“Let me check with Ben. We don’t have anybody up in the foaling barn right now. Maybe we can get them over there, at least for a few days.”
Again, the two just sat there, quiet for a moment. Dusty looked down at his hands; both men deep in their own thoughts. “Surely there has to be someone out there that cared for this man.”
Tom sounded just as forlorn. “Surely he had to have a place to call home.”
Dusty sighed.
“You don’t think he lived in his truck, do you?”
There was only one way to find out. They both drove over to the horsemen’s parking lot to take a look. Peering into the windows, it didn’t appear as if someone had been living in it; it was rather bare and relatively clean inside. It had a crew cab with a front and back seat and someone could very easily sleep in the back, but there were no blankets, pillows, no extra clothing. No signs of home.
“All right, so maybe I’m reading more into this address thing than meets the eye,” Tom said. “I’ll try and find out.”
“Me too,” Dusty said.
“But you know…” Tom said.
Dusty looked at him.
“For some reason, I just keep thinking that he was homeless and that in some way even aside from that and all his debts, he needed us.” Tom hesitated. “I guess I just don’t want anyone talking about him.”
“I know. Me too.”
Billy Martin’s burial planning continued.
Chapter Seven
The six dogs at Ben’s farm were all Yellow Labrador Retrievers but for the one Standard Poodle who though appearing rather prissy, was rough and tough and held his own. Randy kept them all up to date on their vaccinations and the poodle got groomed once every six weeks much to his chagrin. For the most part, the dogs lived a free life. If they felt like sleeping all night on the porch, that’s what they did. Occasionally they would come inside Ben’s house, and he’d shoo them out. They often slept in the barn, a pack all curled up around one another. In the winter they slept in Dawn and Randy’s kitchen. And every now and then one would show up missing.
“Which one?” Dawn asked, when Ben phoned.
“I don’t know. They all look alike to me.”
“Well, it’s obviously not Rotty,” the poodle nicknamed for the way he bossed the pack around. As for the Labs, Dawn started pointing out their different characteristics. One had a slight limp; that would be “Gimpy.” One had a swayed back; that would be “Sloopy.”
“Never mind,” Ben said. “Here he is.” It was “Runt,” the smallest of the Retrievers at ninety-five pounds. All accounted for, Ben chased them out of the house and started supper. The pack settled down outside the screen door, waiting for table scraps.
“Don’t tell Randy,” Ben said, throwing them some. They loved potato peels, leftover pasta too. “Now go on, get.” Ben sounded tough, but he loved the dogs and they knew it. They all took off barking and wagging their tails.
It wasn’t long before Linda Dillon’s horses arrived by van. Tom was right behind them, and following him, Dusty. Ben walked down to the foaling barn and got there just as they’d unloaded the horses. “Jesus,” he said.
Tom nodded. “She ought to be shot, or at the very least, banned from ever stepping onto the backside of a racetrack again.” The ponies were well-behaved, and ducked their heads when Tom raised his hand for emphasis. Tom led them into the barn side-by-side. One was a Palomino, the other a bay. They each had a foaling stall the size of Montana and sniffed and snorted as they made their way to their hay racks.
“Why is it no one cared?” Tom asked.
Dusty shrugged. “Everybody wanting to mind their own business I guess.”
“If she were a guy, I’d kick her ass.”
Ben looked at him.
“Don’t look at me like that, old man, I’m serious. I don’t give a shit.”
Ben nodded. Religion and all, Tom was still Tom, particularly when it came to horses. They heard the sound of a diesel engine. It was Randy, returning. He walked in the barn and shook his head. “Linda Dillon’s?”
Tom nodded. “The bitch.”
Ben brought Randy up to date on what happened to Billy Martin as Randy looked over both ponies. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a little person appear in the doorway.
“Daddy!” D.R. shouted.
Randy laughed. If he lived to be a hundred, he’d never get tired of hearing that. Dawn entered the barn right behind D.R., toting Maeve. D.R. ran into the Palomino’s stall and jumped into his daddy’s arms. “Horsey! Horsey!” The Palomino raised his head and sniffed the little boy. “Horsey! Horsey!”
