It was only when the last combination had been cleared and they were passing the finishing markers that he realised they had, incredibly, jumped a clear round. The appreciative crowd cheered, enjoying the stallion’s highly individual style, and Ross felt the chestnut gather himself for another huge buck. He hauled his head up and the buck became a fairly harmless leap instead.
Despite his weariness, Ross could not prevent an idiotic grin from spreading over his face as he returned to the collecting ring.
This horse was one big, crazy son of a bitch but, hell, he could jump! And he, Ross, had the ride!
The Oakley Manor team and followers couldn’t have been more delighted if he had just won an International Grand Prix. It was a feather in their collective cap that the horse was jumping well for their yard when others had failed to produce the goods. Their obvious pride in his achievement lifted Ross as nothing else had done for a long time.
Half-an-hour later, he and Telamon were back in the collecting ring, waiting to be called for the jump-off.
There had been only five clear rounds. One of these was accomplished by Stephen Douglas on China Lily and Ross would have been less than human if he hadn’t felt a great deal of satisfaction when he saw the tight-lipped discomfort of Telamon’s former jockey.
The jump-off course was tight and twisty, and didn’t suit Telamon’s wide, galloping turns, but the chestnut jumped clear again, and when two others faulted, Ross found himself lining up for a third-place rosette. The stallion was greatly diverted by the notion of a lap of honour, doing his best to overtake the first- and second-placed horses as they circled the ring, and bucking when his attempts were foiled.
As they filed out, one of Ross’ fellow competitors turned in the saddle and said, ‘Rather you than me, mate!’
Ross grinned widely.
As he slid off the horse and loosened his girth, Ross heard a plummy, upper-class voice declare: ‘They say he drinks, you know.’
‘Well, if that’s Dutch courage,’ a second voice replied, ‘I’m going to try some!’
The American caught Danny’s eye and laughed.
While Ross was having supper with the Scotts that evening, the Colonel rang to say that Robbie Fergusson had requested that as Bishop would not be fit to jump in the two classes for which he was entered on the final day of the show, Ginger might take his place. Ross agreed, reluctantly, although he was fairly sure that the request was more in the nature of a command.
Putting the handset down, he sighed. He’d been relieved to have got the mare safely through her classes and had been looking forward to a Ginger-free day. In some instances she would not have been eligible for Bishop’s classes, as she was graded below him, but as luck would have it, the two classes tomorrow were qualifiers and open to all.
As he climbed the stairs to his room, he found he was really too tired to worry about it. Tomorrow would have to take care of itself.
Ross was greeted first thing the next morning by a note pushed under the door at the foot of the stairs. It read: King Rat has bolted. The cat is in pursuit.
It wasn’t signed and Ross smiled to himself. McKinnon was obviously exercising his individual brand of humour at Leo Jackson’s expense.
At the show he found another note awaiting him in the secretary’s tent when he went to declare the change of horses.
The rat has grown wings at Bournemouth and is going across the water. Cat now enjoying a saucer of milk. Good luck today.
Ross experienced mild relief at the thought that Leo was out of the picture. Now at least Mr X wouldn’t be able to use the ex-groom’s spite as a cover for his own activities. A faint sense of unease persisted, however.
Why had Leo suddenly decided to leave? Had he realised he was being watched and was therefore unlikely to get away with any more mischief-making? Ross had done a lot of thinking before he got to sleep the previous night, and the half-conclusions he had come to didn’t fit at all with Leo’s abrupt departure this morning.
Back to the drawing board, he thought resignedly. At this particular moment, though, five fit and eager horses awaited him in the horsebox and he had a very busy day ahead. It was neither the time nor the place to try to sort out Franklin’s problems.
By lunchtime, Ross and his crew had expended a great deal of effort and energy, and had in return collected a sprinkling of rosettes and one silver trophy. This last was won by the ever-consistent Simone in a hotly contested Top-Score competition.
