Great, My Heart May Be Broken but My Hair Still Looks Great

by Dixie Cash

  “You know the caliber of horses I have here at Flying C. Cutting horses were an indulgence of Pearl Ann’s, but one that’s proving to be lucrative.”

  Boy, did Paige ever know the Flying C horses, some of the finest on hooves. She had seen Pearl Ann Carruthers sitting astride the magnificent Flying C mounts in cutting shows.

  The joke in the horse society was that Pearl Ann might own good horses that were expert at cutting a calf from the herd and holding it at bay, but her real talent lay in cutting a cowboy from his human herd and cornering him in the nearest dark place. The cowboy might sport a flashy new belt buckle for his efforts in the arena, but everyone knew it was shined by Pearl Ann Carruthers. “I sure do. I still go to the shows in Fort Worth.”

  “You don’t ride anymore?”

  Paige sighed. “No. It was just too hard while I was in college. The last show I went to, Lester Clinton was your trainer. Did he stay on with you after…well, after—”

  “Oh, yes. Lester’s still with me.”

  Paige couldn’t read Harley’s expression, but she knew by the way he diverted his gaze to the liquid in his glass that she had touched a nerve. Lester Clinton, Pearl Ann’s brother, had a reputation in Fort Worth almost as notorious as his sister’s.

  “That’s the reason I wanted to talk to you, Paige. Lester needs an assistant. Someone who knows a cutting horse from a plow horse. I’ve been promising him I’d hire help. He’s come up with a few of his buddies as candidates, but I told him I would be the one to choose. This is a serious business for me. I don’t intend to provide housing and beer for his partying friends. He makes frequent trips out of here lately. He says they’re business trips, but for all I know, he’s looking for work somewhere else. I need someone I can depend on.”

  “Oh.” Paige could feel her pulse quicken. She didn’t know what to say. Harley seemed to be headed in a direction she hadn’t planned on going or seen coming. She was here to discuss an office job and had prepared herself to accept any work he offered in that venue. Helping with his horses was something out of one of her daydreams and a little scary.

  “I understand,” Harley went on, “that you were a business major at SMU—”

  Oh, drat! Six years had passed since Daddy and her stepmother had badgered her into enrolling in the prestigious SMU business school. “Well, yes, but—well, it was a long time ago.”

  “I want you to not only help with the daily maintenance of the horses, I want you to take an active role in the business end of the operation as well. You know the people, you know the shows, and you know the horses. You can watch the fees and expenses go out and the income come in. Pearl Ann always insisted that Lester have free rein. I went along, but I’ve been feeling I’m out of touch with that part of the business. When your dad called me, I saw an opportunity for both of us. Being Charlotte McBride’s daughter, you bring a high degree of credibility to my horse operation. Respectability, too. At the same time, you can learn hands on how to breed and train a good cutting horse.”

  Credibility. Respectability. She had never heard more golden words. So it must be true that Daddy hadn’t told about her melting her nail tips on the grill at McDonald’s.

  “Well, gosh. I’m flattered. But what about Lester. Won’t he be upset?”

  “If it was anyone but you, I’d say yes. But Lester has never been one to miss an opportunity with a beautiful woman.”

  “Oh,” Paige said again, shrinking deeper into her seat. Just what did Harley expect her to do?

  As if he had read her thoughts Harley continued. “All I’m asking you to do is provide some assistance to Lester. If I hired a capable man to help him, Lester would think him too much a threat, but he’s chauvinistic enough to see a woman as less than his equal.

  “A long time ago, I promised my former wife I’d look after her brother if anything ever happened to her. While she was alive she and I went out of our way to break every vow we made to each other, but now that she’s…well, passed on, I’d like to try and keep just one. Besides, Lester’s been here at the ranch since he was a kid.”

  Paige watched as Harley ran his finger around the glass rim. Something troubled him.

  “Lester thinks he’s the last link to the memory of his sister,” Harley said, “and that I’d be happier to have him gone. That’s not true, of course. My only aim is to upgrade my operation. The Flying C’s reputation at horse shows has been tarnished, if you know what I mean. I’d like to restore some grandeur.”

