Excerpt From Jo Grant’s Journal:
…So here I am without Mom and Tommy feeling like the floor tilted and I’m trying not to trip.
It’s not like I thought I was safe growing up. Horses teach you you can’t be. You hit the ground and get back up, and stop gripping with your knees. (Which probably applies to more than riding.)
Dad died. Tom went to war. The mortgage sat at the dinner table and haunted the dark of the night. The whole world bled and died from ’39 to ’45, and the future felt like it was blowing away, and all we could do was pray.
Once Tom was back, I thought I could tie it all down, for some reason. Then Nate treated me the way he would, and I put myself on the sidelines. I can look back and see him for what he was. But I couldn’t then, and it scares me.
I had Jed to ride and play with, though. And Mom to help keep me steady and talk to about books. I had Tom teasing me and guarding my back, and work too, spread out ahead as far as I could see.
That’s what’s left. Work. If I can figure out how to do it so it’s worth doing…
Tuesday, April 17, 1962
The next morning, Toss Watkins filled the last water bucket while he watched Buddy Jones clean the next-to-the-last stall in the yearling barn.
The manure spreader was in the aisle-way and Buddy was forking wet straw and manure into it with an old heavy-duty pitchfork, working fast and well.
When he’d finished that stall, he moved to the one next to it, but Toss said, “Let’s go take us a break.”
Toss walked out of the dark brown creosoted barn around a curve in the driveway toward what was left of the Grant’s first log cabin, and sat down on a log bench that backed up to a four board fence. He pulled out a Lucky and lit it with a kitchen match, while Buddy lit his own, hunkering down on his heels.
“See that stallion there?” Toss pointed at the opposite paddock to a sixteen-hand, big-muscled bay with one white rear foot. “Tuffian. Picked him up this week. Belonged to a friend who died of a heart attack. The wife couldn’t handle him, so I took him off her hands like her husband wanted.”
“He’s good lookin’.”
“Tuffian’s made real well. Moves real well too, but he was no great shakes on the track. He don’t have the heart. Don’t have good ground manners neither. He got taught, and he’s smart enough. He just don’t want to do what you ask. You’d put up with it if he was Man O’ War, but for some six-year-old also-ran like him, maybe not.”
Buddy nodded as though he’d been there before.
“He’s real dangerous in his stall. Protects his food like all get out and don’t want nobody in there with him. His breedin’s good, and he’s thrown a couple stakes winners. But I reckon in the long run, he’ll end up at the killers, behavin’ like he does. You can’t just give him away. You’d be worryin’ who he’d hurt.”
Neither one of them said anything else till they’d stubbed out their cigarettes.
“Mr. Watkins, did you—”
“Toss.”
“D’you tell me that for a reason?”
“If I take you on here, you need to know to be real careful of him. That’s the first thing. Pour the grain in his feed tub from the aisle-way. Throw his hay in the stall through the bottom half of the door. Don’t get in the stall with him.”
“No-sir. I’d be real careful.”
“So who’s gonna decide what happens to Tuffian?”
Buddy stared across at the horse, before he said, “Him.”
“Yep. I’m gonna work with him, and see what I can do. But it’ll be up to him.” Toss took off his battered straw hat and wiped his forehead. “So what’d’ya figure folks want in barn help? Or in a trainer, either one?”
Buddy didn’t answer till he’d scratched a circle in the dirt with his burned out match. “Somebody who’s good at the work. Who’s dependable, and real honest, and works harder than most.” Buddy’s face was pink, under the tan, and he wasn’t looking at Toss.
Toss nodded, still gazing at Tuffian. “Somebody who shows up before time, and works harder and longer than he has to. That’s the kind that gets ahead. Now, some folks’ll take advantage of that, but in the long run, they’ll suffer, not the one that works that hard.”
Toss shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned back on the bench. “You did good today, showin’ me what you know about horses, and how you can work. I take it as a fine example of what a barn hand can do. If you want the job, you can have it. You can have the tenant house on the north lane past the big house too, if that suits you and your wife.