Ross’ success with Telamon the previous day seemed to have earned him a reprieve with some of his critics, and several of his fellow competitors came up to congratulate him on Simone’s win.
The afternoon got underway with another speed class, in which Ross and Flowergirl had to be content with second and which Lindsay and Gypsy won. She was delighted and teased him about his second place as they lined up to receive their prizes. They circled the ring in a lap of honour and as Ross watched her slim, black-jacketed figure cantering ahead of him he ached with the intensity of his feelings for her.
When she slid off Gypsy outside the collecting ring, however, it was to James that she turned, accepting his congratulatory kiss and demanding of him: ‘Wasn’t Gypsy wonderful?’
James agreed dutifully but his eyes were on Lindsay and his love for her shone like a beacon on a clear night.
Ross rode on by.
By mid-afternoon he had ridden in four more classes, including the Foxhunter Qualifier on Ginger. A vague hope that there might be a problem with substituting the mare for the absent Bishop had been dashed by a helpful official and Robbie Fergusson had appeared uncharacteristically in the vicinity of the collecting ring, as if to physically compel Ross into the ring.
He had watched, unsmiling, as Ross had coaxed the mare round the course to collect a total of eight faults for two fences down and didn’t speak to him when he came out, except to say that he hoped the American would wake her up a bit for the next class.
Ross refrained from saying what was on his mind, for the sake of their future relationship. Instead, he promised to do his best, then sent Danny off with Ginger with instructions to take her somewhere quiet and settle her down.
If the mare had looked as though she needed waking up, Ross knew it was entirely due to his own efforts to keep her calm. As soon as he’d sat on her that afternoon, he’d sensed she was in one of her irrational moods.
There was no time to worry about her, though. Ross still had Telamon and Simone to ride in the Foxhunter before he rode Ginger and Woodsmoke in the last class.
He warmed up the stallion himself and the route he took from warm-up area to collecting ring was tortuous, due to the discovery that the effect of bringing Telamon face to face with a fairground organ, of which there were several dotted around the showground, was similar to directing a blow torch on to a box of fireworks.
The journey was accomplished without undue drama and as Ross entered the collecting ring he was amused to find himself the focus of many expectant gazes. People had learned quickly that the stallion was likely to provide a spectacle worth viewing.
He didn’t disappoint them. A band striking up nearby caused him to explode into the ring in a leaping, snorting flurry of hooves. Once there, he resisted Ross’ efforts to steady him, completing one circuit of the arena before settling a little and turning his attention to the job in hand.
The course was a fair one, straightforward and not too big, and Telamon played with it. He treated the fences with contempt, skimming over them and bucking in between.
He flew the second last, a triple bar, picking up speed, and in spite of Ross’ advice to the contrary, galloped flat out to the last wall, uncharacteristically missed his stride and uprooted it in a cascade of red-and-white wooden blocks. Madly excited, he then proceeded to put on a rodeo display that tested Ross’ powers of adhesion to the limits.
The onlookers clapped and cheered delightedly, which helped not at all, but somehow Ross regained control of sorts and persua
ded Telamon to leave the ring in a reasonably dignified fashion.
The indefatigable Simone, whom he jumped ten minutes later, redeemed the Oakley Manor reputation by achieving a faultless clear round and following it with a fast clear in the jump-off, to snatch first place from Danielle Moreaux. The Colonel was quietly delighted.
‘Another step on the ladder to Birmingham, Yank,’ he said, clapping Ross on the back. ‘You made a bloody good job of that!’
The last class was the biggest of the day, in the size of both the jumps and the prize money, and was sponsored by a car company whose advertising banners fluttered on every available railing around the arena. An impressive line-up of competitors was entered and the crowd stood five or six deep. The Colonel and Robbie Fergusson had seats among the privileged, in the grandstand.
