The Magnum Equation

by Lisa Wysocky

  Bubba was what one might politely call pudgy, but he looked to have grown an inch or so in the past few months without adding any weight. It was a slight, but nice, improvement.

  “I didn’t even know you were here, Bubba. Hang around and I’ll put you to work.”

  “Can’t. Me and Dad, we’re gatherin’ info for that there blog he’s writin’, so I gotta move on along, but I jus’ wanted to say you rocked, man.”

  And before I could ask him if he’d found anything interesting for his dad to write about, he was gone.

  Cat’s Horse Tip #4

  “A horse knows from the second he sees you if you fall into the category of people who are dangerous, or if you are non-threatening. If only people were that perceptive.”

  11

  AN HOUR OR SO LATER everyone had dispersed. Darcy had gone back to the coliseum to watch the tail end of the jumping, and Agnes and Lars took Agnes’s purse to the Stones River Battlefield, which was only a few miles up the road. This part of Tennessee had seen a lot of battle during the “War of Northern Aggression” and Stones River was one of the major Civil War battle sites. Because Agnes carried vials of her dearly departed husbands’ ashes in her purse, she thought maybe they could communicate with the soldiers who died on the battlefield––or something like that. In any case, it kept her busy.

  I had changed into shorts and a tank top and had dumped much of the ice that was left over from the party into the large thermos I carried around with me during the summer months. I topped the ice off with a fresh mix of orange juice and Sprite and sat on a huge tack trunk rearranging assignments for the next few days. With the show moving forward, classes that had been postponed due to the death of Dr. Carruthers were now being worked back into the schedule. That meant some of the other classes had to be moved and I had to redo exercise, bathing, and other schedules for the coming week. It also turned out that even after the mass exodus of youth kids, there were still enough to hold youth classes, although most of the kids who stayed were older teens.

  Hank had eaten one too many blue corn chips at the party and was asleep on his back in the corner of the tack room, his bloated tummy bright pick and pointed skyward. Jon was polishing silver trim on Gigi’s leather show halter, as her class would be held the next morning. Even though we kept tack with silver on it in special bags, much as you would with heirloom silverware, our show silver never stayed shiny more than a few days.

  “That was a nice party,” I said. “I know Darcy and Agnes did most of the work, but I know you were in on it, too.”

  Jon grinned.

  “I just wish Tony could have been there. And Debra,” I added. “Have you heard anything? Any updates on the colts?”

  Jon’s grin faded.

  “What?” I asked. “You’ve heard something. Tell me.”

  Jon gave me a level look before he said, “I didn’t want to spoil your celebration, but Noah called during the party. He had hoped to be there but he had a call from Tony … and––”

  “And what? Jon, the only way you’ll spoil anything is if you don’t tell me.”

  “And … Tony called to say Temptation died.”

  Tears sprang from my eyes and streamed down my face. Dagnabbit, Temptation wasn’t even my horse. I had only even glimpsed him once. But I was saddened all the same. This shouldn’t have happened. Yearling colts should not be living at an equine hospital and veterinarians should not have their last hurrah in a port-a-potty.

  I slammed my clipboard down and stood up, all pumped up with nowhere to go. Hank, even though he was in dreamland, sensed something was wrong and woke up enough to wag himself over to me and lean against my calves. I sat back down and rubbed Hank’s back.

  “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” Jon said, eyeing me cautiously. I came from a line of Irish people who were a wee bit on the emotional side and Jon had learned when I needed space and when I needed to talk. Today, talk won out.

  “You can make it up to me by telling me what you and Tony were arguing about near the concession stand,” I said. Now it was my turn to eye Jon. He and Tony had always been on edge around each other and I never understood it. Here were two of my favorite people, each like family to me, but around each other each was wound up tighter than an eight-day clock.

  But instead of telling me what he and Tony had been talking about, Jon got up and walked out the door.

  My jaw actually dropped when Jon left, but before I could close my mouth, Darcy bounded in with Amanda, Melanie, Bubba, and a tall, thin coffee-skinned kid with hair so short I thought he might have forgotten to shave his head this morning.

