The Horseman

by Anna Jeffrey

  THE HORSEMAN

  BY

  ANNA JEFFREY

  Text copyright @2018 Jeffery N. McClanahan

  All Rights Reserved

  The dictionary defines a horse whisperer as a trainer who adopts a sympathetic view of the motives, needs, and desires of the horse, based on modern equine psychology. The technique is based on developing a rapport with a horse and rejects the forceful, abusive methods of old.

  This is a simplified definition. In reality, these rare people hold a mystical place in the world of horses. There are those who believe horse whisperers are able to heal the souls of human beings as well as horses. The hero in this story is such a character.

  This book completes the saga of the wealthy, but dysfunctional Lockhart family and its three sons. Hope you’ve read THE TYCOON and THE CATTLEMAN, Books #1 and #2, of this trilogy and hope you find the ending satisfying.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Prologue

  MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2014 ...

  Midsummer four years ago, Troy Rattigan’s older brother, Pic Lockhart, walked out of the cattle sale in Fort Worth and started for home. He barely backed out of his parking spot when he realized his truck had no brakes. A serviceman discovered a cut brake line. Pic reported the incident to the Fort Worth police, but he never knew who vandalized his truck and risked his life.

  The following December, Troy’s sister’s large state-of-the-art barn, and everything around it, burned to the ground. The loss tallied to over a million dollars. Worse than that, four of her highbred horses burned alive. Among them was Proud Mary, a national champion.

  An insurance investigator and the Texas Rangers declared the fire arson. The Texas Rangers made an arrest, but soon released the suspect. Both Troy and his sister’s names now resided on a persons-of-interest list and Kate’s multi-million-dollar insurance claim remained unsettled.

  Five months after the barn fire, a Hummer T-boned Troy’s oldest brother Drake’s crew cab truck at a Fort Worth intersection and sped away. The truck was a total loss and Drake’s five-months-pregnant wife spent the night in a hospital. To date, the Fort Worth PD hadn’t found the Hummer or its driver.

  Texas Ranger Blake Rafferty recommended the Lockhart family hire private security. Drake wasted no time in hiring Redstone Partners, a highly recommended Dallas security company. Within days, a team of eight moved onto the Double-Barrel Ranch to protect the Lockharts and their property.

  Since then, Sal DiAmato who looked like he might wrestle grizzlies for a hobby, had been at Troy’s side like a shadow. Still and quiet as a stalking cat, Sal was tougher than a boiled owl. He knew any number of ways to kill a man quietly.

  The rest of the Lockhart family members had their own shadows.

  Other than unexplained cattle deaths and cattle rustling, no other incident occurred and everyone began to relax. Drake considered not renewing the contract with Redstone Partners.

  Before he made that decision, the annual July 4th picnic the Lockharts held for the ranch hands and their families took place. Right under the noses of those security experts, someone in a heavy vehicle plowed down the wrought iron fence that surrounded it, permanently scarring the hundred-fifty-year-old original Lockhart homestead.

  The vandal or vandals threw buckets of white enamel paint over the exterior walls of the old cut-limestone structure. They broke into the house and slashed and trashed the furniture, even tried at arson. They shot a spring calf and dropped it into the cistern, making the clean rainwater undrinkable. Sanitizing it took months at great cost.

  Drake beefed up security. Troy’s bodyguard Sal—and “bodyguard” was the only word that described him—was assigned a partner. Dixon Turley could shoot the eye out of a coiled rattler with a pistol, a feat Troy had witnessed. The two men followed Troy wherever he went and one of them was awake and nearby at all times.

  Troy traveled much of the year conducting clinics on horse care. He hated having his activities watched and even curtailed. He argued with his big brother.

  “It’s in case something happens,” Drake told him.

  Troy had no idea what the “something” might be, but whatever it was he had seen enough of Sal and Dixon to know they would be all over it. Each openly carried one handgun and probably enough hidden weaponry to take out a small country. Even if they weren’t armed, they most likely could handle a threat bare-handed. Watching any of Redstone’s guys practice hand-to-hand combat in the Double-Barrel’s workout room was more entertaining than an action movie.

  This year, the morning after Halloween, just seven weeks back, one of the ranch hands rode up on three dead ranch horses in one of the pastures—two mares and a colt shot, execution style. Nobody knew why, let alone who. A perverted Halloween prank? Random passersby on the highway deciding to shoot some horses for the hell of it? Ranger Blake Rafferty believed something more sinister than a prank was at play.

  The family was still reeling from the horse shooting when four days later, Pic’s wife Mandy attended a meeting in Fort Worth alone. In a dark parking lot, her SUV was vandalized and made undriveable, leaving her stranded late at night in a dangerous part of town.

  Until the attack on Mandy’s SUV, Troy himself hadn’t felt a need for even one bodyguard, much less two. Now, he was anxious and often caught himself looking over his shoulder.

  So as the holiday season of peace and joy approached, to say that bowstring-tight tension existed at the Double-Barrel Ranch was an understatement. It thrived within every family member, creating a fertile field for quarrels and drama in a family that already knew its share of dysfunction.

  Chapter 1

  Fire! Smoke! Noise!...

