I adjusted the water pressure to little more than a trickle and stood with one arm lightly draping her shoulder, my forehead against her neck. I didn’t think, just kept water running over her leg, hoping to get ahead of the swelling. Sandy took Smitty to the hose out front. I wanted to check everyone. We needed more hands.
The sound of flowing water soothed, like a waterfall in a Japanese garden. The act of standing next to a horse with a hose in my hand, something I’d done countless times since I was kid, brought a sense of normalcy to what had been an exceedingly odd few days. If I closed my eyes, I could be anywhere. Anywhere but Winterlight.
Outside, I heard Sandy greet someone. A moment later, Little Miss Bong came into view. The dark-haired man on her back must be Dex Two. He rode up with Mike the pony on a lead line next to Miss Bong. She had briars stuck in her mane, Mike was soaking wet, and Humphrey J. Dexter the third looked like he’d had it out with a pack of drenched cats.
He swung his right leg over his horse’s neck, slid to the ground, and led both animals into stalls. Miss Bong shook herself as he unbuckled the girth. He scarcely got her bridle off before she lay down to roll. She probably had thorns under the saddle as well.
The top of Dex Two’s head barely reached my nose, and I wondered how he got his foot in the stirrup to mount his very tall horse. He wore jeans and half-chaps, muddy paddock boots, a St. Louis University tee-shirt, and no hat.
“Sandy informs me you are Miss Parker,” he said. “Humphrey J. Dexter the third, Esquire, at your service. I would rather we met at a garden party, where I could be sure not to have blood caked on my cheek and mud in my teeth.” He put his tack down and removed his leather riding gloves, one finger at a time. “Be that as it may, I am honored to make your acquaintance.”
He took my free hand, bowed over it, and kissed the back of it. I squelched an urge to curtsy and bob my head. Dex Two had thick, black hair cut short, a narrow face, and a stocky build. He carried himself with an air of formality that matched the way he talked. That was no reason for me to feel better, yet I felt my mood lifting.
“You can forgive my disheveled appearance, I hope, under the circumstances?”
“Of course,” I said. “Miss Bong’s all right?”
“Fit as a fiddle, if a very itchy one. And Mike, the good pony, apparently intended trekking to the Mississippi. He did not look kindly upon my efforts to rescue him from a dense stand of wild blackberry. Once he ascertained I was determined in my commitment to bring him home, he used every trick in that wily little head of his to get away.”
If we were having this conversation a week before, in nearly any other place I’d worked, I would have instantly written off Dex Two as a hopeless, condescending snob. But he struck me as entirely sincere and unaffected, despite his style. I liked him as well as I liked Dex One, even if they were completely different from one another.
I teased a short thorn branch out of his black hair. “Including dragging you through the blackberries?”
“Precisely.”
“And the creek?”
“Twice.”
I stifled a giggle. “How very inconsiderate of him.”
“He is a pony,” Dex Two said. “Poor manners seem to go hand-in-hand, or should I say, hoof-in-hoof, with poniness.”
“That has been my experience.”
“To put it quite plainly, he is a little shit.” Dex stomped up the steps to the tack room, paused at the door and let his gaze fall to Cali’s leg. “But an unhurt little shit.”
“What about you?” I asked.
He turned a blazing smile full of perfect teeth toward me. “Catching the little shit was the most fun I have had since the end of the hunting season.”
The door closed behind him. Cali shifted her weight from one hind leg to another, lifted her tail and emitted a long fart. I moved the hose up to her chest.
Dex One and Hank came in.
“Saw Mac comin‘ up the road on that useless beastie of his,” Hank said.
“He’s riding him?” I asked.
“Ain’t neither of ’em got a lick o‘ sense.”
“It is faster to ride than lead a horse,” Dex One said. He winked at me.
Dex Two came out of the tack room. He’d washed off his face. “That’s everyone accounted for, then,” he said.
“I see you’ve met the other Dex,” Dex One said.
“Who is to say you are not the other?” Dex Two asked.
“I was here first,” Dex One said. “Hence the designation as Numero Uno. Comprende?”
