Dark Horses

by Susan Mihalic

  “Long. How was your day?”

  Gertrude had worked in the garden until the rain started. We were having osso buco tonight. Daddy wanted me at the barn right away.

  In the house, I threw my uniform across the foot of my bed, pulled on jeans and paddock boots, and snagged an apple on my way to the barn. Diva and Vigo whinnied hopefully, so I bit off chunks and dropped them in their buckets, but I saved most of it for Jasper.

  He wasn’t in his stall, so I walked out to the paddocks. Empty.

  Back in the barn, I left the apple in his bucket and headed to the covered arena. Daddy was probably working him. They must not have ridden out after all.

  In the arena, Jasper was under saddle and executing a flawless counter canter—but Daddy stood with another man outside the fence, their backs to me, both of them watching whoever the hell was riding my horse.

  I stopped short.

  The tall, lanky rider was a prince on horseback. Jamie Benedict. Which meant the man standing next to Daddy was Frank Falconetti.

  - twenty-one -

  “WHAT’S GOING ON?”

  Frank turned. “Hey, kid. Whoa—that’s some look you’ve got going.”

  I wasn’t sure whether he referred to my hair or my expression. Why was Jamie riding my horse?

  Smiling, Frank turned back to the rail.

  Daddy pushed his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “Nice,” he called to Jamie, who had transitioned into an extended trot.

  Heavy-legged, feet like cinder blocks, I joined them at the rail.

  “Daddy?” I cleared my throat. “What’s going on?”

  He rolled his head to the right, cracking his neck. “I told Frank about our conversation. About this being your decision.”

  “I know how attached you are to him,” Frank said.

  Daddy rolled his head to the left, making more popping sounds. “She knows better than to get attached.”

  He’d done it. He’d sold Jasper back to Frank.

  My world tilted so sharply that I staggered, but their eyes were on Jamie and Jasper, my horse—who, well trained as he was, performed perfectly under yet another skilled rider who wasn’t me. The scene in front of me was sharp, glassy. The smells told me it was real, horse and leather and sweat—mine.

  Eventually Jamie reined in by the gate. “What a treat to ride him again. I can’t thank you enough.”

  “You’re doing us a favor by taking him off our hands,” Daddy said.

  Jasper wasn’t a burden. He was my best horse, and together we were magic. Weren’t we?

  “Hey, Roan,” Jamie said. “Cool haircut.”

  “Fuck you,” I muttered under my breath, but the words could have been “thank you,” and they were lost, anyway, because Frank said over me, “Shall we load him up?”

  Jamie hopped off, transforming from swan prince into awkward duck as soon as his boots touched the ground. “Hell, yeah.”

  Daddy swung open the gate. “Let’s get him ready for the road.”

  Jasper stretched his head toward me, but Daddy took the reins behind the chin strap. “Watch out, darlin’.”

  I took a step back. Daddy and Jasper led the way to the barn, Jamie and Frank following, me bringing up the rear, my throat aching all the way into my ears, my head filled with woodpeckers drilling into my skull. I couldn’t let them know he’d done this without me. They were the competition. But how could Jamie think I’d agreed to this?

  Unable to watch but incapable of not watching, I sat on the knoll above the memorial garden, my arms hugging my knees. The wet grass soaked the seat of my jeans, while in the training barn crossties, Daddy unsaddled Jasper.

  “Cut on the overheads,” he said.

  Jamie went to the switch by the door and turned on the lights. Now I wouldn’t miss a single thing about Jasper’s last moments at Rosemont. Daddy began to rub him down.

  From the doorway, Jamie’s eyes lit on me. He approached me, curious but not apologetic. “Hey, you’re okay with this, aren’t you?”

  “What do you fucking think?” My vocal cords were as taut as violin strings, but I made sure not to speak too loudly so Daddy wouldn’t hear me.

  He glanced back toward the barn. “Monty said—”

  “What? What did he say?”

  “Nothing except he doesn’t have time to ride all three horses and keep up with the farm. All I have to do is ride. Frank does everything else.” He paused. “Michael’s been riding more. Did you see any of the footage from Greensboro?”

