The Starr Ann Chronicles

Walkin' After Midnight

2011-12-29T08:59:00.007-05:00

My best friend Starr Ann (hi, Starr Ann) ordered me not to write about this. Heh. Good luck with that dream of bossing me around, Starr Ann.

So, what she has told me about her long, erstwhile unexplained absence makes the kind of sense that is understandable mainly due to the texture of the explanation itself, which means that maybe only two people (Starr Ann and me) will actually get it. But since I've been told not to spread it around, here we go.

According to Starr Ann, she was lounging in one of her bunkers on a rainy afternoon when she had a small epiphany that kinda gained momentum when she wasn't looking and turned into a major personal revelation. Jodie's book was finished and she'd already told Starr Ann that they'd come to a little crossroad in their relationship, so that pretty much set the stage for some big thinking on Starr Ann's part.

Anyway, without spending about 37 paragraphs on the connective tissue Starr Ann provided me with yesterday concerning her decision to up and leave for a while, I'll just cut to the chase and report her main takeaway from this past year of being gone.

Starr Ann said, "Basically, Margo, you and I have only been posing as orphans all our life."

She put up her hand for me to just stop and listen before objecting to such an odd statement. Okay, I could do that.

Starr Ann continued, "See? We've always had each other and you and I both know that nothing in the way of a conventional family could have ever been as good as what we had. We've had the incredible luck of being able to define and invent our entire life and the way we experience it. Which has had two big effects. Number one, we go through life like we own the place - a nice thing for us, but I think we might have to admit that it might not be the most comfortable situation for the other people in our lives to find themselves in. And B, we both truly think that every day is going to play out like a country music song. We demand intensity, colorful language, hard work, high emotion and the glorious smell of hay mixed with manure each and every day. And we expect all that to come riding into our consciousness on the voice of Patsy Cline."

When Starr Ann paused for a second, it took every particle of restraint I had to simply say, "Okay, I'm with you so far."

Turns out I made the right move, because she went on, "In that bunker that afternoon, I got hit with a strong need to go out on my own, experience the world outside the shelter of the world we constantly create for each other. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah. But a whole year?"

"Well, it took a minute to get acclimated to it all, Margo. I mean, I'm so used to our way of looking at things, there was a fairly steep learning curve."

"Starr Ann, I can't believe you just said 'learning curve.'"

She just nodded her head real thoughtful for a few seconds. "Musta picked that up out there in the world. Don't be surprised if once in a while I do something politically correct, too, Margo. I'm sure I'll be able to get rid of those habits, but it might not be instantaneous."

"You just said 'instantaneous.'"

"Heard it."

Long story shorter than if I continued to write down exact quotes, Starr Ann decided her epiphany was actually one of those inside-out kinda things, where the part she was beginning to think needed fixing was actually the part that wasn't broken. We finished off the evening out in the barn with the horses, dancing and swooning to every Patsy Cline CD on the place, then right after midnight, we went for a long, long walk in the woods.

Pregnadigitation

2011-12-27T08:25:00.008-05:00

The morning after Starr Ann's return from her long, unexplained absence, I woke up so happy, just full of the joy in knowing she's finally home. I found her down in the kitchen, wearing the same clothes from the night before and looking all revved up already, like maybe she hadn't even gone to bed.

Starr Ann confirmed that by telling me about how, after I went to sleep, she'd gone down to the barn to love on the horses and they'd had an elaborate nostril-smelling festival that lasted for about half the night. All smiling and everything, Starr Ann said, "Even Trickster, Margo! Even Big Mare Trickster couldn't get enough of smelling my breath and shouldering into me. Made me wish I hadn't eaten the rest of that real garlic-y leftover pizza you had in the fridge. But the horses didn't seem to mind."

Oh. Dang. "Uh, that pizza was about a month and a half old, Starr Ann."

She shrugged and said, "Well, it kept well. Either that or I had a powerful hunger."

"I'd say it was door number two, Starr Ann, because it didn't start out with any garlic flavor."

That seemed like a good time to change the subject, so I got some coffee and settled in to let Starr Ann turn her unexplained absence into one that was fully explained and made perfect sense.

She shrugged again and said, "Nothin' to tell."

"Oh, yeah right, Starr Ann. I'm totally going to just accept that as an answer and pretend like you haven't been missing in action for almost a year. Totally gonna do that, because frankly, my curiosity has withered and died over the course of that year. And nobody else in town's gonna be the least bit inquisitive about where you've been, so I'm positive I won't get asked a million times about where you've been and what you've been up to all this time."

"Anybody asks, just tell 'em something outrageous to get 'em off the scent. Pretty soon they'll forget all about their original question."

"Right again, Starr Ann. What on earth could distract people from the mystery of your crazy, unexplained absence?"

Starr Ann arched her lower back, making her stomach push out forward. Then she did a too-good imitation of the way a pregnant lady will rub her flattened hand in circles on her baby belly. "Start up a rumor that I'm with child. People will be so busy waiting for me to start showing, they'll forget all about the other question." Starr Ann cast a real loving look down at her belly. "Then, in a few weeks the new television season will start up, or some Kardashianic emotional or cosmetological disaster will occur and my drama will be old news that's instantly forgotten."

"To start with, how in the world would I explain you getting pregnant? It's too far outside the realm of possibility."

"Margo, with the way you've practiced playing tricks all your life, I can't believe you said that. Let me give you a hint to get you going - a wild party, a turkey baster and a misguided drinking game." Starr Ann was still massaging her tummy and looking at it like she could see right through the muscle tissue, where the cutest, most wonderful thing she ever saw in her life was floating blissfully in a tiny hot tub full of amniotic fluid. Without looking up, she said, "I'd like for us to name her Cameron."

"You're a freak, Starr Ann."

"Cameron. Just like that. No Cam or Cammy. Promise me we'll make sure people always call her Cameron, Margo."

"Sure. And if she, as an infant, has a hard time saying it right, we'll belittle her and call her a loser until she drops the baby talk and says "Cameron" with clarity and precision."

Starr Ann just waved off my sarcasm. "And, Margo, I want us to homeschool her for until she's 3 years old."

"Three? What the heck age do you think normal kids start school? The only reason it seemed like we went to school while we were still eating baby food was because the nuns had a whole orphanage full of us and there was no place else for us to stay in until first grade. Kids with families don't get homeschooled before the age of three. Before that it's just called being home."

"Margo, I can already see that you and I have important issues to get decided before Cameron's arrival."

As I watched Starr Ann change the direction of her belly circles and start rubbing counterclockwise, I could feel that I was getting kinda mesmerized by the motion, but couldn't help myself. Then, just like turning off a light, Starr Ann stood up straight, dropped her hand to her side and tucked her butt the way she usually wears it.

When I finally started getting my bearings back, I was about to restate my question about her long, unexplained absence, when I realized that Starr Ann was already putting together one of her awesome omelettes cooked in butter and shaped like a turtle, just like I like 'em.

Tomorrow, I'm sure I'll be able to force all the details of that unexplained absence from that girl.

In The Zone

2011-12-25T19:45:00.006-05:00

After what seemed like a million months of searching for Starr Ann, I was carrying water to the horses this evening, and as I passed the low lit kitchen window, there she was - sitting at the kitchen table just as big as you please, concentrating real hard on what appeared to be a coloring book.

Well, I'd had too many versions of this dream - where Starr Ann just shows up all of a sudden - to get all excited or believe my eyes or anything. But, like always when I get these dreams, I tried with all my might to keep it from ending, barely breathing, doing whatever it took to keep the dream bubble from bursting. This time, I was able to stand there an awful long time without losing that Starr-Ann-is-home feeling. The feeling hung on through two crayon changes and one 90-degree tilt of the coloring book, the way Starr Ann always used to turn it to get what she called "an alternative view of the way the light will play with this particular shade." I almost said out loud, like I always used to, "For Goddess's sake, Starr Ann, it's crayon on cheap paper and I'm the only one who's ever going to have to look at it!" But I kept quiet for fear of dispelling the dream.

After an amount of time I can't even guess at, I realized I'd been standing there so long that the warm water I'd drawn for the horses had turned cold in the buckets and my arm sockets hurt real bad from the weight of it. So I put the buckets down as easy as I could and when that still didn't disturb the dream, I got a little more brave and took a couple of sideways steps toward the back door.

Finally, I went all the way into the kitchen and instead of seeing Starr Ann's image go all swirly and then waking up in my bed wishing it wasn't morning so soon, the thing that happened was Starr Ann turned halfway around in her chair, smiled her regular good old way and said, "Hey, Margo. I've been looking for you."

"You've been looking for me? Well, you couldn't have been looking very hard, because I've been right here most of the time. At least when I wasn't out scouring the hills for you, worrying myself half to death over what horrible thing could have happened to you, I've been here."

Starr Ann brushed some crayon flakes off the page and blew on it. For some reason, Starr Ann will blow on a freshly colored area, as if crayon color has to dry or something, which it doesn't of course. But she blew on the page and said, real casual, "Would you pass me the salamander crayon, please?"

Reflexively, and because I was off my usual guard due to the shock of apparently having Starr Ann back, I started to sort through the box, looking for the salamander crayon. Then it hit me. "Starr Ann, they don't make salamander colored crayons. What would that even be?"

Starr Ann got that one look on her face, the one where you realize in advance that what she says will only make sense if you give yourself over completely to her momentary slant on the world. She got that look on her face and said, "Good question. What would that color be? Let's see, this here is a cave salamander I'm coloring, which means, naturally, that it lives inside caves. More specifically, it lives in the twilight zone, and so..."

I had to stop her right there. "Hang on just a second, Starr Ann. How'd we get to talking about the Twilight Zone all of a sudden? And shouldn't we be hugging and kissing and crying over you being home all safe and sound? I mean, I've pictured your homecoming moment a million times and I swear, not one scenario involved us sitting here coloring and talking about the Twilight Zone. Unless! Holy crap, are you telling me you believe we've been stuck in the Twilight Zone all this time? Maybe this is still some weird dream. Is one of us crazy? Are we both crazy?"

Then Starr Ann calmly explained that caves are formally divided into zones, according to the amount of light that seeps into them. She even pulled up this diagram on the computer for me:

"As I was saying, Margo, since the cave salamander lives in the twilight zone, I'm thinking she's a bright color - some incredibly beautiful shade of yellow, maybe orange. Anyway, pass me the salamander, please."

What could I do? If Starr Ann is back, then the world according to Starr Ann is also in full swing once again. So I started sorting through the colors, and even though I spotted the salamander right away, I made a big production out of holding several crayons up and even carrying a couple of them all the way over close to the light bulb, just to aggravate Starr Ann, before handing her the orangish-red one that was perfect for an amphibian from the twilight zone.

Filly, Unnamed

2011-01-24T17:31:00.001-05:00

Knowing that my hunt for Starr Ann had to begin on the racetrack was a huge breakthrough. But still, finding a missing cowgirl can be real tricky. I guess that’s even true of searching for a regular cowgirl who doesn’t have even one-tenth of the personal originality my best friend Starr Ann (hi, wherever you are, Starr Ann) has. On top of that, the place where I just knew my quest had to begin – the racetrack backside – put an extra special spin on the whole situation. Long story short, when it came to locating Starr Ann, a sensible person woulda given me about as much chance as finding frilly underpants on a champion barrel racer in the dead of summer. But I had no choice.

The only way to be inconspicuous in a racetrack’s barn area is to be working. Working real hard. So, since none of the racetracks in Kentucky happened to be open at the time, I had to throw myself into an unfamiliar racetrack situation if I intended to follow my instincts about finding Starr Ann.

Besides missing Starr Ann like crazy, I wasn’t really all that emotionally prepared for a return to the world of horse racing where, by definition, horses are commodities and as with all commodities, there’s gonna be some scrap…

She was the little bay in the corner stall, circling and circling until she’d worn a bare-dirt path, like a tiny racetrack, in her straw bedding. The two things about her that first caught my eye were the manic circling and that she was a double for my beloved mare, Trickster - same color, same conformation, same head and not a white hair to be found anywhere on her. Except this dark, delicate yearling was finer of bone and twenty-one years younger than Trickster.

As is always the case, fear and insecurity were the source of the endless circles she walked. At the start of my first morning on the job, I only had time to stop for a second at her stall door and offer a few soothing words before meeting with the rest of my crew in the tack room, where we’d find out which horses we’d be grooming. I stopped outside her stall door just long enough to say, “Easy, baby. Everything’s all right. It really is.”

The meeting brought good news – I’d be one of the grooms working the eight horses on the west side of Barn 21, which meant that over the next four days, two other grooms and I would clean, feed, and water the little bay filly and the other seven yearlings in her stall block. We’d also spend the day repeatedly sprucing up the babies each time a potential buyer asked to have one of them paraded for inspection. This was the Keeneland September Sale, and I was working for one of the most prestigious (lots of people in the business would argue that it's THE most prestigious) stud farms in the world.

As we drifted out of the tack room meeting, those of us who didn’t work at the farm full-time introduced ourselves and we all made small talk on our way to the stalls. A pleasant girl from France (who’d been at the Kentucky farm for several months on a student visa) walked alongside me as I made a beeline for the little bay. This girl wasn’t a groom, but was there to hold the horses while they were being spiffed up and then walk them out for the buyers to inspect.

Pacing even harder by the time we got there, the little bay made no sign that she even knew we were at her door. I spoke softly to her as I eased the door open, trying to make myself as non-threatening as possible. Lise, the French girl, found a lead shank and came inside with me. I held the door so it wouldn’t bang, and stepped just outside to make room for her to get the lead on the filly. As I picked out brushes and other equipment for my box, I could hear the hay swishing inside the stall and then Lise led the baby out for me.

Once in the clear, in the open shedrow, Lise hauled off and kicked the filly under her girth and said to me, “This fucking bitch. I hate this fucking piece of shit.” The filly froze and so did I.

Finally, I looked around us to see that nobody paid any mind whatsoever to this atrocity.

Then I said, as evenly as I could muster, “I don’t hit horses, and I don’t want to see anybody else do it either.”

Lise jerked hard on the lead shank, although the yearling hadn’t made a single move. “Believe me, this bitch will kill you if you don’t make her mind.”

So much for the classiest stud farm in the world.

On her day in the sales ring, “my filly” only sold for $16,000. Even with the esteemed Smart Strike for a daddy, she was a late foal and simply hadn’t had enough time to grow or even show potential by September. And with a few horses in our barn going for upwards of two hundred thousand, I guess Lise and some of the others who continually treated my filly roughly and with disdain felt a measure of vindication for their low opinion of her.

Truth of it was, they were afraid of her, because just like Trickster before I met her, even though this filly lived in constant fear of what was going to happen to her next, she had the kind of fire nobody was ever going to stomp out. That kind of an attitude in even a comparatively small horse can be frightening. And in humans, fear often turns into brutality. Simple as that.

On my second day working for the classiest stud farm in the world, I slipped into her stall and promised the bay filly that I’d do all in my power to track her whereabouts for the rest of her life and make sure she didn’t end up homeless, or in a slaughterhouse.

Anyway, by the end of the sale, I still had no Starr Ann, but was carrying around an extra heartache over this filly, who was bought by a pinhooker, someone who only buys horses to turn them around for a quick dollar. I found the buyer on Facebook and sent her a message, but her page hasn’t been touched in over a year, and I never did hear anything back. All I know is that my filly shipped to a farm in Florida, most likely to grow a little and fill out. So, it’s a pretty good bet she had a pleasant winter, turned out with other horses.

Since she’s a thoroughbred, she can easily be tracked her whole life long – providing she receives a name. Each morning and each night since working for the classiest stud farm in the world, I’ve checked the Equineline Web site, typing in her year of birth and her dam’s name. Each morning and each night, the search results are the same:

Horse: Unnamed
YOB: 2009
Sex: Filly
Sire: Smart Strike
Dam: (Dam's name)

Time’s running out on us, though. All 2009 foals must be named by February 1, 2011. If she doesn’t have a name by then I’ve lost my only handle on her life, and on keeping my promise to her. The way that makes me feel has gotten all mixed up with how it feels to not be able to find Starr Ann. Almost like they’re connected in some way I have no way of understanding.

Anyway, I can’t shake the feeling that there’s a lot riding on February 1.

Slimy Jeans and Kale Greens

2011-01-05T11:39:00.002-05:00

Once Paladin and I were convinced we hadn't landed in the middle of some kinda synchronized nightmare, we sat there on the horses overlooking what should have been Happy Hands Ranch and let Starr Ann’s disappearance sink in. Finally, Paladin smooched a giddy-up to her horse Rusty and turned him back toward her place, saying, “First order of business is wrapping up that party at Riding Cowgirls Ranch.”

I turned Trickster around and followed without saying a word until we were about halfway there, but as we passed the dense wall of forsythia behind which a huge, mossy stone concealed the entrance to the very first underground bunker Starr Ann ever put in, the same hopeful thought simultaneously streaked through both our minds – DO STARR ANN’S BUNKERS STILL EXIST?

Seeing Paladin’s face brighten up, I said, “Holy Goddess! Do we dare look?”

Paladin was already out of the saddle and thrashing her way through the forsythia before I finished my question, so I just hopped off Trickster and started fighting through the brush too. At the comforting sight of that familiar old stone, we stopped short, and I doubt either of us took a breath until I cautiously crawled over the slippery green rock and peered down behind it. I nearly slid over the side at the sight of the door to Starr Ann’s underground shelter.

“It’s here! It’s here! Paladin, you gotta come see!”

Looking as overjoyed as me, but also eyeing the gunky moss smeared all over my jeans, Paladin said she was gonna take my word for something just this once.

I said, “This discovery is as good as I think it is, right? I mean, it’s a link to Starr Ann! We’re right to be excited about this, aren’t we?”

Paladin remounted Rusty and thought for a few minutes before saying, “Margo, that question begs for an objective answer. But my gut is telling me we, and especially you, need to get out of the habit of being logical and taking things at face value. For one thing, it’s not your natural born way of interfacing with the world. Understand what I’m saying?”

Even though it cracks me up when Paladin says things like "interfacing with the world," I did unnerstand. So my reply was, “Yep. Now let’s get back to that party and thank everybody for showing up, but tell ‘em we’ve got ourselves a delicate crisis to manage and it’s time to turn off the lights.”

By the time we reached Riding Cowgirls Ranch, things were laid out pretty solid in my mind and I told Paladin that once everybody had gone home we’d be way overdue for something to eat and for some reason I was craving the living crap right out of a big pot of kale greens. Also, I’d decided that once our bellies were full of kale greens I was heading out on Trickster, the only part of my life I really had left to my name. And since it was rational thinking that got Starr Ann all missing in the first place, I’d be striking out to look for her in one of the last most illogical, confounding, poetic and conflicted places I could think of.

That’s right! Trickster and I would begin our search for Starr Ann on the backside of the racetrack.

My Last Unclear Memory...

2011-01-04T15:31:00.001-05:00

The night after we got back from that cattle drive last April, my best friend Starr Ann (hi, wherever you are, Starr Ann) and I rode over to Paladin’s spread, Riding Cowgirls Ranch. Well, we found Paladin at Home, minding her business, and she invited us to come on in for supper, which struck us kinda funny, as Paladin doesn’t know how to cook. I mean, seriously. Does. Not. Know. How. But since we weren’t one bit hungry, we said supper sounded great!

Right in the middle of us eating whatever that was, all these people started arriving. Very bright, innerestin’ people who were just crackling with passionate ideas and conversation. At one point early on, Starr Ann elbowed me and whispered, “Have you noticed that each person here is queer?”

I said, “Like, queer ‘odd’ or queer ‘our kinda people’?”

“Our kinda people, Margo.”

It took about three seconds of looking around to realize Starr Ann was right. Well, except for the lone straight guy over by the sink nipping from his own bottle of bourbon and discussing Nietsche with a portrait of Paladin’s great grandfather. Other’n him, we had ourselves a regular LGBTQ-XTRVAGANZA going.

There was something in the air for sure that night. My main impression of it is the striking originality of some of the ideas people brought up and the sparkle in everybody’s eyes when they talked. Beyond that, the several months (almost a year!) that followed seem almost dreamlike. I remember expressing my own thoughts in the most linear fashion I’d ever done in my whole life.

That’s when something real unusual started happening, only at the time, I didn’t pick up on it. Didn’t pick up on it until it was way too late. It’s one of those things where, looking back it’s so easy to spot, but when you’re bumping saddlebags with it, you just can’t see it.

Anyway, the more I took part in this linear expression of important ideas, the less I ran into Starr Ann at that impromptu party. Finally, about ten months into the festivities, I realized I had neither seen nor heard from Starr Ann for many weeks. Needless to say but I’m gonna say it anyway, I got a little panicky as I ran all over Riding Cowgirls Ranch in search of my best friend Starr Ann.

Finally, I met up with Paladin and breathlessly asked her the last time she’d seen Starr Ann.

Paladin said, “Funny, but I was coming to ask you that very question. I don’t like this, Margo. Let’s take off for a while.”

When we saddled up with the intention of riding over to Happy Hands Ranch to see if maybe Starr Ann had simply gone home for a few months’ rest, the next layer of surreality came to our attention: We couldn’t find Happy Hands Ranch! The beautiful place where Starr Ann and I had spent so many years trying to figure things out had vanished.

All the old trails were intact. The lake was there. That creek running between Paladin’s ranch and ours was still tumbling merrily over its bed. But those things no longer led to Happy Hands Ranch or to Starr Ann.

I didn’t want to say anything in haste, especially while I was still feeling kinda shocky, but my gut feeling was that this had something to do with linear thinking and logical expression.

The exact same thing musta been twirling around in Paladin’s mind, because as we tried following the old mail trail up hedgehog hill one more time and again crested the ridge to find uncut forest where Happy Hands Ranch shoulda been, Paladin said, “Margo, I’ve come to the conclusion we’ve let ourselves get critically deficient in Vitamin I. We’re experiencing a major episode of Imagination deficit.”

I said, “You’re still talking all linear and logical and using complete sentences and stuff.”

Paladin looked down where Starr Ann and the ranch shoulda been and said, “That needs correctin’, podnah.”

Well, I thought she went a little overboard, especially since she doesn’t normally have as relaxed a way of talking as Starr Ann and I do, what with her being from California and everything, but at least it was a start.

Whatever it takes, I’ma find my best friend Starr Ann. I don’t care if I have to wreck syntax from here to the county line and personally rummage through each and every bunker that may or may not still exist in these Kentucky hills, Starr Ann and I will once again live, love, ride and giggle on our very own Happy Hands Ranch again. And I seriously doubt there'll be anything logical or linear about it.

Coming In Ceremony - Part Two

2010-01-02T11:19:00.001-05:00

"We must prepare you to meet Antonia, our Chief's only daughter," Suckmewet said, as she urged us to move more quickly toward a tall tent at the heart of camp.

The ground no longer felt real solid under our feet, and the little fires burning all around us turned from red to amber in a single exhale as I replied, "Antonia? I thought you said the Chief's daughter was called Sitting Face."

Smiling as she gathered the tent flap and held it aside, Suckmewet motioned for Starr Ann and me to bow forward and enter. "Tonight we will lift the veil of this world's horizon and so will be called by our eternal names. I am Diantha."

Starr Ann didn't seem at all like herself as we took the places we somehow knew were for us around the golden central fire, its fumes jetting up through the smoke hole in a column so tight we could barely smell the pungent burning pine tinged with hickory sweetness. Most of the Trib Tribe were already gathered in that warm, close space and I had the strongest feeling they'd been waiting for us to be brought inside, because as soon as our legs were folded, Renea gave us the kindest of looks and began to speak.

"Twice the Moon has overtaken the Sun since Antonia walked into the woods alone to be near the Goddess. On this appointed night, the Goddess has returned Antonia and the forest has provided us with two strangers, Antonia's Great Coming In gift."

Gracilia started passing around a pipe and when it got to us, we passed it without joining in, saying we'd rather not smoke, and Leto, you could tell, was about to object. But Melete just smiled and moved quietly off to the side, saying, "We respect your ways," and uncovered a tray of brownies. Setting the tray down before us, she asked if that was a suitable form.

By the time the pipe had circled around four times and gone out, Starr Ann and I had finished off half of those brownies. There was a small commotion over by the flap, and Natalia got real busy clearing away the pipe and our tray. Then she sprinkled something on the fire that caused it to crackle and flare, but left the scent of sunlight, tears and soil in the air.

I guess that distracted us so much we missed Antonia's entrance, because she was suddenly there, nestled comfortably in the place of honor on a blue and gold blanket, each member of the tribe looking at her the way you would a bird in flight, the first spring grasses, or mountain snow in the dead of summer.

Except for Starr Ann. The expression on Starr Ann's face reminded me of one that had briefly crossed it the first time we delivered a foal. I remember he'd been perfectly positioned for the dive into this world from the one before - front hooves first and easy, then a slowdown followed by the gush of everything else after his shoulders were free. Starr Ann was closest to his face and when she tore open the sac, her eyes met his in a look of such long-awaited recognition I could barely keep from crying.

That's how Starr Ann was looking at Antonia, with such recognition and loneliness. It was the sorrow in Starr Ann's eyes that made me have to turn away for a minute, though. My gaze settled on Antonia, who hadn't even glanced our way yet, she was so busy being attended to by the tribe, receiving gifts, exchanging brief greetings and an occasional kiss on the cheek.

Isaura took up two shells and began to tap them together in an easy rhythm. Natalia joined her with two hollow sticks, upping the volume and increasing the pace. Melete quickened it even more with two shiny stones, Gracilia and Renea added a pair of rock-filled gourd rattles each, Leto crashed a crude cymbal, and Diantha beat a kettledrum so fast and loud the tent and all of us inside became one huge pulsing instrument. Then it all fell to silence on a single beat, leaving behind a tent full of wild beating hearts and the Chief's only daughter staring at Starr Ann with such long-awaited recognition, I could barely keep from crying.

