“I’ll get somebody to run me over.”
“Okay.” Dawn smiled. “I’ll see you later.”
Charlie observed Randy with that same disapproving expression on his face as he watched Dawn walk away. “Cindy just called too. She said to remind you to pick her up at eleven.”
Randy thanked him, tucked his messages into his shirt pocket, and walked down to Chapman’s barn. He didn’t like Chapman, and doubted if anyone did. But he’d inherited him from Jake, who’d been the only vet on the track that would have anything to do with him, and he could understand why. The man was obnoxious. Without so much as good morning or hello, Chapman grunted and pointed to the first stall.
Randy looked in at the horse as Chapman again, without uttering a word, dropped the webbing, grabbed hold of the horse’s halter and just stood there. Randy shook his head and walked in past him.
Examining the horse, Randy found the ankles warm yet similar in degree of heat. The pastern, however, the area between the ankle and the hoof, was considerably warmer on the right leg than the left. There was also a significant amount of heat in the coronet band encircling the top of the hoof.
Randy straightened up. “Do you have a hoof tester?”
Chapman spit. “If you gotta put him down, you gonna want me to give you a syringe too?”
Randy’s face reddened. “No, but my truck is parked elsewhere and we can save a lot of time if...”
Chapman swore under his breath, lumbered and huffed into the tack room, and came back with a hoof tester. Randy took it and thanked him with his jaw set tight.
The horse flinched several times as Randy moved the instrument around its hoof, crimping it to test for areas of tenderness. With the next squeeze, the horse practically went down on its knee.
Randy looked up at Chapman. “Well, I think the problem is right here.”
“You think?” Chapman said. “Aren’t you supposed to know?”
Randy glared at the man. “It’s just a figure of speech. Now here...” He motioned for him to look close and tapped the bottom of the horse’s hoof with his finger. “Right here is where the problem is.”
“You sure?” Chapman scoffed.
Randy let the horse’s leg down gently and sighed. “Yes.” He stood back and watched the way the horse put weight on that leg.
“Well,” Chapman said. “If you’re sure...?”
Randy walked out of the stall past him, getting redder and redder in the face, and had to make a conscious effort to talk to the man in a civil tone. “You’re going to have to get your blacksmith to pull the shoe and cut out where I showed you. Let me know when he’s coming and I’ll drop by to block it for you.”
“Why? Why don’t you just cut it out? Old Doc Jake would’ve.”
“Oh yeah?” That did it. The hair on Randy’s neck bristled. “Well I’m not Doc Jake! And I’m not a fucking blacksmith! Do you understand? So get him to come down here, because if I have to do it I’m going to charge you, and frankly, I’m fed up with your bullshit about your bills as it is!”
Chapman stared, eyes wide, and with his mouth agape.
“All right?”
When Chapman nodded, Randy turned to leave. Chapman hesitated then and reluctantly cleared his throat. “Uh...Doc?”
Randy swung around. “What?!”
“Can I uh...” He motioned meekly to the instrument in Randy’s clenched fist. “Can I have my hoof tester back?”
Randy glanced down at it, then shook his head, tossed it to him, and walked away. It wasn’t even six-thirty yet. What a way to start the day.
He called Cindy a little after seven from a pay phone at the track kitchen, assured her he’d be home in time to be on the road by eleven, and told her about his truck being towed and all about Dawn.
It hadn’t occurred to Cindy that something might have been wrong. Randy often stayed out all night. “Did you make plans to see her when you get back?”
“No, not yet,” Randy said. He hadn’t even told Dawn he was leaving, and found himself wondering why. Was he afraid of the response she’d give him? No response. Maybe just a casual shrug of her pretty little shoulders, and that’s all.
He stopped to talk to several trainers on his way to Kathy Randall’s barn, and there, examined two horses. When she offered him a cup of coffee, in spite of having had one or two or three too many already, he said yes and followed her into the tack room.
The coffee was terrible, but his mouth tasted worse. He cupped his hands and breathed into them, then rolled his eyes and made a face. It reminded him of the times he’d slept with Kathy. He frowned at the comparison.
