by Brad Smith
Will felt a presence and looked to his right to see Stuart Martin slide onto the stool there. He removed his immaculate white straw Stetson and placed it on the counter. He gave Will a look, then nodded toward the corner table, where Mac and Sudsy were carrying on their medical discourse.
“Not exactly the deep end of the gene pool over there,” Martin said.
No matter how accurate the statement might be, Will wasn’t inclined to agree with Martin, who was a developer and a number of other things, most of which saw him kissing the asses of the so-called influential citizens of Marshall County. It was not surprising that he wouldn’t have anything good to say about certain denizens of the Crossroads. He was a man who tailored his opinions to fit his surroundings and Will was damn certain that Martin would have little positive to say about him, if the circumstances and crowd were different. Will also knew that Martin was tight with Reese Ryker and that Will’s name—if not his character—had been a popular subject with Ryker, ever since the gray colt had arrived on the scene.
Will finished his coffee and stood up. “I wouldn’t be any kind of an expert on that.”
“I would,” Martin said. “How’s your pasture holding up, Will?”
“What pasture?” Will put eight dollars on the counter and gave Bonnie a wink.
“I hear you,” Martin said. “Damnedest drought I ever saw. I’m spending two hundred dollars a week on water just so my lawn doesn’t die.”
“I’m going to go before my heart breaks,” Will said.
And go he did.
When he got back to the farm, a flatbed was parked by the barn and the driver was leaning against the fender of the truck, smoking a cigar that was down to its last inch and a half. The man was near Will’s age, wearing a denim jacket and a greasy John Deere cap, pushed high on his forehead. Will glanced at his watch as he got out of the truck; it was seven forty. The seller had said the hay would be there around nine.
“You’re early.”
The driver shrugged. “I was on the road at three. Beat the heat.”
“How’s that working out?” Will asked.
“Not worth a shit but least this way I’m back home by noon or so.”
Will walked over to look at the hay. It was a trefoil timothy mix and appeared to be pretty good quality. He yanked a handful from a bale and held it to his nose a moment. The driver pulled the lading bill from his jacket pocket.
“Hundred bales, right?”
Will nodded. “You can back around to the pole barn there.”
The driver looked where Will pointed, to where the roof of the pole barn extended into the paddock. “Keep it out of the rain, is that the idea?”
“That’s not even funny anymore,” Will told him.
It took the two of them less than twenty minutes to unload and stack the hundred bales. The flatbed had at least ten times that on board; apparently Will’s place had been the first stop. While the driver was restrapping the load, Will walked up to the house for the check he’d written earlier. When he returned, the driver was looking at the broodmares and the colt, standing in the shade.
“Never bought hay in July before.”
“Need rain to grow pasture,” the driver said. “That’s a law.”
Will handed him the check. After giving it the once-over, the man gave Will a receipt. “Masterson Thoroughbreds,” he said. “You still in the game?”
“I am.”
The driver took a moment to blatantly look over the farm—the unpainted barns, the house on the hill with its sagging porches— before turning again to the horses in the paddock. “What are you running?”
“That bay mare still races. Finished fifth last month at Chestnut. Laid up just now, though.”
The driver looked at the bay, unimpressed. “Tough way to make a living, you ask me. Rich man’s game, more than ever these days.”
“I don’t feel the urge to ask you,” Will told him.
“I don’t mean to offend, mind you.”
“You couldn’t offend me. I don’t know you from Adam.”
The driver smiled at that. He took a match from his pocket and tried to light the cigar stub. There wasn’t enough left to smoke and he gave up, tossing the butt to the ground. He indicated the colt. “What do you got there—two-year-old?”
“That’s right.”
“Good-looking horse.” The man’s tone suggested that he was surprised to see such a horse at this particular location, as if he’d looked up to the house and seen Ava Gardner sitting on the porch. “You working him yet?”
“I am.” Will took a moment, trying to decide if he even wanted to have this conversation with the man. “That chestnut by the trough is the dam. The sire is Saguaro.”
The driver actually chuckled when he heard the name. “Did you say Saguaro?”
Will nodded. He wasn’t sure why he felt compelled to tell this superior little prick who the sire was. Maybe he didn’t like being looked down on by the guy who delivered his hay.
“That would be the same Saguaro who was sold to the Double R for twenty-some million dollars a few years ago?”
“How many thoroughbred stallions named Saguaro you know of?” Will asked.
The driver smiled again, clearly not believing a word. “Well— good for you, buddy. You might have yourself a real world-beater there. I’ll keep an eye out for him, once you get him on a track somewhere. What do you call a horse like anyway—Man o’ War?”
“I call him Cactus Jack,” Will said. “You can pick up that cigar butt and take it with you.”
Will turned on his heel and walked to the house, hearing the truck as the diesel engine fired to life and then accelerated up the drive toward the highway. Will didn’t look back until he reached the porch, where he turned to see the flatbed moving north. The dust the truck had raised in the driveway hung over the farm like a brown cloud.
In the kitchen he got a glass of water from the sink and sat down at the scarred harvest table. Yesterday’s mail was there, where he had tossed it after bringing it in from the box, not wanting to open certain letters. Like the one from the bank.