In the insulated silence, Antonia spoke softly and clearly. "Although I turned from you, I have always remembered."

Starr Ann's voice wavered some as she said, "It was a different, more dangerous time."

"Ah, yes. But you sacrificed everything and still I denied us." There was a shift in Antonia's eyes and she took a deep breath. "Of all the treasures the Goddess offered for my Great Coming In, the only thing of worth was seeing you again. Across all the lifetimes, you are still my storm and my shelter."

"And you are still my first glimpse of splendor."

Well, as if those were the magic words they'd all been waiting for, the whole tribe went back outside, where somebody had found time to lay out an extravagant feast. Starr Ann and I ate our fill, but since we felt our purpose in the ceremony had already been fulfilled, we rode on out with a full moon at our backs in unspoken agreement that it was time to turn our cattle drive for home.

Coming In Ceremony - Part One

2009-12-12T03:01:00.001-05:00

My best friend Starr Ann and I had been on the trail for over a month when we hit the Floyds Knobs foothills. Talk about some beautiful country! We were in it for sure.

As night was doing its best to fall, we kept passing one ideal spot after another until we rounded a rocky outcropping and found ourselves smack in the middle of the warmest, most enchanting little campsite imaginable. I guess we looked kinda surprised to find several tents grouped in bunches around four or five open fires, each one flickering and flaming underneath a serenely burbling pot.

Right away, our senses got into a tug of war where the tantalizing aroma of whatever was cooking pulled mightily against the quickly emerging realization that all the people around us were women. Real appealing women. Each one looking all inviting and smiling as if two half-starved lesbian cowgirls land in their midst at suppertime at least twice a week.

The one who'd been bending over stirring a pot right in front of us stood up so gracefully you wouldn't believe and moved even closer. Something about Starr Ann and me must have struck her as amusing, because her smile looked more like the affectionate kind than one you'd greet complete strangers with. She didn't shake our hands but instead reached down and took one of each of ours in each of hers and just held them lightly, but not tickly or anything, just the right pressure.

She had such dark hair and eyes I expected an accent, so when she gently pulled us a little closer to the fire and said, "My name is Suckmewet. Come," I thought for sure I was hearing her wrong. Then I saw the look on Starr Ann's face and realized no, that's what she said all right.

Hungry as we were for any food that wasn't beans and bread, Starr Ann and I both got distracted from the deliciousness in those pots as four of the others came over and introduced themselves. There was Dartingtongue, Clitdancer, Spreadingdoe and Cuntonfire. I was positive I'd never seen the others before in my life, but there was something about Clitdancer that I couldn't quite put my finger on.

Swear to the Goddess! They were all so pretty and graceful I'd have given anything to meet them under more hygienic conditions than we were in after four weeks on this dang cattle drive.

Cuntonfire must have read my mind, because she spoke up next, suggesting that since the food wasn't quite ready we could all go for a swim and afterward they could lend us something to wear. She also mentioned a celebration, but we didn't quite catch that because everybody was already undressing for the swim.

By the time Starr Ann and I were all clean and situated in dry clothes, we'd found out we were the guests of part of a long lost tribe of Indiana Indians who regarded the lesbians among their people to be sacred. The Trib Tribe, as the lesbians were called, lived apart from the main tribe and were fully supported by the main tribe's labors. Starr Ann and I thought that was real nice.

All while they'd helped us bathe, I mean swim, the women of the Trib Tribe kept alluding to the festival to be held in their camp that very night.

Finally, as we emerged from Slippitwatus's tent wearing clothes she'd so graciously offered, Starr Ann asked, "What's the occasion of your big celebration tonight?"

Real proud, Spreadingdoe said, "Tonight we welcome the Chief's daughter into the Trib Tribe."

And Dartingtongue reiterated, "You have arrived on a very special night. The Chief's daughter will learn many lesbian ways before the Sun next gazes over Earth's rim."

Before Starr Ann or I could get out even one of our many questions, we heard the sounds of swift horses approaching. Three more beautiful members of the tribe quickly dismounted, flushed and out of breath.

As they gathered themselves, Suckmewet made the introductions. "Margo and Starr Ann, these are the Rideme sisters - Ridemefast, Ridemehard, and Ridemenow."

I think we remembered to say it was nice to meet them.

Ridemehard was the first to speak, announcing the imminent arrival of the Chief's daughter, Sitting Face.

...to be continued

Grub For The Soul

2009-12-04T19:43:00.001-05:00

My best friend Starr Ann and I were a little gung ho at the outset of our cattle drive, I guess, because we made a pact to stop at no restaurants along the whole trail. Not even a health food store.

Not far across the Indiana line, I remembered Sanra, an innerestin' beauty from New Albany who'd once spent a whole summer working her brown-eyed magic on Starr Ann.

I said, "How many more nights you think we can eat campfire beans and bread for supper before we lose the will to live, Starr Ann?"

Starr Ann gave my saddle bag, the one with our food in it, a real sad look and said, "None."

Raising up in my saddle and scouting in all directions, I said, "Well, we're the ones in charge of this cattle drive, and I don't see any adults around to tell us we can't interpret our own rules any way we see fit."

That got a smile. "I'm listening, Margo."

"Well, if I'm not mistaken, Sanra Anerson lives not too far from here, doesn't she? So, what's to keep us from stopping by to say hello? Then, if she should invite us to supper or somethin', it'd only be polite to accept. A private home is neither a restaurant nor a food store. Just sayin'."

Starr Ann's so phony when she pretends to be weighing something that I know she's already made up her mind about. Anyway, I had to endure about eight minutes of fake indecision on her part before she said she was all in favor of paying Sanra a visit.

On the way, Starr Ann asked me if I recalled how the Anerson family were known for their idiosyncrasies. Like the way the parents omitted all the d's from their kids' names. Like the way Sanra's little brother Ominic used to eat wax paper.

That brought back a bunch of Sanra stuff, and I had to laugh as I added, "Yeah, and the way Sanra would pick the stupidest safewords, like 'baby' or 'Oh, God,' that were guaranteed to cause all kinds of weird misunderstandings." When Starr Ann didn't chuckle along with me about that, I said, "I cannot be held responsible for the fact that your bedroom is a mere twenty feet from mine, Starr Ann."

She couldn't argue with that, so she just changed the subject. "I wonder what she's having for supper tonight. The supper she'll surely invite us to join her for."

"Dang, Starr Ann, what if it's mashed potatoes with gobs of butter?"

Starr Ann licked her lips. "If that happens, it'll be proof there's a Goddess in heaven, Margo. Absolute proof." Then she cracked up laughing and said, "I'll never forget that time Sanra called you 'rectal' and you shot back at her that the word was 'anal' and she just walked away, smiling real sweet and saying, 'thank you, your honor, there will be no other questions.'"

"No, I can't say as I remember anything about that. Maybe you dreamed it, Starr Ann. Anyway, I'm thinking if it's not mashed potatoes, it might be oven-baked macaroni and cheese with the top cheese all brown and crusty."

"Or a big pot of vegetable soup with homemade bread."

"Or she might be having lasagna with hot Italian bread and a big green salad."

The moonless night had gone fully to black by the time we reached Sanra's place and I can't really express how disappointed we were to find that the inside of the house was just as dark as the outside.

I said, "Not much hope anything's cooking inside there, Starr Ann. Doesn't even look like Sanra's home."

All we could do for a few minutes was sit there and let it all sink in, realizing there was nothing to do but turn the horses around and head for that camping spot we'd passed about twenty minutes back. We felt like a couple of robots setting up camp that night - untacking the horses, feeding them, starting the fire, and preparing the dreaded beans and bread.

Neither of us had said a word for a long time, when just as we were about to start our meal, Starr Ann said, "What in the world is wrong with us, Margo!"

That seemed elementary. I ventured, "We're disappointed because we were all set for some of Sanra's delicious cooking and now we're having to choke down yet another plateful of beans and bread?"

Right then, Starr Ann's voice hit that one pitch, the one where I just know she's had herself an insight and she's bound and determined to make me have it too. She said, "And how pitiful is that? Don't you remember back when the economic crisis hit and we got up a big head of steam to face whatever the future might hold? Remember how we were ready to chop wood and carry water if that's what it took to get by? Remember how when the Recession or Depression arrived we thought it might bring with it a much needed correction to our society's trajectory? Remember how we were going to call it the Enlightenment?"

I was starting to see where this was going. "Yes I do, Starr Ann."

"Well, just because it looks like Wall Street isn't going to change, corporations will forever run our country, and having decent folks in the White House isn't enough to bring real change, all that doesn't mean you and I have to abandon our ideals. We've squeaked by with a whole lot less hardship than most people this past year, and here we are, on this great big voluntary adventure of a cattle drive, getting all discouraged over the food. Margo, are we cowgirls or not?"

I loaded a tin plate high with hot beans and broke off a nice chunk of the bread, handed it to Starr Ann and fixed another one for me. I took a big bite of beans and with my mouth full, I said, "We're cowgirls."

Starr Ann took a big bite of her food too and said, real thoughtful, "Hmmm, this tastes mighty mashed potatoey tonight."

I said, "You know, you're right. Delicious!"

Moment By Moment, In Rubicon Time

2009-12-03T03:01:00.001-05:00

To me and my best friend Starr Ann, crossing a bridge is as full of romance as opening a letter, dropping off to sleep, abandoning a desire, making eye contact with a stray dog or performing any act guaranteed to put you in a whole 'nother place.

Three weeks into our cattle drive, Starr Ann and I reached the Louisville side of the Ohio and stopped the horses for a few seconds to gaze down the long open air tunnel of cantilevered trusses. Starr Ann said, "I love the way a bridge is a hundred percent journey." Then she kissed at the horses to start them across.

We shifted slightly in our saddles as the horses angled upward with the bridge's gentle camber. Once clear of the bank below, we felt the cool push of river wind against our faces and heard it skim across the steel, concrete and cable it barely noticed in its endless hurry, which was eastward that morning.

At about the peak of the arch the wind picked up some, but Trickster and Oatmeal tucked their natural urge to quicken and stayed steady as anything, even as the level center started sloping down toward the Indiana bank. Then, with just a quarter of the bridge left, an adrenaline charge hit the horses right before we both noticed a man hanging way over the bridge rail up ahead. The horses were pent up bad and dancing hard by the time we drew up even with the man and saw the other pair of hands he was clasping over that railing, all four sets of knuckles strained white with the effort of pulling against the point of no return.

From what we can remember, both horses took the bit in their teeth and ran the rest of the way off that bridge as fast as they could. We finally reached the bright yellow welcome center on the Indiana side, jumped off the horses before they were all the way stopped, and ran inside breathing hard, talking way too loud and way too fast.

Starr Ann took a tight grip on both of my forearms and said, "We have to go back! We have to help!"

Just about in tears, I said, "I know! I know!"

But neither of us budged.

The girl behind the counter calmly turned off the soap opera she'd been watching. "Are you real cowgirls?"

We ran over to the counter and still out of breath, Starr Ann said, "There's a man on the bridge! He's..."

The girl waved her hand toward the door and said, "Happens all the time. Police are already up there. If you came over the bridge, you must have passed right by the squad cars. So, you're real cowgirls, right?"

I said, "We're on a cattle drive. Are you sure? I don't think we saw anything like police up there."

She said, "Positive," and straining her neck over toward the window, she bobbed her head in a counting motion. "Looks like five blue lights flashing up there. At least. Cattle drive?" She leaned over toward the other window. "I don't see no cattle. Oh, God, they must be in the back parking lot! So, how long you been on the trail? This is so cool!"

Starr Ann said, "It's hard to explain, but there are no actual cattle."

The girl narrowed her eyes for a second before smiling real big. "Then how come you smell like cows? And I mean that as a compliment."

I said, "That's horses you're picking up, cows smell way different."

Well, that thrilled this kid no end. "Only real cowgirls," she gave Starr Ann a pointed look, "with actual cattle, could sort out cow smell from horse."

Very graciously, Starr Ann motioned toward the door. "Feel free to check out back. No cows."

For a second she looked like she wanted to go look, but she didn't move. "No, you're real cowgirls, on a real cattle drive, and you've got a herd of cows out there all right, not a doubt in my mind about that." Then she went back to her program.

Starr Ann and I stepped back outside, mounted up, and rode North with the bridge at our backs, never turning to make sure about those blue flashing lights.

Codependency Rocks!

2009-11-30T20:00:00.001-05:00

My best friend Starr Ann thought it'd be cool to measure stuff all along our cattle drive, so before we set off she hopped on the Internet and ordered these gadgets for the horses to wear. They're supposed to count the number of steps the horse takes and calculate distance based on the length of the horse's average stride. I think she pretty much wasted her money, but you can't really tell Starr Ann a thing isn't going to work once she gets it in her head that it is.

So, as we bade farewell to Jodie and double-checked our bedrolls, Starr Ann got out the instructions and affixed one of the hoofometers to Oatmeal's tail.

I said, "Starr Ann, that can't be right. He's gonna poop right on that thing if you hang it there."

Any other time, Starr Ann would be the first one to tear up a set of written instructions, but since she was bound and determined these hoofometers were just what every cattle drive needed, she pointed to the diagram. Sure enough, it looked like she'd put it in the right place, but I still had to repeat, "Gonna poop right on it."

Then she just stood there not moving one muscle until I put the other hoofometer on Trickster.

It was around sunset when we got started, which prolly sounds like the exact opposite time of the day for a cattle drive to begin, but that part was my idea. I didn't want to be too far from the house when we bedded down for the first time, just in case we discovered we'd forgotten something, or if maybe sleeping on a bedroll under an ocean full of stars wasn't quite as cool as you'd imagine, or if it rained or something.

When we reached a spot that looked good for making camp, first thing Starr Ann did was check Oatmeal's hoofometer. Once she got the thing cleaned off good enough to read it, she looked up and asked me what Trickster's had registered.

As I checked Trickster's device I asked, "Did they charge you extra for this special poop adherent material, Starr Ann? Because I never really saw horseshit cling to anything quite like this." Then, since we were on the brink of an exciting, once in a lifetime adventure and I sure didn't want Starr Ann to have an attitude the whole time, I said, "Actually, it's kinda neat to think we'll be able to record the distance we travel each day. Okay, here we go, mine says 9 furlongs. Hey! Cute the way the units are furlongs."

I thought Starr Ann would be glad I had something good to say about her hoofometers, but she just got this deflated look on her face and said, "This one has 12 furlongs."

Dang! I hate to see that girl disappointed. So, all through setting up our campfire and cooking our meager supper of bread and beans, all through unrolling our bedrolls, I thought up reasons for that 3 furlong discrepancy - like how Starr Ann and Oatmeal had crossed the creek a little ways down from Trickster and me, which could have introduced several more steps to their total, the fact that Oatmeal's path around that one slope was lower and so longer than the path closer to the top, and a couple of other pieces of thin evidence that they really could have traveled that much farther than we did.

The hoofometers are junk, no doubt about that. But somehow, in the course of that first night on the trail, we'd switched around from Starr Ann defending the stupid things and me being all skeptical, to me coming up with every excuse I could think of in defense of their accuracy just to keep Starr Ann from feeling disillusioned.

I guess from the get-go our cattle drive had a little more codependency than you'd usually expect to find out on the frontier. Then again, there's a fine line between codependency and plain old loving somebody more than you love yourself.

Git Along Little Doggies

2009-11-29T20:00:00.001-05:00

Let's just say my best friend Starr Ann and I have been on a really long cattle drive, okay? And let's fire things up here again by us telling a few tall tales about all the amazing sights we saw out there in them wide open spaces.

First item to make very clear is that the cattle drive didn't involve any cattle. As vegetarians, if Starr Ann and I were going to hit the trail and drive anything to market it'd have to be soy burgers or hydrogenated whey or some other delicious form of off-the-hoof protein. So the cattle drive (wink, wink) was mainly just us traveling around meeting people, solving mysteries, and generally exploring possibilities.

We pushed along at the grueling pace of two or three miles a day, making it up the Ohio River along River Road, across the George Rogers Clark Memorial Bridge and into Indiana in just our third week!

By mid-summer, we were all the way up in Floyds Knobs (swear that's the name of a real place), and figured at that point the drive had achieved odyssey proportions, so we turned the herd (wink) for home. Got back early last week and now, after taking time to rest and recharge, I think Starr Ann and I are just about ready to start sharing our exploits.

But first, let's start off with an oldie but goodie to stir up them herding (nudge) instincts.

Grand Theft Equine - Chapter Twenty-Seven: Pari-Mutuel

2009-11-29T03:01:00.001-05:00

Previous chapters are available on the sidebar.

Oaks Day at the Downs, one day before the Kentucky Derby, was warm beyond unseasonable. The swarming media couldn’t stop themselves from repeatedly proclaiming it unreasonably warm. Almost as many fans showed up for the Oaks as for the Derby itself, as it was the traditional day for local society ladies to show off their stylishness, that being weighted heavily in the category of distinctiveness of hat.

Caulder Stables didn't have an entry in the feature, but Hannah's filly, Bolero Blouse, had scored a solid win in the fifth race, and was being cooled out while Hannah fussed over preparations for doing her up. Joan and Brie were kicked back in fold-up lawn chairs at the end of the barn, just outside the gap, where they could see the shedrow as well as watch the parade of those ladies in their finery who, through a connection with some barn or other, had made it onto the backside for a close-up look at the horses.

Cailen eavesdropped as she scooted behind their canvass seats on her way to Hannah's stalls with a tub of poultice. Joan and Brie had just watched Hannah traverse the seven stall-lengths from the corner to Bolero's stall.

When Hannah disappeared into the doorway and Bolero's deep straw bedding, Joan commented lazily, “Your woman doesn't simply walk, does she Brie?”

“No, she locomotes.”

“Good description.”

“And she pulls a fine caboose.”

“Indeed.”

Their heads pivoted in indolent unison as a tall woman, mostly legs, elegantly propelled a severely lined hat between their barn and Mitch's.

"Nice hat."

"Yes, nice hat."

Cailen passed in front of them, staring without comment. Hannah was checking Bolero's shins for heat and finding them cool as cucumbers when Cailen got down there with the poultice.

"Joan and Brie are in some weird mode, did you notice?"

Hannah nodded to the hotwalker to continue around with Bolero and looked down toward the lawn chairs. "What, are they doing one of their butch commentary things? They're so cute when they do that."

"I guess that's what it is." Cailen switched her puzzlement over Joan and Brie to a smile for Hannah. "You made the commentary just now."

"Little me? What did they say?"

“Joan said you don't merely walk, and Brie said you locomote. Then there was something about your caboose.”

With a hand to throat pose, Hannah breathed, "I am so honored."

There had been no word from Sassy yet. From the standpoint of her disappearance, it was as if Pennington's Lass did not exist. From the standpoint of the filly and her friends, she was very much in existence—a rollicking pony-filled one.

Hannah's report of the drop-off at Stevie's had brought them all to the verge of tears. She'd described Penny as the mama duck meeting up with her ducklings when she came off the trailer. One loud whinny from her brought all twelve of Stevie's ponies running, in a miniature cloud of dust, to the gate to greet her. When Hannah put her in with them, she bent to sniff at the top of each one's head before majestically leading the entire group around the pasture. Carefully orchestrated contacts with Stevie since then had confirmed Penny to be profoundly content as leader of the ponies. And Stevie was more than satisfied with the generous board Joan and Cailen insisted on paying. Penny was well and happily hidden for as long as would be necessary.

Unanimously, the four felons—Joan had dropped her opposition to Brie’s calling them that, arguing that the term was harmless unless it was preceded by ‘convicted,’ which it would never be in this case—had agreed to sit tight and allow Sassy the first move.

Sassy and Lara must have attended the Oaks, probably something Lara lobbied for, because their Rolls pulled up at the barn gap about twenty minutes after the race. Joan and Brie were still playing, now being openly heckled by Hannah and Cailen, who sat together with feet dangling over the half-wall.

"I'd swear you two were drinking, but I can't find the bottle anywhere."

"We're completely sober, angel. Fashion vigilance on Oaks Day is one of our long held traditions, that's all." The nose of the Rolls surfaced from around the office corner. "Shit! There goes the tradition for this year."

Sassy's smooth-mannered goon squired her out the back door and she turned to offer her own hand to Lara then kept them clasped as they walked together toward the lawn chairs. Sassy's chin was set at a defiant angle, probably her version of an imposing posture. Lara was in way over her head and it showed.

"Afternoon, ladies. Where are your hats?" Joan enjoyed holding all the aces. Between knowing what was on that voicemail tape and being quite prepared to turn over Sassy's horses to Car, the aces were indeed hers.

Sassy had braced herself for coming face to face with Joan after all that had happened, but the initial sight of her knocked some wind from those carefully trimmed sails, so she absently raised her hand to her head. "Hats?" Lara tightened the squeeze on her other hand to the point of mild pain for an instant, snapping Sassy’s attention back to task. "Joanie, I mean Joan, there are some important matters we must discuss." Sassy cast a bored look across Brie, Cailen and Hannah. "In the office, please."

"Sure, Sassy." Joan stood and so did Brie. The four of them led the way for Sassy and Lara.

Cailen recognized the injection of a smidge of that cold steel resonance in Sassy's voice as she said, "In the office and just you, Joan."

"My office, Sassy. They stay." She turned to Lara. "And you may stay, Lara, if you think you can refrain from the vulgarity you displayed the last time you showed up uninvited in my shedrow. Coffee, anyone?"

Nobody wanted coffee. Hannah said tea sounded good to her so Cailen, who was closest to the cabinet, got out the coffee maker reserved for tea water and Brie went down to the room for a tea bag. Cailen said since Brie was going anyway, she'd take a Sprite. Joan said to go ahead and bring an extra herb tea bag, she'd have a little cup. This was not going the way Sassy and Lara had pictured it.

When the refreshments were settled, Joan asked levelly, "Why are you here, Sassy?"

Sassy surveyed the small crowd. "Very well, since all of you are involved anyway, I came to discuss an incident of grand theft at the farm three weeks ago. A sixty-thousand-dollar filly, the same filly you are known to have taken a keen interest in, was stolen from one of my pastures. I want you to know that no authorities have been contacted yet, and that I'm hoping to resolve this matter without inconveniencing them."

"Is this the same filly, Pennington's Lass, that you threatened to kill and eat unless Cailen left me, Sassy?" Joan's voice had become raspy with repressed rage. She was through playing for the day.

Sassy had been prepared for a game of cat and mouse, not this edacious assault from Joan. She'd expected to talk around the issues, drop a few threats, and leave Joan considering the consequences of not cooperating with her. Actually, Sassy no longer had a clear idea of what Joan's cooperation could possibly be composed of, no estimation of what she could hope to get from Joan. That cheap filly meant nothing to her, and there was plainly no chance of winning Joan's love or approval or friendship or anything else at this point. It was suddenly clear that there was nothing to gain by this visit. But Lara, who was exerting mounting influence over Sassy, had said the confrontation was necessary, for closure. Maybe so. Lara did seem to care.

Stung by the realization that Joan was out of her reach forever, Sassy limply admitted, "Yes, that one."

"None of your demands are going to be met, Sassy, but I would appreciate it if you'd sell Pennington's Lass to me. You said she's worth sixty thousand dollars. Fair enough. May I buy her from you?"

"I just told you she is not in my possession."

"The games are over, Sassy. Sixty thousand for her papers. I'll worry about the actual horse."

Sassy made the mistake of glancing at Cailen, and one last wave of savage jealousy crashed over her. "Sell her to you and this bitch? Never!" Sassy stalked to the door, shadowed by Lara.

Joan raised her voice. "Lara, stay for a minute." Before Lara could come up with a derisive reply, Joan upped the ante to, "Just you and me."

That prospect was too tempting, so Lara nodded to Sassy and said, "I'll meet you in the car, darling."

Happy to allow Joan the pleasure of these festivities, Cailen, Brie and Hannah returned to Bolero's shedrow.

The instant she was sequestered in the office alone with Lara, Joan unlocked the lower left desk drawer and withdrew a small tape player, already queued. Quicker than Lara could say fuck, the tape was crackling its contents. When it finished, Joan softly depressed the off button.

"Cailen did an excellent job of capturing the highlights of your chat, don't you think? Actually, for an even truer voice quality, you should hear the digitized version. If I play this for Sassy, I’ll be sure to bring the CD."

The recording clearly and irrevocably exposed Lara's motives where Sassy was concerned.

"What do you want from me?"

"Are you sleeping with Sassy?"

"What does that matter to you?"

"Are you?"

"Yes."

Joan had just wanted to be certain Sassy had already committed to her own mistakes concerning Lara. "Fine. Within two weeks, I want a concession from Sassy with regard to selling Penny to me."

"And in return I want that tape and all copies of it—CDs, tapes, whatever—plus a guarantee that Sassy will never—"

Joan bellowed, "In return, you will get small reason to hope I never play this tape for Sassy. That's it, nothing more. Take it or leave it. If you leave it, I will definitely play the CD for her in exactly two weeks."

"Unless you can—"

"This discussion is over." Joan secured the tape in the bottom drawer and waited for Lara to leave.

*****

Five days after the Oaks, in a testimonial to the coercive properties of new sex withheld, Sassy offered to sign Penny over without payment, in exchange for Joan's promise to continue training her horses. Either Sassy still needed to be close to Joan, or Lara continued to entertain the fantasy of someday being Joan's boss, or both. Whatever the case, that offer was declined. One week after that, a deal was struck whereby Car would establish his own racing stable and take over the training of Sassy's horses. Joan insisted on paying at least half price for Penny. Sassy did not, after all, have an actual horse to go with the bill of sale, so half price seemed fair.

