by Lisa Wysocky
Darcy saw the indecision on my face. “Go,” she said. “Tony’s with Annie. Melanie and I have the horses. You take Mickey and find Amanda, and I will meet you later, at the hotel.”
Reluctantly, I headed to our stalls.
Jon had Wheeler and Reddi tacked. He gave me a rueful grin and I smiled back. There was unfinished business between us, and between Jon and Tony, but now was not the time. Because horse shows are a hotbed of gossip, Jon already knew that Annie had fainted and had been transported. Without missing a beat he had stepped in, and I was grateful.
One of my goals with Amanda was to give independence to her riding, and also to her with Wheeler. But she was small, even for eleven, and due to the stroke she had suffered before she was born she had limited strength and movement on her left side. Because of that, she could not yet get the saddle or bridle on her horse. The key word here was “yet,” for I believed that someday she would be able to do these tasks for herself. But, not today.
Jon carried our two-step portable mounting block to the end of the barn and placed it on the paved path that ran around the building. I gave Amanda a leg up, then climbed onto the block, put my foot into the stirrup, and swung my leg over Reddi.
There were vast differences between the western style saddle that Amanda had on Wheeler, and the English saddle seat gear I had on Reddi. The deep seat and the horn on the western saddle made Amanda feel more secure, and the one-armed style of reining allowed her to use her stronger right hand and arm to help steer. Most western riders held their reins in their left hand, which traditionally kept the right hand free to open gates or swing a rope. But, horse show rulebooks usually allowed a rider to use either their left hand or their right.
In addition, the slow western jog trot did not require Amanda to post, to rise up and down at the trot, as English riders did. Amanda’s left leg was almost as strong as her right one, but not quite, and posting was tiring for her. Someday!
My saddle seat saddle was flat, with no hint of a horn. This style of riding favored big trots and horses that had a personality that was far more on edge than horses who excelled in western pleasure.
If I had been scheduled to ride another horse I might have switched gears and coached Amanda from a front row seat in the coliseum. Horses are so sensitive to the moods and emotions of humans that my shaky mental state and worry about Annie might confuse another horse. But Reddi loved drama. Any excuse to tense up, to be on the alert, and she was all about it; my shaky mind-set just gave her a reason. Reddi was the perfect saddle seat horse.
Amanda had competed last month at the Appaloosa youth nationals. It had been her first big show and her nerves had gotten the better of her. She made the cut and came back for the finals in her equitation class, a class judged on the rider’s form and ability to ride the horse, but got the gate in everything else. That’s why this preparatory ride was so important for her. Wheeler was an old pro. He had taken several youth riders to championships, so this was old hat to him. But Amanda needed some mental guidance if she was to be competitive here.
We started on the rail, side-by-side at the walk. I first asked Amanda to view everything she saw with a blue or purple haze because, as Agnes often said, blue was the color of champions. We then isolated vision, sight, and sound. Amanda discovered the parts of the arena that were cooler due to the circulation of the air conditioning, and how on the arena floor the sound became flat, yet still had a mild echo.
Then I walked her through her class: walk, trot, and canter. I asked her to breathe as she made her gait transitions, keep her shoulders relaxed, and steer clear of traffic as best she could. Then I reminded her that she was not competing against the other horses and riders; she was competing against herself. If she came out of the arena knowing that she had ridden better than she ever had before, then she had succeeded. A ribbon would just be icing on the cake.
During this time I had been letting Reddi take in the sights and sounds as well. She was smart, and I had found it was better to let her come to realization on her own, rather than me try to force it on her. Just by being in the arena, she learned on her own all that I’d had to tell Amanda. Mission accomplished.
Jon and Noah met us at the out-gate and I sent Amanda and Wheeler back to the stalls with Jon. I wanted to talk to Noah, so I hopped off Reddi and gave her a calming pat as we walked. While it was good for Reddi to be “up” for her saddle seat class, she also had to know when it was time to calm down and be still.
