Unbridled Murder

by Leigh Hearon

  “This is just a stopover. I’m headed to Spokane to visit a friend.” Even without Jessica’s cautionary words ringing in her ears, Annie had no intention of telling Mindy or anyone she didn’t know what her intentions were. She suspected that many ranchers had little or no issue with rounding up unwanted horses and selling them for slaughter. She’d seen enough of the countryside to intuit this. The horses she’d seen on the way to the café had looked about as prized and well-tended as a flock of sheep or herd of cattle, and might be valued as little as livestock. She couldn’t be sure, of course, but she was taking no chances.

  “You own horses?”

  Annie momentarily froze. Did Mindy suspect her real reason for being here? She smiled, and hoped it looked natural.

  “Matter of fact, I do. Five of them. Plus a donkey to watch my sheep.”

  “Thought so by the trailer hitch on your truck. Where do you live when you’re not on the road visiting friends?”

  Observant little minx, isn’t she? Annie thought. And a nosy one.

  “My home’s on the Olympic Peninsula. A place that gets a lot more rain than you probably do.”

  “And a lot less snow.” Mindy chuckled. “Well, if you’re a horse person, you really ought to check out the wild horses on the rez just ahead when you’re passing through. Although if you’re heading out in the morning, you won’t see as much as you would now. It’s quite a sight to see them galloping below the ridge. They’re protected by tribal law, of course, so roam free.”

  Annie knew the average life span of a horse that “roamed free” was considerably less than a domesticated one, but the chance to see a wild herd at sunset intrigued her.

  “Thanks, Mindy, I think I’ll do that. Where would I get the best view? I assume no one from the tribal police is going to hassle me.”

  “Naw, naw. No one’s going to bother you. Just keep heading out east, and take the third road to the left. You’ll follow a long, winding road for a couple of miles. Stop at the crest, and you should get a fine view from anywhere up there. Got a camera?”

  Annie grinned and pulled out her smartphone. “My new trusty friend.”

  “Enjoy yourself. What you’re watching won’t be around much longer.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The tribe thinks there are too many horses on their land. Claim they harm the vegetation and water sources. Now they’ve got federal funding to help pay for reducing the herd. It’s a shame, isn’t it? The animal they used to revere is now rounded up and destroyed.”

  Annie decided she could trust Mindy, after all.

  “It’s a terrible shame. I wish there was a better solution.”

  “Honey, so do I. Well, enjoy the sight while you can. What you’re seeing is a dying breed.”

  * * *

  Annie followed Mindy’s directions to the letter. The road leading up to the ridge was a tad too precipitous for her comfort level, but Annie persisted. To call the road two-way would be presumptuous, and she hoped she’d not encounter any vehicle wending its way down. The drop-off was about as sheer as any Annie had ever encountered, and there were no guardrails in sight.

  She finally emerged on a small plateau overlooking a deep canyon and turned off the ignition, careful to put the parking brake on. Stepping outside the truck, she slammed her door shut and was aware of the absolute silence that reigned in this elevated clime. Except for the flutter of a very faint breeze and the sound of her footsteps crunching on dusty gravel, there were no other sounds. She felt absolutely alone.

  Then she felt the horses through the soles of her boots. It was an almost infinitesimal tremor, but she knew it was real. Wolf sensed it, too. He stood alert on all four paws and made an inquisitive sound in his throat. Annie walked quietly to the lip of the plateau and scanned the vast valley below. She saw nothing for a minute or two. Then, all of a sudden, the herd was upon her, racing from the east across the landscape below. There must have been more than a hundred, she thought, although it was impossible to count. The horses were traveling so fast that their shapes blurred together. Dust swirled around them, so while Annie knew they were in a flat-out gallop, she could barely see their feet move, they were traveling so fast. Annie observed one black horse—undoubtedly a stallion—leading the herd. As the stream of horses rushed by, she noticed a number of foals in the back, clinging close to their mothers and doing an admirable job of keeping up with the adults that preceded them. She watched the herd disappear into the valley and listened as the sound of their hooves gradually faded away. She stood still long after they were gone. She knew she’d witnessed the most magnificent display of strength and power she ever hoped to see. It was as if in a few short minutes she had seen the embodiment of all that was good and great about the horse, the magnificent animal that so many people wanted to destroy.

