“No. Uncle Tom, you’re so silly. For my bedroom.”
Carol shook her head. “I’m thankful there are no bunnies in your bedroom because I would find it in your bed for sure.”
Maeve giggled.
D.R. was next in line. “I want a bunk bed so Jimmy can spend the night.”
Randy looked at Dawn. Jimmy was D.R.’s imaginary friend. “Is he back?”
Dawn nodded with a raised eyebrow for emphasis. “But he can’t stay. There’s no place for him to sleep.”
Everyone turned to Randy. “I see. Well, we’ll look into that. Meanwhile, I wonder if we could just move along. I’m happy.”
That elicited smiles all around. “I would like to do this more often,” Wendy said. “This is just too nice.”
Tom agreed. “What a nice surprise and us all here together.”
Clint nodded. “When you opened the barn doors, I couldn’t even do anything. I just….”
Vicky touched him gently on the shoulder. “I felt the same way.”
Clint smiled and swiped a tear trickling down his cheek.
“I knew,” Mim said. “And it still made me feel the same way. This is us. This is what we do, what we did. This is marvelous.”
George helped himself to more potpie. “I don’t know what was more fun. Setting this up today or delivering the cake to the wedding.”
Señor laughed and gave a brief summation of the cake delivery, complete with how he rode to the banquet hall in the back of the pickup bracing the box and saying prayers for safe passage the entire way.
“Ask and ye shall receive,” Pastor Mitchell said.
“The cake was delicious,” Lucy said, and everyone agreed.
“Just like wedding cake in Mexico,” Miguel said.
“I’m so sorry we missed the wedding,” Gloria said. “I love wedding cake, though I only eat a small piece.”
“I usually eat two,” Charlie said. “I always say one for me and one for my wife. Then I tell Gloria to go get her own.”
Everyone laughed. “It’s true,” Gloria said.
Boots helped himself to more potpie. “This is delicious. Irene, get the recipe.”
“I’ll write it up for you,” Liz said. “It’s so easy to make.”
“The biscuits on top is so unique. I like it so much more than just crust,” Irene said, as she put another spoonful on her plate.
“I ate so much of it the last time, my stomach swelled up like a balloon,” Matthew said.
“Don’t eat so much this time,” Tom said.
“Are you kidding me?” Matthew passed Tom his plate for more.
“I’m eating for a week,” Gordon said. “My thanks to you all.”
Wendy looked at him. “Are you kidding?”
“About eating for a week? No. Yes.”
Wendy shook her head. “I am thankful for sons who never cause their mother a worry in the world.”
They all laughed.
Dusty spooned out another serving of Jello salad, more potpie, and more salad greens. Everyone looked at him. It was his turn. He paused, fork in hand. “I am grateful for my home, my family and friends. I am thankful for my job. I’m thankful for little Bonnie Bee. I’m thankful for good food to eat!”
“Amen,” Pastor Mitchell said.
“I’m thankful for T-Bone’s Place,” Steven said, “For a roof over my head, caring people, horses, and for all of you. You are my family.”
Bill hesitated. “Mine too. You are all I have. If I could I would give you all the world, but I really think all the world is right here, in this place, this farm…this barn.”
Jack looked at him. “Since when did you become a poet?”
Bill laughed. “I am multi-faceted.”
“Oh, you’re faceted all right.”
Bill chucked him with his elbow. “Shut up. It’s your turn.”
Jack nodded. “Well, no poetry from me. But I too am grateful. Being here with you all, on this farm, with everyone caring so much, and loving life. Living life to the fullest. These are happy days.”
Cracker Jack drew a breath and sighed. “What can I say? Can I put my reservation in now? I can’t think of any other place I’d rather be down the road.”
Frank was next. “In my wildest imaginations, I never thought I could feel so loved.” His voice cracked. “So cared about. We are truly family.”
Mim drew a breath and sighed. “I would like to live here forever. Do you think you all can arrange that?”
Ben smiled. “We’ll see what we can do.” He looked around at everyone, cherishing the moment. “I am so thankful for each and every one of you all here. You have made my life worth living.”
