by Ann Self
She nodded mildly, wondering why Ashley wasn’t under consideration.
“Lars says he’s getting too old to exhibit. Arthritis in his knees, or something, so that leaves you. I would be willing to pay you quite well, even though I know you enjoy riding Charmante.”
“It’s not necessary.”
“What?”
“I’ll ride Sunday. I won’t accept pay.”
“But I insist...”
“And I insist no. If I do this, it’ll be as a favor, not as an employee. Also, I’ll need to practice regularly, right up until Sunday.”
“Yes...okay, I’ll inform Lars.” He looked at her as if she’d sprouted a second head. Then he returned to the open door, stopped, and turned before leaving. “If you would like to teach here awhile longer until you find a job?”
“No, but thanks for the thought. I am just about completely packed and I will be leaving right after the show.”
Elliot glanced again at the half packed boxes. “All right, Jane, if that’s what you want.” His voice sounded testy, as if she were displaying an ungrateful disposition. Then his eyes then fell on the broken phone wire and plastic receptacle hanging from the wall, with little pieces of plaster powdering the floor. He stepped over to it and looked back at her. “You know, that wasn’t necessary,” he pointed at the wire. “I hope you aren’t going to display anymore fits of temper while under our roof..?”
“You’ll have to speak to Gladys about that.”
“Are you trying to make me believe Gladys ripped out your phone?”
“That’s exactly what happened.”
He looked a little stunned and she thought he might tell her she was lying, but instead he sighed and changed the subject abruptly as he walked back to the doorway, hands in pants, rattling dimes, quarters and keys. “Do you have all the proper dress clothes for the show Sunday night?”
“Yes I do. Surprisingly I have everything I need.” She reached for the door to walk it shut, but he remained firmly in the way, letting her know the door wouldn’t be closed until he allowed it. He was probably considering having all door locks removed, maybe the doors themselves.
“By the way,” he asked, “what happened to Owen? I saw him getting in to his car from my office window. He’s got his arm in a sling, and there’s these red lines all over his face.”
“I don’t know. Why is he still here? He told me he had a new job in Florida.”
Elliot’s eyebrows shot up and the change in his pockets stopped clinking. “He what?”
“Didn’t he give you notice?”
“He most certainly did not!”
“Maybe his accident queered the new job. They probably don’t want him now.”
Elliot turned on his heel and stalked away; murder in his eyes. Jane shut the door, bolted it and flew into the bathroom to dress—it was time to start the day! Time to see Lars and get on Charmante!
“God Lars, he’s a wreck!” Jane gasped, struggling on the ground with the stallion in the indoor ring as he danced around them. Charmante was saddled and bridled but he stomped and fidgeted, making it crystal clear he did not want a rider on his back.
Lars was sweating as he tried to calm Charmante and hold the horse still so Jane could mount. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this,” he said. “Charmante threw Ashley off yesterday. I rode him afterwards and he seemed to calm down, but now he’s a wreck again. I don’t want you hurt too.”
“Oh no. Charmante threw her?” Jane said breathlessly, trying to calm the jumpy horse. Then she said: “I see I’m the second-string rider,” and immediately felt embarrassed at the petulant tone of her voice.
“You were my first choice, but they wouldn’t listen to me. I told them the horse was in bad shape, and only you should be up on him.”
“Is Ashley all right?” she inquired belatedly.
“No...not really,” Lars answered, huffing and puffing. “She fell into the half-wall and cracked a sinus or a cheek bone or something.”
“Oh, God! Ouch. Well, she has Lucinda to thank for that.”
“I don’t think,” Lars said as he struggled to hold Charmante still for Jane, “she’s writing a thank-you note. Her father is a prosecuting attorney as you know—and I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s home with him mapping out a lawsuit. I think the Whitbecks will soon be supporting a major plastic surgeon.”
“That’s if they have any money left at all,” Jane grunted as she hopped around trying to get a foot in the stirrup. She launched herself into the saddle, and Charmante registered his discomfort, flinging his head up and down, at one point rearing and nearly hitting her in the face with the top of his skull.
