8

When Ray walked outside Saturday morning Pete Culpepper was sitting on the porch, working on a plug of Redman and watching the sky like a man watching the dealer in a crooked card game. The morning was cool and clear, but there were clouds stacking up in the west and the wind was on the rise. Pete was watching the accumulation and occasionally spurting a stream of tobacco onto the tangled rose bushes along the porch, bushes planted years back by one of Pete’s girlfriends, although Ray couldn’t remember which one. It was probably no better than even money that Pete could.

“You ’bout ready?” Pete asked when Ray came out of the house.

“I’d like a little breakfast. Did you eat?”

“I had a cowboy’s breakfast,” Pete said.

A cowboy’s breakfast, Ray knew, was a piss and a look around, and that alone told Ray that the old man was nervous. He wasn’t one to miss a meal.

“Well, I gotta eat,” Ray said. “Whoever it was said breakfast is the most important meal of the day probably wasn’t talking about chewing tobacco.”

They were on the road by nine, Pete behind the wheel of the pickup. They hit the QEW just east of Hamilton, skirting the city traffic. The rain began around St. Catharines, and when it did it came in a torrent. By the time they reached Fort Erie the ditches were running, and Pete was describing in detail what he would like to do with the weatherman’s genitals.

The gelding Fast Market was in barn eleven. Pete had trailered him down on Monday and had been making the trip every day since, working him on the main track.

“What shoes you got on him?” Ray asked as they parked the truck.

“Put bars on him, just yesterday. I got calks if I need ’em,” Pete said.

“Does he like the slop?”

“I don’t know that it’s got anything to do with liking it. All a horse knows is to run. How he runs in the muck depends on a lot of things, but mostly the trip.”

They found the gelding calm and content in the barn. Pete gave him a handful of oats and then went to track down his rider. Ray got a brush from a shelf and began to curry the gelding’s coat. The horse was as quiet as Pete’s old hound as he worked; at one point Ray was certain the animal was asleep.

As Ray was finishing up, Pete came back, walking through the mud with a lanky brunette with dark eyes, wearing jeans and cowboy boots, a faded Nirvana T-shirt.

“This is Chrissie Nugent,” Pete said. “Ray Dokes.”

Chrissie Nugent wore dark eyeshadow and lipstick, and she looked to Ray like a wasted fashion model from the 1960s. Her eyes were rimmed with red, and she had a fuzzy look about her with which Ray was familiar. She was maybe twenty-five. She shook Ray’s hand, then turned and hacked and spit in the mud.

“Chrissie was up when he won in July,” Pete was saying. “Girl’s been having a hell of a year, got near fifty wins. But she’s fixin’ to lose her bug.”

Chrissie was in the stall with the horse now, her hands on his withers, talking softly to him, words Ray couldn’t make out. Ray had never seen a jockey—male or female—wearing makeup before. But then he’d been away awhile.

When Chrissie came out she lit a cigarette and looked at Pete. “Anything I need to know? What about the hoof?”

“Ride the horse like he’s sound,” Pete told her. “I’d like to keep him middle of the pack ’til the stretch, but if this rain keeps up you might have to move him sooner. I wouldn’t go wide with him. He gets a little lonely out there.”

Chrissie nodded, looked at Ray a moment, then back to Pete. “That it?”

“That’s it,” Pete said. “The silks are in the pickup.”

“Well, I don’t have a mount ’til the fourth,” Chrissie said. “I’m gonna go catch some sleep in my truck. I got a hangover that would kill a fucking Clydesdale.”

They watched as she retrieved the silks from the truck and then walked away in the rain.

“Where’d you find her?” Ray asked.

“Turned around one day, and there she was,” Pete said. “Gal’s a comer; she’s tougher than a boot sandwich, and she’s a natural jock. Horses just plain relax around her. Ain’t nothing you can teach. She’s gonna be a great one if she doesn’t kill herself. I think she’s about half crazy.”

“Well,” Ray said, watching her walk in the tight jeans. “Half ain’t as bad as whole.”

They stood in the doorway of the barn and watched the rain come down. The lanes between the barns had turned to muck; the water ran off the tin roofs and pooled up on the ground below, sending rivulets along the lanes, racing for the lower ground.

Pete retrieved a bale of straw from the trailer and broke it up, tossed half in under the horse and spread the rest outside to keep the mud down outside the barn. Then he stepped back inside and had another long look at the sky.

“I guess I better change those shoes,” he said at last. “I hate to bother that hoof two days running, but I got no choice with this weather.”