“Well now...”
She was telling him something about one of her horses and he was looking directly at her, but nothing registered. He was thinking about how she always wanted to do it again. ‘Do it’ being her euphemism and not his, preferring himself to hear a more exact term whispered in his ear. Again? He’d never been able to do it again, ever. Not once in his entire sexual life. Maybe in the morning and again that night, but back-to-back, no. Not even as a teenager, which used to really bother him, until he finally convinced himself without the help of expensive therapy, that any man who said he could, obviously didn’t do it right the first time, or was just plain lying.
Kathy offered to drive him to the police station for his truck, which brought him out of his reverie. As they started toward the horsemen’s parking lot, she joked about doing him in her pickup. She wasn’t kidding though. He knew that and she knew that. And he gave it some thought as they walked along. After all, it’s not like they hadn’t done it before. Besides, his part was easy. All he had to do was sit there and look nonchalant. But when he climbed into her truck and glanced around, there was Dawn’s car, staring at him. And he found himself begging off and putting the blame on the daylight.
By the time he paid his fine, retrieved his truck, swung by his apartment and came back to the track, he had just enough time to make his rounds. He stopped at Chapman’s barn last to block that horse’s hoof, and waited long enough to see the confirming spurts of blood and pus. Then he gave Chapman several packets of medication and explained the proper dosage and administration.
“Now don’t be giving this to any other horse. I’ll have it on my records as trainer administered, but only for this horse. You understand?”
When Chapman all but drooled at the packets in his hand, Randy took the time to stress the point even more. “Listen, they’re shaking down two or three barns a day. It’s not like the old days. So do as I say. Use it all up on this horse and make sure you throw the containers away.”
Drawing straws with Tom, Dawn got stuck with the job of holding Son of Royalty for the blacksmith, probably the only chore aside from cleaning Red’s stall she thoroughly disliked. And not just Son of Royalty, any horse. Fortunately their blacksmith, Brownie, an animated storyteller and a master at telling jokes, eased the boredom somewhat.
Randy came around the corner of the barn and was just about to call out for her, when he spotted them at the end of the shedrow. As he walked toward them, he hoped either Tom and Ben were around to take over for her, because there was absolutely no way he could leave without getting his hands on her for at least a few seconds. As luck would have it, Dawn was on her own.
“Hey, Doc!” Brownie said, from under the horse without missing a beat.
“Hey, Brownie. What’s up?” Randy returned the greeting, but barely glanced at him, looking only at Dawn.
“Did you get your truck?” she asked.
He nodded, smiling as he thought about last night. “I’m driving Cindy home today,” he said, and paused. “We’re leaving now. She’s up by the guard shack calling my parents.”
Dawn swished a fly buzzing around Son of Royalty’s eyes.
“Her finals are over and she’s ready to go home.”
Dawn nodded, smiling faintly. “I don’t blame her,” she said, wishing she still had parents to go home to herself.
&n
bsp; Randy had hoped she’d look disappointed, and would’ve settled for the slightest hint. But she didn’t. “Have a safe trip,” she simply said. “Tell Cindy good-bye for me.”
He’d prepared himself for this kind of reaction, or lack of one. Still, it hurt. “I’ll be gone three or four days. Tell Ben that Dr. Raffin will be covering my calls.”
Dawn nodded, smiling as she gazed up into his eyes. And there, right there, he thought he saw something. A glimpse of disappointment, maybe even a little regret. But it was enough. He could leave now, and although he would have liked to have kissed her, he simply touched her arm, said good-bye, and left.
Dawn watched him as he walked to the end of the shedrow, smiling to herself and oblivious to several gnats pestering Son of Royalty’s ear.
“That Doc’s a nice guy,” Brownie said, bent over and tapping a nail into a shoe.
Dawn’s smile widened.
“Women at the track seem to like him well enough,” Brownie added, reaching for his crimper to bend the nails over. “Shit, I think he’s slept with most of them.”
