Dark Horses

by Susan Mihalic

  “Now?”

  “Now. And bring condoms.”

  He laughed. “I like it when you take charge.”

  I gave him directions to the fire road, saddled Jasper, and set out at a brisk walk down the back driveway. At the gate, I entered the code, and then we were on the service road. The limbs of the trees were nubbly with buds beginning to unfurl into soft yellow-green leaves. All around us, birds chirped and fussed. The sun was almost directly overhead. It was a perfect day for meeting a boy in the woods.

  At the fire road, I practiced half-passes while I waited. For the past month, Will and I hadn’t even really talked, much less had physical contact beyond the odd brush of the hand. The school’s ban on PDAs was killing me.

  I heard his truck. It came around the curve and stopped.

  Will rolled down the window. “Where now?”

  I pointed toward the wide dirt track of the fire road. “A mile or so in, it forks. Go to the right until it dead-ends.”

  “I’ll follow you.”

  I took Jasper onto the fire road at a canter. The only sign of the pine that had fallen across the road in November was a stump, weeping resin.

  At the fork, I bore right and pulled up in the clearing. I hadn’t been here since the day Daddy had fucked me against a tree. That tree. The abrasions on my back had been sensitive for days, which had been a comfort in a way, because if it hurt, I wasn’t responsible.

  Will shut off the engine and got out. I dismounted, removed my helmet, and set it on the hood of the truck.

  “Hey, buddy.” He held out his fingers to Jasper, who wriggled his lips.

  I knotted the reins around the same branch where I’d tied Diva in the fall. “He’s trying to manifest carrots.”

  Will took my face in his hands and kissed me, a slow, succulent, deep kiss. My eyes began to close. His lips moved to my neck.

  I undid the top button of his jeans.

  He retrieved the condoms from the truck, and from the storage area behind the seat he took a blue sleeping bag. It didn’t soften the ridged metal bed of the truck by much, and too little sunlight fell through the pine canopy to ward off the chill, but I was ravenous.

  He was, too, unbuttoning my shirt and pulling my bra over my head, gently sucking my nipples while he unbuttoned and unzipped my riding pants. He sat up briefly to pull off my boots and my pants. He grinned at my socks, patterned with horses doing the cancan, but his face sobered as he ran his hands up my thighs. I shut my eyes. He slipped a finger inside me, the same way Daddy did.

  My eyes flew open, but I wasn’t looking up at a ceiling. Pine needles crosshatched the sky, black against the blue. I wasn’t in my room. He wasn’t Daddy.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You went all tense.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Unconvinced, he withdrew his finger and used his tongue, hot, soft, agile—and inventive. I sighed, the hard ridges digging into my back, my body stretching taut. I reached for his hands. His fingers twined with mine.

  Do you want Daddy to make you feel good, darlin’? The voice came out of the past—an afternoon when Daddy had blown raspberries on my belly, tickling me, making me giggle. Then he’d pulled aside the crotch of my panties and put his mouth on me.

  I wouldn’t let Daddy spoil this. When I was with Will, I was pure.

  “Come up here,” I said.

  Will kissed his way up my abdomen, up my torso, lingering on my nipples.

  “Kiss me,” I said, and he did, a raw, hungry kiss. Then he reached for a condom.

  He straightened up long enough to put it on. I opened my legs and closed my eyes again.

  Daddy’s penis tore into me, but I didn’t make a sound, even though the pain shocked me. It had shocked me again and again, until one day it hadn’t, and he hadn’t needed to put his hand over my mouth, and he’d shown me how this could feel as good as everything else we did.

  I didn’t stand a chance of being normal, and I’d never been pure.

  I heard a cry, and I knew it wasn’t mine because Daddy had told me to keep quiet or Mama would hear.

  Will pulled out and collapsed beside me.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “For?”

  “You didn’t seem to be… having a good time.”

  I moved closer to him and rested my head on his shoulder, my hand on his chest. “I always have a good time with you.”

