Sloan paused at the corner of Barn C, looking around intently. Ah! There he was in the distance, outside stall 7, just like years ago. The groom was preparing a sorrel for the next race. Sloan turned Hilary aside and escorted her beneath the aging gum trees down the powdered dirt pathway along Barn C.
Most of the gum trees shading the racetrack stables had been cut down. The stalls in Barn C were the few still protected from the heartless sun, and Barn C was therefore the abode of the elite, the old-timers, the established professionals, the few favored by man and Lady Luck. Oblivious to the honor of living in Barn C, the horses hung their heads out over their stall doors surveying the scene, ever ready to accept a carrot or sugar lump from the passing parade.
The sorrel outside stall 7, its neck already lathered, danced about and shook its head. Sloan disengaged Hilary from his arm, stepped in close and gripped the horse’s bridle.
The groom’s head snapped around. He stared a moment. Coal-black eyes deep in the equally black face danced to life. “Mistuh Sloan! Been too long gone!”
“Too right, Chester. How’re you doing?”
“Doon fine, doon fine. How yuh like this Red Pepper beauty, hey? Best gelding Boss ever had.” He elevated his voice to bullhorn loudness. “Boss Clyde! Looka here!”
Sloan heard the shuffling behind him. He kept one hand on the horse and extended the other.
Clyde Armbruster must be seventy years old now; he had seemed older than Methuselah when Sloan first met him twenty years ago, and the years clearly were not treating him kindly. He used to walk with a limp. These days he needed a cane just to limp slower. He had always been a squat, tough fellow. Now his neck had disappeared completely and his back was compressed like a folded telescope; the whole body bowed and hunched.
He came lurching up. With a trembling hand on his cane, he leaned tri-cornered as he shook. The broad grin on his pudgy, drooping face said welcome more clearly than the hoarse and faltering voice ever could. “Good to see you, Cole!” The hand left Sloan’s and waved toward the sorrel. “Whatcha think?”
“How, Clyde, do you always manage to find horses that are a nervous wreck from the day they’re born and eat all your profits? Look at the loins on this beast. Long and sunken. A poor keeper if ever I saw one. This thing must put away a fortune in corn and hay, and it’s as fat as a match.”
The old trainer’s throaty chuckle told Sloan he had pegged this splendid gelding’s few shortcomings exactly.
“And how, Cole boy, do you always manage to find the loveliest lass in New South Wales?”
Sloan introduced Hilary around. Normally, she would speak the correct opening phrases, the pleasantries and small talk. This time she seemed distracted, at a loss. Her lovely eyes never touched Clyde’s face. They kept flitting to the horse. The horse. That was it. She was absolutely stone-petrified of the horse.
Clyde leaned both hands on the cane and sagged forward. “You couldn’t have come by at a better time, Cole boy.” The vinegar voice dropped lower. “Got my eye on the finest colt you’ve ever seen. Promising. Melbourne Cup sort, as I know horses. Come in on it with me.”
“To the tune of—?”
“Five, six hundred pounds; I want a majority ownership in him, but you can buy up to half.”
Sloan licked his lips. “I have a couple of investments in mind, Clyde, but none of them’s horses.”
“None of them’ll bring you the return this colt will, I vow.”
“I don’t follow the races as closely as I once did, but I keep an eye sharp for your name. You haven’t been winning enough to buy a colt that size. Or did I miss something while I was up north?”
The old man chuckled. His ancient head dipped toward the sorrel. “Red Pepper’s splendid, Cole boy, but for the first time in my life, I’m looking at something better than what I have. Pep here is going to buy me that colt. This race and one or two others will do it.”
Cole studied the watery eyes. “Clyde, you’ve never talked like this before. The horses you already own have always been the light of your life. You ought to be in love with this sorrel right now, and calling it the wonder of the century.”
“Right you are. And I would have been satisfied with this little beaut had I not seen the other. Pep runs next. When he’s won the purse and he’s back cooling out, I’ll take you to see this other.” He glanced at Hilary. “That is, if you’ve got the time, of course.” The gravel voice purred. “Eh, Cole boy, I’ve waited my whole life for this. The perfect horse to keep me in my dotage.”