  Troy lurched up in bed, his heart pounding. Shit!

  Braced on his elbow, he forced himself to full consciousness, rubbing one eye with the heel of his hand. The dream, the goddamn dream. It had haunted him since his sister’s barn burned three years ago. Was it ever going to stop?

  Awake now, he drew his hand down his face, pushing himself to remember where he was. He fumbled on the shelf next to his bed for his watch and pressed on its night light. 5:30 a.m. He had been asleep fewer than three hours. He needed thirty more minutes. Just thirty more minutes. He fell back against the pillow, dragging a thick comforter up to his chin.

  But sleep eluded him. He could never go back to sleep after the dream. An image of Dandy Little Lady, his three-year-old mare, trapped in an inferno fighting for her life seemed too real.

  Two days ago, the be-all, end-all National Cutting Horse World Finals in Fort Worth, Texas, had taken place. After months of unrelenting stress, countless hours of hard training, weeks of adrenaline-pumping expectation, Dandy Little Lady had won it. She had more talent and heart than any animal he had ever owned. One of his great fears was that she might meet the same fate as his sister’s horses.

  He reached for
his cell phone on which he rarely talked. He blocked or didn’t answer most calls. His associates and acquaintances knew the best way to communicate with him was by text message. Texting saved him hours of time. He pressed the phone on. As soon as it booted up, he scrolled through a long list of messages. He had already responded to the important ones. Otherwise, he saw none he wanted to read.

  The one person he did want to talk to, who was not on the list of messengers, was Silas Morgan. Silas was the horse wrangler at the Double-Barrel Ranch. The aged widower had finally given in to owning a cell phone, but he refused to text.

  The old guy had managed the ranch’s sizeable remuda for most of his life and had taught Troy and his siblings more about horses than most people would ever know. He lived in a small cottage the ranch provided, but even at this early hour, he would be in his office in the barn. As a boy, Troy thought Silas lived in the barn.

  After the hullabaloo and celebration that followed Little Lady’s win, Troy had not returned her to her own paddock at his place where she could unwind. Instead, he had delivered her into Silas Morgan’s care at the Double-Barrel Ranch’s horse barns where several champion cutting horses lived under armed guard. Everybody at the Double-Barrel was concerned for her safety.

  Armed guard. Jesus.

  True, with Dandy Little Lady’s win, her value had skyrocketed, but Troy still couldn’t wrap his mind around his horse needing to be guarded, even after all that had happened to the Lockharts in the last three years.

  He speed-dialed Silas’ number. On the first burr, a raspy “hello” came on the line.

  “Hey, Silas, it’s me. Sounds like you haven’t had your coffee yet.”

  “Just now poured m’self a cup, Mr. Troy.” Silas spoke in a slow Texas drawl. “You’re soundin’ a little hoarse y’self this morning. Everything okay with you?”

  “I just woke up.”

  “You at home? I thought you was going to West Texas.”

  “I’m in West Texas now. In Roundup, at the Beckman’s cattle ranch. I came over here last night.”

  “Heard you might be doing that. Seems like kind of a bad time for a horse clinic, Christmas and all.”

  Maybe, but Troy paid little attention to holidays. Horse care took place daily. Much of the time, holidays were an inconvenience. “I promised Lou. You know how I felt about Carl. This is the only time I had ’til late in the spring.”

  In the clamor after the end of the cutting contest, accepting the NCHA trophy, Troy had lauded his mentor, Carl Beckman. Carl had passed on, but his wife Lou was present for Dandy Little Lady’s crowning. Lou stood in the front row grinning as if she had a stake in Little Lady’s win. Few knew she hated cutting horses and everything related.

  “Just don’t forget there’s a Norther headed our way,” Silas was saying. “Thursday night. Might get a little snow. You oughtta try to get on home early.”

  After assurances from Silas of Little Lady’s well-being, Troy disconnected and forced himself upright. He dropped down from his bed, shivered through a shower and shave in a closet-size bathroom, dressed for the day and moved to the kitchen area. He traveled in a tricked-out living quarters/horse trailer combo, custom designed to house himself, three horses and a week’s worth of supplies and equipment.

  He liked this arrangement. When he first started traveling around the country conducting his clinics, he stayed in hotels and motels. His clinics usually took place in rural locations off the beaten path. He frequently found himself bunking in dingy, cramped rooms with even dingier outdated bathrooms. After one workshop in Nevada, he had tried to sleep in a room with cockroaches the size of mice. As soon as he returned home, he drove up to a Cimarron dealer in Decatur and ordered the trailer. It turned out to be the best purchase he ever made.

  He turned on TV to a financial channel. Amazing he found reception this far out in the middle of nowhere. While he assembled the coffeepot and waited for the coffee to make, he watched two gurus discuss the stock market climb. A fearless investor, he was doing well in the stock market. He made a couple of mental notes to follow up on next week when he got back home.

  The coffeepot gurgled to a finish and Troy poured himself a mug of ink-black coffee. Sipping, he stood staring out through a small window over the sink. Across the top of the window, a gal he had met at the World Finals had hung a string of gold garland and a couple of red and green plastic balls.