  “No.” I hoped Michael had won and Jamie Benedict Arnold had come in dead last.

  “He killed it.”

  If he were waiting for a reaction, he could wait forever.

  “Anyway,” he said, “Frank wasn’t going to say no to taking Jasper back, and of course I want to ride him. I’m not a fool.”

  Not a fool and not my friend. Daddy always said this was a business, one that had the potential to break your heart. Obviously Jamie and Frank and Daddy were all business, while here I sat in the cold and the wet, heart effectively broken.

  “He said it was your decision,” Jamie added.

  “I won’t always have broken ribs. I’ll be riding again in a month.” Well, five weeks.

  “Yeah. How are you feeling?”

  I shook my head. Don’t pretend you care.

  Daddy swaddled Jasper’s legs in padded wraps.

  “I’ll take good care of him.” Jamie started back to the barn.

  I exhaled sharply. Friendship had its limits, and I’d hit mine, but he would take care of Jasper.

  “He likes ear rubs,” I said.

  He smiled, as if I’d caved in. “I think I’m the one who told you that.”

  Daddy threw a light blanket over Jasper and strapped a poll cap to his head.

  “Come say goodbye, darlin’,” he called.

  My jaw clenched so tightly that I was in danger of cracking my molars. I climbed to my feet. Frank had snapped a lead line onto Jasper’s halter, and Daddy was unclipping him from the crossties.

  If I could speak, I’d have whispered to Jasper: You’re mine. Kick and bite and buck every chance you get, so you’ll come back to me. But Jasper was no Diva. He was perfect. Wordlessly I caressed his ears, put my forehead against his, and then stood back while Frank walked my horse down the aisle, turned left, and led him out of sight.

  “I’d better run and open the trailer,” Jamie said. “Thanks again, Monty. Roan…”

  I glared at him.

  “See you,” he said.

  He jogged down the aisle and disappeared.

  Daddy leaned over and picked up Jasper’s grooming kit and took it into the tack room. He should have given it to Frank.

  Rain began to fall hard.

  He’d sold my horse.

  I didn’t care what deal they’d struck. I couldn’t let this happen.

  I started down the aisle at a walk, then broke into a trot that jarred my ribs and forced me back into a speed-walk, my hand pressed to my side. I turned left, toward the covered arena, and then right, shortcutting to the parking area for the farm’s fleet of trailers and work trucks. Cold rain pelted the top of my head.

  The taillights of Frank’s trailer glowed through the rain. Jasper always had been easy to load. Jamie was in the passenger seat, and Frank was pulling onto the back driveway, the asphalt as glossy as black glass. The diesel engine growled as he accelerated.

  I waved my arms over my head and gasped as pain lanced through my left side, but I kept flailing my right arm as I speed-walked after the truck. “Frank! Stop! Frank!”

  The lights shrank into distant red blurs and vanished altogether as the trailer went down the hill toward the back gate.

  I bent over and braced my hands on my knees. The rain was so loud that I could no longer hear the engine, only the downpour and the wheeze of air in and out of my lungs.

  “Stand up,” Daddy said.

  Ready for a fight, I pushed myself upright. His lips stretched
into a cold smile. Rain ran down the back of my neck, and the chills under my clothes penetrated my muscles.

  “I know what you’re doing,” I said.

  “I should hope so.” This wasn’t the stunned, distant Daddy who’d told me to sleep in because he was riding out. This was Daddy with a plan. “The question is, do you know what you’re doing?”

  That brought me up short. Chopping off my hair and acing that interview had felt right, like I was figuring out how to live with myself and with Daddy, but now he was punishing me. He hadn’t just sold Jasper. He’d toppled me right off my high horse.

  On the other hand… he’d lost his leverage.

  I laughed.

  “Something funny?”

  “You. Now that you’ve sold him, what do you have to hold over me? Nothing.”

  He popped the collar of his jacket against the rain. “I didn’t sell him. Yet. Frank would jump at the chance to keep him, and you saw what a good fit he is for Jamie.” He reached out and tugged a wisp of my hair. “How much do you want him back? Enough to stop challenging me? Figure out what you want, darlin’. It’s your choice.”