At home I helped her understand that by taking her with me when I did chores around the farm. I often led her down the path to the water spigot by the front pasture and waited with Reddi as the trough filled. When I checked the fences for nail heads that had popped up, or for loose posts, Reddi was right there with me. Over time, she learned to be patient, although it was harder for her to do so here on the show grounds with so many sights, smells, and sounds to distract her. I lowered my body energy as I asked Noah about Annie.
“I spoke with Tony a few minutes ago,” he said. “Annie’s heart beat is irregular, not dangerously so, but they are going to run some tests and keep her overnight.”
My stomach tightened and I blinked back tears. Annie was the closest thing I had to a mother, my own having died of breast cancer when I was nine. My dad went off the deep end after that and found solace in a bottle. Social services eventually uprooted me from our Chicago tenement apartment, and after that I was raised by my grandmother in a small town about a hundred miles west of Nashville. Grandma passed away close to eight years ago, and since then, Annie was the one I turned to whenever I needed “family.” I couldn’t imagine losing her. I also couldn’t imagine what it would do to Tony.
“Do you think Annie getting sick is part of what is going on here?” I asked. “Dr. Carruthers’ murder, the colics, Temptation, Mike Lansing’s accident?”
“I hope not,” said Noah, but his words didn’t convince him any more than they did me.
“I heard,” I said, stopping, and turning to look at Noah, “that Mike Lansing’s girth did not break, that it was cut. Is that true?”
“There are many rumors, Cat. But that rumor … is true. My job here is to keep everyone safe. I just wish I knew how to do that.”
I was mad, scared, and nervous all at same time, and knew Noah must feel the same way. The difference between Noah and me, though, was that I was just an exhibitor. Noah was the show’s anchor. He was our rudder, our calm in the storm and it was important that he not give in to despair. Too many people counted on him.
“Hey Noah,” I said as Reddi and I began to walk again. “What do horses fear the most?”
“I don’t know, Cat. What?”
“Hay fever!”
Noah smiled and gave me a mock salute. Sometimes a little humor can make all the difference.
As we passed the lavatories in the first barn, women on the left and men on the right, Cam rushed out of the men’s room and nearly bumped into Reddi. His timing was so “perfect” that I thought it might be contrived. Then I thought again. Surely Cam Clark did not wait in a barn bathroom on a chance that I might wander by.
“Sorry,” Cam said, steadying himself on Reddi’s neck, and then crossing in front of her to place a hand on my upper arm. I was struck again by his height––and his blue, blue eyes. I almost got lost in his gaze, but before I fell under his spell I shook myself. Whew. Close call. I had a steady boyfriend in Brent, but there always had been something about Cam that called to me, two-timing dirt bag that he was.
“Cat, I really do want to catch up with you. What about dinner? Tonight. Any night.”
I remembered how Cam had publicly betrayed me and broken my heart, gee, less than a year ago.
“No way, Cam. And besides, what about Sloan?”
“Sloan?”
“Sloan, the married girl you were playing kissy face with just a few hours ago? Remember her, Cam?”
Before he could wipe the chagrined look off his face, Hill Henley stumble
d out of the bathroom. Holy bells, what would that room spit out next? If Cam was my least favorite person on earth, Hill ran a close second. He was cheap, belligerent, and seriously needed to use a toothbrush. It went without saying that if dumb was dirt, Hill would cover about half an acre.
Thank goodness Reddi chose that moment to come to an end of her patience. She began to paw, and then dance in the aisle. It was the perfect excuse to leave the two losers behind. Not that I needed a reason.
Back in our aisle, Sally was busy kicking the back of her stall wall. Bam. Bam. Bam. The individual kicks rang out like gunshots. Jon came out of the tack room to glare at Sally and she went back to munching her hay. Some horses banged around in their stall out of boredom, but Sally had never been one to do that. I should probably check her legs before I went back to the hotel. Kicking could result in swelling.
Jon and I worked companionably getting the horses put to bed. Hank and Mickey played tag in the aisle as we filled water buckets, fluffed bedding, and checked every horse for the tiniest bump or scratch. When we were done we went into the tack room to be sure all of the equipment was ready for the next day’s events.
