“Jeddie,” Catherine softly said as she stroked Reynaldo’s neck. “You’ll do well.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” he simply said as Catherine and Ralston stepped back. John reached for the bridle until Black Knight was alongside. Then he stepped back, too.
The rope pulled up and William snarled at Jeddie, “I’m gonna leave you in the dirt, boy.”
Jeddie didn’t reply.
The rope dropped and the two handsome horses took off, riders actually relaxed, in charge.
The crowd watched as this was the big race, the race on which two outstanding reputations hinged. They roared.
Stride for stride the two blew through the first quarter mile. Still stride for stride at the half mile, William switched his whip to his right hand. Jeddie was on his right and he lashed out, hitting Jeddie across the face full force. Blood from the leather edge cut into his cheeks. William struck again and again, then rode into Jeddie, not as dangerous as it might be since the horses were stride for stride. Still, legs could become entangled. Thank God they did not, but with the force of a twelve-hundred-pound animal on his legs, blood in his eyes, Jeddie tried to fend off the whip with his left hand. One more blow, one more push, and he rolled off on Reynaldo’s right side. That stunned people. So did the fact that Reynaldo stopped, put his head down to touch Jeddie, who curled up in pain. The crowd screamed in fury. Maureen, standing in her carriage, Jeffrey alongside of her, could barely breathe.
“What is going on?”
“I don’t know, my love, but it isn’t good. I’ll attend to it.” Jeffrey climbed down from the carriage as did DoRe.
Barker O. also climbed down from the Garth carriage. Catherine and John were already running out onto the course. Yancy and Sam Udall hurried out from the other side.
Black Knight crossed the finish line. William kept going. John, also out on the course to bring in Yancy’s horse and knock the devil out of William stopped, looked at the receding figure in wonderment. Then he turned to go back to his wife.
Catherine, kneeling down as John took Reynaldo’s reins over his head, held her hand to Jeddie’s forehead.
“I could kill him,” she said.
Smiling through his pain, Jeddie replied, “Let me.”
“Can you stand?” She put her arm under his back as Charles reached them to do the same on the young man’s other side.
Jeddie stood. The crowd cheered. He winced, hand going to his left collarbone.
The doctor reached them. “Let’s walk back to the paddock. You must be made of iron, young man. How you survived that without as many broken bones as dominoes, I will never know.”
Sam and Yancy now reached them. Sam had never seen Catherine.
Yancy, shocked, stammered, “Oh, I do hope you don’t think I would promote such vile behavior.”
She shook her head. “Yancy, you are above such things.”
Sam couldn’t speak and this wasn’t the time for introductions. He beheld a goddess. Oh, yes, he wanted to sleep with Deborah, to perhaps make a large financial arrangement with Georgina to keep her as his mistress, but for this woman, at first sight, he felt something he had never felt in his life. Sam was in love.
The two race promoters stood in the middle of the course while Jeddie was helped back to the paddock. Catherine led Reynaldo, who kept reaching with his nose to touch the rider he loved almost as much as he loved Catherine.
Back at the paddock, the doctor told Jeddie to sit on a tack trunk. Ewing, Barker O., Charles, Rachel, and John stood by him as Ralston and Catherine quickly untacked Reynaldo.
“Wipe him down, Ralston. I must see to Jeddie.”
She stepped over to see the doctor check Jeddie’s ribs as Rachel held a hand towel to his bleeding face.
“No broken ribs, broken arms.” The middle-aged Richmond doctor felt Jeddie all over then touched his collarbone to a small yelp. “Uh-huh.”
“I’m fine.”
“Jeddie, listen to the doctor,” Catherine, worry on her face, ordered him.
Rachel asked the competent man, “What must we do or what must he do?”
“The collarbone is a slender bone. I’ll make him a sling and he must keep his arm in it. No lifting anything. No reaching or using this arm.” He stared at Jeddie. “If you move the bone, which I am going to set, it will heal crooked. You’ll never have full use of it again, and the lump will show through your skin. Do you want to keep riding?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Then do as I say.” He looked at John. “Will you hold him steady in his seat. This will hurt.”
