Heat Wave (Riders Up)

by Adriana Kraft

  “Maggie, I know you loved your folks dearly and all those who came before them, but do you really think they’d want you to risk losing everything with this hair-brained horse racing scheme? If you sell now, Con-Ex Farms will pay you handsomely. If you force them to squeeze you out, you’ll be lucky to keep yourself and the kids in clothes.”

  Maggie’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not a Sara Ames, Ben. She and Ted may have made the best decision for their family. It’s not the best decision for my family. I won’t be squeezed. My great, great grandparents were the first to plow that land. It won’t be taken over by some hog corporation executives who couldn’t tell a boar from a sow.”

  Ben chuckled as he held the tent flap open for Maggie. “They may be able to figure that out, given enough time.”

  Ignoring Ben’s attempt at humor, Maggie stepped to the counter and ordered black coffee and a doughnut. She handed Flo Zimmerman the money and returned the gangly woman’s soft grin. She and Flo had been good friends since grade school. Flo had been timid then and still was. She’d been married and divorced and had no children. Maggie couldn’t imagine her own life without kids. “When are you going to come out and see me, Flo? It’s been too long.”

  “Oh, I’d love to come out,” the tall woman responded, brushing back mousy brown hair. “You just seem so busy of late. I thought I’d be in the way.”

  “That’s nonsense, Flo. Stop by any Sunday after church—it’ll be so good to catch up with you.”

  Maggie turned and walked toward a card table covered in blue and white plastic. Ben followed and pulled out a chair.

  After sipping his coffee, Ben said, “I’m glad you bought that extra crop insurance, Maggie. This winter’s been so dry we’d better get a lot of rain pretty soon, or farmers are gonna be in a lot of trouble.”

  Maggie nodded. “There’s no snow left in the fields, frost is almost out, and flies are already hatching. It’s an early spring, all right, though you can’t tell it today with that raw wind out of the northwest.”

  “So with Harrington out of the picture, what will you do now?”

  “I didn’t say he was out of the picture. He just hasn’t gotten back to me yet.”

  Ben shook his head. “Why don’t you try something else? You’re as stubborn as your father ever was. I seldom could talk sense to him either.”

  “Thanks for the compliment.” Maggie took a bite of her doughnut. “I know there are a lot of risks. But whatever I do involves risks. The stock market has risks. Moving to the city is not without danger. I can learn about horse racing, and I’m willing to work hard.”

  “There’s no doubt about that. You’re a bright young woman. Always thought you should have done college.” Ben stroked his chin. “You know, it’s not too late for college. Lots of folks are going back.”

  The combined smells of canvas, grilled onions, and human sweat made Maggie’s stomach roll. And if that wasn’t enough, Ben Templeton was becoming more than a little irritating. “I’ve got two kids to raise—I’m not going to college. I need someone to teach me about raising race horses. I always loved working with horses when I was a kid.”

  “But this is different,” Ben countered. “Thoroughbreds are finicky. Trainers are often at work by five in the morning, and who knows when their day is done. Where do your children fit into that schedule?

  Maggie glanced away from Ben’s piercing stare. “I don’t know. I don’t have many of the details worked out, but I can’t afford to wait much longer.” She paused and looked back at her friend. “It’s been two years since Mason’s death. I’ve got to get on with my life. And I have to find a way for the farm to pay for itself. I won’t risk everything I have, but I am going to find out if horseracing is do-able. With or without your help.”

  “Now there’s no need to get huffy, young lady. I could still take you over my knee.”

  “I’m sorry.” Maggie’s cheeks burned. “I do appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”

  He laughed and nodded. “What about your brother? Have you asked him for help?”

  “Brad? You’ve got to be kidding. Last I heard he was still in San Francisco chasing skirts and partying on a nightly basis. If he got wind of the Con-Ex Farms interest in the farm, he’d be doing everything in his power to get me to sell out.”

  Ben dropped his gaze to his plate before looking up and continuing, “Hoped maybe he’d straightened out by now.”

  Maggie closed her eyes and shook her head.

