by Laura Crum
"No. Just past that."
I looked out through Kris's French doors. The fog was clearing-slowly. Just visible through a gap in the redwoods, Harkins Valley Road wound past manicured white-board-fenced pastures in a flat, open section of the valley. This was the Lushmeadows subdivision, a bunch of plots with great big houses on them, intended for the horsey crowd. Across the road sat the Bishop Ranch Boarding Stable, all that was left of the old Bishop Ranch, and home to my sometime companion Clay Bishop. The Bishops had sold the majority of their ranch land to the Lushmeadows Development Company in order to bolster their sagging finances. A situation that was becoming all too common in this county.
"I don't think I've met anyone around here named Nicole," Kris said. "Does she have horses?"
"One," I said. "A mare." And I told Kris the story of my odd call out to Nicole's. "It bothers me," I said. "It seems like such a creepy thing."
Kris shuddered. "That's the weirdest thing I've heard in years." I shrugged.
"Well, it's not as bad as raping a woman, if you think about it."
"I suppose." She shivered again. "But it's so strange. What kind of person would want to do that to a horse?" Abruptly she stood up and stuffed her feet into a pair of fleece-lined leather boots with rubber soles. Pulling a jacket off the rack by the door, she said, "Let's go feed Dixie."
"All right." I got up and followed her.
Kris's corral and barn, a prefabricated, portable metal construction, sat on a small patch of level ground outside her back door, providing enough space, barely, for one horse. Redwoods leaned over it, making it dark and muddy in the winter, and it was far from an ideal spot for a stable. But Kris had been determined to keep the little mare.
A world-class endurance rider for many years, Kris had given up the sport when her great gelding, Rebby, had crippled up with an obscure ailment called EPM. Kris had retired Rebby and he currently lived in a twenty-acre pasture at the far end of Harkins Valley, boarded with a couple of other retirees. Kris had acquired the little half Arab, half Quarter Horse mare she called Dixie mostly for her daughter.
Or so she said. In reality, I didn't think Jo was all that interested. It was Kris who rode Dixie, taking long rambles along the maze of trails that twined through Harkins Valley and the surrounding ridges. Even though her divorce had forced Kris to move from an elegant little horse ranch to this shady cabin in the woods, she had clung to Dixie and to horse-keeping with tenacity.
I understood. Even though she no longer had the time or money for competition, and Dixie, in any case, was not of that caliber, Kris needed to have a horse around. To feed, to brush, to take for rides. Just to provide that elemental presence, that unique connection to the natural world that horses are.
I felt the same way. Horses were unlike other pets; when you rode a horse you partook of his power, you put yourself at his mercy. Galloping a horse, you felt the force and the joy of speed and danger, given to you by this animal who in most ways was as dependent on you as a pet rabbit in a cage. And yet when you were on his back, you and he were in a sense partners; you trusted him to take care of you; he trusted you to take care of him.
Dixie nickered at us as we approached the barn and we both smiled. A horse's morning greeting is a reassuring thing. All's well with the world.
Kris put a flake of oat hay in Dixie's feeder, and we both watched the mare eat. A little golden dun without a white hair on her, Dixie was the color of toffee candy, with big soft, dark eyes like a Jersey heifer.
"She's sure a sweet little horse, isn't she?" I said to Kris.
"She's a doll. I only get around to riding her a couple of days a week, I'm so busy, but she's just as calm and quiet as can be. Even though she lives in this tiny pen."
"She's easy to handle and be around, too." My mind was following a different track.
"Sure." Kris looked at me. "What are you thinking?"
"I don't know. About Nicole Devereaux's mare, I guess. She said that horse is real sweet. And she doesn't live a mile away."
"That's a bad thought."
"Keep an eye out, Kris."
"For what?"
"I don't know." I shook my head. "Anything out of the ordinary, I guess. This woman, Nicole, didn't want me to call the police, so I guess I won't, but it does seem really weird."
