Christmas Countdown

by Jan Hambright

  “I’ll pass. Rodriguez likes the whip and Navigator doesn’t. I contacted Sam McCall, the trainer over at Rambling Farms and asked if they had an extra gallop boy, being as their Derby prospect, Ophelia Mine, isn’t in training right now. They’re sending jockey Grady Stevens over on Thursday. I’ve heard good things about him. I’m going to ask him to ride the colt in the Holiday Classic.”

  Mac cleaned the last section of the leather and slid the flat saddle onto its metal pin protruding from the tack room wall. “That’s good news. With everything that’s going on around here, I worry about your safety.”

  She met his dark blue gaze and felt her cheeks warm under the intensity. Begging for a distraction, she picked up the feed bucket on the counter and turned for the grain sack.

  “I trust Navigator. I trained him from the moment he hit the ground.” She put the bucket down into the sack and scooped up a gallon of sweet feed. “He’s a good horse. Not a malicious bone in his body.” She straightened, flipped up the handle on the pail and set it on the counter. “He’d never do anything to hurt me.”

  “It’s not him I worry about. It’s whoever seems determined to force an injury. It’s as simple as spooking him like the birds just did on the backstretch. Something like that could end in disaster.”

  She sobered, knowing that her argument would mean little to a frightened horse with the power to crush anyone in its path, including the one who’d cared for him from the time he was born.

  “You’re right. I tend to give him human qualities and he’s a horse.” She glanced away and reached for the feed bucket topped off with Navigator’s morning ration of grain.

  Caution locked on his nerves. “Hold on.” Mac reached out and covered her hand on the lip of the bucket. “Let me see that.”

  He stepped closer and released her fingers, still feeling the touch afterward.

  He sifted through the top layer of sweet feed and felt his brain go numb. He gritted his teeth as he scooped up a handful of the multi-grain concoction and held it out so she could look.

  “See the tiny white crystals?” He isolated one with his fingernail.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s Butazolidin.”

  Emma’s eyes went wide as she stared at the feed in his hand and back up into his face. “Bute?”

  “Yeah. How long have you been feeding out of this sack of grain?”

  “I took delivery the day before you got here. I’ve been feeding it for over a week. Do you know what this means?”

  Mac’s heart jumped in his chest. He saw tears well in Emma’s eyes. Her prequalifying for the Derby dreams were crumbling and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

  He dumped the handful of drug-tainted feed back into the bucket and reached for her.

  She moved against him and he pulled her into his arms, feeling her body quake.

  Mac closed his eyes, working through the problem in his head and mentally trying not to memorize every curve of her body pressed against his in the process. Butazolidin, known as bute in racehorse circles, was banned. Any racehorse caught with it in its system on race day could be disqualified, even barred from competing at racetracks around the country.

  He pushed back and grasped her upper arms. “Call the vet. Get him out here for a drug test. We don’t know how long it’s been in the feed. There’s a chance we found it in time, and it’ll work its way out of his system before the race.”

  Emma brushed her hands across her eyes, taking her tears with them. Mac was right. They didn’t have any idea when the bute had been mixed into the feed. It could have been done a day ago. “I’ll call him now and we should contact Sheriff Wilkes. Other farms could be affected by something like this and not even know about it until it’s too late.”

  “I’ll call Wilkes.” Mac pulled his cell phone out of his jacket pocket.

  She hurried out of the tack room headed for the house, the telephone and a measure of hope.

  MAC AND EMMA WATCHED Doc Remington tweezer the white crystal out of the sweet-feed bucket and drop it into a test vial filled with clear liquid.

  He capped it with his thumb, shook it and held it up to the light.

  Within seconds the liquid turned yellow.

  “It’s Butazolidin, all right. Do you want me to test your horse, Emma?”

  “Is there any way to judge by the blood sample what the percentage of bute is in his bloodstream?”

  “Yes. It won’t change anything, but we can get a better read on how long it’s going to take for him to purge it from his system.”