“But if just once, you don’t show, you’re done. ’Cept for some real emergency, that you tell Jo or me about first. I can’t say for sure how long I’ll need you. Long enough to get your babies born, and more, and let you get back up on your feet, and find you a new direction.”
Buddy was looking at Toss by the time he’d quit talking with a light lit up in his eyes. “Thank you, sir. I sure do appreciate it. I won’t let you down.”
“No, I don’t reckon you will. There’s no job here that’s not important, neither. Everything you’ll do will add to running this farm right, and taking good care of the horses. If you do your work well, I’ll give you more opportunity, too.” They were walking then, toward the yearling barn, rolling their cigarette butts between their fingers, shredding tobacco on the ground. “Josie tells me you want to be a trainer.”
“Yes-sir.”
“Then you’ll need to work for a real good trainer who can teach you what gets handed on from one down to the next. ’Course, sometimes I think a groom can have as big a part in how a race horse performs as most trainers or jockeys.”
“You do?”
“Yep. But one thing I know for sure is that what a horseman needs, man or woman – trainer, groom, or jockey – on top of the hard work, is some kind of instinct. Some blood-born feeling for the horse itself. For who each one is, and what they feel and think. I’ve seen some who have it for a lotta horses. Others for only one or two. Whether you got that, I don’t know. I don’t have it like I’ve seen with some folks. I just got enough to do what I do pretty good. Great trainers, they got lots, and it don’t get passed on in the blood. You study the stud books?”
“Some. Over to Keeneland, at the racecourse library.”
“You better study ’em plenty. We got stacks in Jo’s house in the study. You can borrow ’em in the evenings if you bring ’em back in the morning.”
“Thank you. I’ll do that. There’s one other thing, Mr. Watkins.” Buddy was looking worried again, shifting from one foot to the other, his lank sandy hair blowing across his eyes.
“Yeah?” Toss stopped and looked at him, trying not to smile.
“I got me a four-year-old mare. The barn I worked at before this last one, that barn went belly-up, and the owner give me the mare ’stead of my back pay. Could you see your way to me bringing her here, and letting her run with the broodmares? You could take something out of my pay. She’s over at my dad’s now, and it’s real inconvenient if I move clear over here to go back and forth to take care of her. She’s got real good ground manners, and better breedin’ than I ever thought I’d own.”
“Well… I reckon that’s okay. I won’t take your pay, but I’ll give you extry to do. There’s something else I meant to tell ya too. The manure spreader’s been acting up. The power take-off’s goin’ bad. The shaft’s starting up too easy. Engaging too quick. Spinning the blades sooner than you’d expect when you’re trying to set it in gear. I’ll be working on it later this week, but you need to be real careful.”
“Yes-sir, I surely will.”
“You see Josie when you got here?”
“Stopped by the house to ask where you was. She’d been typing at the kitchen table, but it looked like she was fixin’ to leave.”
“Nuts. I meant to ask her to pick up pig wire. I want to put a second layer up above the siding in Tuffian’s aisle-way wall.”
Because of Buddy, Jo hadn’t had to help feed horses, or turn them out, so she fed the puppy she’d decided to call Emmy, and watched her run around the side yard, while she phoned the neighbors to find out if they’d lost her, and found out none of them had. Then she made up her mind to call Alan Munro.
She hated to bother him at Equine Pharmaceuticals, and she hated to be the one to phone first to begin with (though why she wasn’t sure), but she didn’t see that she had a choice.
She felt awkward, but she got it done. And he was perfectly reasonable about it. He seemed glad to hear from her, and happy to meet with Jack, and asked if she’d have dinner with him that night to tell him what she knew about Jack before he went to meet him.
She thought about Jack herself while she saddled Sam, but forgot about him while she and Sam wandered cross country. But when she was standing in the small broodmare barn shortly before five, having just put Sam in his stall, she was back thinking about Jack.