"I agree." Kris wrapped her jacket more closely around her and turned back toward the house.
"I'd better get going," I said. "Today's housecleaning day. I'm so busy during the week I don't get much done."
"I hear you. Me, too."
"How's it going at work?" I asked her as I walked toward my truck.
"Good. Busy. It takes a lot of my time and energy."
"I can imagine." Kris had gone back to work post divorce, as a high school teacher.
"Just like your job." Kris smiled at me as I got in my truck. "Promise you'll call my shrink?"
"Sure." I smiled back as I shut the door and started the engine, but I was aware that the smile was merely pasted on.
Watching Kris in the rearview mirror as I drove away, I wondered. She stood alone in front of her small house, looking somewhat forlorn in her barn jacket and boots, with her nightgown clinging to her ankles. And yet the smile and wave she gave me were genuine, warm and unforced. Kris was all right.
Why her and not me? The comparison was inevitable. Kris had been through a difficult divorce after many years of marriage; she was currently short of cash and struggling; she lived alone; she had no boyfriend. In many ways my own situation, though similar, was better. I had more money, more security; Lonny and I had not been as deeply intertwined as Kris and Rick. But I was the one who was depressed.
Get a grip, Gail. I shook my head at myself. Kris had said she was depressed, too. She'd gotten help. That was what I needed to do. Get help. And soon.
THREE
Despite everything, I drove into my own driveway with a feeling of relief. Not the surprised joy I had once felt at owning such a lovely piece of land, not that, but a sense of quiet and safety. In two short years, this property had become home.
My two and a half acres were located on a sunny south-facing slope in the hills behind the town of Corralitos, and the topography of the land made the property unique. The lower acre was comprised of a grove of young oak trees, where my horse corrals were. The upper section was a small, round hollow in the hills, a natural bowl or amphitheater. My house, which sat at the back of this bowl, was shielded on three sides by brushy hills; it looked out to the south, toward the bay. Though I was a mere quarter of a mile from a busy thoroughfare, I could see no other houses from my front porch.
I drove up the drive, past the horse corrals where Gunner and Plumber dozed under the oaks, past the little fenced vegetable garden, and up to the house. Excited yips from the dog pen greeted me. Roey was anxious to be let out.
I sat in the truck for a moment, staring out through my windshield. The corrals and barn and garden were my own creations; the house, though, had been bequeathed to me by a former owner. I couldn't imagine how I'd gotten so lucky.
The place had been built for a single woman in her fifties, a professor at the local university. As I understood the story, she had meant to end her days here, but, more or less on completion of the house she received a too-lucrative job offer on the East Coast and moved. Thus this house, my little house, had never been lived in by anybody but me.
The lady professor had shared my taste for small houses. In a place and time where the minimal size for a new house seems to be a couple of thousand square feet, she had built a seven-hundred-square-foot dwelling. I had smiled in surprise and delight when I'd first seen it, and its unmarketable (in the real estate agent's mind) size had been the reason I was able to afford this property at all.
The house suited me perfectly. My ideal has always been a little house with a big garden, and not only was this house the size I would have chosen, it had been built by someone with an aesthetic sense very similar to my own.
Shingled all over with cedar shakes that were already starting to weather, the house had a green tin roof, a big front porch, and many windows on the south side. It seemed to nestle into the hills behind it, and it was situated such that it overlooked the property and out toward the distant ridges to the south.
I knew the house's story in fairly intimate detail; it had been built by Clay Bishop. I had known Clay for many years as a client; I'd also known he made a living as a contractor. But it wasn't until I'd purchased this property that these facts had coalesced into a much closer acquaintance.
Upon learning that Clay had been the contractor who built my new home, I'd called him with a few small, specific questions and much general curiosity. He'd been friendly and helpful, and within a month I'd hired him to build my barn. That had been almost two years ago, and during that time we'd evolved into friends and then ... what?
