Cactus Jack

by Brad Smith

  “Nearly,” Caldwell replied. “We might have a couple of stalls along the back.”

  Reese nodded. “That probably won’t work, then.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Reese hesitated, as if wanting to release his story slowly. “I was thinking of maybe renting a row of barns here. I have so many fucking horses I can’t run them all at Keeneland or Louisville. Maybe I’ll have to wait until next year.” He paused for effect. “Or look elsewhere.”

  “Hold on,” Caldwell said. “Let me think here. I could probably shuffle some sheds around. I’ve got horses here that are just taking up space. I might be able to clear up an entire row if I had a few days.”

  “You have horses here that aren’t running?”

  Caldwell nodded. “Some are hurt, some are just here for the workouts.”

  “Didn’t Will Masterson run out of here?”

  “He did,” Caldwell said. “I guess you heard that he died.”

  “That was a shame,” Reese said. “I never knew the man well. Did he have any horses here when it happened?”

  “That two-year-old was here,” Caldwell said. “Well, you know that story—the colt’s by your stallion.”

  “The colt’s still here?”

  “No. Will ran him the day before he died, though. He didn’t like to leave that horse here, seemed like he was awful possessive of it. And it’s only, what, twenty or thirty miles or so to the home farm.”

  “Wonder what they’ll do with the horse now?”

  Caldwell shrugged. “No idea. I expect you’ll see it for sale.”

  “I suppose. Who did Masterson have working him anyway?”

  “An old jock named Skeeter Musgrave.”

  “Where could I find him?”

  Caldwell indicated the horses on the track. “He was just out there ten minutes ago, breezing a horse for McDaniels. You want to talk to him?”

  “I do,” Reese said. “And see what you can do about finding me some stalls. I like the way you operate, Chuck.”

  “I will,” Caldwell promised. “I absolutely will.” Reese got to his feet.

  “I was reading about Ghost Rider in the journal this morning,” Caldwell said then. “You’ve got a juggernaut on your hands there. You’re taking him to the Breeders, I assume?”

  “I certainly am.”

  “Then I expect you’re gearing up for all the extra publicity that’s going to come with that situation. And then next spring in Louisville. Knock wood.”

  “RR Racing can handle it.”

  “I’m sure,” Caldwell said. “But I just thought I’d mention that I’m quite experienced in that field.” He chuckled. “Sort of find myself underused around here. Not playing to my strengths.”

  “What field?”

  “Public relations,” Caldwell said. “I have a degree from Dartmouth and I did some work for the New England Patriots for a while.” Caldwell wasn’t going to mention that he was an unpaid intern for the team.

  Reese considered this, or seemed to. “Let me think about that. I might just need a man. Now let’s find this Skeeter character.”

  Eight

  THE NEXT MORNING, BILLIE MADE USE of the fancy coffee maker and carried a cup with her as she took a walk around the farm. The rain had done its job and the day dawned as fresh as Eden. The water running beneath the lane had subsided overnight and the pond was nearly full. The pasture already showed a tinge of green where it had been brown the day before. The air smelled of rebirth and promise. It was as if the drought had never occurred. How twenty-four hours could change things so completely bordered on miraculous.

  Before setting out, she found a pair of rubber boots her size— Marian’s, she assumed—to wear on her walk. The low areas were muddy yet, with pools of dirty rainwater gathered here and there. She did a circuit around the thirty-acre property, strolling through the small bush lot at the rear of the farm, where overhead the leaves of the maples and white oaks and hickories were still dripping. She flushed a cottontail from some brush and spotted a skinny coyote before it trotted off, crossing the side road to run into heavier bush to the south. A sense of déjà vu hung from Billie like the raindrops from the trees.

  Her coffee was gone by the time she reached the barns on her return. The horses and other animals were outside in their respective paddocks. Billie looked to see they had water—the rain had taken care of that—but didn’t bother to feed them. She assumed the kid named Jodie was coming again. If Billie fed the horses and left, the girl might show up and feed them again. Or worse, assume her job was unnecessary and not come back.