The sorrel suddenly dipped and shied, wide-eyed, at some imagined threat. Sloan latched on with both hands. Hilary shrieked. The horse reared, hauling Sloan straight up. He sensed vaguely that Chester, too, was being dragged aloft. Old Clyde lunged at its head, but the horse was already falling back, sitting down. Clyde flopped forward on his face.
Sloan hung on. If the horse bolted forward it would run right over Clyde. He managed to grab a leathery ear. Together he and Chester twisted the panicked gelding’s head around and threw it on its side, its head literally in Sloan’s lap. Chester clapped a broad black hand down across Pepper’s nostrils. They waited while the horse struggled. The struggling eased.
By the time they had the horse back on its feet and under control, Clyde was back on his feet, too. He propped himself, wavering, against his cane. “Bit high-strung, but a winner.”
A knot of excited onlookers had collected instantly; where did they all come from? Sloan expected some larrikin to dive in and give a hand, now that the situation was well in order. None stepped up to help with the horse, but three were offering their services to Hilary. She sat in a gorgeous heap, her face pallid, taking deep breaths.
Clyde’s stableboy was on the horse now, too. The horse in good hands, Sloan turned away and helped Hilary to her feet. She craned her neck to look around him briefly at the trembling animal. She shuddered.
Then Sloan happened to glance toward the far end of Barn C. Frobel! That was young Frobel standing there, watching. Sloan recognized the backblocker’s hat, the easy stance. His blond beauty, that absolutely unmistakable woman, at his side. Frobel smiled and waved and turned away. They strolled off.
What is that cocky doing here?
Hilary peered over her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Sloan dug into his rapidly emptying pocket and handed her two quid. “Here you go, luv. Go pick yourself a winner.”
She accepted the money without hesitation and took two steps backward. “Ta. What is the name of this one?”
“Red Pepper,” Sloan replied.
She wrinkled her nose. “How did you know? You never saw it before.”
“Just a sanguine hunch. Get on now, luv, and enjoy the races. I’ll be back in the box directly.”
She nodded, walked off ten feet, and turned. She smiled brightly. “I think it’s ever so exciting, you buying a racehorse. The very best people do that, you know. Then we could watch the race from the owners’ box.” She waved and walked off.
Clyde snorted and mumbled, “Ever so exciting, eh? So long as she needn’t get too close to one. Women!”
“Not all women. Just that one. I know a woman who would have been right in there with us, sitting on Pep’s head before all was done. No fear of horses. Good hand with them. And game.”
Clyde’s eyes narrowed. “Then don’t hang about with this dotty old woman, Cole boy. Go marry her. Now.”
“Wish I could.” The silent voice in his mind repeated it: Wish I could. And she wouldn’t worry about what all the best people did, either. Samantha.
Clyde instructed the stableboy to lead Red Pepper out into the green beyond the barn, to settle him lest he be too upset to run well. The lad hurried off, the horse dancing and sidling beside him.
Sloan talked a few minutes more with the ancient trainer, engaged Chester in a bit of berley for old time’s sake, and excused himself. He could return to the box and listen to Hilary’s inanity or he could walk out across the paddocks fo
r a while in relative quiet. He looked briefly around at the strutting, posturing, preening racing enthusiasts. The paddocks won, hands down.
Sloan mused on all that weighed upon him. His precarious financial position had become a constant factor in his life these last few years; he was almost accustomed to it. Still, constantly worrying about the next penny grew burdensome. He always seemed to be flat broke. Stiff as a crutch.
And what should he do about Hilary? He certainly didn’t love her, and he sometimes doubted that she was capable of any but the shallowest affection. What kind of fidelity problems would she cause him on down the line? He’d better marry soon, though, if he intended to sire any little Sloans for posterity. And for pure, eye-dazzling beauty, you couldn’t beat her with a stick. Look at the way that Pearl enhanced young Frobel’s appearance! Sloan needed a good-looker to impress the big guns he wanted to impress.
The thought of Martin Frobel struck him like a blow. Why would the Frobels be wandering behind the track here, anyway? Certainly not to buy colts or see old friends.