What, indeed. I stared at my house through the windshield of the truck, not seeing it. Clay had taken me out to dinner a half dozen times in the last few months. He seemed sincere, and steadily more romantic. We'd kissed good-night last time, with much mutual curiosity, or so I thought.
And now what? It seemed to me that Clay wanted the relationship to progress, and me-I didn't know what I wanted. Clay was, as Kris had said, handsome, intelligent, and pleasant to be around. I didn't know why I wasn't more intrigued.
Except that I wasn't much intrigued with anything. Roey yipped again from the dog pen, impatient with me. I got out of the truck and unlatched the gate. The little dog burst out, going full tilt-alternately running, yipping, and chasing her tail.
Wearily I walked toward the porch, watching Roey romp around, and wondering, yet again, why I couldn't seem to enjoy anything any more.
The dog was unaware of my malaise. Giving up tail chasing, she dashed down to the barn, found a bit of horse hoof that had been pared away by the shoer, and began playing with it-flinging it in the air, catching it, and racing around with it in her mouth.
At two years old, Roey still acted very much like a puppy. She'd been given to me by my friend Lisa Bennett, and I'd named her in honor of Lisa's two parent dogs, Joey and Rita. Roey had turned out to be very small for a Queensland heeler, and her size, combined with her red color and long, white-tipped tail, gave her a fox-like appearance.
Blue, the Queensland I'd owned for fifteen years, had been docked before I got him, and I'd grown accustomed to his short stump of a rabbit tail wagging his approval. But Lisa had declined to dock her pups, for which I didn't blame her, and now I was equally taken with my little red fox of a dog.
Actually, Roey tended to remind one of a whole selection of wild animals. Frolicking up and down the hill with her ears folded back and her mouth wide open in a happy pant, she looked just like a bear cub. Lonny had said she reminded him of a badger, with her stocky body, wide forehead, and wedge-shaped head. And Queensland heelers, Australian Cattle Dogs to dog show people, seemed to make a lot of folks think of coyotes, perhaps because of the sharply pricked ears. To top it off, someone actually had asked me once if Blue was a hyena.
Whatever it is they're reminiscent of, there's certainly something feral-looking about a Queensland. In Roey's case, as in Blue's, the wildness wasn't confined to her appearance. A more rambunctious, mischievous dog probably didn't exist in all of California. On top of this, she was smart-smarter than I was, I sometimes thought. The whole combination was hard to beat if you wanted charm and entertainment, but it could be exhausting. In my present mood, in fact, it seemed like too much.
Roey had ceased playing with the bit of hoof, located her Frisbee, and brought it to me. She dropped it on the ground at my feet, wagged her tail vigorously, and looked expectantly up into my face. From long experience I knew I would have no peace until the Frisbee was thrown; bending over, I picked it up and sent it spinning across the hollow.
Roey chased and leaped and caught and retrieved the Frisbee-over and over again. Her appetite for this game never waned. When she was panting and exhausted and I was dying for a little quiet, I called her and shut her back in the pen. She watched me with wistful eyes as I walked away, and I felt like a child beater.
I didn't seem to have enough energy to go around anymore. Stepping through my front door, I surveyed the gritty floor and groaned. How in the hell was I going to muster the oomph to get this house cleaned?
I used to like cleaning the house. Its small size and the beautiful surfaces and textures made it a genuine pleasure to tend. But now, now sweeping the floor was too much.
Still-I walked down the short hall to the living room and stared at the blank wall. Paneled in pine planks, nailed rough-side out, the wall stretched to the peak of the roof, unwindowed except for a small clear pane fitted into the apex. It was the biggest open wall in the house, and when I had first seen it, I knew that it cried out for some sort of dramatic piece of art. One piece, I thought. Something that would somehow set the tone for the whole place.
Unfortunately, I had no such thing. My few bits and pieces were all too small and too mild. And I had been too busy with other pursuits to engage in a search.
So the wall remained blank. But now that I had seen Nicole Devereaux's work, I knew what I would put here. One of those big, intense, abstract landscapes-that was what the wall wanted.