  Paige was taken aback that he would regard her as someone capable of upgrading anything. Maybe she wasn’t the screwup she had always felt she was. Harley evidently saw her as a responsible adult.

  Whoa! The very thought almost gave her a chill.

  This was the absolute last thing she had expected. On the one hand, here was her dream on a platter. The National Cutting Horse Association recognized Flying C horses as some of the best. The very notion of being near a potential champion was intoxicating.

  The added task of a little bookkeeping wasn’t daunting. She had never failed math. But just to be cautious and wise, she said, “Harley, could I please sleep on this overnight and get an answer back to you tomorrow?”

  “By all means. Come out for lunch. I’ll show you around the barns and we’ll talk about it then.”

  six

  The cowboy pocketed the receipts the evening supervisor handed him in exchange for the phony bills of sale for three horses. He bought the blank bills of sale by the pad at an office supply store and kept them in his truck’s jockey box. No one at TAR had ever questioned their authenticity or even really looked at them, for that matter.

  When he first started bringing horses here he had been so careful to write the fake name and address of the seller on the correct line. He had done his homework and made the sales amount appear to be legitimate. The employees who received the horses cared so little about documents, he no longer worried about legitimacy. Now he just scrawled something on a blank bill of sale and handed it to them. In exchange, he got an official-looking unofficial receipt verifying that he had made a delivery and was paid an agreed-on amount.

  Today he collected twenty-one hundred dollars. Not as much as he had hoped to get, not as much as he had been paid in the past, but the three horses he had delivered today were especially old and underfed. He had done them a favor.

  The foreman, dressed in a white lab coat, stood nearby, watching him shove the ramp back inside his trailer and secure the door latch. The foreman looked right and left and approached him. “Say, you’re a pretty good supplier. I’m not allowed to make this offer to just anyone—we have to be on the watch for ASPCA spies—but would you like to take a tour of the facility?”

  The cowboy stopped and glanced in the direction of the voice. “No, thanks. I know what goes on in there. I don’t have to see it.”

  The man’s shoulders squared, his chin lifted. “Sir, our operation’s as humane as any you’ll find.”

  The cowboy raised his palms and turned his head slightly. “Mister, I’m not passing judgment on what you do. As for myself, well, I’m just helping out Mother Nature a little. I’ve seen what happens to these old nags out in the pasture. Coyotes and ever’ other kind of damn varmint you can think of picks ’em off. It’s not a pretty sight. This is the best way out for ’em.”

  “Is that the speech you use to persuade owners to sell to you?”

  “Naw, that’s just the one I tell myself so I can keep on doing this. I gotta right to a life as much as an old horse does.”

  seven

  In the Styling Station/Domestic Equalizers establishment, Debbie Sue lounged in her hydraulic styling chair. The steady flow of customers had dwindled to the last one, who now sat under the dryer.

  Edwina hung up the phone. “That’s the second call I’ve had today. Someone asking if we can track down missing horses. What do you suppose that’s all about?”

  Debbie Sue laughed. “You kill me, Ed. I’m taking a wild guess her
e, but I’d venture to say someone’s horse is missing.”

  “No shit, Sherlock. You’re a regular Nancy Drew, ain’t ya?”

  Debbie Sue giggled. She enjoyed nothing more than getting Edwina’s goat. Their sarcastic jabs were the result of a long friendship. There was nothing one would fail to do for the other, and they both knew it. “Maybe their fences were bad. Maybe their critter just walked off. Did you ask them about their fences?”

  “Now, why would I do that? What do I know about fences? All they wanted to know was if we tracked down missing horses. And I said, ‘only if you want us to spy on somebody who’s riding one.’ End of story.”

  “Still, Ed, don’t you think it’s kind of odd that we’d get two of those calls in one day? Did you ask the age of the horse?”

  Edwina stared back with a blank look. “You don’t seem to be hearing me. Don’t make me hurt you.”