Everyone at the dinner table fell quiet.
“When Meg died, there didn’t seem much point in living anymore,” Ben said. “I went through the motions. Tom held me up many a day.”
Tom looked at him, swallowing hard.
“Then this one morning,” Ben’s voice quivered, “this young reporter showed up at barn fourteen and said, ‘Tell me everything you know about horse racing.’”
Dawn bit at her trembling bottom lip.
“Well, I had a lifetime to share and I thank you,” he said, looking at Dawn. “I thank all of you.”
“Amen,” Pastor Mitchell said. “Amen.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Jason greeted Dawn with a big smile and handed her the paper. “Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.” Dawn thanked him as if he’d personally arranged the good news and walked to the barn, reading the comics. Ben, Tom, Dusty, and Junior looked up when she walked into the tack room. They were all on their second cup of coffee.
“All right, so I’m late,” she said.
Ben shrugged. “We didn’t notice. Did we notice?”
“Yes,” Tom said. “We did.”
Dawn shook her head, smiling. “It’s nice to be noticed.” She poured herself a cup of coffee and looked at the training chart. Batgirl, breeze 3/8ths. Whinny, race. Wee Born, work a half mile, Alley, gallop, Morning Dew, walk. “What race are we in?”
“Third,” Ben said, handing her the Overnight.
“Bold Gamer is going to be scratched,” Dusty said.
Dawn looked at the names of the other seven horses. “Wait a minute. Do I smell donuts?”
Tom had the box hidden behind him and brought it out slowly.
“There had better be a custard one in there for me.” There was. Dawn wolfed it down, and the morning training began. Batgirl was first. She breezed 3/8ths in 40 flat. Wee Born worked the half in 47.2/5ths. Junior galloped Alley. She tried to run off on him as soon as Tom cut them loose, but Junior held her tight. Pleased with how Batgirl and Wee Born trained this morning, Ben walked over to the Secretary’s office to enter them both for Friday. Joe nodded, greeting him. There were five trainers already in line.
Ben decided to go check in with Wendy and come back in a few minutes. Richard was at his desk on the phone. Ben walked to the window and watched the horses training. He chuckled. Cracker Jack was standing by the rail. He could spot him a mile away being so tall and with that wild hair.
Richard hung up the phone. “Morning, Ben.”
“Good Morning. Where are you off to today?”
“Believe it or not, my presence has been requested at the ITHA. Apparently, they want to hear firsthand how our zero tolerance on drugs and soft whips are working out. They also want to discuss our “aggressive” goal to reorganize claiming. The rep said they have a mega-corporation here in the states that might possibly want to be a pilot program using the same policies.”
“Where?”
“They weren’t at liberty to say. My bet they’re in New York or Kentucky.”
“Good luck,” Ben said.
Richard nodded and studied the look in Ben’s eyes as he watched the horses galloping. “The Thoroughbred industry is lucky to have someone like you, Ben, to set an example from experience.”
“Thank you,” Ben said. “I appreciate that. Meg would
appreciate it too. A lot of the man I am is because of her. She could give a person hell.”
Richard smiled. “What do you want me to tell the ITHA for you?”
Ben paused. “Tell them it’s time to change and that it’s long overdue. It’s time.”
~ * ~
Ben entered his two horses and heard the news from Joe: “Crimson Count is shipping in for the Burgundy Blue. They just called to apply for a stall in the receiving barn.”
Ben signed his name on the entry forms and looked up at him.
“He’ll pull in a crowd, that’s for sure,” Joe said.
Ben nodded. “How are these two races looking?”
“Good. They’ll both fill.”
Ben thanked him and walked away. Crimson Count? He took out his cellphone and dialed Randy. “Give me Mark’s phone number. I need him to Google something for me.”
Randy gave him the number. Ben programmed it in and dialed. “Mark?”
“Yes,”
“I need you to get me the form on Crimson Count.”
“Give me a minute. I’ll call you back.”