For a moment I gazed at the room, trying to see it with fresh eyes. I still thought it beautiful, as I had when I had first seen it, but custom had perhaps staled my innate perceptions.
The room was twenty feet by twenty, and maybe twenty feet high from the floor to the peak of the open ceiling. It was paneled in rough golden pine, and floored with deep mahogany-red hardwood. In one corner was a gray stone fireplace, and in the opposite one, a small kitchen area with terra-cotta tile counters and silvery stainless steel refrigerator and stove. The third corner was filled with a built-in desk, and the fourth contained a round table and chairs. There was a small couch covered in a dark green Navajo-patterned fabric, placed where it faced the hearth and the big windows that looked out to the south. That was it.
The rest of the house consisted of the short entry hallway lined with bookcases, a bedroom, and a bathroom. Definitely an efficient living space.
I loved it. My previous house had been roughly six hundred square feet, and I'd become accustomed to the coziness of a little house, and inured to the inconvenience. Yes, if I didn't pick up for a few days there seemed to be junk on every available surface, and no, I couldn't go around buying furniture and artifacts wholesale.
This last suited me just fine. I hate shopping, and I really didn't have the time for it. I'd purchased the couch and a sturdy desk chair when I'd bought the house-nothing more.
Now, I thought, now I would finally get the piece of artwork that the room demanded and the place would look complete. I liked its overall bareness and simplicity, and didn't feel the need to add much clutter. One piece was what I wanted-the right one.
The thought caused a trickle of interest to creep into my mind, and I used this glimmer to push myself through the routine of straightening the house, cleaning the kitchen, sweeping and mopping the floors. I left dusting and scrubbing for another day.
By this time it was almost noon; the fog had thinned and cleared-barely. I knew from long experience that an hour or two of feeble sunshine was all I was likely to get. Santa Cruz County went through occasional periods of nonstop fog every summer, and we were in the middle of one now. Since I lived back in the hills, the sun managed to break through almost every day, but it was a short-lived battle. As soon as the afternoon began to wane, the fog crept back in, blanketing the air with its wet chill.
Staring out my windows, I reflected that if I was going to do anything outdoors, now was the time. Or, on the other hand, I could just lie on the couch and doze. The thought caused alarm bells to go off in my mind. This was exactly what depressed people did, lie around and stare at the walls.
Do something, I told myself. Go outside. Just start.
Lifting my eyes, I looked farther down the slope to where the horse corrals were. Both horses were watching me, ears pointed forward; they'd spotted me as soon as I walked out of the house.
"All right, all right," I told them. "I'm coming."
I was going to do something to make myself feel better. I was going to ride a horse.
FOUR
Despite the difficulty I had overcoming my reluctance to the logistical preparations for a ride, I still felt a little twinge of relief and enjoyment when I actually swung my leg over a horse. Over Plumber in this case. Gunner, my older horse, had developed a case of navicular, oddly enough in a back foot, and was on R and R.
Navicular disease, a degeneration of the small navicular bone in the horse's foot, is a fairly common problem in Quarter Horses, but it's usually seen in the front feet. As a vet, I was quite familiar with the drill for this problem. Shoe the horse with pads for cushioning, give him drugs to improve his circulation-lack of blood supply to the bones in question being thought to be a cause of the problem-and give him bute (horse aspirin) as needed. In Gunner's case, I was also giving him a six-month layoff.
This wasn't such a hardship for me. Two riding horses were actually more than I could keep going, given my quota of free time and level of emotional energy. It was all I could do to get one horse ridden two or three days a week. Since I kept both horses in a corral that was larger than an acre, where they could run and play as much as they wanted, I didn't feel that the lack of enforced exercise was a problem.
As I walked Plumber around the arena, I reflected on how lucky I was that he had an amiable disposition and a relaxed nature. Whether I rode him every day or once a month, he behaved equally well.