by Laura Crum
All my life I'd been interested in cowhorses-cutting horses, stock horses, roping horses-perhaps a reflection of the American fascination with the cowboy image. I'd owned a retired rope horse when I was a teenager, a good old pony who'd taught me to ride and given me whatever understanding I had of horses and their ways. But life had not arranged itself so that I could pursue my interest; life for many years had been a steady all-consuming struggle to get through vet school, while life at the moment made vet school look easy. I had had neither the time nor the money for cutting horses.
But ride one? Now?
"Won't I just fall off?"
"I don't know. You might." Casey's grin broadened. "Chance you take."
"Will I screw her up?"
"Nah. She's a broke horse. You can't hurt her. Just do what I tell you." Casey was already getting off, adjusting the stirrups for my legs.
What the hell, I thought, you only live once. "What's her name?" I patted the mare's neck as I started to climb up on her.
"Shiloh. She's a real lady. Wouldn't hurt a flea."
Shiloh seemed taller, once I was on her. The ground looked a long way down. I walked her around the pen, getting used to the feel of her. Casey perched himself on the top rail of the fence, calling out a rapid stream of instructions.
"Just walk her into the herd real easy. I'll tell you which cow to cut, pick you a slow one; you push it away from the others, then drop the reins on her neck and let her alone. She'll do the rest."
Taking a good grip of the saddle horn, I nodded my head, feeling my heart thumping as adrenaline rushed into my blood. Shit. Just hang on, I told myself.
Shiloh stepped toward the herd quietly, her black-tipped ears flicking forward to the cows, tilting back toward me when I moved the reins to guide her. I remembered an old rancher I'd known telling me you could always spot a good horse by the way he "worked his ears."
The cattle glanced up at me as I threaded my way between them; the herd shifted and milled, moving away from the horse.
"Cut right in the middle of them." Casey's voice was disembodied; my eyes were locked on the cattle. "Push that black one out. Solid black, big steer. Just to your left."
I looked; there he was. Big and black, moving in front of me as I stepped the horse forward. Steer stopped, moved away. I urged Shiloh toward him; he stepped away again. Two more steps and he was well away from the herd, standing in front of me.
Casey's voice. "Just right. Now drop her head."
Obediently, I let the reins fall slack. Shiloh's head dipped down a foot, her ears pointing sharply at the steer; I clutched the saddle horn with white knuckles, holding my breath, and the steer casually trotted two steps to the right. Shiloh flowed with him. There are no other words for it. Riding her was like being a leaf floating on a stream.
The black steer turned back to the left, seeking a way to the herd, and the mare rolled with him effortlessly, a move as sudden and graceful as a perfect turn on skis-the ultimate free ride. Back and forth across the pen we went, staying with the steer, keeping him away from the herd he desired to rejoin, and I felt a wide grin breaking out as I let myself flow into the turns with the mare, feeling the thrill of her timing.
After a dozen or so turns I heard Casey again. "Pull her up, real gentle."
I reached down and picked up the reins and the mare came to an easy stop, her ears flicking back toward me once more as the steer moved away.
"Good girl," I told her, patting the blue roan neck that was slightly damp with sweat, running my fingers through her black mane. "Good girl."
"So what do you think?" Casey's grin was a reflection of my own as I walked Shiloh toward him.
"Wow. That is fun." I got off the mare and patted her once more, saying regretfully, "I'd give a lot to have the time and money to train Gunner to do this."
Casey flipped one shoulder in his characteristic shrug. "I'll train him half-price. For you. He's a good one."
His eyes met mine in a brief glance that said he was serious and I nodded. "Okay. He should be sound enough in another six months. I'll save my money."
Casey was already leading Shiloh away toward the barn and I followed him, wondering if I had just done something incredibly foolish or incredibly smart. I really couldn't afford even half-price training fees. But the feel of the horse moving underneath me, dancing with the cow ... only one thing I'd known had ever compared to that. Smiling to myself, I thought that was a comparison I wouldn't make to Casey.