  “And if it’s positive, Doc, what are the chances we could treat him with a diuretic mash, green tea and pasture grass to speed up the process?” Mac studied the veterinarian, hoping he’d remembered the layman’s prescription correctly along with the ingredients.

  “What’s in the mash?” Doc Remington studied him from behind his glasses for a moment before he poured the liquid out of the vial onto the ground and put it back into his test kit.

  “Oats, cabbage, carrots, lettuce, asparagus and a bit of molasses. We’d steep green tea and add it to his water supply.”

  “I don’t see why that couldn’t work. It’ll get his kidneys working overtime to flush the drug out, and the pasture grass will help, as well. Give him plenty of exercise. Where’d you learn a remedy like that?”

  Mac felt the muscles tighten between his shoulder blades. They were moving into territory he’d rather leave uncharted. “I heard it as a kid and remembered it.”

  Doc Remington shook his head and picked up his kit. “Bring the horse over to the truck and I’ll take a blood sample.”

  He turned for his pickup. Mac followed.

  “Only one man I know ever used those techniques with any success. An old horse trainer named Calliway, Paul Calliway, if I remember correctly. He was one of the best horsemen in the Bluegrass. Don’t know what ever happened to him, but he was always coming up with the damnedest cures. The funny thing is, they usually worked.”

  Mac tensed, cocking his head slightly to the right to judge whether or not Emma was in earshot, but she’d already turned away and headed for the hot-walker.

  It had been years since he’d last heard his father’s name out loud. A name he’d been more than happy to abandon when his mother remarried and he took his stepfather’s last name. “We’ll keep you in the loop on his progress. Emma has him entered in the Holiday Classic. What are his chances?”

  “It’s a long shot. But he might be clean by then.” The vet opened one of the side boxes on his truck and reached inside.

  Mac glanced up just as Sheriff Wilkes rolled down the drive and parked next to the vet’s pickup.

  “Morning, Doc. Mac.” Wilkes nodded. “It’s a damn shame we can’t catch these guys. Did the vet confirm your suspicions?”

  Mac shook the sheriff’s hand. “Yeah. Someone put Butazolidin in Navigator’s feed sack. We’re going to try to clean him up before the race on the twenty-fourth.”

  “I hope it works, for Emma’s sake. In the meantime, I’ve got my deputies doing robo calls to every farm in Fayette County advising them to check their feed for the drug.”

  “Any forensics come back on the shooting last night?”

  “The slugs were from a .22, virtually untraceable, and the prints on the envelope and letter matched Thadeous, his nurse, who brought in the envelope from the mailbox, and Emma’s. We didn’t find anything on the letter Brad Nelson received.”

  Mac turned slightly and watched Emma lead Navigator to the rear of the veterinarian’s pickup. “We’ll catch a break. Somewhere, somehow, someone will make a mistake, and we’ll catch him.”

  “I hope so. There’s a lot of expensive horseflesh at risk in Fayette County.” Sheriff Wilkes turned for his car.

  Mac couldn’t agree more, but it was the bay colt and his owner who occupied his concern right now. He skirted the front of the vet’s pickup and made his way around to the back, where Doc Remington was just capping the hypo
dermic.

  “I’ll rush this, Emma, and give you a call in an hour or so with the results.”

  “Thanks, Doc.” She raised her gaze to meet Mac’s and flashed him a hopeful smile, before leading Navigator toward the hot-walker and the remainder of his cooldown.

  The vet stowed the blood sample. “I’ll be in touch.” Doc climbed into his vehicle, fired up the engine and pulled away.

  Turning for the barn, Mac tried to still the curiosity that churned in his mind. Doc Remington had known his father all those years ago and still remembered him? How was it possible that the veterinarian’s image of Paul Calliway was so totally different from his own?

  His cell phone rang. He pulled it out of his coat pocket and glanced at the caller ID—FBI.

  “Hey, Doug. That was quick. Have you got something for me?”