But now he did. The information inside was pretty much what he expected. Tossing the papers aside, he picked up the Rancher’s Journal. Most of the news there was about the drought. Why did people feel obligated to report on the weather so much when it was all around? If it rained all day, the six o’clock news would have a five-minute segment telling people how it had rained all day, with some unfortunate reporter standing out in the deluge as if to prove it, while anybody with a window and the brains of a chigger already knew that it had rained all day.
He left the paper on the table and went to the sink for another glass of water. His doctor wanted him to drink at least eight glasses a day, to “keep things moving.” He also wanted Will to walk an hour a day, or go to a gym for that length of time. He walked plenty around the farm, although he couldn’t say how far in particular. As for going to a gym, even the doctor knew that wasn’t about to happen.
Glancing out the window, he saw the little girl riding down the driveway on her bicycle. Her hair was tucked beneath a baseball cap and she wore pink jeans and a T-shirt with a picture of something—Will couldn’t tell what—on the front. He watched as she leaned the bike against the barn wall and walked directly to the paddock. The colt came to her right away. She had a connection to the colt that Will did not. The horse dropped his head to push his nose through the fence rail, getting low enough for the girl to run her hand over it. Will could see her speaking to the animal and he wondered what she might be saying. After a few moments, she went into the barn. He drained the glass—two down and six to go—and went out the door.
The girl—Jodie was her name—was dispersing hay to the animals when he walked around to the back paddock. The goat, keeping its distance from the others, was standing in the shade of the building, chewing contentedly on a sheaf. The piston pump was thump-thumping in the corner, filling the claw-foot bathtub along the
rail fence.
Will stood quietly by the corner of the barn. The girl, her tongue clenched between her teeth, didn’t see him as she lifted a half bale of the new hay over the top rail to drop it into the corral. She watched as the donkey and pony came over and dug in. After a moment she went inside to shut off the pump. Returning with a brush in her hand, she saw him standing there.
“Good morning, Will.”
“Hello, Sprout.”
“I see we finally got our hay.”
“We did.” Will walked along the outside of the fence to look at the donkey. The animal, pulling at the hay, lifted its head and its ears went back. It had been leery of Will since arriving at the farm. Will could tell that the animal had been mistreated in its past, and probably by a man. The donkey was fine with the girl and even let her ride it without much fuss, although it preferred to move at a walk.
“Putting on weight finally,” Will said.
“He sure likes his hay,” Jodie said.
“You need to be careful with an animal,” Will said. “A horse gets into the grain, for instance, and he’ll eat himself sick. You ever see those chuckleheads at that all-you-can-eat buffet over to Junction City, stuffing their faces? Same thing with a horse, if you let him.”
The little girl nodded slowly at the information, taking it in word for word, as she did everything she heard from Will.
“Figure out my share for the hay and I’ll pay you,” she said. “I got five dollars for helping my Aunt Micky clean a house in town on Monday and I have five more coming this weekend.”
“I’ll have my accountant look into the particulars,” Will said.
“Are you having fun with me?”
“Nope,” Will said. “We got no time for fun. We’re running a farm here.”
Jodie opened the gate and went into the paddock. “Go ahead and tease, but I have work to do. I need to brush that pony out. He looks like he took a dirt bath.”
“All right,” Will said. “I’m taking Jack over to Chestnut Field. I want to work him in the morning. I’d ask you to tag along but you need to brush out that pony.”
Jodie stopped, trapped by her own good intentions. “Won’t take me but ten minutes to take care of this pony.”
“Oh—then you want to tag along?”
“Stop it.”
“I guess I’ll wait, then,” Will said.
“You can sit in the shade and tease me while I work, mister.”
“That’s the best plan I’ve heard so far today,” Will said.
He went over and sat, as she suggested. After a while, the goat left off the hay on the ground and walked over to the end of the paddock, where a narrow enclosure angled off to the barn. The spot, maybe fifteen feet by eight, was filled with junk—old fence posts, rolls of wire, paint cans and scrap iron, things Will had stowed there over the years when the paddock hadn’t been in use. As he watched now, the goat, as goats will do, made an effort to climb atop the pile of posts.
“Get off there!” Will barked at the animal.
Jodie looked over as the goat turned and trotted away. She went back to work, brushing the pony’s hide furiously, afraid that Will would change his mind about taking her with him.
“One of these days we need to clean that corner out,” Will said. “Before one of these gets hurt. What is it about a goat that it’s just got to climb?”
“Well,” Jodie said slowly, “I guess we could do it today.”
“No, we can’t,” Will said. “Today we’re going to the track.”
Two
FREDDIE’S FISH SHACK CATERED TO AN early dining clientele, most of whom were retirees. Billie’s shift started at five and the place was already three-quarters full. She’d been on the move most of the day, fearful that Rory would show up at her place. By the time she walked home that morning, she deeply regretted destroying his car. Actually, she didn’t regret the act itself; she’d come to hate the vehicle. But she was extremely nervous about what would happen next. She tried to calm down by telling herself that Rory would have the Corvette insured to the hilt. However, she also knew that a settlement would do nothing to temper his rage. He had an emotional connection to the vehicle that was odd, if not downright disturbing. Even if the insurance company managed to find the same forty-year-old model to replace it, he wouldn’t be happy. And Billie doubted that the mess she’d left in the driveway could be repaired, not to Rory’s satisfaction anyway.