In the sweet thin air of a late spring morning, under a sky full of star twinkles, planet glows and moon shine, Joan and Cailen hauled the maroon and white behemoth out Churchill's gates for the last time. Want it or not, Sassy was getting her trailer back. Returning it was one reason Joan had insisted on settling Penny's sale in Camden. The other was so she could say her goodbyes to Mag in person.

More fully flowered now, the magnolias gleamed, their clean white petals fanning over glistening deep-green leaves, for the arrival at Rainier. Both truck windows opened for passage under the trees.

"There it is, angel, that intoxicating aroma I told you about."

"You didn't exaggerate." Cailen drew in a long breath of the sun-stoked essence.

Joan paused before departing the magnolia blossom canopy and fired a blue-blazed smile at Cailen. "Ready?"

"Ready."

They clasped fingers and wound on up the hill, where they'd meet with Sassy in the main barn's plush reception area. This day would mark the end of Sassy and Lara in their lives and a new beginning with Penny.

Cailen thought Joan's hand cooler than usual. "Nervous?"

"Excited," Joan clarified.

Sassy presided in a leather wing-backed chair next to a faux fireplace. A cherry escritoire, neatly arranged with the necessary papers and a gold pen, stood to one side of her. Lara tried to look regal in a similar chair on the other side. They were both clad in refined good-guy pastels.

Joan and Cailen pushed unceremoniously through the soundproof double doors. Under her breath and dryly, Joan remarked, "If we'd have known, we could have at least worn fresh jeans." In an unforced, but masterful tone, she outflanked Sassy's attempt at preemptive formality. "Hi, Sassy. We'll do our business quickly and scoot before whoever you're all duded up for arrives."

"Good afternoon, Joan. There's no rush. Please, have a seat." There were two lesser chairs opposite the hearth, facing Sassy and Lara.

Already drawing the cashier's check from the folder she carried, Joan crisply replied, "Thanks, but we're doing an immediate turnaround, going back as soon as this transaction is finished. By the way, your trailer is parked just outside the barn. I removed the old plates and have relinquished the title." Joan reached into her folder again and handed Sassy the title along with the thirty-thousand-dollar check.

Sassy didn't bother to examine either, just handed them to Lara. "Very well, I think you'll find everything in order here." She indicated the notarized affidavit and bill of sale on the secretary. "If you'll please sign the receipt, Pennington's Lass belongs to you."

Joan shared a brief triumphant look with Cailen. They stood with heads together for a few minutes, carefully reading the sale contract.

Cailen nodded her approval and Joan signed the receipt then turned to Sassy. "This looks fine, Sassy. We'll be on our way."

But before leaving, Joan pulled one last item from her folder. It was a CD in an unmarked case. Lara flinched at the sight of it and Cailen's head tilted inquisitively, but Sassy, who remained unaware of the pasture recordings, kept a neutral expression.

Joan approached the winged chair and extended the CD to her. "I don't know why I'm doing you this favor, Sassy, but here."

Smiling, a little flustered, Sassy took it, and some of her former high-pitched Joanie voice resurrected itself. "For me? What is it?"

Joan took her very last look at Sassy Rainier before turning a gelid expression Lara's way. "Nothing very special. Use it as you see fit." She crossed the Oriental rug to Lara's chair and didn't bother to whisper, "Payback for what you put Cailen through at New Year's. How's that for being hamstrung by ethics?" Joan turned her back on the fake hearth. "Are we finished here, Cailen?"

"I believe so."

Outside, the low sun still had strength enough to send them reaching for sunglasses. Holding hands, swinging them high, and grinning like lucky escapees, they strolled toward their unhitched truck.

"Nice twist there at the end, we didn't discuss that."

"Wanted to surprise you, angel."

"You did. What was really on the CD, a compilation of your best impersonations?" Cailen sidestepped a butt smack. "That would serve them right, you know." She moved in close again and took up Joan's hand.

"Nah, they now have their very own copy of Topsy Turvy."

*************************** THE END *********************************

© 2006 Margo Moon

Grand Theft Equine - Chapter Twenty-Six: Long Shot

2009-11-22T03:01:00.001-05:00

Previous chapters are available on the sidebar.

So far, so good. When Car parked Joan's truck in front of Cinda's house long before dawn the next morning, Cailen quietly slipped onto the porch and waited for him to come up, away from the truck where they could speak.

Mindful of all the little sleeping ones inside, Car whispered, "Hey, Cailen, how you holding up?" .

"Fine. Thanks for doing this." She stifled a yawn.

"No problem. Here, before I forget, a letter from Joan, she said to save it for when the trip gets boring. And she put blankets, a flashlight, a sack of food and your black boots in the carryall. Of course, your bridle and shank are in there too. Hope she left room for you. I’m not going to latch the top down, so you can crack it once in a while if it gets stuffy. Ready to climb in?”

"Yeah, let's get going. Joan told you the truck is probably bugged, right? Do you have some way to conceal the sound of me getting in there?"

Car's sly smile was one and the same with Hannah's sly one, but Cailen didn't know Han well enough to realize that yet, so she found it appealing.

Car said, "Been checking out Joan's CD collection. Never knew she liked so many kinds of music, but I was lucky to find one by this woman who really rocks. Don't know how it comes across on one of those bugs, though, cranked to the max and all. Might be kinda, you know, cacophonous, over one of those tiny things." Car winked, and blushed because he had winked.

Marveling at Car coming up with a word like cacophonous, Cailen spurred herself back on track and tucked the envelope into her shirt pocket for reading later. Might as well save it as a treat, she'd be in that plastic box for about the next twelve hours.

The bran was unloaded and Brie was hunkered down on Joan's floorboard by the time training should begin. It wouldn't be light for a while and they were already rolling. Cailen dozed some before they even reached Brie's drop-off point at the Versailles exit rest area. The audible shift of tire tread trading interstate asphalt for concrete ramp gave her a heads up and she followed the sounds and motion of the truck easing into position, followed by a synchronous opening of the doors, Brie slipping almost noiselessly from her side covered by the ruckus of Joan's overly loud egress. Joan wasn't gone long and, considerate woman, she coughed a few times upon returning just to assure Cailen it was really her who was driving the truck away.

Two nights with barely any sleep makes a big plastic tool bin lined with blankets and perched above a lulling two-fifty engine feel like Baby Bear's bed. Another nice long nap ended shortly after noon, halfway through Tennessee. Cailen used the flashlight to check the time and left it on while she retrieved Joan's letter. It was full of diverting, private little Joan things and a bunch of upbeat predictions about Penny's rescue. There was a recommendation that Cailen change from the sneakers she was wearing into the black boots Joan had put in the carryall. Seems Hannah had called South Carolina's office of the National Weather Service and found that although the creeks near Camden weren't likely to be much above average, it had rained there some over the past few days, enough that horse-tromped pastures should be moderately muddy.

Throughout the text of her message, Joan had scattered numerous sketches. Cailen shook her head, all to herself in there, You draw about as well as you do impressions, my love. This letter was now the founding document of their life together, she told herself, and painstakingly re-folded it.

Meanwhile, that sack of food looked interesting and after filling up on whole wheat pita loaded with tofu and provolone, and a slice of cheese cake, all stuff more or less easily eaten from a semi-reclined position, Cailen read the letter again, then slept some more before venturing to open the coffee thermos. Drinking coffee in that tool bin promised some challenges, but would be worth the effort after this final nap. And she hoped to avoid a bladder emergency by drinking it so late in the trip. Even with going light on fluids overnight, she was sure to be in need of a sheltered area soon after tumbling from the truck.

At three forty-five it felt like the truck was slowing down. Yes, definitely an exit ramp. They'd made it to the farm ten and a half hours after departing Churchill, very good time. Joan must have really been traveling. Moments later, the truck made its turn-in and Cailen caught a tight green whiff of immature magnolia blossoms. She was picturing the long tree-lined entrance followed by the narrower open road that weaved indolently upward toward Rainier Farms' main barn, Mag's barn. The truck came to a halt before they could possibly have reached the top of the hill, though. Cailen heard a hum or a buzz, Joan's window being lowered, maybe?

Then Joan spoke. "Hello, Sassy. What are you doing out here on foot?"

"The truth?" No reply from Joan, so Sassy continued. "I was notified the minute your truck cleared the gates and had one of the men drive me out here to meet you. Now that I've sent him back, I guess you can’t refuse to give me a lift."

"Sure, which way are you headed?"

"Nowhere particular. Which way are you?"

Cailen could hear Joan tapping out her impatience on the windowsill before replying. "No place very interesting, up to talk horses with Mag for a while."

"Sounds good, mind if I tag along?"

Joan took the truck out of gear, kind of jerked it. "Go around and hop in."

Sassy jabbered the whole way up to the main barn. Behind posed politeness, Joan's mind was fully occupied with how little daylight remained for making it out to Penny's pasture. Being intercepted by Sassy was worse than stepping in chewing gum. She stuck close while Joan touched base with Mag and was still hovering when Joan decided she simply must excuse herself to go visit Penny.

"A late afternoon drive to the pastures, how wonderful! Mind if I come?"

"Sassy, you heard Mag warn it would be muddy, why risk those boots?"

"Please, Joanie?" This return of the Joanie sobriquet was dismaying. "I'll stay in the truck if it's muddy. I've been so good, so patient, for so long. But I miss you, Joanie."

Oh God, we can't have you staying in the truck. "Tell you what. You may come on the condition that you brave that muddy pasture right along with me. I'll run back inside and get you a pair of those overshoes Mag keeps around."

Sassy did her thrilled little girl clap and squeal. "Whatever you say, just so I get to go with you."

"Back in a minute." Joan swung her door open.

"Oh, and Joanie?"

Joan fought for composure. "Yes, what now?"

"Your phone there in your lovely back pocket reminds me, I need to cancel a small dinner thing. May I use your cell while you're gone?"

Refusal would look fishy. "Sure, here." Joan handed over Car's cell phone.

The sound of Sassy's punching numbers was lost to Cailen's vantage in the carryall, but she distinctly and dispiritedly heard the ensuing conversation, delivered in that lead pipe voice Sassy had used in their backyard two days ago.

"Ross, it's Ms. Rainier. I have it. This is the phone she'll be using while she's here. Did you get the number? Great. What? Recently dialed numbers? How? Okay, then hit send, let's see, the top number would be the last one dialed, correct?"

Cailen heard Sassy call off, then repeat, Brie's cell phone number to the tech guy. Understandably, Joan must have called Brie while they were on the road, probably to make sure the key was where it should have been and that the truck had started. Damn.

"No time for the others, here she comes." Sassy chirped nervously as Joan got in, "I pressed too many buttons on your phone, Joanie. No telling what menu it's in. That's a snazzy one, isn't it?"

"Here are your boots. You might want to be getting them situated while we drive, the sun is getting low."

Cailen's attention briefly strayed to wondering whether it had been a clear, sunny day for Joan and Brie's long drive, then snapped back to assessing the damage done by Sassy's latest move. Basically, and unequivocally, all communication between her phone and Joan's or Brie's was now out of the question. She had to hope for a clean, expedient trip across the pastures to Brie and the waiting trailer, before anybody had a chance to get worried about her and start making calls to each other. She was sure neither Brie nor Joan would try her number, she had Joan's word on that, but there was no reason for them to avoid calling each other, and if they became concerned, they certainly would. She told herself, Okay, forget that. Everything will go so neatly, nobody will need to call anybody. This isn't a huge setback.

Whatever Joan and Sassy might have been saying on the way out to Penny was lost beneath the engine's thrum and the chassis' tumble over the tough grass alley that snaked around the pastures. Cailen took the opportunity to gather in hand her bridle and shank. Then she waited.

The truck eventually rocked to a stop and Joan immediately began dropping covert signals for Cailen. "Sassy, am I too close to that run-in shed on your side of the truck, or can you get the door all the way open?"

"Oh, no, we're clear enough. Do you see the horse you're looking for yet?"

"Yes, I do. She's over there to our left, so make your way around to this side. We only have to walk about fifty yards."

The smoosh of rubber boots scraping over wet grass gave way to the deep suck of mud tugging on their soles. When the sound made Cailen flash on Blaine's mouth pulling rhythmically on his thumb, she irritably chalked it up to being in the dark for way too long. Joan's laughter at Penny's prodding for mints came from a good way off, so Cailen felt safe to crack open the carryall lid and check their position. Their backs were to her, so she made her escape and dashed behind the run-in shed. That move felt stealthy, and Cailen's optimism, despite the phone misfortune, started running high.

Joan's truck grew small and fused with other distant objects as Cailen watched it from the run-in's cover, watched and waited for darkness. From there, too, she could see Penny tranquilly grazing in a cluster of mares, her right front hoof poised slightly to the fore, withers loose and relaxed, blissfully removed from the human drama surrounding her. She had grown something of a grass belly and her entire right side was caked with crunchy dried mud, no doubt the result of a rapturous roll earlier in the day.

When twilight had dimmed the day enough, Cailen walked toward Penny's little clutch. "Hey there, big girl, how's life off the racetrack?" Billowing tears distorted Cailen's vision when Penny's head popped up at the sound of her voice and she nickered all the way to her, then flared her nostrils for more surface area to sniff Cailen's face and hair. Those formalities aside, Penny began an exhaustive pocket inquiry that turned up two mints and one sugar cube. There was more, but Cailen wanted to keep some reserve for the journey ahead. "Okay, that's about enough, don't you think? Let me take a look at my girl." Cailen tried to step back, but the filly was all over her. "Missed me, huh? Me, too. Joan, too. I saw Joan out here spoiling you with too much candy, you know. How many did you get from her altogether? I counted at least four." While talking, Cailen checked Penny's legs for heat or filling and picked up each hoof, but they were so encased in mud there wasn't much to see, except that she was shoeless and had probably been trimmed recently. "You're in pretty good shape, aren't you? Good enough to take a little trip with me, I'd say."

Penny got the point about no more mints for the time being and held her head still for Cailen to remove her halter. "Let's just leave this in the correct pasture, shall we?" Cailen surveyed the nearby mares and chose an older looking dark bay with a head about the same size as Penny's. "Hope you don't mind being enlisted as an accomplice, old girl." She buckled Penny's halter into place over the one the bay already wore. "There you go, you don't even know there's an extra one there, do you?"

Next, Cailen eased the bridle around and slipped the bit into Penny's mouth. "Good girl. How about we take a nice ride to the road?" Looking around for something to use as a mounting block and seeing nothing, Cailen led the filly to the fence. "Let's do it this way." She lined Penny up parallel and climbed to the second rail for a leg up. The instant Cailen's leg swung over and rubbed against the dried muddy side of Penny's body, the bucking started. Cailen jumped off intentionally and was thankful when Penny stood quietly as soon as she'd landed. "Looks like we're going to have to get that mud off. That old stuff makes my leg pull your hair, doesn't it?" There was nothing to use but her bare hand. Cailen scraped what she could with broad open-palmed swipes, following that with meticulously crumbling individual mud beads, until Penny's saddle area was clear. That project, necessary as it was, ate up a lot of time.

Back at the fence again, this time Penny bounced away, a bit on her toes, but she stayed well beneath Cailen.

Clearing gates required dismounts and remounts. At the first crossing, Penny had glanced back in the direction of her buddies, but had not whinnied or cried, to Cailen's great relief. Each pasture was huge, much larger than Cailen had remembered. There was nearly trouble after the third set of gates, where they met up with a herd of mares and their foals. Penny was interested enough in the babies, but suddenly got very nervous about one little one off in the distance that turned out to be a donkey when they got close enough for Cailen to make it out plainly.

"It's a donkey, sweetheart. They get turned out with the babies to keep coyotes from attacking them." It was the one fact Cailen knew about keeping horses out in the open, that a donkey would stomp to death any coyote that tried to hurt a foal. "Don't ask me how I know that, girl, I have no idea." Penny stayed spooky for a while after that, but eventually settled into alert cooperation again.

Cailen checked her cell phone for time. Seven twenty already. "Let's hope we hit that border of empty fields pretty soon, big girl."

An hour earlier and perfectly according to plan, but a minor detail agreed upon after leaving Cailen at Cinda's, Brie had telephoned her creek level report to Joan. Believing themselves to be under the shelter of anonymous phone numbers, Brie had said the creek was about five feet wide at the most narrow nearby spot. Then they discussed the gravel tongue area. Joan had asked if the security light was still where it used to be. Yes, it was, and no other equipment was parked there tonight either. That was all. It would have been a perfectly harmless exchange, except for the fact that Sassy's team had their numbers and was listening. Everybody in the control room knew the radius they were working within, given they were able to intercept Brie's call, and there was only one place within that radius that had a security light and where equipment got left overnight, other than the maintenance lot itself.

About the time Cailen was laughing at Penny's curiosity over the first foal they saw, two of Sassy's men were arriving across Aiken Road from the gravel tongue. Their headlights were snuffed, and they parked facing the foliage behind which Brie had her eyes trained on that last little hill in the boundary field, eager for Cailen and Penny to appear. The man riding shotgun got out and crossed the road for a visual confirmation. Back at the car, he called the boss directly. "She's there, Ms. Rainier, a sitting duck.”

"Beautiful. Make sure she is well clear of the farm when the police stop her, Tony. We don't want to leave any room for lying their way out of this. And call me back the moment anything happens."

"Yes, ma'am."

Sassy's men were posted at the mouth of Brie's only escape. Two more were parked in sight of Joan's cabin and her truck, enjoying the passive luxury of waiting for their trap to fill.

Shortly after the telltale phone call, another vehicle had embarked on an intercept trajectory. It was an easy deduction that someone, logically Cailen, had to be moving the horse from its pasture to Brie and the waiting trailer. A golf cart set out, covering ground rapidly with the silent eeriness peculiar to those buggies, for the northeast corner of the perimeter range. It eventually slithered into place among sheltering pines, and the driver leaned into the dark leather seat.

By eight o'clock, Joan, the cadence of her pacing repeatedly taking the cabin's full measure, feared something had gone wrong. One of them, Cailen or Brie, was supposed to call her the second they were safely on the road, so no contact meant Cailen was still out in those pastures somewhere. This was taking much too long to be going smoothly. Brie, pent up in the truck and unable to pace off her worry, was bottling up those same deductions and fears.

Cailen and the filly finally came to a gate beyond which sprawled a grassy expanse not churned by hooves. "Looks like we found the buffer field, girl. Almost to Brie now."

Penny dearly wanted to drop her head and graze on this lush grass that only knew the inconsequent nibbles of tiny rodent teeth and lapin lips. "Sorry, baby, but Joan and Brie must be wondering what's taking us so long. Not fair to keep them anxious."

This was more like it. Unhindered by even the thinnest wisp of cloud cover, the light from a sharply focused third quarter moon finely outlined clusters of trees that had been spared by the bush hogs deployed three times a summer to prevent this parcel from fully regaining its natural state. Turf between these bosky stands was slightly rougher going than in the pastures, but the tradeoff was a perception of being less exposed, with a bonus of being out of the deep mud. Informed by the memory of Brie's diagram, the direct simplicity of which had served well so far, Cailen expected this bordering region to be wide, maybe three pasture widths from fence to road, so she settled back, using the reins only for keeping generally north and east, allowing Penny to weave her way as she saw fit over the clumpy ground.

As they crested a small rise, the diffuse mercury green glow of a security lamp became faintly visible. Cailen could have cried from relief as she bent forward and stroked under Penny's mane. Her face close to the filly's ears, she whispered, "We're going to make it." The ear flattened itself and flicked, tickled by the words' little breathy gusts.

Legs dangling and reins loose as they skirted a group of evergreens, Cailen jerked to attention a fractional second behind Penny's startled snap to tense awareness.

A voice coming from behind them, in a stand of trees they had just passed, coldly commented, "Not smart. Not smart at all, Cailen."

Once Cailen had Penny turned so she could see the source of what had spooked her, the filly settled enough for Cailen to answer, "What more could you possibly want from me, Lara?"

"Want from you? Nothing. I've graduated from bottom runners, Cailen, from now on it's strictly stakes company, fucking graded stakes at that."

Dreading utter defeat but grasping for rational thought, Cailen said, "By sucking up to Sassy Rainier, I suppose."

Lara laughed. "Yeah, literally I hope, once she gets Joan Caulder off her mind."

Lara being out here so close to the green security light had to mean Brie and the trailer were compromised. Even if she could talk Lara into going away and forgetting she'd caught Cailen with Penny, they no longer had a way out. So there was little benefit to be had from trying to mollify Lara.

"How did you know we were here?"

"What's it matter? They've got Brie covered over there by the road. Brie is so fucking stupid." She pointed accurately toward the greenish glow. "And Caulder's cornered in her cabin."

Shoving her hands deeply into her jacket pockets and bunching her shoulders as if warding off a chill, Cailen covertly traced a fingertip over the buttons on her cell phone, recalling the spatial orientation of the special symbols and, she hoped, executing the two-stroke combination that unlocked the keys. "So why bother to come all the way out here, if we're caught anyway?"

"Because, this whole fucking thing was to get me close to Sassy." For someone on the winning end, she was unaccountably spiteful and exasperated. "You know, some drama to throw us together."

Joan's number was at the top of Cailen's autodial list. She concentrated on pressing the proper sequence, then held phone and jacket dead still. "That doesn't explain why you're out here."

"Look, I never intended to really let Sassy kill the fucking horse. Who knew you all would be stupid enough to try something like this? Just put the horse back where it belongs and get out of here."

"Do you mean you've put me through this nightmare just to get in good with Sassy Rainier? That'll never work." The best way of getting Lara to talk was to tempt her to brag.

"It won't? You just run back to your precious Joan and see how long it takes me to replace that bitch in Sassy's affections. Sassy is so needy, once I get myself installed where Caulder is now, there's nothing she won't give me, just like there's nothing she'd deny Caulder. What an ignorant bitch. She could be running this whole show, but just because fucking Sassy once in a while isn't the most appetizing prospect in the world, she keeps slaving away on that miserable fucking racetrack. Idiot. Perfect match for you, Cailen, both too hamstrung by your ethics to ever get anywhere in this world."

Cailen judged that the first voice mail must have timed out by then, so she reset her phone and autodialed Joan's number again. "Where does this leave Penny and me?"

"Like I said, take the horse back where you found it and get out of here. Consider it my way of making us even for the house. You haven't broken any laws yet. Sassy's already learning to do as I tell her, and I won't let her send the horse to the killers."

"Do I have your word on that?"

"Absolutely."

Cailen covered her eyes for a moment. "Can I just stay with her until daylight?"

Annoyed, Lara impatiently whined, "What?"

"I'd like to be with Penny until it gets light. Will you at least not tell anyone you've seen us?"

"Go ahead. I don't give a shit. Swear to God, Cailen, you're practically a professional victim."

Cailen dejectedly aimed Penny southwest and nudged her forward.

Lara cackled after her, "And tell Caulder she can look forward to me being her new boss soon."

Warning herself there was zero room left for error, Cailen traveled a full two gates back into the pastures before stopping to use the phone, even though they were in the open now, where there was no place to hide a golf cart or anything else. She dialed Joan's cell, which should be back at Churchill, and held her breath. Car did not answer it and Joan's voicemail picked up.

"There's break number one," she informed Penny and hung up, declining the electronic voice's polite, enthusiastic invitation to leave a message.

Next she dialed Hannah's cell. Hannah answered in the middle of the second ring, having obviously consulted caller i.d. first. "Cailen, what's wrong? Where's Brie?"

"Brie's fine, nothing's wrong. Listen, do you know—"

"Bullshit. You wouldn't call me unless something was wrong. Tell me what’s wrong, Cailen. You should have hooked up with Brie over an hour ago, at least."

"Will you listen? I need to know if Car was carrying Joan's phone around with him after they traded."

"No, he's with Mandy and they're using hers. Joan's is still…wait a second." There was silence followed by the rattle of keys and a scraping sound. "It's right here in her top desk drawer."

Cailen nearly collapsed with relief into the crest of Penny's mane and whispered, "There's break number two."

"I didn't catch that."

"Nothing. Okay, I need you to make sure nobody touches that phone. Put it in a safe place, understand? Lock it up somewhere. Not in the office, someplace where nobody would think to look for it."

"Consider it done. Now, tell me what's going on."

"Nothing."

"Fine. I'm calling Brie." Fear for Brie and suppressed rage made Hannah’s threat sound convincing.

"You can't do that. In fact, don’t even accept a call from Brie or Joan’s number. Turn yours off or something"

"Who's going to stop me? I can't humor your sulky attitude or put up with your crusade to marginalize me this time, Cailen. What if you thought Joan could be in danger and I was putting you off like this? How frantic would you be? I mean it, either you tell me everything, right now, or I hang up on you and call Brie."

By the time Cailen had gotten to the part where she’d asked Lara for one last night with Penny and pretended to give up, Hannah had lifted Cailen's truck keys from the office hook and was gathering a few items from her foot locker and tack box. When Cailen stopped talking she inquired, without a break in her brisk movements, "So, that's it? Lara drove off?"

"Yeah. There, you can see why calling Brie is out of the question, right? "

"Totally impossible." Hannah turned the truck engine over.

"What's that?"

"Your truck." She backed it out of Cailen's favorite spot and headed for the showy trailer Sassy had foisted on Caulder Stables. "Just for the sake of dotted i's and crossed t's, are your registration and proof of insurance in the glove box?"