She’d found a scrap of paper in the tack room, and was writing herself a list of questions she’d like to get Jack to answer – when Sam reached over the stall door and took her sleeve in his teeth, gently pulling her toward him.
She laughed and rubbed his face – before Sam grabbed her paper and rushed to the back of his stall. He looked over his shoulder at her, the small piece of paper dangling from his lips, which made Jo laugh out loud.
“Hey, give that back! You think you’re pretty funny, don’t you?” Jo went in and rubbed behind his ears, and he dropped the scrap on his straw bedding, before he licked the sleeve of her shirt.
Jo scratched his withers for him, and talked to him for another minute, feeling better than she had all day.
They’d already ordered, in the restaurant of the Lafayette Hotel, where a bottle of Burgundy Alan thought well of sat opened on their white linen tablecloth, ready for him to pour.
Jo had dressed up for the first time since the funeral in high heels and a good black suit with a café-au-lait silk blouse. She’d wrapped her hair up in a half-chignon so the ends curled on one side, and she’d worn the cream-colored jade earrings Tommy had brought her from Hong Kong when she’d graduated in Architecture from the U. of M.
Alan had grinned at her, at her front door, and said, “You look nice. I hardly recognize you without Tom’s sweater.” Which meant that later, at the Lafayette, when Jo smiled at the dinner table, Alan asked, “What’s so funny?”
“Your smart remark about Tommy’s sweater. If you hadn’t asked extremely intelligent questions in the car, I might not—”
“Did I?”
“When I told you about Jack. I might not think you’re a serious person.”
“Oh, I’m serious alright. Many have said too serious. Most of them women.” Alan unbuttoned his navy blue jacket and smoothed his dark gray tie, as he smiled across at Jo.
“You don’t look like you care a whole lot.”
“No? Maybe it depends on the woman.”
“So you think women are frivolous?”
“Some are. Some aren’t. Just like men.”
“True.” Jo nodded, and changed the subject, asking if he always ate in restaurants as nice as the Lafayette’s.
“Hardly ever. I thought one night of good food and fine French wine might do both of us good.” He poured the Burgundy, as their soup arrived, and looked at her appraisingly.
Which made her feel even more self-conscious than she had when he’d knocked on her door. “So when do you think you’ll go and see Jack? I saw him for a little while this afternoon and he seems to be doing better.”
“Tomorrow after work, if I can. Have you listened to much of Tom’s tape?”
“I listened to some of the training part. Who was the ‘Shanghai Buster’?”
Alan laughed, before he said, “William Fairbairn. Better known as ‘Fearless Dan.’ He was a British Army Captain who came up through the ranks of the Shanghai police during the twenties and thirties. He created the first S.W.A.T. team, and developed a hand-to-hand combat system that combined his own version of street fighting with traditional jujitsu.”
“Were you and Tommy trained by him?”
“Yes. Most of us were. In what he called gutter fighting. He was a small guy. With big glasses. Who was deceptively unthreatening looking. He actually taught us to fold a newspaper into a knife that could kill.” Alan sipped his Burgundy, and passed Jo the rolls.
“Really!” Jo was staring at Alan – the strong face, the dark hair, the green eyes watching her back, the thin white scar in the ten-o’clock shadow on the left side of his jaw. “You don’t look like a hardened killer.”
“Did Tom?” Alan smiled, then ate the last of his lobster bisque.
Jo said, “No,” after she’d thought about it. “But I knew from experience he was plenty tough. You never met Jack?”
“Nope. Our paths never crossed. So why haven’t you listened to the rest of Tom’s tape?”
“I’m working on it now. I needed time to miss him. To get over it a little before hearing him tell me the horrible things he had to live through.”
“Has he talked about himself much?”
“No. Actually. Now that you mention it, he’s talked more about the people he met.”
“That’s what I would’ve thought.
“So what did you do?”
“In the war?”