At her house, she’d had a quick shower and put her work uniform in a bag and hoofed it the two miles to the Broken Rail, where she’d left her car the night before. The car was a fifteen-year-old Taurus that seemed to require constant repair—tires, alternator, brakes. If someone drove a truck into it, Billie would not shed a tear.
When she got to the parking lot at the Rail, she’d looked around as she approached her car, half expecting to see Rory lurking nearby. Surely he was awake by now and fully aware of what had happened. A sudden thought occurred to her: what if he didn’t know how it had happened? Billie could say she’d left after he fell asleep and that sometime that morning—the neighbors or somebody who heard the crash would tell him when—the truck started to roll on its own. Of course, that would mean that Rory, when parking the truck, had neither set the brake nor put the transmission in gear. That was a stretch. The whole story was a stretch. Rory would know what happened. Rory knew Billie.
Leaving the parking lot, she’d stopped at the cosmetic counter at Target on the south side of town before driving down to the river, where she spent the rest of the day looking at the water and napping in her car.
Athena came on shift at six. Billie was waiting five tables and anticipating a grand total of maybe twenty dollars in tips. People who ate early were notoriously bad when it came to gratuities. She was picking up orders of the shrimp and chicken combo when Athena walked in the back door, buttoning her white shirt with the restaurant’s name etched beneath the image of a smiling large-mouth bass. Her dreads were tied off at the back of her neck and she wore large gold hoops in her ears. She looked up as she met Billie, on her way with the plates balanced on her forearms.
“Got a full boat tonight—” Athena began and she stopped. “What the fuck is with your face?”
Billie kept walking. She delivered the entrees and then busied herself clearing dishes from other tables, taking her time, avoiding the conversation she was about to have with Athena for as long as she could.
When Billie returned to the kitchen, Athena was there waiting for her, arms crossed.
“I swear, I’m going to sue Maybelline,” Billie said. “Go with the glow, my ass. Twenty-two dollars I won’t see again.”
“That sonofabitch,” Athena said.
“How do you know I didn’t take a line drive to the face last night?”
“You wouldn’t have run off just now.”
“I had shrimp combos getting cold.”
“Something cold about this whole situation and it’s not the shrimp,” Athena said. “You call the cops?”
“No.”
“Then I will.”
“No.”
“What do you mean no?” Athena said. “What is wrong with you?”
“I’m done with him,” Billie said. “Isn’t that good enough?”
“How the fuck is that good enough? Tell me how that is good enough.”
Now Billie looked over to see Freddie, in the back by the fryers, watching them. Freddie was seventy-two years old and half-deaf but all his other senses were as sharp as the knives he honed daily. There was no little thing that escaped him, inside or outside of his restaurant. Billie was certain he was psychic on some level.
“Can we talk about this later?” she asked.
Athena saw where Billie was looking. “All right,” she said unhappily. “You better come up with something good or I am calling the cops. You got that?”
Freddie’s closed at ten. Rory showed up at nine thirty, coming in through the front door and into the foyer by the PLEASE WAIT
TO BE SEATED sign. He stood there, arms crossed, projecting menace. Billie saw him first, mainly because she’d been watching for him. Then Athena noticed, because she’d been watching Billie. Her dark eyes flashed like a cat on the kill. Before she could move, though, Freddie had walked across the room to strike up a conversation with Rory. Freddie, who didn’t know what was going on but knew something rank was afoot. He’d probably seen the bruise but chose not to say anything. That wasn’t Freddie’s style.
Rory, his nostrils flared and eyes glazed by what Billie assumed would have been a solid day of mournful boozing, outweighed the restaurant owner by probably sixty pounds. However, whatever reality Freddie was describing to him at this moment seemed to have an effect. Rory’s eyes remained on Billie at the waitress station, but his ears belonged solely to Freddie. When he left moments later he gave Billie one last look, a look that told her that it wasn’t over. She knew that, but at least she also knew now that whatever was going to happen, it wouldn’t happen at Freddie’s Fish Shack.
When the shift was done and the place closed, Freddie having gone home without talking to Billie about Rory or anything else, she and Athena lingered in the parking lot. Billie had some wine in the trunk of the Taurus for emergencies and Athena had a joint in her purse for the same reason.
“There was too much tequila,” Billie said. She was sitting on the hood of her car. “That’s what started it. And we were at the Rail and he’s out of his element there. You know.”
“He’s out of his element most everywhere,” Athena said.
“Yeah, whatever. So he was being mouthy, trying to impress people, and then I got mouthy back.”
“So what? You’re mouthy in general.”
“Thanks.” Billie poured more wine. They were using plastic glasses from the restaurant, the glasses they served juice in for kids. “So we ended up back at his place. That was my mistake; I should have just gone home. And—things got heated and, you know.”