Cailen didn't have time to worry about what some nut was doing with her truck. She hung up, hoping Hannah at least comprehended the part about not calling Brie.

Hannah hitched the trailer to Cailen's truck, noticed gratefully that the tank was full, checked her pockets for cash and credit cards, found plenty of both, and skillfully threaded the huge rig through Churchill Downs' barn area. After whipping expertly onto the interstate and getting up to speed, she called Cailen back.

"Do not hang up on me again."

Unbelievable. The worst night of her life and Hannah takes the opportunity to assert herself. "Look, Hannah, I'm trying my best to come up with a way to keep these monsters from getting their hands on Penny. I'm about out of ideas and don't need any interference from you."

"I'm on my way to Camden with the fancy trailer. We're switching to Plan B, with me making the pickup instead of Brie. What is your location right now?"

"You can't make it in time. Joan and Brie will only stay put until dawn. As soon as it gets light, they'll call me. If I answer, I'll only be able to speak cryptically, which will no doubt launch them into their own Plan B. If I don't answer, same result, Plan B, in which Joan and Brie go directly to the rest area, and that will lead Sassy's people right to where you'll be arriving. Go back, Hannah, it's futile."

"It's not futile if I get there before daylight, before Joan and Brie make any moves."

Cailen checked the phone's clock display. "There's not enough time. Not even close. Joan was pushing it today and our trip took ten and a half hours. And on top of everything else, you're pulling that gigantic trailer."

"You and Penny keep your heads low and meet me at the rest area before dawn."

"In plain English, Hannah, it is too late. It'll be light here in less than nine hours."

"I promise you, I'll be there. Please don't stand me up. Now, I need both hands for driving." Hannah hung up.

Joan broke down and phoned Brie at midnight. "What the hell's going on?" The last thing Brie needed was the near panic in Joan's voice.

"I don't know. There hasn't been a sign of them, not a sign of anything out here." She strained her eyes to see further into the shadowy domain outside Stevie's old truck.

As Brie and Joan discovered how little light the other could shed on Cailen's plight, they inadvertently supplied Sassy's punks with the same.

"We have to honor the promise about waiting until it gets light, don't we?"

"Brie, she knew something could go wrong. We have to believe she's dealing with it. And whatever it is, she's depending on us not to act until dawn."

"I know."

When they hung up, Sassy was informed of the communication and the tape of it was played back for her. She said, "That's fine, Ross. We don't change a thing. Eagleton will come to them eventually, so we continue to wait. Remember, I'd like to see the spic in the truck and the whore on the horse put away. But Ms. Caulder must be treated respectfully at all times and, Ross, I do not want her implicated."

"We can arrange all that, Ms. Rainier. Anything else?"

"No, but remember to call me the minute anything else happens."

The surveillance teams were informed that their observation period might extend for several more hours and to remain in place until the subjects initiated movement.

Cailen dismounted and let Penny pick grass alongside a closely bunched bevy of complacent mares while she took time to weigh the facts. Her decision was to give Penny a few hours to be loose, then to proceed toward the rest area. If there was to be a showdown, better that it happen in a public place and beyond Rainier Farms' property line. She didn't know how much veracity was in that hand-me-down wisdom about possession being nine-tenths of the law, but if they were caught fleeing while still on the farm, she and Penny could expect immediate separation. On the other hand, if they were captured on public property, maybe Penny, as the object of the dispute, would be impounded until things were sorted out. At least she'd be briefly out of Sassy's control, and Joan might be able to hold things up even longer by arguing that the protective clause in her contract extended to Penny since, even though unraced, she had trained at Caulder Stables. It was a technicality, but it might buy a little time.

And if a legal appeal failed, there was always the prospect of blackmailing Lara with whatever was on Joan's voicemail. Cailen wasn't sure she'd captured all of Lara's braggadocio, but maybe she'd gotten lucky and actually recorded something Lara could not afford for Sassy to hear. Cailen removed Penny's bridle and climbed onto the only dry place to sit, a top fence rail, to watch her filly peacefully commune with the others, unruffled and undisturbed in the enjoyment of such an eventful, mint-filled evening.

Since the night was clear, heavy dew had been accumulating since just after dark. Cailen's lightweight jacket wasn't much help against the chill, damp air, but that hardly mattered. Physical discomfort was below the threshold of her notice, as she pondered the lengths, some desperate, she'd be willing to go to in exchange for keeping Penny unharmed.

She, Joan, and Brie were already committing a serious crime, enough to ruin all their lives. But what they were doing felt right. Lara's spiteful charge, the one that Cailen and Joan were hamstrung by ethics, reverberated against what they and Brie were doing. Certainly tonight, they were in no way hindered by legality. In fact, the law was on Sassy's side. But ethics, the right thing. When does doing the right thing, even though it conflicts with society's rules, supersede those rules? And by whose authority is it then? Surely, within the bounds of their needs and concerns, both Sassy and Lara believed, on some level, they were doing what was right, right for them.

A couple hours before the sun was due, Cailen leaped from the fence rail, landed firmly in the greasy pasture mud, and spoke aloud to Penny and the three closest mares. "Don’t know what’s going to happen out there, girls. But I do know it is absolutely acceptable, necessary at times, to make your own rules."

Cailen lifted Penny’s forelock and put a little kiss where it had rested. “That’s from Joan.” She looped the reins back over Penny's head and slipped the bit into her mouth. Penny knew the drill by now and when led to the fence, she stood the perfect distance away from it for Cailen to mount with ease. Once aboard, Cailen clapped the chestnut neck and sighed, "Individual truth, Penny, individual truth."

They laid a course for those northeast gates that would get them onto the buffer field again, where they'd turn west toward the rest area. On the way, Cailen admitted to Penny that keeping the promise to give her a happy life might end up being beyond her control. "They’ll have to physically drag me off, though, before Sassy gets her hands on you again."

A yellow halo above the rest area made it a distinct target. As they neared that sulfur glow, dim dread contrasted with the bright expectancy Cailen had felt earlier when they'd approached the security lamp where Brie waited with truck and trailer. Cailen became aware of an unavailing desire to know the name of the creek she was taking Penny toward. Beyond that creek lay lots of unknowns, but crossing it was the only remaining option.

Quite close to the rest area, so near that the oceanic sound of interstate traffic almost drowned out Penny's hoof fall, they moved in parallel with the creek and bore right to travel alongside it. "Better to cross up here where the building's shadow will hide us, don't you think, girl?"

The silver twinkle of moonlit flowing water went dark as the creek entered that shadow. What they could see of the parking area showed no cars, and Cailen was debating whether to dismount and check for the best crossing place when a high-powered beam, aimed down into the water a few feet ahead, held by a squatting figure, blinked on.

"The bottom is strewn with treacherous moss-slimed stones. Right here's the only place that looks good and sandy all the way across."

"Hannah?"

"Yep." If they'd been there, Brie or Joan would have picked up on the smile in her voice.

"How in the hell? My God, you must have massacred the speed limits."

"I told you I'd be here, Cailen." She zigzagged her lamp across the water a couple of times. "Be amazed later. Bring that filly across this creek so we can hightail it out of here."

The beam slewed to the creek bank so Cailen could see to guide Penny to the best footing. As the front legs and hooves came into light, Hannah whistled softly and said, "Whew, look at that mud. When you get to the deepest part, stand her still for a few seconds to soak some of that off."

Cailen did as she was told. "That long enough?"

Hannah squinted to see under the water, but couldn't tell. "Should be, come on out, easy now. Want me to take the side of her bridle when you get here?"

"She might need to take a quick step or two, better stay clear and let her take over, don't you think?"

"Yeah, probably."

Splashes and drips were followed by the heavier sounding effort of horse and rider heaving over the minor bank.

Hannah, all business and in a restrained hurry, snapped her light on once again to direct Cailen to the trailer ramp, which was down and ready for loading. Cailen dismounted and each woman took a side of Penny's bridle to lead her. After she’d walked on without hesitation, they praised her up and down while switching the bridle for a halter and clipping that to the trailer hook. The windows were in shuttered position and the back of the trailer wasn't visible from the rest area, so Hannah switched on the interior lights and dimmed them to low. Penny was standing in deep straw and had already latched onto the net full of alfalfa hanging next to her head. There was an enclosed water container anchored to the front wall, along with Hannah's portable groom box and a set of clean shipping bandages.

"You even brought shipping wraps?" Cailen's astonishment had reduced her conversational inventory to exclamations and rhetorical questions.

Hannah refused to let up until they were out of there. "Yeah, but let's get on the road. We can stop a little later to put them on. We need some distance from this place first." She motioned Cailen down the ramp and followed her after one more pat on Penny's rump. "That's one sensible horse," she commented, as they shoved the trailer ramp up and closed, then shut the upper doors and latched them.

In the span of less than ten minutes, Cailen had been lifted from disconsolate resignation and plopped, with a heart full of untrammeled hope, into the passenger seat of her own truck.

As they departed the still-vacant public rest area, Hannah accelerated, slick as glass, to just under the speed limit and leaned back with a blowy sigh. "Wow." She flicked on the overhead light and rooted around on the seat. "There's a thermos of coffee here, if you want some. Although, I suppose a bathroom is higher on your list right now."

They had both been checking the sideview mirrors and spotted no headlights behind them.

Cailen reached for the thermos and laughed. "You may have had to charge in and save my butt, but I do know how to pee outside without soaking my socks, thanks." She offered the first cup to Hannah.

"Ha! No thanks. I'm so pumped on adrenaline, my body would scoff at caffeine."

It had cooled enough to allow a long sip. Cailen sighed. "Me too, but that tastes wonderful anyway." She took another good drink and considered Hannah's profile.

Smiling, Hannah asked, "Re-calibrating your estimate of my worth?"

"More like downgrading the accuracy of my own ability to judge. Hannah, I don't know how to thank you, I really don't." A lone set of headlights came into view on the dark road behind them. Neither woman breathed as a semi, discreetly exceeding the speed limit, easily overtook and passed them. Behind that, the road was empty again. "Guess we've really made it, huh?" Cailen was weak-limbed with relief.

"Guess so. Where to from here?" The semi disappeared ahead over a hill and Hannah switched to her brights.

"Top priority is getting word to Joan and Brie, agree?" Cailen helped herself to another cup.

"They must be in hell."

Cailen nodded. "I'm sure they are. There's a restaurant about twenty miles ahead where Joan and I ate when we were here. How about giving you that much of a head start? You can drop me off there, and I'll wait ten minutes for you to get a little further along the road, then I'll call Joan and you call Brie. We're probably in the clear now, but no sense in not staying careful. I'll let Joan know where I am without saying it outright. You tell Brie that everything's fine and that Joan will be coming by to lead her to me."

"And I pretend to still be at Churchill?"

"I think so, don't you?"

"Sure."

Cailen went through the details again. "By the time Sassy intercepts my call, you'll be long gone. And by the time her people follow Joan and Brie to me at the restaurant, there'll be no way to catch up to you, even if they thought there was somebody to catch up to. But they won't, because they'll have the three of us right in front of them. This is so beautiful."

Hannah nodded agreement. "And don't worry about something going wrong at the other end. Miles and I had a long phone chat a couple of hours ago. By now, he’s already left home, just in case somebody gets the bright idea to watch their house after they discover Penny is missing. He’ll wait at Joan's uncle's house until he gets my call, then he’ll meet me at the interstate exit for Stevie's place. But it's going to take me quite a while to make the trip. Miles gave me an alternate route that keeps me off of I-64, since this trailer is so easy to recognize. I'll end up approaching from the Cincinnati direction, where they'd never think to cover."

"I'm awestruck."

"You should be."

As dawn lit, Cailen looked at the mirror and regarded the huge trailer they were pulling. "Exactly how fast did you have to go to make that trip in less than nine hours?"

"After a certain point, I was afraid to look."

"And what was that certain point?"

Hannah smiled that sly Car smile Cailen had admired yesterday morning. "If you don't know, you can't tell Brie, now can you?"

"God, you could have been killed."

Hannah countered, "Penny would have been killed, otherwise. It had to be done. Forget it."

"Forget it? Never. Hannah, how can I ever thank you?" Cailen cranked her head sideways to follow the sign they were passing. "This next exit will be ours."

They took their exit and pulled into Calabash Bob's parking lot. Penny seemed happy enough back there with her hay net. They climbed in and each took a side, applying the four thick white shipping bandages.

"Good idea to have me stand her in the water. You were already thinking about putting these on then, weren't you?"

"We couldn't have put them on over that mud."

"Great foresight. Thanks again, for everything."

Hannah fastened her last pin, stood, brushed the straw from her knees and put her hands on her hips in typical Brie fashion. "Quit thanking me, Cailen."

"Not easy to do. You really saved her life, you know."

"Well, quit thanking me anyway, okay? Quit thanking me, and let me in. All I ask is that you let me in, Cailen, give me a chance."

As they closed the trailer and faced each other, Cailen said, "Want some breakfast to go?"

"No, I'll stop for lunch in a couple of hours, when I reach Miles' detour interstate. Right now, all I want is to get going so we can call those two in ten minutes. This must be killing them."

"Yeah, you're right."

Cailen walked her around to the driver's side.

"Don't worry, I won't speed on the way home. Precious cargo, you know." Hannah inclined her head toward Penny’s side of the trailer.

"I'm not worried. She's with you."

Smiling, Hannah was about to start the engine, but remembered Joan's cell phone locked in the glove box. "Almost forgot, here."

"Joan's? Hannah, if I'm right about what's on her voicemail, well it'll take a little explaining, but—"

"Don't take the time now. We have to let them know you're safe. Go on. Ten minutes from right now, you hear?"

Cailen zipped the phone into her inner jacket pocket. "Ten minutes." She eased the door shut as Hannah started her truck.

She watched until the trailer was out of sight then waded in among the greasy salty sweet smells of breakfast cooking at Calabash Bob's. By the time the waitress arrived and Cailen informed her there'd be two more for breakfast in about forty-five minutes, but she'd like coffee in the meantime, the ten minutes were up. Cailen called Car's cell number.

Instead of the expected frantic hello, Cailen was greeted with a cautious, "Angel?"

"I'm safe, Joan, so is Penny."

There was a short silence then, "Sorry, I'm shaking almost too hard to speak."

"I understand, take your time. I really am fine. I love you so much and am so sorry you had to go through this. You'll be in my arms very soon. It'll all be okay."

"Where are you? I'm coming."

"Are you settling down?"

"Yes, where are you. I swear I can drive."

"How about swinging by Brie's location and letting her follow you to the original home of Calabash cooking?"

Joan remembered that every restaurant for a stretch of about fifty miles made that claim. She also knew Cailen meant to come to Calabash Bob's. "Got it. Don't you dare move. I love you." Joan already had her pockets loaded and keys in hand.

"I won't. Promise. Love you too, and drive carefully, there’s no hurry. Brie will be expecting you."

When Joan's truck, followed by the dumpy little pony rig, came into view, Cailen motioned the waitress over. "Here come my friends. Go ahead with the three jumbo breakfasts, if you don't mind. And, please, no grits on one of those." Brie could not abide grits.

"Sure, coffees for the others too?"

"Please. Hold the booth for us while I go outside and flag them down?"

"Not a problem."

Meeting Joan and Brie in the parking lot, without an audience, turned out to be a smart move. When Cailen came within their reach, Joan had her body in a death grip and Brie grabbed what was left, which was both hands. Brie might have even kissed one of her hands, she remembered later. They were saying embarrassingly emotional, incoherent things not fit for the ears of strangers. Otherwise, Cailen quite enjoyed it all. It finally came to Joan that Brie probably needed more access to Cailen and she made room for her to join the embrace.

Once the effusion trailed off some, Cailen asked, "Isn't this a deep southern state? Aren't they likely to have laws against this down here?"

"Cailita, we are already felons, what's to fear?"

Joan added, "At least, we hope we're felons. Where's Penny?"

Ever cautious, Cailen led them well away from Joan's truck. "On her way to her new home." She touched Brie's cheek. "In the very capable hands of the amazing Hannah Wells." That left them speechless. "If you lovelies would like to join me for breakfast, I will be happy to explain."

Plates empty and bellies full, Cailen wrapped her story up by pulling Joan's cell phone from her inner pocket. She reverently laid it in the table's center and Joan and Brie regarded it with wonder.

"So you have not listened to Joan's voicemail yet? You don't know for sure which of Lara's words you trapped?"

Cailen smiled. "Nope. I thought it would be fitting if we all found out at the same time."

"That's sweet, angel, go ahead and check it."

Cailen picked up the phone and rocked it in her palm. "Not quite yet. We’re not all together without Hannah."

© 2006 Margo Moon

Grand Theft Equine - Chapter Twenty-Five: Hold All Bets

2009-11-15T03:01:00.001-05:00

Previous chapters are available on the sidebar.

Cailen parked across the street from Hannah’s house, and Brie, who'd been standing vigil on the front porch, jogged over to meet her. Foreign to form, Cailen threw her arms around Brie and immobilized her with a cloying embrace.

“Pretend to console me,” she whispered. The desperation that overrode her normal voice was dead genuine, but Brie still wrestled like a taunted tiger. “Damn it, Brie, I need you to listen to me. Stop squirming. Sassy Rainier has played her final card.” The ferocity drained from Brie's body long enough for Cailen to say, “The woman is truly insane and may have someone watching us, so hold on and pretend to comfort me.”

Brie cupped Cailen’s neck with one hand and ran the other palm up and down her back. “This feels weird, plus you've been sweating, plus Hannah can probably see us from inside the house. Okay, what has Farms done this time?”

After a condensed rendition of the afternoon's diversions, Cailen ended with, “Your whole body is tight with rage. Can you walk back to the house without showing that, if I let you go? And, remember, no telling Hannah until you can draw her out of the house.”

Wide-eyed, Brie asked, “Will it be safe to speak in the car?” While truly concerned for Penny, she could not entirely dampen an underlying tingle of intrigue. Besides, with the four of them against Sassy Rainier, surely no harm would come to Pennington’s Lass.

“I’d be afraid of the car. You are obviously where I'd run to, so we have to consider your house and vehicles as leaky as ours. For Penny's sake, we have to be overly paranoid.”

“I understand. You can let go now, just stand back and watch me become the most soothing, supportive friend the world has ever seen.”

“Don’t over do it, Brie. This is no joke.”

*****

From deep within the fruit and vegetable section of a nearby supermarket, under cover noise of mist jets hissing all around—that tingle of intrigue had blossomed to full vibration—Brie filled Hannah's hands, which were too expressive to be trusted to remain low key, with delicate cherry tomatoes as she began recounting Cailen's story. After Hannah had traveled the emotional route from swerving anger, steeply up to towering indignation, and on through to a macadamized, relentless determination to save Penny, Brie bagged up the tomatoes.

Hannah pretended to examine some peaches for firmness. “This is deadly serious, you know. Joan and Cailen must be half out of their minds.”

“I know that.” Brie frowned at the fuzzless peaches, but they were all the store was offering.

“Then why do I detect a definite whiff of titillation in and about your person?”

The last time Brie had tried to hide anything from Hannah was that final attempt to convince her it was unwise for their relationship to turn sexual. It hadn't worked then either.

Brie came close to flapping her arms to protest the hint of censure in Hannah's words, but recovered the proper attitude by re-routing them above her head and dabbing for an edge at a roll of filmy plastic bags. “There may be a microscopic amount of fascination, I admit that. But, Hannah, our house might be bugged? Our cars could be bugged? Somebody is probably tailing us right this very minute? What’s not to be fascinated about?”

Hannah thought, And you seriously try to trump me sometime with the four-years-older card. Unbelievable, Brisada. She said, “Joan and Cailen's dilemma, for one thing. And Penny's life.”

“Look, Sassy is stupid. We are smart. She can’t win this. Absolutely nothing bad is going to happen to that filly. The part that makes me want to strangle Farms is how torn up Cailen will be in the meantime, and Joan too.”

Hannah settled three peaches into the bag Brie had split free. They paid and made tracks for home, where Hannah placed her call to Joan with the pre-arranged offer to go over there. It was accepted and the note bearing Cailen's plan was passed on.

Actually, the scheme had been Brie's conception. While doing up their horses the following morning, Jimmy would overhear Brie and Hannah insisting that Joan go with them to Cinda's house for some margarita therapy. Nobody on the listening end could possibly know who Cinda was or where she lived, so Sassy's thugs would have to tail closely and they’d have no chance to place a bug at Cinda's house in time. Joan, Hannah, and Brie would each take a separate vehicle and run a personal errand first. Brie thought that a nice added touch for tying up enemy manpower. The spirit of the outing would be aimed, ostensibly, at commiserating with Joan over Cailen's mysterious behavior. They were assuming that the office, as well as perhaps some strategically chosen stalls, were being monitored, but it wouldn't hurt to make sure Jimmy also heard the plans.

Smuggling Cailen into the pow-wow was the hard part. To do it, Cailen had to actually spend the night at Cinda's, and they had to make certain anyone who might be watching believed she was still at Brie's. It was dark when Hannah got back with Joan's return note, which basically said the plan seemed sound. Hannah smuggled Cailen, by way of side entrances blocked from view by closely adjoining privacy fence gates, next door to the apartment of a close friend. Paul agreed to escort Cailen, who would be concealed like a needy girlfriend in the protective hollow of his thick arm and aided by a three-house distance from the nearest streetlight, from his front door to his car. And he would drop her off at Cinda's. Once there, Cailen was on her own, but Brie insisted Cinda wouldn't mind helping, what with technically owing Cailen a car and all.

*****

Rain, as forecast, did move into the Ohio River Valley late the next morning. A mile-high glob of gray muck had draped its blubbery self over Louisville, and showed no intention of crawling off by the time they were to leave for Cinda's. The entire party was free of afternoon chores, though, thanks to Car.

The night before, Cailen had found Cinda's cramped, noisy house strained to the dust-bunnied tip of every corner by those six lives elbowing for space within it. Cailen had made it there at seven o’clock, and although a couch in the living room had optimistically been designated as her place to sleep, the TV was, after all, in there too. So keeping the kids out was, in their mother's eyes, unfair and impractical. Even if Cinda had ordered the room off-limits to the kids, Cailen doubted they could have been made to stay out. The little things ripped and rolled and ran all over the place. Like sand duteously sifting itself into beachwear, they endlessly seeped from under chairs, oozed from behind the couch, and ricocheted through doorways.

Digna wasn't so bad, but she was the oldest, at seven, and did exhibit some semblance of a life beyond staring wide-eyed at the stranger and practicing self-hypnosis in front of the tube. She'd spent most of the evening serenely working on homework. In spite of a sinking preoccupation over Penny, Cailen found a slim measure of energy to wonder if she might be a little partial to Digna because of her namesake and the birth drama, but decided that no, the girl truly did seem to have more sense than the others, or maybe seven was a less annoying age, who knew?

The children had finally gone to bed around eleven, after being allowed to stay up to say goodnight to their daddy when he got home from his night job cashiering at a convenience store. But even after they went to bed, the TV had to be left blaring because the creepiest one, Blaine, who had stared at Cailen for two solid hours, all the while wetly sucking his thumb, would wake up and scream bloody murder if he couldn't hear the television in the background and see its glow in the hallway.

Things calmed down some in the morning. The kids’ daddy Harrison, after only five hours sleep, was up and gone to the track. A little later, Digna and the one just smaller than her went to school. That left the baby, who was imprisoned in her high chair, and the irrepressible Blaine, whose age gave him the benefit of a school-free schedule and unfettered access to Cailen. He brought his Pop-Tart and chocolate milk into the living room so he could feast his eyes upon her while he ate.

When Joan, Brie and Hannah crowded awkwardly into the tiny living room shortly before two that afternoon, their arrival felt like nothing short of rescue. So much so that Cailen almost didn't mind for once that Hannah had come along. Cinda kept calling Joan Ms. Caulder at first and the kids wouldn't let them be alone to talk. At least Brie was serving as a magnet, with Blaine and the baby clinging to her, which temporarily stanched the perpetual motion effect.

Cinda sternly ordered the children to vacate the living room. They paid no attention, so she glanced sideways at Joan with a contrite shrug as she suggested, "Why don't you all go to the kitchen? I can at least close you up in there for some privacy."

The kitchen, though wanting for space and crying for light, was an improvement, and the bump of the knobless door behind Cinda marked the first opportunity for everyone to speak freely since about the same time yesterday.

Joan took stock and, not pleased at finding a tight jaw and darkened eyes, she folded herself around Cailen. "You didn't sleep at all, did you?"

"That's not important. The main—"

Blaine tumbled through the door on a long, low giggle, proud of himself for breaching the barricade and looking for some fun. Hannah couldn't help smiling, Cailen was disgusted, and Joan regarded him like an organism she'd only go close to if there were a stick handy to poke at it with. His face reddened from strain, centrifuge and joy as Brie caught him up and whirled his stubby body in looping arcs through the air, expertly clearing his head of the closely arranged fixtures. When his laughter got so hard and went so deep it ceased to produce noise, Brie stopped the ride and let him off.

"Do it again, Aunt Brie!"

In a cold trembly voice, fingers flexing creepy-crawly fashion, she mewled, "I am not your Aunt Brie."

This cracked him up. "Who are you?"

Brie flapped his shirtfront up and blew raspberries all over his tender bulb of a stomach. "I'm the belly monster."

Tickled to immobilization, he begged her to stop. When she did, finally, she fixed his shirt and asked him to please go to the other room so they could talk.

"I want you to play with me, Aunt Brie."

She knew how to get rid him. Using that same ghosty voice, "I am not Aunt Brie, I am not the belly monster."

Thinking he'd won, he taunted, "Who are you? I'm not scared."

