by Maggie Estep
She asks him for a trot and this seems to frighten him. He throws his head then goes into a fast choppy trot. Ruby brings him back to a walk and talks to him. The girl doesn’t know much about riding but she can read horses. She asks him to stop and start a few times, does a few figure eights with him, then asks for a trot again. This time there’s improvement. The little horse transitions into a smoother, slower trot that Ruby sits comfortably and I start gaining more insight into what attracts me to Ruby. Horses. She intuits them just as I do. And that’s rare.
I pull my collar up around my ears. I forgot to bring a hat and it can’t be more than thirty degrees out. I sink into my jacket, looking for warmth as I listen to the soft rhythm of Lucky’s hooves striking the hard dirt of the paddock. For a few moments, I feel good, like all will be well in my world once more.
This feeling dissipates. Though Ruby’s mood is improved after her nocturnal equestrian experience and we snuggle up close to one another in the bed, when my alarm clock goes off at four-thirty the next morning, Ruby is fractious.
At first, I attribute this to her not being a morning person. I find myself hoping that she’ll come around once she’s got some coffee in her. I try to be quiet and keep out of her way as she feeds the cats and drips coffee in the portable machine she’s brought. I wait until she’s ingested two cups of the stuff before I finally look her in the eyes. She’s clouded though, unreadable.
“You don’t have to come with me,” I remind her as she begins to get dressed.
She looks up at me. “I know. I want to come.”
I kiss the back of her neck as she puts on a pair of red mittens. She’s unresponsive.
She’s arranged for Big Sal to take us to the track and, as soon as we step out the motel room door, we see him there, in his glaring red truck. He has the window rolled down and some very gloomy-sounding opera is wafting from the truck’s stereo.
“Morning, kids,” he greets us, evidently pumped up on coffee and music.
Ruby gets in first, mumbles a hello and asks to stop at the nearest coffee shop for more fuel. I wedge myself between Ruby and the truck door and proceed to leave Big Sal and Ruby to their own conversational devices as I start going into the zone, beginning to get my mind clear and focused for riding.
As soon as we get to the backside, I start to feel a good deal lighter. Ruby is still acting strangely and Big Sal saw fit to keep blaring the morbid opera all the way out here, but in a few minutes I’ll be on a horse. Not much else matters.
A HALF HOUR later I’m on Jack Valentine, working under lights since it’s still well before dawn. The air is cold but crisp, cleaner than usual. Henry has told me to just give Jack a very gentle mile jog but the moment I pick up the reins, I can feel that the horse wants more. He takes the bit, letting me know he wants to go.
“No, fella, not today. Footing’s still bad,” I talk to him softly. He flicks his left ear back to better hear me but the right ear is keening forward, telling me he doesn’t care about footing. I have to work hard to keep him steady and slow and my arms start to ache from the effort. Jack in turn is confused. He’s basically a gentle horse—takes pride in his work and in pleasing the humans around him—but he’s a racehorse, a thoroughbred, a descendant of Seattle Slew. He wants to run.
Around us, other horses are working at full speed and Jack wants to follow. I hold him. A gray colt blisters by, pinning his ears, saying something that only Jack understands. Jack seems offended. He pins his own ears and pulls on me. I talk to him. Cajole with my hands. He throws his head, bolts for a second, then feels guilty about this behavior and lets up a little, arches his neck, and puts in a few yards of soft, measured cantering. When we’ve finished, I can tell he still wants more.
“Sorry, buddy, not today. Soon though,” I croon in his ear as I steer him over to where Ruby is standing at the rail. I’d actually forgotten about her for a few minutes. Forgotten to worry over her mood and the fact that she must be freezing as she stands there in the blackness of morning.
“He’s gorgeous,” Ruby says softly as she looks Jack over.