The doctor extended Jeddie’s arm then pulled until the bone snapped back into place.
“Dear God,” Jeddie gasped, sweat now pouring from his forehead.
“That’s the worst. Now I’m going to cut off your good colorful shirt and I’ll bind you up. Then I’ll put you in a sling. When you go to bed at night you can take off the sling, but you must sleep on your back.”
Rachel, hands folded, as Charles put his arm around her waist while Piglet sat by Charles’s feet with his prize, asked, “Doctor, what will keep him from rolling onto his side? Won’t that push the bone out of place?”
“Yes. He’s either got to sleep sitting up or sleep lying flat on his back.”
Catherine put her hand on Tulli’s shoulder. He had been watching with tears in his eyes. “Tulli, you’ll need to be in the cabin with him and sleep with him. If he starts to roll, you need to stop him.”
“I am not sleeping with Tulli. He snores,” Jeddie declared while the doctor still wrapped him.
“I do not,” the little fellow defended himself.
“Well then, Ralston, you sleep with him.” Catherine pointed a finger at the lanky young man.
“Yes, Ma’am,” Ralston agreed.
“What about bathing? Can we unwrap him?” Rachel asked.
“Keep this as it is for two weeks. He can’t get it wet or the bandage will tighten and that will be painful. But he can sit in a tub, he’s got one good wing.” The doctor smiled.
“I’m not bathing him.” Ralston grimaced.
“You don’t even wash yourself.” Jeddie was feeling better.
Ralston looked imploringly at Catherine, who smiled at him.
“Ralston and Tulli, go on back to Reynaldo. Give him some treats. He’s had a difficult first race, too.”
Maureen and Jeffrey carefully approached as the doctor finished the wrap.
“My dear, we had nothing to do with this.”
“I know that.” Catherine acknowledged Maureen’s discomfort.
“Obviously, that fellow planned this,” Charles said.
Jeffrey agreed. “Had to. He’ll either run that horse to death, or dismount when he feels safe, take the tack off because he can sell it, slap Black Knight’s hindquarters. A run to freedom, I suspect.”
“Freedom to where?” Maureen grimaced.
“If he reaches New England, he can pass himself off as a freedman.” John finally spoke.
“How would they know? They have slaves. Well, Vermont has but a handful but still, who would believe him if he makes it?” Jeffrey replied.
“I don’t know.” Charles sighed. “He’s young, skilled, bold. If he lives, who is to say?”
“I am so very sorry for this. To think it was one of my people. I shall question DoRe.” Maureen almost wrung her hands, then stopped.
“Maureen, don’t. Please don’t trouble yourself,” Catherine, quick thinking, told her. “DoRe wouldn’t know. William would not have been foolish enough to betray his plan to anyone, but especially not to DoRe, who is faithful to you.”
This was a flat-out lie. DoRe hated her, thanks to her accusing his son of murder, but he never gave evidence of such feelings. Catherine had Bettina in mind. If Maureen bore down on DoRe, she might make it hard for him to come calling at Cloverfields.
“She’s right.” Jeffrey jumped in. “The only thing we can do is post rewards, a description of William as well as a desc
ription of Black Knight.”
“Good idea.” Charles nodded, knowing the flyers produced little effect.
Once Maureen and Jeffrey left, Catherine sat next to Jeddie, his arm in a sling. Suddenly she was tired.
“I’ll kill him if I find him. At least Reynaldo isn’t hurt.” Jeddie had a light bandage on his face, the cut deeper than he thought.
“You’ll ride again. I just hope it won’t be like this.” Catherine smiled at him.
“Me, too,” he agreed.
The doctor looked down at Piglet. “My that is a find. You know these bones get dug up frequently. As far as the ocean. Makes creating pastures a bit of work. You all live by the mountains, am I right?”
“We do,” John answered.
“You pick up stones and more stones. From here to the ocean it’s stones and bones. Curious. People have theories. I just bend over and clean it all up. But if I had a dog like this fellow, he could do it.”
“Where are you located, Doctor?” John asked.
The middle-aged man extended his hand. “Alfred McKay. Goochland County. Sam Udall hired me to attend to the races. It’s been quite a day.”