  We were getting dressed when Will said, “I want to learn more about eventing, so I’ve been Googling you… but any article about you is always about your dad, too. He doesn’t seem so bad. You don’t think he’d be cool with us?”

  “I know he wouldn’t. He’s…” I paused to decide how to complete the sentence. “Strict.”

  “Is that all?”

  Where had that come from? I forced myself to sound casual. “If you ever went to a show, you’d see a hundred other parents and trainers and coaches exactly like him—and he’s all three wrapped up in one.” I pulled on my boots. “You know, when I was waiting for you, I was thinking that when I ride out alone, I’ll call you—if I can—and we can meet here.”

  He was quiet.

  “Unless you’d rather not.” That was one of Daddy’s negotiation tricks: Take something off the table.

  “No, I want to. It’s just what you said—you’ll call if you can. I can’t call you ever, and you can only call me when he isn’t around.”

  Time away from Daddy was hard to come by; riding out without him and meeting Will here would represent a lot of work on my part. I didn’t expect his thanks for it, but some understanding would have been nice. Some. Not too much.

  “It’s the best I can do,” I said.

  “I know,” he said, and he kissed me.

  * * *

  TWO DAYS LATER, on Valentine’s Day, I found a small pink gift bag in my locker before homeroom. I dug through tissue paper until I found the present: a cell phone. As I held it in my hand, it began to vibrate. I examined the screen, followed the instructions to slide my finger across it, and put it to my ear.

  “I was thinking,” Will said, “we’ve been grabbing what we can—a kiss here, a phone call there. This’ll make it easier for us to talk.”

  I spotted him at the end of the hall, walking toward me, his own phone to his ear.

  “Now you can call me whenever it’s good for you. It’s always good for me, by the way.”

  I watched him weave through the crowded hall. “You’re a genius.”

  “Very few people recognize that. It’s prepaid, so there won’t be a bill. I loaded it with a thousand minutes. Let me know when you’re low, and I’ll refill your account.”

  “How can I tell I’m low?”

  “I’ll show you. I set it on vibrate, but I won’t call you, so you don’t have to worry about it going off when your dad’s around. Or you can keep it turned off if you don’t trust me.” Will stopped in front of me.

  “I trust you,” I said.

  “You can hang up,” he said. “I’m right here.”

  - thirteen -

  DADDY’S VOICE WAS urgent. “He’s coming in too fast.”

  I tightened the reins and sat slightly against my horse, but Vigo took off too early. His back hoofs knocked the rail, and I heard a hollow plop behind us.

  “Keep going,” Daddy said in my ear.

  We were trying out a new headset. It fitted under my helmet and over my head like a hairband, the receiver snug in my ear, a tiny microphone near my mouth. Daddy wore one, too. It saved him from raising his voice, but hearing him right in my ear was creepy.

  Vigo’s striding was off as we approached the next fence.

  “He’s rushing the fence,” Daddy said. “Circle away.”

  Vigo shook his head, annoyed, when I cantered in a big loop instead of taking the fence.

  “Bring him over,” Daddy said.

  I rode to the center of the arena.

  “Get off.”

  Daddy a
nd I changed places.

  “You need to force him to take an extra full stride.” He leaned down and lengthened the stirrups. “It’ll slow him down. Watch.”

  Vigo took off at exactly the right place for the first fence and then took nine strides into the next one rather than the eight and a half he’d tried with me.

  I sighed.

  “What was that for?” Daddy said.

  Damned headsets.

  “Nothing.”

  He circled the next fence twice before letting Vigo take it. Then he rode toward me.

  “I want you to jump one and approach two, but circle when you get there. Take three, circle four. Every other fence. He needs to know you’re in charge of when he jumps and what he jumps. Big circles, more oval than round. Get him on a straight line to the fence for three or four strides.”

  He gave me a leg up. I shortened the stirrups a couple of notches and cantered around the arena.

  “Slower,” Daddy said. “Keep him relaxed.”