Ray got the nail pullers from the trailer and removed the shoes from the gelding. The hoof that had been cracked looked sound enough, and he took extra care in pulling the nails from it. The gelding stood calmly as he worked, occasionally looking back at Ray as if checking to see that the job was being done right.

Pete Culpepper set to work shoeing the horse. Ray was in the way, so he decided to head over to the grandstand to have a look around. He walked between the rows of barns, trying to keep to the thin strip of grass alongside the lane, avoiding the mud. Luis Salvo loped by him, sitting a western saddle on a stout chestnut mare, the mare’s hooves throwing mud in the air.

“Hey Raymond,” he called. “You are free!”

“So they tell me. You riding today, Luis?”

“No more. I’m a fat mon, can’t you see? Dese days I just exercise.” He rode on, standing in the stirrups, easing the mare through the mire toward the track.

Ray walked around the west end of the grandstand and went inside. He was shocked when he walked in. The place was filled, wall to wall, with slot machines. It was carpeted, chandeliered, a cut-rate Vegas North. There were women in evening dresses, and it wasn’t yet noon. Whether they were early for Saturday night or left over from Friday was anybody’s guess. On closer inspection Ray decided they were leftovers. The place was bustling, and the bustling had nothing to do with thoroughbred racing. Ray stood on the scarlet carpet and looked in vain for a tote machine. Finally he walked to a kiosk, where a platinum blonde in cat’s-eye glasses was serving juice and soft drinks.

“Where are the totes?” he asked.

“Clubhouse side,” she told him. “You can’t bet here.”

“I can’t bet here? What the hell happened to this place?”

She looked at him as if he’d just stumbled down from the hills. “What happened was, they either had to put in the slots or close the doors. I don’t know where you’ve been, but the province has gone casino crazy. The government has finally found a surefire way to make money. They legalized gambling.”

Ray looked around. “Look at this place.”

“We couldn’t fight ’em, so we had to join ’em,” the blonde said. She gestured with both hands toward the people at the slot machines, slipping in coin after coin, going faster with each losing pull. “You know what it is, don’t you?”

“What is it?”

“A tax on the stupid.”

Ray left and walked over to the clubhouse. The wickets were just opening, and he walked up and placed the bets. Fast Market was listed at ten to one. Pete had given him twenty across the board, and he bet that first.

“Anything else?” the man behind the wicket asked.

Ray hesitated, thinking about Chrissie Nugent, her manner with the horse, her tough-guy pose under her hangover. He imagined her sleeping in her truck just now; no jingle-jangle nerves there, just the cockiness of her years and herself.

He bet a hundred to win on the gelding.

*   *   *

Back at the barn Pete had finished with the shoeing, and both man and horse were dozing off in the stall. When Ray got back he let them be, got into the truck, and turned on the radio. He lit a cigarette and slipped the match out the vent window.

He punched through the AM buttons, found a Buffalo talk show on which an enthusiastic hostess was endorsing capital punishment for homosexuality and other assorted crimes against humanity. She was of the belief that every word in the Bible was true, and when a caller asked what Noah did with the huge accumulation of manure on the Ark she called him a communist and hung up on him. The woman’s voice possessed a hearty midwestern twang, and except for the fact that she was a raving lunatic she could have passed very easily for someone’s kindly aunt. Ray turned the radio off.

The gelding was to run in the sixth race. After the fourth, Pete hooked a lead onto the horse’s halter, and they followed as a walker led him over to the saddling barn. By the time they got there, the horses for the fifth race were already on the track. The rain had let up, but the track was sloppy and not likely to improve in the next twenty minutes.

“Better the slop than the mud,” Pete said. “Least the slop don’t stick.”

They met Chrissie, wearing the Culpepper silks, as she was walking to the paddock. She had just raced, and there were traces of mud on her face and in her hair.

“How’d you do?” Pete asked Chrissie.

“Second last,” she said, stopping. “Little filly was lugging in so bad it took all my strength just to keep her straight. Trainer said I didn’t ride her right. Fuck him—if he can’t train the horse, I can’t ride it.”

“I don’t know that my horse wants to go in the slop,” Pete said.

“Oh no, I like this old boy,” Chrissie said, and she rubbed the gelding’s nose. “He’s sexy. He’ll be in the bridle for me.”

They heard the bugle for the fifth and then waited for the race to finish. Chrissie put her cap on and turned to walk into the paddock. She saw Ray watching her.

“I haven’t seen you before,” she said.

“I’ve been away.”

“I kinda figured that, the way you been looking at me,” she said.