  Once again—still—always. He had me where he wanted me.

  * * *

  AT SUPPER, HE told me Jamie had won Greensboro.

  I should have known he wouldn’t finish dead last. At least I didn’t have to hate him or Frank anymore. They hadn’t stolen my horse. So far as they knew, the situation was exactly as Daddy said: He didn’t have time to ride all three horses.

  If I wanted Jasper back, I had to rise to the occasion. “How’d Michael do? Jamie said he’s been training more.”

  “Close second. Want to watch after supper? SNN has the highlights online.”

  That subtle example of Daddy’s power had been lost on me until now: Vic was SNN’s lead correspondent for eventing, but he’d interviewed me instead of covering Greensboro.

  “Can we watch while we eat?” I asked.

  Daddy accepted my enthusiasm as his due.

  We ate at his desk, his computer monitor angled so both of us could watch. Jamie had won on his Oldenburg, Deo Volente, turning in a strong performance on the dressage test. He rode like a centaur, an opinion delivered by Vic’s substitute, Odette Thibodeaux, a onetime Olympian and lesser god of eventing. Daddy didn’t own the sport.

  He owned me, though, so I made appropriate assenting noises as he critiqued Jamie and Michael and Sophie, who’d placed third. Initially I was faking it. Then Odette began to create a narrative around the rivalry between Jamie and Michael. When her cohost mentioned my name, Odette dismissed me. “The story here is these two riders. You can see the intensity and drive each of them has.”

  I’d missed one show, and I’d become irrelevant.

  The video wrapped up a three-day show in thirty minutes.

  “I want to send Jamie a note,” I said.

  Daddy looked at me.

  “To say congratulations.”

  He opened one of his desk drawers and gave me a thick white note card blind-engraved with the word Rosemont.

  I scrawled out the note I’d written in my head last night:

  Dear Jamie,

  Congratulations on winning Greensboro. I’ll have a lot of catching up to do when I’m riding again, but don’t worry—I’m coming for you. Haha.

  I drew a smiley face.

  Now for the part I hadn’t written last night. My fingers stiffened around the pen, and the act of writing felt unnatural.

  Take care of my horse. Remember to rub his ears, and tell him he’ll come home soon. Sincerely, Roan.

  I pushed the card across the desk to Daddy.

  He scanned it. “Sincerely? You don’t sound sincere.”

  “Oh, I’m sincere.”

  “In your congratulations.”

  “Well, I’m not sincere about everything.”

  Despite his own reputation as the embodiment of sporting conduct and his irritation with me, his lips twitched. Even the slightest genuine smile from him looked nothing like the cold, lipless smile he’d given me in the rain.

  “I’ll mail it tomorrow.” He stuck the card in a matching envelope and was addressing it when the phone rang. He glanced at Caller ID and hit the speaker button. “I made it clear you’re not to call this number again.”

  Anonymous. The menace in Daddy’s voice compressed my heart, making it small and tight.

  It’s Mama, I mouthed.

  “What?” Daddy said.

  “Mama,” I said.

  Instantly there was a click from the handset and then a dial tone. That was it. She’d never call again.

  Daddy pushed the off button. “What makes you think it’s your mother?”

  “I just… wanted it to be.”

  He leaned forward and folded his arms on his desk. “Every one of your mother’s actions was a choice. When she chose to cheat on me, she chose to leave both of us.” He paused. “You understand, don’t you, that when you chose to cut your hair, you chose to give Jasper to Frank.”

  “Here you are,” Gertrude sang out, and the artificial cheer in her voice told me she’d overheard. “How was supper? May I bring you anything else?”

  Daddy complimented her on the meal. I couldn’t remember what we’d eaten.

  I helped her clear, taking the serving dishes into the kitchen.

  “Sugar,” she began.

  “Don’t,” I said. “Just don’t.”

  She touched my shoulder while I ran hot water into the sink. I was so accustomed to deflecting attention from Daddy and me that—as always—a defense of him came to my lips, but I’d chew off my tongue before I stood up for him or Mama ever again. I patted Gertrude’s hand and smiled at her over my shoulder. Maintaining a façade was easier when people weren’t kind.