“He’s a nice horse too,” I tell her. She cracks a smile as she rubs the brown gelding’s nose and coos over his expressive eyes. Jack seems to be cooing over her too. He needs to be walked off but Sophie, his groom, has a hard time pulling him away from Ruby. He’s ruffling Ruby’s hair, already trying to groom her though he’s only known her two minutes.
Violet Kravitz is standing nearby. She appreciates anyone who appreciates Jack Valentine—who is the only horse she and Henry actually own—so she’s quite warm to Ruby when I make introductions. The two women glow at each other and, a few moments later, as Big Sal and I head over to John Troxler’s barn, Violet takes Ruby’s arm and the two walk off, heads together, like they’ve known each other for years.
I stare after them for a second.
“I guess those two hit it off, huh?” Sal says.
I nod and bury my hands in my pockets as we approach John Troxler’s shedrow.
Troxler is in a stall, removing a bay colt’s night wraps.
“Hi, John,” I call in. He glances up at me. Doesn’t look like he’s slept in days. His kind face is puffy and deathly pale.
“I’d like you on that Kissin’ Kris filly,” he tells me.
I nod. A tall order. The filly is only two and everything frightens her. I’ve only been on her once and I just couldn’t find a way in. Every movement of my body seemed to shoot down into hers like an electrical shock.
“Laura’s got her almost ready,” John says.
I go to the filly’s stall and look in. Laura, John’s assistant, has the filly ready to go, but she is standing with her, talking to her in a soothing voice that doesn’t seem to be helping much. The filly looks at me and her eyes seem to widen in fright, like she knows something terrible is coming. I put myself into a calm, almost dead state of mind, trying to make it impossible for her to find a trace of anxiety in me.
As Laura leads the filly out of the stall, she looks around and snorts. She catches sight of a tarp that she clearly thinks is some sort of filly-killing monster and she spooks, skittering to the left and nearly getting away from Laura who, the whole time, keeps talking to the filly in a soft voice.
It doesn’t get much better on the track. Laura gives me a leg up and the moment the filly feels my weight on her back, she starts trembling. I take a very light hold of her mouth and ask her to walk forward. She takes a few steps to the side, then spins and crow hops. I struggle to stay in the saddle and, when she comes to a standstill for a moment, I close my eyes and reach for the filly’s fragile mind. It’s fine, I tell her, I will not let anything hurt you. She seems to take this information under consideration and finally walks forward in a straight line. When I ask for a trot, she puts her head in the air and flicks her ears back and forth, scanning for warning signs. I continue sending her protective thoughts and eventually she puts her head down. We transition to a canter and then a gallop and the filly drops lower to the ground. She finally becomes focused, interested in learning how to be a racehorse. Ahead, dawn is beginning to stain the edge of the sky.
RUBY MURPHY
15.
Symptoms
Within five minutes of meeting me, Violet Kravitz grabbed my elbow, steered me away from the rail of the track, and brought me to her shedrow. Right now, she’s installed me in a remarkably uncomfortable chair in the barn office and she’s furiously digging through the desk drawers, searching for I’m not sure what. With her tiny spectacles, long graying hair, and layers of flowing clothing, she looks more like the poster woman for some genteel English soap than a racetracker. But horse people are born of contradictions.
“I’m sorry, Ruby,” she says after a few moments of diabolical foraging. “There’s something I must find at once.”
I don’t know what it is she so fiercely needs to find, and she’s not volunteering this information so I try to get comfortable and just soak in the soothing
sounds of the stable area.
After a few moments, Violet finally locates some tattered Thoro-Graph sheets and becomes engrossed in reading over some statistics.
“I’m just trying to figure out what Jack Valentine will face in this race on Friday,” Violet says when she looks up and sees me watching her.
Eventually, she sets the sheets down, wipes a strand of hair from her eyes, and levels a firm blue gaze at me. “So,” she says. “You are involved with Attila.”
I’m taken aback. Though at least she didn’t call him the jockey.
“Yes,” I say, suddenly wondering if Violet is a close friend of Attila’s ex.
