“He can’t do that,” Wendy said, trying to untangle herself from the covers and get out of bed.
Tom put a hand on her shoulder. “Listen, he’s probably sleeping. There’s no sense you going downstairs and waking him. Go back to sleep.”
“Oh yeah, right. That’s just what I’ll do. I’ll go back to sleep.” She pushed his hand away, put her feet on the floor and started pacing. “Why would he do something like that?”
“I don’t know. He’s your son.”
“He’s not my son, not anymore. He’s been your son for about a year now. He doesn’t listen to me.”
“He’s a grown man,” Tom said. “He’s not your little boy anymore.”
Wendy stopped pacing to glare at him. “I’m not talking to you. You hear me? I’m not talking to you.”
“I hear you. I gotta go. If he’s sleeping, let him sleep.”
Wendy raked her hands through her hair and put her hands on her hips. “Go! I thought you said you had to go!”
“You’re so cute. Look at you,” Tom said.
“I said go!”
Ben looked up from eating his oatmeal as Tom came down the stairs and tipped a sideward glance. Matthew was all curled in the crook of the L-shape part of the couch, sleeping like a baby. Ben held his hands out in question.
“I’ll tell you at the track,” Tom whispered. “He’s fine.”
Ben nodded and looked at the boy.
Tom glanced back at the stairs. Wendy had tiptoed down and was peeking at her son. She shook her head and tiptoed back up. Tom left and Ben left shortly thereafter. The plan was for Wendy to borrow Glenda’s car for the day. Gordon still had his mom’s car and would be home in the evening.
Wendy showered, dried her hair, got dressed and came down the stairs as quietly as she could. Matthew was sitting up, headphones on and watching television. She walked over and turned it off.
“Now don’t you be upsetting me, Mom,” he said, removing the headphones.
“Me? Upset you?”
Wendy picked up the empty bowl and glass on the coffee table in front of him. “What’s this?” She took them to the sink to rinse them.
“Oatmeal and juice,” Matthew said. “Ben left it for me.”
She rinsed the glass and bowl for an eternity. “Matthew,” she said, finally turning off the faucet and facing him.
“Mom, don’t. It’s a done deal.”
“So what? I’m just supposed to go to work and not worry?”
“Yes. George is here. Glenda’s here. Liz and Senior are here. Carol’s here. What can go wrong?”
“I don’t know. They can come in here and find you unconscious, maybe dead.”
“Well, that would be a downer now wouldn’t it?” Matthew got up and started down the hall.
“Where are you going? What are you doing?”
“I’m going to go to the bathroom,” Matthew said in slow motion. “It’s what I do when I have to go pee.”
In spite of herself Wendy laughed. “Matthew…?”
“I’m fine, Mom. I’m fine. Okay? I’m fine.”
~ * ~
Tom showed up at the barn with a dozen donuts also. He figured since he was already late he might as well come bearing gifts. Dawn had the horses fed, the coffee made, and was sitting at Ben’s desk reading the racing form when they arrived,
“I’m replaced already,” Ben said. “Look at that.”
“Did you check the horses’ feed tubs?” Tom asked, with his mouth full.
“No, Tom, I didn’t.”
He laughed, spraying powdered sugar everywhere. “What about Alley? She eat up?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t check for that either.”
Tom grinned. “Just keeping you on your toes.”
Dawn got up so Ben could sit down and in came Junior. “Who made the donuts?” He helped himself to one and a cup of coffee. Ben looked up at him.
“What?”
Ben motioned for him to shut the door and waited. “There’s a rumor going around. Is it true?”
Junior hesitated. “About Lucy?”
Tom glanced from one to the other. “What about her?”
Junior sat down on the cot next to Dawn. “She’s in foal.”
Tom stood looking down at him.
“She doesn’t know for sure.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. What if it’s not my kid?”
“Not your kid?” Tom said. “Weren’t you the one bragging all over the racetrack a couple of months ago about how you popped her cherry? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Tom….” Dawn said.