“In point of fact, as I descend from a long and illustrious line of Dexters, I must assert that regardless of your method, I am Numero Uno as you so aptly say.”
Dex One shot me a helpless look. “Lawyers,” he said to me. “I’m older,” he said to Dex Two.
I hoped they weren’t going to unzip their flies and whip out their wing-wangs.
“There is that,” said Dex Two. “Age before beauty.”
“You two idiots shut up and make yourselfs useful,” Sandy bellowed from the other end of the barn. “I’m done with Smitty. One of you take over hosin’ that mare while Vi helps me with Cheyenne.”
Dex One saluted and took the hose from me. Sandy held Cheyenne while I picked up his hoof. He didn’t like to be cross-tied. He’d feel the tension in the ropes and rocket all his weight into his hind end until hardware snapped or the rope gave out. I’d met his type many times. Norman had warned me about him the other morning. Jesus. What day was it? That had been Monday. Was it only Wednesday?
The heavy metal shoe had twisted into an S-shape. Probably he’d been galloping and caught his front heel with a hind toe, shearing off much of the flesh and bending the steel all at once. I’d seen it happen before.
“I think a bucket of water to wash this would be best.”
Dex Two hovered nearby. “I’ll get it,” he said.
In the meantime, I slowly worked the shoe loose. It barely hung by one nail, so it wasn’t hard.
Malcolm rode up and put Gaston in a stall. He barely acknowledged everyone before walking to the pasture to check the other horses. After three tries, I got Cheyenne’s foot settled in the bucket of water, instructed Dex Two to make sure it stayed there, and followed.
Malcolm inspected Fergus first. I watched him lovingly run his hands over every inch of the old horse’s skin and pick up each hoof in turn, just as I had with Cali. Then, he caressed the old horse’s neck. Fergus was okay.
I did the same with Captain, and we worked our way through the herd silently, meeting in the middle at Barbie, Brooke’s mare. A three-inch lump crossed diagonally between her eyes. She’d ran into something solid.
Malcolm brushed Barbie’s forelock away from the swelling. “Brooke won’t be happy about this.”
“I don’t think it’s serious.”
“Doesn’t matter.” He dropped his hand to his side.
I patted the mare’s neck, trying to ignore the welter of emotions rising off of him, dismissing my own. “She’s perfectly ridable.”
“Brooke doesn’t care about riding.”
So, why does she have a horse? None of my business.
“Sandy thinks someone might have messed with the fence or something. Said you keep it in tip-top shape. Any reason why someone would want your horses out?”
“No more reason for that than killing Norman and putting him in my manure pile,” he said with disgust.
Which meant there might be a connection. “You sure about that?”
“You were concerned about them getting loose this morning.”
“I was?” I hadn’t said anything to him about it.
“You made me stop so you could come back and double check all the gates.”
That dream. Damn Wastrel. “Habit.”
He gave me a “yeah, right” look. “I’m going to walk the fence. Want to come?”
I glanced toward the barn.
“Can you do anything until the vet gets here?”
“Guess not,” I answered on a sigh. I didn’t want to leave Cali, but there really wasn’t anything that would help.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked.
“Not unless you have a can of whipped cream in your pocket.”
He gave me a curious look, but didn’t respond except to shake his head. “Dr. Hurt is in emergency colic surgery on one of Busch’s Clydesdales.
He began to walk down the fence line.
“Dr. Hurt? Is that his real name?”
“Yes. Lynette Hurt. And don’t tease her. She’s heard it all.”
The fence marched straight ahead past a row of trees and up a low hill. I couldn’t see where it stopped. The thought of following it to the end and beyond drew me forward, as if there might be an answer for me there. An answer to a question I hadn’t posed yet, a question I hadn’t formed.
Instead, I asked, “Is Dr. Hurt the vet Sandy works for? Is her clinic around here? How do you know about the surgery?” Easy questions with answers that didn’t matter.
“No, and no, and I called her while I was riding.” He produced his cell phone.
