“Thank you.” Ben took a drink and looked at her. “Everything’s okay.”
“Good,” she said. “I’ll let Lucy know.”
“Where is she?” Ben asked.
“She and Junior went to town to get us some milk. We ran out.”
“That’s because Steven drank it all,” Jeannie said, knitting away.
“Yeah, well that’s because Vicky’s pot-roast was so good.”
Jeannie smiled.
Her knitting reminded Ben of Meg and how she used to sit in the living room in the evenings and knit for hours. He loved listening to the sound of the needles tapping together, and how she’d say, “Oh dear, I dropped a stitch.”
“Well,” he said. “I’ll see you all tomorrow.”
Vicky walked out onto the porch with him. “What about Junior” she asked. “You know, he really is a nice kid.”
“I know,” Ben said. “We’re going to look into getting some furniture. We’ll work out the bathroom up there too. Señor is on it.”
“Thank you.” She smiled at the way he’d said Señor and looked back in at the old-timers, all in their glory. “Having some young people here will be good for them. I know it’ll be good for me. I also think having a young man around will make the old-timers feel safe. Me too,” she added.
Ben walked down the ramp and waved. Junior and Lucy had just pulled off the road into the driveway. “Wait a minute, Ben. Let me take the groceries in and I’ll give you a ride home.”
“No, that’s okay,” Ben said. “You stay here. I need the exercise.”
“You sure?”
“Yep.”
Vicky gave Junior the news.
“Thanks, Ben,” Junior called to him. “Hey, cool shoes!”
Ben chuckled and walked on. He didn’t realize how much harder it was going to see now that it had gotten a little darker with his one eye still blurry and the other one with the cataract. When he was about midway between T-Bone’s Place and the main drive to the farm, he slowed his pace. There was a car coming down the road. It blinded him for a moment. Then he saw something in the road up ahead. A person, a person walking toward him. The person came into focus. It was Matthew.
“The blind leading the blind,” Matthew said when he drew close.
Ben smiled.
Up ahead, Tom stood waiting for them. “You two are going to be the death of me,” he said, chewing on a toothpick and falling into rank next to them. Junior waved to them. “Him too,” Tom said.
Chapter Twenty-Four
There was no talking Ben into staying home another day. He arrived at the racetrack right after Tom and Dawn, looked in on B-Bo, ducked out of Bo-T’s way, and checked all the other horses. “You’d swear you’d been gone a month to watch you,” Tom said.
Ben nudged him. “Get out of my chair.”
Tom laughed. He’d heard Ben coming and sat down in the old man’s chair on purpose. “I marked the training chart for you.”
Ben looked at him. “You’d better be kidding.”
“I am,” Tom said, pouring a cup of coffee.
Dawn walked in behind them. “Where you been?” Tom asked.
She sighed in disgust and showed them the headline on the Sports page of the Morning Banter: “Feeble Attempt to Appease Fans at Nottingham Downs.”
“Feeble attempt?” Dawn said.
“Who is this son of a bitch?” Tom asked.
“I don’t know.” Dawn shook her head.
Dusty walked in all red in the face, sporting a copy of his own. “I think if I read it one more time my head’s gonna explode.”
Then here came Junior. “The motherfuckers - did you read this? They’re messing with my livelihood. I got a baby on the way!”
Tom looked at him and somehow managed to not say a word.
“Who is this guy?” Junior asked.
“Actually,” Dawn said. “I could be wrong, but it seems to me it’s a woman writing this. I think that’s why it’s gotten so personal. The author uses only an initial for a first name, which traditionally indicates male, but….”
“Well, I say you go kick her ass,” Junior said.
Tom laughed and then cleared his throat and looked away.
“Well, let’s put this all aside and get to training,” Ben said. “One thing’s for sure: we all know where we stand and this person’s accusations are bullshit.”
“I say we sic Mim on them,” Dusty said.
Dawn looked at him a second. He was right. Mim would go right to the source. “That’s a good idea. Thank you.” She grabbed a lead-shank and headed out of the tack room.
