Wendy nodded, thankful for the explanation.
“Right now we have nine stalls,” Dusty said. “What we’re wanting to do is offer the horsemen the option to donate the horses to the rehab and rehoming program, and of course ultimately to find them homes.”
“A major problem,” Wendy said, “is we can’t have people coming to the racetrack as prospects for these horses because of the liability. They can’t ride them, they can’t try them out. We need to work with a program like yours.”
“But we don’t have any room,” Karen said.
“You know we’d like to help, but we’re full,” Veronica said, with tears welling up in her eyes.
Wendy hesitated. “Randy said you might know of other rescue organizations and I’m thinking maybe we can assist you in building a network, so that when a need arises….” She touched Veronica’s arm. “I can help with that. I know very little about horses, but I know a lot about networking, and…” she added, “fundraising.”
The two women looked at one another.
“I’m so tired,” Veronica said.
“I know.” Wendy could see that. The woman was near exhaustion. They both were.
“People start out caring, and they work hard,” Karen said. “And then they just give up.”
“We’re not going to give up,” Tom said.
They could hear the horses munching hay, hear them sigh.
“Do you remember Janie Pritchard?” Tom asked.
Both women nodded, both wiping their eyes now.
“She told me once, that a heart only beats when it has just cause. She said the sound of two hearts beating, one human, one horse, was a symphony.”
Wendy looked at him, with tears welling up in her eyes.
“I hear music here. Music the world needs to hear. Listen….”
Dusty looked away, with big tears running down his face.
“We’ll be back tomorrow,” Tom said.
“Meanwhile,” Wendy said, wiping her eyes and reaching inside her purse for her business card. She wrote her cell phone number on the bottom. “Call me if you need anything.”
“Thank you,” Karen said. “We will.”
“Bless you both,” Dusty said.
The three of them walked out into the night.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Dusty said.
Tom nodded. “Good night.”
“Good night, Dusty,” Wendy said.
When Dusty got into his truck, Tom looked at Wendy. “I keep promising to take you dancing,” he said.
Wendy smiled. “I’m too tired.”
“Perhaps just one dance,” he said, taking her into his arms and swaying slowly, holding her tight. “I love you, pretty lady.”
“I love you too, cowboy.”
Veronica and Karen stood in the barn doorway, arms linked and smiling at the sight of them dancing under the stars.
Mid-morning, Ben walked over to the secretary’s office and entered three horses.
“What?” Joe said. “You showing off now too?”
Ben chuckled.
“Did you see the newspaper?”
Ben nodded, smiling. Front page of the Sports section was a photo of Tom resting on Red after catching the loose horse. The caption read: “All in a Day’s Work at Nottingham Downs.”
“Everyone’s talking about the jocks and the soft whips,” Joe said.
On such short notice, it was impossible to get an article in the paper, but Dawn had managed to get a blurb in, promising details to follow. It was placed strategically on the Breaking News page.
Ben turned when he saw Spears. He still didn’t look totally approachable, but at least he was making an effort to waltz through the secretary’s office from time to time. “Have you seen Wendy?” he asked.
“She was just here,” Joe said. “She said she was going to be up working on a video.”
“Thanks.” Spears nodded and walked away.
“What do you make of him?” Joe asked. “Seriously, just between you and me.”
Ben looked at him. “I think he’s doing a hell of a job.”
When Joe smiled, Ben turned to leave. “Where’s this video stuff done?”
“Up in filming.”
“Which is where?” Ben asked.
“Up next to where Bud’s at.”
Ben rode the elevator to the third floor, walked down the corridor past the empty executive offices, and climbed a short flight of stairs toward the announcer’s booth. Wendy was in the tiny room just this side of it. She looked up and smiled. “Hi, Ben.”
“Morning.” He sat down next to her and glanced at the small television screen in front of her. “What’s this?