Dawn’s smile stiffened on her face with that remark. It was Tom who came around the corner of the shedrow next. “You’re not going to believe this!” he sputtered. “Suzie Strater just shot John!”
Brownie looked up. “No lie?! Where?”
“Right in the ass!” Tom said, laughing and patting his left cheek. “Right in the old ass!”
Brownie put Son of Royalty’s leg down and straightened up. “I’ll be damned! When?”
“Just now, about a half hour ago. She found him ballin’ some chick in the tack room and shot him in the act!”
Brownie started laughing. “Is he gonna be all right?”
Tom nodded and shrugged at the same time. “To hear him carrying on the way he was when they put him in the ambulance, yeah...I guess! It’s a long way from his heart.”
Dawn stared in disbelief. “How’s his wife?” She knew from Tom’s constant gossip that Suzie and John Strater were common-law husband and wife. John a trainer, Suzie a jockey. “Is she all right?”
“Her? Oh, she’s fine,” Tom said, laughing again. “She was kicking and screaming when they put her in the cop car, saying how she’d aimed at his balls and missed and wanted another shot!”
Brownie roared at that. “She swore if she ever caught him again, she was going to shoot him! By God, I guess she meant it.”
Again? Caught him again? Dawn shook her head.
“Good thing she can’t shoot for shit!”
Tom nodded, wiping his eyes. “And you know what’s even funnier? Guess who tipped her off?”
“Who?” Brownie said, trying to guess while still laughing.
“Carol Devey.”
“No shit?!”
Carol Devey was the last woman Suzie had caught him with.
“Women scorned,” Brownie said. “Women scorned.”
“Amen!” Tom added.
Dawn handed Son of Royalty’s lead shank to Tom in disgust and walked away, suddenly sick to her stomach. The feeling got worse as the day went on. And that night at her apartment, she ranted and raved from one end of the place to the other.
“Damn it! What is it with men?”
Linda sympathized sadly. Not for Suzie Strater, she didn’t even know the woman. But for Dawn, and because of what she’d told her about Randy.
“I don’t ever want to see him again! Ever! He’s an ass! He’s everyone’s ass! And he gives his ass and everything else that goes along with it to every woman on the racetrack!”
Linda started to say something, but Dawn had more to say herself. “He’d probably just worked his way down to our barn and it was my turn!”
“Who told you this anyway? Tom?”
“No, Brownie. But I’ll bet Tom knew.”
Linda sighed. “Who the hell is Brownie?”
Dawn shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Because I don’t want to talk about it any more. I’m just glad I found out now and not later. That way it’s over before it begins.” She stormed down the hall. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to be one of his statistics! Thank you very much!”
Chapter Twelve
Ben had scheduled Beau to work a half mile, thinking if he worked well and came back eager, he’d enter him. Normally by this time of year, he’d have already started several times. The morning was cool and clear as Beau lunged into his feed tub, grabbing a mouthful of oats and throwing them over his shoulder in a ridiculous gesture of aggressiveness.
“Asshole,” Ben said affectionately. Throwing his grain like this was an old habit, one that used to aggravate the hell out of him. But seeing as it was the first time Beau had done it since shipping in this spring, today it was almost a pleasure to watch. It was a sure sign of the old Beau coming around.
Another old habit of his was to paw and paw and pile his straw into a mound in the center of his stall. This really irritated Ben, and not so much because of the mess he made of his stall. But because of the way he pounded his leg over and over when digging and digging.
Tom tacked Beau when the time came and Dawn took Red out to the road between the barns to watch for Miguel. She spotted him after a minute or so. He waved, but then he disappeared. Ben walked up to the track. Miguel showed up a few minutes later, and off they went,
Tom often joked about Red having the patience of Job. And he needed it this morning in order to put up with Beau. As hard as Tom tried, and he could really finesse a horse, he couldn’t keep Beau from continually pounding and bouncing into Red’s shoulder down the backside, practically knocking him off his feet again and again. Tom and Miguel laughed at how obnoxious he was, but along with a great deal of combined swearing through clenched teeth, because this was no laughing matter. If they gave Beau an inch, like the old saying goes, he’d take a mile. And there would go the work, and possibly the race. Not to mention dealing with the wrath of Ben Miller.
