3 A Basket of Trouble

by Beth Groundwater

  “We’ll do it together,” he replied.

  “This kind of thing really needs a woman’s sensitive touch.”

  Charley stepped back and frowned. “I can be sensitive.”

  Claire decided to change the subject. “What can we do to help?” She took hold of Roger’s hand.

  Charley gave her a pained look. “Nothing right now. But come back with your friends another day. Something tells me we’ll need the money.”

  Claire squeezed Roger’s hand. Oh, God! When word got out that one of Charley’s horses had killed someone, people would start canceling their reservations.

  One by one, nails were being pounded into a coffin for Charley’s business. It was dying before it had even had a chance to live—just like Kyle.

  three:

  hippotherapy lesson

  After dropping off a wedding gift basket, Claire drove her blue BMW sedan into the Gardner’s Stables parking lot Tuesday morning. She got out, hesitated, then resolutely marched toward the corral. While taking a break from constructing a couple of gift baskets the night before, Claire had called Jessica to make sure she should still come to train as a hippotherapy volunteer. Jessica had replied, “My clients still need their sessions, and I still need you, so yes, if you’re willing, please come.”

  She spied Jessica over by the corral fence, talking quietly to a willowy young woman with a long blond ponytail. She looked to be about the age of Claire’s daughter, Judy. The young woman nodded, with her head bowed. She sniffed and wiped the back of a hand across her nose. When Jessica gave her a hug and she raised her head, Claire could see the young woman’s blue eyes were rimmed in red.

  Claire slowed her steps, thinking to give them more time to themselves since the young woman must have known Kyle. But the girl saw her, pulled back and said something to Jessica.

  Jessica turned and waved Claire over. “Claire, this is Brittany Schwartz. She’s one of my hippotherapy volunteers. She does some part-time wrangling for us, too, when she’s not in class at Pikes Peak Community College. I asked her to come in early to help train you. Brittany, this is my sister-in-law, Claire, who I told you about.”

  The two shook hands and Claire said, “I’m sorry. You must have known Kyle Mendoza.”

  Brittany nodded and gulped, obviously unable to speak at the moment and holding back sobs. Two tears escaped and tracked down her cheeks.

  Jessica dug a tissue pack out of her front jeans pocket and handed one to her. “I figured we’d need some of these today.” She turned to Claire. “I called Brittany and told her about Kyle yesterday evening, because I knew they had gone out together a few times.”

  Brittany blew her nose and wiped tears from her cheeks. She took a deep, hitching breath. “I can’t get my head around the fact that Kyle’s dead, that he won’t come out of the barn any minute now with a big grin on his face. He was so careful around the horses and so good with them. I can’t believe Gunpowder would hurt him, let alone kill him, even accidentally.”

  “This has got to be very hard for you,” Claire said. “Were you his girlfriend?”

  “Oh, no. We just went out a few times. We weren’t exclusive or anything.”

  Jessica patted Brittany’s arm. “It’s still hard, hard for all of us. Charley and I are really going to miss him around here. He was our best trail guide and a huge help to Charley. God knows the big lug could use someone smooth around the customers. And that grin of Kyle’s could lighten anyone’s day.”

  She sighed and dropped her hand. “But, as they say, work is the best way to deal with grief, and Claire here needs to be trained. You still think you can help, Brittany?”

  Brittany squared her shoulders and stuffed her sodden tissue in her jeans pocket. “Sure.”

  Claire noticed that both she and Jessica wore green T-shirts. The front displayed the black silhouette of a rider on horse being led by another person. The words ‘Gardner’s Hippotherapy’ arched over the drawing.

  Trying to lighten the mood, she pointed at Jessica’s shirt. “So will I get one of those?”

  Jessica gave a little laugh. “Yep, as soon as we get you trained.”

  She walked over to a gold-colored horse with a white tail and mane. The horse was saddled, and its reins were looped over the corral fence next to the gate. “This beautiful palomino is Daisy.”

  “I remember the name.” Claire said. “She’s Petey’s favorite horse, right?”