  “I read an article about a big problem with horse theft in Texas. Mostly older horses.” Debbie Sue couldn’t keep from thinking of her own older horse, her beloved Rocket Man. “I’d hate to see that starting up around here. If there’s another call, let me talk or take their number and I’ll call them back.”

  Edwina unwrapped a Tootsie Pop using her talonlike fingernails. Today her nails were painted a vivid color she called “Janet Jackson’s Nipple Ring Red.” “Why would somebody bother stealing an old horse?” She tucked the red sucker into her jaw.

  “For slaughter, Ed. The great state of Texas is one of the few states left where it’s still legal to butcher horses. The slaughterhouses say it’s done humanely, but I’ve read eyewitness accounts.” Debbie Sue shook her head. “Trust me, there’s nothing humane about it. I’d give you the details, but I can’t stand to repeat them.”

  Edwina’s brow knitted into a frown as she popped the lollipop from her mouth. “Slaughter for what? Are we talking the glue factory?”

  “Sometimes it’s for dog food, but the real money comes from the foreign meat market. Horse meat has always been desirable in some parts of Europe. And now, with the mad cow disease scare over there, the price of horse meat has more than doubled. A well-cared-for older horse can sell for seven hundred dollars or more.”

  “Why, that’s not much,” Edwina said, “especially when you think about what Harley Carruthers’s horses are worth. He must have more than a million dollars on the hoof.”

  “The slaughterhouse people don’t care whether the horses are performance horses or someone’s old plug. They pay the same. They just care about the meat.”

  “Wow. This is hard to believe.” Edwina shook her head. “Where are these slaughterhouses?”

  “East of here. Not that far. Not far enough.”

  “That’s disgusting. That’s the worst thing I’ve heard this week.”

  A visual of Rocket Man being murdered mushroomed in Debbie Sue’s mind and tears flew to her eyes. “It’s heartbreaking. To think that someone’s horse would undergo that kind of terror—”

  “Now, don’t bubble up. Hon, I know how much you love that horse of yours. It reminds me of when I was a kid and I had a dog I was crazy about. He disappeared and my mom told me he took a job out of the country, but I knew he was dead.”

  “Why in the world would she tell you something like that?”

  “’Cause kids believe anything. She told us the same thing about our relatives. If somebody suddenly didn’t show up at Christmas, she’d say, ‘Oh, he’s taken a job out of town.’ When we got older, we learned that meant he was in jail. The more serious the crime, the farther the job. We finally caught on that if a relative had gone to work in another country, well, he was most likely on death row.”

  Debbie Sue stared at Edwina for several beats. Her friend’s off-the-wall comments never ceased to amaze her.

  Edwina squinted from behind the lenses of her rhinestone-studded cat’s-eye glasses. “You learned all that stuff about horse stealing in just one magazine article? You know, if I’m gonna be a crime fighter, I’ve got to start reading. I usually just thumb through a magazine, looking at the pictures. I never read the articles, unless, of course, it’s something about improving your love life or Russell Crowe.”

  “Hell, Ed, what could possibly improve your love life?” Debbie Sue swallowed the tears that had almost escaped when she thought of losing Rocket Man. “You and Vic have been on a honeymoon for over six years. I hope you don’t tell me things are getting stale. You two are my only bright hope for long-term relationships.”

  Edwina licked her lollipop and grinned. “Vic and I are still like two horny teenagers. There’s only one thing missing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Russell Crowe!” Edwina cackled.

  Debbie joined in, hiding her anxiety to get home and check on Rocket Man. She intended to talk to Buddy about moving her beloved horse to the pen closer to the house at night, just until the missing horses turned up. Better safe than sorry.

  “SURE, I UNDERSTAND your concerns.”

  Paige was standing beneath a scorching sun on the driveway in front of the Carruthers home, listening to Harley speak. Though the temperature was hot, she felt fall in the air.

  She had just told Harley her uncertainty about taking on the job he had laid out for her last night. When she left him and Carol Jean, telling him she wanted to sleep on the job offer, she had been dead serious. What he expected was the last thing she had expected, and she honestly did want to think about it.

