by Anna Jeffrey
“Now hold on.” Troy stepped between Tiffany’s dad and Jericho. “Mr. Fisher, I’ve rarely seen a horse I can’t turn into a reliable mount. Rudy’s got some good qualities. Letting me take him to work with him is a win for everybody, but especially for Rudy.”
After seeing Troy with Rudy and over a dozen other horses, Sarah believed every word he said about turning Rudy into a reliable horse, but Mr. Fisher shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m not sure it’s a good idea to let him be around a young boy. He’s big and unpredictable. Wyatt could get hurt. I don’t want to get sued.”
Sarah’s jaw clenched. Sometimes conversations with Mr. Fisher and Tiffany made her want to bite a crowbar.
Before anyone could say anything else, Troy strode over to Tiffany. “Do you know how to reach Rudy’s owner?”
Mr. Fisher made a sarcastic harrumph.
Startled, Tiffany stepped back. “Uh, no.”
That was another lie. Tiffany had stalked Burke for at least two months after he left and learned he had gone to work as a salesman for a feed company in Abilene. Lately, she hadn’t mentioned to Sarah that she was still doing that, but it could be true. For sure, Tiffany knew how to get in touch with Burke if she wanted to.
Troy ignored Mr. Fisher’s sarcasm and continued to talk to Tiffany. “I’ll make a deal with you. My rig will haul two horses. Let me take Rudy home with me. Meanwhile, if you know how to reach his owner, you can make everything easier by asking him if he’s abandoning Rudy and has no intention of coming back for him. Also, find out if he’s got any documents related to Rudy. Earlier, I told Mr. Hatch and Sarah that I’d have my vet take care of him, but I’m reluctant to geld him if there’s a chance your boyfriend will come back and claim him.”
Her eyes wet and mascara-smeared, Tiffany scowled but said nothing.
“Or you can bring him to me in the next day or two,” Troy went on. “You don’t have to sell him to me. You can lend him to me. Rudy and I’ll do some work together and eventually he’ll be okay.”
Mr. Fisher stepped into the conversation, shaking his head again. “A surgery is too expensive. I’m not paying any veterinary bills or training fees for this horse.”
Troy faced Tiffany’s dad, his deep brown eyes snapping. Suddenly, Mr. Fisher was no longer the man in charge. “Mr. Fisher, I’m trying to do a good deed here and save a horse. I believe Rudy’s headed for slaughter and I believe you know it. That’s unnecessary and a waste, especially since there’s a solution to the problem. If you saw how those horses headed for slaughterhouses are treated, you wouldn’t send a horse or any animal into a situation like that.”
Wyatt escaped Sarah’s arms, dashed over to Jericho, grabbed his coat sleeve and began to sob. “Does that mean they’re gonna kill him, Grandpa?”
Jericho wrapped his arms around Wyatt and pulled him close. “No, no, Wyatt. We won’t let that happen.”
“I wouldn’t dream of charging training fees or passing on the veterinary bills,” Troy said to Mr. Fisher. “I don’t know why you’d think that of me.”
Everyone stood in silence. Finally, cowed, Tiffany’s dad shook his head. “It’s too damn cold to stand around out here and I’m leaving town anyway. It’s your responsibility, Tiffany. Do what you want to. Frankly, I imagine you know where Burke Allen is. I hate to see you get in touch with that bastard, but I’d condone it if it gets that horse off my pasture. You can tell him for me his horse is on his way to the auction.”
Tiffany wiped her eyes on her sleeve, smearing the light blue fabric with black mascara. She faced Troy. “If Burke comes back and wants him, will he be able to get him back?”
“Yes,” Troy answered firmly.
Hell. No way was Burke the Jerk coming back. For Rudy or any other reason. Sarah would bet her warm coat that Troy felt safe in making that commitment.
Tiffany looked at her dad and shrugged. “He’d be better off.”
Shaking his head again, Mr. Fisher spun and stalked back toward the house.
Sarah released a breath she had been unconsciously holding and glared at his back. Asshole. Just how the hell did he think he or his daughter was gonna sell Rudy at the auction if they couldn’t prove she owned him?
Troy planted his hands on his hips and spoke to Tiffany. “Fine then. I’ll load him up.”