By the time I walked into the barn, he had Shiloh unsaddled and was saddling another horse, moving with the restless jerky motions that were typical of him on the ground; it was only on a horse that he acquired that still, poised quiet that was part of his skill. As he pulled the cinch tight on a leggy sorrel gelding he said over his shoulder, "Have a look at those horses will you, Gail? They look all right to me, but since you're here . . ." He was leading the horse away as he spoke. "I need to ride this pig before I quit."
Walking up and down the barn aisle, I stepped into the stalls of the horses I'd treated this morning, taking their pulse and respiration, checking for any abnormal signs. There were none. The poison (if there was a poison, I added to myself) had apparently been something which had caused the horses to have a major digestive disturbance. In some cases their intestines had ruptured from the pressure, which had killed them. In the cases where they hadn't ruptured there seemed to be no further problems once the colic effect had passed. I made a mental note to tell the lab to check for atropine in the blood as well as the other poisons, as atropine was the only drug that struck me as likely to have just that effect.
When I was done I stood in the aisle for a second, hearing the peaceful rustle and stamp of the horses in their stalls, smelling the warm, sweet familiar smell of a barn. This barn had been built by Ken Resavich, the owner of the ranch, a few years ago and was state of the art, in its way. It was a metal building (horses eat wood) with concrete floors, fully enclosed stalls, tack room, feedroom, bathroom, wash rack, office-all immaculate. There was not so much as a stray horsehair or a clod of dirt in the concrete-floored breezeway that ran between the stalls, let alone a pile of manure; two Mexican men were employed full time to keep it that way. The general effect, I thought, was unpleasing-a little too antiseptic-looking. The place smelled like a barn, but it didn't feel like one.
I wandered back outside to lean on the fence and watch Casey.
He had opened the arena gate and was turning the cattle back out into their pasture. The leggy sorrel colt he was riding was high-headed and wild-eyed and danced underneath him with barely contained energy. Casey held the horse with a firm hand while he watched the cattle file out the gate. I watched them too, checking automatically that none were lame, that all looked slick and healthy.
Late afternoon sunshine lit up the round hills of the ranch with just that long slant to it that meant summer had turned into fall. The crossbred cattle fanned out across the holding pasture, their backs deep red and black against the washed-out yellow of the grass. Casey loped the frantic-looking sorrel colt in half circles around them, pushing them toward another gate. I could hear him yelling-the wild "hoo-aw" that was his trademark.
Looking out to the west, where the hills rolled away open and empty toward the blue of the Monterey Bay, dark green oak trees in the ravines, I wished I could afford a ranch like this. Even a ranchette. Somewhere with some space, where I could keep my horse. At the rate I was progressing economically it wouldn't happen until I was about fifty. Practicing as a veterinarian on salary was just managing to pay my bills; even the payments on my definitely low-end cabin were stretching me.
I looked back at Casey and my mouth dropped open. The peaceful, if active, tableau of cowboy, horse, and cattle had broken into a wild scene of disaster. Cattle were scattered in all directions and running through the middle of them, flat out, were Casey and the sorrel colt. The colt's head was stuck straight up in the air, clearly out of control, and he was running blindly
. Casey was jerking on the left rein, trying to bring him around, but the horse paid no attention. He tore through the cattle and appeared to be headed straight for a steep hillside, where the ground dropped off abruptly and was littered with boulders.
My hand tightened on the fence rail. There wasn't a thing I could do. Casey and the horse rocketed off the crest of the hill and lunged down in an uneven gallop. Casey still sat firmly in the middle of the horse, and to my complete disbelief, seemed to be able to guide him a little so that he missed the bigger rocks. For a minute I thought he would make it to the bottom and then the colt stumbled and things happened so fast I couldn't follow them.
The colt was tripping and then the saddle lurched sideways and Casey was hurtling off as if catapulted. The horse was down and rolling, and Casey was lying on the ground. I started running toward him, feeling as if I were moving in slow motion.
