Last Man Standing

by David Baldacci

  “Thanks for saving my life.”

  They found Billy Canfield down at the equestrian center examining the foreleg of a stallion while Nemo Strait and two young men dressed in riding clothes looked on.

  Canfield said to one of the young men, “Better call the vet; might only be a sprain, but maybe a fracture. Hope to hell it’s not.” As the man walked off, Canfield called after him, “And tell that damn farrier that unless he comes up with a better shoe, I’m changing shops. We got some stock with soft hooves and the glue-ons are pretty damn good for that and he doesn’t even carry ’em.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Canfield patted the horse’s flank, wiped off his hands and walked over to the HRT men.

  “Farrier?” asked Romano.

  “The horseshoer man,” answered Canfield. “A glorified blacksmith. In the old days horse farms would keep one on full-time. Now they come around once a week in their truck with a forge in the bed and their anvil and hammer and prestamped shoes and do their work. They’re not cheap, but who’d want to do that kind of work? It’s hard, hot and dangerous, what with crazy horses trying to kick your brains out.”

  “What are those glue-ons you mentioned?” Web wanted to know. Strait answered, “Sometimes a horse’s hoof walls get too thin for the nails and they break up, especially horses imported from Europe, because of the climate and soil differences; their hooves get brittle. A soft shoe doesn’t require any nails, it’s like a little bag over the hooves. It lasts a couple of months if done right. And the glue-ons are just what they sound like. Shoes glued on, no nails.”

  “Sound like a lot to learn about this business.”

  “Well, I’ve always been a quick learner,” said Billy with a glance at Strait. Next he stared over at Bates. “You guys done talking to my boys? I’ve got a farm to run.”

  “We’ll be out of here pretty soon.”

  Canfield looked at Web then pointed at Bates. “He told me about the phone killings and all. But that was still pretty quick thinking on your part.”

  “I’m a fast learner too,” said Web.

  Canfield studied him curiously. “Well, what’s the next thing you’d like to learn about?”

  “East Winds. I’d like to go over every inch of it.”

  “Have to get Gwen to do that. I’ve got things requiring my attention.”

  Web looked at Romano. “Paulie here will go with you.” Canfield looked like he was going to erupt but then seemed to pull it back in. “All right.” He looked at Romano. “Paul, how are you on a horse?”

  Romano jerked, blinked and looked at Web and then at Canfield. “I’ve never been on one.”

  Canfield put an arm around the HRT man and smiled. “Well, I hope you’re as fast a learner as your partner.”

  31

  Gwen was at the equestrian center with Baron when her husband asked her to show Web around the place. She led Web to the horse stalls.

  “The best way to see the farm is on horseback. Do you ride?” she asked.

  “A little. I’m certainly not in your league.”

  “Then I’ve got just the horse for you.”

  Boo, Gwen told him, was a Trakehner, a German breed, a warm-blooded horse bred to be superior warhorses and a cross between a hot-blooded, high-spirited and temperamental Arabian and a cold-blooded, calm and hardworking draft. The horse weighed about seventeen hundred pounds, stood almost eighteen hands high and looked at Web like he wanted to take a bite out of his skull as they stood next to Boo in the stall.

  “Boo was a great dressage horse, but now his work is done and he doesn’t really like to move all that much. He’s gotten fat and happy. We call him ‘old grump’ because that’s what he pretty much is. But deep down he’s a sweetheart, and he’s very flexible too. You can ride him English or western saddle.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” said Web as he stared up at the beast. Boo didn’t look the least bit happy that Web was in his personal space.

  Gwen put the square saddle pad over the horse’s back and next had Web help her place the heavy Western-style saddle over the pad. “Now watch while I cinch the saddle, he’ll hold his breath and push out his belly.” Web watched in fascination as the horse did exactly that.

  “When you think it’s tight, he’ll let out his breath and it loosens. Then you try and climb on and the saddle slides over his withers. The horse gets a good laugh and the rider gets a few bruises.”

  “Good to know dumb animals are that smart,” said Web.

  Gwen showed Web how to transfer from the halter to the bridle and how to slip the latter over Boo’s head, seat it correctly and then buckle it. They led Boo outside and over to a stone mounting block.

  Web adjusted the chaps Gwen had given him to prevent the saddle from chafing his legs and to allow Web to get a better grip, stepped onto the block and climbed aboard, while Boo just stood there patiently.

  “So what do you think?” asked Gwen.

  “It’s a long way down.”

  She noted the pistol in his holster. “Do you have to bring the gun?” “Yes,” Web said firmly.

  They went to the riding ring and Gwen led horse and rider around the ring. Next Gwen showed Web neck-reining to brake, turn and back the horse up, and sounds and leg pressure to make the animal go and stop. “Boo’s been all over the farm, so if you let him, he’ll go where he’s supposed to. Nice and easy.”

