Henry could see the red and white banners and streamers snapping from the arena poles while he was still in the brush. He’d left the feed store truck parked alongside the Anderson’s calf barn in the yard behind him. The load of alfalfa pellets was still on the flatbed. He’d unload it after.
He’d exchanged his boots for sneakers and wore a ball cap that said “No Cerveza, No Trabajar” across the front. The cap was Eddie’s, but it seemed appropriate. He hoped he looked like one of the dozens of kids who’d be crawling all over Walcott’s place today, most of them with a horse in tow.
He hiked steadily across the brush-choked quarter mile between the Anderson’s road and the back corner of Walcott’s ranch. He didn’t hurry or try to hide but he moved quickly and lightly, dodging cactus and thistle, keeping his eyes on the stud barns and taking in everything else with his peripheral vision.
He put one hand on the top rail of the first fence and vaulted it smoothly. He went on across the paddock, vaulted the next fence, and then, with the barns near, opened the next two gates instead, so as not to draw any attention.
There were two stud barns. He turned into the old one, seeking Imperial Edge in his old box stall. There was nobody around. The barn was dim and sweetly hot. Horses stamped and he heard muffled applause from the arena. Walcott was hosting the Pony Club Gymkhana. The lane and front yard were parked three deep with half-tons and trailers and motorhomes.
Imperial Edge snorted and tossed his head when Henry approached. Henry began a low-voiced conversation with the stallion, squinting at the chestnut inside the stall, frowning at the way the old horse threw his head continually. When the horse gave no sign of willingness to approach him, Henry crossed the aisle and tried his luck with one of the old horse’s sons. After a few minutes with the younger stallion, he was pleased to see the handsome chestnut head with the star thrust over the stall door to snuff at his back.
He was surprised at how cool and easy he felt. He had a plan. It was simple and quick. In half an hour, it would work, or it wouldn’t. He had that half-hour and now was the time to make it work. He took the stallion’s halter down from the hook and eased inside the box stall, keeping up the one-sided conversation. Imperial Edge was head-shy and Henry was reluctant to rush him so it took fifteen minutes before he led the horse out of the box.
He walked the chestnut slowly out of the barn and crossed two paddocks. He had to stop and open and shut the gates and he could feel the sweat on his chest and under his arms when they gained the center lane that ran the length of the ranch. The old horse settled down well and made no effort to jerk away or bugle to the horses in the paddocks. He followed like a dog, tail swinging, head up and eager at Henry’s right shoulder. There didn’t seem to be anyone else out in the paddocks.
God, what a horse. He had to force himself to keep walking. Don’t stop to admire him now. Just a little more luck, you can admire the hell out of him on your own time.
He left the stallion in the farthest paddock, the one that backed right up to the creek. The adjoining paddocks were empty but he hoped the horse would be so starved for green grass and fresh air that he’d be quietly content alone for the afternoon. He trotted off when Henry stripped off the halter, made a circle, flagged his tail, then came back and snorted at Henry. “Go on, old timer. You’re on vacation,” Henry told him while he latched the gate and began the long walk back. Halfway home.
Walcott had a girlfriend, a curvy two-tone blonde, named Cheryl Ann. Henry had gone to school with Cheryl Ann. They were friendly though he couldn’t figure out why a girl like Cheryl Ann would want to hang around with somebody twice her age and three times her weight. Cheryl Ann owned a nice little Arab gelding, a chestnut with a star. He was half a hand shorter than Imperial Edge and he had socks on the front, which the stallion did not. However, little items like that and his missing equipment would probably go unnoticed by a casual glance inside a dim box stall.
Cheryl Ann’s gelding was in a loose box with an outside run, just off the boarding barn. He trotted up at Henry’s whistle and ducked his head eagerly into Imperial’s halter. Henry turned the gelding into the stallion’s box stall in the stud barn. He left the stallion’s halter on the hook where he’d found it, right outside the box. On his way back through the maze of paddocks, he hoped Cheryl Ann was still the same impulsive girl who had once lost her horse for a week when she’d loaded him in somebody else’s trailer after a show. With any luck, nobody would get very excited about the gelding’s whereabouts. And whoever did chores in the stud barns tonight would be in a hurry to get cleaned up for the party.
Walcott was hosting a pig roast tonight, with a barn dance. Henry grinned. Cheryl Ann had invited him when she’d danced with him at the Wheel last weekend. She’d told him all about the Gymkhana and the pig and the dance. Hell, he might just go. A man didn’t get invitations from girls like Cheryl Ann every day. He wouldn’t stay, just long enough to tell Tommy he was Cheryl Ann’s special guest.
He vaulted the last two fences, still grinning and wanting to jump and laugh and do a victory shuffle like a wide receiver. He didn’t though; he walked straight back through the scrub, not hurrying but covering the ground. He put his boots back on and unloaded the three tons of alfalfa pellets, whistling under his breath, the little wrinkles moving at the corners of his eyes. The banners waved to him as he drove slowly past Walcott’s with the empty feed truck.
* * * *
He could hear the music from a mile off and listened, no longer grinning. His elated confidence had deserted him during the afternoon while he’d worked around the feed store. He’d stayed until six-thirty, making a nuisance of himself with everybody so there’d be no question he’d been there every minute.