Randy gave Dawn a kiss, and kissed little Maeve. She made a funny face and giggled. They all turned and marveled at how enthralled the Palomino was with D.R. It was as if the boy was his long lost friend. He sniffed his arms, his legs, his hair. Amazingly, considering his condition, he was giving up eating his hay to say hello to this tiny little person.
“I wonder if he was a kid’s riding horse once upon a time?” Dawn asked.
“Could be,” Tom said. It was anybody’s guess.
“I have stew cooking and Dawn made cornbread,” Ben said. “Dusty, stick around.”
“You made cornbread?” Randy asked.
Dawn smiled. “Don’t get excited. It was out of a box.”
Randy gave both ponies a vitamin injection and everyone, minus the children who were with their nanny, met at Ben’s house a little while later. Randy brought them up to date on his father’s condition. Surgery was still a possibility, but at the moment, he wasn’t agreeing to anything. “He can be so stubborn,” Randy said.
Dawn smiled. So could he.
“I had a talk with Spears today,” Ben said. “He’s going to get some quotes on having a Ginny stand built on the backside.”
“Do you think that’s wise with the purses so low?” Tom asked. “I mean, even though it is for the horsemen it might just give them something else to complain about. They’ve been without one forever, so why build one now?”
Ben looked at him. “I spent a lot of time cutting up the vegetables for this stew. Don’t be giving me indigestion. Okay?”
“I’m just telling it like it is. Damned good stew by the way,” Tom said, adding more pepper. “I’m just wanting you to look at the big picture.”
“The big picture…?” Ben laughed. “Who are you?”
Dawn helped herself to more stew. “We could set up a foundation that would pay for it, that way no one can complain.”
“A foundation?” Ben looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“You know, money set aside in someone’s name to be used for things like this.”
Tom’s eyes lit up. “We could put it in Billy Martin’s name and announce it at the funeral.”
“Funeral?” Randy said, reaching for another slice of cornbread. “This isn’t out of a box, tell the truth.”
Dawn smiled. “I added a little sugar and put some vanilla in it.”
When everyone dropped their mouths and stared, everyone except Dusty, who had no idea what the oddity was all about, Dawn laughed. “All right, so maybe there’s hope for me yet.” She was NOT a cook. She grew up in a house where there were live-in cooks, three of them, and maids, nannies, a full-time landscaper, all of the above.
Randy looked at Tom. “So what about the funeral?”
“Well….” He looked at Dusty.
“We’re planning it for the day after tomorrow. We’re going to send him off New Orleans’ style. He used to race at the Fair Grounds you know.”
“Oh?” Randy said, with Dawn looking on.
“Chaplain Mitchell is going to lead the procession.”
“Procession?”
“Horse drawn carriage and all,” Tom said, with his mouth full.
Randy shook his head.
“We figure, just because he didn’t have any friends or family and no money doesn’t mean he’s not one of us,” Dusty said.
“No money?
” Randy sat back. “Wait a minute. What’s said at this table stays at this table, right?” When Dusty nodded, Randy reached over to shake his hand. It was an old habit of his father’s; as good as saying “amen” and represented truth.
“Billy always paid his vet bills with cash,” Randy said. “And he would peel it off a wad of money thick enough to choke a horse.”
Tom and Dusty looked at one another.
“Recently?” Tom asked.
“I haven’t done any work for him for a couple of weeks now, but yes, always.”
“So why are we paying for the funeral?” Dawn asked. We, meaning the racetrack.
Ben looked around the table. “Well, that’s a good question. What would make the police think he had no money?”
“Well, for one thing,” Tom said. “The address listed on his trainer’s license is a vacant lot in a ghetto.”
Ben stared at him. “What?”
“I went over there today to see if he had any neighbors or friends, someone who cared.”
“And?”
“No, not there.”