  “I couldn’t find the man’s name in our Kentucky database. If he’s holding a trainer’s license here, it could be a fake.”

  Mac stopped in his tracks and stared at the barn. “What kind of penalties go with an offense like that?”

  “A fine, possibly imprisonment, maybe even a ban from the sport.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem.” Doug hung up.

  But it was a problem. A problem for Emma Clareborn. A problem he wasn’t sure he could fix.

  Chapter Six

  Mac closed his cell phone, trying to reconcile the caution creeping through his system with the facts circulating in his brain.

  If Victor Dago had used a fake license to lease Emma’s stud barn, could it explain the thugs dressed in black who seemed to follow Dago around like a goon squad? Were they there to make sure his secret went unchallenged?

  It all seemed a little too cloak-and-dagger for a horse race, but desperate men did desperate things. He could attest to that. Maybe Dago was behind the attempts on Navigator and the other Derby prospects in Fayette County?

  “Mac!”

  The sound of Emma’s voice jolted him out of contemplation, and he glanced up to see her waving from the railing facing the hot-walker.

  Worry pushed his pace to a jog as he headed straight for her and stopped next to her, his stare going to the colt as he walked the merry-go-round.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Relax. I just saw you freeze up over there and wanted you to snap out of it. I think the colt’s going to be okay. We’re going to pull him out of this, Mac. I know it.”

  “How are his legs?” he asked, eyeing Navigator’s stride.

  “Cool to the touch.”

  “Good. We’ll have to keep a close eye on them while the bute purges from his system. He’ll be more susceptible to injury for a while. Any aches and pains he might have will be exacerbated.”

  “Thank you, by the way, for spotting the Butazolidin in his feed. I never would have caught it in time. I would have shown up at the Holiday Classic and he would have flunked the drug test. Of course, only after winning the race, losing the purse and our entry fee, then being disqualified, not to mention the harm to the farm’s reputation.”

  She looked sideways at him, and he contemplated telling her what had rooted him to the earth a moment ago, but he couldn’t be certain, not until he’d had a chance to snoop around. The rent the extra stable brought in was vital. If Victor knew his secret was about to be exposed he could bolt, leaving Emma scrambling to make up the revenue shortfall.

  “There you go again.”

  Mac resisted the need to reach out for her. She lived her financial life on the edge, but always managed to have a smile on her face.

  “What do you say we saddle a couple of horses and take the colt out to graze on pasture grass in one of the lower fields next to the creek for an hour or so?”

  “That’s a great idea. I’ve been planning to pick out a Christmas tree from the grove and drag it home, but I’ve been too busy with the horse to get it done.”

  Mac gritted his teeth, but didn’t protest. If she wanted to cut a Tannenbaum, he’d help, or stand guard against another incident like the one that transpired the last time he’d helped her spread some Christmas cheer.

  Gunfire.

  “I’ll saddle Oliver,” he said.

  “Catch the bay gelding, too. I’ll ride him. His name’s Dandy.”

  Mac turned from the fence, spotting activity outside Dago’s barn where five men warred with a single black horse as they tried to put a bridle on him.

  “Damn,” Mac swore under his breath, watching one of the men swing a rope and slap the animal across the chest. The horse reared, pawing the air with his front hooves before coming back to ground where the tug-of-war continued.

  Emma held her words of warning, watching Mac turn and head for the ruckus like a man with a mission.

  She fell in behind him, her nerves fraying between the moment she saw him pause on the edge of the fracas, and when he reached out to the animal.

  One by one, Victor and his men stepped back.

  The horse turned his focus on Mac now, ears tilted forward, sides heaving beneath his shiny black coat slick with sweat from the fight.

  Emma swallowed, fearing for the man who’d given her fresh hope. He was no match for the colt. She fought the urge to look away and held her breath. Dragon’s Soul was notorious for striking out with his front legs. She’d watched Dago and his grooms do battle with the horse from the first moment they’d stepped foot on Firehill Farm.