“It’s the video we’re going to run today.” She played it for him. The two of them watched Rickety posing for the camera and bragging. It showed the horse being led down between the barns.”I had to voice-over here.” It showed the horse being turned loose in his new stall. It showed Dusty patting the horse on the neck. “Wishing you well on your next career, Renegade Man,” Dusty said. “You’ll always be a winner.”
“I like it,” Ben said. “What did you have to voice over?”
“Dawn,” Wendy said. “She was not happy with Rickety.”
Ben nodded and stood up to leave. “This looks good. Thank you. You’re doing a good job.”
Wendy looked up at him. “Thank you.”
Ben started out the door and looked back. “Did you see the morning paper?”
Wendy smiled. “I saw it. I ordered a framed copy for my desk.”
Ben looked at her. “Tom’s who he is. Don’t take that away from him.”
Wendy nodded. “Thank you for the advice. I just wish his job wasn’t so dangerous.”
Ben smiled. “What’s dangerous is that stairway,” he said, pointing. They were like steep steps leading to the top of a lighthouse. “I’ll yell I’m okay when I get to the bottom.”
Wendy chuckled, and a moment later, heard. “I made it!” She laughed, and then sat reflecting on what he’d said. Had Tom talked to him about it? Or was he referring to Tom’s comments at the jockeys’ dinner? Either way, she felt as if she’d just gotten some fatherly advice she should heed. “He’s right,” she said out loud. “Tom’s who he is.”
After she dropped the video off in the media room, she walked to the barn, and saw Rotty sitting in the passenger seat of Randy’s truck parked outside. “Hello,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
Randy came out from under the shedrow, piled some items into one of the truck compartments and smiled. “He wasn’t feeling so good this morning. I thought I’d take him in and get him checked out.”
“Wassa matter?” she said, petting the dog and smiling when he licked her face and wagged his tail. “Wassa matter? Wassa matter?”
Randy chuckled. “What is it with women when they talk to dogs?”
Wendy shrugged. ‘I’ll see you later, Rotty,” she said.
Randy climbed in behind the wheel and sat marveling. When Wendy walked away, the dog starting crying. Not a little cry, a loud howl. Randy rolled up the windows. Last thing he needed was for the dog to spook a horse with this mournful sound. As he backed the truck up and started to pull out, Rotty pressed his nose against the window pane.
Wendy looked at him. “Geez, that’s heartbreaking. I hope he’s all right.”
Dawn appeared at her side. Rotty never took his eyes off Wendy. He just kept staring woefully, staring and staring and howling and crying. Dawn and Wendy heard him still crying even after Randy pulled out on the highway.
From there, Wendy walked to the barn where Renegade Man was being stabled, found Dusty there, but no Tom. “I think he’s up with Pastor Mitchell where Rupert used to be,” Dusty said.
Wendy was pleasantly surprised to be greeted by several people as she walked through the barn area.
“Good morning.”
“Mornin’!”
“Good morning, Wendy!”
“Good morning!
”
“How are you doing?”
“Good, good. How are you?”
“Mornin’!”
Tom was indeed with Pastor Mitchell. They were going over ideas about how to convert the once-upon-a-time-two stalls-turned-tack-store, into a chapel.
“Hey,” Tom said, giving her a hug. “I missed you.”
“Me too.”
“So what’s up?”
“Um….” She didn’t know what to say, just a rush of thoughts. I’m sorry I made you feel bad about your job. I’m sorry it’s dangerous. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. “I just saw Randy. He has Rotty with him. Something’s wrong with him.”
“I know. He cried all night. It was weird.”
“Well, I’d better get back to work.”
Tom smiled. “Are we still on for lunch?”
“Oh! I’m glad you said that. No. I got a call from Karen and Veronica. I’m going to go over and meet with them again. She said they were up all night and came up with some ideas and lots of questions. Dawn’s going to meet me there.”
Chapter Forty-One
Gloria and Charlie met Ben for lunch at the clubhouse and the three sat talking about old times. Gloria loved the clubhouse; she always did, and loved the new menu choices. “Even though I don’t eat much.”