Casey's figure was crumpled and still; I ran, legs pumping, heart pounding. Casey moved a little-at least he was alive. I ran harder, stumbling on a rock. When I looked up, Casey was getting to his feet. I slowed to a walk.
"Are you all right?" I was close enough to yell.
He limped toward me. "Oh, yeah. Dumb son of a bitch." He looked back over his shoulder at the horse, who was galloping frantically around the lower pasture, apparently unhurt.
I stared at the horse, too. The saddle was hanging under his belly. "What happened, did the cinch break?"
"Must have." Casey was watching the colt gallop. "He's a pig. Tries that runaway shit every other time I ride him. Guess I better go catch him before he cripples himself, though."
He started to limp in that direction and I touched him on the arm. "Save your leg. I'll get the horse."
Casey looked at me and then shrugged. "Okay. He's liable to be a little touchy about that saddle under his belly."
Nodding, I headed off toward the horse. His gallop had slowed to a lope out of pure exhaustion, I supposed. His whole body was wet with sweat and there was foam on his neck. His eyes were still rolling frantically, and periodically he would jump sideways when the saddle under his belly caught him by surprise.
I walked toward him, talking meaninglessly in a calm voice. "You stupid horse, don't you want me to help you, you need to get that saddle off ... ," etc. I spoke matter-of-factly, my voice telling the horse that things were okay.
He stopped and faced me, his eyes full of fear. He hated the saddle under him, he didn't trust me to help him, but he was also tired and running away hadn't done any good. I saw him hesitate; he thought of running again.
"Whoa," I told him firmly.
He looked back at me, his sides heaving, and I could see in his eyes that he would let me catch him. I walked toward him and took hold of the reins.
The saddle was attached to him by the back cinch and breast collar only, hanging awkwardly and loosely under his belly. Moving slowly, I talked soothingly, and struggled with the buckles, trying to get it off of him. He jumped once or twice, but didn't attempt to bolt with any determination. Eventually I was able to pull the saddle free. Carrying it with my right arm, I led the horse with my left, and headed back toward Casey.
He was already limping in the direction of the barn. I followed him, handing the sorrel colt's reins to him without comment, and slinging the saddle over my shoulder. Casey was walking as if he hurt badly. I wondered if he'd broken some ribs. Something in his remote gaze kept me from asking, though it would have been a natural thing to do. There was, always, a strange tension in Casey; sometimes normal comments or questions sounded odd-superfluous, foolish-in his presence.
He put the sorrel colt in a stall without word.
"Where do you want this saddle?" I asked him.
"I'll take it."
I refrained from offering to help him further, feeling it wouldn't be appreciated, and handed him the saddle. Still limping, he carried it into the tack room and slung it on a rack, stopping suddenly.
"Look at that."
I looked where he was pointing and saw that the off-side billet, a leather strap that attaches the cinch to the saddle on the right-hand side, had torn clean through.
"See that." Casey's voice was tense. "Somebody cut it."
For the second time that day I turned to him with the slack-jawed incredulous expression of a cartoon character. "What do you mean?"
"Look at it. It's been cut." I peered closer at the billet. The leather had a smooth straight split that ended in a tiny jagged tear.
Casey was still talking. "Somebody cut that son of a bitch up high, under the fender where it wouldn't show. Left a tiny little quarter-inch strip of leather to hold it. I cinch up, no reason I should check the off-side-and the first real stress that billet gives way. Same bastard did this that poisoned the horses."
I was staring at the billet with the slow, cold realization that this was the saddle I'd ridden in to work Shiloh. If she'd made an especially hard turn, if I'd leaned too far ...
My eyes met Casey's, the shock suddenly personal, and the look in his chilled me. "I'm gonna get that bastard."
Abruptly he turned away, with one of those meteoric mood shifts I'd grown accustomed to. "Come on, I'll buy you a drink."
Chapter FOUR
I followed Casey up the hill to his mobile home in silence, still puzzling over the "cut" cinch. Paranoia or fact? I certainly couldn't tell by looking at the leather billet, though Casey seemed to think he could, but two disasters in one day did seem a little odd. Surely life on the ranch wasn't usually this exciting.