  The broodmares stood off by themselves beneath the pole barn, but the colt came over to Billie as soon as she came near. He was a good-looking horse. If he was a two-year-old, as she suspected, he was big for his age, fully developed across the chest and haunches. He was curious, reaching his nose across the top rail to sniff her. After a moment she gave in to his flirtations and ran her hand over the animal’s forehead. Then she turned and headed back to the house. She didn’t need to get involved with the colt or anything on the place—not the feeding or watering or cleaning of stalls. She’d shoveled enough horse shit to last her.

  The phone was ringing when she walked into the kitchen. She let it ring and then heard her father’s voice, talking on an old school answering machine. Billie didn’t know that anybody still used such a thing. There was a beep and she heard the melodious whiskey voice of David Mountain Clay.

  “Billie, it’s lawyer Clay here. Pick up if you’re there.”

  She went to the phone and said hello.

  “How’s your schedule this morning?” Clay asked.

  “Is that a joke?”

  “Have you eaten yet?”

  “No. I’ve just made my rounds of the estate, making sure the cotton’s as high as an elephant’s eye and all that.”

  “I’ll buy you breakfast. Meet me at Mom’s Diner in Marshall in half an hour.”

  “It’s not really called Mom’s,” Billie said, but the old lawyer had already hung up.

  The place was in fact called Mom’s Homestyle Diner. It was in the middle of the business section—such as it was—of Marshall. Billie parked on the street across from the restaurant and got out to have a look at what had once been the heart of the town. The buildings were the same but most of the retail shops she’d known were gone, no doubt victims of the big box stores she’d driven past on the way into town. Mowat’s Hardware was now a convenience store, and the shop where Billie had purchased her dress for the prom had a blinking sign out front that read Big Stan’s Tax Services. Billie was not in the least sentimental about the demise of the dress shop, as the prom hadn’t gone well, in spite of her dazzling emerald gown with the rhinestones on the bodice and what was to be her first and last date with Craig Sensabaugh. Instead of spending a memorable night at the ball, she’d gotten pie-eyed on cherry whiskey and then into a fistfight with Valerie Simpson, whom she found behind the gym, inspecting Craig’s tonsils with her tongue.

  Lawyer Clay was waiting for her inside Mom’s, sitting in a corner booth with a cup of coffee in hand and a folder before him. He hadn’t ordered yet, he told her, and waited until she looked over the breakfast menu.

  “Mom’s world-famous flapjacks,” she read.

  “And you accused me of hyperbole,” Clay said.

  The young waitress, who was multipierced and colorfully inked and probably not Mom, hovered nearby. Billie settled on French toast, even though the dish, according to the menu, had not yet gained world renown. Clay asked for the mushroom and cheese omelet.

  “How did you sleep in the old homestead?” he asked when the waitress was gone.

  “Like a woman who had Woodford Reserve for dinner and the same for dessert.”

  “You must be hungry this morning, then.”

  Billie indicated the folder. “What’s that?”

  “That is your father’s will.”

  The waitress brought coffee for Billie and u
tensils for them both. Billie splashed milk in her cup and had a sip. It was very good coffee. Maybe there was more to Mom’s than Billie suspected. She wondered at her propensity for cynicism.

  “Shouldn’t the girlfriend be here for this?” she asked.

  “The girlfriend has a name.”

  “Marian,” Billie said. “Shouldn’t Marian be here for this?”

  “She doesn’t need to be. Outside of two small codicils, you inherit everything.” Clay set his coffee cup aside and opened the folder. “That’s the good news.”

  “And what’s the bad?”

  “Well,” Clay said slowly, “you’ve inherited a considerable amount of debt.”

  Billie laughed. “That’s the one thing my family’s known for. Why wouldn’t the old man want to pass it on?” She paused, thinking. “How can you inherit debt anyway?”