“Ahhgh,” Lars lamented as he watched, “he keeps his ears flat back. He is not at all willing. The horse has blocked us out completely.” Lars marched along beside Charmante as Jane worked with all her skill to calm him. “Lucinda has such a vile temper and no patience,” he continued. “She tries to force the horse to do what she wants, instantly.” Lars looked up sharply. “And Charmante threw Lucinda off too—that’s how she hurt her ankle, it didn’t happen stepping out of a damn trailer!”
“Ha, well we all had suspicions about that. How did you find out?”
“Ashley.”
“Ah,” she nodded.
The hour went badly, with only a little progress and Jane was near tears when she finally dismounted. “He’s so bad, Lars, she’s ruined him!”
“We will get him back. Lucinda still only amounts to a small part of his life experience.”
“But in six days Lars? Even when I finally get him to accept the bit for a moment, one wrong move and he explodes! How can I erase that in six days?”
“Calm yourself—we will think of something. You did far better than Ashley,” he said as they walked the horse out of the ring.
“I’m surprised,” Jane stated, looking back Charmante, “that the Whitbecks let anyone up on him at all after that accident.”
“They’re in too deep to quit. I convinced Elliot you had the magic touch with this horse—even more so than me. There was some kind of mystical connection there, between you and Charmante, but now we have a short-circuit to get rid of.”
“I couldn’t find the magic today Lars.”
“If you could’ve seen Ashley ride him you’d know that you performed a small miracle. It pains me to admit this, but I think my age is catching up to me. When I rode Charmante yesterday, even I didn’t do as well as you.”
“Oh well it’s like opening a jar. You got it started for me.”
At five-thirty, Lars, Reggie, Sam, Dylan and Jane met in Sam’s office for pizza. Pizza cartons lay spread-eagle on every available flat surface and they guzzled large liter bottles of soda.
“Did you guys hear the screaming fight between Elliot and Owen?” Dylan asked them as he selected another wedge of pizza, then leaned back in the old loveseat.
“Oops,” Jane retorted, sinking her head and smiling, sitting across the coffee table in Old Ugly. They all looked at her.
“What do you mean oops?” Sam asked her, almost hidden behind his desk covered with plastic bottles of soda.
“I let the cat out of the bag—about Owen’s new job in Florida. Told Elliot this morning when he asked me why Owen was beat up.”
“He was leaving for Florida?” Dylan asked.
“Was. I’m not sure now,” Jane answered.
“Well,” Dylan said, “he’s leaving anyway. Elliot practically chased him off the grounds this morning, yelling and screaming. He was purple—veins popping out all over the place.”
“Damn, I missed that,” Reggie complained from the rocker.
“Me too, what a shame,” Sam laughed. “Not been a good week to be Owen.” Sam leaned far back in his chair with a squeak and put his feet up, making short work of a wedge of pizza. “Canaday must have tossed him around like a yo-yo Friday.”
“He whipped the hell out of him with the crop,” Dylan commented.
Jane looked at hi
m. “That’s what Owen was planning to do to me.”
“You’re kidding!” Sam said.
“That good-for-nothing so and so...” Reggie sputtered.
Sam reached for another pizza wedge and looked at Jane as he suddenly recalled something. “Did you know,” he asked her, “that Canaday stepped out in front of my truck when I was about to drive off with Owen to the emergency room?”
Jane stopped trying to re-drape a string of cheese back on her pizza, and stared at Sam. “I saw from my window. Why did he do that—what did he say?”
“I almost hit him,” Sam explained. “Owen locked his door, so Canaday walks around my side. Owen was screaming at me like a hysterical woman to lock my door—said Brian was one of those psycho Delta Force commandos—but I told him it was a new truck, and I wasn’t going to have the door ripped off or the window punched out. Canaday yanks my door open, stands there in the pouring rain and tells Owen that if he touches you again he’ll rip both his arms off and beat him over the head with them!”