  “Run while you can,” she murmured. “Run while you can.”

  She was so intent with her thoughts that she never noticed the two pairs of eyes carefully watching her from behind a rock.

  CHAPTER 9

  TUESDAY, AUGUST 9

  Annie was in a panic. She’d awakened the next morning with Maria’s words ringing in her ears: “As I understand it, the horses are paid for, so all we need to do is to load and go.”

  Yes, they were, but what proof did she have? Sure, she’d talked with Myrna and the crotchety old woman had seemed to accept that Annie was a colleague of the late Tony Elizalde. But they hadn’t talked much about money. Tony had told Annie he’d demanded a receipt, but where was it now? Probably reduced to ashes in that unholy conflagration near Snoqualmie Pass. If Myrna was an honest businesswoman—and that Annie doubted—all should go as planned. If she wasn’t, Annie might be asked to fork over another sizeable payment. Right now all she had three hundred dollars in cash to cover the horses’ so-called care and feeding for the past six days. Would that be enough? As Annie recalled, Myrna had warned, “It’ll cost you.” But how much? Perhaps she should have accepted Travis’s offer of up-front money, just to be on the safe side. Well, it was too late now.

  She checked out of the motel, hitched the trailer back to her truck, and was waiting inside the Browning café by 11:30 AM. She’d skipped breakfast at the motel—Wolf’s dog food looked more appetizing than what she’d seen on the breakfast bar—and gratefully accepted a cup of coffee from the waitress now. Maria arrived fifteen minutes later. Annie recognized her as if she had known her all her life—she had the air of a confident horsewoman as well as someone who was comfortable with her place in the world. She wore a bright turquoise blouse, around which a multicolored scarf was draped, while bold silver bracelets jangled against her warm brown skin. Her long black hair was tied back but still graced the small of her back. She was beautiful, Annie thought, and wondered why she could never achieve this aura of femininity, no matter how hard she tried. Well, the truth was she didn’t try very often. Maybe that was the problem.

  Annie rose to greet Maria, who enveloped her in a soft hug. Surprised, Annie responded in kind. Maybe it was the ordeal of the last week that was making her all mushy. Whatever it was, Annie was not averse to the change she saw slowly emerging within her.

  “I hope you haven’t been waiting long,” Maria said, sitting down with a flourish.

  “Not at all. Just stocking up on good coffee that was sadly deficient at my motel this morning.”

  “I’m not surprised. I hope you slept well?”

  “Like a lamb. Not a lot of traffic comes through here to disturb your sleep.”

  Maria laughed. “Ain’t that the truth.”

  They spent the next few minutes perusing the menu. Annie had already decided on huevos rancheros, and Maria chose a Cobb salad. Preliminaries over, Maria rested her elbows on the table and leaned in toward her guest.

  “So, Annie. Have you ever been to a feedlot before?”

  “This is my maiden voyage.”

  “Let me take the liberty of telling you what to expect. It can be a bit daunting
the first time.”

  This was precisely what Annie was afraid of. “I’m all ears,” she said bravely.

  “You have to remember that George and Myrna consider horses part of the food chain—and no higher up that chain than livestock. I’d like to think it’s the only way they can live with what they do, although that’s probably giving them too much credit. And they care for them accordingly.

  “Annie, you’re going to see horses who are significantly underweight, whose hooves haven’t been touched in a year, and many that have untended injuries. It’ll break your heart. The feedlot owners will patch them up as much as they can. They’re not totally inhuman, but their care is only predicated on the animal’s being well enough to ship by the time transport arrives to take them to the slaughterhouse. They’re actually fed rather well, and when you think about it, it makes sense. The more weight that goes in the transport vans, the more money they make. But be prepared to see some horses that are in terrible physical states. For them, at least their suffering is finite although the road to death is still a long and traumatic one.”