Ben paused. “All right, so what’s the game plan?” He wanted to get this over with and talk about actual racetrack business.
Tom motioned for Dusty to take it from here. “Well, there’ll be a horse-drawn carriage arriving at ten just after training ends. Billy Martin’s body will be brought by a hearse and transferred over, and then the procession will go down through the barn area, over by his barn and then on up to the chapel, maybe a couple of hymns….we’re leaving that up to Pastor Mitchell.”
“That’s it?” Ben shrugged. “I guess that sounds simple enough.”
Tom nodded, motioning again for Dusty to continue. “Then after the service, we thought the carriage could make a lap around the racetrack, you know to….”
“No,” Ben said. “Definitely not. No way, no how.”
Dawn’s cell phone rang. She looked at the caller ID. “It’s Jackson from the newspaper.”
Everyone stared at her as she said hello. “Yes. All right. Okay. Thank you.” She hung up and paused. “They want me to do an article on the Billy Martin Funeral. They think it’d be a good follow-up for today’s article. They’ll be sending over a photography crew.” She looked around the table. “How did they find out?”
Tom and Dusty shook their heads; neither had any idea. “Honest,” Tom said.
As Ben covered his face with his hands and sighed, Randy couldn’t help himself and burst out laughing. “Sorry,” he said, when Ben gave him one of his looks. “But you have to admit, it is kind of funny.”
“Not in the least,” Ben said, pushing his dish away. “Not in the least.”
Chapter Eight
The morning was cool, the air crisp with a slight breeze. Dawn and Ben arrived at the barn shortly after Tom, and morning training began. Immersed in what he loved most, for a short time Ben was actually able to forget he owned the racetrack and that he had two meetings scheduled today. One was with Spears and the other with the mutuals manager. “Back-to-back,” as they say in the racing business.
Wee Born galloped a mile and a half. Beau Together broke from the gate. “He’s getting there.” Another time, maybe two and he’d probably get okayed. Ben wasn’t sure he was going to run him as a two-year old. He was a big colt and looked just like Beau Born, chestnut with a white blaze and one hind white sock. Born All Together got ponied. She hadn’t cleaned up her morning oats, so that was somewhat of a concern. She’d done this before on occasion, but even so, it was something to pay heed to.
This horse was a bit of a worrier. If there was a commotion in the barn, a loose horse, thunder, she showed the most signs of it bothering her. Ben sat with her one night for over two hours when there was fireworks the 4th of July. “There, there,” he kept saying. “You’re okay. You’re okay.” The filly liked the sound of his voice. It was the first voice she’d heard when she was born. “Oh, you’re a fine one,” Ben said. “Just you wait and see.”
He was on the way back from watching jockey Juan Garcia gallop Winning Beau when he ran into the racing secretary Joe Feigler. “Oh no, what now,” Ben said.
Joe laughed. “I’m trying to fill a race.”
“Don’t look at me. Running the other day in the mud when I should have scratched cost me.”
“The race is perfect for Native Born Beau.”
Ben glanced at him. “If the race was perfect for him, he’d already be entered in it.”
Joe laughed again. “If I don’t fill it, I’m going to come see you again.”
“Don’t bother,” Ben said, waving over his shoulder.
“You’re a tough man, Ben Miller. That’s why I like you!”
Ben looked back at him, shaking his head, and walked on mumbling to himself. “Now that felt good. Some things don’t change. That was just an everyday conversation between a trainer and the racing secretary. That felt real good.”
Dawn was handwalking Wee Born and put her back in her stall so she could untack Winning Beau and give her a bath. She was such a sweet horse, never any trouble. “Wise beyond her years,” Ben liked to say.
“Where’s Tom?”
“He and Dusty took the keys to Billy’s truck to go check the registration. He said he’d be right back. He has one more to pony for Tipton.” Red stood outside the barn, catnapping.
Tom and Dusty were deep in conversation as they walked through the horsemen’s parking lot, the keys jingling in Tom’s hand. When they glanced ahead, both men stopped dead in their tracks. Billy Martin’s truck was gone.