“Wow,” Dylan exclaimed.
“I’m leaning back out of the way so he can yell at Owen, the rain is pouring off Canaday’s face and he looks like Owen’s worst nightmare.”
“Owen makes everyone mad,” Jane offered.
“Not that mad!” Sam added. They all watched her speculatively, and she knew she blushed, as she nibbled at her pizza.
“Also,” Sam began, “I think Brian’s made my truck.”
“What?” Jane demanded.
“He’s always staring at it...and when he leaned in to threaten Owen, I saw him eye the scanner.”
“I told you..!”
“I know, I know,” Sam waved his arms in defeat. “I guess there’s just no fooling a Special Ops guy.”
“God!” Jane sighed, “I just hope he doesn’t know I was in the truck too.”
“He seems to know everything.”
“So...” Reggie said, to change the subject, “how’s it coming with the fancy horse?”
Lars was sitting next to Sam’s desk in the wooden chair. He wiped his hands carefully on a napkin, then folded it. “Not too good so far. Lucinda has done a lot of damage in a short time.”
“Lucky for Charmante she fractured her ankle,” Reggie stated, “that’s if she really did crack it, and wasn’t just looking for a way out.”
Lars agreed. “She was headed for major humiliation, I wouldn’t put it past them to turn a slight strain into a big injury to save face.”
“I am still surprised that Elliot asked me to ride,” Jane said.
“Elliot knew the horse was a total wreck,” Sam offered his explanation, “and you’re his only chance outside of Lars to get Charmante through this. Ashley’s college degree didn’t help her keep her seat on Charmante.”
“Whoo boy,” Dylan commented, “It sure didn’t! That girl has a master’s degree in cursing. I saw her battling the horse all over the indoor ring, and then he launched her right into the air. She looked like the space shuttle—but unfortunately she didn’t reach orbit. Took a nose dive into the half-wall.”
“I didn’t want her to ride him!” Lars said. “I knew she didn’t have the tools. But would they listen? No! Old lady Barrett’s carping at Elliot—Ashley should ride, Ashley should ride. And now what do they have? A lawsuit.”
“They are going to sue after all?” Jane asked, and Lars nodded.
“No kidding, she’s suing? How do you know?” Sam asked.
“Because her lawyer father—a prosecuting attorney as luck would have it—is out for blood. He advised me by phone this evening that I’m going to be subpoenaed as a witness so he can sue the pants off the Whitbecks. I have to testify that I advised against letting Ashley ride.”
“Yikes!” Sam exclaimed. “That’s right, I forgot—her father is a trial lawyer! What a can of worms things are turning into for the Whitbecks.”
“You make your bed and you lie in it,” Lars spoke, clearly disgusted.
“So. They’ll be really desperate to make a good show out there Sunday, and rake in some badly needed change,” Reggie observed. “They need someone who looks really good and can control the horse, and no one looks better than Jane.”
Lars laughed, “Reggie’s right, I’d never look as pretty on a horse as Jane does even if I did want to exhibit him.”
“Not to those rich guys with fat wallets,” Reggie nodded.
“Yep,” Sam stated, “brains, beauty and talent is what old man Whitbeck wants visible on the tanbark Sunday to make it rain money. He’s got a little Hollywood in him himself.”
“Speaking of rain, how’s it going with the hurricane?” Jane asked Sam, deftly changing the subject. Sam scrubbed his hand on a napkin and reached over to move the mouse around, accessing the internet and clicking through a rapid succession of menus and lists, while never moving his feet from the desk. He read from the screen: “Now it’s ninety-five miles east-northeast of Guadeloupe. The pressure is down to 942 milibars. Maximum sustained winds a hundred forty miles an hour. It’s gone to a category four on the Saffir-Simpson scale. The hurricane-hunter plane reports one-hundred-sixty-eight mile-an-hour winds just outside of the eye wall.”