Sloan wished he had six hundred pounds to invest in Clyde’s deal. He’d love to buy into that. Clyde Armbruster was as fine a trainer as money can buy, and Sloan wouldn’t have to buy him. Clyde would do the work; Sloan could enjoy the fun without the sweat. He could cash in on the horse, share the glory….
Listen to you, you idiotic galah! You’re starting to sound like Hilary!
Out across the paddock in the distance stood Red Pepper beside a little grove of wattles. The stableboy was rubbing him behind the ears, no doubt cooing and talking, though Sloan could hear nothing from this distance. The horse had settled considerably. Somehow horsemen of all stripes, some of them old vets and many of them Jacky Raws, gravitated to Clyde. All possessed a special flair for the esoteric life of horse husbandry. Sloan had been the Jacky Raw at one time, shoveling stalls out, not for the money but for the pleasure of being close to Clyde and his horses. Now this lad had that idyllic job, and Sloan was a grown man with troubles you wouldn’t believe. Oh, for the old days….
The back of his neck prickled. He paused in mid-step and wheeled. Two young men approached him. The situation would be unremarkable—merely a couple of young fellows headed this way—except for the intensity of their interest in Sloan. Was he imagining things?
Where are all the racing enthusiasts when you need them? Except for Red Pepper over there, the green stood abandoned, vacant. Sloan headed for the horse, quickening his stride. Behind him the men kept pace. He must stay out in the open. As long as he remained in broad view he would be safe. The predicament frightened him, not so much for its danger—when it came to a fight he was as good as there is—as for its unbelievability.
They pressed him, trying to force him back toward the rear of the stables. He resisted by walking faster, angling outward toward the wattle grove and Red Pepper. The lad was leading the sorrel this way now, inattentive to the absurd plight before him.
Too late Sloan noticed the third man. The bloke, as young as the others and sporting a pencil mustache, popped up from nowhere, riding a mild-looking bay horse. He jogged his mount out into the paddock, partially blocking Sloan’s way. Three to one, and an adversary mounted. Bad odds.
Absurdity piled upon absurdity. They were zeroing in, homing down on him like a hawk on a bandicoot. What made them think they could attack a strong man in broad daylight like this? He need only shout…But there were no ears to hear, save the lad’s and Red Pepper’s. They were crowding him toward the stables, driving him as a drover herds sheep, despite his attempt to stay in the open and clear. Something metallic—a knife blade?—flashed in the mounted fellow’s hand.
With a bellow to make banshees cower, Sloan bolted forward at a dead run, straight for Red Pepper. The stableboy froze, gaping wide-eyed. Red Pepper lunged and sidestepped, instantly startled by the loud-mouthed madman coming at him.
Sloan reached Pepper as hoofbeats closed behind him. He grabbed the flimsy little saddle in both hands and vaulted, keeping his head low, throwing a leg over Pepper’s back. With a shrill whinny the horse leaped from standstill to full gallop. Sloan hung on, barely, during those first flying moments. Pep collided shoulder-to-shoulder with the big bay horse, staggered and slammed on past. Sloan was nearly brushed off his perch. He squirmed back on and gathered up the reins.
He had to ride through the barns, among people, into safety. Right now this brainless horse was headed straight for a windbreak of woody shrubs at the far end of the green. As panicky and wild-eyed as this beast was, it could well blast mindlessly right into the bushes. Sloan hauled and dragged. Nothing he did with the reins changed the horse’s mind. Sloan had just exchanged one peril for another.
At least he was leaving his pursuer behind. Or was he? He glanced back. The pencil-mustached pursuer was whipping his bay horse, trying to keep up. Flecks of foam from Pepper’s mouth splacked Sloan in the face. He sawed on the reins, violently wrenched the frantic horse’s head aside—anything to turn him! At the last possible moment Sloan fell low across the horse’s neck and pressed his face into the stinging mane.
They hit the windbreak full tilt.
Branches snapped, leaves thrashed, the sorrel squealed, Sloan’s very soul cried out to God. A half ton of momentum drove horse and rider through the shrubbery. Sloan could feel himself flying, with the saddle nowhere near. He whumped the ground pile-driver hard and skidded.
Where was his pursuer? Surely his pursuer was not so foolish as to—
Hoofbeats! The horse was nearly on him. Dazed, Sloan lurched to his knees and twisted to meet the enemy.