Jericho walked over to him. “You shouldn’t take him with you. In that trailer, he might fight your horse. I’ll haul him over to your place in the next day or two.”
Jericho was probably right. Everyone knew—except maybe Tiffany—that two stallions in close quarters could be a challenge.
“Fine. I’ll be looking for you.” Troy offered Jericho his right hand and they shook.
Turning to Sarah, he reached back for his wallet, dug out a business card and handed it to her. “This is my cell number. Send me a text and let me know when you’re bringing him. Don’t call me. I usually don’t answer my phone.”
Chapter 20
Troy left the Hatch Ranch certain he would hear from Hatch or Sarah. At the prospect of having his own horse and learning how to train him and ride him, that little boy had been too thrilled for them to ignore him. Rudy might always be too much horse for a little boy, but he would make a good ranch horse and Troy would see that Wyatt ended up with a horse that fit him.
He thought back on the story he had told Sarah about his childhood and his first horse, Happy. He was only a year younger than Wyatt McFadden when he suddenly found himself responsible for Happy.
Happy was a gray mare Dad had given him that was to be his horse, along with the duty of taking care of her. He had never been around horses, but Happy became his whole life. He spent many summer days, just him and Happy and a cheese sandwich and sometimes a few head of cattle, out on the range together. Sometimes they traveled the whole day without seeing another human being, a testimony to the size of the Double-Barrel Ranch.
Happy was nearly forty years old now and swaybacked. Alongside the brood mares, she grazed the days away.
If Bill Lockhart Junior hadn’t stepped up and assumed responsibility as his natural father, Troy Rattigan would have grown up an orphan and a ward of the state just like Sarah. His future would have been dramatically different from the life of security and ease he had lived. No day went by without his giving that fact the reverence it deserved.
He reached the Roundup city limit and slowed. One glimpse of the rundown town told him Roundup was another small, dying West Texas burg dependent on agriculture. Like in his own hometown of Drinkwell, the highway ran through the center of the town, Victorian-style courthouse on one side, rundown store fronts housing mom-and-pop businesses on the other. He eased along, looking for the grocery store. The place couldn’t have more than one.
He spotted his destination by seeing the bake sale that was set up on the sidewalk in front of it. Three women bundled up in thick coats stood behind a table covered with packages tied with red and green ribbon, the chilled wind whipping the table cloth. They had no customers. A large hand-printed poster was attached to the front of the table: HELP SARAH KAROL.
He parallel-parked beside a pock-marked curb in front of the store. Sal and Dixon parked across the street. As soon as Troy scooted out of his truck, Sal was there beside him.
A short time later, the two of them carried cardboard boxes full of baked goods to Troy’s truck. He had bought all of the small packages of cookies and cupcakes that had been for sale, but $300 wasn’t much money to go toward thousands of dollars in medical bills. He added the $400 he had left in his wallet as a donation.
Laughing, he handed a cardboard box of cookies and cupcakes to Sal. “Here’s lunch, boys.”
He carried another box back to his own truck, climbed behind the wheel and fired the engine. Before resuming his trip home, he checked his phone for text messages. Kate wanted him to verify that he would be home in time for supper with the family. Johnnie Sue was making enchiladas. Yum. He answered his sister’s text with a smiling Emoji and a s
í.
Dorinda had sent him a text, too. With a hope that she would finally agree to talk to Blake Rafferty, he keyed into her message: You know B. Rafferty cant talk to me. Duncan knows his boss.
“Bullshit,” Troy mumbled. While some Texas Ranger higher-up might restrain Rafferty from interviewing Dorinda, if she wanted to talk to him, she could find a way to do it. And for sure, she could talk to the arson investigator. Troy had heard nothing about George Mayfield being influenced or intimidated by Dorinda’s husband.
Judging none of the other messages to be urgent, he hooked his phone back onto his belt. As he pulled away from the curb, Sal and Dixon fell in behind him. He tuned SiriusXM to country music and pointed his Dodge dually toward home.
Since he had eaten nothing since breakfast, he munched on homemade chocolate chip cookies and thought about what he had just done. Had he invited Sarah Karol and her grandpa, or whatever he was, to bring Rudy to him for the horse’s sake or had he sub-consciously done it to facilitate another meeting with Sarah? He wasn’t sure.