“Where you going?” Tom asked.
“To walk Bo-T. And he’d better not mess with me. Not today.”
The four men all nodded, agreeing. Dawn didn’t get angry often, but when she did….
“What time are you taking him home?” Ben asked.
“Who?” Junior asked.
“Bo-T,” Ben said.
“Right around ten, right after the track closes.”
“Why’s he going home?” Junior asked. “What’s the matter with him? Is he all right?”
“He’s fine. He’s done. Ben’s retiring him to stud,” Tom said, wondering why he was even having this conversation with the boy.
“What? What about the Burgundy Blue Stake. He’s a shoe-in!”
Ben looked at him. He hadn’t forgotten about the Burgundy Blue, but admittedly with his eye surgery and everything going on with Matthew and the old-timers, it had obviously been pushed far into the back of his mind. And apparently everyone else’s.
“He’s just gotten so….” Ben shrugged.
“The old man’s made up his mind,” Tom said. “He’s going home. He’s done. He’s leasing him to Breezeway. He keeps messing around he’s going to hurt himself. All he can think of is mares.”
“So?’ Junior said.
“You saw how he ran,” Tom said. “Johnny could hardly get his nose out of that mare’s ass.”
“Yeah, but there’s no mares in the Burgundy Blue.”
Ben stared. Tom stared. Dusty stared.
“Even so, that’s weeks away,” Ben said. “We can’t train him sharp for that long and expect him to fire. That, and every time you lead him to the track, you chance him trying to mount every mare and filly in sight.”
“This isn’t right,” Junior said, grabbing Alley’s tack. “This is what makes fans mad. Look what happens every time they retire one of the fucking Derby winners or the Preakness winners or the Belmont winners. Fans get pissed off everywhere. They want to see great horses run. It ain’t all about their stud careers or breeding the next runner.” He walked out of the tack room and down the shedrow shaking his head.
Tom looked at Ben and Dusty. “Fucking Derby winners?”
“Tedious, isn’t it,” Ben said.
Tom laughed. “I never sounded like that.”
“Oh really?”
Thus the day’s training began. Alley galloped. Whinny galloped. Wee Born walked. Batgirl walked. Morning Dew galloped. Bo-T and B-Bo were hand-walked. Ben nursed his doubts all morning, waffled back and forth, but when it came time to load B-Bo and Bo-T, he decided to go ahead and send them both home. “I need time to think,” he said to Tom and Dusty. “Go. We can always bring him back.” Dusty climbed into the passenger seat, filled the necessary paperwork out at the stable gate, and he and Tom drove the van over to the grandstand to load Mim’s things out of storage.
The blacksmith showed up a little after ten and Dawn led Batgirl out first. It wasn’t often they had more than one or two horses due to be reset on any given day. This morning there were four of them to be done.
Brownie had been Ben’s blacksmith for years. At the end of the meet each year Brownie talked about retiring and moving to Florida for good, but always returned. Every time Dawn saw him, his back seemed to be bent a little more, his walk a little slower. But his wit and the stories he could tell were as good as ever, if not better.
“Stop,” she said, laughing on numerous occasions today. “That possibly could never have happened.”
“I kid you not,” Brownie said. “Butt crack and all!”
Randy stopped by with Mark.
By then, they’d worked their way down to Morning Dew. Dawn introduced Brownie to Mark and the blacksmith tried standing up straight to shake the man’s hand and ended up just nodding. “Nice to meet ya!”
“Another Brownie?” Mark said. The man who ran the kitchen was Brownie too.
“Ain’t no relation,” Brownie joked.
Dawn swished flies off Morning Dew with a towel.
Randy looked inside both empty stalls, checking. “What time did they go home?” When he arrived earlier, he’d signed all the necessary paperwork on his end as the attending veterinarian.
Dawn yawned. “Just before eleven.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s just that article….”
“I read it,” Brownie said, from under the horse. “What the hell’s wrong with those people?”