Now, in the dark, riding his buckskin gelding toward the actual commission of the act, he felt alone. He could still abandon it, but he didn’t want to do that. He wanted to tell somebody, talk it out, justify it. He’d thought about Eddie.
Eddie would love it, especially because it was Walcott, but he wouldn’t see the point unless they let Walcott know. No, Eddie was out. Maybe tell him later, in the fall when Imperial Edge was home, none the worse. Walcott could guess like everybody else, next year, when Henry had six fuzzy little Edge foals on his place.
The person he really wanted to explain it to was Lily. He felt like he was sneaking around on her. In some unclear but definite way, he knew she’d be in serious trouble if he got caught. When he’d slipped the mares under the wire, he’d promised himself he would tell her. He’d seen her both Sundays since but somehow hadn’t found the right opening. It rubbed him raw during the week but when he was finally with her, he was afraid to spoil it.
There was no going back with Lily, no chance to stand off and catch his breath. He couldn’t wait to kiss her when he saw her now, could hardly do more than say her name before he wanted her in his arms. He didn’t even kid himself that he was going to confess anything before he carried her into the bedroom in the stuffy little trailer and buried himself in her.
But afterwards, he should have told her. Twice he’d been there now, the mares on his mind. And even afterwards, sitting bare-chested, talking on the porch, he couldn’t bring himself to risk losing her. He kicked the buckskin harder than necessary, pushing him up the ridge to the creek, the music louder now. He would tell her. Tomorrow. Right after he told her he loved her and wanted to move her into his little house and marry her. And make ten babies that looked just like her, so nobody would call them breeds. He smiled in the darkness. Maybe hold off on the babies until they’d had a couple years of Sundays and he’d discovered all the ways she could make his head spin in bed.
Imperial Edge came to his whistle, lonely now and not shying away from a hand on his neck. Henry had brought a stout halter and long shank and he buckled the stallion snugly into the outfit before he worked the top three rails loose. The stallion hopped the bottom rails easily at Henry’s urging. Then he hammered the nails back in their original holes with one of the round rocks from the creek bed. He took a couple of wraps on the horn for insurance, but the stallion followed the buckskin without hesitation when they stepped into the rain-fed torrent.
There was a little floundering and splashing as the two horses found their footing on the smooth rocks but no real trouble as Henry took them downstream, staying in the current. When the bridge at the road came in sight, Henry put the gelding up onto the bank following the well-used track where deer and range cattle came to drink when the creek had water. They would leave tracks but he wasn’t too concerned about it. The obvious way for the stallion to go missing was inside one of the many trailers parked in Walcott’s yard.
Henry was thinking about Lily when he heard the sound the first time. He seemed to spend hours every day thinking about her. She was beside him in the feed truck, stacking hay, mostly when he tried to sleep. It was very unsatisfactory, seeing her Sundays for a few hours. She was stubbornly resistant to making plans to see him on any other basis. He didn’t exactly disbelieve her when she said she couldn’t leave the trailer but it didn’t seem right to him. She wouldn’t admit it, but he could tell she was afraid of MacIntyre. The man had an unreasonable power over her. Henry was starting to think he’d have to see the man, himself.
The sound had probably registered with him a half dozen times before he was able to hear it over his Lily thoughts. It was a steel shoe clicking on stone, out of time with the gelding. He pulled the buckskin up and eased the stallion alongside. Then he dismounted and spoke quietly to the horses while he ran a hand down the stallion’s near front leg. The hoof came up easily, smooth bottom, no shoe. He checked the other front just to be sure, both bare. Then the hinds and as he suspected, they were shod. Damn. Damn. Damn. He should have thought.
He dropped the hoof and straightened, leaned against the stallion’s hip. The chestnut’s head came around and he blew softly at Henry. Henry considered. He was five miles down the road with a horse he didn’t own and three miles from home free. He couldn’t turn the horse out, shod. Not for the summer. It would cripple him. Damn. He couldn’t take the horse back. He couldn’t pull the shoes without his tools. Sombitch.
He stepped back into the saddle. He’d just have to go on with it. Turn the stallion out and take the chance he could catch him again, next week. He’d have to take his buckskin inside the fence one more time, bring his tools, run down the stallion and pull the shoes. It wouldn’t be easy. Bear down, he told himself sternly. Just do it.
This was for Lily, as much as for him. Lily wasn’t the kind of woman to get hitched to a man working at feed stores. On top of looking like she did, she was a college girl, The only thing he had in the world to set him apart from a hundred other guys was his mares. They were damn good mares. It wasn’t like he hadn’t tried to work it out with Walcott. He’d offered the man half the foals, his pick. That was more than fair and he knew Walcott made similar deals with other breeders. The man took some kind of sadistic pleasure in turning him down. He’d even told Henry he wouldn’t breed the mares for cash. And there was nothing Walcott wouldn’t do for cash. Except for him.
He nudged the buckskin into a jog. This was a complication but not one he couldn’t handle. There was no wide spot in his plan for turning around now, not after all the time and attention he’d already put in. Tomorrow, when the stallion was safely inside the fence and settled in with his mares on the grass in the river bottom, he’d see Lily.