As we organized saddles, bridles, and pads in the order we would need them, I said, “We still need to talk about what is going on with you and Tony. I could feel the hostility between you two at least thirty feet away, and whatever this, I am not going to allow it to affect our relationship with the Zinners.”
Jon’s silence was an answer in itself. It stretched on for what seemed like an eternity before he said, “We’re different people. Not everyone gets along just because you want them to.”
“But why, Jon? Why don’t you get along?”
Jon finished hanging the last bridle, then made a notation on the next day’s schedule on our dry erase board. Then, for the second time that day, he walked away from me.
I stared at his retreating figure and noted the aggression in my friend. It came out in a swagger that I had never seen before. I sighed, locked the tack room door, and with Hank and Mickey at my heels I headed for my truck.
Between Annie’s health scare, Jon and Tony’s circling of each other, all the problems at the show; and Noah, Cam, and Hill; it was hard for me to stay focused on my horses, riders, and the competition. But I had to. It was what my clients paid me to do and I owed them my full attention. If that wasn’t enough, a bigger distraction was headed my way. Tomorrow, Honeycakes was coming to town.
Cat’s Horse Tip #6
“Hay, the main food source for most horses, only contains about 11 percent water. In the wild, horses pick and choose grasses with high water content to keep from getting dehydrated.”
14
I GROANED WHEN MY ALARM began to blare like a foghorn at five A.M. That was one thing about horse shows: every day began before dawn. Gigi’s yearling halter class, the second of the morning, should go in about eight-thirty. Weanling fillies, this year’s female foals, would go in right at eight and not take long, as there were not many weanlings entered at halter at this show.
First up was hair and makeup. Standard school of thought for the show ring was that women needed to slather on enough makeup to make their cheeks and lips look “rosy” from fifty yards away. I had never been a makeup kind of girl so when the blush on my right cheek ended up a little higher and rosier than on my left, I just stuck my tongue out at my reflection.
My hair was of far more concern to me. My mouse-brown curls were especially hard to tame in our very humid Tennessee summers, and my choices of hairstyles were limited by show tradition to a sleek ponytail, a long braid, or a fat bun at the nape of my neck. Sleek was obviously out, and my braid always turned into a frizzy mess, so I went with a bun that I could cover with a heavy hair net. About a thousand bobby pins later I added two silver studs to the lobes of my ears, and roused Hank and Mickey, who were both still snoring. Then I grabbed the show clothes I had organized down to my underwear and socks the night before, and drove with the sleepy dogs through the morning quiet to the Tennessee Miller Coliseum.
Over years of showing at the facility, I had learned that John C. “Tennessee” Miller had been quite a guy. He made his money in Alaskan oil, then along with his wife began to breed and show mules and Tennessee Walking Horses. When the couple died, there was a bequest in his will that directed Middle Tennessee State University to purchase land and build the equestrian facility. Since then, in addition to being a huge bonus to the university’s horse science program, the facility had become the place for horse shows in the mid-south.
I signaled and turned into the long driveway as a thought popped into my brain. Maybe everything that had been going on at the show had to do with a rival facility. Maybe some scumbag of a person wanted the big shows to move somewhere else and had sabotaged the event to make that happen. I would ask Noah if the police had considered that angle whenever I saw him. He had been working such crazy hours that I didn’t want to call or text him if he had found time to catch some sleep.
Plus, I had to stay focused on Gigi and her upcoming class. She loved Jon and we’d found she did better in the ring if he exercised, bathed, and groomed her before her competitions. That left me free to mentally transform myself into the commanding presence I needed to be to convince the judges that they were fools if they did not give the top ribbon to our filly. I also needed to be dynamic for Gigi, for she respected nothing less. She was a beautiful filly who was filled with charisma and presence, but standing still and posing with her ears forward was hard for her. She’d much rather gallop pell-mell around the arena and squeal. I’d take her over to the vibration plate, but that might make her too relaxed for her class.