  “You okay, Cat?” Darcy asked, and then continued without giving me a chance to answer. “This is Hunter.” I assumed she meant the one person I did not know. “We’ve been ‘observing’ a few things around the show grounds that we thought we should report to a responsible adult.”

  “And that would be me?” I asked.

  “Yes, Miz Enright,” said Hunter. “We were going to talk to my dad but he has a horse ready to jump and doesn’t like to be distracted before he goes in.”

  Hunter, it turned out, was the fourteen-year-old son of Reed Northbrook, an Olympic caliber trainer and rider. I have to say that the names of people who were associated with the English disciplines were much better than those of the rest of us. You just cannot compare Sloan, Reed, and Hunter, to Bubba, Darcy, Jon, Agnes, or Cat. Well, technically I was Mary Catherine, but still. However, the name Ambrose, I thought, catching a glimpse of our security guard as he passed by the door, had real potential.

  “So then, what have you found out?”

  The kids all began to talk at once and by the time I sorted out the information I had the following four observations:

  One, Cam kissed Sloan in his tack room, even though she wore a rock as big as Gibraltar on her ring finger. Hadn’t stopped him before, so no reason to think it was an issue for him now.

  Two, Noah had grabbed a few hours of sleep in the show office between his own night patrols. He probably was taking all of this personally and wanted to leave no stone unturned.

  “But what if that’s all a front?” Amanda asked. “What if he just wants everyone to think that he cares?”

  I assured Amanda that I had known Noah for many years and that he was the least likely person in the world to be part of a murder, or anything that would hurt a horse.

  Three, they also found out that Mike Lansing wanted to begin selling arena maintenance equipment, such as the kind that smoothed out riding surfaces, but Judy was against it and the subject was a source of an ongoing disagreement between the two. No matter, I just could not picture Judy cutting her husband’s cinch just because he wanted to start a little side business.

  And finally, the biggest piece of news was about Debra Dudley. Bubba had discovered that Debra’s husband’s money came from naked baby photos. Not the pornographic kind of baby photos, but baby modeling. Debra’s husband had been Baby Brandon. In the early 1970s adorable little Baby Brandon had posed for an ad for a diaper rash cream. That led to ads for everything from diapers to baby oil and before you could spit, endorsement deals and merchandising. The biggest of these was the Baby Brandon doll. For a few years, Baby Brandon gave Barbie a run for her money.

  Long story short, Brandon’s parents had invested the money well, and by the time Brandon turned twenty-one, he found himself a millionaire many times over. There was still an ongoing source of royalties and residuals, but that, according to Bubba (and who knew how he found this stuff out) was drying up, and Debra and her husband were in dire financial straits.

  Hmmm. Would Brandon Dudley kill his own horse for the insurance money? There was sure to be a hefty policy on a colt that stunning. Could he have gotten Star to colic to deflect attention from Temptation? I had never met the man, but I knew I had to find out more about him.

  “This is all great info,” I said, “but are you sure it is true? No exaggerations?” This last comment I directed t
oward Bubba who had been known to tell a tall tale or two.

  No, no, they all assured me. Every word was fact.

  “So how, exactly, did you discover all of this information?” I asked.

  “Kids can ask a lot of questions and adults don’t think anything other than that we are pesky little kids,” said Amanda. “Plus, we can hang out and adults talk as if we weren’t even there.”

  I hadn’t considered that, but it was true, I thought. What they told me was just as they had overheard it sitting behind people in the stands, or hanging out in the bathroom, or loitering near stalls. No one paid any attention to a kid.

  “Bubba?” called a voice from the other side of the shower stalls. “Bubba, where the heck you got to now?”

  Hill Henley wandered up our aisle and Bubba went out to greet his dad.

  “I thought I tol’ you to stay put by them big dumpster bins until I got done with my meetin’,” said Hill. “You allus wander off, and it seems,” he said taking in his surroundings for the first time, “that you allus wander to Miz Enright. You haven’t been tellin’ her anythin’ about my meetin’ now, have ya?”