“His taste is improving,” she states, smiling. “I was never a fan of the wife.”
“What’s she like?” I ask, maybe too eagerly.
“Oh… difficult…” Violet lets out.
“Oh.”
“But so is he. You realize that?”
“Sure.”
“No, obviously you have no idea.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve dated racetrackers before?”
“Sort of,” I say, figuring Ed Burke counts since, although he’s technically an FBI guy, he was—and still is—posing as a race-tracker.
“‘Sort of.’ Well, dear girl, you realize that a life of horses is not something you choose. It chooses you. It demands you.”
“Yes,” I say, nodding, “I do know that.”
Violet smiles faintly. “I never expected to be here, doing this.” She motions around us at the dour little room. “I grew up in a very rural part of England. There were horses everywhere and I liked them immensely. But it certainly didn’t occur to me that they’d one day be my life’s work. In fact, I never knew what my life’s work was. I married my first husband at a young age, and for a few years I was a housewife. But the husband was an idiot and I left.” Violet shrugs, looks at me over the tops of her glasses, sees that that I’m interested, and continues.
“I worked as a secretary in an accounting firm in London for a number of years, then took up with a magician, of all things. He was American. Not a terribly successful magician. But he did earn his living from magic. I worked as his assistant. We traveled around the United States, attempting to enchant people. It was a strange life. One night, we were driving through a thunderstorm in Missouri when there was a terrible accident. He was killed and I had my skull crushed.” Violet pauses and absentmindedly rubs her face.
“I was saved, obviously, but my face had to be reconstructed,” she says, pushing her hair aside to reveal a large dent at the top of her forehead.
“I was in hospital for several months. I came to terms with losing Theo, my magician, but I had no idea what to do with myself. I was lost. I took a job as a secretary in Kansas City but it was a hateful job and I wasn’t terribly fond of the city either. Eventually, I met a man many years my senior. He was terribly rich and not unattractive. He invited me to spend a month with him in Saratoga Springs, where he went each summer to follow the racing meet. I was thirty-seven by the time I first set foot on a racetrack but, no sooner had we watched one race than I realized that I belonged in this place. My liaison with the older man didn’t last, but when New York racing moved back to Belmont for the fall meet, so did I. I took a job in the office at Belmont and soon afterward met Henry. I had never truly been in love before so it was dizzying.” Violet is smiling now and looks impossibly young and happy.
“We married after a brief courtship. I was delighted to tie my fortunes to those of a man who had horses in his blood. But it hasn’t been easy. We have very little money and it is often heartbreaking work. Both Henry and I love our horses very much but that alone does not make them stay sound and win races.” Violet sighs.
“All of this to say—be wary of horse people, dear girl.” She beams at me. “Particularly riders. They’re a strange breed.”
I figure I’m an equally strange breed and am about to tell Violet this when she beats me to it.
“I realize you’re not a conventional girl. I issue these warnings because I suspect you, too, will turn into a horse person.”
“Oh,” I say, feeling flattered, “I don’t have money to buy a horse and I’m a bit too much of a princess to start as a hotwalker and work my way up.”
“Be that as it may, I predict you’ll end up spending a great deal of time with horses,” she says. She then narrows her eyes and sniffs at the air.
“Are you a smoker?”
I feel like she’s asked if I’m a hooker.
“I’m trying to quit,” I say.
“But you have cigarettes on you?” Her eyes light up.
“Yeah, a few, why?”
“May I have one?”
“Sure,” I say, surprised. “You don’t look like someone who smokes.”
“Oh I don’t. Not really. Henry lost his mother to emphysema so I only smoke very occasionally and never in front of my husband. I’d be immensely grateful if you’d loan me a cigarette though.”
“Sure,” I say, fishing for the pack in my jacket pocket.
“Oh not here.” Violet looks terrified. “We’ll take a walk. But first, I will introduce you to our string.” Violet pushes her chair back and stands up. “Come then.”