In the crowded collecting ring, Ross rode Woodsmoke round quietly alongside, amongst others, Jim Pullen, Derek Campbell, Danielle Moreaux and Stephen Douglas. Presently Lindsay joined him and they wove through the masses together, chatting amiably.
From their elevated viewpoint they watched the first few competitors to see how the course was jumping. Judging by the performances it was a course for a bold, experienced horse but there were no particular black spots.
Satisfied, Ross went back to warming Woodsmoke up. He had not jumped the old horse so far that day, saving him for the big class, and Woody didn’t disappoint him. He jumped a beautiful, polished clear, leading Ross to wish wistfully that the horse was six years younger.
Lindsay did not fare so well. The course was a little on the big side for Gypsy at the end of a busy day and she collected twelve faults. She didn’t really mind. She rode back with Ross to the horsebox, voicing her intention of putting her mare in the trailer and returning to watch Ross win the class.
‘James won’t mind waiting a little longer,’ she said. ‘He’d like to see you win too.’
Ross laughed. ‘There’s just one little flaw in this plan of yours,’ he informed her. ‘Has it occurred to you that Woody might not win?’
‘Absolutely not!’ she declared. ‘Think positive. Nobody can touch you. You can’t lose!’
‘Oh, good, no pressure then,’ he observed, sardonically.
James, when questioned, said he wouldn’t dream of leaving before seeing Woody jump again.
Ross could have wished them and everybody else a mile away ten minutes later when he mounted Ginger and found her to be, if anything, several degrees more strung up than she had been earlier.
All the danger signs were there: agitated ear movements, the whites of her eyes showing, and her stride short and jerky. She gazed worriedly around her on the way to the ring, but most of all it was the telepathy she conveyed to Ross that made his palms suddenly sticky and his mouth dry.
She seemed totally spaced-out. He flirted with the idea of taking her back to the lorry and be damned to Fergusson, but the thought of someone else riding Bishop at Olympia kept him on board and circling the collecting ring.
‘She looks a bit wound up,’ Lindsay commented from the rails as Ross paused for a moment. ‘Is she okay?’
‘No,’ he said, matter-of-factly. ‘She’s crazy as a snake but only I seem able to see it.’
‘She does look a little distressed,’ James said judiciously. ‘Perhaps it’s nerves.’
‘Let’s hope so, buddy,’ Ross said heavily. ‘Let’s hope so!’
It seemed an eternity before his number was called; a lifetime in which Ross’ mind ran unbidden through every possible scenario that might result from Ginger having one of her attacks of hysteria in the ring. He wondered how much would have to happen before Fergusson would consider him justified in retiring from the competition.
When the moment arrived, however, Ginger seemed to have shifted from spaced-out to faintly mulish, in one of her typical mood swings. In this mode, Ross felt they were less likely to storm the grandstand than have two refusals and be disqualified at the first fence. Either way, his chances of keeping the ride on Bishop didn’t look very bright.
Fortunately the first two fences were jumped coming back towards the collecting ring and the lure of the other horses, and Ginger jumped them, albeit begrudgingly. Ross sat down hard and used all the strength he could muster to bully and coax her round the turn and towards the third fence, an imposing green-and-white parallel.
All the way to the fence he knew he was fighting a losing battle. Nothing in the world can make a horse jump if it has its mind set against it, and Ginger had her mind firmly set against it. She dug in her toes a full stride away from the take-off point and would go no further.
Ross swore under his breath.
With little expectation of success, he swung the mare round, bullied a few more strides of canter out of her and turned her back towards the jump.
Suddenly, in the crowd, not six feet from the mare’s heels, a balloon burst with a sharp crack.
Nothing could have been calculated to upset her more. With a sound that was somewhere between a grunt and a squeal, she ripped the reins through Ross’ fingers and bolted.
The abrupt change from recalcitrant to hysterical caught him out and the mare was away and running before he could stop her. She was heading away from the exit and the other horses, proof – if it was needed – that her mind had ceased to function rationally. This was swiftly borne out by her flattening the mound of floral decorations which stood as a centrepiece to the arena.