  “Right.” A dark shadow passed over Jessica’s face. “Petey’s got a therapy session scheduled this afternoon, but I don’t think he’ll make it. Charley called the Mendozas after Detective Wilson told them about Kyle. Kyle’s father, Emilio, answered and said they weren’t up to talking then. I thought I’d call this afternoon to see if I could bring something over for their dinner if they don’t show up.”

  She sighed. “We might as well get started.”

  She opened the gate and walked into the corral. Brittany and Claire followed. After Jessica latched the gate, she said, “Daisy is our best therapy horse because she’s got the most easy-going temperament. She’s the best for training our volunteers, too.”

  While she unhooked Daisy’s reins from the fence, the horse nuzzled her ear and blew into her face. Jessica patted her neck and signaled Claire to approach. “Come and meet her.”

  Claire came over and rubbed the horse’s neck. “Hello, Daisy.”

  Daisy raised her head and nickered softly.

  Jessica smiled. “She’s saying hello.”

  After coming up alongside Daisy’s left flank, Brittany stood with a hand on the saddle stirrup.

  “You see how Brittany’s standing?” Jessica said to Claire. “That’s what you’ll do on the other side. Some of our clients, like the kids with cerebral palsy, can’t balance themselves on the horse, so I’ll sit behind them and hold them in the right position. Others, like Petey and our kids with autism, can sit by themselves on a horse, but sometimes they lose their balance and start to slide. That’s what the side walkers are for, to catch them and right them.”

  She positioned Claire on Daisy’s other side. “For a new rider, you’ll walk alongside, hold their foot in the stirrup, and observe their posture. If they start to slide in your direction, you put a hand up to stop them and push slowly and firmly to right them. If they’re wearing a safety belt with handles on it, Brittany should be pulling on the handle on her side. Then if the client slips the other way, you pull and she pushes.”

  Worried, Claire asked, “How do we know how much to push or pull?”

  “You learn by feel. In the beginning, just be careful not to do too much. A gentle correction is usually enough, and if it isn’t, you can always add pressure. Balance and coordination is a lot of what hippotherapy is about.”

  “Yeah, for the side walkers, too,” Brittany quipped.

  Jessica smiled. “Eventually we want our clients to make all of the corrections themselves, if they can. Think you’ve got it?”

  “I think so.” A nervous butterfly fluttered in Claire’s stomach. “I have a feeling we’ll soon find out.”

  Jessica pulled a safety harness off the corral fence and belted it on herself. “Okay, I’ll be a pretend client, and you can practice on me. Sometimes, I’ll try to let a foot slip out of the stirrup and you have to reposition it. And sometimes I’ll slide my body to one side or the other.”

  She mounted Daisy and took the reins. “Normally either I or another volunteer will be walking in front, holding onto the reins to lead Daisy. Ready?”

  Both Claire and Brittany said, “Ready.”

  Jessica clicked her tongue to get Daisy moving in a slow walk.

  Surprised at first, Claire stumbled, then quickly righted herself and caught up with Daisy. She gave out an awkward laugh. “Almost took a tumble there.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Brittany said. �
��I’ve tripped and fallen a few times, even did a face plant in a pile of manure once.”

  Jessica laughed. “I remember that. Cracked little Sally right up. I think she keeps hoping you’ll do it again.” She turned to Claire. “That’s the most rewarding part of hippotherapy, seeing the smiles on the clients’ faces, even hearing the kids giggle. They can feel the improvement in their bodies, and they’re having fun at the same time.”

  As they circled the corral, Claire fell into an easy pace walking beside the horse, even started to feel a little confident. Then she noticed all of a sudden that Jessica’s foot had slid out of the stirrup on her side.

  “Whoops.” She awkwardly pushed Jessica’s foot back in.

  “That’s it,” Jessica said. “Now keep your hand on the stirrup, and partly on my boot, so you can feel if it moves. You’re looking at the ground a lot now, to get your footing. That’s understandable. But after we go around the corral another time, start glancing at me out of the side of your eyes to check my balance.”

  “What about my balance?” Claire asked, as she stumbled again.