  Hired help had brought Baron around while they were working with Boo. Gwen mounted up on her horse. “Now, Boo is the patriarch of this place and he and Baron have never ridden together before. So Boo may try and establish his dominance over Baron to show him who’s boss.”

  “Sort of like guys with too much testosterone,” opined Web. Gwen looked at him in a strange way. “Boo’s a gelding, Web.” He looked at her blankly, not getting it. “If he were a man, we’d call him a eunuch.”

  “Poor Boo.”

  The two horses seemed to establish a grudging truce, and Web watched as Gwen slipped a Motorola walkie-talkie radio out of her back pocket and turned it on. “Just in case there’s a problem,” she said.

  “Smart to keep in communication,” said Web. “I’ve got my cell phone too.”

  “After what happened today with Billy, I’m not sure I’ll ever use one again,” she said.

  Web looked down at his phone and started having some doubts.

  They started off, trailed by a golden retriever named Opie, and another compact but strongly built canine Gwen called Tuff. “Strait has a dog running around here too,” she said. “Calls him Old Cuss, and it’s an apt description because he’s nothing but trouble.” The sky was clear, and as they went up and down the small hills on the property, it seemed to Web that he could see almost all the way to Charlottesville. Boo was content to follow Baron and kept up a sedate pace that didn’t tax Web.

  Gwen reined Baron to a halt. Web eased Boo next to her.

  “As I said, East Winds has been around a very long time. The King of England gave Lord Culpeper a land grant consisting of millions of acres in the 1600s. A descendant of Lord Culpeper’s gave a thousand acres of this land grant to his eldest daughter upon her marriage to a man named Adam Rolfe. The central part of the house was started in 1765 and completed in 1781 by Rolfe, who was an expert builder and also a merchant. You’ve seen the outside of the main house?” Web nodded. “Well, it was constructed in the Georgian style. And the millwork, particularly the dentil moldings, are some of the best I have ever seen.”

  “Georgian, that’s what I would have guessed.” Web was lying; he wouldn’t have known a Georgian style if it leapt up and bit him in his dentil moldings.

  “The estate remained in the Rolfe family until the early 1900s. During that time it was a true working plantation and crops were raised here: tobacco, soybeans, hemp, that sort of thing.”

  “And slaves to work it, I guess,” said Web. “At least until the end of the Civil War.”

  “Actually, no, the plantation was close enough to Wash

ington that its owners were Northern sympathizers. In fact, East Winds was part of the Underground Railroad.

  “In 1910,” Gwen continued, “the estate was sold out of the family. It passed through a series of hands until Walter Sennick bought it at the end of World War II. He was an inventor and made a huge fortune selling his ideas to the automobile manufacturers. He made East Winds into a small self-contained town, and at its peak he had over three hundred full-time employees here. There was also a company store, phone exchange, firehouse, those sorts of things.”

  “Nothing like never having to leave home.” The whole time Gwen was talking, Web had been surveying the grounds, judging where possible attacks might come from and how best to defend against them. Yet if there was a rat on the inside, that sort of strategy might be futile. A Trojan horse worked as well now as it had thousands of years ago.

  Gwen nodded. “Now there are sixty-eight buildings in total with twenty-seven miles of board fencing. Nineteen paddocks. Fifteen full-time employees. And we still farm here—corn, mostly— although our main interest is breeding Thoroughbreds. Next year we have twenty-two foals due. And we’ve got a great crop of year-lings going to sale very soon. It’s all very exciting.”

  They rode on and soon came to a high-banked water crossing, where Gwen instructed Web on how to let the horse choose its own footing when going down into the mud. She had Web lean back very far, so that his head was almost resting on Boo’s rump when the horse was going down the bank. Then she had Web meld his body into the horse’s neck and grasp Boo’s mane when the horse was heading up the bank on the other side. Web successfully navigated the stream and earned high praise from Gwen.

  They passed an old stone and wood building that Gwen told him was an old Civil War–era hospital that they were thinking of turning into a museum. “We’ve rehabbed it, put in central air and heat, it’s got a kitchen, bedroom, so the curator could live in there,” Gwen told him. “An operating table and surgical instruments from the time period are there as well.”

  “From what I know of that, a Civil War soldier would’ve taken a minié ball any day over a trip to the hospital.”

  They rode by a two-hundred-year-old bank barn, so named because it was two stories and built on such a steep grade that it had two entrances on separate levels. There was also a riding ring where horse and rider practiced their dressage. Dressage, Gwen explained, consisted of specialized steps and movements of a horse and rider, akin to a figure skater’s routine. They passed a tall wooden tower with a stone foundation that Gwen told him had been used for both observation of wildfires and also for the horse races that had been held here a century ago.

  Web studied the place and the surrounding countryside. As a former sniper constantly on the lookout for the best ground, Web concluded that the tower would definitely be a good observation post, yet he didn’t have the manpower to utilize it properly.

  They rode past a two-story frame building that Gwen identified as the farm manager’s house.

  “Nemo Strait seems to do a good job for you.”