The walker led the horse out for the paddock parade, and Pete followed. He gave Chrissie a leg up, and she and the other entries headed for the track. Ray and Pete watched for a moment, then went through the clubhouse and out to the track.

They made their way to the rail. Several people spoke to Pete, asking after his health, his horse’s chances. Pete wasn’t real talkative on either subject.

The horses were loaded in the gate. There had been two scratches—due to the track conditions, Pete speculated—and the field was down to eight. The route was seven furlongs.

“You make the bets?” Pete asked suddenly.

“I made them.”

Fast Market, the gelding with the cracked hoof, and Chrissie Nugent, the bug girl with the hangover, came out of the five hole flying, took the lead at once, and headed straight for the rail. The lead was four lengths at the clubhouse turn, and in the stretch it was no contest. Chrissie never went to the whip, never needed to, stayed tight to the rail, hunched over the gelding’s neck, her face tucked between his ears. From where he stood, Ray could have sworn she was joking with the animal.

Fast Market won by seven lengths. Chrissie ran the horse out to the first curve, then loped him back to the finish line. Ray was there with Pete Culpepper. Chrissie jumped down lightly, trying to hide a smile.

“So much for our strategy,” Pete said.

“Hey, never let ’em kick mud in your face, that’s my theory,” Chrissie said.

Pete was looking at the hoof. When he straightened up, Ray could see that he was happy.

“Well, I got a mount in the seventh; thanks for the ride,” Chrissie said. She walked past Ray and chucked the gelding under the jaw as she strode away. “See ya, handsome.”

It took Ray a moment to realize she was talking to the horse.

Pete wasn’t sure when he’d run the horse again, so they loaded him into the trailer and took him home. It was well past dark when they arrived back at the Culpepper farm. They’d had a good day financially, with the purse and their winnings and they stopped at the Stevensville Hotel for chicken wings and a pitcher of beer.

Arriving home, Pete put the horse in the barn and gave him grain. Ray backed the trailer around behind the machinery shed and unhooked it, parked the truck, and went inside. Pete was sitting at the kitchen table, some paperwork scattered across the tabletop, along with his winnings and the check for the purse.

Ray put on a pot of coffee and sat down.

“Figuring on a new truck, Pete?”

“No, figuring how to fill a bushel basket with six quarts of potatoes.”

“Today had to help.”

“It didn’t hurt none. That old gelding showed his blood today. Not enough to pay my taxes but—”

“You got your corn to come off yet,” Ray said.

“It won’t amount to much,” Pete told him. “The spring was too wet and the summer too damn dry. Third dry summer in a row. Starting to remind me of Oklahoma back in the ’30s.”

“I somehow doubt you remember Oklahoma back in the ’30s.”

Pete looked over. “Thought you were making coffee.”

When the coffee was ready Ray put the pot on the table, retrieved cups from the cupboard. Pete gathered up his paperwork and tucked it in a drawer beside the sink, then reached into a door just above and brought out a bottle of Cutty Sark. They cut the coffee with the Scotch and sat there at the table. Pete was tired, Ray could see. He had circles under his eyes, and his jowls were heavy with fatigue. Ray realized that he had no idea how old Pete was. Seventy, at least. Maybe seventy-five.

“Stick with the girl, and you might get a couple more wins out of the horse this fall,” Ray said.

“I might at that,” Pete agreed. “I’d breed that other mare in the new year if I had the jack. Horse throws a nice foal.”

Ray sipped at his cup and watched the old man.

“I don’t know,” Pete said. “Maybe I should fold my cards, sell the place off. I never fancied these Canadian winters from the start, and the longer I get in the tooth, the less I like ’em.”

“Where would you go?”

“West Texas, I guess. There’s a woman there who I believe would still be agreeable to my company.”

“You’ve been here—what—twenty-five years. And you figure this woman is still waiting on you? You must have quite an effect on the ladies, Mr. Culpepper.”

Pete jumped to his feet, did a quick two-step around the kitchen.

“Now don’t you doubt me, Raymond,” he said. “There may be snow on the roof, but there’s still fire down below.”

Ray smiled, and he poured more coffee for them both, topped the cups off with the scotch again. Ten minutes later the old man was asleep in his chair. Ray sat in the scant light and finished his drink. It was midnight when he rousted Pete Culpepper and sent him off to bed.

*   *   *

Monday morning, Dean and Paulie headed back up to London to retrieve the impregnated mare. Paulie was waiting for Dean when he showed up, red-eyed and cranky, at the big farm. Jackson had the trailer hooked to the Ford pickup, ready to go.

“I’ll get you the check,” Jackson said, casting a bad eye on Dean before he went into the house.