  In doing that, she had tossed and turned all night. Had Daddy known all along the kind of job Harley had for her? A part of her wanted to call him and discuss it; another part wanted to make her own decision like any other adult.

  “Here’s something to consider,” Harley was saying. “Buck told me how much you want to work with horses. This is an opportunity for you to stay on here and do that.”

  Well, that comment answered her question. Her daddy had known Harley would hire her to help with his horses. “I don’t know, Harley. I do love horses. I’ve always wished I could be like my mother. It’s just a lot to think about right now.”

  Damn, she hated being wishy-washy.

  “While you’re thinking, want to take a look at my champions?”

  “Sure,” Paige said. What could be wrong with just looking?

  Harley motioned her to follow him. A limestone slab pathway led to the huge barn adjacent to an arena. A few steps later, Harley stopped and said, “Wait while I tell Carol we’re going to the barn.”

  He had scarcely walked away when Paige heard a whinny and a commotion from a circular paddock to her right. She walked a few more feet and spotted a pretty-boy cowboy she recognized as Lester. Cursing at a young horse, he gripped its bridle and planted a kick to the animal’s side. The horse screamed, so frightened the whites of its eyes showed.

  Without stopping to think, Paige started toward the horse. “Lester,” she called out, holding back the rage she felt and hoping to thwart another kick to the poor horse. She forced a smile and kept her voice even. “Hi, Lester. Remember me? Paige McBride from Fort Worth?”

  The cowboy turned and gave her a blank look, but at least he stopped abusing the horse.

  “I was just talking to Harley,” she went on. “I’m going to be your new assistant.”

  The words that had just spilled from her mouth left her dumbfounded. Something about the terror in the horse’s eyes must have moved her mouth to engage before her brain. Before Lester could utter a response, Harley proclaimed from behind her, “Why that’s terrific, Paige.” He turned to Lester. “Meet your new assistant.”

  Yikes! Now a retraction was almost out of the question.

  In a flash, Lester’s expression went from be-mused to a-mused. It happened so quickly most people would have missed it, but since most people never took her seriously, Paige was accustomed to the look. Well, no matter. Even if the world thought her a dumb bunny, if there was an area in which she felt she could hold her own, it was in caring for animals, especiall
y horses.

  Lester led the horse over to the fence and looped the reins over the rails before climbing over. He gave her a head-to-toe, his evaluation so thorough she half expected him to open her mouth and check her teeth.

  He laughed a lascivious heh-heh-heh. “Leave it to ol’ Harley here to hire the prettiest little gal I’ve ever seen.”

  His eyes moved over her one more time before he offered his hand. When Paige shook hands, he enclosed her hand in his and pulled it to his chest. Paige bit back an urge to tell him his attempt at charm was wasted. She had heard enough about him to be apprehensive, and now she had witnessed him doing something that repulsed her.

  She made an effort to remove her hand, but he held on tight.

  “You say your name’s Paige?”

  “Yes. I’m from—”

  “Fort Worth.” He finished her sentence and leered at her with a phony grin.

  She pried her hand from his. Now she knew how the calves felt in cutting events when they were separated from their herd and left alone to outmaneuver the horse.

  “I remember seeing you at the last cutting in Fort Worth,” Lester said, “when Chiquita Pistol won the Triple Crown. I had an entry that should have taken her, but I had some bad luck with the calves.”

  Leave it to a half-assed cowboy to blame the cow, the horse, or bad luck instead of admitting his own shortcomings. “Chiquita Pistol’s a champion all right. Good breeding shows up in animals…. And human beings, for that matter.”

  Lester leaned in. “Sometimes you can’t look at breeding alone. Training and discipline can make a difference. Unruly horses have to be handled with a firm hand. I’ve yet to meet my match with a strong-spirited filly.”

  Paige narrowed her eyes and turned to face him, primed to bless him with her true thoughts when Harley stepped in. “Paige, we’ve got living quarters here at the ranch. You’re welcome to stay in one of the bunkhouses, but I doubt it’s what you’re used to. Carol suggested you might prefer to live in town. If that’s what you want, she knows some folks who have rentals. Would you like to talk to her about it?”