  Ben coughed. “Maybe I can come up with a couple more trainer possibilities for you. They’ll be much more expensive than Harrington, though.”

  “I’m not impoverished, but I can’t behave like a big spender, either.” Maggie rubbed her shoulders. “I need an expert for cheap. That’s where Harrington filled the bill quite nicely. But he may be more down and out than I had hoped.” Maggie shuddered, remembering the lanky man with trembling hands. The man’s pain still gnawed at her heart.

  Ben glanced up at her, then back down at his plate. “Your folks were good people, Maggie. My best friends. It’s been five years, and their death is still one of the biggest tragedies of my life. They didn’t deserve to die because some guy got himself loaded up on booze and headed down the highway on the wrong side of the road.”

  “I know, Ben. But nothing can be done about that now.” Maggie tried to keep at bay a twinge of guilt. What was she doing trying to sober up a drunk to work for her?

  “You don’t want a drunk around the kids.”

  Maggie shook her head. “Of course not. But I know about grief. It took me two years of pain and tears to get to this point. And Ed Harrington is grieving. Maybe he needs some honest work and a decent place to live.”

  At that moment, Maggie noticed Flo Zimmerman cocking her head toward the CD player. It was an old cue between the two of them. Maggie winked in response. Flo was always listening to country western classics and looking for hidden messages in the old songs. Some people would let the Bible fall randomly open in search of inspiration—Flo tuned randomly to country western. She heard the familiar deep baritone of Johnny Cash singing Ring of Fire. Maybe Flo was onto something this time. Maggie knew she was stepping into an adventure. Her veins were running hot like a radiator in danger of boiling over.

  She turned toward the hand tugging on her coat. Maggie looked up into the dead-fish eyes of Sara Ames and flinched.

  “Don’t get up,” Sara said. “I just want to tell you how much I appreciate what you did today.”

  Maggie narrowed her eyes.

  Sara shook her head. “Don’t try to deny it. You pushed the bidding on just about everything we had up for sale. I don’t know how much more we earned because of your efforts.” The older woman squeezed Maggie’s arm. “Thanks. I just hope you never have to hold your own auction.”

  Nodding her head, Maggie watched her former neighbor hurry out from the canteen tent holding back sobs. Ben patted her hand. Through a haze Maggie heard his words: “You’re so much like your dad; you just might make it, yet.”

  Maggie set the thermos back down in the shade of the oak and walked toward the tractor. It had been nearly a month and she still hadn’t heard a thing from that Harrington guy. She shuddered at the memory of him. The man reminded her of her childhood image of Ichabod Crane: all arms and legs, baggy eyes, thin lips and bony fingers.

  Sitting on the tractor, Maggie admired the neatly plowed furrows of the forty acre field. An unspeakable pride filled her lungs. The land had always done that for her—it filled her in ways nothing else could.

  Oh, there were times when she wondered what lay beyond these familiar surroundings. The land had given her a rare kind of freedom, yet it also held her captive.

  So why was she holding out for him? She knew a little about drinking problems from watching her brother fight back from binge drinking. Not hearing from him yet meant little. Probably it would take the man several weeks to pull himself together. She just hoped he would—but why?


  She mulled that thought for a moment. Maybe it was that she hoped he was as good at working with horses as Templeton had told her.

  Who was she kidding? It was his eyes—she could see them clearly even now, the pain and anguish and the fleeting spark of life that had reached though his haze and tugged at her. A remnant of who he used to be? How had such a successful horse trainer wound up at the Resting Arms? She shook her head. Maybe she didn’t want to know.

  If he wasn’t sober, he wouldn’t last long on her farm. She wasn’t about to take on a charity case. If he stayed, he’d have to earn his keep.

  She’d give him two months and not a day longer. Four more weeks. She engaged the clutch and began to turn over more ground. She groaned. Waiting was not a skill that Maggie Anderson had come close to perfecting.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Ed Harrington glanced down at the truck seat again to read the tattered slip of paper he’d carried in his pocket for six weeks. North for twenty more miles, and then left on a gravel country road another eight, and he should be there. Another half hour, at least. Still plenty of time to turn around. Maybe he should have called. But then he might lose his nerve.