"The butt monster." And she reached, deliberately ineffectual, for his waistband.

Taking a firm hold on his pants in front of the three lady strangers, Blaine streaked for the door. Two seconds later, he put one hand back through, beckoning Brie with a crooking finger.

Brie was apologetic. "One minute, guys, I promise. After this, he'll behave, I swear." She was back in less than the minute.

Everybody was seated around the battered red plastic, chrome-legged kitchen table, so she sat too, ready for business. Joan gave her a vacant look. "Okay, before we get started, what did he want?"

"Blaine? He wanted to tell me that Cailen kept staring at him last night. He wants to marry you, Cailita."

"Look, Brie, I know you love these kids, but my ability to be amused by them evaporated fourteen or fifteen hours ago."

Hannah, a woman crazy about kids, had been captivated by Brie on a brand new level, watching her with Blaine. She was also a woman who'd had to tie Thunder to the wall that morning. Neither of these womanly elements cared for Cailen's tone and she snarled, "Brie was merely answering Joan's question."

Elbows on the table, eyes shut, Cailen massaged her temples for a moment. She was about to attempt something conciliatory when Joan broke in.

"Look, we've all been thrust into an outlandish, frightening drama here. Let's not satisfy any of Sassy's wishes, including the one that we not stick together." Nobody offered argument to that, so Joan went on. "We've all had time to ponder Sassy's assault. Let's try to piece together the most elegant response, if there is one."

Brie posed her best idea. "Didn't you tell me a couple of years ago that there's a clause in your contract with Sassy about not selling horses to the killers as long as you’re able to place them with new owners?"

Nodding without looking hopeful, Joan cleared up the point. "I double checked the wording on that last night. It only applies to horses that have raced under the Caulder colors. Penny went back home unraced, so the clause doesn't protect her."

"Too bad, it would have been satisfying to stomp on her with a technicality."

Hannah tried another avenue. "What about the Humane Society?"

Brie shook her head. "Totally powerless in this situation. By virtue of ownership, Sassy has full legal rights to sell Penny, even to the killers."

More dead end ideas only strengthened the case for Cailen's resolution, which was bold, decisive and criminal. And she dreaded Joan's reaction to it. When she'd just about decided the time had come to suggest it, Joan beat her to the punch.

"Unless one of us has a brainstorm in the next few minutes," Joan consulted her watch, "I'm afraid there's no way to guarantee Penny's safety short of committing a felony. We have to steal her from Rainier Farms, and soon."

All the bunched up muscles in Cailen's shoulders eased and she gathered Joan's hands from the opposite side of the table. "That's absolutely our only real choice. I was so afraid you'd object."

"No, I don't object, as long as we minimize the exposure."

Suspicious of that, Brie swung around to face Joan. "Explain what 'minimize the exposure' will mean."

Joan was far too accommodating for Brie's liking. "All it means is that apparent responsibility shouldn't be spread out among us, but should be concentrated. Now, we can pull this off without getting caught, I really believe that. But in the unlikely event something goes wrong, if blame can only be assigned to me, then we've still got the advantage that Sassy wouldn't want to see me put in jail." Joan fluttered her eyelashes. "She's sweet on me, you know."

Three heads shook vehemently and they all voiced objections at once, overlapping to near incoherence but getting across the theme that sacrificing Joan was not an option. It took ten full minutes for Joan to bat away their protests and drive home the logic of her reasoning. That done, all they need figure out was exactly how to extricate a half-ton, field-high filly from the steel, stone, and electronic embrace of Rainier Farms' security system.

But first there was a more human issue Joan wanted to bring to the table. "Something that has nagged at me since this all began is Sassy's certainty that a threat against Penny would devastate Cailen. That much regard for an animal is outside Sassy's emotional range, so what gave her the idea to use it in the first place?"

Laying her hands out palms up on the marred tabletop, Cailen reiterated, "She didn't show a hint of doubt, not a trace."

"Surely such confidence in her power over you came from somewhere outside Sassy's personal experience." A look filled with meaning flittered between Joan and Brie. It said Brie, if you know what I'm getting at, would you please be the one to say it first?

Brie did know what she was getting at, and it made perfect sense. "Cailita, Lara already helped Sassy once. It seems possible to me she's the one who thought up this whole mess. I mean, Lara knows your heart when it comes to horses, she also knows from experience how much you'll give up for something you love and, sorry to say it baby, but she has never hesitated to use that against you."

Until that moment, Cailen had regarded Lara's offensiveness as an ingredient of the muddle they'd made of their relationship, something spawned by that, but lacking independence from it. Beneath the selfishness and manipulation Lara had learned to wield so effectively against Cailen, there had remained an unconscious assumption that the literal, decent Lara still existed. This notion that self-sustaining treachery flourished as much at Lara’s core as within Sassy Rainier was something new to digest.

Cailen directed a question to Joan. "Do you think Lara's helping with this?"

"I do."

Cailen sat up straighter. "Okay, then, good to know. Just another parameter. We need to know the parameters, what all we're up against. So, let's hammer this out. I guess the first step is to go over everything we know about that security setup. Brie, you first. I realize it's been a few years since you lived there, but tell us everything you remember about the security."

"Let's see, I was never inside the control room, but Joan was. The outside stuff, I was around it a lot. For one thing, they have these tags on all the pastured horses, sewn into their halters. And they're all numbered. So, say I needed to go out and bring in horse number eight fifty-eight. Well, somebody with that day's access code would have to notify the control room that eight fifty-eight would be leaving its designated area."

Cailen had to admire the simple logic of the arrangement. "These tags used radio frequency identification?"

"I'm not sure, all I know is that they allowed the positions of all the horses on the whole place to be monitored from up at control."

"That's good, Brie, I'm sure it was RFID. Joan, when you were in the control room, could you tell how the monitoring was displayed?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like, was there a big grid representing the maze of pastures, with moving or blinking lights showing each horse's pinpointed position?"

"No, I'm positive there was nothing like that. I remember a screen broken up into pasture segments, each with columns of numbers that had green lights beside them. Wait, it was difficult to take in all that the guy behind the console was telling me, but it seems he said the light stayed green as long as the horse remained in its assigned pasture."

All this was jogging Brie's memory. "Right, and the horse had to make a movement, even a tiny one, once in a while, or else the control room sent somebody out to make sure everything was okay."

"This is very good." Cailen was perking up now that an actual plan was forming. "So, they were only interested in whether each horse was alive and in the pasture where it belonged. Neither of you recalls anything that informed control of the exact spatial position of a given horse, right?"

Neither of them did, and Cailen said she was certain she could remove Penny from the property undetected by the control room. Next, the discussion turned to routes. Penny was embedded fairly centrally in the maze of pastures. They'd have to exit through the back of the property, navigating pasture after pasture before reaching there. Again, Brie's knowledge of the farm was invaluable.

"One break is that all the stallions are either in stalls or turned out in pastures closer to the big barns, so you don't have to worry about dodging them. To get out," Brie glanced from Cailen to Joan and back again, "this will take place in the dark, I suppose?"

"Definitely."

"To get out, it'll be important to remember that each pasture has two gates, located diagonally from each other, one in the northeast corner and one in the southwest corner. You can count on that, in case it's a moonless or cloudy night."

"The fence isn’t wired, is it? I don’t recall having to worry about that when Joan and I took Penny out there."

"For some reason, no."

Cailen nodded. "Not surprising, with the RFID doing all the work. Why run all that hardware when you don't have to? Okay, Brie, once we get her past all those gates and through all those fields, are there any decent spots on the farm's perimeter where we can stash a trailer and load her inconspicuously?"

"Two that I can think of. But let me draw them for you." She scrounged a bright pink flyer, blank on the back, and a child's fat pencil from the top counter drawer. "Okay, say this is the very center pasture." Drawing lots of surrounding rectangles, she asked, "You do realize it's going to be a huge distance with lots of pastures to cross? Now, here's the back row of fields, no horses in these." She shaded in the border of empty fields. "Right about here, relative to that back corner, the one most to the northeast,” she briskly sketched a rough compass in an upper corner of the flyer, “right about here, a large gravel tongue juts back behind the vegetation that shields the fields from the road. It would be easy to pull off onto that with a trailer and just wait."

"What's it ordinarily used for? Surely something." Cailen correctly surmised that everything on the Rainier estate carried the weight of serving a distinct purpose.

"Whenever they're working with heavy equipment on that side of the place, they park it there overnight instead of hauling it all the way back to maintenance. But even if there's something sitting there, we’ll have room to pull in. This time of year, though, I don't think there'll be anything." Brie was drawing again. "Now the other place is all the way over to the west here. Way over here, the farm backs up to a rest area off the interstate. You wouldn't think you could get her onto a trailer there, but you could. A concrete cutoff from the main asphalt goes around behind the building."

"Mmm. That sounds a little too public, doesn't it?"

"Not really. You’re probably as anonymous and unnoticed in an interstate rest stop as on a crowded street in Manhattan. The reason I know about it being a decent place to load is because it’s where hunters who used to trespass on the farm got their kills out. Remember the year somebody shot that yearling, Joan?"

"Must have been before my time there, surely I'd remember a thing like that."

Brie shrugged. "Thought you were already around. Anyway, every year since that happened they've posted a small army in those fields during hunting season. I used to volunteer to do overtime back there. We all just sat around in trucks or whatever, keeping a lookout. But this time of year? It's deserted. You could wait with a trailer in the rest area and pull around back when Penny got there. Only problem is there's a creek you'd have to get the filly across and we don't know whether it's swollen right now." Brie looked around. "So, which spot sounds best?"

Cailen was picturing herself aboard Penny, picking their way along the perimeter fields, searching for landmarks. "At night, which would be easier to locate?"

"The rest area lights show up pretty well, so you couldn't miss it. But that gravel tongue used to have a tall green security light that would make it easy to find in the dark, too, if it's still there. If the light isn't working, you still couldn't go wrong by constantly working your way north and east, and eventually the white gravel would show up."

Cailen surveyed the table. "Take a vote?"

Unanimity met the gravel tongue.

Next came the problem of getting Cailen to Penny. She couldn’t exactly wander out among all those fields and horses at night and expect to find her.

With regard to how they'd position themselves at Rainier Farms in the first place, Joan took over. "My truck is familiar enough to arouse no suspicion under normal circumstances. But given Sassy's visit yesterday, I should have a damn good reason ready for showing up right now. Tell me how this sounds. Without mentioning Cailen specifically, I let show that I am distraught and feeling restless, so I've decided to distract myself by taking a very active interest in Corporate Governance, that big investment colt Sassy bought a few months ago. In fact, I'll drive all the way over there to watch him gallop, saying I might bring him to Churchill in a few days to give him the experience of being here during the Derby hoopla before next year, when he’ll be a three-year-old and I'm very much hoping to run him in it."

When there was no dissent over the plausibility of that approach, Joan went on. "Cailen, I have no illusions that you intend any less than leading Penny out personally, so I won't argue with you over it, as long as I have your word that if there's a surprise, if something goes wrong, responsibility shifts entirely to me. Do I have your word?"

"How do you expect to take the blame for her sneaking a horse worth fifty thousand dollars off the owner's property?"

Cailen could have strangled Hannah for saying that. She had hoped to keep this promise rather hazy in nature.

"Cailen is still on Caulder Stables' books as an employee. She's simply doing what her employer directed, no reason needed. Will you promise to play it that way, Cailen?"

"We won't get caught."

"Correct, but humor me. Think of it as going for the best odds that nothing separates us. Sassy would prosecute you with glee. I don't believe she'd press charges against me."

Their plan was tight, they wouldn't get caught and Joan was right about the rest. "I promise. But we're not getting caught, understood?"

"Understood. I can smuggle you onto the farm in my truck bed's carryall. I'll casually inform Mag that I'm going to drive out for a quick visit with Penny. Nothing remarkable there. In fact, not going to Penny might seem odd. We'll pull up next to the run-in shed. Brie, every field has a run-in, doesn't it?"

"Every one. And that reminds me, between three and four each afternoon and between six and seven each morning, a bunch of feed trucks go out to drop grain at the sheds. So those times have to be avoided for sure."

Joan was nodding. "I'll be careful to go out after five that afternoon. So, once we're next to the shed, Cailen can slip from the truck with a shank and wait for darkness before leading Penny out. Any idea how long it should take, Brie?"

"Leading Penny, cutting through all those gates and on foot, I can't be exact, but better allow for a couple of hours, maybe longer. Really, the place is huge."

Matter-of-factly, Cailen amended, "We can cut that quite a bit, because I'll be riding her."

Brie went directly to the top. "Joan, that filly's been in the field for five months! You know how much on her toes she'll be. It's crazy to try riding her out. You know it's much safer to stay on the ground."

Joan was inclined to agree. Cailen had no idea how high they could get, out free like that. But Joan concentrated on Cailen's perspective, all those mornings she and Penny had puttered around the backside.

"Brie, the ground would be the safer place for you or me, but Cailen knows where she's more at home, and she understands Penny. How about a compromise where she takes a bridle and bit as well as a shank?"

Brie folded her arms across her chest. "I'll be worrying the whole time, but I guess that'll be true anyway. Do you even know how to ride bareback?"

"Sure, it's like riding in a saddle, only no footrests."

Bad move. Brie flared. "Cocky! She's getting cocky, Joan, and with her, that always leads to being careless." She folded her arms again, with more force this time. "Don't let her take the bridle."

Joan slammed the table. "I am not the mother here. Got it? Quit making these appeals to me."

In such a small a room it wasn't easy for that many pairs of eyes to avoid all the others, but they did it. For almost a full minute.

Then Joan took a deep breath and noted with frank delicacy, "Okay, we've each had our turn at snapping someone's head off. Let's hope that's out of our systems now and that we focus on getting that filly off that farm."

It was Brie's contritely murmured, "Yes, mother," that put a true end to the sporadic disharmony.

A heavy thump in the living room brought their attention to the door they were tenuously secured behind.

Brie noticed the stove clock time. "Four already. The kids have been home from school for over an hour and nobody has raided the kitchen? Cinda is working a miracle for us."

"They must be half starved, poor things. I remember how my brother and I would hit the kitchen after school, especially on gray rainy days like this. There isn't a hunger quite like that. Call them in, Brie."

But Brie was inspecting the refrigerator. "Sometimes there isn't a whole lot around, other than jelly bread, which isn't bad to hold them off until supper, but it gets kind of old. Maybe I'll run out to the store real quick and get something good."

Joan didn't want to gape into someone else's refrigerator, but could imagine how the contents of this one must contrast with the tempting vistas of fruit, lunchmeat, leftover cake and pie, cheese and fresh milk she had always found inside theirs at home. She spied a pizza delivery magnet stuck to the refrigerator's freezer door. "Let's call out for pizza, lots of it, and soft drinks."

Brie lit up. "I'll pitch in. They'll blow a gasket when pizza all of a sudden magically appears."

"Is this place good? And do they deliver cookies?" Joan put a fingertip on the magnet.

"Their favorite, that's why it's on the fridge. I think they'll send cookies, we can ask."

Joan already had her cell phone out and was punching buttons. As the number rang, she fished a credit card from her back pocket. She doubled the order Brie relayed and added too many soft drinks. "What kinds of desserts do you have? Then how about a dozen chocolate chip and a dozen macadamia nut?" Brie was bouncing on the balls of her feet, a preview of how the kids were going to jump up and down when they found out.

"How long did they say?"

"Thirty minutes."

Brie opened the door by pulling on the hole where its knob should be. "I should warn Cinda, but don't worry, we'll keep it a surprise for the kids."

Cailen was feeling optimistic about Penny's rescue. One thing she knew for certain was that once she had her hands on Penny, Sassy would have to kill to get her back. While they waited for Brie to return, she accused Joan, "You like kids."

"I do not!"

"I saw your face when you ordered pizza for them. You like kids."

Joan found an indignant excuse. "We are supposed to be in this house demolishing margarita after margarita. The arrival of several pizza boxes brilliantly substantiates that ruse. Hannah, don't you think the pizza lends ingenious authenticity to our story?"

"Sure, but you aren't that great an actress, Joan. Face it, you like kids."

Finally. Something you two agree on. "Gang up on me, I don't care. I feel too good to mind, because I'm starting to believe we can pull off this heist. What's your opinion, Hannah? You’ve been a bit quiet. Does all this sound too farfetched? Maybe we're getting carried away."

"No, what you've worked out so far is totally doable. Of course, there's—"

Brie came back in, breathless. "Sorry, it took a minute to get Cinda off to herself." She turned her chair around and straddled it. "Blaine sends his regards, Cailen. Did I miss anything?"

"Tell him I love him, too. No, we were just using up time 'til you got back."

"Great, I'm back. Let's go over what we have so far. Joan sneaks Cailen into the pasture, Cailen walks," a sideways slide of the eyes at Cailen, "or rides, the filly all the way back to Aiken Road, to the gravel turnaround, where I'll be waiting with a truck and trailer. Now, we shouldn't use the fancy—"

"Hold it. Who said you'd be driving the trailer?" Joan wanted to keep things as uncomplicated as possible. "I'll meet Cailen and Penny."

Hannah came forward, alert. "Brie, you don't need to be running around in the middle of this."

"Who's running around? Somebody has to drive that rig. Joan, you're supposed to be there to have a look at the big shot horse. How would you explain dragging the trailer along, unless you ship him out right away? But then you'd have to take the fancy outfit Sassy gave you and that thing's too conspicuous. We can't put Penny on that without drawing all kinds of attention. And the timing would be totally wrong. You'd have to have What's His Name, Derby Hopeful, on the trailer when you picked her up plus, you'll probably be followed when you leave the farm. Impossible. It can't be you. It has to be me."

Cailen sighed. "She's right."

"Not necessarily. Give me a minute to think this through." Hannah didn't try to hide her aggravation with Cailen. "For one thing, Brie is too well known by people around there. Somebody might recognize her. I'll drive the trailer."

"Recognize her where? Nobody better even see her or the trailer." Cailen had zero intention of entrusting such a critical role to Hannah.

Screeches and screams went up in the living room.

Brie smiled at Joan. "Pizza's here. Okay, so I'm bringing the trailer. Will we borrow Anna's again? And whose truck should I drive?"

Joan had anticipated this part. "I don't believe it's fair to implicate Anna or connect her name to this, however remotely, by using her trailer. She's too invested in the thoroughbred world. But there’s someone else who might be doubly useful, and I think he's far enough removed from racehorses and Churchill to be viewed as an innocent party. Stevie Stroustrup, who was my best friend all through school, has one of those pony party businesses. He pulls a two-horse trailer around with a very nondescript, older model pickup. It's old, but Stevie keeps it in good shape. That thing would blend in anywhere, perfectly unmemorable. And I really think he'll loan it to me, especially on a weekday. The other part is that the pony party industry doesn't bring in a lot of cash. Stevie lives way back in the boonies, where he mainly wants to make enough to support his love of fixing up old cars. He'd probably be very open to boarding Penny on his place, and unless we were caught in the act of taking her in there, I can guarantee she'll be out of the way for as long as we require. Brie, you'd have to call my dad when you get off at their exit and have him show you back to Stevie's place."

Cailen shrugged and nodded at the same time. "Lot of ifs, when can you talk to him?"

"Right now, from here.” Standing tentatively, Joan said, "Why don't you all run the fine brush over our plan one more time while I see if I can get Stevie?" When there were no objections, she ducked out the back door, drawing her cell phone.

The call went better than Joan could have asked. Returning to the kitchen, she said, "Well, ladies, that went well. Stevie even has a set of dummy plates for the trailer so the bad guys wouldn’t be able to trace us if somebody notices it.” Joan rubbed her hands together and said, “Looks like we're going to abduct a filly. Tomorrow night."

All reigning order blew straight to hell. Cailen cocked her head to its stubborn slant and launched into a list of all the reasons why they needed more time. Hannah actually got to her feet, threatening to leave. Brie, who'd been filling in landmarks on her drawing, bounced the chubby pencil’s eraser onto the table to the accompaniment of a blur of Spanish curses and stood too, ready to follow Hannah.

Three stressed out women, all low on sleep and food, one suffering from an estrogen imbalance, and Joan Caulder was able to bring them around to her ambitious agenda in eight minutes. She actually timed it.

The salient features of Joan's logic were that such a rapid response would be unanticipated by Sassy, Lara, and their people. Not that they should count on taking them off guard, but it couldn't hurt to try and wrong-foot them. Also, who wanted to spend one more day in this paranoid limbo than was absolutely necessary? Nobody. Then there was the compelling reality of springtime and the pony party business. Tomorrow and the next day, Thursday and Friday, Stevie and his trailer were free, but for Saturday and Sunday they were solidly engaged.

The stiffest objection came from Cailen. "That gives me no time to get you a new cell phone. Sassy knows the number you have now. With RFID on the horses and all the other technology they have in place, I'd bet her security guys are able to intercept phone conversations to and from a known number, as long as the phone is on the farm or in the immediate area. And we need to be able to communicate. So, I thought I'd pick up a new phone for you."

Joan had to think about that one for a bit. "The phone needs to be in the immediate area to be intercepted and they'd have to know the number?"

"Yeah, but we should define that to be a large area."

"So, if Car and I switch phones, she doesn't have his number, that should work, right?"

Brie winked. "You married a clever woman, Cailita."

"Too clever." Cailen reluctantly allowed, "Yeah, that would work and it would keep me from raising any red flags by shopping for a new phone. Does Sassy have your number, Brie?"

"Take a guess."

"Okay, that's a no. Anyway, there’s no reason for her to even look it up, since you aren’t involved as far as she knows. Then moving on this tomorrow shouldn't be as tough as it sounded at first."

"Lovely. Now, Stevie is going to leave his little rig parked at that last rest stop before you get to my parents' exit on sixty-four. Brie, if you can scrunch down on the floor of my truck to that far, I'll pull the same trick as with Cailen at the run-in shed. I'll stop the truck close to the restroom so you can pop out and duck inside. Whoever follows me shouldn't even be off the ramp before we get you into the building. I'll go in, pretend to use the bathroom, and resume my innocent trip to Camden. You can wait five or ten minutes before following in Stevie’s rig."

Brie had taken her seat again, but Hannah continued to pace and suggested, "In case there's a problem with the gravel pickup place, I don't think it would hurt to check out that creek behind the rest area, the one Cailen would have to get Penny across if you had to load her there. Brie, would it be convenient for one of you to stop there and check the creek on your way to the farm?"

"Great idea, yeah, we pass it on the way. I can stop and run back there to have a look. Nobody will be following me. Won't hurt to have a backup plan."

Joan beamed. "Wonderful. Are we all set, then?"

"Except for how to get me into the carryall and Brie on the floor of your truck without being seen."

"Damn, this is like functioning in quicksand."

Hannah, reluctantly resolved to Brie being in the middle of this, offered, "Why not have my brother take your truck out to fill the gas tank right before training in the morning? You'll be leaving from the barn and in a rush, right?"

"As soon as we can get away, yes."

"Okay, Car takes your truck, and whoever is watching you stays at the barn." Hannah looked at Cailen. "I hate to suggest this, but if you stay here overnight again, Car could come by and pick you up in the morning after topping Joan's tank. And for bonus, we wouldn't have to take the chance of smuggling you back through Paul's house tonight to get you into ours."

Joan cringed for Cailen, but Hannah's proposal did make sense.

Cailen flashed on Blaine's round blue eyes peering at her over the fist raised to his mouth for thumb sucking access. "You're right. You're right. That's the smartest course. I'll spend the night here again, if Cinda's agreeable." Cailen civilly addressed this to Hannah before adding to Joan and Brie. "We owe Cinda big time for all this."

"As for getting Brie into the truck," Hannah encircled Brie in her arms, "we're going to sneak off to the room first thing when we get there in the morning and Joan, if you pick up a load of bran on your way home tonight, which we are actually running short of, then in the morning drive your truck into the shedrow for unloading next door in the feed room, Brie can slide into the truck from the room and nobody watching from outside could possibly see. In case Jimmy's paying attention, I won't emerge for several minutes, and then I'll make sure he hears me mention that Brie's taking a nap. In fact, since Brie won't be showing up for work, Car and I can make sure Jimmy hears that she isn't feeling well. I'll make fake visits to the room with tea and stuff all morning."

"Brilliant, Hannah. We're low on bran?" Joan usually knew the supplies inventory pretty well.

"Uh-huh."

"I'll also give Mag a call tonight, explaining that I need to get away from Louisville and will be driving over to watch Gov gallop."

So the felony, as Joan had to repeatedly ask Brie to quit calling it, was arranged down to the fine print by seven o’clock that evening, when Brie and Hannah considerately gave Joan and Cailen a few minutes alone in the kitchen.

At first, they could only look at each other in astonishment at what they were about to do.

Joan said, "Last chance. Is there any way we can get around this?"

"Can't think of any." Cailen hugged her close. "Thanks."

"Don't thank me, I love her as much as you do. Think maybe you can get some sleep tonight, angel? We've mapped out a big day for ourselves tomorrow." Joan rearranged the hug to make kissing easier.

"I'll try. If you throw some blankets in the carryall, I can probably sleep on the way to South Carolina. Um…you know how I gave you my word about letting you take the blame?"

"Not negotiable, Cailen, I mean it." Joan's tone went arctic.

"I'm not reneging, but now I want your word on something. If there's a problem—a million unexpected things could come up out there—and you don't hear from me by the time you think you should have tomorrow, I need your word that you and Brie will sit tight until daybreak. If Penny and I get stranded out there in the daylight and turn up in a strange pasture when they come around to feed, we're sunk anyway, so by that time it won't matter if you and Brie act independently. But until morning, I want to be able to count on you guys going strictly to plan. And let me initiate any phone calls, don't call me, okay?"