  “Technically, you can’t,” Clay told her. “The farm has debt, and you have inherited the farm.”

  Billie considered this. “Am I allowed to turn down an inheritance?”

  “You mean, like somebody asking you to dance?” Clay asked, clearly amused.

  “Like somebody asking me to dance and then charging me a thousand dollars for the pleasure.”

  “No.”

  “All right,” Billie said, preparing herself. “How much debt?”

  “Who knows?” Clay said. “It’s not something your father would ever confide in with me. He wasn’t a complainer. But I know there’s a mortgage on the farm with the bank, and likely a second mortgage there, as well. And then a considerable back tax bill, as well as a number of smaller debts. Oh—and a demand note with some grape grower over in Monticello.”

  “A what?”

  “Like a private mortgage,” Clay said. “Your father would have needed only to keep up on the interest. Not a big concern at this time.”

  “Have you got a ballpark number on the total debt?” Billie asked.

  Clay shrugged. “I do not. Maybe a hundred thousand, maybe one fifty.”

  “And how much is the place worth?”

  “Possibly two hundred,” Clay said. “The outbuildings are not in great shape and the house is . . . well, modest, I might say. You could add in a few thousand for the broodmares. As for the gray colt named Cactus Jack, I couldn’t say. I can tell you that your father was very optimistic about that particular horse.”

  “My father was always optimistic about one horse or another,” Billie said. She indicated the paperwork on the table between them. “That would be the same man who died in hock up to his ears.”

  “It didn’t weigh on him, I can tell you that,” Clay assured her. He paused a moment, glancing from the paperwork to Billie. “I daresay if you sold the place, somebody with new money would snatch it up, bulldoze everything, and build an ugly mansion there, with wrought-iron fencing and stone lions guarding the gate.”

  Billie shrugged her indifference to that scenario. She recalled that whenever David Clay talked about people with new money, he was usually referring to anybody who had arrived in Kentucky after the Truman administration. The food came then. Clay’s omelet was enormous, as befitted the man about to devour it. Billie’s French toast looked good to the eye and was served with fresh strawberries and real maple syrup, not the fructose mucilage found in most diners.

  They began to eat while Billie processed what she had heard. If Clay’s assessment proved to be accurate, and she had no doubt it would, then she stood to break even when all was said and done. Which meant that she would get nothing, exactly what she had expected and, for that matter, desired. Unfortunately, she would have to invest some time and effort in order to end up with that nothing, something she had not expected. There would be lawyers (the giant sitting across from her being one) and realtors and tax people and various debtors to settle with. It seemed a lot of work just to finish at zero. But she would have to do it. What choice did she have?

  The waitress refilled their cups as they ate. Billie’s meal was, she had to admit, excellent, maybe even deserving of flapjack status when the time came to redo the menu. They were both finished eating before she spoke again.

  “What about the codicils?”

  Clay wiped his mouth and reached for the paperwork. “Nothing of consequence. Your father left a few personal items for Marian Dunlop. And a thousand dollars for Jodie Rickman, the young lady with the orphan animals.”

  “She can use the money to trailer them out of there,” Billie said.

  The waitress brought the bill and Clay claimed it, looking it over like a mining assayer appraising a suspicious gold nugget before placing it and twenty-five dollars on the table. He pulled an ancient watch from his pocket and checked the time. Billie resisted an urge to ask him of the piece’s provenance; surely it had once belonged to some historical figure—William Tecumseh Sherman or at the very least Stephen Douglas.

  “I assume then that you intend to sell the farm?” His voice and manner were suddenly distant.

  “What the hell else am I going to do with it?”

  “I think your father always hoped that you would eventually come home. That you would want to run the place.”

  “That sounds like a great idea,” Billie said. “It being such a moneymaker and all.”

  Clay gathered the paperwork. “Well, it’s only my two cents’ worth, but I think that’s what he hoped for.”

  “Maybe he should have told me then. He could have picked up the phone.”