  Brittany laughed. “It’ll come to you. After you walk a few hundred circles in this corral, your feet will know every inch of it.”

  They practiced for about half an hour, with Jessica slipping sideways in the saddle or shuffling her feet. Eventually, Claire felt less nervous and thought she could actually be responsible for someone’s safety on the horse.

  “Let’s take a break,” Jessica said. “I think Daisy could use some water.”

  Claire realized her lips were dry and licked them. “Me, too.”

  After Daisy and the women had all gotten some water, Jessica said, “I need to make a couple of phone calls before we start again. I have to confirm delivery on some orders from suppliers, and I know I can’t count on Charley to do it.”

  Irritated by yet another crack from Jessica about Charley, Claire wondered if Jessica really meant to cut down her brother like this, or if it was an unconscious means of building herself up. Maybe Jessica had some buried feelings of inadequacy or guilt after her daughter’s death, and this, like the hippotherapy, was a way of compensating. And maybe that’s why Charley put up with it.

  “Brittany,” Jessica continued, “maybe you could introduce Claire to the other horses we use for hippotherapy.”

  Brittany nodded and led Claire to the barn. “We didn’t have a trail ride scheduled this morning, so the horses are taking a break, either in the barn or out in the pasture.”

  As they entered the barn, Claire heard a man shouting from within one of the stalls. “Pedro, you piece of shit! How many times do I have to tell you to clean out the brushes before you put them away?”

  “He’s new, still learning,” said a quiet voice that Claire recognized as Jorge’s.

  “That’s no God damn excuse!” A horse brush sailed across the aisle between the stalls and landed in a wheelbarrow full of urine and manure-soaked hay. A bitter cackle followed. “Now go clean it!”

  Pedro, the young Hispanic man who ran out of the barn the day before to announce Kyle’s death, stepped out of the stall behind the wheelbarrow. He held a rake that he must have been using to muck out the stall. His boots and jeans were spattered with mud and straw, and he wore an angry frown on his face.

  Jorge stepped out of another stall with a hoof pick in his hand. He caught Pedro’s eye and shook his head.

  Pedro bit his lip and flung the rake down. He stared at the roof for a moment as if asking God to give him strength. Then he fished the brush out of the wheelbarrow and walked out of the barn past Claire and Brittany, mumbling, “excusame por favor.”

  Brittany asked Claire, “Have you met Pedro Trujillo?”

  “Not yet, not formally,” Claire replied. “But that can wait. He looks upset.”

  “Yeah, Gil can do that to people. How about Jorge? Have you met him?”

  Jorge straightened after picking up Pedro’s rake. He leaned it against the stall wall and nodded at Claire. “Señora Hanover.”

  “Please call me Claire, Jorge. We’ll be seeing a lot of each other since I’m volunteering with Jessica’s hippotherapy charity.”

  He pinched the brim of his straw cowboy hat and dipped his head. “Nice to see you again, Claire.”

  Another man stepped out of the stall that the brush had come flying out of. Claire remembered that he was one of the men in the barn the day before. He seemed to be in his mid-thirties and had pale skin reddened by the sun. Like the other men, he wore jeans, work boots, and a tan-and-brown striped work shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He tossed his head to fling a lank of stringy dishwater blond hair out of his eyes. As he swaggered, or staggered, toward them, those watery eyes seemed to have trouble focusing on the women.

  “Hey there, Brittany, you sweet young thang,” he said. “Who you got with you?”

  Brittany wrinkled her nose. “This is Claire Hanover, Gil, Charley’s sister. Claire, this is Gil Kaplan, one of the wranglers who work here.”

  Claire realized that the emphasis on her relationship to Charley was a warning by Brittany to Gil to behave. “Nice to meet you.” Claire held out her hand.

  The hand that clasped hers felt roughened and dry. “Sorry about the cussing. Didn’t know there was ladies present.” Gil leered and arched a brow at Brittany.

  The strong odor of alcohol on Gil’s breath almost overpowered Claire. It was not just beer, more like whiskey, and here it was still mid-morning.

  “These lousy wetbacks,” Gil continued. “Take jobs away from decent, hard-working Americans, then can’t even do the work. It’s enough to rile up anyone.”