The plan was to work the half from the three-eighths pole to an eighth of a mile past the wire. Ben never liked to work a horse to the finish line. He said pulling up there became a habit then. He wanted them running flat out under the wire. As they approached the turn, Tom glanced over his shoulder and at the last possible second, started dropping down on the rail. Beau turned into a bear at this point, and it took everything Tom had to help Miguel hold him.
“You got him?! You got him?!”
It was a good sixteenth of a mile before the three-eighths pole.
“Fuck!” Tom eased Beau’s lead free and Miguel sat down on him. Tom galloped Red to the outside rail then, pulled up to watch, and barely had time to catch his breath. Forty-five and four-fifths of a second later, Miguel was standing up on Beau and Tom was clicking to Red to get back around and help pull him up.
As Dawn stood next to Ben by the rail, she was reminded of her first day here. Only today, there were no looks of concern. Miguel was saying something about Beau pulling so hard he was going to have to go check his “Hemm-o-roids.” Tom and Ben were laughing. And Beau was dancing and snorting.
It was a scene in her mind, playing over and over. She could hear Ben saying, “This is what the racetrack’s all about.” It was all in that smile of his. “This is it! It’s days like this!” He’d waited on Beau, and waited and waited. And now he was right. The smile on Dawn’s face was as wide as Ben’s as she walked along with him and tried to appear as if she weren’t checking her stride to match his.
“Well?” she said.
Ben nodded.
He was going to enter him for the day after tomorrow.
Since Cajun was running in the fifth race that day, Dawn decided to stay at the track rather than go home and have to come right back at one.
Tom headed out for lunch. “Wendy’s or McDonald’s?”
Dawn thought for a moment. “Wendy’s. And bring me a couple of cookies too.”
“The Kids’ Meal?”
Dawn laughed.
Cajun didn’t need to be i
ced, though he did have to have a sweat put on his shoulders and back. But that wasn’t until about an hour and a half before the race. So, as soon as Tom left, and with all that time on her hands, Dawn lay down on the cot, closed her eyes, and promptly moaned in despair.
She’d told herself she wasn’t going to think about Randy, not at all, and yet... She opened her eyes and glanced around the tack room. The tack was clean. The sweat mixture mixed: camphor, Absorbine, iodine, and rubbing alcohol. The bottle was warming in a bucket of hot water to blend and later work its magic. The floor was swept. The bandages rolled.
There was nothing to do. Nothing except close her eyes and sigh and think about Randy some more. There weren’t even any manes to pull to keep her mind occupied. Not even Beau, even though his mane could always use a little thinning out, it being so thick and wild it split right down the middle. To pull it now might jinx him. Once a horse was in, according to Ben, it was best to leave him alone. And being somewhat superstitious herself, time on her hands and everything, she thought it best not to tempt the fates.
Tom returned with their food and a bunch of bananas.
“Bananas?”
“For your Beau-Born shits.”
Dawn rolled her eyes. Tom laughed. Then here came Barn Kitty, and right after that, Gloria.
“Where’s Ben, sweetie?”
“He’s at the secretary’s office,” Tom said.
She was all decked out, dressed from head to toe in white with a really chic lilac scarf tied at her neck, and looked even prettier when it was Tom who had answered and she blushed a bubbly shade of pink. “He is? Oh dear, do you think he’d mind if I came looking for him there?”
Tom gulped down a mouthful of half-chewed burger in an effort to reply to this as well, but Dawn beat him to it. “No. I mean yes. I think he would.” She glanced at Tom, who was grinning that grin of his, knowing he would have told her to go on over. “I think he’s probably playing cards or something, and when he’s playing cards...”
Gloria nodded in understanding. “Well then.” She pursed her lips while mulling over what to do next. Tom meanwhile, peeled a banana for Dawn, and nodded for her to take a bite when she just sat there looking at him.
Winning Odds Trilogy Page 14