He reached the Double-Barrel at twilight. Driving through the elaborately decorated wrought iron gateway, he saw one of Redstone Security’s SUVs parked under a huge, ancient oak tree’s canopy. His shoulders sagged and he unlatched his seat belt, suddenly aware that he felt safe. An odd sensation since he had told himself dozens of time he didn’t feel threatened. At the same time, being surrounded by armed men designated as personal security, kept the menace constantly in the forefront of thought.
Troy continued on to his house located three miles from the main gate and five miles from the ranch house. At the big barn that housed some of his horses, he pulled up at the entrance. His main man, Sergio Davalos, stood in the wide-open doorway.
Sergio and his wife Tania lived nearby in one of the small houses the ranch had built for a cowhand years back. Free rent was part of their pay. They loved the horses, looked after the ones Troy left behind when he traveled.
Tania or one of her sisters kept the inside of Troy’s house spotlessly clean and in perfect order and sometimes cooked for him when he was home. He could think of no people he liked more than Tania and Sergio.
As Sergio helped him unload Batman and lead him to his stall, Troy looked left and right for snakes. He was instinctively wary, but after seeing Sarah Karol and hearing her story, he might never be able to go into a barn again without worrying about a rattler waiting to be disturbed.
The eleven mares that would foal in January and February lived in the big barn. Sergio had already fed and watered them and brought them into the covered corral and blanketed them. “How’s our mamas?” Troy asked him.
“They’re good.” Sergio helped Troy drag out flakes of hay for Batman.
“Just brush him down for now and put him away,” Troy told him. “Wait until the weather warms up to give him a bath.” He started out of the barn but stopped and turned back. “Sergio, have you seen any snakes lately?”
“No, senor.
“I ran into somebody who got rattlesnake bit and she’s lame. You and your people be sure to wear good gloves and boots when you’re working out here, okay? Tania, too.”
“The snakes are not sleeping?”
“You never know. A stray might not know that’s what he’s supposed to be doing.”
“Sí, senor. We watch.”
Sal walked into the house with him. “You and your compadres ever seen a rattlesnake around here?” Troy asked him.
“Have not.”
“As long as you’ve been hanging out here, I’m surprised. You need to be cautious. You know the girl I ate lunch with that one day during the clinic? The one that limps? She’s crippled from a rattlesnake bite.”
Inside the house, garlands of greenery tied with red ribbon hung along the stair rail leading from the entry to the upstairs rooms. The scent of pine and holiday spices filled the air. Troy glanced into his living room. Poinsettias in pots were placed here and there. More garland draped across the fireplace’s mantel and a decorated green Christmas tree stood in a corner.
The thought that Kate wanted his house to be decorated for the holiday brought a warmth to Troy’s throat. Every day, in spite of his jug-headed thinking over the past couple of years, she showed him how much she cared about him.
Sal busied himself turning on lights, opening and closing doors and looking around the lower floor. “Looks like one of Santa’s elves got loose in here.”
“My sister. She’s a big fan of Christmas. Unless those flowers are phony, she’s gonna expect me to water them. Shit.”
“You can handle it.” Chuckling, Sal jogged upstairs.
Tania came out of the kitchen smiling. “Quieres que limpie la traila?”
Troy listened carefully. Tania wanted to know if he wanted her to clean the trailer. She spoke English but was obviously more articulate in Spanish. Troy liked speaking Spanish with her. He had spoken Spanish before he learned English, but over the years, living in an English-only household, his Spanish had become rusty and he had to work at it.
Tania was as militant as Johnnie Sue about keeping things clean. She always swamped out the trailer ASAP after he brought it home. He answered her in Spanish. “Too cold. It can wait. I’m not going anywhere for a while. Are those flowers real?”
“The flores de Pasuca? Si.” She laughed her jolly laugh. “No tienes que preocuparte. Yo los riego por ti.”
Thank God she had offered to water the flowers. “You’re a gem, Tania. I’d probably kill ’em in a week.”
“¿Quieres cenar?”
He answered her question in Spanish. “I’m gonna eat supper at the ranch house.”