“What happened to the jockey in the second race?”
“Ribs. Usually it’s a broken arm or ribs. Occasionally a leg. When a man falls off a horse his shoulder often hits the ground first. At least I hope it does. If his head hits he’s either dead or confused. Often permanently confused. I’m grateful no one was killed today, no horses, either.” He smiled at Jeddie. “Like I said, young man, bones of iron.” He put his hand on Jeddie’s shoulder. “I have never seen anything like that. Ever.”
“Nor have we,” Charles chimed in, then extended his hand. “Charles West, formerly of His Majesty’s Army.”
“Ah. You saw the error of your ways.” Dr. McKay beamed.
“I did, Sir, and I also saw this beautiful woman. What man would return across the ocean?”
“Indeed,” Dr. McKay agreed.
“John Schuyler.” John held out his large hand.
“Major John Schuyler. Yorktown?” His eyes lit up.
“The same.”
“I am in your debt, Major. We are all in your debt.”
John blushed. “Doctor, I served with good men and I served under Lafayette. God was with us”—he paused—“and the French.”
The men laughed, including Ewing, who had been silent, deeply concerned.
As the doctor left, the Garths started packing up. They would make it halfway home by sundown. Stay at an inn called The Ordinary. As they put tack away, brought out soaps, buckets, the oats they brought so Reynaldo would be eating what he ate at home, DoRe strode over.
“You all right?”
“Yeah.”
“DoRe, if you did know anything, lay low,” Jeddie said.
“I didn’t. He’s a fool. A damned arrogant fool. But I understand his wanting to escape Big Rawly. I do,” DoRe replied.
Jeddie nodded.
Catherine, seeing DoRe, walked over. “Is she hysterical?”
“No, just vicious.”
Catherine nodded. “You know she’ll offer your stable help money to rat on one another?”
“She will, but I’ll give William credit, he kept his cards close to his chest. I hate what he did to Jeddie and I hope he doesn’t kill Black Knight, a good horse, but I can’t fault him for running.”
Catherine leveled her luminous eyes at him. “Do you hope he makes it?” When DoRe sensibly did not reply, she did to her own question. “I hope he does, even though I share the same anger you do. He could have killed Jeddie.”
“I’m tougher than that.”
“Of course you are.” She turned to Jeddie, pale, still sitting on the trunk, his arm in a sling.
Races finished, money settled up, the Garths headed west. Piglet sat in the phaeton with Charles and Rachel. He would not relinquish his giant bone.
Catherine, John, and Ewing rested in the four-in-hand coach. Jeddie refused to sit in it even though asked. He sat with Barker O. while Ralston and Tulli perched behind them holding onto the low rail.
What a day.
37
February 13, 2017
Monday
Pirate, his handsome head on his two huge forepaws, watched at the back entrance to Tazio’s studio, formerly Gary’s. Beginning to feel part of the group, he played with Tucker, sometimes with Mrs. Murphy, but gave Pewter a wide berth. Observing her he, young though he was, knew this was the right decision. The gray cat, immobile, stayed at the small opening under the baseboard.
“Give it up.” Mrs. Murphy sighed.
“No. I’m keeping her at bay.”
“She might not even be in there.” Tucker lay next to Pirate.
“I’m not taking chances.” Pewter sounded tough.
“If she were in there you’d see eight eyes, red from the reflected light,” Mrs. Murphy told her.
“I don’t know how big her nest is. It could run the entire way along the baseboard. She’s a monster. A prehistoric spider.”
“Really?” The puppy was impressed.
“Oh, yes. She probably scared dinosaurs. Her kind has been dangerous forever. She is so big she covers a saucer. Big.”
Tucker whispered, “Demitasse.”
“What’s demitasse?” the puppy wondered.
This brought immediate response from the gray cat. “Don’t listen to Bubblebutt. She undermines me all the time.”
“Bubblebutt? Parts of you are so fat they’re in the next zip code,” Tucker fired back.
“I ought to come over there and bloody your nose, but I can’t abandon my duty.” This was uttered with a superior air of responsibility.