“You’re driving,” Dean said to Paulie.

He’d been at the casino Sunday night, with Big Billy Coon and his bunch. In the back room. They’d bet the thoroughbreds out of Santa Anita, then played poker until first light. And they’d drank, everybody except Billy, that is. Billy’s cousins—he seemed to have a never-ending supply of them—had seemed overly interested in Dean’s connection to Earl Stanton and the racehorse business.

It had been a long night, and everybody was pretty much drunk before it’d been half over. Some bad feelings had risen over the card game. Dean had gotten a little mouthy under the liquor; at one point he realized he was very close to a good old-fashioned shit kicking. He seemed to recall Billy Coon stepping in at some point and saving his ass from that eventuality. He had no recall of driving home.

When Jackson came down the front steps with the check, Dean and Paulie were already in the cab of the Ford, Paulie behind the wheel. Jackson handed the envelope over.

“Get a receipt,” he told them.

“Yeah, we never done this before,” Dean said.

“Just get it.”

“We bringing the mare back here or the other farm?” Paulie asked.

Jackson looked to the house a moment. “Better bring her here,” he said. “I’ll see what Sonny wants.”

“Where is he?” Dean asked.

“Well, it’s not noon yet,” Jackson said. “So my guess is he’s still in bed.”

Dean slept, and Paulie drove. That suited Paulie fine; it meant that he could poke along at his own speed and listen to the country station out of Kitchener. He set the cruise control, pulled his hat down low, and kicked back, watched the big Ford eat up the miles.

Paulie loved to drive, although Dean almost never let him behind the wheel. On the road, Paulie always imagined he was heading out on some great adventure, bound for greener pastures. Where those fertile fields might be he had no idea, but that didn’t stop him from thinking about them. Somewhere where people took him seriously, where he had a piece of land to call his own. Maybe a few cows, some chickens in the yard. Maybe a woman like Misty waiting in the house, something good in the oven. Paulie doubted that Misty was much of a cook, though.

Dean was still sleeping when they pulled into the yard at the farm. The mare was in the corral, standing hipshot by the water trough, eyes half closed. The hired hand Jim Burnside came out of the barn when he heard them pull in. He wore a ball cap and carried a pitchfork. He removed the cap to wipe his brow with his sleeve, leaned the fork against the paddock fence.

Dean came to slowly, took a moment to figure out where he was. Paulie was already out of the truck, his foot on the bottom rail of the corral fence, regarding the mare.

“I’m supposed to get a check from you guys,” Jim was saying.

Dean climbed out of the truck, took over.

“I’ll need a receipt.”

Jim took the envelope and walked up to the house. Dean walked over to where Paulie stood.

“Well, we better get her loaded,” Paulie said.

“Let whatsisname Jimmy boy load her. It’s his job.”

“I thought it was our job.”

“Our job is transport. And we’re underpaid at that.”

Jim came out with the receipt, handed it over to Dean, then he and Paulie put the mare in the trailer.

“Well, I hope she throws you boys a nice foal,” Jim said, closing the door. “That stallion has a good record; he’s got a colt making some noise down at Belmont. Two-year-old.”

“Well, maybe we’ll see him,” Dean said. “We’re thinking ’bout running Jumping Jack Flash in the Breeders’ Classic. Just waiting to see how he came out of the Queen Anne’s.”

Paulie smiled. “Yeah, we’re just waiting to see that.”

Dean felt well enough to drive the return trip. Paulie was relegated to shotgun, where his dreams weren’t as real, what with Dean’s bragging and the radio blasting heavy metal. In truth Paulie liked Dean a lot better when he was sleeping.

When they hit the 401 Dean took the envelope from his pocket and opened it to have a look at the receipt. “Fifty grand,” he said. “I thought he was bullshitting me before.”

“That Jim’s a pretty nice guy,” Paulie said.

“He’s a fucking drunk. You see the eyes on him?”

“Yeah, they look like yours.”

“Fuck off.” Dean turned the radio up. A mile down the road, though, the news came on, and Dean turned the volume down.

“What’re you getting a week, Paulie?”

“Five hundred.”

Five hundred dollars a week, Dean thought. Jesus wept. Dean was getting six and living in near poverty. Buying fake Armani suits, living in a cheap apartment. Driving his uncle’s car, for Christ’s sake.

“What’re you getting?” Paulie asked.

“Same as you,” Dean said at once.

“What—you thinking about asking for a raise?”

“I’m thinking about something. You got any idea how much money we’re dealing with here? Shit, I bet Sonny goes through five grand a week in pocket change. Way he gambles.”