“Grab!” yelled a vaguely familiar voice; a broad sun-tanned hand reached down to him. This pursuer wasn’t the bay; its belly was white. He reached up and gripped the arm, snatching at salvation.
Smoothly, mightily, the rider hauled Sloan to his feet and on upward. Sloan swung a leg up, jumping; he was again on horseback, albeit a bit skewed. The rider dragged the horse around even as he urged it to an instant canter. They were headed for the barns.
Frobel! Of all the people on God’s green earth…
They rode in among the sheds. Sloan glanced back just as a stable blotted the green from view. The fellow on the bay had abandoned pursuit and was whipping his horse off in the other direction.
This Frobel jackaroo was one splendid horseman. Almost effortlessly he wound their mount at a canter among the barns as onlookers in summer finery paused to turn and stare. Where was he going?
He hauled their horse to a halt at the corner of Barn A. Before Sloan could move, Frobel had swung a leg over the horse’s neck and was sliding to the ground. As if Sloan were some little old lady, Frobel gave him a hand to dismount.
Sloan disdained the help. He should have held on to the saddle, though, as he slipped to the ground, for he nearly fell when his feet touched dirt. Only Frobel’s strong arm kept him vertical.
“In here.” Frobel piloted him into the second stall from the end. They stepped from blazing sun into warm, stuffy gloom. Frobel waved toward a three-legged stool. “Sit before you flop.”
Not a bad idea. Sloan’s ears buzzed and he felt dizzy. More than the breathless action and the jolt of being thrown through that hedge, incredulity was knocking him down. Why? Why would those insane fellows set upon him like that? Of all the hundreds at this race course, why Cole Sloan? And in broad daylight?
The little painted pony they had ridden to safety stood outside this stall. Sloan recognized the piebald as one of the docile nags used to lead racehorses out onto the track. Down its black-splotched white flank ran a broad splash of red blood. Frobel was peeling Sloan’s jacket off, and still Sloan was slow to realize: the blood was not the horse’s.
The inevitable mob of onlookers clustered about outside, second-guessing what must have happened. Drongos, every one of them. In here, in what was a stall being used as a tack room, a certain peace prevailed. A curious peace it was, born of what—confidence? This Frobel seemed to exude co
nfident contentment. Sloan did not. He envied Frobel’s peace.
Sloan leaned back heavily against the wall and inhaled deep draughts of hay-and-soaped-leather aroma. He closed his eyes. They burned. His left arm burned. His whole body ached.
“You’re still bleeding, but this seems to be slowing it down pretty well.” Frobel knelt beside him wrapping a cloth around Sloan’s left arm, up near the shoulder. “Looks like a knife slice.”
“I remember brushing against the nark, but I didn’t realize he stuck me. How did you just happen along?”
“Pearl and I were wandering around among the barns, looking the place over. We enjoy the horses a lot more than the races. We happened to see your sorrel do his dance there, and we saw you didn’t need any help with it. We wandered out to the back green and were just returning when Pearl noticed you walking out. She saw those three closing in on you. We were too far away to do anything directly, so she went for help and I grabbed the first warm body with four feet and a saddle.”
The buzzing in his head had eased. His arm felt as if a camel were standing on it.
“So tell me, Frobel; who were they?”
Pearl Frobel’s voice called from the distance. “Marty?”
“Here! Second one in.”
Outside the stall door, the sea of the curious parted and a racetrack constable came shoving through with Pearl at his heels. He stopped and stared at Sloan’s arm.
Sloan’s feeling of peace fled. “Three young men, one with a pencil mustache riding a stocky bay. May still be in the area.”
“Stay here. I’ll need your statement.” The constable turned and pushed his way out through the mob.
Sloan watched this blond beauty, who was obviously as much a part of it as her husband. “How did you know where to come?”
She frowned and shrugged. “Marty yelled ‘Barn A’ as he took off, so I ran for help and brought the constable here.”
Sloan was beginning to notice other parts of his body that had been treated very badly by this whole affair. And he was really going to feel it tomorrow. “I’ll tell you one thing—I don’t know what you’re playing, but it’s a great game.”
Taste of Victory Page 4