Casey was in the kitchen pulling a Budweiser out of the refrigerator when I walked through the door he'd left open behind him. Melissa sat at the kitchen table, drinking a diet soda and painting her nails a sparkly bubble-gum pink. Her "Hi, Gail," was subdued, and she kept her eyes on her nails. Uh-oh.
Casey looked inquiringly at me and held up a beer.
"Sure," I told him. I wasn't crazy about Budweiser, but I liked it a whole lot better than diet soda, and I knew from previous experience that that was all they were likely to have on hand.
Carrying a beer, Casey stomped off to the couch, hiding his limp, I noticed, almost completely. Wondering what prompted such an effort, I picked up my own beer from the table where he'd put it and sat down, taking in the familiar scenery.
Casey's mobile home was furnished innocuously, providing little useful information to the curious visitor. Boring beige carpet and linoleum, beige corduroy furniture, white walls and ceiling. Casey and Melissa had put up no decorations at all and the lack of any sort of taste was so emphatic it was almost a statement of its own. Casey's house reminded me of the barn; everything was neat and of reasonably good quality but completely devoid of any interest or character. It made sense, after all. Both the barn and the mobile home belonged to Ken Resavich.
"What's Ken doing these days?" I asked Casey, searching for a safe subject in what struck me as a touchy atmosphere.
Casey's eyes lost their remote look for a second and he laughed, his old laugh, and cut it short with a wince. "Making more money. He told me he did real well with his lettuce this year-made another couple of million."
"Sounds simple, doesn't it?"
Casey laughed, briefly this time. "Oh, yeah. Everything Ken touches seems to turn to gold. Speak of the devil."
As we watched, a small white Cadillac pulled into the driveway of the big house up on the hill and a man got out of the car. A short, crisp man in his fifties, with close-cropped gray hair and a conservative light blue shirt tucked into navy blue slacks. He carried a briefcase as he walked to the front door, unlocked it, and let himself in. Ken Resavich in person.
Lights came on in the big house as we stared out the window of Casey's mobile--curtains were drawn. Casey said nothing. I thought about the little I knew of Ken Resavich, which wasn't much, and wondered if Casey liked him, hated him, was indifferent to him. It would have been hard to guess. Casey was a difficult person to read emotionally, and Ken Resavich was even more so. I'd
only met Ken a couple of times, but his face had seemed almost wooden-expressionless-though not in any way hostile. I had no idea what he was like, other than he was rich and not an extrovert.
"Ken doesn't look much like a farmer," I said conversationally. "He looks more like a C.E.O., or a colonel in civvies. Was he ever in the army?"
Casey shrugged, his face as blank as his boss's could ever be; something about the inward expression in his eyes made me wonder again if he wasn't hurting pretty badly. I tried a tentative question. "Are you all right?"
"I'm doing fine." His tone was clipped and he took a long swallow of his beer and looked away from me. The message was plain-leave it alone.
Melissa was still painting her nails, ostentatiously absorbed; it didn't take a lot of brains to guess that she was involved in some sort of silent feud with Casey. In fact, all the unspoken vibes in the room were starting to make me feel tense and uncomfortable. No matter what I said it was sure to be wrong.
Finishing my Budweiser quickly, I rose to go. Melissa looked up as I said a brief "Thanks for the beer," to the room in general, and smiled brightly in my direction. Maybe she was trying to let me know it wasn't me she was mad at.
I smiled back. "See you guys later."
I was headed for the door when Casey called after me, "I'm showing that mare tomorrow. Shiloh. In Los Borregos."
It wasn't exactly an invitation, but there was something in his voice that struck me as a request.
"Why don't you come?" Melissa chimed in with another friendly smile. "Casey could use the support."
It sounded as if there were a barb in her words, but Casey didn't respond, just nodded affirmatively, if laconically, from the living room. "Come on," was all he said.
Melissa insisted on giving me detailed directions before I left, and I took them down, agreeing halfheartedly that I might go.