She takes a dark purple shawl down from a coatrack. She covers her head with this and opens the office door. Soon, Violet is introducing me to the fourteen horses under her and Henry’s care. When we have patted many necks and glanced at many pairs of straight, well-made legs, she brings me to Jack Valentine’s stall for a formal introduction.
We reach his stall just as the gelding is being led back in. The groom, a small, muscular white woman who’s only wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt in spite of the severe cold, eyes me warily. Violet introduces me as her dear friend. The groom warms a little and reluctantly steps out of the stall, leaving Violet and me to ogle the dark brown gelding.
“He’s a big one,” Violet says proudly, as if she’d made him herself.
“What a face,” I say, scratching the horse’s muzzle as I admire his well-made head and expressive eyes. Jack starts gently truffling at my hair again.
“Aha,” Violet says, noticing the gelding’s tender gesture, “you’ve been approved of.”
I smile at the lady.
“Well then, shall we take that walk we discussed?” she says in a stage whisper.
“Yes, of course.”
We walk away from the shedrow. Violet scans around, presumably looking for spies who might report her smoking.
“Shall I give you one now?” I ask.
“No no, dear girl, no. I have a spot.”
She leads us to one of the shabbier-looking barns. There are half a dozen horses stabled here but it’s a low-rent outfit. The aisle isn’t raked and there are no color-coordinated trunks and stall guards. We walk to the right of this barn and here, at last, Violet stops and extends her hand like a greedy child.
I give her a cigarette and light one myself. I watch her inhale deeply and slowly.
“Ah, it’s awful but so delicious,” she sighs, exhaling. “And now, dear girl, all about you.”
“All about me what?”
“I have told you my life story and now I must have yours.”
I am suddenly reminded of a scene in high school, when I met my first best friend, Bliss. She was a tall handsome redhead who seldom showed up for school, but somehow passed all her classes. She didn’t seem to have time for her mere mortal classmates and I’d always been afraid of her until one day we encountered each other in the girls’ bathroom. She asked if I had a cigarette and I gave her one. We smoked, talked, and promptly became inseparable.
I give Violet a brief biographical sketch, telling her that my life was similar to hers in that I was restless and didn’t know what to do with myself. I tell her about nearly drinking myself to death before age thirty but then finally sobering up, landing at Coney Island, and calling it home. I tell her a little bit about last spring, when
I worked as a hotwalker and, through a series of unlikely events, got to the bottom of a racehorse killing scam and was able to save a young colt I’d grown fond of.
“So it’s true!” Violet exclaims. “You are a horse person.”
“Oh I’ve always loved horses, yes. I’ve always felt like I could get inside their heads and feel them. I’m convinced it’s the only reason I do well when I actually put money on a race. If I can see the horse in the flesh beforehand, I can usually guess how it’s feeling and bet accordingly.”
“You’re in trouble, dear girl,” Violet laughs. “Those are the symptoms.”
We finish our cigarettes and I watch Violet frantically searching her pockets for a stick of gum to hide her smoker’s breath. At last she finds the gum, pops it in her mouth, then asks me to sniff her hair.
“You don’t stink,” I assure her. “I probably ought to head back to the track and watch Attila ride,” I add. I feel so at ease with Violet that I’m tempted to tell her that someone is trying to kill Attila. But I keep my mouth shut.
Violet and I agree to meet up for a sandwich later on and I head toward the track. I start to feel anxious again, worried about Attila’s situation and not knowing quite what to do about it. One minute I feel like the unpleasant events of the last few days have all just been a coincidence, the next minute I feel certain someone is about to kill the man I’m sleeping with and that if I don’t tell the police soon, I will, in a sense, be responsible if something bad befalls him.
I reach the rail of the training track and gaze out at the working horses and riders. I close my eyes to better hear the sound of their hooves pounding the dirt of the big sandy track. For a moment, I’m at peace again.
ED BURKE/SAM RIVERMAN
16.
She Run Good