Sam put his feet down and moved closer to the monitor. “Wow! That high-pressure dome just north of the hurricane is keeping it moving due west right towards the states. One hell of a nasty storm is heading our way.”
“What are our chances?” Jane questioned.
“When it gets a little closer I’ll check the chart of strike-probabilities for the big cities on the east coast.”
“Gonna be close,” Reggie warned.
After the pizza, Jane excitedly called Madeline from her room to fill her in on the latest events. Dylan had reconnected the wires to her phone earlier, grumbling as he worked about what an “ass” Gladys was.
“I’m riding Charmante on Sunday! I don’t know if I can undo what Lucinda has done to him, but you’re invited to come watch anyway.”
There was silence on the other end.
“Madeline?”
“I’m here...”
“Aren’t you happy? I’ll be showing Charmante to a bunch of solid gold bigwigs. Maybe I won’t have to look any further than that for a new job, if I can get him under control.” Madeline was still silent.
“What is it, Madeline?”
“I’m sorry, I want to be happy. But success for you in that place means elevated danger. If you were staying here and told me you’d be showing Charmante, I’d be ecstatic. But now I’m terrified that every moment you spend in that barn puts you in more danger.”
“Why? I’ve still been fired, I don’t have the use of General anymore. Not much has changed just because I’m riding in the show, it’ll just be an exhibition ride—won’t get me any further up the ladder or any closer to regional championships.”
“I just have a strong sense of this person, whoever it is. I can almost feel their anger. Even the tiniest success you have is like waving a red flag in front of a bull—they’re getting more and more desperate to keep you from even the smallest victory.” Madeline sighed heavily over the phone before continuing. “This creature has almost made it their life’s work to keep you from success. It takes a lot of planning and effort to cause the problems you’ve been suffering—can’t you at least stay with me until the show?”
“I have to stay here Madeline. Lucinda has messed Charmante up so badly, I’ll be lucky if I can make him just presentable for Sunday. At this point I’ll settle for just presentable.”
“You could stay here at night.”
“I have three body-guards at night. And thanks to Reggie, a bolt King Kong couldn’t break through.”
“You can’t always be bolted in your room. What about that creep Owen?” Madeline demanded.
“Since Brian Canaday whipped the stuffings out of him, I no longer have Owen to worry about.”
“Brian Canaday did what?”
“Come for lunch tomorrow—can you take a few
hours off? I’ll tell you all about my skirmish with Owen, and my rescue by non-other than Brian Canaday himself.”
“I’ll take the whole afternoon off and be there with bells on!”
Six AM Tuesday morning, Lars and Jane tried to work with Charmante, but he was almost as bad as the day before. The angry horse refused Jane any communication or cooperation and she had to bite back cries of frustration. Jane was loath to sound like Lucinda, whining and blubbering with every bounce of the horse’s stride. She halted the stallion in the middle of the indoor arena and dropped the reins before she lost her own temper. She took a deep shuddering breath, holding a hand to her weary face, as Charmante mindlessly shook his head and rattled the bit.
“God Lars, it’s as if he’s wearing a hair-shirt of nerves!”
Lars approached quietly and talked to the animal, patting his nose and gently taking the reins from Jane, removing even the weight of the bit from the horse’s mouth. Lars talked softly in German as they occupied the center of the otherwise empty ring. Only birds tweeted from the rafters as Jane sat still, head bowed in exhaustion and defeat. After awhile, the stiffness and tension went out of Charmante and his eyes lost the blank look. He started to be attentive to Lars’s voice.
“Okay Jane,” Lars spoke gently, “I see the horse is thoroughly burned out from Lucinda’s abuse. We are going outside now. I will lead him.”
Jane said nothing, all her style and carriage melted into a passive lump of a passenger as Lars led the horse through the east wing and out the side door of the north wing.
“I’m taking you to the front pasture,” Lars informed Jane. “There’s only a few old ponies out there now. I want you to let Charmante run around and get some of the kinks out of his brain—see if you can find your way to the magic...”