“Yes.”
Alan didn’t answer. He took a first bite of leg of lamb, and another sip of wine. He gazed at his plate, at the table, at the wine, swirling it slowly in his glass, without once looking at Jo. “I’m not allowed to talk about it.”
“Okay. Then how do you know about French wines?”
“My mother’s French, and I’ve spent time there. She teaches French in a high school in Schenectady, New York. My dad works for G.E. as an aeronautical engineer. I have three sisters. Two older. One younger.”
“Were you in France during the war?”
Alan paused for a second, before he said, “Yes.”
“That must’ve been scary.”
“Especially for someone as mild-mannered as I?” Alan’s eyes smiled even if his mouth didn’t, as he poured her more wine. “You do what you have to do, Jo. We were everyday guys. From every possible niche in society. From every part of the country.”
“So what can you tell me about what you did?”
“All I think I can say is that when the U.S. Army was moving into an area, I’d help them establish local civil governments. There were a lot of political factions inside France, in and out of the Resistance, and I tried to help sort things out.”
“That couldn’t have been easy. Trying to figure out what was going on, and who was telling you the truth, and not trample on French toes.”
“That would be an understatement!” Alan laughed and shook his head, before he cut a forkful of lamb. “Bob Harrison seems to like you.”
“Are you trying to change the subject?”
“No, but—”
“He and my dad were really good friends. How do you like working in a family business?”
“I like it so far. Though it’s too early to tell long term. The family part is interesting.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet it is.”
“Do you know anything about the son?”
Jo looked left and right, as though she was afraid of eavesdroppers, before she said, “I’m not allowed to talk about it.”
“Very amusing.”
“Sorry. I couldn’t resist. Anyway, I don’t know Brad well, but it’s always seemed to me he wasn’t really interested in the business. I know he was kind of coddled as a kid. He had some sort of health problems. Nothing serious I don’t think, but he didn’t do any sports, and he didn’t work too hard at anything he tried.”
“Thanks. That actually helps.”
“Miss Grant?” A short, plump, middle-aged waiter was walking up to the booth carrying a plug-in phone. “A gentleman wishes to speak with you.”
It was Buddy Jones calling to tell Jo her Uncle Toss had been kicked by Tuffian, and he’d taken Toss to the hospital and was calling from there.
“Toss’s one leg is broke in a couple places, and the other leg’s hurt some too from a real nasty double-barrel kick. A truck backfired, or a gun got shot or somethin’, over toward the road, and Tuffian, he twirled around and kicked out. Mr. Toss had just got his lead rope on him, and was fixin’ to lead him to the gate. They’re operating on Mr. Toss now, and they say it’ll take a good long while.”
Alan watched Jo pace the corridor, high heels clicking on the vinyl tile, as she waited for the surgeon to tell her about Toss.
She flopped down eventually in the plastic chair next to Alan, and crossed one good-looking leg over another, swinging it fast while she shifted in her seat. “You see what this means, don’t you?”
“To Toss, or you?” Alan smiled when he said it.
But Jo didn’t look as though she’d noticed. “I’m really sorry this happened to Toss. I am. But we’ve still got mares foaling. We’re trying to get yearlings ready for the July sales. And how can Toss even live on his own if both legs are hurt? He’ll probably be in a wheelchair for weeks. Though that’s hard to imagine, for anyone who knows Toss.”
“Miss Jo?” Buddy was back from calling his wife, standing in front of her chair.
“Thanks for taking care of Toss, Buddy. Did you drive him, or get an ambulance?”
“Drove. You want me to take his truck on back and do the late-night rounds, or you want me to wait for you?”
Alan said he’d be happy to drive her home.
So Jo asked Buddy to check every mare and baby the way Toss did at night, then fill buckets and feed more hay. “Is Walter coming in to help, in case somebody foals?”
“Yep. Oh, I meant to tell ya too, some lady come after supper, and rode Sam, and she’s gunna buy him. Her and Toss made a deal. She’s from over to Louisville, and she seemed like a real nice lady.”