“I don’t know.” Dawn sighed. “Wish I could get them to come here for just a day.”
“Why don’t you try?” Randy kissed her and walked to his truck with Mark right along with him. “It can’t hurt.”
Dawn nodded. “I’m going to go by there on the way home. Enough’s enough.”
~ * ~
As much as Ben liked having the old-timers home on the farm, he had to admit he was going to miss going up to the third floor of the grandstand to see them every morning. He walked past Joe and several trainers playing poker and into the downstairs general office. Wendy looked up from her desk.
“I think Richard’s coming in this afternoon. I actually think he’s working this morning. I’ve gotten several texts from him.”
Ben sat down in his “owner’s chair.” It never ceased to amaze him how the day-to-day operation of the racetrack operated without him. He was happy that’s the way it was, but still found it amazing. “Have you talked to him?”
“Yes.”
“About the RJR thing?”
Wendy nodded.
“What’s he think?”
“Well, I actually think that’s what he’s working on now, judging from his texts. He had me take a photo of the court order and e-mail it to him. He said he was clear across town.”
“This is all so complicated.” Ben sighed. “All of it. This, the newspaper articles….”
“I know,” Wendy said.
“Did you talk to Matthew this morning?”
“No. Why?’
“I’ll let him tell you.”
“Ben, come on.”
“Well,” Ben hesitated. “He says he wants to quit school. He says in the grand scheme of things, it’s all a waste of time.”
“When did he tell you this?”
“This morning before I left.”
Wendy stared. “I think he’s just depressed.”
“Well, he’s got good reason,” Ben said, blinking instinctively as he thought about Matt’s failed eyesight. “I’m just telling you this because I think when he gets around to telling you himself, you might want to just listen.”
Wendy nodded. When there was a tap on the open door they both turned and smiled. Richard was back.
~ * ~
Dawn parked outside the Morning Banter and marveled. It was huge. On second glance, she noticed that the majority of the building appeared to be empty. She got out of her car. The main doors to the building were locked tight. Reading the handwritten sign, Morning Banter – Second Door Around Back, she drove to the rear of the building.
There were two desks in the small Morning Banter office, both occupied by middle-aged women dressed casually and looking quite busy. “May I help you?” the one asked, noticing a copy of the newspaper in Dawn’s hand.
“Yes, I’d like to speak to F.D. Crenshaw.”
“Who shall I say is here?”
“My name is Dawn Iredell. I write for the Herald and also work at Nottingham Downs.”
The other woman looked up. “F.D. Crenshaw is a syndicated writer.”
“From where does she write?” Dawn asked.
Both women stared at her. “Uh, she…” the one stammered. “She is from New York I believe, or maybe Chicago.”
“Well, that’s pretty far,” Dawn said. “Not to mention the proximity of one to the other. Would you mind looking it up? I’ll wait.” Dawn walked over to one of the chairs in the waiting room and sat down.
“Um,” the one woman said.
Dawn looked at her. “Surely there is a trail that would lead to her.”
“Well, yes, but….”
“Seriously,” Dawn said. “Take your time. I don’t mind waiting.” She wished Mark was here. He could use his Smartphone and Google this F.D. Crenshaw. She wished she had her laptop. While the two Banter employees talked among themselves, she called her Uncle Matt’s office. “Jamie, could you look up an F.D. Crenshaw for me? She’s a syndicated columnist out of either New York or Chicago.” The two women looked at her. “Yes, I know, that’s what I said. Throw in Cleveland just for the heck of it.”
The two women busied themselves while Dawn waited. “You’re kidding,” they heard her say. “Well, that’s odd.” And then, “All right, keep me posted.” She stood up and walked over to the two women. Both were staring into a computer screen and appearing as if they were still trying to find the reporter’s location. “Let me guess,” Dawn said. “No such person.”
“Well, syndicates are sometimes….”
Dawn held up her hand. “I don’t need a lesson in syndication. Thank you for your time.”