They hoped to get on the road to home by three, with plans to stop in southern Ohio overnight. “We don’t want to get tired out,” she said, hugging Ben and getting into their car. “We’ll see you next time.”
Ben shook Charlie’s hand. “I’ll be here. You two take care.” As he stood watching them drive away, a feeling of incredible sadness washed over him. He walked to the barn and lingered in front of each horse’s stall. Red wasn’t in his stall. Tom was probably ponying a horse.
He wondered whether Tom would move out if and when he and Wendy got married. It made sense, since Wendy had her own house and her sons. He sat down in the tack room. The house will be awful quiet, he thought. Sure, they’d still have their dinners together often, all of them, but at night, when they all left, it would be just like after Meg died, too quiet, too lonely, sad.
“What’s the matter with you, old man?” Tom said, returning with Red.
“Well, I was just sitting here thinking.”
Tom grinned. “Haven’t we talked about that before?”
“Yeah, I guess we have,” Ben said, laughing.
Tom unsaddled Red and laid the saddle and saddle pads on the ground just outside the tack room. He rubbed Red’s back vigorously with a towel. Red loved that. Tom glanced at Ben. “What?”
“Where are you going to live when you get married?”
“Is that what this is about?”
“Well, yes. I’m used to you being there.”
Tom looked at him.
“I don’t like good-byes,” Ben said. “Charlie and Gloria leaving. I thought, what if I never see them again?”
Tom took Red’s bridle off and patted him on the butt. He totted down the shedrow and into his stall, happy as could be. Tom heaved his saddle up onto the rack, hung up his bridle, and laid the saddle pad out in the sun, then walked down to Red’s stall, picked his feet, and snapped his stall webbing closed.
It was time to run stalls, pick out the manure piles, wet spots. But first things first. He sat down in the tack room, leaned his head back against the wall, and sighed. “I don’t want to leave the farm, Ben. I can’t imagine living in a suburb on a cul-de-sac. It ain’t me.”
“But if it’s what Wendy wants?”
“Well, see, that’s just it. I’m not sure what she wants. I don’t even think she knows what she wants. She has her boys to think about. They’re in college, but they need a place to come home to, Thanksgiving, Christmas, spring break, whenever they feel like it. That’s their home.”
Ben drew a breath and sighed, scratching the back of his neck. “Maybe I can rent out the upstairs.”
Tom laughed. “Oh, so now you’re kicking me out?”
Ben laughed as well. “You’re a pain in the ass.”
Tom reached for a sponge and the saddle soap. “Don’t worry, old man. We’ll work it out.” The barn area loudspeaker crackled and they both stopped to listen.
“Congratulations, Mim Freemont, for saddling two wins back-to-back! Way to go!”
“Hot damn!” Ben said. He and Tom walked out onto the road between the barns, waited, and when they saw her coming down the road on her golf cart behind her horse on its way to the spit box, they waved. “Congratulations!”
She waved back. “Thank you!”
Randy pulled his truck in behind them. Tom looked. “Where’s Rotty?”
“I dropped him off at home. They couldn’t find anything wrong with him.”
“Well, I’m stopping for earplugs,” Ben said. “He starts that howling again tonight I’m going to be ready.”
“You, needing ear plugs?” Tom said. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“Oh, and Dawn told me to remind you tonight we’re all eating at Glenda and George’s,” Randy said.
Both nodded, remembering. Tom wondered if he’d mentioned it to Wendy.
Dawn and Wendy followed Veronica and Karen from stall to stall, sad beyond belief at the condition of the some of the horses, appalled that anyone would allow a horse to go without food and proper care.
“Let me give you some advice,” Veronica said. “Don’t even go there. It’ll just tear you up inside.” She walked on. “Now this one here, this is the one that Randy and Tom had to come help us with the other night.”