  “He’s experienced and knows what he’s doing, and he brought a full handpicked crew with him, so that was a plus,” Gwen said with what Web perceived as little interest.

  They examined entry and exit points in the rear grounds and Web made mental notes of each. Once, a deer broke clear of the tree line and Opie and Tuff took off after it. Neither horse reacted to this clamor, although Web was so startled by the deer flashing in front of him that he had almost fallen off Boo.

  Next she led him into a little tree-shaded glen. Web could hear water running nearby and he was not prepared, as they rounded a short curve, to see a small, open building, painted white and with a cedar shake roof, that looked like a gazebo until Web saw the cross on top and the small altar inside with a kneeling pad and a small statue of Jesus on the cross.

  He looked over at Gwen for an explanation. She was staring at the small temple as though in a trance and then she glanced over at him.

  “This is my chapel, I guess you’d call it. I’m Catholic. My father was a Eucharistic minister, and two of my uncles are priests. Religion runs pretty deep in my life.”

  “So you had this built?”

  “Yes, for my son. I come out here and pray for him just about every day, rain or cold. Do you mind?”

  “Please.”

  “Are you a religious person?”

  “In my own way, I guess,” Web answered vaguely.

  “I used to be a lot more than I am now, actually. I’ve tried to understand why what happened could happen to someone so innocent. I’ve never been able to find an answer.”

  She dismounted and went inside the chapel, crossed herself, took out her rosary from her pocket and then knelt down and started to pray while Web watched her in silence.

  After a few minutes she rose and rejoined him.

  They rode on and finally came to a large building that had clearly been abandoned for some time.

  “The old Monkey House,” said Gwen. “Sennick built it and kept all sorts of chimps, baboons, even gorillas there. Why, I don’t know. Legend has it that when some of the animals would escape from their cages they’d be chased through the trees by beer-drinking local yokels with shotguns, who didn’t want the monkeys around anyway. For that reason they called the forest around here the monkey jungle. The thought of those poor animals being gunned down by a pack of drunken morons makes me sick.”

  They dismounted and went into the building. Web could see through the roof where large holes had been worn in by time and the elements. The old cages, rusted and broken, were still lined up against the walls, and there were trenches presumably for catching animal waste and other disgusting things. Trash and old broken machinery littered the concrete floor, along with tree branches and rotted leaves. Tree roots clung to the outside walls and there was what looked to be a loading dock. Web tried to imagine what an inventor of auto accessories would want with a pack of monkeys. None of his theories were pleasant ones. All Web could think of was animals strapped to gurneys, electrical lines capturing the power of lightning bolts and old man Sennick in surgical garb ready to do his dirty work on the terrified simians. The place had a distinct feeling of melancholy, of hopelessness, of death, even, and Web was glad to leave it.

  They continued their ride and Gwen dutifully pointed out all the buildings and their associated history until Web was having a hard time keeping track of everything. He was very surprised to look at his watch and see that three hours had passed.

  “We should probably head back,” said Gwen. “For your first ride, three hours is plenty. You’re going to find yourself a little sore.”

  “I’m good,” said Web. “I really enjoyed it.” The ride had been peaceful, tranquil, relaxing, everything he hadn’t been experiencing for practically all of his life. However, when they got back to the equestrian center and Web climbed off Boo, he was surprised to find that his legs and back were so stiff he could barely walk upright once his feet hit the ground. Gwen noted this and smiled wryly. “Tomorrow it’ll be another part of your body that hurts.”

  Web was already rubbing his buttocks. “I feel what you mean.”

  A couple of hired help came out and took the horses from them. Gwen told Web that they would take off the gear and scrub and wash down the horses. That was usually the job of the person riding the horse, Gwen said. It helped you bond with the animal. “You take care of the horse, and the horse takes care of you,” she said.

  “Kind of like having a partner.”

  “Exactly like having a partner.” Gwen looked over at the complex’s small office and said, “I’ll be back in a minute, Web, I want to check on a few things.”

  As she walked off, Web started taking off his chaps.

  “First time on a horse in a while?” Web looked up and saw Nemo Strait heading his way. A couple of other guys in baseball caps were sitting in the cab of a pickup truck that had large hay bales in the back. They were watching Web closely.

  “Damn, how could you tell?”

  Strait came up next to Web and leaned against the stone mounting block. He looked off in the direction where Gwen had gone.

  “She’s a good rider.”

  “I’d say she is too. But then, what do I know?”

  “She pushes the horses sometimes further than she should, though.”

  Web looked at him curiously. “She seems to really love them.”

  “You can love something and still hurt it, now, can’t you?”

  Web had not anticipated this sort of mental process from Strait. He thought he had the big, dumb Neanderthal figured out, and here the guy was being thoughtful and maybe even sensitive. “I take it you’ve been around horses a long time.”

  “All my life. Folks think they can figure them out. You can’t. You just have to go with the flow and never make the mistake of thinking you have them pegged. That’s when you get yourself hurt.”

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