“What? Don’t Tom me. Junior needs to grow up and act like a man for once in his life.”
Junior looked up at him. “I’ve only been a man about a year and a half now. What about you? You’ve been a man all your life! Look how long it took you to grow up.”
“Enough,” Ben said. “God, I’m so tired of you two and your constant bickering.”
There was a knock on the door. Tom opened it and let Dusty in.
“What’s going on?”
“Oh, you haven’t heard?” Junior said.
“I heard. There’s not much I don’t know on this racetrack, Junior.” Dusty looked into both boxes of donuts, helped himself to a creampuff, and poured himself a cup of coffee.
“Well, then maybe you can tell us who the father is,” Tom said.
“Who?” Dusty looked at Tom. “There’s no question about who the father is.”
“Oh yeah,” Tom said, reaching past Junior for Red’s saddle and bridle. “Well, tell that to this piece of shit.”
“I swear, Tom, if you say that one more time,” Junior said.
“What are you going to do, Big Man? What are you going to do?”
Dawn put up her hands. “Frankly, I’m tired of this too. Junior, Lucy’s young and she’s going to need pre-natal care.”
Tom turned.
“No, Tom,” Dawn said. “I’m talking now. This is about Junior and Lucy. This isn’t about you.”
“Fine,” Tom said, slinging his saddle over his shoulder and kicking the tack room door open. “Go ahead and hold his hand. That’ll make him grow up.”
Dusty closed the door behind him and turned to Junior. “Are you scared, Junior? Is that what this is all about?”
Junior hesitated and then leaned back and sighed. “I don’t even like kids. What am I going to do with a kid?”
Dawn looked at him. “You’ll learn. Nature has a way of taking over.”
Junior shrugged. “But Lucy and I don’t even get along half the time, Dawn. It ain’t like with you and Randy.”
Ben looked at him. “Oh? Do you think they always got along?”
Dawn laughed. “Don’t remind me.”
Chapter Eleven
Randy walked down Ralph Symchek’s shedrow with diagnostic instruments and supplies in hand. He was scheduled to scope the horse prior to galloping and again afterwards. This horse was the pride of the Symchek barn, a big, strapping, full-of-himself four-year old with potential as an Ohio Bred sire. Randy hoped he didn’t have bad news for the owner when it was all said and done.
“Well, let’s see what we’ve got.”
The horse had thrown a bad race last time out. The jockey said he’d sounded like “a freight train” during the stretch run and pulled up so abruptly going into the turn he almost fell down. There was no temperature upon examination after the race, no signs of illness, no signs of internal bleeding, no lameness. Additionally, the horses showed no evidence of illness, lameness or distress the following morning, afternoon, or evening.
“This’ll tell us everything, right?”
“Well, if we’re lucky, it’ll give us an idea.” Randy gently slid the endoscope up the horse’s nose, a rather gentle procedure given the size of a horse’s nostrils, unlike humans.
Dusty walked down the shedrow, nodded to Ralph and stood at Rand
y’s side. Randy glanced at him. “What’s up, big guy?”
Dusty chuckled. Compared to Randy’s height of six-foot-four, he was not a big guy. “How’s it going?”
“So far so good.”
The backside p.a. system sounded. “Dr. Iredell, you’re needed at barn six immediately. Dr. Iredell you’re needed at barn six immediately.”
Randy never even blinked.
“You want me to go tell them you’ll be right there?” Dusty asked.
“Yes.” Randy nodded. “Thank you. Ralph, now take a look here.”
Ralph shook his head, his hand pressed instantly over his stomach. “No, that’s okay.”
“All right,” Randy eased the endoscope out gently. “Everything looks good. We’ll see how it looks when he gets back.”
The horse in barn six was showing signs of colic. Randy examined the horse thoroughly, listened, observed. The trainer, Dave Johnson, watched. “What do you think?”
“We’ll see,” Randy said.