It was a large chestnut gelding that someone had sent to a farm after an injury. “You don’t want to know the details,” Karen said. “Randy thinks he’s through the worst of it. He and Tom took turns the other night bracing him against the wall to keep him standing. If he had gone down chances are he wouldn’t have gotten back up. He wouldn’t have had the strength. He’s such a sweetie too.”
Dawn and Wendy just shook their heads.
“The thing with me is,” Karen said. “I had to stop passing judgment. It was the only way I could keep going.”
“Not me,” Veronica said. “I judge them all.”
“Yes, and that’s why you have an ulcer.”
It was an old argument between them.
“And now that you’ve seen the worst,” Karen said. “Let’s go see the success stories.”
Wendy and Dawn followed along. “Do you take before and after pictures?”
“Yes,” Veronica said. “But I don’t post them or anything. I want to allow them some dignity. I wouldn’t want to be shown like that.”
“But what about as far as getting funds?” Wendy asked. “Do you think it might get more donations if people could see how they come in?”
“From a certain group, yes. But let me tell you,” she said, sliding the back barn door open. “Strictly speaking, financially, the people that respond to that type of photo, good hearted and all, caring people mind you, they turn out to be one-time donors. You get a check and you never hear from them again.”
Two large gray horses and one bay picked their heads up from eating a round hay bale in the paddock and nickered. They were thin, but shiny and bright-eyed. They were happy and content. One of the grays walked over to the fence.
“This one loves people,” Veronica said. “Even after….” She bit her bottom lip in an attempt not to break into tears. “I wasn’t always like this.”
Dawn pet the horse’s face, straightened his forelock, and laughed when he sniffed her hair, snorted and sneezed all over her. “How long has he been here?”
“About two months now. He’s just about ready to go if we can find him a home.”
“How often do you place a horse?” Wendy asked.
“About one every couple of weeks. Some come back.”
“Why?”
“People,” Veronica said.
“We screen them. Sometimes I think we screen too much,” Karen said. “Some of the homes we thi
nk will work out best, don’t, and….”
Dawn looked at the bay. His ribs were still showing. “How long has he been here?”
“About four months. We almost lost him twice.”
Dawn and Wendy found themselves shaking their heads again. They could only imagine how he looked when he arrived.
“Come on, let’s go inside.”
They followed the women into their house and sat down at the kitchen table. The two were a wealth of information. They had a long list of Rescue Farms in the state. “Transporting the horses in a weak condition is very risky. Again, if they go down, particularly in a trailer….”
“So most of the horses that come to you are in…?”
“Bad shape? Yes.”
“Do you ever get a horse that maybe just can’t run fast anymore?” Wendy asked.
“No. Unfortunately they’re probably in good flesh, and we all know what that means.”
Wendy stared.
“Killers,” Dawn said, shuddering.
“Which brings up a good point.” Karen sorted through a pile of articles and handed one to Dawn. “You might want to have two vets okay horses that need put down once they are in your care. All it takes is one vet like this and the rest are suspect.”
Dawn skimmed the article and handed it to Wendy. “This is all so complicated.”
“You want to hear about complicated. The biggest obstacle in the rescue business is other rescue businesses. Not to mention the animal protective rights movement.”
“What do you mean?” Wendy asked.
“Well, for instance, we had this really nice mare, she was barren, neglected, a little on the small side, but just as sweet as can be once we got some groceries in her. So we find her a home, twins actually, two teenage girls, and because there were two people going to be riding this horse, somehow one of the other rescue places, I won’t say who, felt that we were setting this horse up as a riding academy horse. It was ridiculous. They contacted the family and scared them to death with all their questions, and the girls weren’t allowed to adopt the horse.”
“That’s another thing. Expenses need to be paid, so there are adoption fees, but some are ridiculously high. But! On the other hand, the fear is, if the donation is too low, say less than what a killer would pay, then you open yourself up for that type of scam.”
Winning Odds Trilogy Page 80