  She had offered more than Christmas decorations, but he had accepted only the ornaments. Nowadays, he was more careful about the company he kept. Countless lectures from his big brothers and two Texas Rangers had made him goosey about strangers.

  Beyond that, he wasn’t as wild and wooly as he had been a few years ago. He had cut back his alcohol consumption and the thought of an all-night party gave him a headache. Empty hookups with women whose names he sometimes didn’t remember had started to make him ask himself what he was doing. In an odd way, the closer he grew to his horses, the further he moved away from human beings.

  He watched the pink glow of sunrise for a few minutes, reflecting on the outstanding performance of his Dandy Little Lady. He couldn’t stop thinking about her. A student of hand imprinting, he was there when her mama delivered her. He had helped the dam clean her. His had been the first human hands his Little Lady had known. He and his sister raised her from a foal and trained her for three solid years. She was gentle and good-natured but had high energy and enjoyed competition. They communicated. He loved her. He believed she loved him. Outside of his family, his relationship with his Little Lady was the most consistent and reliable in his life.

  He pulled himself back from musing. Time to get on with his day. He put his phone on SPEAKER, pressed in the number of his bodyguard and tapped a message: I’m up.

  A few minutes later, a thumb’s up image came back, followed by: Where the hell are we?

  Troy grinned. Sal had traveled the world, but still, he wasn’t used to the wide-open spaces in Texas. “Roundup, Texas. Dixon asleep?”

  “Like a baby.”

  “I’m fixin’ to cook breakfast. Come on over.”

  Troy set his mug on the counter and pulled a cast-iron skillet out of the bottom of the cookstove. Next, he pulled a box of sausage patties from the freezer and put them on to fry, adding the aroma of sage and spices to that of fresh coffee. Into another skillet of sizzling butter, he cracked half a dozen eggs and scrambled them into a steaming fluffy pile that he lifted onto two paper plates.

  He turned from the stove and began setting the table for two with paper plates and plastic utensils. The narrow table and leather booth-style seating, while comfortable, allowed room for no more than two diners.

  He set a paper plate of sausage on the table alongside the eggs. Then he opened the trailer’s narrow metal door and scanned the outside. Sal and Dixon’s Gulfstream trailer huddled a hundred feet away. Their door opened, Sal stepped down and strolled toward him, a Styrofoam cup in his left hand.

  “Get on in here,” Troy hollered at him. “Breakfast is getting cold.”

  Over by a fence line, a flock of birds took flight and Sal’s attention shot toward them, his right hand reflexively going for the Glock on his right hip.

  Troy laughed. “It’s just a few little birds, buddy.”

  Sal was a man of few words and even fewer laughs. As much time as they spent together, Troy still didn’t know much about him except that he had been in the Navy. He had seen duty in both Iraq and Afghanistan and was from somewhere on the East Coast. If in a rare instance he talked about his military life, he offered no more than a few generalities that would apply to anybody who had served in the Navy.

  None of Redstone Security ’s people talked about their backgrounds, but Troy was sure each of them could be deadly. Leave it to Drake to hire the baddest of badasses.

  Sal relaxed and continued to Troy’s trailer. “You don’t have to feed me, you know.”

  Troy wasn’t cut out to be unfriendly with people he saw so much of and
who had come to know details about his personal life that no one else knew. “I sure do. I know that half the time you don’t eat breakfast. I don’t want you collapsing from hunger in the middle of saving my life.”

  The swarthy Sal ducked through the trailer’s narrow door. “Smells good, Pee-Wee.”

  Pee-Wee. Troy’s code name. Though he stood six feet tall barefooted, his dad and his older half-brothers were taller. So the security people had dubbed him Pee-Wee.

  Troy turned off the TV. “Go ahead and sit.”

  Sal slid into the booth, his bulk filling the seat. He reached up and turned off the light overhead. “Spotlights us.”

  Troy made a mental sigh. He would never get over being annoyed by this security shit but saying so for the hundredth time was pointless. He pushed the plates of scrambled eggs and sausage in front of the bodyguard.

  “I’m surprised you’re up,” Sal said. “It was after one o’clock when we parked.”

  “Yeah. And a lot later than that when I got to bed.”

  After parking behind Beckman’s main barn, Troy had unloaded his horse, Batman, blanketed him, then penned him in the corral as his hostess Lou Beckman had instructed. He fell into bed himself only after he had seen to Batman’s needs. Batman was one of his favorites. Smart and athletic, he would be helping with the clinic this week.

  Troy pulled the biscuits browned to golden from the oven. “But, as you know, I’m always up before sunrise. No matter what time I get to bed, I get up at daylight. When I was a kid, I couldn’t wait to get to the barn and see what Silas was doing with the horses.

  He busied himself with piling the hot biscuits onto one more paper plate and set it on the table, too. He added a stick of real butter and a jar of strawberry jam. “Eat up, buddy.”

  Sal speared a couple of sausage patties with a plastic fork. “Have you talked to Silas this morning?”

  “Yeah. He put Lady with Kate’s mare and foal. He said Marcus took over guarding the main horse barn, but he didn’t say why.”