"Why?"

"Because of the off chance somebody comes out to check on one of the horses and Penny and I have to lay low. All we'd need is for the phone to sound off or even vibrate and scare her or me and give us away. So, let's just agree that any communication will be initiated by me."

"Got it."

"You'll both stay put until morning? I can count on that much time to work with, no matter what happens, definitely?

"Word of honor. I'll tell Brie."

Cailen held on tight again. "We should get out there. I miss you so much."

"Me too. We'll be sleeping together in our own bed Friday night and Penny will be safe and sound."

"One more kiss. I love you."

When the kiss ended, Joan smacked Cailen's butt and whispered, "Try to refrain from staring at little Blake tonight."

"Blaine."

© 2006 Margo Moon

What's Wrong With Us?

2009-11-09T13:37:00.001-05:00

Seeing as there are only three chapters left in Grand Theft Equine, Starr Ann and I have been revving up to start posting on a regular basis again. So, we were doing some cowgirl image searches, right?

We were both shocked that neither of us remembers this picture of Jane Fonda from Cat Ballou.

We don't remember this one, either.

I swear, we feel like we should turn in a license or something.

Grand Theft Equine - Chapter Twenty-Four: Inquiry

2009-11-07T21:27:00.001-05:00

Previous chapters are available on the sidebar.

ON THE FIRST sunny afternoon past last chance of frost, Cailen set a quick pace as soon as training was over. She spurred Joan through a bolted lunch at the kitchen counter before changing from barn clothes to old shirts and shorts fit for working in the garden.

"Angel, you've been itching to get your hands on these perennials since November, haven't you?" Joan didn’t hate gardening. She appreciated the smell of thawing dirt as much as the next person, though she preferred hers tinged with at least a hint of seasoned horse manure.

Cailen's was an acute case of spring fever. After vigorously probing some loose, graying mulch with a short piece of woody stem, she did not look pleased. "Yeah, well it's a shame to let all this work go to waste. Justine put these in, right? She sure did know what she was doing. There's a real plan in the works here, Joan. How many years have the delphiniums and columbines bloomed since she added new cuttings, do you remember?"

"The what?" All Joan saw was a confusion of nondescript weedy overgrowth.

Cailen dumbed it down. "Did Justine mention when she'd have to replace any of these, like the ones that bloom in vertical, cone-shaped clusters?"

"Not to me. She did seem to have intricate plans, with diagrams and a calendar, but I never really helped out here, so I have no idea what they were. It was beautiful out here when everything was in bloom, though."

Cailen surveyed the neglected patch, thinking she would need a little luck to reverse the devastation. "Did she leave those plans here at the house, by any chance?"

"Now that I can answer. She took them with her."

"Figures." By authority of a decision made, Cailen straightened from her squat. "Here's what we're going to do. We have to weed all this very carefully. You can tell the weeds from the offshoots and shrubs we want to keep, right?"

Joan reached for something she considered ugly. "This would be a wee—"

"No, not those." Cailen stopped Joan's hand just before it uprooted an iris rhizome by what remained of its brown dried-up stalk and suggested, "Why don't you point out some of the ones you'd keep?"

Joan pointed at some brown Sudan grass, a laid-over swatch with dried up Johnson grass in it, and some bright green early orchard grass that Cailen guessed had probably hitched a ride to the yard on boots from hay at the track.

Touching Joan's shoulder, Cailen gave in to amusement. "You're only seeing what could be used for pasture. Unfortunately, all of that constitutes weeds for our purposes." She tried to sound encouraging and enthusiastic. "I know, why don't you be the assistant at first? I'll work on the weeding while you run out for some new mulch. Most of this old stuff is moldy and has to go."

Joan narrowed her eyes. "You're matronizing me."

"Try to think of it as rescuing Justine's perennials from harm's way."

"Fine, I don't mind running the errands. What kind of mulch and how mulch?"

"You mean how much."

"No, how mulch mulch and what kind? Also, who's on first?" Joan thought that was pretty funny, but Cailen had both hands buried in soil now and seemed transported by sensation. Joan really didn't have the heart to break the spell with more corny humor. "So how many bags of mulch do you think we'll need, angel?"

Cailen fluffed around, gently feeling for bulbs, then stood to estimate volumes. "Get twenty bags of the red cedar to be on the safe side. Is there a decent amount of storage room in the shed in case we have a few bags left over?"

Joan eyed the shed door. There was every possibility she'd never been in there. Who the hell knew what was in that shed? "I'll go check." Her report was that, yes, there was plenty of room inside. The thing was practically empty.

"Great. Twenty bags, then. And do I get a surprise?"

"Trying to keep me gone longer so you can weed it all by yourself?"

"Harm's way, Joan, harm's way." Cailen kissed her good-bye. "Hmm, that warm sun on your skin, you smell even better than the dirt. Be careful."

"I will." Joan drove away smiling at herself for being so schoolgirl gratified over smelling even better than the dirt.

Half a muck-basketful of weeds after Joan left, an unfamiliar car cruised through the alley. It passed on by, but came back the opposite way, even more slowly, seconds later. Without appearing to do so, Cailen made certain she wasn't hanging out of her shirt or anything. Probably some jerk seeing what he can see. She would have to discuss privacy fencing with Joan. Too bad, in a neighborhood like this, leaving the alley open could be so nice and neighborly, but it all hinged on whether a couple of idiots chose to mess it up for everybody else. Cailen inwardly lost all patience when the car stopped and somebody got out.

Her demeanor must have reflected her agitation, because the woman, at least it was a woman, started right in with apologies. "I'm so sorry to disturb you. Nothing worse than finally getting the perfect day to dive into all this," she swept the sunglasses from her face and gestured broadly at the sky with them, "then having someone crash the intimacy of the whole thing."

Joan was always so courteous with people, and Cailen didn't want to become known as the grouchy one, so she made herself smile as she dropped everything she'd been doing. "That's all right. It really is a pretty day, isn't it?"

"Certainly is." The woman couldn't get enough of looking at the garden.

"Is there something I can help you with?"

"No, thanks. You're probably going to think this is creepy, but I used to live here and have been thinking about this garden since waking up to such gorgeous weather. I took the day off and have spent much of the morning trying to resist driving by here like a stalker. No pun."

Cailen's real smile replaced the polite one. "Please tell me you're Justine."

Behind those deep brown eyes, a few deductions were made before Justine offered a friendly hand. "And I'll bet you're more than the gardener."

Letting that pass, since she was in the dark about the circumstances of the breakup, Cailen shook hands. "I've been trying to decipher what your intentions were here. All the labor you poured into this really shows. I'd want to see it cared for too, if I were you."

Justine continued to regard Cailen without replying. She shaded her eyes to look up toward the quiet house. All the solitary hours came back, seeing Cailen out here passing the time, working alone. "Is she having her pre-feed time nap?"

"Joan? No, she ran out for mulch."

"Mulch. Joan. Joan Caulder? Dazzling woman, about yay tall?" Justine gauged Joan's height fairly accurately.

Cailen couldn't purge the unalloyed affection from her grin. "She's due back any minute. Do you have time to stay a while and keep me on the right track here? Joan said there were written plans. I'd really like to follow through on the garden the way you designed it. I'll bet you can tell me everything that needs new cuttings and what's situated where, even without your notes."

*****

Joan swung her truck into the alley. Shit! The car was new, but the backyard wasn't so big that Joan couldn't recognize who Cailen was engrossed in deep consultation with, both of them gesturing significantly at some apparently fascinating area of ground near their feet. She unloaded one of the oversize bags and clutched it to her before embarking along the only approach, by way of a narrow concrete walk, to where they stood. Nothing awkward here, when you get down to it. Justine is the one who left me. So why do I feel like a criminal for helping Cailen with the gardening? Maybe because Justine asked me about a thousand times, an absolutely reasonable request, too, to share some time out here with her? Thank God it isn't Kate, at least. Kate could give even Lara a verbal run for her money. Please, Jus, don't be in the sardonic mood. Let it be a grown up banker lady day.

Justine had to half-turn from Cailen to greet her. "Joan, hi."

"Hi, Jus. Wait, let me put this down." Afraid of slaying one of the desirable plants—she really needed to discuss that whole weed versus worthwhile plant trick with Cailen later—Joan circled round, not sure where to disburden herself of the mulch. "Uh, let's see."

"On the sidewalk would be safe," Cailen suggested.

"Right." Her armor thus laid aside, Joan felt exposed but hugged Justine anyway, and with genuine fondness. "You look great."

"You too." Justine surveyed Joan from head to toe. "Enough of the mushy stuff. You almost killed my garden from neglect, do you realize that?" Her hands went to her hips, but the good spark was in her eyes.

For reply, Joan searched the ground and pointed to her cluster of orchard grass. "Weed or darling plant?"

"Weed." Justine didn't even pause to think.

"Weed or esteemed garden member?" Joan indicated the shoot Cailen had barely kept her from pulling.

"Iris."

"You and Cailen win. My answers were the exact opposite. You should be happy for my so-called neglect. If I'd flailed around out here alone, there'd be nothing left to save."

They stood around, eating fudgesickles and discussing the garden, until Cailen peeled the paper from her second bar and the other two said thanks, but one was enough for them.

So Cailen rolled up the brown sack's top until it snugged against the cool cardboard of the ice cream box. "If you're sure, I should get these inside before they melt."

When the screen door smacked shut Justine said, "How did Cailen get those incredible leg muscles?"

"Riding horses."

"Does she work for you?"

"With me, yes."

Cailen’s departure pushed gardening to the background, so there were no diversions from the inevitable catching up. "How's Brie?"

"Jade died."

Justine closed her eyes. "That's too sad to imagine. When? Is Brie okay?"

Still unable to fully take in stride the realness of Jade being gone, Joan halfway shook her head, then shrugged. "It's been a little over five months now. Brie handles it. I'm sure she'd love to see you, if you ever get the chance to drop by the barn."

"Maybe I will, if you truly don't mind. I miss Brie."

Joan nodded. "Brie misses you, too. Still." Jus was not going to believe this. A huge smile overtook Joan's face. "Brie's living off the track."

"No! With someone?"

"Believe it or not, I dare to venture that Senorita Contenta has been snared, heart and soul. She's a total goner." Joan followed Justine over to the yard's one tree, a billowy black sycamore whose leaves were barely poking out, to sit on the scrofulous green wooden bench beneath it. Justine had bought the seat during their first summer together and had stored it in the shed during winter weather. Joan hadn't thought to take it inside for protection, though. As they dusted away flaky paint before sitting, Joan commented, "I'll sand this down and paint it soon."

Rocking back, hands clasped in front of her crossed knees, Justine soaked up the sight of the familiar yard. Joan's words got through and she looked down at the weathered bench slats. "Joan, honey, you will not. Unless we disguise it as a horse, you're not about to spend five minutes on it. Cailen might. But you won't."

Joan heard more nostalgia than reproval in the remark and she had to laugh. "Maybe I'll help Cailen do it."

"You two are pretty inseparable, eh?" Justine looked sideways at her. "Give it up, will you? I'm not on the verge of freaking out."

"I know you aren't. But, Jus, about everything. I've realized lately that I should have made some effort to extend myself more."

Jus patted Joan's leg. "Honey, 'effort' is the operative word there. I will wager it's no effort to be out here with Cailen, and that's wonderful, I'm happy for you both." She used a single finger to loop Joan's forelock into a curl. "Please stop looking so guilty. My personal life has gotten extremely interesting, too. So, relax."

"Interesting? How? What's her name?" Joan gave Justine's arm a tweak.

"Tracy. Adorable, soft-hearted, butch and a little too young for me, but I can't help that."

"Congratulations. Hannah is four years younger than Brie."

"Her name's Hannah? Pretty."

The screen door announced Cailen's return from the house, where she'd found as many little tasks—bathroom, writing down her email address and phone number, and starting a load of barn clothes in the washer—as she could think of to give Joan and Justine a long enough visit without making Joan feel deserted, just in case things got uncomfortable out there.

She held out a piece of paper as she drew close to the bench. "Before we forget, here's my email address and cell phone number."

They'd evidently already discussed trading this information, Joan surmised, since Justine took it as a matter of course and retrieved a card from her back pocket.

"Here's all my current contact information." Justine stood. "Cailen, wonderful to meet you, see you Saturday. Joan, really, I can't say how nice this has been."

"Me too. Please come by the track and see Brie."

"Any chance I'd get to meet Hannah, too?"

"She grooms the four horses next to Brie's, so I can guarantee you'll meet her."

"Brie in love. Amazing. How about Sunday after next?"

"Actually, that would be fine, you could still visit with Brie and Hannah, but Cailen and I are taking that Sunday off."

All Justine could do was turn reverentially to Cailen. "Either you're superwoman or you're sneaking something into her coffee. Good job, whichever it is." She hugged Joan goodbye and promised to see Cailen at noon on Saturday before insisting they get back to work on the weeds instead of walking her to her car.

As Justine drove off, Joan asked about Saturday at noon.

"Justine's bringing her notes and diagrams and we're going to garden together. If it's okay with you, of course. I'll cancel if you're at all uncomfortable."

"Not a bit. I was at first, but that went great." Joan put an arm across Cailen's shoulder. "Allow me to warn you, though. If Kate ever shows up, don't expect the same luck. In that event, we run to the house and lock the doors."

*****

The very next afternoon, Cailen heard the yard calling again, since the weather was cloned from the day before. And muscling aside the grunt work before Saturday and Justine was only polite. Joan was showing some promise at weeding, but Cailen let her off the hook after a while by suggesting they could do with a couple of tarps and one more rake, a heavy claw one. And a hoe, for some reason there was no hoe in the shed. And the clippers needed to be sharpened. Plus, they'd gone through all but two of those bags of mulch, so five more would be good. Poor Joan. By the time Cailen finished her list, running errands loomed almost as oppressively as weeding.

Cailen was ready to take pity and absolve for both jobs. "Why don't you let me go for that stuff after I finish here. I don't mind a bit."

Snagging the list and shoving it into her pocket, Joan brightened. "You don't have to humor me. Besides, I think I'm starting to catch on to weeding already. You're probably going to end up being very impressed with what a good gardener I become."

"Already am. Look at the headway you've made on your side of the walk today."

Joan turned a complete circle. "Am I okay to go out? No dirt or grass stains on my butt or anything?"

The trowel slipped from Cailen's hand and landed with its tip poking into the friable ground. "Maybe we should forget this today and go upstairs. No big hurry, when you get down to it."

"Rain moving in tomorrow, remember?"

Cailen looked from her dirt-crusted hand to the front of Joan's work jeans. Soil washes out. As she took the first step forward, Cailen's intention penetrated and Joan made a mad dash for her truck, barely getting locked in before Cailen crashed into the driver's door and deliberately left dirty finger streaks down the window.

She called from outside the closed cab, "Will you stay inside with me while it rains tomorrow?"

"It's a date. I love you." Joan's voice came out muffled and small, swallowed by the interior's acoustic insulation.

"Me too. Be careful."

Just as Cailen was getting engrossed in the moiling again, another unfamiliar car, not Justine's, came sliding down the alley, extra slowly. Cailen thought, Surely this isn't Kate. When the car slipped with greased ease into Joan's vacated spot, Cailen stood in time to see a chauffeur hustle obligingly from a navy blue Rolls Royce with the blackest tinted windows she had ever seen. The impeccably uniformed man, a human version of the car in his sleek navy blue costume and dark, dark glasses, handed Sassy Rainier smartly out the rear door. Rolls Royce man then settled himself to stand stoically by as Sassy stalked up the walk.

She neither flitted nor fluttered this time, but walked with unyielding purpose. She wore a suit the color of brushed steel that appeared equally as resistant to wrinkling, its fit tailored and tubular, the severe austerity of which matched Sassy's hard-featured and businesslike face. This flinty woman bore no trace of the defeated, submissive one who'd tenderly left champagne and two glasses on the nightstand in that cabin in Camden. Two paces before reaching Cailen she whipped a fast check of her watch. One pace away, she held up a hand in imperial indication that no greeting was necessary.

Good, none was planned.

"Ms. Eagleton, I do not have much time, so listen carefully please. You are to move from this house at once. Not tomorrow. Tonight."

Cailen allowed herself an incredulous snicker before turning her back in dismissal of such nonsense.

Controlled fury put iron reinforcement into Sassy's voice as she raised it to announce, "Pennington's Lass weighs one thousand two hundred and thirty-five pounds. At present stock yard prices, she will bring eight hundred and sixty-two dollars."

Wheeling, Cailen gritted out, "What are you talking about?"

Sassy smiled, enjoying the sting of infliction. "Pennington's Lass, don't you remember?"

"Of course I remember. Why are you telling me what she weighs?" The sunlight, so buttery warm just moments before, had taken on a grating whiteness, its glare pushing Cailen to pat her pockets for sunglasses she'd left on the kitchen counter.

From behind the cool wraparound barricade of designer shades, Sassy's eyes shone in anticipated triumph as she delivered her well-coached lines. "Such a good girl, the men said. A very cooperative animal. The men from the abattoir said she stepped onto the scales and stood for them like an angel. Wasn't that a sweet thing for them to call her, an angel?"

Rage and scalding fear sent rigidity, followed closely by trembling weakness, through Cailen's limbs. Caution told her to keep check on the surface of her reactions, though, since that initial show of anger a moment ago appeared to be exactly what Sassy was after. Cailen waited.

"In Europe, you know, horse is often served as the main course. Very tasty, too. I enjoy it." Sassy's lasered and enameled teeth, superhumanly white, shone in a sick smile. "They say the flavor of a contented animal, an angel like Penny for instance, is quite superior to that of a stressed or nervous one. You and Joan can be thanked for any added flavor, given the lengths to which you've both gone on behalf of keeping her happy. Of course, this is only in the event you foolishly disobey my order to vacate."

Mid-ambush and maintaining provisionary neutrality across her features, Cailen assessed the situation as critically as she was able. Sassy was threatening to send Penny to the killers unless Cailen moved from Joan's house, no doubt unless she left Joan completely. Remembering what Joan had said about fifty thousand dollars being nothing to Sassy, Cailen had no reason to think she was bluffing on that count. Joan had also been very clear about Sassy having no interest in horses aside from business. Try as she might, Cailen could come up with no basis for either argument or appeal for Penny. Anything said without being thoroughly thought out could even make this worse.

An electronic device beeped from inside Sassy's slate-flat purse. She swiveled her head toward the chauffeur, who raised one hand with three fingers extended.

Sassy spoke quickly. "Joan's on her way back. I'm sure you've taken my point concerning the horse. I want you out of this house and Joan's life by midnight tonight. Joan is never to know of this conversation. If she gets wind of it, or if you do not leave, the papers have already been signed and a single call from me will have the meat packers loading Pennington's Lass onto one of their vans within an hour." Sassy let that sink in. "And if you think Joan can fix everything if you tell and she speaks with me, you'd both be mistaken. Oh, and don't worry about notifying me that you've cleared out of here. We will be watching and listening. Goodbye, Ms. Eagleton. I'll give your love to Penny when I get home."

All but caved in by Sassy's tactics, Cailen asked, "What do you think you can possibly gain by this?"

Sassy started to leave, but reconsidered. Some of that tender brokenness she'd shown in the cabin tried to emerge, but got chased back in. "Ms. Eagleton, you are a symptom of my Joan's inability to see her true place in this world. This is to save Joan. She deserves nothing less than first class, and since she can't quite see that, I have to see it for her." Any reply Cailen might have found held no interest for Sassy, so she pivoted on her first-class stilettos and jabbed them at the sidewalk all the way to her car.

Cailen stood motionless until forgetting to breathe made her so dizzy she lost balance and stumbled. That jolt and the realization that Penny's life depended on how well she handled the next few hours restored her clarity of mind.

Treat this like a programming problem. Stay in the left brain. I can do this. It's a problem like any other and there is a solution.

Fighting tears, Cailen ran down the knowns. Recalling the elaborate security system at Rainier Farms and Sassy's bottomless resources, she assumed that the phone was probably tapped and the house could even be bugged. So anything said on the phone or inside must be well staged. That meant intercepting Joan outside, in the yard, when she got home. And someone was probably watching the yard, from a parked car or even from a nearby upstairs window, since lots of the houses in this neighborhood had been divided up into apartments, which changed occupants often. So somehow, Cailen had to prevent a visible reaction from Joan as she learned of their bizarre predicament. Telling her inside the shed was one possibility, but both of them suddenly ducking in there might look suspicious. She'd have to wing that part. First things first, though. Cailen stormed into the house and dialed Brie's number, while keeping watch on the alley from a kitchen window for Joan's truck.

The cell rang three times before Brie answered. "Brie? Cailen. Listen, I know this is sudden and upsetting and unbelievable, but could I use the room tonight?"

"What, you and Joan looking to spice things up with different settings already?"

"Brie, please, I'm in no shape right now to play around, really. Listen to me. I am not joking. We're breaking up. I need a place to stay, just for tonight, then tomorrow I'll make other arrangements." Cailen could picture Brie's knitted, narrowing expression too well as this processed.

"Cailita, I don't know what to say. Please don't go to the room, come here tonight. What about Joan? Should I come be with one of you? Baby, why don't you come here with me, and maybe Hannah should go to Joan. Is Joan at home?"

"She will be soon. Look, I'll come there, but how about holding off on sending Hannah until she clears it with Joan? I don't know what she'll want. Brie, I'm so sorry to dump this on you. I have to go now, be there in two or three hours."

"We feed today, baby, so make it after four forty-five, can you?"

"Be there around five then, if you're sure its okay."

"Sure, anything you need. And I'll keep this phone very close until you get here. If either you or Joan calls, I'll answer immediately." Brie was quiet for a moment. "All I can say is I love both of you."

"I know. Thanks. Sorry."

The situation demanded thinking like Sassy's people. Ideally, they'd heard that conversation. Now, Cailen had to appear to find a way to pick a fight with Joan when she returned. And that had to be initiated outside, where it wouldn't be overheard. Cailen knew that open-air surveillance was technologically possible, but using it required too little background noise and too clear a shot at the target to be feasible among the boxy, closely spaced houses on their block. Sassy's people would have had to park a van full of equipment practically inside the backyard to monitor conversations out there.

As she turned to the problem of keeping a lid on Joan’s reactions, the truck swept into its spot and Cailen shot out the door. On her way down the walk, the idea hit that if Joan’s arms were wrapped around one of those large bags of mulch, the broader physical manifestations of her responses would be stifled. And since they'd be unloading stuff, it would be natural to enter the shed together. Then Cailen ruled out the idea of talking inside the shed. Being an enclosure made it a place where a listening device would work.

"Hi, angel, pretty quick trip, huh? And I proudly claim success with every item on your list." Joan toned down her volume. "I hurried so we could maybe finish weeding early enough to run upstairs before supper."

"Great. Here, let's start with the heavy stuff first, grab a bag of mulch."

Joan crisply saluted Cailen's take-charge manner, saying, “Yes, ma'am, whatever you say, ma'am," and hefted one of the bulky plastic bags.

Cailen grabbed the new rake and sharpened clippers before starting up the walk abreast of her.

Huffing under the burden of the mulch, Joan gave the rake and clippers a pointed look and smirky smile. "Don't strain yourself there."

Several paces inside the yard, Cailen deemed it safe to speak freely. "Joan, do not visibly react when I say this. Please. Keep looking ahead." She hurried her speech and slowed their pace. "Sassy Rainier was here while you were gone. No, don't talk, just listen, this is very bad. She says she'll sell Penny to the killers if I don't clear myself from your life. Keep walking and don't react. She claims to have us under surveillance. I know I sound crazy, but I swear this is all true. Now let's just go into the shed and unload, but it could be bugged so I can't tell you anymore until we're back out again. Understand, so far?"

Joan nodded. "Yes."

They took the final few steps to the shed and entered. Cailen feigned a casual air. "How much did they charge you to sharpen these trimmers?"

"Five dollars, I think." Joan's mind was fragmented, but she had the gist of how they should play this.

Outside, Cailen put her hands on her hips, tried to keep them from trembling, and drifted over by the area Joan had been weeding earlier.

Joan joined her. "I need more details."

"I know. Just keep looking down at the dirt with me while I talk. She came in a chauffeured car, marched up here and told me to leave you by midnight tonight. If I don't or if I tell you what she's threatening, Penny will be loaded onto a killer's van within the hour." Cailen stooped to pick up a handful of dirt and sift it through her fingers. "I totally believe her, Joan."

"Then so do I. Tell me what to do next." Joan put her hands on her hips, in imitation of Cailen's attitude, and appeared to survey the ground at her feet.

Cailen stood. "Let's finish unloading and I'll fill you in on what I've come up with. Remember, only casual talk in and around the shed." This time they each took a bag of mulch. "I already called Brie from inside the house to ask for a place to stay tonight. You and I have to stage an argument that gets bad enough for me to leave. It has to come entirely from my side and you just have to seem bewildered."

"That should be easy enough, I am bewildered. Are you okay?"

"Considering Penny's life is at the mercy of someone who is obviously psychotic, I am. The best thing for Penny is for us to stay sharp, so that's what we're going to do."

"Yes we will. Is there any chance that my talking to Sassy could stop this?"

They were nearing the shed. "No. She covered that. When we go in this time, I'm going to start picking on you."

"I love you and I know you love me." Joan got that in before they were too close to the shed.

Cailen dumped her load on top of the lumpy stack of bags. "So I don't get it. Why you cannot, after this amount of time at it, tell a weed from an expensive, established perennial, is beyond me."

"Angel, I'm sorry. I really am trying." They walked back outside.