“Yeah, well Sonny’s got a lot of money.”

“Sonny doesn’t have two nickels to rub together. He’s never worked a day in his life. It’s all the old man’s money. Where we gonna be in five years, Paulie?”

“I don’t know about you, but I’d like to have a little place of my own.”

“Be an awful small place on five hundred a week.”

*   *   *

When they arrived back at the home farm Dean and Paulie knew right away that something was up. A couple of strange cars were parked in front of the house, stopped at odd angles as if they’d been parked in a hurry. Jackson, walking quickly from the barn to the house as they pulled up, never favored them with as much as a glance. Dean and Paulie got out of the truck, unloaded the mare, and put her in the corral behind the barn. When they walked out of the barn Jackson was coming across the yard, headed for his truck.

“Sonny wants to see you guys,” he said.

“What’s going on?” Dean asked.

“The old man’s had a stroke,” Jackson said, and he started the truck and drove out of the yard.

Sonny was in the kitchen, eating a ham sandwich at the table and drinking beer from a pilsner glass. He had his hair tied back in a ponytail. There were two men in suits in the dining room, speaking in hushed tones, papers strewn across the table in front of them. Dean sat down across from Sonny, folded his hands on the tabletop. Paulie stood inside the door.

“How bad is it?” Dean asked.

Sonny shrugged, his mouth full. “They’re doing some tests,” he said around the ham. “Right now he can’t talk, and he’s flat on his back.”

“Where is he?”

“Still in the Bahamas. They’re not gonna move him, not for a while, anyway.”

“Is he gonna be all right?” Paulie asked.

“What the fuck I look like—a doctor?” Sonny asked. “Either he’ll be all right or he won’t. Maybe he’ll be a veg, who knows? One way or the other, we’re still in business. I’m taking over the horse operation. Which means Jackson is gonna answer to me, and you guys are gonna start pulling your weight. This isn’t some halfway house for fucked-up relatives.”

“If they start firing fucked-up relatives, won’t you be the first to go?” Dean asked.

Sonny was drinking. He put the glass down slowly. “Don’t fuck with me, Dean,” he said. “As of today, I’ve got full authority. And you’re gonna walk the straight and narrow, you and Bozo over by the door there. You think you’re indispensable? You can drive a truck and shovel horseshit. I could train a couple of apes to do that.”

Paulie was looking at the floor. Dean got to his feet.

“That what you wanted to tell us?” he asked.

“I wanted to tell you that things have changed,” Sonny said. He pushed his plate away, leaned back in his chair.

The two lawyers appeared in the doorway then, side by side. For a moment Dean thought they might get stuck there, like two-thirds of the Stooges.

“Well?” Sonny said when they didn’t speak.

“We’ll need the medical records,” the first lawyer said.

“Then get them,” Sonny said, and he looked at Dean and Paulie. “You boys got something to do? I imagine Jackson’s got stalls need shoveling.”

*   *   *

It was dark when Dean and Paulie finished cleaning the stalls. They would have been done earlier if Dean had spent more time shoveling and less time leaning on his shovel, complaining about shoveling.

It helped that Paulie worked hard enough for the pair of them. When they were finished he was drenched in sweat. He ran the wheelbarrow outside, hosed it clean, did the same with the shovels. Back inside, Dean was smoking a cigarette, watching Jumping Jack Flash in his stall.

“Better not let Jackson catch you smoking in the barn,” Paulie said.

“Fuck Jackson.”

Paulie walked over, leaned his elbows on the top rail, and looked at the bay. The horse was standing smack in the middle of the stall, not looking at Paulie or Dean either, just staring off haughtily at nothing at all, as if nothing there was worthy of his gaze. His ears were straight up, and his jaw was set, the full jowls impressive. Every now and then the huge muscles in his forelegs would twitch under the copper skin.

“He’s a beauty, isn’t he?” Paulie said.

“A beauty?” Dean said. “You know what that motherfucker’s gonna be worth if he wins the Classic?”

“I don’t know. Thousands, I guess.”

Dean snorted. “Try millions. As in twenty, thirty million. Shit, he’ll be standing stud for a quarter mil a pop.”

“You’d never know it to look at him,” Paulie said. “He seems like just any other horse. Funny, isn’t it?”

“What’s funny is that Sonny’s gonna own him if the old man dies,” Dean said. “I’ll tell you something else. Sonny is gonna find a way to get rid of us, Paulie.”

“You really think so, Dean?”

Dean walked to the window to look at the house. “I got a feeling we’re already gone.”