It was six-thirty by the time I arrived at our stalls. I peeked around the corner of the nearest wash stall to see Jon scraping the last of the water off Gigi and, after a quick wave, began to feed the other horses. Reddi dived into her breakfast; and Wheeler, Bob, and Petey all waited respectfully for me to finish serving them before they took their first mouthful. That was normal for all of them. But Sally, usually an eager eater, used her body to block me from her feed bucket. That was odd. If Agnes was here she would say that Sally was using her body to predict some important future happening, but what that could be, I didn’t have a clue.
“You want your food, you have to move,” I said to Sally, looking directly into her left eye. “Seriously, if you want breakfast I have to be able to reach your bucket.”
Sally blinked, then slowly backed away. I poured her grain but never broke eye contact with the mare. Was Sally psychic? Did she “know” things the rest of us didn’t? Was she trying to communicate some important future event to me? Was she warning me of a specific danger? I didn’t think so, but other people thought all of those things could be true.
I relaxed and patted her roany neck. “Eat up, big girl. We have a busy few days ahead.” Feeding done, I hoisted my show clothes onto my shoulder and walked to the coliseum. Show management had just closed the arena to horses and riders who had used the hour or so of early morning riding to accustom themselves to the feel of the arena. Now the grounds crew was moving in a big tractor to drag the dirt footing into small, neat, smooth rows. If I had the opportunity, I liked to spend time on the arena floor on days that I competed to get a vibe for the space. Now I walked sixty or so feet into the arena, closed my eyes, and breathed. I felt the lumpy, un-dragged footing underneath my feet, and sensed the hum of the facility as vendors uncovered merchandise in their booths on the mezzanine level and concession stands opened for the day. After a minute I nodded to myself, turned, and walked to the barn bathroom to change.
Men in traditional western suits still dominated halter classes for Appaloosa and other stock-type horses. I’d had the choice of wearing a tailored gray western business suit, or a tight, showy navy stretch suit with a bit of tasteful silver bling on the yolk, collar, and cuffs. On the theory that I wasn’t going to fit into the good old boy’s club anyway, I went with the bling. I added navy cow
boy boots and a matching western hat, and grinned at myself in the mirror. At home I took comedian Gilda Radner’s approach to fashion: if it didn’t itch, I wore it. But I had to admit that, with the right clothes, sometimes I looked pretty good.
By the time I returned to the stalls it was almost eight. Darcy was there, communing with Petey in his stall, and two big blonde men stood in the center of my aisle.
“Bumpkins!” the slimmer and slightly shorter of the two cried as he held his arms wide. Before I even knew what was happening I found myself melting into the comfort of Brent Giles. Honeycakes had arrived.
The larger man was Brent’s younger brother Martin. I’d met Martin last winter when my neighbor, movie star Glenda Dupree, was murdered and our whiz-bang sheriff not only thought I’d killed her, but also that I’d kidnapped Bubba Henley. Martin was the county deputy who had convinced his boss otherwise. In the process he introduced me to his older brother, who was a small animal veterinarian in the nearby town of Clarksville.
I was glad Martin was here. He was built like a hefty trash bag with jug-ears, but his mind was razor sharp and his eyes missed nothing. Maybe he could figure out what was happening here at the show.
Just as I was thinking of staying in Brent’s arms all day, the show announcer made the first call for yearling fillies. Time to go. I disengaged myself and stepped into the tack room to find my mojo. Then, properly psyched, I stepped out and took the glistening leather lead that Jon handed me. Darcy appeared with my in-gate bag of emergency supplies. Long ago I had learned that I never knew what I might need at the last minute, so the bag was stocked with such things as band aids, safety pins, duct tape, lip gloss, facial powder, earring backs, boot polish, lint rollers, and a host of other items that, true to Murphy’s Law, I’d never need as long as I had them.
Jon carried Gigi’s groom kit, which contained the equine version of my bag: fly spray, ShowSheen, baby oil, Vaseline, small scissors, mane comb and tail brush, hoof pick; and an assortment of rags, rubber bands, and ribbons.