  “No, Dad, I—”

  “You better be keepin’ private things private, now.”

  Bubba did his best to placate his dad as Hill led his son toward the coliseum. At the end of the aisle, Bubba turned his head and gave a casual wave of his hand and I discreetly waved back.

  When it came to Hill, my opinion had always been that it was better for him to keep his mouth shut and appear stupid than it was to open it and remove all doubt. What, I wondered, had been the nature of Hill’s meeting, and just whom had he met with?

  12

  BY LATE AFTERNOON THE JUMPING was over and the Dressage preliminaries were being held. Dressage is a training method where the rider guides the horse through a series of complex maneuvers by slight movements of seat, hands, and legs. The history of Dressage traces back more than two thousand years and in fact, in French, it means something akin to training.

  Agnes had asked me to sit with her while she watched the event, and I agreed. Even though she often tap-danced on my last nerve, she also made me smile. Agnes had a heart of gold and was a dear friend, and I had not had much time to spend with her since she arrived. Plus, when Sloan stopped by our celebration she was on her way to prep one of her horses for this event. My new friend had supported me, and now I wanted to do the same for her.

  Jon had still not returned, but he was scheduled to feed soon, so I knew he’d be back. No matter how angry or upset he was, Jon always took care of his responsibilities. I left him a note that asked him to give Wheeler and Reddi their hay only, as Amanda and I were going to ride in the coliseum during the break between the afternoon and evening performances. Too much grain before exercise could give a horse a bit of colic––a word I hoped never to hear again any time soon. Then I locked the tack room door, waved at Ambrose, and walked toward the coliseum.

  Hank, of course, started to follow but I explained to him, as I had many times before, that dogs were not allowed inside the coliseum. Besides, I told him that he needed to guard our horses. Hank wagged his tail, then went back to the end of our aisle to resume chewing on his stick. Even though Hank had some beagle in him––his other lineage was anyone’s guess––he did not roam. If I told Hank to stay by the stalls, well, that’s just what he would do. And I knew, too, if anyone he did not know tried to get into the tack room or open a stall door, Hank would let loose with such a howling that people would come running just to get him to shut up. He wasn’t named after the country music legend Hank Williams for nothing.

  I caught up with Agnes on the far side of the coliseum, near Section 220. Lars gave me a nod and bumped my hand as I sat down next to her, then disappeared into the vendor area. I smiled, because I knew Lars could use a few minutes away from his effervescent boss to decompress. Keeping up with Agnes must be like trying to herd cats.

  Dressage competitions are divided into several levels, and this was a third level class, so we were being entertained with such advanced moves as half-passes and flying lead changes. The horses were judged on suppleness, rhythm, thoroughness, impulsion, straightness, and many other things that could be hard for a novice such as Agnes to discern.

  “Cat, darling,” Agnes said as she patted my knee. “This is all so thrilling! Why, these horses go sideways, and sometimes it looks as if they are dancing. Let’s teach Sally to do this and enter her here next year.”

  I looked at the leggy Thoroughbred entries, and the tall Warmblood breeds such as Oldenburg, Holsteiner, and the Bavarian and Dutch Warmbloods, and tried to think how to explain to Agnes that I used a lot of basic Dressage in all of my training. At a stocky 15.2, however, Sally was not built to compete in Dressage in high levels of competition. I decided Agnes’s cheerleader background might open her to a sports analogy.

  “Agnes, have you ever played basketball?”

  “Me? Goodness no. I’m too short, dear. I was head cheerleader my senior year in high school, though, and our basketball team went all the way to the state championships. But, my husband Seth’s cousin played college ball. My, he was a looker.”

  I decided not to ask if Agnes was talking about Seth or his cousin.

  “Well, see each of those horses?” I asked. “They are the equivalent of basketball players. Their legs are a lot longer than Sally’s, and they carry their necks higher than Sally does. It would be wonderful to see Sally in a class like this, but it would be unfair to ask her to compete in something that she is not physically built to do.”