  “And you could have picked up the phone. It seems to me that you were the one who shut down communications.”

  “If you know that, then you know the reason why,” Billie told him.

  Clay shook his large head and kept shaking it while he seemed to struggle with something. “All right, I’ve had enough of this. It’s time somebody straightened you out. There’s something you need to know. And it might very well hurt you.”

  Billie stared at the old lawyer. “Then I don’t need to know it.”

  “You do,” Clay said. “And I’m not going to apologize for telling you. Your mother didn’t kill herself because of anything that went on between her and your father. And you goddamn well know it, Billie. Tell me what you remember of your mother. Think back to when you were growing up.”

  “What do you mean? She was my mother.”

  “Tell me what you remember of her. Day to day.”

  Billie didn’t want to reply. Not only did she not want to address the matter, but now she was resentful of the old lawyer’s challenging tone. “My mother was sick a lot. That wasn’t her fault.”

  “And what was the nature of her illness?”

  “A lot of things. She had back problems, stomach problems. A lot of things. There were days she couldn’t get out of bed.”

  “Billie,” Clay said. “She couldn’t get out of bed because she suffered from depression. You knew it and your father knew it and nobody talked about it because your mother refused to acknowledge it. She saw it as a sign of weakness. So your father took on everything. Protecting her. Protecting you too, Billie. You were at the university before your mother finally got treatment. Maybe she waited until then, keeping things from you.”

  Billie stared into her coffee cup. This was the conversation she didn’t want, the one she’d been avoiding most of her life. “I knew about the depression. How could I not? I’m not stupid, you know.”

  “Did you know she took shock treatments?”

  The information gave Billie pause. “No.”

  “While you were away at school,” Clay said. “The drugs weren’t working, not long term anyway. The doctors kept tweaking them, as they do. I have a feeling she was looking at the electroshock as a last resort. I only heard all this afterward, you understand.”

  Billie drank off her coffee and then looked to the waitress, needing a refill. She was fuming. “And you’ve decided to tell me now this so you can justify my father having a stupid fling. Is that the way it is? You think it was okay for him to do that to a woman wh
o was barely hanging on?”

  “Your father had a fling, as you would call it, because your mother was sleeping with another man. A man who ultimately spurned her. Your father couldn’t bear it. It was ripping him apart, Billie. And he couldn’t talk to you about it because he was still protecting you. And your mother too, even then. Maybe that was his great error in all this. Fathers protect their daughters, whether they be three or thirty. He never got around to treating you like an adult. Maybe he was waiting for you to act like one.”

  “Fuck you, Clay. You sanctimonious asshole.” Billie looked away from him now, glaring out the window, at the people on Main Street walking past. She fought an urge to get up and run away. She waited for a response that didn’t come. After a time, the big man’s silence hung over her like a shroud.

  “What man?” she asked.

  “A professor at the college. He was a tweedy little shit whom she idolized for some reason. He used your mother for a few months and then married one of his students.”

  Billie fell silent again and then she turned on Clay. “My mother never killed herself over a failed love affair.”

  “No, she did not,” Clay agreed. “It was nothing more than a symptom.”

  Billie found that she was pissed off now that he had dared to agree with her. “Why the fuck are you telling me this? You sonofa-bitch. You heartless sonofabitch.”

  “Will Masterson was my lifelong friend and you’ve been punishing him for years for a crime he didn’t commit. I’ve decided I won’t let you live out your life under that false impression. Like I said, I don’t apologize for it. I spoke my piece.”

  “You spoke your piece,” Billie echoed. “I guess you’re happy now.”

  “Not in the least. I wish your father had called you. I wish you had called him.” Clay got to his feet. It seemed an effort for him to lift so much bulk into a standing position. “I can tell you this. Nobody knows how much time they have to do the things they intend to do. I’ll see you, Billie.”

  Billie stood, as well. “I’ll need a lawyer to handle the sale.”

  “There’s plenty of them around,” Clay said and left.