Fighting a sense of unreality, Ross tried to force his mind to think. Urgently he calculated angles and distances but could see no hope of avoiding either a collision with the boundary railings and the fragile bodies beyond, or the double of white gates which formed fence ten and stood close to the side of the ring. Grimly, he chose the gates.
As the distance between Ginger and the side of the ring dwindled, Ross abandoned any faint hope he might have harboured that she would come to her senses in time to swerve.
History was repeating itself and he had lived it so many times in his dreams that now it was happening it was almost a relief.
He felt calm and detached. His vision was filled with the stupid, staring faces of the crowd. They knew they were safe. The horses always stayed on the inside of the rails. Tragedy was never expected, it was something that happened to other people.
They would never understand, Ross thought savagely as he suddenly threw all his weight on to Ginger’s left rein and stirrup in an attempt to throw her off balance and off-line.
It worked.
She stayed in the ring, hitting the first gate without making any effort to leave the ground and carrying it forward for a stride before it tangled in her front legs and her momentum sent her sprawling into the second one.
Ross gripped instinctively, staying with her as she fell, his mind refusing to abandon the hope that she might yet make it back to her feet.
The shiny white paintwork tilted crazily as Ginger ploughed into the base of it. Ross kicked his feet free of the stirrups a fraction too late and threw up his right arm to protect his head as the whole eight-foot length of the gate collapsed on top of them.
For a moment Ginger seemed winded. She lay with heaving sides for the space of perhaps five heartbeats and then erupted into frantic action. Her body pinning his left leg to the turf, Ross could do no more than twist on to his face as the mare struggled to her feet, trying in vain to protect himself from her scrabbling hooves. Her weight lifted from his leg twice, and twice fell back, before she finally made it to her feet.
Ross bit the sleeve of his jacket as a passing hoof thudded into his shoulder and another clouted the back of his crash cap. The gate dragged sideways a foot or so and then dropped, and Ross heard Ginger move away.
He was finding it difficult to breathe. Each lungful was agony. Lack of oxygen made his head spin and noise receded, replaced by a buzzing sensation. Vision was hazy, swimming. He closed his eyes against the chaos and felt a soft darkness overtake him.
Voices filled his head. Many
voices.
Voices asking if he could hear them. A voice suggesting he be rolled over. Another, sharper, saying to leave him be, the ambulance was coming.
Ross blessed that last voice silently. He lay still, with his eyes closed, feeling mostly numb. Wishing everybody would go away and let him sink back into the darkness; knowing at the same time that they wouldn’t, that they would want to move him; knowing that with movement would come pain.
‘Stay back, miss!’ a voice commanded. ‘Please leave the ring.’
‘I have to see him!’
That sounded like Lindsay. Ross opened his eyes. Grass filled his vision. Grass and a length of shiny, white-painted wood.
‘We’re family,’ another voice announced. Ross considered this hazily. Family? It had sounded like James.
‘Well, all right. But stay back.’
‘Is he badly hurt?’ Lindsay again.
The voices didn’t know.
Ross felt it was time he took a more active part in the proceedings. With an effort he used the arm he wasn’t lying on to push himself over on to his back. Pain clamped his stomach and upper body in a vice-like grip but he’d been winded often enough to know that it would pass.
The voices exclaimed and hands reached out towards him.
‘Just let me be,’ Ross said as forcefully as he could manage.
The hands drew back sharply. He heard an ambulance enter the arena.
‘How do you feel?’ a voice enquired solicitously. ‘Any broken bones, do you think? Can you move?’
Breathing was becoming easier now. Ross opened his eyes again and rolled his head to look about him. Lindsay came into view, looking pale and distressed.
He smiled.
‘Hi, Princess,’ he said and was rewarded by a watery smile in return. Encouraged, he sat up just as the ambulance came alongside.
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