  He glanced in the rearview mirror. Not much other traffic out for the middle of a warm April Sunday.

  She’d thrown him a lifeline, all right. He still couldn’t decide exactly why the spunky blonde with blue eyes had shaken him up so much. He’d like to think he could have quit drinking at any point; he’d always told himself he would someday. It just always seemed like tomorrow would be a better day to start.

  Why had he needed her? Once he made up his mind, it was all up to him anyway. He hadn’t had a drop since he stumbled down the sidewalk with her thirty dollars in his fist.

  Thirty dollars. He hadn’t spent it on a shave or on dinner—he didn’t have to. Wouldn’t that shake her up, to know he still had some savings stashed away, that he wasn’t totally destitute?

  Nope, he’d probably never tell her what he did with it: every day since he met her, he’d found a twelve-step meeting, and when they passed around the hat at the end of the meeting to pay for their meeting space and support the organization, each day for thirty days he’d put in one of her dollars. He smiled to himself—he liked that. He’d given her money away.

  His hand drifted to his pocket where he felt the thirty day chip he’d carried for two weeks now. Sort of silly, that a tiny piece of plastic could mean so much. And be so hard to get.

  So if he didn’t need this job, why was he driving to her farm like a lemming to the sea? He could get other work. Hell, if he stayed at the Resting Arms, his savings alone would see him through for a long time, without a job. If he didn’t start drinking again.

  But she’d seen him staggering away from her. Somehow he just didn’t want that to be her last picture of him. Ed the drunk. He had to set her straight.

  Why in hell did that matter? Maybe he wasn’t Ed the drunk anymore, but he was still Ed the washed up trainer, Ed the disaster, Ed the failure. She’d probably see right through him. He should just keep on driving.

  Who was he kidding? What he really needed, more than money, more than odd jobs, was to be training horses again. To do the one thing he knew how to do really well. And that was what this Maggie Anderson was holding out to him—a way back to working with horses.

  - o -

  Sunday on the farm was different from any other day of the week. Maggie slept late, getting up in time to take the kids to the community church two miles down the road. Then it was lunch at Sarah’s Diner, or occasionally she would take her family into Des Moines and splurge at a fancy restaurant. They would usually be back home by mid-afternoon to finish reading the paper, to curl up with a book, or to work on homework.

  The same routine was followed this Sunday: church, Sarah’s Diner, and now reading the comics. Sitting in an old but comfortable couch on the screened-in porch, Maggie thought back to a piece she’d finished reading earlier about preparations for the coming summer racing season at Prairie Meadows. The track didn’t operate year around. In the off season, trainers typically vanned their horses from track to track in places like Minnesota, Illinois, Oklahoma or Arkansas. She hadn’t thought about that—how much more money would it take to really be in the horseracing business?

  “Mom?”

  “Yes, dear.” Maggie glanced over at Carolyn, who was working the crossword puzzle. She was turning into a beautiful young woman right before Maggie’s eyes. Fifteen in September. Where did the time go?

  “What’s another word for ebullient? Six letters. With a v as the third letter.”

  “Try…lively.”

  “That’s it! How do you do it, Mom?”

  Maggie smiled. Her daughter never could quite overcome the shock of discovering that her mom was smart. She’d go to college and study to be a veterinarian. Carolyn had often talked about building a large animal clinic near the barn and helping her mother keep the farm.

  Maggie watched her teenager brush a wave of long blond hair from her face. It had become such a habit she imagined Carolyn never even knew when she lifted her hand.

  She stared out the screen porch toward the nearly empty barn. Would it ever be the home for mares and foals, for horses with a burning desire to win races?

  Her brow furrowed. So much change had already occurred. The place didn’t seem as alive as it had when she was a kid. Then, hogs and beef cattle overflowed from outlying sheds as well as from the barn. And, of course, the riding horses. Her brother had never liked to ride. She had, though. And she did well showing the horses in 4-H.

  But her husband, Mason, had thought the horses were merely a waste of money and time. They got rid of them shortly after their marriage. She’d always regretted that decision. Now she wished she’d battled harder to keep them, but with a baby coming, it hadn’t seemed like she’d have much time for them then.