“I’m sorry,” the one woman said as Dawn started out the door. “We just work here.”
“Thank you,” Dawn said. “I understand.”
What she didn’t understand and what nagged her all the way home was why? Why would anyone, any person, any syndicate, imaginary or real, want to target Nottingham Downs?
Meg’s Meadows was a welcome site. Carol had just put the children down for a nap. Dawn peeked in on them and walked down to the main barn to check on Bo-T and B-Bo. Both had settled in and were eating hay. George and Glenda were just finishing up chores.
“What’s the matter?” Glenda asked.
“Is it that obvious?” Dawn said.
George nodded. “You want some coffee? I just made a fresh pot.”
“Yes, thank you.” The three of them sat down on the bench outside the barn and watched the horses grazing in the pastures.
“So what’s going on?” George asked.
Dawn recounted the story about the Morning Banter and the three of them just sat there, nodding and wondering. “I just don’t get it,” she said, thinking out loud. “I just don’t get it.”
~ * ~
Ben rocked in his office chair staring out at the racetrack and mulling over everything Richard had to say. It wasn’t sitting well. He didn’t want a dispute with the man his first day back on the job after gallbladder surgery and the infection that followed, but…. “I think you’re off base, Richard. I don’t think this has anything to do with slots.”
“Ben.” Richard shook his head. “This is me, remember. I know how you feel. You and I almost parted ways over this. But I’m telling you, there can’t be any other reason for RJR Enterprises to be sniffing around.”
Wendy’s cellphone rang. It was Dawn, wanting to let her know about her dead-end encounter at the Morning Banter. “You’re kidding,” Wendy said.
“No. Uncle Matt’s people are trying to come up with something, but so far, nothing. I’ll keep you posted.” Wendy hung up and shared the news with Ben and Richard.
“Now let’s not go and immediately think these two situations are related,” Ben said.
Richard sat back. “Even if they’re not, Ben, and I’m thinking they are, you’re going to have to start turning a sizable profit soon or it’s going to be Uncle Sam knocking on your door.�
�
Ben sighed. “I’m going to the barn.”
Wendy watched him walk out and looked at Richard. “Did you have to be so hard on him?”
“He wouldn’t want it any other way and you know that.”
True, Wendy thought. Still….
“Come on,” Richard said. “You know I love that old man just as much as you do, but I have to tell him how it is and he’s going to have to face this.”
Wendy sat looking at him. “Do you really think there’s a connection?”
“I think we’re going to find out. What’s that fella’s name again, the one from Family Services? I think I’m going to pay him a visit.”
“Dan Gotbert.” Wendy located the man’s card and handed it to him. “Should I call ahead and warn him?”
“No. Turnabout is fair play.” Richard smiled. “God, it’s good to be back.”
It was good having him back. “Call me,” Wendy said.
Richard nodded, waving over his shoulder.
~ * ~
George and Señor spent quite some time assessing the upstairs bathroom situation at T-Bone’s Place. They decided that with a little luck it shouldn’t be all that difficult to install another toilet, sink and tub. It would obviously cut the size of the third bedroom, but, “It just might work.” Off they went to the plumbing warehouse.
Meanwhile, Tom and Dusty hauled Mim’s furniture upstairs. There was a double bed, a dresser, two-night stands and a rocking chair. “Perfect,” Lucy said, hands on her skinny hips and her little baby bump starting to show. “I love it! Thank you!!” She yelled downstairs. “Thank you, Mim!”
“Jesus,” Mim mumbled. “You’re welcome.” She lowered her voice again. “For such a little thing, she sure does have a big set of lungs.”
“God help us when the baby comes,” Jeannie said.
Lucy glanced around the bedroom. “Do you think you could maybe move the dresser over there and the rocker here? I want to be able to hear if Vicky or one of the old-timers needs me. We can put a crib there then.”
Tom looked at her. There’s that mention of crib again, as in staying here that long.
“Good. Now that’s perfect,” Lucy said.
“You said that before,” Dusty teased. “You sure?”
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