He was maddeningly calm. “You rode your horse down a road bareback, with nothing more than a belt and bungee cords for a bridle, and called your vet at the same time?” I heard the edge in my voice, felt a tightening in my throat, as if the question I needed to ask was trying to escape.
If only I knew what it was.
He gave me a sideways smile as we walked along. Here, there were deep divots gouged out of the soil, like the horses had been running. But the ground was soft from the rain. They could have simply been playing.
“Gaston is a good horse,” Malcolm said.
“You said he hasn’t got a lick of sense.”
“He doesn’t. That makes him predictable and easy to get along with.”
“Ohhhh. I see. Predictable and easy to get along with—that’s what you like, huh? If I remember correctly, you like Fergus because he’s full of surprises and keeps you on your toes.”
He snorted and the tension in my throat eased.
“Guess I like a little of both.”
We shared a smile that reached my toes. “Wouldn’t another vet be able to get here sooner?”
“None that I’d want sewing on my horses.”
“Gotcha.”
We reached the trees. They bordered a different stretch of the same creek we’d ridden to Sunday morning. Back when I thought I would die of boredom and my number-one problem was vultures.
“How big is this pasture?”
“Almost eighty acres. It’s over half a mile along this side. We won’t walk the whole thing right now. I’ll come out in the truck later.”
“Is it all fenced like this?”
Some of the posts were a foot across at the base, spaced no more than eight feet apart, and each of the four rails measured two by six. I gripped the top rail and pushed. Very solid.
“It switches to wire at the far end where the fence is in the woods. That’s the most likely weak spot. It’s on my to-do list to get that section replaced this year.” He took my hand off the fence and tugged me along. “Come on.”
Something rose up from my belly when he mentioned replacing the fence. Not hysteria, I’m sure. I don’t get hysterical.
“Oh, goody. Will that be before or after we bale hay?”
I made a feeble attempt to pull away from him, but he kept a tight hold on me, lacing his fingers with mine. We were under the trees, now, near the creek and out of sight of the barn. The creek burbled, plump from the recent rain. I babbled right along with it, trying to keep whatever it was that was inside of me from getting out.
“Because I can’t wait. Can’t wait to start building up that sweat equity. I mean, it would be too mundane to just spend a whole day working, wouldn’t it? A day when no dead bodies showed up, and the horses are well, and…and we could ride like we did on Sunday—”
He pulled me against him, and I didn’t fight him. I gripped his shoulders and beat my forehead against his chest, wadding his shirt in my fists. I wouldn’t have thought I had in me, but this was what I needed, body-wracking sobs. He held me tight, and through my storm of emotion, I felt him take a measure of solace from the contact, too.
“Stop,” he said after a while, rubbing my back. “It will be all right. I swear to God. Every day was like that—”
“Until I got here? Is that what you were going to say?” I pushed away, too confused to know what was right or what I wanted. But by God, he felt good. The moment I was away from him, I regretted it.
He had the decency to look embarrassed, or maybe he was confused. After all, it was his farm where the body had been found, his fence that had been cut. His horses had been hurt, too. Yet, he was being helpful and kind to me, and I was acting like an idiot.
I turned away and pressed fists against my eyes to stop the tears. Stupid tears. What was I crying for, anyway? Then, I sat on a log, and a moment later, I laughed. Maybe I’d been too quick to dismiss the possibility of hysteria.
“Jesus. Is this the biggest freaking cosmic joke of all time, or what?” I faced him. “Some birthday, huh?”
- 14 -
When we got back to the barn, Renee, Sandy, and Dex Two were gone. Dex One had kept water on my horse’s leg, and Hank stood with Cheyenne. Clara arrived with iced tea, pie, and, God bless her, half a dozen cans of whipped cream—three plain and three chocolate.
“A little birdie told me it was your birthday,” she said, presenting me with the bag. “I made a roast for supper, but it looks like you’re gonna be tied up here for a spell, so I brought sandwiches.”
“You’re a life-saver,” I said. “Thank you.”