  And Mason wasn’t about to help out. He was a good man. She’d loved him very much, but he never wanted to be a farmer. Though Mason enjoyed tinkering with machines, he was always timid around animals of any kind. Looking back, Maggie suspected he’d often been frustrated that the land was her heritage and her wealth, not his.

  Now there were hardly any animals on the farm: just a few beef cattle and several cats. The bulk of the corn and hay she raised was sold as cash crops. She missed the activity of that earlier time when so much of her life had been centered on the needs of animals.

  Maggie blinked as if to close off the past. Glancing back at her comics, she couldn’t focus. Her thoughts continued to tumble. She hadn’t thought about the shaggy man leaning against the Resting Arms Hotel for some time. How long had it been since she’d talked to him? Close to six weeks. No doubt he’d drunk up all her money by now. She chastised herself for having waited so long to make contact with other possible trainers, though she nearly broke out in a sweat imagining their fees. Maybe she was getting cold feet.

  With one foot tucked under her, she tried again to concentrate on the comics, but she couldn’t shake her melancholy mood. She wasn’t desperate, yet.”

  “Mom. Mom!” shouted the smallish tow-headed boy dashing up the porch steps.

  “What is it, Johnny? You’d think the devil was chasing you.” She’d never understand why boys always rushed around so.

  Johnny skidded to a halt before her while the screen door banged loudly behind him.

  “Somebody’s coming, Mom.”

  “Who?”

  “Don’t know. The truck ain’t familiar,” the boy drawled.

  “Isn’t,” both mother and sister corrected.

  Johnny rolled his eyes. “There he comes now.”

  Everyone on the porch looked toward the driveway as an old faded green pick-up lumbered toward the gravel patch where Maggie’s car and truck were parked. She didn’t recognize the man getting out of the truck.

  The man stood tall in western boots, clean Levis, and a white dress shirt with an ancient feed mill cap dipped low over
his eyes. Unable to make out his features clearly, Maggie rose to welcome the stranger.

  As he rapped on the screen door, he said dryly, “Afternoon, Mrs. Anderson. It took a while for me and Mabel to figure out your directions.”

  With those few words, Ed Harrington doffed his cap. A hint of a smile tugged at his mouth. His gray eyes remained cool and guarded.

  Maggie’s mouth fell wide open and her heart skipped a beat or two. He was standing there like an apparition. Was this really the malnourished man she’d last seen stumbling down a Des Moines sidewalk?

  “Who is he?” Johnny demanded, tugging at his mom’s elbow.

  “Yeah, Mom, introduce us,” Carolyn said.

  “Well, of course.” Maggie heard her disembodied voice sound more in control than any other part of her body. Where had the shaking drunk gone? This man looked much more alive—earthy, and dangerous. “This is Mr. Harrington, children. Mr. Harrington, this is Johnny and Carolyn.

  Harrington pursed his lips and nodded at them. “Hi. How are you? You can call me Ed.”

  Carolyn looked stunned.

  Johnny crossed his arms and widened his stance. “The land’s not for sale, mister. No matter how much money you got.”

  “Johnny,” Maggie scolded. “Mr. Harrington isn’t here to buy the farm. He’s here because I wanted to talk to him about working for us.” Glancing awkwardly at Harrington, she said, “But that seems like a long time ago.”

  Why did she have to sound so accusing? She flexed her fingers and continued evenly, “Mr. Harrington, would you like something to drink? We have tea, coffee and pop. I don’t have anything stronger.”

  He smiled. “Coffee will do. Black will be fine. Haven’t touched a drop of that other stuff in a long time now. Not since some do-gooder woman confronted me on the sidewalk. By the way, call me Ed.”

  Relieved, Maggie felt her pulse quicken. Her vision cleared. He might be her man after all. “Carolyn, would you run and get Mr. Harrington…” He cocked his head at her. “Ed,” she corrected herself, “a cup of coffee. Bring me one, too. Then you and Johnny can pick out a drink and go upstairs to finish your homework while Ed and I discuss some business.”