  Annie slowly nodded. Her appetite was quickly fading.

  “You’ll also see a lot of horses that look perfectly healthy, such as the four Tony and you picked out and purchased. But you’re only taking four, not forty, and that will break your heart, too, because you know that, through no fault of their own, they’re being sacrificed for easy money.

  “What I’m saying is that it’s difficult for anyone who loves horses to visit a feedlot and not be affected by what they see, hear, and smell. There’s no way I can adequately prepare you for the experience, but I do want you to walk in there with your eyes open and knowing what to expect.”

  To her extreme embarrassment, Annie realized that she was starting to cry.

  Maria put her arm on Annie’s. “It’s okay to be upset, Annie. We all cry. And then we wipe our tears and try to save as many as we can.”

  Their food arrived. Annie fumbled with her napkin to wipe her eyes. She wasn’t sure she could eat.

  “How do you do it?” she asked Maria. It was an open-ended question, but Maria knew exactly what Annie was asking.

  “It took me years to be able to go to Myrna’s place and not curl up in a ball afterwards and weep,” she replied. “It gets easier over time. But I will tell you that witnessing the relentless selling of horses for slaughter also makes you more determined to stop the cycle. It becomes your life work.”

  “But it seems so hopeless.”

  Maria nodded. “It does. Which is why we can never lose hope. And there is some cause to think things will get better. Right now, the Washington legislature is discussing a bill that would make transporting horses for human consumption illegal in our state.”

  Annie looked up. This was the first thing Maria had said that was not profoundly depressing.

  Maria smiled and put down her fork. “The House bill under discussion is partly based on the grounds that horses are not part of the human food chain, and it’s impossible to humanely slaughter horses in the way it’s done now. But that’s not the real selling point of this bill. It’s the very reasonable fact that it’s impossible to track the medical histories of the vast majority of these horses, and so the meat itself is questionable and unsafe to eat.”

  “Ah, yes,” Annie said bitterly. “Appeal to the consumers’ concerns, not the horses’.”

  “We’ll use any argument necessary if it helps pass that bill.”

  Annie managed to make a dent in her breakfast before Maria looked at her watch and informed her that it was time to leave.

  “There’s one more thing to keep in mind,” she said, as they exited the small café. “George and Myrna aren’t complete demons. They do take adequate care of the horses that come to them, and as I said, they feed them well. If they weren’t operating the Loman feedlot, someone else would. You have to remember that they’re only one small part of the problem.”

  “And that is?”

  “Too many horses, Annie, and too many people who think horses are disposable, from racetrack owners to backyard breeders. And yet we keep breeding them. There are many toxic cycles at work when it comes to unwanted horses, and we have to break all of them, not just one or two, if horses are ever to be truly safe.”

  Annie followed Maria, who drove a beat-up Toyota pickup that Annie pegged as her primary farm truck. As they headed back toward Loman, Annie thought about her own horses, all of which had come to her because they were unwanted by their previous owners. Even Trooper’s life had hung in the balance while Hilda Colbert was alive, since she had been convinced that an injury had impacted the horse’s ability to perform in the riding arena. People were nuts, Annie thought. There should be a test for horse owners. But deep down, she knew Maria was right. There were simply too many horses and way too few dedicated owners.

  * * *

  The road leading into the Loman feedlot was nondescript, to say the least. Annie never would have found it on her own, and she was glad that Maria was leading, and for more reasons than merely her navigational acumen.

  She followed Maria’s pickup for another mile and watched it turn right again and stop in front of an electric gate. She watched Maria roll down her window, push a button, and wait. After a few seconds, the gate slowly opened, and the Toyota, followed by Annie’s F-250 and trailer, entered. On the right was a huge circular paddock packed with horses. Annie took her cue from Maria and parked underneath a row of aspens adjacent to the paddock. She noticed that there was no source of shade in the horses’ pen.