I cleaned Cali’s stall and put her in it, globbed ointment on Cheyenne’s foot, wrapped a bandage around it, and returned him to a clean stall. We all went in the tack room to eat and wait for Dr. Hurt. I ran the whipped cream up to my fridge, taking a big hit off a plain one on the way.
“I heard from Frank,” Clara said when I reentered the tack room. “He’s my cousin, you know—the county coroner. That there city guy ain’t even looked at Norman, yet.” She turned to me. “Got some unsweetened tea for you, Vi.”
No way to know how she guessed I didn’t like sweet tea, but Clara was growing on me. At home, I enjoyed a comfortable anonymity. I could be aloof. Here, that was impossible. Was it what I still wanted? Sure, back home no one knew anything about me, and that made it impossible for them to help. I’d thought I didn’t need or want help.
“You mean the St. Louis Medical Examiner?” Malcolm asked.
“He’s the one,” she said. “Can’t believe it.”
“It can take days,” Dex One said. “But I’m going to make a few calls, see if they can hurry it up.”
“T’ain’t right,” Hank said. “Keepin’ the family waitin’ like that. Can’t plan the funeral or nothing’.” He pushed his MFA cap to the back of his head. “T’ain’t right.”
“His poor mother,” Clara said with a shake of her head.
Poor Norman, I thought. I crammed half of a roast-beef sandwich slathered with mayonnaise in my mouth and washed it down with tea.
“Sheriff don’t want us movin’ nothin’ neither,” Hank said to me. “Not the manure pile or the spreader.”
“Okay,” I said. “Guess I’ll start a new pile.” It’s not like I wanted to go near the old one. And if I never emptied the spreader again, that would be soon enough. Yellow police tape still surrounded it all anyway.
Noire barked. Malcolm poked his head out the door and peered down the barn aisle. “Lynette’s here.”
We filed behind him. The woman coming toward us matched Malcolm in height, was skinny as a number-two pencil, had red hair pulled into an untidy ponytail, and freckles on her tired face.
“Dr. Hurt,” Malcolm said, “this is Vi Parker. Can you look at her mare first?”
“Call me Lynette,” she said to me. “Nice to meet y
ou.” We shook hands. Hers were strong and slightly chapped, like most vets’. “Sorry it took me so long to get here.”
I led the way and Malcolm filled her in on what had happened.
Clara said the food was in the tack room and she and Hank would see us later. A second after, Dex One’s beeper went off, and he said goodbye, too.
Lynette and I went into Cali’s stall.
“Bring her into the aisle where the light’s better. I’ll get my sewing kit.”
Lynette administered local anesthetic, then cleaned and sewed up the chest wound. She glanced at the knee, and said, “We’ll need a picture of that.”
Malcolm listed everyone else’s injuries, and brought in Barbie.
Lynette probed all around the lump. The mare tried tossing her head, but the vet held her still. A sound like popping Bubble Wrap came from the mare’s head. “Probably a slight fracture of the sinus,” she said. “She might have an indentation after it’s healed.”
“What was that sound?” I asked.
“Air,” Lynette answered. “With a wound like this, air escapes from the sinus cavities and gets under the skin. The air will work its way out as it heals.”
That was a new one on me. My days were going to be full with all the boo-boos. Several horses would be stall-bound for a while and need to be hand-walked for exercise rather than turned out with the others.
Lynette lugged in the x-ray machine and began to set it up. I’d done this before with other horses. The vet would take a picture while I held a rectangular “plate” that contained the film. We’d all hold our breath hoping the horse didn’t move. They could be uncooperative, and I was unsure what my mare’s response would be. The drugs were wearing off, and she didn’t want to put any weight on the bad leg.
Cali shifted the moment the vet approached. Horses always knew, it seemed. Lynette spoke in soothing tones and stroked her shoulder. I stood at her head, talking, trying to distract her. Malcolm positioned himself near the opposite hip, but I noticed him hesitate before putting a hand on her. My gaze dropped to his shin, covered by the same slacks he’d worn to the museum. The last time he’d touched this horse, she’d nailed him, so I could understand his reticence.
Candace Carrabus - Dreamhorse 01 - On the Buckle Page 11