Ben had certainly heard of the horse. Who hadn’t? He’d run in the Kentucky Derby five or six years back and had performed consistently in stakes and allowance races ever since. Ben walked on to the barn, thinking out loud, “If I hadn’t said we’d run the colt I wouldn’t be dealing with this right now. I knew better than to second-guess myself. He loses to Crimson Count, that’s a mark against him in breeding.”
When Mark called him right back, Ben sat down on the bumper of a truck parked in the horsemen’s lot and listened to the information. “Speed rating 101. Last time out he win going a mile by three lengths in 1:36 and 2/5ths. He’s run seven times this year, three wins, two seconds, a fourth and a fifth, all allowance or stakes.”
Ben thanked him and continued on to the barn. Dawn had just finished doing up Alley’s legs and was brushing her off and fussing over her. Tom was raking the gravel under the walking machine. “What’s the matter?” Tom asked, from the look on Ben’s face.
“Crimson Count is shipping in for the Burgundy Blue.”
“The derby horse?”
Ben nodded.
“And so now you’re having a cow?”
Ben sighed and sat down on the bench outside the barn. “Last I heard, he was going to Breezeway Farm too. The press is going to have a field day with this.”
Dawn listened from the stall. “Maybe they’ll make him the favorite.”
“Well,” Ben stared at the ground, “That would be nice, though I don’t know that I’d wish that on anyone, even someone competing against us. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I want Bo-T to win, but….”
Ben’s cellphone rang. It was Mark. “He’s going to Breezeway Farm for stud after this race.”
“That’s what I thought,” Ben said. “Somebody’s setting this up as a match race.”
“You think?”
“Well, I hope not, but….” Ben thanked him for the information and hung up and rubbed his eyes. “Oh, Jesus, I’m not supposed to do that.” He blinked several times and looked at Tom.
When Tom swayed back and forth on purpose, Ben laughed. Junior came down through the barn area, helmet tucked under his arm, and looking dumbfounded. “What?” Tom said.
“Tony Guciano just said hi to me.”
Ben smiled. “Are you heading out to the farm?”
Junior nodded. “B-Bo gallops, Bo-T walks. Right?”
Ben hesitated. Why? He had no idea. But here he was, second-guessing himself again. “He two-minute licked yesterday. Yes, he walks today. B-Bo gallops, a mile and half.”
Ben stared down the road between the barns after Junior left. Tom went back to raking. “So what are you thinking, old man?”
Ben looked at him. “I’m thinking I want to win that race.”
Tom smiled. “Now that’s the Ben Miller I know.”
~ * ~
It was a fun-filled afternoon for the old-timers. They got to watch B-Bo gallop. He galloped nice and even, nice and strong. Though worried initially about getting back to the house in time to watch the televised Daily Double at Nottingham Downs, but it turned out Lucy knew how to record the telecast. They could watch those two races in the evening. They all got situated back home and watched the running of the third race. Whinny was in the fourth.
“She got a good shot,” Miguel said, studying the form.
“She’s got to beat that Majestic horse.”
Miguel nodded.
Lucy went upstairs for a nap. She thought about what it meant or might mean, her father greeting Junior. Was he just being polite? “No, dad’s not the type to just be polite.” She wondered if somehow, someway the wedding changed his feelings about Junior. She entertained that possibility and woke to screaming and yelling downstairs.
“Go Whinny! Go Whinny!”
“Go!!!!”
“Come on, Whinny!!”
“Come on, girl!”
Lucy walked down the stairs, sat on the bottom step, and watched the end of the race.
“Did she win?”
“Did she get up?”
“Did she win?”
“Oh look, there’s Dawn.”
“Ben too.”
“It’s almost like being there,” Mim said.
Whinny ran second, beaten by a nose. Dawn held her as Juan dismounted, handed her over to Tom and Red, and walked behind them to the spit barn. Ben and Dusty walked with Juan a short ways.
“She run so good,” Juan said. “She should win.”
“That’s about as close to a win as you can get,” Ben said, patting the man on the back. “Thank you for a great ride.”