"Back to your question, your calling Sassy would be disastrous for Penny. Now, when I get to Brie's I'll tell her the truth about what's going on. Brie already offered for Hannah to come here to be with you for as long as you need her tonight. That'll work well for us. After we stage our fight in the house I'll leave. When I get to their house, I'll think of some way for us to get together tomorrow to chart a plan. By then we'll have had some time to think. I shouldn't show up to work tomorrow. Anyway, you accept Hannah's offer to come over and I'll send a note with her outlining some safe way for us to meet. In the meantime, if you think of anything for her to relay back to me, write it down, don't try to say it out loud."

Approaching the shed with the final load, the real conversation gave way again to the contrived one.

"What has gotten into you, Cailen? Before I left we were talking and laughing, joking around. I'm sorry if I ruined a couple of the good ones, but please, don't be angry. I didn't grow up working in greenhouses like you did, you know."

"Growing up doing it or not, it isn't genetic sequencing, it's pulling weeds for God's sake! How simple can I make it?"

Outside, heading for the back door, Cailen asked, "So are we clear on this? Big blowup in the house. You act hurt and stunned. Hannah will bring written instructions from me about where we can meet. I love you with all my heart, I can't say that enough."

"Mine too." Still a safe distance from the bottom of the steps, Joan averred, "We will protect Penny, angel. Remember she is the only remaining leverage, and Sassy won't lightly give up the advantage of her continued existence."

"I promised Penny we'd always take care of her."

"And we will." Joan went up the back steps ahead of Cailen.

The fight was a remarkable display, or would have been to anyone with access to audio and video. Warm kisses and protective embraces punctuated harsh words, insults and pleas for compassion. When Cailen began to pack, Joan lent loving, silent assistance to provisioning a bag for an absence of two days. Neither of them could fathom enduring the present terms for longer than that.

© 2006 Margo Moon

Dona Nobis Pacem

2009-11-04T19:31:00.001-05:00

My best friend Starr Ann and I spent much of yesterday brainstorming over what to say about Peace for this year's BlogBlast.

In the morning, while we were cleaning stalls, Starr Ann had herself an idea that featured me writing a poem about Peace. Well, after hearing me try out a few lines, Starr Ann realized she'd overshot. Can I help it that Peace so temptingly rhymes with grease, police, and almost with squeeze? Anyway, no poem.

Then, during lunch I started thinking maybe it would be fun for Starr Ann and me to collaborate on a parody of some famous song, only our words would be all about Peace. Starr Ann got all excited and said, "Let's do it to Crystal Blue Persuasion!" Which sounded good to me, but we had to start with the actual lyrics and we soon realized that Crystal Blue Persuasion already is about Peace.

We finally decided we were pushing ourselves too hard and the best thing to do would be just to sleep on it and fully expect a fantastic idea to be there, intact, when we woke up today. So, when I woke up with nada, I rushed to Starr Ann's room, positive the Peace Fairy (heh) had visited her overnight. Odd as this might sound, Starr Ann didn't wake up with the post fully formed in her mind either.

By that time, we were getting a little bit ticked at Mimi Lenox for moving BlogBlast up a day this year. If only we had that extra 24 hours, Starr Ann and I were sure we could come up with something. We were down at the pond, tossing stones in the water, finishing up our morning coffee, and blaming Mimi when all of a sudden, Starr Ann threw a rock in and at the instant it broke the surface, Starr Ann called out, "Peace!" Then, as the circle began to expand on the water where the stone had fallen, Starr Ann followed up with, "...starts with a simple act that spreads throughout the universe."

I pitched a stone and when it hit I said, "Peace!" And as the ring formed, I said, "...is knowing you've tried your best."

Starr Ann and I ended up hurling pebbles for a long time, broadcasting the word Peace! and a bunch of things it can mean, just the first things that came to our minds. Like,

Peace! ...lives in the smallest kindness

Peace! ...is a full, deep breath

Peace! ...spelled backward cannot be pronounced

Peace! ...is that blue heron standing there across the pond

Peace! ...in shorthand is ☮!

Peace! ...is bound to catch on sooner or later

Peace! ...is knowing your critters are healthy and happy

Peace! ...was invented by hippies in 1962

Peace! ...trumps religion

Peace! ...needs to walk up and smack Violence! upside the head

Peace! ...is the ultimate public option

When we'd run out of rocks to throw, Starr Ann shrugged her shoulders and said, "Let's just write those on the Chronicles tomorrow, because you know, Peace! ...is not fretting over your BlogBlast post."

And of course, that's what I did.

On the hike back up to the house, Starr Ann laughed that one laugh and said, "I could have sworn Crystal Blue Persuasion was about talking this woman named Crystal Blue into bed."

Chapter Twenty-Three: Eased

2009-10-24T20:06:00.002-04:00

Previous chapters are available on the sidebar.

Trailing with Car behind the last set, in which Captain Natural had breezed a sharp four furlongs in forty-seven flat, Joan spied approximately one-third of the front right quarter panel on Cailen’s truck parked there in its old spot. She cleared the end of Mitch’s barn next door at a full run and a scan of the shedrow put Brie’s smile directly in her sights. Still running full out, Joan yelled, “Where, Brie?”

Brie tipped a rolled bandage pad toward the office door and Joan aimed her path more precisely for it. She crossed the boundary from glaring sunshine to shedrow shade and entered the office in a move whose grace could only have been surpassed had she not slammed the door too hard, which sent Singer into a little dance as he cleared the corner.

Outside, Brie smacked the rolled up pad against her knee. “I knew she was going to scare the horses.”

The dust from Singer’s kicked up heels still floated on the air as inside, a long embrace was reluctantly slackened so Joan could smooth at the curls framing Cailen's face.

"How long do we have, angel?"

Cailen's mouth was so dry she could barely speak. "We're both pretty healthy, I'd say we have a good fifty years."

"I want sixty."

"Sixty, then."

Joan tried again. "What I meant was how long can you stay?"

"The whole sixty, if you like."

Joan jostled her and the sweetness of their bodies pressing together nearly swamped her senses. "Be serious, I need to know when you have to be back in Chicago."

"Never, as far as I can foresee." A confiding smile slowly claimed Cailen's features. "Joan, I have a rough idea of what went on here day before yesterday, albeit solely through Lara's version. That must have been some scene." She considered thoughtfully for a moment, taking her time, not realizing Joan hadn't drawn a breath since hearing that Cailen never had to go back. "The thought of you going through something so sordid woke me up good. The morning after she came in spouting off the whole mess, I signed the house over to her and left SoliSoft with an understanding that I may consider doing some programming for them, but only if I can do it from right here." Cailen nearly went into more detail about that prospect, but dismissed it for the moment. "You and I will have to discuss that when the time comes. Anyway," she blew out a long breath, "I'm home for good." She forced a sorrowful look onto her glowing face. "My dowry is reduced by half the sale price of the house, sorry. Don't worry, though, I can still go halves on Penny."

Desired and longed for as it was, the news presented a lot to absorb. Absolutely without warning, Joan cracked. She clung to Cailen and cried a deep, shoulder shaking, sob gulping, all-purpose cry—for Jade, for Brie's loss, for Lara's nastiness, and for the glorious relief of having Cailen back in her arms.

When the outburst shuddered to a rough halt, Cailen's soothing, "I'm here. I've got you," swerved Joan's emotions in another direction and for a while there was renewed energy behind her tears. This second wave of weeping, no longer in the convulsive category, played itself out evenly and dwindled gradually to a smooth stop.

Joan loosened her clench on Cailen and drew back to reveal a tear-washed smile. "I think I'm finished now."

"You sure? I'm not going anywhere and my shoulder won't melt, you know."

Joan shook her head, which was clogged to a density beyond her experience. "No, that'll do it for another twenty years or so, thanks." She laid her hand across her forehead, but smiled. "Guess we should get out there and say goodbye to Brie and Hannah." Joan's smile really did come out from behind the clouds then. "The sooner we do, the sooner I'll have you alone in the truck, and then home."

A discussion of logistics might be just the thing right now, Cailen thought. "Yeah, the truck. I'll need to drive mine home. We'll have to separate for the ride because a few of my nearest and dearest pieces of equipment have the cab jam-packed from ceiling to floorboard."

Part of Joan's attention was straying to the tissues she kept in the side desk drawer, and she was weighing whether getting one was worth letting go of Cailen. "Computers?"

"Sex toys."

Laughing made Joan’s need to blow her nose more critical. "It’s so lame when you try to be shocking."

"Okay, it's computer equipment—two towers, a scanner, my laptop, a large flat panel, all my personal digital devices, and a printer. The very minimum that I cannot do without."

Joan had retrieved a Kleenex and felt much better after blowing her nose. "I really have ended up with a geek, haven't I?"

"Before long, you won't be able to remember how you ever survived without your own personal geek around the house."

One more blow and Joan was ready to go, but she paused to ask, "Where does all the snot come from so immediately when you cry, I wonder? Is it always sitting in a reservoir somewhere, or does your body have to generate it that fast?"

Cailen guided their way to the door with a reassuring arm across Joan's shoulders. "After I'm set up, we'll check that on the Internet."

*****

The big door finally separated them from the outside world about an hour after Joan's torrent. Having secured Cailen's tech toys in what would become her study upstairs and agreed on the best configuration for parking their trucks along the alley behind the backyard, they were finally ready to settle in. And it was Cailen's turn to have an incongruous response. She dearly wanted to eat.

When they ended up in each others' arms on the stair landing, she meekly admitted, "If anybody would have tried to tell me I'd be home this long without getting you into bed, I'd have said they were deranged."

"But?"

"But I have this overpowering desire to sit across the kitchen table from you and eat food, a lot of food."

Joan took her hand, saying, "In the grand scheme of sixty years, why not?" and led her downstairs and through the kitchen's swinging saloon-style doors, where they overdid it on massive cream cheese veggie sandwiches, homemade butter asparagus soup, french fried sweet potatoes, beer, and big hunks of the leftover caramel cake experiment.

Cailen rocked her chair onto its back legs and held her belly. "I haven't felt this particular brand of miserable since we left Calabash Bob's that morning, remember?"

Joan patted her own stomach. "Coin flip or no coin flip, I couldn't drive right now to save my life."

"No way."

Anchored to the chairs by their intemperateness, they luxuriated in passing another little easy while there in the kitchen, spoiling themselves with conversation that was, at last, not edged in deferred solace. All those bleak months full of internal pep talks and heavy phone calls began the long process of fading from memory. Meanwhile, the future sketched, shaded, and painted portraits of itself, forming mental pictures that time would cure into memories. Everything either woman needed or wanted in that particular moment, however, sat exactly one kitchen table-width away.

© 2006 Margo Moon

Grand Theft Equine - Chapter Twenty-Two: Rough Riding

2009-10-17T13:24:00.001-04:00

Previous chapters are available on the sidebar.

January got going with a whopper of a snowstorm. Fourteen inches of snow is downright entombment for a Southern city with no elevation to speak of. So the horses got two extra days of walking. Joan said it was a good thing they were supposed to be relaxing anyway. By the third day, maintenance had the track in good enough shape for training to resume.

The start of Brie's classes was delayed, too, but Hannah made her study anyway, or at least she lobbied for it. Brie had her own ideas about how to spend the found time.

Relaxing at the tiny kitchen table in Hannah’s apartment one snowy afternoon, Brie got up the nerve to mention the shadow that had been hovering between them. "You know, we never did get around to talking about why I couldn't look at you the day Jade left. You said you had a theory?"

Hannah was at the top of a footstool, snipping oregano from a high-hanging window planter. She stepped down and spread her fragrant harvest on a towel to dry. "The theory couldn't be simpler. You keep me at arm's length, Brie." Hannah raised her chin to intercept Brie's dissent. "It's not an accusation, I swear it isn't." She nailed her with a settling look. "You never expected me to come along, and now that I’m here, I'm going to screw up your program, or so you think. That’s why you work real hard to preserve this status quo we've established. But like I always tell you, Brie, it won't hold. We're meant to be together. The day Jade left, emotions were so high, I wanted with my whole heart to hold you, for both our sakes. You couldn't have handled it though, because something might give. The feelings I know you have too, might have cut loose. So you couldn't acknowledge me." Hannah stirred the spaghetti sauce the oregano was destined for. "Look at us though, Brie, together constantly because neither of us feels right anywhere else. And as far as me messing up your career plans, who feeds you, makes you study extra, does everything humanly possible to help you with school? Weird as it seems, because I've always looked out for numero uno—was that Spanish?"

"Not really."

"Self-serving as I've always been, doing those things for you makes me happier than I've ever been in my life. And there's no sex. Great goddess in heaven, we aren’t even making love." Hannah scoffed.

Brie stared at her hands for a long time, as long as it took for Hannah to cook the pasta and get their meal on the table. When they were seated to eat, she finally spoke. "You have had more patience with me than anybody should ever ask for. I am going to admit that you unnerve me. We agree completely on what you said about not feeling right when we are apart. That, alone, terrifies me." They ate for a while until Brie added, "You know, I try to figure out what you get out of our relationship and I come up with very little. There are years and years of hard work and schooling in my future. You should be living life, having fun."

Hannah fluttered her eyelashes mockingly. "I don't want to be happy, I want to be with you," she whined. Then she shook her head while slowly chewing a piece of garlic bread and washing it down with a sip of wine. "Someday you'll get it, Brie, one of these days you're finally going to hear what I've been telling you. And all I've got to say is, you better be worth the wait."

That was the line Hannah usually closed such discussions with, although this one had gone further and been more candid than any of their earlier talks.

Brie used her napkin. "That was delicious. Let's go borrow the sled I saw in your parents' garage and take it to the park."

After a quick check of the clock and brief consideration, Hannah allowed, "We can sled for just a little while, on the condition you promise to work on your first reading for at least an hour when we get back. Come on, Brie, you've got the syllabus and the books, why not get a jump on the semester?"

After snatching the sled, which Hannah couldn't believe Car hadn't beaten them to, they picked their way along the three blocks to Cherokee Park through deep, fluffy snow. "Hannah?"

"Brisada."

Insulated by a snow-blanketed ground and ice-coated trees, Brie's chuckle didn't roll far. "Cracks me up when you say my name that way." She breathed the cold dry air deeply. "I was thinking, it might be good if I bring my things over to the apartment and start paying half the expenses. Not that I'd give up the room. It's too convenient having a base right there in the barn, for both of us, don't you think?"

Hannah did what it took to not sound as ecstatic as she felt. "Definitely. No need whatsoever for you to give up the room. No need at all. But you'll move in? Actually move in?"

Brie looked corralled by her own suggestion. "If you're still offering the spare room."

"Heck, yeah. And forget about the expenses." Hannah caught an obstinate shift in the angle of Brie's head and shoulders, and immediately retreated. "Okay, you pay half."

*****

Forgoing Hialeah had been a sound decision, judging by the gloss on the horses and the lighthearted, energetic humor of almost everyone at Caulder Stables come the beginning of April. January's much talked about blizzard had set the tone for the remainder of that winter, making it a good one for laying low, and the weather's earlier ferocity made April's color and thaw even more precious than most years. When spring hit, Joan's stunned disbelief at passing another change of season without Cailen was the sole shadow on an otherwise idyllic return to verdancy and warmth.

And warm it did get, very early. That first week of April, a full month before the Derby, quickened everyone with sunny seventy-five-degree afternoons. Just after training on one of those unseasonable days, Joan noticed a woman, technically attractive, not really Brie’s type, standing in DotCom’s doorway yammering in slow hissing spurts. For having been, in the days before Hannah, so generous with invitations to the room, Brie had been darn good at averting misunderstandings. Over the years, there had been impressively few scenes like the one Joan imagined to be shaping up at that moment. Brie could spot clingy from a furlong away. Nonetheless, Joan surmised that the incident currently unfolding must be the upshot of some former escapade gone wrong.

Leaving them to the privacy of their quarrel, Joan had one foot on the single step-up to the office when Cailen’s name jutted up like jagged ice through the smooth surface of the woman’s modulated broadside. Joan halted to pay more attention. This hot-shit person had packed herself snugly into jeans and a scoopy top that stretched across scrunched, upward and inward, breasts. Definitely not Brie’s type.

Her volume picked up, pumped louder by growing anger. “Huh, Brie? Won’t answer me will you? What’s the matter, all of a sudden too classy to discuss personal matters?” She fumed as Brie remained silent, then finally commanded, “I said say something!”

Brie commented lazily, “Those jeans make your butt look big.”

“Too late to change this with your stupid idea of humor, Brie. Too late. I know you’re behind Cailen coming home full of ideas about selling our home. Everybody knows what a good fuck you and Cailen have always found each other to be. Oh, yeah, the legendary Cailen and Brie, friends who can fuck and still stay friends.” Lara stopped to catch breath and snarl a vengeful smile. “Cailen admitted you fucked her last meet, Brie. Yeah, she told me all about it, the way you got her crazy by saying how much you always loved doing her standing up because of how sexy it is the way her jeans fall open and away from her hips.” Lara mocked with faux Mexican accent, “After that, Cailita, I could not help myself.” She laughed as that remark changed Brie's casual disposition. “That is sexy, isn’t it? Always makes me hot, too.”

Enjoying her well executed course reversal and newfound leverage, Lara pressed forward against the webbing to showcase her cavernous cleavage and spoke with forced coolness now. “To tell the truth, you’ve accidentally done us a favor. Screwing around on me has helped Cailen wake up, like we’re in the same league again or something. We’re back together and it’s never been better. So, I probably ought to thank you, Brie. Fucking you for a couple of weeks has sent Cailen running right back to my bed, where she belongs.”

Joan was suddenly directly behind her, wearing a noncommittal smile. “You must be Lara.”

Lara pivoted, flipping her long brown braid over one shoulder and taking care not to turn her back on Brie completely. Her eyes flitted to Joan’s. “That’s right.” Until she could assess Joan’s relevance, she tempered her tone and managed a tight smile.

Joan’s smile was quite broad then, as she offered her hand and said, “I’m Joan Caulder, Brie’s fiancée.”

“Brie’s what? Caulder? As in Caulder Stables, I guess?” Lara glanced up at the big C on DotCom’s stall plaque.

“That’s correct, you’re in my shedrow.” Then turning to Brie and oozing attentiveness, Joan said, “Brie, darling, what’s going on here?”

Lara wasn't about to shut up. “I’ll tell you what’s going on here. Your intended has been fucking my girlfriend. She tried to wreck a happy home and a long-term relationship.” Lara paused and her wits accumulated some. “How did you know my name?”

“I recognized you as someone from Cailen’s past.” Joan entered the stall and claimed a spot next to Brie, putting a possessive arm across her shoulder.

“Why would Cailen discuss me with you?”

“Because you are her past and I plan on being her future.” Joan kissed Brie’s cheek for extra effect.

Hannah picked up on Joan’s tack as she eavesdropped two stalls away. At the point where Hannah entered DotCom’s stall to join Joan and Brie, Lara was still merely wary and mildly confused. Hannah put her arms around Brie and helped herself to a deep, unhurried kiss, then leaned back, still smiling at Brie, into Joan’s unsuspecting arms. Hannah thought, What the hell, not many chances like this, and spun around to claim a comparable kiss from Joan.

“When are we going home, babies? I’m starving.” Hannah made Joan continue to hold her.

By the power of some miracle, none of them laughed, even as they watched Lara puff way up and turn very red.

Joan said, “Hannah, uh darling, this is Lara.”

Hannah’s creamy blue eyes widened. “Hey, has Cailen unloaded that house yet? I can’t tell you how much we miss our beautiful Cailen.”

Spit foam actually flew from her mouth when Lara yelled, “Bunch of fucking racetrack trash!”

Hannah produced some real tears before burying her face in Joan’s breasts. Her muffled lament went, “Joan, you make us all so happy, why can’t people just accept us?”

That did it. Lara was done, and her stomp from the shedrow followed by slammed car door and tire-churned gravel sort of implied she wouldn’t be back.

Brie and Hannah beamed broad grins over their farce. All the color in Joan’s face had drained away once Lara was gone, but she smiled weakly back at them.

“You guys were wonderful. Sharp girl, Hannah.”

“Bet we won’t be seeing that one back here anytime soon.”

“Probably not. Thanks again, both of you. Brie, tell Car I’ve gone home for the day, will you?” Joan was done in.

“Sure.”
“Bye, then.” Joan spent her last smile of the morning as she poked her head back into the stall to say, “Very nice kiss, Hannah.”

“My pleasure.”

When the sound of Joan’s truck had fully faded, Brie finally explained, “Hearing all that vindictiveness aimed at Cailen was too abrasive for her.”

Hannah took in a deep breath, because she had a few words to use it on. “Brie, you’re just four years older than me. Why do you treat me like a child? I don’t need to be told it was hard for her to hear that stuff. And it wasn’t just the content, it was the crudeness, too. I wasn’t all that crazy about the content or the crudeness, myself. I mean, you and Cailen, when you and I haven’t even, yet. Sure, one thing to know you were together, another to hear somebody making up details about it.” Too in love to really be angry, Hannah winked at Brie on her way out of the stall.

Brie caught Hannah’s sleeve. “Very nice kiss, Hannah.”

“Gracias. Wish I knew the Spanish for ‘there’s lots more where that came from.’”

“I can teach you that. Maybe when we get home this evening?”

Knowing Brie was no tease, had never so much as led Hannah to think they were on the verge of even kissing, Hannah couldn’t remember a single thing about doing up the rest of her horses that morning. She spent the day so flustered, it was almost a relief later when, after feed time, Brie said she needed to go to Joan’s for a talk first, but would be home in a couple of hours. Hannah could sure use that time to regroup.

*****

On the suspicion that Joan was bound to be cooking up a storm, Brie went around to the kitchen door. All the windows were open and even the warm air out on the back porch was loaded down with baking smells. The screen door clapped dully when Brie knocked on its frame. She was all brown eyes and concern through the silvery sheen of the screen. Joan undid the latch with her elbow instead of putting down the big bowl she was stirring something in.

When the door latch rattled loose, Brie let herself in. “We need to discuss something Lara said.”

Joan was heading back to her work area, tending to the bowl. “No, Brie, we do not. It was an ugly, deceitful episode that’s best left unexamined. I’ve dismissed everything said about you as well as about Cailen, so don’t concern yourself over it.” With a flourish, Joan scraped out one last gob of cake mix and brightly offered Brie the coated bowl and spoon. “Here you go, just in time to lick the batter.”

Brie was too close to nausea to want it, but accepted anyway because that’s what she would normally have done. She caught Joan with a long, sobering look. “My conscience will not let us ignore one part of Lara’s nasty speech. What she said about how I seduced Cailen.” Brie paused to rid her hands, which needed their freedom for gesturing, of the sticky utensils.

“You and I have been over this, Brie. I’m not the least bit bothered by anything you and Cailen did before she and I got together. Anyway, Lara was merely making a good guess about that.”

Brie folded her arms and wished with all her heart she didn’t have to say what had to come next. “Joan, that’s the problem. It wasn’t a guess. She had word-for-word, accurate details from a very private conversation between Cailen and me. No way Lara could have gotten lucky enough to invent it, using my exact words.”

“Which exact words?”

“Cailen’s jeans falling open and all that.”

“Cailen would never have repeated such an intimate exchange, Brie. And she has not touched that creature since going back. How could you believe Cailen’s capable of any of this?”

“I don’t, but I’m having a hard time dismissing it, too. All I’m saying is we need to talk about it.” Brie had imagined Joan would be as heartsick and baffled as she was over the enormous weight of evidence that Cailen had, at the very least, been confiding in Lara on a deep level.

Joan proceeded to work while saying, “Well, little lawyer woman, let’s dissect this situation objectively. Would your evidence against Cailen be considered hearsay or circumstantial?”

“Hearsay, in that Lara is recounting something she was told was said. She did not personally take part in our conversation.” There was a brief pause while Brie thought. “But circumstantial in that she’s claiming Cailen’s disclosure makes it believable that they’re back together.”

Joan smiled. “So, your circumstantial evidence is based on hearsay. Pretty damn weak, counselor. Come back when you get something better than that.” Joan buttered some muffin cups as she added, “But to tell you the truth, Lara could stroll in here armed with a graphic video and her story would still be a pantload as far as I’m concerned.”

Brie picked up the bowl of drying batter and ran a finger through the streaks that were still gooey. “This is good, what is it and when will it be done?”

“A caramel cake I’ve been meaning to try ever since New Year’s Day fell through. The timer should go off in about twenty minutes. Why? Do you think I’ll actually share with someone who doubted Cailen like that?”

Still not convinced there was no cause for concern, but conceding that she’d jumped the gun somewhat, Brie shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe you shouldn’t reward me, because I'd still like to hear any credible explanation of how Lara knew all that.”

Joan’s focus on the food hadn’t wavered in the slightest and she pulled her face back from opening the oven door, saying resolutely, “We don’t need a credible explanation. We have our faith in Cailen.” Oven shut, end of discussion.

*****

Joan had a single, concise question for Brie when they’d settled at the desk with their coffee the following morning. “Where did you seduce Cailen?”

Brie blinked to make the vertigo stop. “What?”

Calmly, firmly, Joan rephrased. “Exactly where were you and Cailen located when the words Lara repeated so precisely were spoken?”

“In Knucklehead’s stall. Why?”

“Near the rear wall, I’ll venture.” Joan’s smile was both tender and triumphant at the thought of vindicating Cailen to Brie.

“The back corner closest to this end, yes.”

“Then I have your credible explanation—yours, not mine. I don’t need one.”