“I see.” Jo was looking at Buddy as though that had been completely unexpected and might not actually be welcome. “Let Emmy out too, okay? Walk her around and make sure she pees, and then put her back in the pantry.”
“Sure.”
“Thanks, Buddy.”
“I’ll get goin’, and talk to you later.”
Jo got up and followed him down the hall, then came back and paced some more, before she sat back down.
“You didn’t look too happy about Sam getting sold.” Alan was smiling at her like an older brother who knew something she didn’t.
“It’s not that. You just never know how some stranger will take care of your horse. Sam deserves a good home.”
“That’s what Tom thought too. You want a cup of coffee?”
“I do. Thanks.”
“Could I see Sam one more time when I drive you home? I don’t know anything about horses, but I’d actually like to learn to ride. It comes from watching Tom and Sam. You take your coffee black, right?”
Five minutes after Alan went off, a tall, bony, tired looking doctor with a surgical mask hanging around his neck walked down the hall toward Jo. “You’re here with Mr. Watkins?
“Yes. I’m Jo Grant, his niece.”
“He came through surgery fine, but he’s got a compound fracture of the left tibia. That’s the larger bone in the lower leg. We had to put in screws that we’ll take out later. The right femur, the thigh bone, is cracked too. He should be fine in the long run. He’s strong as an ox, but recovery’s going to take awhile. He’s got casts on both legs.”
“When do you think he’ll come home?”
“Maybe tomorrow, or the day after. He’ll be in recovery most of the night. You might as well go on home and call us in the morning.”
Alan parked by the house so Jo could change before they headed to the barns.
It was a clear night, and the sky was endless – the half moon milky and soft, the stars burning crystals, the breeze warm on their skin.
They walked slowly, both of them looking up in amazement – till Alan asked Jo what bothered her most about Toss getting hurt.
Jo stopped in her tracks, and Emmy the puppy, being led on a lead to keep her from the horses, ran into the back of Jo’s paddock boots and fell right on her nose. “That’s an odd way to put it.”
“Possibly. But still. What about Toss?”
“I feel sorry for him. It’ll be miserable getting over this, but Toss is tough, and he won’t complain once. The trouble will be holding him down.”
“But?”
“I don’t want to stay home and run the farm, and not go see the architecture I’ve been wanting to see for years. I was going to be gone for a month or more. But now there’s Toss needing help, and a puppy he wants he can’t take care of, plus Jack Freeman to worry about.”
“What’ve you got against dogs?”
“Nothing. I love dogs. I want one again, just not right now.”
“I can help with Jack some, but not much with Emmy. I’m gone all day long.”
“You don’t even know me. Why should you go out of your way at all?”
Alan laughed and said, “Aren’t we supposed to?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I also know you better than you think. I told you Tom talked about you. I could even retell some entertaining anecdotes from your earliest youth. Like the time he jumped out from behind a tree when you were riding—”
“Don’t. Please.” Jo didn’t laugh the way she usually would have. She just walked on in silence.
“So what else is it? You’re put out about something.”
“I’m tired of being everybody’s nurse! I nursed my old horse for ten months, hours everyday. That was fine, I wanted to. I loved him more than I can explain to anyone who hasn’t had a horse like Jed. But I was taking care of Mom as well, part of that time. She was a great mother, and father too, for a lot of years, and my best friend by the time I was in college. But she wasn’t herself, and she was sick for two years. Then Tommy died, and I was still reeling, and Jack appeared with pneumonia. I feel like I’m a hundred years old, and I’ve never gotten to live my own life!”
Alan said, “It must’ve been hard when—”
“I want to educate myself better than I can with architecture books, and then do work that’s worth doing!”
“You should want to do work you care about. It’d be a waste if you didn’t.”
“I ought to be thinking about Toss, I know that, and I will do everything that needs to be done, but I really wanted to get out of here and do something I want to do!”