They went through the reactionary, are you sure it was parked here? Yes, dammit. They both were. Who would take it? How did it get past the guard? Easy. If it had a Horseman’s Sticker on it, there was nothing extraordinary about it coming and going, particularly at night and leaving.
“What the hell?”
“Who would even attempt that?”
“Maybe the cops came and got it.”
“Maybe it was repo’d.”
“Maybe Billy Martin came back from the dead and came and got it. Are you sure he was dead?”
Tom imitated a corpse, eyes rolled back, arms and legs stiff. “Deader than a door nail.”
The two of them stood staring at the vacant parking space, and then, just to be sure, both found themselves looking around again. “This is ridiculous,” Dusty said, repeating, “Did someone else have a key? Who would take it?”
“I don’t know,” Tom said. “Since we saw it last yesterday, that’s four guards. My guess is it went out at night and that would be Franklin. Ask him about it and you might as well tell the Morning Press. Wrangler might know.” Wrangler was the morning guard at that gate.
“I’ll try and find out something without asking anyone,” Dusty said.
“Okay, let me know. I’ve gotta get back to the barn.”
Dusty went one way, Tom, the other.
“Well?” Ben asked.
Tom shook his head. “You don’t want to know, old man.” He mounted Red and headed for the Tipton barn. “I’ll tell you later.”
“Later” was fine with Ben. He had too many other things on his mind. He gathered up his eyeglasses, notepad and pen, and set out for Spears office. Mim Freemont stopped him on the way.
“Ben, is this true, this funeral thing for Billy Martin?”
Ben nodded. “We’re going to show him some respect.”
“For what? What did he ever do to earn respect?”
Ben hesitated. Good question. “Well, for one, every one of his horses look good, and they run good. Regardless of what we think or thought of Billy, there was some goodness in him somewhere.”
Mim, one of the tiniest, toughest, women on earth, looked up at Ben. “Don’t you be doing no procession for me when I die, you hear?”
Ben smiled. “Do you want to put that in writing?”
Mim laughed. “If I have to.”
Ben shook his head. “Mim, we’re just trying to do the right thing.
He didn’t have anybody, just us.”
Mim nodded. “I ain’t wearing black, you hear.”
“I hear.”
Spears looked up when Ben entered his office and started to rise to his feet. Ben waved him off. “Sit.”
Spears sat back down and watched as Ben eased himself into a chair across from his desk. “Everybody’s talking about this funeral.”
“I’ll be glad when it’s over,” Ben said. He scanned his notes. “We drew up a list.”
“Here, I’ll make a copy of it and we can go over it.” No sooner said, Spears buzzed for his secretary. Ben handed her the paper. “Make four copies. Tom and Dusty will be here shortly.”
“Would you like some coffee?” she asked.
Ben looked at her. “Real coffee?”
“No, just decaf. I can see if I can….?”
“Never mind, decaf’ll do. Thank you.”
First on the list was the possibility of night racing one day a week on one of the “dark” days when the harness racetrack wasn’t racing. “I don’t want to compete with them. They’re struggling too.”
“I’ll look into it.” Spears made some notations on the back of the page. Next on the list was, “Bugler?”
“Yeah, what’s with the piped in music? How much does that save?”
“I’ll check.” More notations on the back of the page.
Ben looked at him when he‘d finished writing and motioned for him to show him the page. Spears was reluctant to hand it over. Ben insisted.
Spears had written, Night Racing, it’ll never happen! Bugler, total waste of time and money!
Ben handed it back. “Let me tell you a little story.”
Spears’ face reddened all over. “I’m sorry, I just….”
“No, it’s my turn,” Ben said. “I had this horse once named Tender Tiger. I don’t know if you remember him, it could have been before your time, but I tried everything I knew to get this horse to run. He’d train like a stake horse in the morning and come back strong, but in the race, nothing. He’d come back to the barn kicking and squealing. He never ran a lick. His first quarter fractions were always about the same as the last. Flat.”
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