As Pewter grumbled about everyone, Harry sat on the floor, notebook in her lap, one of Gary’s file boxes open.
“Harry, how many times are you going to be in here fooling around with those boxes?” Tazio good-naturedly asked.
“Almost done.”
“I’m in no hurry for you to leave. In fact, it’s good to have company.”
“How can you work with someone around?”
“If I’m trying to solve a problem, make preliminary drawings, I can’t. But if I’m beyond that, I can.”
“You’re beyond that?”
“Am.” The gorgeous young woman smiled.
“What’s this project?”
“Mark and Karen Catron want a large dome over the center aisle of their barn, as well as skylights over every stall and even for the tack room. They’re on a natural light kick and they’re quite right.”
“I didn’t know you designed animal habitat.”
“Didn’t. But Mark can talk a dog off a meat wagon and I started thinking about it; it’s interesting. So I asked Paul, he walked me through Big Mim’s stables, built in 1882, explained everything. Then he told me to double seal every skylight and the dome, underside and weatherside.”
“Done?”
“Close. I’m trying to talk them into partial hay storage overhead with a quarter inch spacing between floorboards to keep air flowing. They don’t want to do it because of the ceiling being lowered. It won’t be much, but it will seem like it, and then that mitigates the big dome.”
“They’re right.”
“I know it but they need better hay storage. If I suggest a separate hay shed, covered walkway, then it will look as though I’m drumming up business.”
Harry considered this. “Well, I understand that, but if you don’t suggest it then you aren’t giving them the benefit of your expertise, as well as Big Mim’s. She has hay barns all over that farm.”
“I don’t want them to think I’m churning, you know, what stockbrokers do.”
“No one is going to think that. And they’re a hundred percent right about bringing in all the natural light. Of course, if they do it and other people see the result, then everyone will want that. Saves on the electric bill.”
“Those bills never go down,” Tazio ruefully remarked as her yell
ow Lab, Brinkley, dreamed at her feet.
Brinkley, a loving fellow, could only take so much of Pewter, especially now that she was obsessed with the spider, who, granted, was large.
“May I see the plans?”
“Of course.”
Harry put her legs under her, pushed herself up without using her hands.
“How do you do that?”
“You have to use both legs equally. My mother taught me how.” Harry leaned over Tazio at the drafting table. “Wow.”
“The wash stall has a bit of heat so it can be used in the winter. Tack room, too. Baseboard heat, but with all this natural light that ought to be most of the bill, that and the light in the tack room and the wash stall.”
“What about turn-of-the-century lanterns on the outside of the barn?”
“Be lovely but they haven’t asked for touches like that.”
“Don’t you love the old fixtures?”
“For the most part. Depends on the structure.” Tazio put down her soft lead pencil. “What are you doing over there? And why a notebook? You’ve been through those file boxes and so has the sheriff’s department. All it is are building codes. So what’s the draw?”
“Forgive the pun.” Harry smiled at her. “Look at your shelves. You’ve kept a lot of Gary’s dinosaurs, a few of the globes, and the bone fragment, kind of clunky and heavy. So what do you see?”
“Rubber dinosaurs, some original snow globes, and a big, old bone that I kind of like and, really, so does Brinkley.”
“So that’s it.” Harry laughed as Brinkley, upon hearing his name, opened one eye.
“I see rubber toys. What do you see?” Tazio asked Harry.
“When I go through the file boxes, there are notes in some of the code margins. Just stuff about materials, weight-bearing capabilities, life span for some items. What you would expect, especially from a meticulous man who wanted to learn, to improve.”
“Right.” Tazio rested her chin in the cup of her hand.
“Some of the file boxes have little toy dinosaurs in them.” Harry held up her hand because Tazio knew that. “At first, I just figured he was stashing an abundance of prehistoric creatures. But then I started thinking about that and the fact that Lisa seemed obsessed or enchanted with dinosaurs. So I went back through just now. In every box that contains a dinosaur there is a date noted on an excavation code. And no two dinosaurs are alike, now that I know their names. Sometimes there are initials. Don’t know for what.”
Probable Claws Page 22