  None of the fences was taller than two and a half feet, but fences were more interesting than cavalletti, which I’d trained over for the past week. No sense in depleting the horse’s energy before a show, Daddy said. Vigo left Wednesday for Greensboro. We’d do a final schooling over bigger fences when Daddy and I got there Thursday, which would be enough to raise Vigo’s sights for competition.

  We completed the course cleanly.

  “That’s better.” Daddy started toward us. He switched off his headset. I turned mine off, too. “Eddie can rub him down. You tack up Diva.”

  I sighed again, but inwardly. It was a sun-drenched Sunday morning, and I’d hoped to meet Will at the fire road. Having a cell phone was great. I could call him when I rode out, and on the nights I didn’t do the walk-through with Daddy, we talked or texted.

  “Like the headset?” Daddy asked.

  “I’m getting used to it.”

  At the barn, Eddie was measuring supplements into buckets for the midday feeding.

  “How’d he go?”

  “Rushing the jumps,” Daddy replied, “but we have a couple of days to work on it. Will you rub him down? We’re going to work Diva.”

  Psycho Pony pinned her ears and eyeballed the lead rope as I opened her stall door, the sclera visible all the way around the iris of each eye, but she stood resigned in the crossties while I groomed and saddled her. Grooming was the start of the horse’s workday, but unlike the boys, Diva didn’t enjoy the fuss. She wanted to punch in, do her job, and punch out. Fine by me. If we finished early enough, I could still meet Will.

  Daddy emerged from the office. “Go ahead and warm her up.”

  After a twenty-minute warm-up, we met Daddy at the jumps.

  We made the opening circle in a slow canter and approached the first fence. Diva easily cleared it, the oxer that followed, and the triple combination after that.

  At the fourth fence, she gathered herself to jump, but instead of taking off, she locked her forelegs, and I was airborne. I tried to tuck myself into a ball, fall the way I’d been taught, but my shoulders smacked into the fence, the rails tumbled down with me, and I hit the ground flat on my back.

  The impact knocked the breath from me. I’d taken countless falls, and I was always quick to roll to my feet and catch my horse, but when I tried now, my left side stabbed.

  Daddy knelt beside me, Fernando hovering next to him. “Lie still. Don’t move.”

  He unclipped the chinstrap of my helmet and eased it off my head. He removed the headset, too, which had skewed across my face.

  “You okay?”

  I pointed to my rib cage. Daddy prodded, his hands firm and cool under my shirt, sending a tidal wave of nausea through me.

  He grimaced. “You might’ve broken a rib. Fernando, tell Eddie to bring the car.”

  I couldn’t catch my breath.

  “Can you sit up?”

  I did, with his assistance. My head felt like a cracked eggshell.

  “Can you put your head between your knees?”

  I drew my legs up, which was bad enough, but leaning over was out of the question.

  “Forget it. Sit here, catch your breath.” He rubbed my upper back, which increased my urge to throw up.

  I found my voice. “Don’t touch me. I’m trying not to puke.”

  He took his hand away.

  “Diva?” It would count against me later if I didn’t ask.

  “She’s fine. Mateo’s taking her back to the barn.”

  Eventually, Eddie came with the Land Cruiser. His face was concerned, but he said, “You’re young enough to bounce pretty good.”

  Daddy helped me to my feet, and I broke a clammy sweat, but walking wasn’t any worse. He eased me into the passenger seat.

  “You with me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You going to pass out?”

  “No, sir,” I said, and then I did.

  * * *

  X-RAYS REVEALED THE displaced fracture of three left ribs but no damage to my lung. After a CT scan, the ER doctor, a stocky man with a shaved head that was sprouting stubble, added mild concussion to the diagnosis.

  “We’ll keep her under observation overnight,” he told Daddy, who was leaning against the counter. “She’s probably fine, but we don’t take chances with head injuries.”

  I listened as if “she” and “her” were someone I didn’t know. The back of the gurney was raised like a lounge chair. From the needle stuck in the crook of my right arm, a plastic tube ran up to a bag of saline dangling from a chrome stand. Earlier a nurse had injected a painkiller into the line. The stabbing in my side wasn’t quite so sharp. The anti-nausea patch she’d applied behind my right ear wasn’t working yet, but I looked forward to that.