Whinny cooled out well, drank her share of water, obliged when it came time for a urine sample and walked alongside Dawn to their barn, tired, but bright-eyed and proud, head held high and looking all around.
Tom smiled. “She’s saying, did you see that? Did you see me run? Good Momma,” he said, patting her. “Good girl.” He had her stall done, haynet hung, water bucket filled. He felt her chest and patted her on the neck. “She’s good.”
Dawn shook her head. “Wow, I didn’t know that. Thank you.”
Tom laughed. “I’m going to go watch a couple of races up in the office.”
“Where’s Ben?”
“He went home.”
“Again? Boy, he’s serious about this semi-retirement thing.”
“He said he was going home to take a walk. I told him he could walk here and he said it’s not the same. He said when he walks here, he’s walking some place. Home, he’s simply walking.”
“I like that,” Dawn said.
Tom watched her lead Whinny down the shedrow past her stall. “What are you doing?” he asked, razzing her again.
She smiled. It was a habit of hers to walk a horse around their own shedrow after a race. They seemed to enjoy it and so did she. All the horses would come to the front of their stalls, nicker, their horse would nicker back. She imagined what they might be saying. How’d you do? Did you win? Looking good! And some even breaking into song. “Isn’t she lovely, isn’t she wonderful….”
Manny, the groom on the backside smiled. “You have lovely voice, Dawn. She run big, huh?”
Dawn nodded. “She run good. Just got beat by a nose.”
“Teach her next time to stick tongue out.”
Dawn laughed. “I wonder if that’s ever been done?”
She put the mare in her stall and watched her for a moment. After turning a few circles, Whinny laid down and rolled, stood up and shook off, and then laid down and rolled on the other side. Randy pulled up next to the barn, got out, and walked down the shedrow. The mare was back up and eating hay.
“Did you miss the race?”
He nodded. “Sorry. Jason said she ran second.”
“Just got beat,” Dawn said. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I just had to put a horse down. He broke a leg in the pasture.” He wrapped her in
his arms and held her tight. “I stayed with him until the renderer came. The owner was hysterical, no one else there with her….”
“Thank you,” Dawn said.
“For what?”
“For being you. For caring.”
Randy sighed, kissed her on the forehead and looked at her. “And then, I stopped at Shifting Gears.”
“Is everything all right?”
“Oh yeah. Hillary’s talking to all the horses. They’re all happy or in the process of getting happy, Veronica said. She showed up before I left. She’s such a strange girl. Karen said she does some kind of ritual when she leaves every day, like imaginary wiping herself down, clearing the energy or something.”
“It makes sense to me. She did that here too. She says otherwise it all comes at her at one time and doesn’t leave.”
“I don’t know if that’s a burden or a blessing,” Randy said.
“Both probably.”
“So where’s dinner?”
“At your mom and dad’s I think.”
Randy nodded, and ducked under Whinny’s webbing, ran his hands down her legs, felt her chest and looked at her eyes. “Remember the day she was born?” he asked, smiling and smoothing the mare’s mane. “Such a cute little thing.”
“Ben wants to retire her at the end of the year.”
“She’ll make a nice broodmare.”
“He’s really into this retirement thing lately.”
“I don’t think it’s that,” Randy said. “I think that’s our hang-up. He’s never hesitated stopping on a horse before.”
“I guess you’re right. I just hope that’s all it is.”
“What else could it be?”
“I don’t know, like maybe he’s trying to tie up loose ends.”
“You mean before he dies? Dawn, we’re all going to die sooner or later.”
“That’s uplifting.”
Randy ducked out of the mare’s stall, gave Dawn a kiss and walked to his truck. “I’ll see you at dinner. Do you know what we’re having?”
“Spaghetti and meatballs.”
“Mom’s sauce?”
Dawn nodded. The official winner of the sixth race was announced and with the wind blowing just the right way, she could hear perfectly clear. Sunrise Sam, Jackson’s horse, was the winner. She walked out to the road and watched as Jackson led the horse into the spit barn. He gave her a thumbs up. The horse was dancing and prancing.
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