Johnnie Sue would have a meal already on the table and the family was expecting him. Though all had been present at the Finals, they still would be eager to hear a first-hand account of how he and Dandy Little Lady had pulled off winning the NCHA World Finals.
He found a plastic sack in a drawer in the kitchen, bagged a few of the cookies and cupcakes he had bought in Roundup and gave what was left in the box to Tania. Her brother and two sisters lived in Drinkwell, all with spouses and small kids. “You and Sergio call it a day, okay? Go on home.”
She looked into the box, then up at him with a quizzical expression.
“Goodies. Cookies and cupcakes. They’re fresh. I just bought them today. Give them to your nieces and nephews or take them to your church.”
She smiled and nodded. “Sí. Gracias.”
Sal came down from upstairs. “Everything’s okay.” He walked to the front door. “Have a good evening. Dixon will be outside.”
“Fine. Thanks. You have a good evening, too. I’m gonna clean up then I’ll be going up to the ranch house for a while.”
Troy headed upstairs eager for a shower in a stall that was big enough for him to turn around.
AFTER SARAH, WYATT and Jericho returned home, disorder and tension reigned in the Hatch house. Sarah and Jericho hadn’t talked. Sarah wanted to talk, but Jericho stalked off to the barn. Wyatt asked her a dozen times in a dozen ways if Rudy was going to be his horse.
With no answers to anything and everything feeling out of control, she threw up her hands and tried to busy herself with cooking supper. Her checkered journey through the labyrinth of “The System” had occasionally taken her to brushing shoulders with psychologists, all of whom had told her she had control issues. She tried to suppress them most of the time, but frustration brought them glaringly to the surface.
She had just whipped a couple of eggs when her phone warbled. Tiffany, of course. Sarah had expected her to call before now. She keyed into the call to hear Tiffany in tears. “Daddy’s so mad at me. He threatened to shoot Rudy. I’m glad I left town.”
Sarah’s stomach made a small lurch. Sarah wasn’t well acquainted with Tiffany’s dad. Would he really shoot Rudy? All she really knew of him was that he usually bought his daughter anything she wanted. She left her whisk in the bowl and focused on the call. “He doesn’t mean that, doe
s he?”
“I don’t know. It’s just a mess. I don’t know what to do.”
Tiffany was starting to get on Sarah’s nerves. She planted a fist on her hip and began to pace the length of the kitchen. “One thing you need to do is take care of this before your dad does something dumb. Did you try to get ahold of Burke like we talked about?”
Silence on the other end. Aargh! Suspicions confirmed. Tiffany knew exactly where Burke was and how to reach him. “Well, did you or didn’t you?”
“You don’t have to yell. I know where he is, but I haven’t called him yet.”
“Come on, Tiffany. If you know how to call him, you need to do it. This could turn out to be the best thing that has ever happened to poor ol’ Rudy. You saw how he was with Troy...uh, Mr. Rattigan. I’ve never him so—”
Just then, Wyatt came into the room. “Mom, am I going to get to have Rudy for my horse?”
“I gotta go, Tiffany. I’ll talk to you later. Do this. And let me know what Burke says.” Disconnecting, Sarah turned to her son. “I don’t know, Son. I don’t want you to get your hopes up. Rudy’s got a long way to go before he can be a little boy’s horse.”
Or even a big boy’s horse.
His eyes glistening with tears, Wyatt lashed out. “I’m not a little boy. I can ride him. I know I can ride him. And Mr. Rattigan’s gonna help me.”
Inside, Sarah sighed. What a pain. Wyatt had become her brave, tough little boy. She hated disappointing him, but she hated seeing him injured worse. Why had Troy gotten his hopes up? Why hadn’t Tiffany gotten in touch with Burke the Jerk? Why didn’t Jericho let Wyatt just have a damn horse, even a plug? Why, why, why?
Talking to herself under her breath, Sarah immersed herself in a methodical task—cooking a chicken-fried steak supper. When they went to Abilene, they always ate at the Cotton Patch Café and they always ordered the same thing: Chicken-fried steak with cream gravy, mashed potatoes with the skins on, fresh-cooked green beans and fluffy rolls. It was their favorite meal.