  The doctor turned back to me. “Let’s get you fitted with this rib belt. Sit up. Nice and tall.”

  Sitting up wasn’t pleasant. He untied the neck of the hospital gown and lowered the top to my waist. I freed my left arm from the sleeve and held it over my breasts, and he passed one end of the belt around my torso. Over his shoulder, I glimpsed Daddy’s face. He didn’t like the doctor touching me.

  “Normally we don’t use these because you need to breathe as deeply as you can, but all three bones are broken all the way in two. Don’t want them moving too much.” Dr. Stubblehead—I almost giggled as the name occurred to me—brought the ends of the belt together in front and secured them with Velcro straps. The pressure on my ribs shot through the painkiller.

  “Tough girl.” He helped me put my arm back through the sleeve of the gown and retied the strings behind my neck. “Mr. Montgomery, questions?”

  “No. Thank you, doctor.”

  “We’ll get her in a room soon.” He left through the curtain at the end of the cubicle.

  “There goes Greensboro.” The flint in Daddy’s voice cut through the haze. “Columbus, Athens, Ocala. You’re out of commission for the next six weeks.”

  “Well, I’m not happy about it, either.” My voice dragged like Mama’s did when she was drunk. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”

  “Not on purpose, but where’s your head? I told you to give her more leg. Why didn’t you do it?”

  “I didn’t hear you.” I struggled to process what he’d said, impaired by the workings of the painkiller.

  “You were wearing the headset. I took it off you myself.”

  “I forgot to turn it on.”

  “Maybe this is for the best, darlin’. You weren’t ready for Greensboro.”

  The endearment did nothing to disguise his irritation. I’d miss some big shows, and worse, I’d miss six weeks of training.

  “I’m sorry.” I’d never been sorrier. Unexpected tears welled in my eyes.

  He ripped a tissue from the dispenser on the counter. “Don’t cry.”

  It was a command. I blew my nose, which exploded my brain and turned my ribs into razor wire.

  The curtain whisked back, and a nurse in cartoon scrubs pushed a wheelc
hair alongside the gurney. “My name’s Patricia. I hear they’ve reserved the princess suite for you tonight.”

  A tear leaked out. I crushed it with my knuckle before it reached my cheek, pretending to rub my eye.

  Daddy took his phone from the back pocket of his jeans. “No bars. I’ll find a signal and call Eddie to tell him you’re all right. See you in your room.”

  I wasn’t all right. I was injured and he said it was for the best. Time to be what Dr. Stubblehead had said I was, tough.

  Patricia helped me off the gurney and into the wheelchair. She hung the IV bag on a chrome pole sticking up from the back. “Ready to roll?”

  She pushed the chair down the hall and onto an elevator, telling me about the hospital and its trauma center and how many broken bones were treated there every year. When the doors opened, she rolled me out into a wide hallway painted with balloons and kites and clouds, all fluffy childhood innocence.

  “Welcome to pediatrics,” she said.

  “I’m not a child.”

  “You are if you’re under eighteen.”

  The room was a plain hospital room, not that I’d believed in any princess suite. I got in bed. She locked the bedrails in place, clipped a thing like a clothespin to my left index finger, stuck a thermometer in my mouth, and took my blood pressure. When she was done, she typed something into a computer mounted on the wall and then pointed to the buttons inside the bedrail.

  “This raises and lowers the bed. This rings the nurses’ station. This works the TV and your reading light. I’ll get you some water.”

  Daddy came in while she was setting a big plastic mug of ice water on a tall table that rolled over the bed.

  “I’ll be back later, but ring if you need anything.”

  She left the door open. I didn’t like being on display for anyone who passed by to gawk at.

  Daddy stood at the foot of the bed, impassive. “Gertrude’s putting together some clothes for you. Do you want anything in particular?”

  “No, sir.” As soon as I said it, I had an image of him alone in the house digging through my backpack. He had no reason to, but I couldn’t risk him finding my cell. “Oh. My backpack.”