  I went upstairs as soon as I’d brought in the last dirty dish and texted Will. Daddy sent Jasper away.

  What? Why?

  He’s punishing me.

  For what?

  My hair, I replied, but that was only part of it. Daddy was punishing me because of what he suspected about Will and me.

  Anger curled up in my tight, constricted heart. I held on to it. I had to. If I ever released it, it would obliterate everything.

  - twenty-two -

  I ROSE EARLY the next morning and churned out two posts, one about the SNN interview and another about Jasper’s transition to Frank’s barn. I acknowledged Frank and Jamie’s expertise and generosity in working with him while I recovered—and though it rankled me to do it, I included a paragraph about how hard Daddy worked and the enormous responsibility he bore in running Rosemont. I said I was watching videos of the competition, and I lifted a line from the note I’d written to Jamie: I was coming for them, haha, smiley face. Love and hugs, Roan.

  Every time Vic interviewed me, I regurgitated the same information, reframing it so it sounded fresh. I never wavered in saying Jasper would come back to Rosemont. Sunday after Sunday, I put it out there like I was wishing on a star. By the third interview, I was working out for the camera, executing lunges, squats, planks, and stretches while Daddy coached me through them. My ribs still hurt, but not unbearably. At Daddy’s suggestion, I took aspirin to school in my backpack, but I’d ditched the rib belt.

  Between Sundays, I audited his training of Vigo and Diva. In the evenings, I screened videos with him and asked questions and made notes. I was coming for the competition, and there was no haha, smiley face about it.

  At school, Will was kind, but the friend zone was hard and empty and sad.

  I didn’t want to dwell on my sadness, but one Sunday night, when I was worn out from yet another day of being upbeat and positive for Vic and his crew, I texted Will: Ever think about us?

  Several minutes passed before he replied. Always.

  Miss us?

  Yes.

  Me, too.

  I resolved not to ask questions like that again.

  Gradually the pain in my side went away. One Friday after scho
ol, Daddy took me to the doctor’s office, where X-rays showed the bones had knitted.

  On the ride home, he said we’d restart my training the next day.

  “We don’t have time to ease back into a routine, darlin’. Bluegrass is two weeks away.”

  “When is Jasper coming back?”

  “What makes you so sure he is?”

  I couldn’t have been more breathless if he’d gut-punched me. “Why wouldn’t he? I’ve done everything you’ve asked.”

  “We’ll see. Anyway, you’re riding Diva at Bluegrass.”

  That had been decided months ago, but I wasn’t thinking about Bluegrass. What more did I have to do to get Jasper back?

  I knew the answer to that.

  My lamp was off and the clock had struck eleven-thirty when the doorknob turned.

  He drew back the bedclothes.

  His mouth was hot and wet on my ear. “How much is Jasper worth to you?”

  It was no big deal. I’d always done it. It was what I did.

  I imagined myself floating up to the ceiling, where I hid in the shadows and looked down at the people on the bed. A pale, naked body—mine—opened to a man who shouldn’t be doing what he was doing. Neither should I, but I didn’t know how to stop. And I desperately wanted to.

  * * *

  BEING ON A horse had always come naturally, but the next day, when Daddy gave me a leg up and I settled into the dressage saddle, everything was strange. Vigo’s neck seemed too long, his head oddly set at the end of it. The reins were dead in my hands instead of a living connection to the horse’s mouth.

  I gave him too much leg and he lurched forward in a trot. I bounced to the left before I caught my balance.

  “Deepen your seat,” Daddy said into the headset.

  I was a sack of potatoes, flopping all over Vigo’s back as I warmed him up at the trot and the canter. My muscles were weak. My balance was shit.

  After forty-five endless minutes, Daddy walked over to us and patted Vigo’s shoulder. “You have some work to do.”

  The dressage lesson on Diva yielded no better results. The afternoon’s jumping lesson on her was dismal. Daddy normally liked to end a training session on a high note, stopping when the horse and I had executed something particularly well, but today there had been no high notes.