  Maria walked over to a short, scrawny woman, who was gesticulating to another woman who loomed over her. The smaller woman had a baseball cap on, and a few strands of grey hair poked out underneath it. The cut seemed to resemble a boy’s. The woman she was addressing was dressed in riding breeches and a sleeveless shirt. Annie assumed that the small, craggy woman was Myrna, but she couldn’t fathom who the other woman might be. She looked totally incongruous in this setting. Annie imagined her on the back of a Hanoverian in a dressage arena, perhaps being schooled by her friend Patricia Winters, the operations manager for Running Track Farms, a rehab/boarding facility for premier sports horses. Patricia was also an instructor in dressage, something Annie knew nothing about. She had a feeling that the tall, elegant woman in front of her probably did.

  She decided to double-check the latches and locks on the trailer rather than crash what obviously was a private matter, but as she started to turn back, she saw Maria gesture to her. Reluctantly, Annie slowly walked up to the group, where a heated conversation was taking place.

  “He just doesn’t fit my daughter’s riding needs right now,” the tall woman was patiently telling the woman Annie assumed was Myrna.

  “Well, that’s fine and dandy, but as I’ve told you, I’ve got a full lot.”

  “You can squeeze him in.”

  “No, I can’t. Until the transport comes, I don’t have any more room.”

  “It’s just one horse.”

  “And that’s one horse too many.”

  “Please.”

  Myrna glared at the woman. Finally, she said, “I can only give you a hundred dollars for him.”

  “Fine.”

  “All right. Let’s see what you’ve brought.”

  Annie watched as the woman strode back to her own trailer, a six-stall deluxe model, and one that Annie was sure offered air-conditioning. The woman pulled up the handle to unlock the rear door and disappeared. She emerged a minute later leading a tall, chestnut Thoroughbred who looked at least four hundred pounds underweight by Annie’s reckoning. The horse looked a bit dazed, as if he wasn’t sure where he was or why he was here.

  Buddy, you don’t want to know, thought Annie.

  The horse delicately stepped down the ramp and docilely followed the woman. Myrna gave the Thoroughbred a quick once-over.

  “He’s a bit skinny,” she said disapprovingly. “I don’t have much time to fatten him up.”
r />   The woman said nothing but simply handed over the lead rope to Myrna.

  “Come to my office, and I’ll pay you,” the feedlot owner said grudgingly.

  “His name’s Eddie. He just doesn’t fit my daughter’s riding program right now,” the woman repeated.

  Annie stared at Maria, who was looking back at her. When Myrna and her customer were out of earshot, Maria said in a low voice, “And this is how feedlots are filled.”

  Annie wanted to kill the woman. But she didn’t have time. It appeared that Eddie’s own life was now on the line. Myrna had unlocked one of the paddock gates and was leading the Thoroughbred in. She undid his halter and without a backward glance, left and refastened the gate. Annie was aghast. She could see the lot contained at least fifty horses, several of which were stallions. She couldn’t imagine what was going to happen to this lovely Thoroughbred once the other horses realized a new lodger had entered their midst. And that would be any second now. She ran to the paddock to observe more closely.

  “Easy, Annie,” she heard Maria say behind her. “This happens all the time. He’ll learn to adjust.”

  Learn to adjust? Annie watched in horror as one after another male horses lunged menacingly at the Thoroughbred, then bit, kicked, and aggressively chased him away. Myrna must have just finished feeding because most of the horses had their heads through livestock feeding grates and were eating hay strewn outside. But that didn’t stop most horses from taking a break to tell the newcomer that he was now the new bottom of the herd. Annie watched the Thoroughbred duck and weave and try to escape the increasing crowd of horses intent on making his lowly status stick.

  Annie could barely stand to watch. She knew there was nothing she could do.

  * * *

  Once Eddie’s transaction was complete, Maria and Annie approached Myrna as soon as she emerged from her office. As Annie had feared, new obstacles quickly rose to the surface. Myrna insisted that Annie had promised to show up the day before, and it took all of Annie’s self-control not to argue the point.