The man walked down to tack one of his other horses as Dusty held the colicky horse for Randy. “Doc Jake would be proud of you, you know that. When did you start being so wise?”
Randy yawned. “I don’t know. I guess when I started having to be.”
Dusty smiled when Randy yawned again. “You need a vacation. You and Dawn need to go away for a while.”
“Right. But now’s not the time.”
“Then you need an assistant. Hell, you’ve got me yawning and I sleep like a baby every night. Why not hire someone to help?”
“Nah, I don’t want to go there,” Randy said. “They’re all girls and I’m too good-looking.”
Dusty laughed.
Randy had been partners with another veterinarian for several years but the man fell in love with the owner of a ship-in stakes horse, and that was that. Within a year, the two got married and his partner up and moved to Kentucky. His departure spurred Randy’s sister Cindy’s plan to go back to school for a year and a half of specialized large animal classes to add to her small animal veterinarian degree and move here. Even when she found out she was pregnant it still seemed like it would work out. The baby would be born in the down season at the track. But now with her experiencing complications….
“Wonder if there is such a thing as a rent-a-vet somewhere?” Randy said.
“You could probably get an intern,” Dusty replied.
Randy shook his head. “I don’t have time to break ‘em in.”
“Why don’t we just look? What can it hurt? Wendy could probably find you someone in a day.”
Randy eased his arm out of the horse’s rectum, dropped some hard balls of manure to the ground, and took off his plastic sleeve glove. “All right. Find me someone that knows racehorses and we’ll give it a shot. But make sure they know it’s only temporary.”
~ * ~
Matthew walked out onto the front porch of Ben’s farmhouse, bare-chested, barefoot, and in ratty jeans. He stood tall and stretched his arms over his head.
“Hey!” Glenda yelled to him from the barn.
“Hey!” He waved back.
“You okay?”
“Yep! I feel great!” Well, maybe not great, he said to himself.
“You need anything?”
“No. Thank you!” He went back inside to spare her any more concern and poured himself a cup of cold coffee. Since it didn’t have any caffeine in it he figured he’d be safe, but less than fifteen minutes later he started to get a headache. He put on a shirt and shoes and walked out to the main barn. He liked doing stalls and thought about it, but didn’t want to chance the headache getting worse. It felt like pressure on the back of his head.
Glenda looked at him. “How’s the seeing thing going?”
“Okay, I guess. It’s like it comes and goes.”
Glenda studied his eyes. “Liz made blueberry muffins. She was going to bring you down some when you woke up.”
“I’m up,” Matthew said, smiling.
Glenda nodded. “You certainly are.” She liked Matthew. Who didn’t? He was a kind boy, always said what was on his mind, handsome in a hippy-throwback kind of way, gorgeous long dark hair and big blue eyes. “Do you want me to go up and get you some?”
“No, I’ll walk up.”
“You can take the four-wheeler.”
Matthew looked at it. As a rule, it was his favorite mode of transportation. It could be a little jarring though, especially over the gravel. “I’ll walk. I think I need the exercise.”
Glenda watched him start off and when he was out of hearing distance, phoned George and then Liz and Senior. “He’s not looking so good, but he’s moving.”
George kept an eye on him from the stallion barn and Liz pretended to be surprised to see him when Matthew appeared outside her porch screen door. “Come in! Come on in!”
Matthew sat down at the kitchen table, a little dizzy, a little blind. “Is that Matthew?” Senior said, from the bathroom, shaving.
“Yep, it’s me.”
Liz put the platter of blueberry muffins down in front of him. “What would you like to drink? You want some coffee?”
“No, I don’t think so. Can I just have some water? Maybe some warm water?” He was afraid cold water might make his head hurt worse, brain freeze. That’s what it feels like, he decided, brain freeze.
Liz observed him for a moment. He wolfed down one muffin and then another.
“Well, there’s nothing wrong with your appetite,” Senior said, walking into the kitchen drying his face with a towel.
“What? Did you want me to save you some?” Matthew asked.