  Agnes didn’t miss a beat. “Then what about polo?” she asked. “That Prince William plays polo and he is one handsome young man. I wouldn’t mind getting a closer look at him. Do you think if Sally did polo that we’d get to meet the prince?”

  “Ah, no,” I said. “I think that would be a long shot.”

  Then it was my turn to pat Agnes on her knee.

  Sloan did well enough to qualify for the final round of competition, which would be held the next day. She gave us a nod as she exited the arena and a yucky picture of her and Cam floated into my mind. Should I let her know what a dud muffin he really was? Or, should I leave well enough alone?

  Before I could decide, Lars returned to take Agnes off to dinner and I headed back to our stalls to meet Amanda and tack Reddi. But first I made a little detour and stopped at the Zinner stalls to see how Starmaker was doing.

  I found Annie picking manure out of the stall of a cute, two-year-old, bay leopard mare––a cousin to Star on her sire’s side. As Annie moved droppings from her rake to a large muck bucket she told me that Tony hadn’t returned from the equine hospital yet but Star was holding his own. Then she fainted dead away.

  Cat’s Horse Tip #5

  “Many domestic horses (about a third) have myopia (near-sightedness), with few being far-sighted. Wild horses, however, are usually far-sighted.”

  13

  ANNIE LANDED ON HER LEFT side in the stall’s deep shavings. Holy crap. I didn’t know if I should move the mare first or see to Annie. Maybe I should start CPR. But if I did that, would the mare panic and trample the both of us? Then again, if I moved the mare first I might take precious time away from my friend, time that she desperately needed.

  I am not good in emergency situations. Not in the least bit. My brain turns into a mushy mess and no thought of any worth can get through. Fortunately, I heard voices on the backside of the stalls.

  “Help,” I shouted as I pulled out my phone. My hands were shaking so badly that I couldn’t punch in 911. “Help!”

  I heard the clank of a bucket as it hit the floor, then footsteps, and Judy Lansing and Melanie Johnston appeared. Judy did much better in dialing 911 than I did. Melanie found a halter and pulled the mare into the aisle as I fumbled to find Annie’s pulse. Fluttery, weak, but it was there.

  Even before the 911 responders could arrive, the EMTs, whose truck was parked near the entrance to the colise
um, showed up. By this time Annie was coming around and the shakiness in my legs and stomach was going away.

  When something like this happens at a show, it’s as if a vacuum sucks all the people from a two-hundred-yard radius into the area. Noah elbowed his way through the crowd and I saw Hunter’s dad block gawkers from the open stall door.

  I asked Melanie to take the mare for a walk and she nodded her head and headed for the outdoor ring. Another kid might have complained about missing all the excitement. I would have to remember to tell Judy how impressed I was with Melanie. And speaking of Judy, she not only called 911, she also called Tony. He was on his way back from the equine hospital in Thompson’s Station and, after conferring with one of the EMTs, agreed to meet the ambulance at Middle Tennessee Medical Center, the local hospital in Murfreesboro.

  I was glad they were taking Annie in. My friend was now waving off all the attention in true Annie style, but she didn’t look good. As they loaded her onto a stretcher she searched the faces in the crowd of bystanders. When she got to mine, she held out her hand.

  “Please take care of Mickey, will you? And if it’s not too much trouble, can you throw the horses some hay? It’s almost that time.”

  I nodded my head and was about to speak when Darcy jumped in. “I’ll help, Miss Annie. We can feed grain, too. Isn’t your feed chart in your tack room?”

  Annie nodded, but the effort was almost too much for her and she closed her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered. Then the EMTs rolled her away.

  I asked Darcy to find Melanie and the mare, and to bring them back.

  “I’m on it. We can, like, take care of the feeding, too,” she said looking at her watch. Isn’t it time for you to meet Amanda?”

  Amanda! I had forgotten about her. She had a class tomorrow and this would be her only opportunity to get into the coliseum with Wheeler. I was torn. Part of me wanted to be at the hospital with Annie, and part of me wanted to stay here and help feed the horses.