  If anything happened to Mac…

  “Easy. Take it easy.” Mac reached out to the frightened animal, remembering the moves his dad had used to draw a horse in and establish trust.

  Cupping both of his hands, he bent his arms at the elbows and pulled them toward his body in a coaxing motion. His dad had called his method the language of horses. “Speak horse with your body language and the animal will respond.”

  Dragon’s Soul took a step forward, then another, until he was standing directly in front of him.

  Mac reached out and put his palm on the front of the horse’s head, holding it there until he calmed.

  “Does he do this every time you try to put the bit in his mouth?” He focused on Dago.

  “Yeah. Every time.”

  With his other hand, he slipped his index finger into the corner of Dragon’s Soul’s mouth and felt along the sides of his upper and lower teeth, coming in contact with several that were as sharp as a razor’s edge. Studying the horse’s physique, he could see the weight loss from the horse’s inability to properly chew his feed.

  “You need to get the vet out here, Dago, and have his teeth filed down. They’re so sharp it’s causing him extreme pain when you bridle him, and when he tries to eat. He’s already dropping weight.”

  “Rahul, go and call the veterinary clinic in Lexington, get them out here as soon as possible.”

  The groom let go of the rope in his hand and headed for the stable.

  “Thanks.” Dago nodded and unhooked all but one of the lead ropes attached to the horse’s halter. He led Dragon’s Soul back toward the barn.

  Mac studied the group of men for a moment, memorizing their faces before he turned around and saw Emma watching him from well outside the circle of action.

  She met him halfway and they fell into stride next to one another.

  “The Titus touch. Where’d you learn to horse-whisper like that?”

  “Is that what it’s called?” He headed into the stable and stepped into the tack room.

  “Yeah. It’s become a really popular method of training and understanding horses, using their own language.”

  He pulled a couple of halters down from a hook on the wall, and grabbed two lead ropes. “Can we talk about this later?”

  “Sure.” Emma took the halter he handed to her and stared at him for a moment longer than was comfortable. She had a way of seeing into his soul and he didn’t want her to get any closer.

  “Don’t you find it unusual that Victor Dago didn’t know what was wrong with his animal? I mean, even a laym
an knows horses periodically need to have their teeth filed down for maximum health.” He met her gaze, hoping like hell the diversion turned the conversation in a different direction.

  “He does a lot of odd things that don’t play well for a horseman, much less a trainer, but everyone has their own methods, Mac.”

  He headed out of the tack room and together they exited the north end of the barn, where they took a left and walked toward the pasture gate to catch the horses.

  Knowing what he did about Victor Dago, he’d have to take it down a notch to keep from arousing Emma’s suspicions. At least until he had something definite to tell her about something that could impact Firehill in a negative way.

  Still, he had to keep his trouble-ahead radar from bouncing off the questions inside his head, and sounding a loud warning that couldn’t be ignored for long.

  EMMA REINED IN DANDY at the edge of the grove of trees and dismounted into shin-deep grass that rustled in the cool afternoon breeze.

  She moved around to the horse’s head and took Navigator’s lead rope from Mac while he dismounted beside her.

  “The hobbles are in my saddlebag.”

  Mac led Oliver around to the other side, flipped up the flap on the leather pouch and pulled out the three sets of leg hobbles she’d tied herself. The devices were made of soft cotton rope with a slip knot on each end that went around each of the horse’s front ankles. They would allow the horses to graze freely, but not give them the latitude to run off.

  “Nice job.” He glanced up at her.

  She smiled, taken by the tilt of his head as he studied her for a moment, then retrained his eyes on her hobble handiwork from under the brim of his hat.

  The afternoon sun shone down on the pristine side of his handsome face, while the other half hid in the shadow, much like he did, in her estimation.

  Her chest tightened in a funny sort of way she found pleasant. She found another focal point in order to squelch the sensation and stared instead at the vast grove of conifers she and her father had planted twenty-five years ago.