out there. There’s an ominous thudding sound followed by silence.
Another plane passes overhead.
Dawn filters in through holes in the stable walls and roof.
After a time, the barn door creaks open. I lie as still as possible, peering over the edge of the loft, working hard at repressing a sneeze. The bales of straw are practically pure dust and I’ve breathed in a lot of it.
I see someone enter the barn. He’s wearing a wide-brimmed rain hat and has his head bowed down toward his chest. It’s not Frank, though. Nor Coleman. This person is very slight and moves swiftly.
He peers in a few stalls then comes to stand in front of Joe’s. He goes into the stall, takes hold of Joe’s halter, and lifts the colt’s upper lip to look at the identifying tattoo there. I can now see the person in profile and I see the scar. The long pink scar marking an otherwise flawless face.
Jo
e doesn’t look too pleased with the way Ariel is manhandling him. The colt pins his ears back, shakes his head, and takes a nip at Ariel’s sleeve. This doesn’t go over well. Ariel hisses at the colt and, to my horror, whacks him on the side of the head. I feel sick. Ariel is now out of my line of sight but I hear her foraging, and a few seconds later she comes back into the stall, holding what looks like a heavy-duty extension cord. The thing is split down the middle and she’s attached metal clips to its ends. I watch her approach Joe again. The colt pins his ears. Ariel roughly takes hold of his halter and talks to him, attempting a soothing whisper. She pulls Joe’s head down and starts trying to stick one end of the extension cord into his nostril Joe backs up. Undaunted, Ariel produces a twitch, a frightening gizmo that looks like a billyclub with a loop of thick chain at one end. She doesn’t have much success putting the twitch on Joe’s lip, though, and Joe is getting increasingly agitated. So, for that matter, is Ariel. I can’t figure out what the hell she’s trying to do but I know it’s not in the horse’s best interest. My heartbeat is coming so fast and loud I feel like Ariel is going to hear it. My hands are shaking. I try to calm myself, to think.
By now Ariel has managed to get the twitch on Joe’s lip. She twists it fiercely so that if the colt jerks to either side, it’ll hurt him. I watch her lift the colt’s tail and insert one end of the extension cord in the horse’s anus. With a wave of nausea, I realize she’s going to plug the extension cord in and electrocute Joe. Easy to pass off as a heart attack.
There’s a pitchfork just outside Joe’s stall, and I get onto my knees and get ready to jump down, grab the pitchfork, and slam it over Ariel’s head. Then several things happen at once. I jump down, landing very painfully on hands and knees, and at the same time I hear a crashing sound inside the stall.
I get to my feet in time to see Joe rear and then come down, smashing into Ariel, who lets out an inhuman scream and keels forward. The colt darts to the other side of the stall. I look in and see Ariel lying on the straw with a crescent-shaped gash in her forehead. Blood drips into her eyes as she stares at me.