Senior sat down next to him, smiling, thanked Liz for the cup of coffee she placed in front of him and reached for a muffin. “Tom says you’ll be needing to check in with your doctor today. I’ll be driving you.”
Matthew looked at him. “Do I have to have an appointment?”
“No, it’s all taken care of.” He’d expected Matthew to balk at going, give him a hard time. He sipped his coffee and glanced at the boy. “Whenever you’re ready.”
~ * ~
When Dawn was paged to the guard shack she had a feeling it was going to be that little girl Hillary, and sure enough. “My teacher says I can shadow you every morning.”
“Actually, I don’t need a shadow, Hillary. I have two of them at home.”
“Please,” the girl said.
Dawn looked at her. “Does your mother know you’re here?”
“Yes.” She motioned over her shoulder to where her mother sat in her car waiting.
Dawn sighed. Of all the days. She had so much to do and coddling an angry young girl was not one of them. She waved to the mother. “Ten o’clock, okay?”
“Okay. Thank you.”
The girl walked along with Dawn. “What do you want me to do? Do you want me to help Dusty again?”
“Let me check with him. Three of the horses went out yesterday. He might be done already this morning.”
Hillary stared longingly at the ReHome barn as they passed. “Not Whippet?”
“Yes, Whippet. Is that why you wanted to be here? Do you want to leave now? Call your Mom.”
“No, I just….” The girl followed Dawn down to the Miller barn and into the tack room. Ben looked up.
“We have her until ten. What can she do?”
Ben shrugged. Everything was done. Even the shedrow was already raked.
Randy pulled up next to the barn, sat talking on the phone for a minute and got out and walked into the tack room. “You guys need me for anything?”
Dawn shook her head. Ben shook his head.
Randy helped himself to a couple of donuts.
“So this is your husband?” Hillary asked. “He looks so much older than you.”
“Well, thank you,” Randy said.
Dawn chuckled. “Randy, this is Hillary, Miss Personality.”
Randy glanced at the girl. “I figured as much.”
“So where are you goin
g?” Dawn asked.
“Shifting Gears. I’ll be right back.”
“Why don’t you take Hillary with you?”
“No thank you.”
The girl made a face at him. “I don’t want to go. What’s Shifting Gears anyway?”
“It’s a rescue farm,” Dawn said, looking at the girl. “And the two women who run it will eat you up and spit you out if you even think of giving them a hard time. Got it?”
Hillary held up her hands. “Ooh, I’m scared.”
“You should be,” Randy said, motioning for her to go on around to the passenger side of the truck. The seat was full of papers, supplies and clipboards. “Throw them in the back” He looked at Dawn and lowered his voice. “You sure this is a good idea?”
“It beats her shadowing me. Besides, yes, I think a trip to Shifting Gears is precisely what she needs.”
Veronica and Karen, co-owners of the Thoroughbred Rescue Farm were expecting Randy and had the horse to be treated standing in the crossties. The five-year-old gelding had been neglected for months by its previous owner to the point of near death. Since he’d come to Shifting Gears, one day he would appear slightly better, and the next, worse. He was scheduled to get his weekly vitamin injection and was one of the quietest Thoroughbreds the two women had ever had at the farm. There was no way of knowing what his temperament was like when he was racing or if he was always this quiet. Hopefully time would tell.
Hillary was silent the whole way there, not giving Randy the satisfaction of showing any interest whatsoever. When they pulled in the drive, she sat up a little straighter, perhaps in anticipation, perhaps in dread. Randy glanced at her.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He got out of the truck. So did she. On the way into the barn, he figured he’d better warn her. “’Most of the horses here at the moment are well on their way to recovery. This particular horse, though, is still not out of the woods by any means.”
“So?”
“So, I’m just letting you know.”
Veronica and Karen met them just inside the aisle way of the main barn, having heard Randy’s truck pull in. “Hey, Randy!”
“Morning, ladies!”
The two women smiled and then looked at the girl. “Who’s this?” Veronica, always the worrier, asked.
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