Alan looked at her sideways for a minute as though he were considering how much to say. “There’ve been times in my life when I had very definite plans for the future. For something that was really important to me that I thought was worth doing, and one thing after another kept me from doing it. But when I’ve been able to look back on those times, I’ve seen that what came out of that was what should’ve happened. That for some good reason, it was worth it. That real good came out of it that I think was intended.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Is that the lesson for the day?” Jo was hurrying faster than she had been, and Emmy had to run to keep up. But then Jo sighed, and looked at Alan, as she switched on the barn lights from just inside the door. “That was a snotty thing for me to say, when you—”
“No, don’t worry about it. There he is! Even I can recognize Sam.”
Sam was blinking, trying to adjust his eyes to the light, looking from Jo to Alan – until he saw sugar cubes on Alan’s palm and picked them up, one at a time, carefully, between his lips. He crunched the cubes quietly, with a far away look in his eyes, while Alan stroked his neck and talked to him about Tom.
Emmy was in her box in the pantry, whining pathetically, when Jo finally got into bed. Emmy settled down in five or ten minutes, but Jo couldn’t shut her brain off and make herself sleep. She got up at two, took Emmy outside to avoid accidents, made herself a large cup of cocoa, then sat at the kitchen table and turned on Tommy’s tape.
“…Then we were sent to an abandoned boys’ camp outside of D.C., where we did extensive training. It was called Area B then. Today it’s known as Camp David. That was where I first got to know Alan Munro.
“Alan was a chemical engineer, and they attached him to the Research And Development branch that invented gadgets and special weapons needed for covert warfare. It was a safe job State-side that plenty of guys would’ve wanted.
“If you ever get to know Alan, Josie – and the day finally comes that he’s free to talk about what we did – ask him about his work on the gadgets called ‘Casey Jones’ and ‘Aunt Jemima.’ Most of what they did didn’t require what he was best at, though, at least in his opinion, and after not very long, he talked the muckety-mucks into letting him switch to an Operations Group. The O.G.s were basically commandos, and Alan parachuted into France shortly before the invasion. He blew up bridges, took out railroads and phone lines, and used the Casey Jones he’d help invent to blow up enemy trains. It was dangerous work, believe me, that he’s rarely talked about since.
“He speaks French really well. Why I’m not sure. Anyway, after the invasion, he was attached to a U.S. Army unit in France to help referee the process of setting up local governments.
“There was armed conflict still going on between the political factions in the Resistance in whatever area he was in. I don’t remember which now, but this I do know. Some French woman, who, as it turned out had been wrongly accused of being a collaborator, someone who’d actually worked undercover for the O.S.S., Alan saved her from a live grenade. He threw himself on top of her when he saw what was happening, and that’s how he was wounded in the leg, the shoulder and the head.
“I know he nearly died, but he’s only mentioned it once in passing. I know what I know from a buddy of his. Alan spent a year or two in U.S. hospitals getting put back together. And something else happened in the hospitals that affected him significantly, though I don’t know what that was. Alan’s quiet to begin with, and rarely talks about himself.”
Jo thought, There speaks the pot, calling the kettle black. And turned off the tape.
Her face was hot – though the rest of her felt icy – as she heard herself telling Alan why she wanted to do what she wanted, and not stay with Toss.
There was a hard, heavy weight in her chest that shifted painfully when she thought about Alan and what he must think of her. Which irritated her too, as she sat and held Emmy in her lap – till Buddy knocked on her kitchen door and made her jump in her chair.
“We gotta call the vet out. Brown Berry’s water broke, and the foal’s stuck good.” Buddy’s face was smeared with blood and manure, and his eyes were tense and tired.
“I’ll call Woodford’s, and meet you at the barn. I’ll make us a pot of coffee too.”
“Thanks.”
“When’s the lady coming for Sam?”
“Tomorrow, from what Toss said. What time I don’t know.”