  “Pedro is not a wetback,” Jorge said stiffly. “He has proper documentation. And horse sense. Otherwise, Charley would not have hired him.”

  Gil snorted. “Proper, my ass.” He threw the brush he was holding down on the ground and headed for the barn door. “I need to take a pi—sorry, ladies.” He put a hand on his chest and made a mocking bow. “I mean use the facilities.”

  Claire turned to watch him go and saw the outline of a flask in his back pocket. After he left the barn, she looked at Jorge. “Does Charley know Gil drinks?” Claire found it hard to believe that her brother would tolerate one of his employees drinking on the job. She found it even harder to believe that he hadn’t noticed it.

  Jorge straightened after retrieving the brush and began picking horse hair out of it. “I do not know, but it is not my place to tell him.”

  Anger at Gil boiled up inside Claire. “But here you are cleaning out Gil’s brush right after he complained about Pedro not cleaning one. It may not be your place to tell Charley, but there’s nothing stopping me from doing so.”

  “Good vaqueros are hard to find.” Finished with pulling hair out of the brush, Jorge raised a foot and knocked the brush against the heel of his scuffed brown boots. Dust and dirt flaked out. “Gil knows horses. Just doesn’t get along with people as well. He is more ornery than usual today. Something must be bothering him.”

  A horse whinnied at the far end of the barn, and Jorge looked back, a flicker of worry passing over his brow.

  “Is that Gunpowder?” Brittany asked. “What’s he doing all the way in the back of the barn?”

  “I’m keeping him quiet, away from people and the other horses for a while, until Charley decides what to do with him.”

  “I wonder what set him off Sunday night,” Brittany said. “I’ve never had any problem with him.”

  Jorge slapped the brush against his thigh. “Neither have I. Or Kyle, that I know of.”

  Brittany shook her head. “Kyle wasn’t rough with the horses. He wouldn’t have hurt Gunpowder deliberately. And Gunpowder wouldn’t have hurt him deliberately either. All I can think of is that he startled Gunpowder or accidentally hit him with something while he was in the stall. But why would he have been in Gunp
owder’s stall?”

  “I have no idea,” Jorge said with a shrug. “The horses had all been fed and watered for the night before I left. And even if Kyle hurt him, Gunpowder wouldn’t stomp him. Maybe a bite or a kick, that’s all. He’s high-strung, but he’s a good horse. He’s stressed now, though, won’t even let me brush him. I’ve been talking to him, trying to calm him down.”

  “If anyone can do it, you can.” Brittany glanced at Claire. “He’s our horse-whisperer.”

  “That’s what Charley said when he introduced us.” Claire wondered if Jorge was just wasting his efforts if Gunpowder was going to have to be put down anyway. But the man obviously really cared about the horse, so she said nothing. Instead, she turned to Brittany. “So, you were going to introduce me to the other horses, right?”

  Jorge tipped his hat and went back to his work. Brittany led Claire to each of the stalls and introduced the horses that were in the barn. Then she described and named the ones out in the pasture with Charley and Hank. When Pedro came back in, grim-faced and holding the dripping brush he had washed, Brittany introduced Claire to him, too.

  “It’s too bad you have to put up with abuse from that Gil character,” Claire said.

  Pedro gave a nervous glance out the barn door, as if checking for Gil’s return. “El gringo es always furioso. As Jorge say, I make easy target.” He sighed and headed for the tack room.

  Being an easy target didn’t mean he had to put up with Gil’s bullying, though. Claire resolved to tell Charley, no matter what Jorge said about Gil’s capability.

  “Claire! Brittany!” Jessica called from the corral.

  “Time to start up again,” Brittany said.

  When they left the barn, they passed Gil smoking a cigarette outside. He stubbed it out in an ash can placed near the port-a-potties. He strode back into the barn without a glance or word to the women. Claire thought his behavior rude, but then if he had said anything to them, it might have been even ruder.

  Just as Brittany and Claire reached the corral, a green Dodge mini-van drove into the parking lot. Daisy raised her head and snorted.