Appalled that Jimmy had been spying for Sassy and impressed with Joan’s deductions, which were absolutely plausible, Brie let go of her doubts about Cailen and repackaged her turbid responses into indignation that Joan had kept such juicy knowledge, the whole story of Jimmy being Sassy’s informant, to herself for more than two years.

Joan was exultant, as she qualified, “Not exclusively to myself, Car knows and Cailen knows.”

“Car? But not me?”

Painstakingly, Joan laid out her reasoning of the matter. “Car had to know so he and I could use Jimmy to our benefit. We’ve solidly established with Sassy, through intentionally leaked bits we’ve allowed Jimmy to hear, that Car supports Sassy’s opinions, even that he thinks I’m a fool to rebuff her advances.”

It was all far too interesting for Brie to maintain her tiff. Any ploy designed to foil Sassy was fine with her. And relief over Cailen’s exoneration was sinking in.

“An extra cup, okay? And even if we’re late getting started, tell me everything. Please?” Brie lilted over to the coffee stand, laughing. “This is huge.” She served them and took her seat. “First, why put Car on Farms’ good side?”

“So she’ll be likely to turn the string over to him in the event she pushes me too far someday and I have to break ties with her. That way, I’d have the comfort of knowing the horses are in good hands. Through Car, I would at least still have a link to them.” The part of her original reasoning that Joan didn’t mention was that if Car took over, he could have probably seen to it that Brie wasn’t separated from Jade.

Hannah popped in and gave Brie a significant nod. The look they exchanged reminded Joan of that rainy morning Hannah had first shown up, when Joan had finally walked away from the way they were making eyes at each other.

Brie took the meaning of Hannah’s nod and scrambled to her feet, saying, “Okay, let me go down and tie Thunder to the wall for you.” On her way out, she gave Hannah a kiss that was unmistakably of the morning after variety.

Joan forgot to be afraid of being alone in the room with a menstruating Hannah. She slumped into her chair. “My God, don’t tell me! That had to be the longest case of foreplay in history.”

Hannah ran both hands through her hair. “Yeah, tell me about it.”

© 2006 Margo Moon

Grand Theft Equine - Chapter 21: Holiday Card

2009-10-10T03:01:00.001-04:00

Previous chapters are available on the sidebar.

Christmas had not been far ahead when Jade left. It was traditional for all the Caulder horses to walk on Christmas morning and Joan tried her best to have the entire staff out of there before ten, with orders to stay gone until the following morning. Another tradition was for her and Brie to work off Christmas dinner by coming back and doing an abbreviated afternoon feed, just the two of them, all thirty horses. Afterward, they would sequester themselves at Joan's house with leftovers, a bottle of hundred-proof Wild Turkey and enough eggnog to make it slide down easy. Brie always stayed overnight in the guest bedroom.

Joan was cleaning her fifth stall of the morning, the one of Charles' situated next to Hannah's end stall and they were speaking through the wall. "Are you sure you can't get away from your parents' celebration for at least a short while, Hannah? There's plenty of food, believe me." Once again, Hannah had bowed aside to avoid interfering with Joan and Brie's customs.

"Brie and I have all the rest of our Christmases to spend together. You two enjoy each other." She was careful not to mention that thereafter Joan and Cailen would be initiating new holiday customs of their own. That would have pointed up Cailen's current absence.

Joan was getting used to both Hannah's confidence that she and Brie would be together forever and her cheerful ready willingness to say so. "Well then, if you won't drop by later, be sure to meet me in the office before you leave so I can give you your gift."

"Yours is in the car." Hannah came over to poke her head in Joan's stall. "It might be overstepping. If you don't like it will you please say so?"

"I've felt the same way about yours, that it might be overstepping. You say so too, if it is."

The number of horses being walked was thinning out and as grooms finished getting done up, most of them found Joan to wish her a happy holiday and thank her again for the generous bonus. Soon, the shedrow was quiet and down to the horses, Brie, Hannah and Joan. Hannah made one last rundown of the water, hay, halter, and door checklist for each of her horses. Satisfied that all were secure, comfortable, and happy, she jogged over to her car for Joan's gift.

A gold envelope, caught around its middle with thin red ribbon, sat in front of Joan there at her desk. Hannah backed into the office carrying a box wrapped in Sunday funnies with a huge shiny blue bow stuck on top. Before the door shut all the way, Brie called out to hold it open for a second as she lugged through with the big green, red, blue and silver box, tied with a bow made of hay twine, that held Joan's refurbished tack box. Each of them suddenly seized up with powerful doubts about their gifts, which brought escalated excitement and something akin to nervous chatter from all three.

Hannah broke the spell. "Like I said, Joan, you might have no interest whatsoever in this. But I was just thinking about how much energy it takes to be you every day."

"Well, you're probably going to think I've got a lot of nerve—wait, if I say anything else, you won't even need to unwrap it."

Brie tapped the big package. "It looks like we skimped on the wrapping, but you'll see the reason for the twine in a minute. Won't she, Hannah?"

Then everybody's wheels jammed up again for a few seconds.

Joan's hand shot the envelope forward. "You first, Hannah."

With obvious intent to save it, Hannah opened the envelope. Her face went so blank, those soft blue eyes giving nothing away, Joan was left dangling for the longest moment. The first active response was Hannah's question to Brie. "Did you know about this?"

She could tell Hannah was moved. "Joan would give me no clues. Hurry, what is it?"

"Incredible. Spanish lessons. Unbelievable, Joan, I don't know what to say."

"Pretty soon you will, en Español. So will I. If it's not too presumptuous, we can go to class together. I'm enrolled too."

"That's about the only thing that could have made this better. Thank you, I mean it."

Brie's hands went to her hips. "You are taking away the one strategic advantage Cailen and I have over you? Not fair."

"We're not going for fair, are we Joan?"

"What would be the point?"

Brie nudged the hay twine box. "This one next, Joan."

There was a card shoved beneath the knotted twine bow, so Joan opened that first and read aloud. "To Joan. Love, Hannah and Brie."

Hannah's eyes darted to Brie's. They'd agreed to make this gift from Brie alone, or at least Hannah thought they had. Brie did a so-sue-me shrug.

Joan performed the obligatory weight-checking rattle of the box, followed by the usual mystified expression, before unwrapping it with purpose. At first she truly forgot or, rather, failed to maintain awareness that anyone else was in the room. The incongruity of seeing it in this setting, the sheer familiarity of the old wooden case and a thousand memories it had been part of, whacked a catch into her breath. By its handle, which she had gripped over miles and miles of crossing her pastures seeking out her horses for grooming, she lifted the faithfully mended relic. She had to stare at it a few seconds before Brie and Hannah re-materialized.

"You guys, my groom box." Her hands roamed reverently across the surface as she lapsed into recollection of days gone by. "I'm sorry, am I acting like someone being interviewed following a natural disaster or winning the lottery, or something? Because that's how taken aback I am."

"That tells us nothing. Do you like it?"

"You could have no idea how much. Really, no idea. Thank you both, with all my heart. I can’t wait for Cailen to see it. Did she know about this?"

They shook their heads, smiling big time over their coup.

"Okay, okay, I'm getting hungry. We can't spend the whole day on one present." Brie avoided sentimentality like it was quicksand.

Hannah waved her hand graciously toward the funny papers box. "Ms. Caulder."

"Another one for me? Too much, Hannah, really." This one was filled with an assortment of vitamin bottles and supplement containers. "Aw, you want to keep me around for a good long time, don't you?"

"Like I said, you might not care to take up a deliberate regimen like this."

"Oh, but I do. Just never had time to shop for these and be faithful about taking them, that's all." Joan was removing items for individual inspection. "Fully digestible calcium, yes, water soluble vitamin E, yes, slow release iron, yes, glucosamine with chondroitin, yes. What's black cohosh for?"

"Menstrual difficulties."

Joan pitched that bottle to Hannah. "For all our sakes, you double up."

"Hey, no fair."

In one voice, Brie and Joan sing-songed, "We're not going for fair."

"Funny. Ha ha. Read the card, Joan."

Joan dug around under the packing materials, found it, read it, and fixed Brie with a cocky look while addressing Hannah. "You'll be packaging mine every day, just like you do Brie's? Excellent."

Joan was the last one to leave, right after Brie and Hannah had set out for home to shower and change. She was removing her key ring from its hook when the sound of a powerful diesel engine grew very loud before shutting down right outside. The truck was awesome, but it was nothing compared with the eight-horse trailer attached to it, which was maroon with white trim, and had a familiar C tastefully gracing each side. ‘Caulder Stables’ was emblazoned over the front. A big man with a haircut that made his head look blocky and huge shoulders that swallowed his neck was already unhitching the trailer in the time it had taken Joan to come from the office. A Rolls Royce pulled up beside the truck, with Sassy exiting it before her chauffeur could set the brake and get around to her door.

Sassy stood facing the trailer, rapturously appreciating its appearance. She whirled around at the sound of Joan’s surprised, “What on Earth!”

“I was so concerned the color wouldn’t exactly match your awnings and truck, but they do, don’t you think, Joan? They go perfectly, don’t they?” Sassy’s attention returned to the long-awaited sight of the trailer sitting next to Joan’s truck, just outside Joan’s barn, and she took in a long breath of satisfaction. She whispered, “It’s as if it has been here all along.”

Sassy’s Rolls had moved off to a discreet distance and the diesel was gone.

Painfully aware that this must be Sassy’s Christmas gift to her, and needing some time to come up with how she could diplomatically refuse it, Joan said, “Merry Christmas, Sassy.”

Real tears pooled in Sassy’s eyes. “Oh! Merry Christmas, Joan.” Almost taking Joan’s hand but stopping short, as if sticking to some resolve, Sassy took a few enthusiastic steps toward the trailer. “Please come look inside.” When Joan didn’t follow, Sassy’s next, “Please,” was so artless Joan didn’t have the heart not to join her.

The rig was extraordinary. Sassy explained the amenities in great detail, pulling down the hideaway cots and pullout awning, which also bore the Caulder colors, and running down all the safety features for the horses. The shock absorbent suspension was beyond her, but she dug out the owner’s manual from her enormous purse, assuring Joan the whole thing was described fully in it, on page forty-eight. And while she had her purse open, she handed over the title, license, and insurance papers, all taken care of.

Without giving pause for Joan to speak, she pulled out a bundle of envelopes. “And these. Joan, how many employees are on the payroll here these days?”

What a question to have pop up in the midst of all the trailer hoopla. Joan unconsciously rolled her shoulders, trying to loosen up. “Payroll. I believe there are eighteen at the moment.”

Sassy thrust the entire stack of envelopes at her. “Good. There are twenty cash bonuses here, so everyone should be covered. I think Brie should have—” She surveyed the empty parking area and tranquil shedrow, seeming to notice them for the first time. “Has everyone gone already?”

Joan nodded. “We try to wrap it up early on Christmas morning.”

“I guess one more day won’t make much difference. Please give one of those to each employee and I think the two extra should go to Brie, to help with tuition. She is the best groom around, you’ve said it many times.”

Joan fanned the bonuses. “This is very nice of you, Sassy. I’ll be happy to give them out tomorrow. But we need to discuss the trailer.” They were standing inside it, and Joan made a broad motion.

Sassy looked desperate. “Please don’t refuse it, please.”

“But it’s extravagant, too much.”

“Allow me to make my case before you decide. When you brought that horse to Camden last month you had to borrow the veterinarian’s trailer. Joan, I don’t want you to do without anything you need, anything. The thought of it distracts me no end. A woman, a trainer like you should have everything first class.”

Joan nodded. “True, I did borrow Anna’s trailer to ship Penny, but that was an isolated instance. How often do I trailer horses myself? Almost never.”

Folding her hands as if about to pray, but indulging in a secretive smile, Sassy spilled what she considered the big beans. “That may be about to change. Joan, this fall Rainier Farms purchased the most well-bred horse in its history. Corporate Governance. I believe Mag showed him to you when you were in Camden?”

“He’s a very fine specimen, that’s for sure.”

Sassy shivered. “May we finish discussing this in your office?”

“Sure, sorry, I forgot about the cold. Of course, come on.”

There’d been a time when Joan abhorred being alone with Sassy, but for weeks her come-on attitude had been absent in favor of a professional, albeit friendly, owner-trainer demeanor that Joan found infinitely more tolerable.

When they were seated with the desk between them, Sassy took up where they’d quit. “Corporate Governance is more than a fine specimen. Joan, I’ve always dreamed of you running a horse in the Kentucky Derby. He might be the one. Even Mag doesn’t dispute it. I want to send him to you as soon as you think he’s ready, or better yet, you come to Camden and pick him up personally. And I want you to have the means to move him or any of the other horses back and forth from track to farm, whenever you see fit. To do that, with a horse that might one day win the Derby, I think you should have the best transportation possible. You should have the best, Joan.”

Joan furtively checked the clock. Good God, Brie’s going to get there and find me not home yet. “Sassy, I don’t know where to start with all the reasons why I cannot keep that trailer.”

“Good, then don’t. Just accept it.” Sassy dropped her smile and said, looking down at her hands, folded in her lap. “I’m trying to start all over Joan. I want you to like me, as a friend. Mag says for that to happen you have to respect me first. I’ve been working very hard on being someone you can respect.”

“You can’t buy friends, Sassy. We can be friends without the trailer.”

Sassy stood and paced. “I was afraid you’d think it was a bribe. It isn’t. Look, the trailer is here, and I will admit I asked, I can’t remember his name right now, the man who drove it here, anyway I asked him to unhitch and leave right away, because I want you to at least think about keeping it. Will you just think about it? Call Mag, see if she doesn’t think you’ll probably need it now that Corporate Governance is coming along so nicely. He’ll have to ship all over for the races he’ll need before the Derby. If you can find no other grounds for keeping the trailer, we could always consider it a bonus for this past meet. Everybody’s talking about our performance here, you know.”

The quickest way to get out of there and home before Brie arrived was to say yes, so she did. “It’s a conditional acceptance, Sassy, I mean it. I have to think this over. Now, most of Christmas dinner is ready, just needs to be put in the oven for an hour or two. And there’s more than enough food to make Brie and me miserable from overeating, so would you like to come back to the house for dinner?” Brie will kill me dead.

“Thank you very much, but the plane is waiting to take me back. Do you believe twenty people are due at the farm in less than three hours and I’m standing here in Louisville?”

“Somehow, since it’s you, I do believe it.” Joan shook her head at Sassy’s uncertainty over how to take that. She smiled as she ushered them to the door. “Just practicing this concept of us being friends, Sassy. I have a habit of trading barbs with all my friends, take it or leave it.”

Casting one last proud glance over Joan’s trailer before stepping into the Rolls, Sassy looked the picture of peaceful contentment.

*****

Christmas dinner was eaten, chores were done, the fireplace had flickered to idle, and half the eggnog was gone. The time-honored moment for Joan to propose to Brie was upon them.

Joan began with, "Do you believe in polygamy?"

"No. Do you?

Heavy sigh. "No."

"So what do we do now?"

"About me proposing?"

"Yes."

"I'm not sure." Joan got up and held out a hand for Brie's glass. "Finish that last bit and I'll get refills. We need more inspiration to figure things out this year."

"Amen."

Joan's phone, which she'd laid on the table next to her end of the sofa, rang, bringing her flying back from the kitchen. "Hi, angel," she said, breathless.

"Do you mean to tell me there's someone you're calling angel and we don't even know her yet? It's not Brie, because she's there with you, right? Joan?"

"Hi, Mom."

Brie clamped a hand over her mouth and left the room.

"So? Miles, did you know our daughter has someone she's serious enough about to be calling angel?"

"Mom, you'll meet her as soon as can be arranged. She has to be away from Louisville for a while, but as soon as she gets back, we'll be out, I promise."

"What does Brie think? Honey, you know we always hoped you and Brie would end up together."

"So you've told me. Brie and Cailen go way back and Brie's crazy about her. Is that good?"

"The name's Cailen, Miles. I guess it'll have to do for now, honey. We just called to wish you Merry Christmas and make sure you're still coming here for New Year's."

"Merry Christmas to you, too. Yes, I'm still planning to be there. I'll bring the dessert this time. There's a cake I've been meaning to try. Tell Dad it's full of caramel."

"He'll be in his glory. We know you're allergic to phones, so we won't keep you. We love you, Joan."

"I love you too, Mom. And I'm building a slight tolerance to these things, so go ahead and put Dad on."

"Miles, she wants to speak to her daddy."

"Hello, dear. Hope we haven't abused the fact that you had to give us your number."

"Hi, Dad. No, it's fine. Actually, it's wonderful hearing from you all. Call anytime, I mean it. Tell Mom, too."

"You and Brie must be pretty far into the eggnog. Better wait and see if you want to stick by that statement when the bourbon wears off. Love you, honey, and Merry Christmas. Be sure to give Brie our love."

"Deal. Love you too, and Merry Christmas. See you for New Year's."

Brie brought the drinks in as soon as the connection was closed.

"Deserter." Joan accepted her eggnog and took a discerning sip. "Firm yet strong."

Brie tried hers and nodded. "Stout yet hefty." She nestled back into her spot and defended herself. "It wasn't desertion, I just didn't want to be cracking up where they could hear me. How did they get your number, anyway?"

Joan's dismissive gesture overshot on disinterest. "Now that I have the phone, it's not right to keep the number from them."

He would never have wished her to be unhappy, so the glazed absence that passed over Brie's face was brief. "Jade."

"Yes." Joan squeezed Brie's ankle. "Hey, did I ever tell you how much my parents have always wanted you and me to be girlfriends?"

"No. Really?"

"It's true. Just now, Mom used my news about Cailen to reiterate that they have always thought we'd end up with each other."

"They're so good." Brie studied the fire. "Have you ever wondered why we haven't?"

Joan laughed and consulted the ceiling. "Dozens of times. Actually, I made a pass at you once, when we first knew each other."

"Impossible."'

"Possible."

"When?"

"Back when you were working at the farm. I stopped by the main barn looking for Mag, but she wasn't anywhere around. You were resetting the dressing on a little black colt with a foot abscess. You'd come back to soak it an extra time."

Fully interested, Brie strained to remember. "Oh, yeah, Bungee Chord. He was a good little boy. Mag sent him out with the West Coast string."

"Anyway, I think we had met about three times by then. I hung around for over an hour, trying to work the conversation onto personal topics, but you stayed right on message. Just the horse particulars, ma'am, all business."

Brie did that deep belly chuckle of hers. "You mean that was your idea of making a pass? I swear to God, it's almost a miracle you've ever had a date, let alone been to bed with so many women."

"Hey, watch it."

"I'm serious about this." Her giggles didn't sound all that serious to Joan. "Did they all have ESP or something? Unbelievable. That was your conception of a pass. So sorry to have missed out. If I'd had any idea I'm sure something could have been arranged."

"Oh, yes, one more complication added to the you, Cailen, and me relationship would be handy."

Brie took a good swallow. "Woo, this one's going to knock me on my butt. Speaking of Cailen, is she calling here or are you calling there? And when?"

"We didn't say either way for sure." Joan checked the mantelpiece clock and sighed. "I've been putting it off because I don't want it to be over. Saying goodnight is always so difficult. Put your feet up here, I'll massage them for you."

"Oh, my God, pure indulgence." Brie drained her glass before obliging. "You know I'll be totally gone after this, right? Just leave me on the couch here."

Less than ten minutes of conspiracy between bourbon, lazy fire crackles, and a delicious foot massage did indeed manage to knock Brie on her butt. Joan was giving it a few more minutes on the feet to make sure she was totally under before calling Cailen. But Cailen beat her to it, and this time when the phone rang Joan took an extra second to check caller i.d.

"Hello, angel."

"Howdy."

"Howdy?"

"Yep, howdy."

"Okay, then. I miss you, how's it going up there?"

"I miss you too, no way to express how much. But we could try. Do you know anything about phone sex?"

"Whoa, girl, no Merry Christmas, no how was dinner? Anyway, Brie's right here, asleep at the end of the couch. Now, how did you spend Christmas day?"

"Working. I volunteered to take standby today, since everybody else wanted to make personal plans. Went off duty a couple of hours ago."

"Standby. That means you didn't actually go in, just stayed by the phone or something?"

"Yeah, didn't get one call, could have predicted that. Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas."

"How was dinner?"

"It turned out well. We were overstuffed as usual and hated the idea of getting out to do chores, but of course that's always the best cure for too much food."

"Great. Now, I think you're supposed to begin this with a wardrobe question. So, what are you wearing?"

Joan came very close to giggling. She whispered forcefully, "Cailen, I told you Brie is right here."

"Okay, what's she wearing?"

Joan set Brie's feet aside and shot off the couch. From the privacy of the kitchen, she asked, "Cailen, are you drinking?"

"A little eggnog, like you and Brie."

"How little?"

"Very little eggnog, lots of Wild Turkey. That's what you have, right?"

Joan made that sound again. "Right."

"You're giggling just like Brie."

"Yes, I heard that. I must be spending way too much time with her and Hannah."

"With who?"

"Brie and Hannah."

"Oh, right, Hannah. How's Brie doing, about Jade and everything?"

Joan paused to think back over the past weeks' transitions. "Jade's always there, but she's back to herself for the most part, at least on the surface. First thing in the morning is the most difficult part of the day for her, I believe. When the first set goes out his absence is so strongly felt, by all of us. But she's managing to be Brie."

"Always a trooper."

"Yes. How about you? I'm surprised about the bourbon, since you hate the way it tastes."

"I'm fine. Frustrated about no progress on the house."

"But that's going to change after the holidays. The house will sell and you'll be back and I'm never letting you leave again."

"Good. I hope you're right."

"What's the matter, angel, is there something else? People sell houses every day. It's going to happen."

"Hang on a second, I'm starting a pot of coffee." Sounds of running water and a cabinet shutting in the background had Joan taking pains to envision what Cailen's kitchen might look like, the sight of Cailen maneuvering in her very own kitchen.

"Godammit! Sorry, dropped the old grounds on the floor." Joan had never heard temper or profanity from Cailen. Not that she expected her to never exhibit either, but it was odd behavior, especially over something so piffling as spilled coffee grounds.

"There is more to it than simply selling the house, isn't there?"

"A little bit more, just annoying stuff. I'm sure when somebody makes a definite offer, everything’s going to iron out."

"What do you mean, 'when somebody makes an offer?' Of course that's what we're waiting for."

"No, I mean Lara is vowing she'll never sign to sell the house. I was so stupid, Joan. Her name is on the deed. We own it half and half."

"I didn't know she was back."

"For two days last week. I tried to be nice, civil, but she stormed through the door waving the For Sale sign, swearing up and down she'd never sign to sell." Cailen wasn't about to mention that Lara had thrown the sign at her, that one of its dirt-caked prongs had pierced the arm she'd put up to block her face, and had required three stitches plus a tetanus shot. "She thinks she can trap me here by not agreeing to sell."

"Two days. Is she gone now?"

"The next fit came when she discovered that I was staying in one of the extra bedrooms, with a latch on the inside of the door. That brought on a big tantrum and she went somewhere the next night. I haven't heard from her since."

"What a mess. Angel, maybe you should just let Lara have the house."

"I really think when it comes down to it, she's not going to be able to turn down half of the equity. Especially since she hasn't contributed anything to it. She'll be walking away with a good amount of cash, and I just don't see her turning that down." Cailen gratefully sipped her fresh-brewed coffee. "This is why I didn't want to get into this right now. Let's talk about good stuff, it's Christmas."

"Good stuff, let's see. I've made the decision about Hialeah. We're not shipping down there this year."

"Now that you've decided, I'll tell you what a relief that is to hear. Being five hours away is one thing, but I didn't know how we were going to handle living twenty-three hours apart. What made up your mind?"

"The success we've been having is a big part of it. We raced fairly heavily during the Churchill meet, and are shipping to Turfway once a week right now, having good results there, too."

"I know. Pepper's win the other day was pretty impressive. That filly has really moved up."

"Charles was awfully proud of her. Anyway, we've all, horses and people, been going at it hard for a few months now. I truly think the best course is to stay put, allow everybody to rest up, and be fresh for Churchill's spring meet. We've already far surpassed last year's earnings, so Sassy won't be disappointed. Neither should any of the other owners. My gut feeling is that if we keep pushing, we'll eventually hit a wall in the form of burnout or an injury. And there's no excuse for that. I told Brie this afternoon and she's overjoyed to be able to enroll here next semester instead of in Miami."

"I love you."

"And I love you. How's that coffee?'

"Good. Want some?"

"What I wouldn't give to be in a position to accept that offer!"

"Guess what? I just made a decision of my own."

"Tell me."

"To spend New Year's Eve and New Year's Day in Louisville. Somebody else's turn to do holiday standby."

"Are you certain? Please let's not plan this unless we can actually do it. You know, it's breaking our resolution to next see each other when it's for keeps, but that's been feeling more and more like a silly constraint." Joan took a breath. "I have to tone it down, or I'll wake Brie all the way in the other room."

"So it's a date? I get your first kiss of the New Year?"

"The first one, a couple million in between, and the last one. Then we start all over the next year."

"In that case, I'll definitely be there."

Joan put the leftovers in the fridge and turned out the kitchen light. "And speaking of kisses, night before last I had the most sentient dream about us kissing. We were in chest-high water, very warm, clear blue water. Like the ocean, only no waves. There were so many blues—the sky, the water, the horizon. Your eyes matched the water. Everything like crystal, but solid. Anyway, we stood facing each other in the water and the rules, you know how dreams sometimes have an understood, underlying organization?"

“Like you know the room you're in is the one you had when you were little, even though it's allowed to look different in the dream."

"Exactly. So in this one, the rules were that we could kiss, but only underwater. And we were fine with that, smiling and ducking under to kiss as long as possible before coming up for air. Sometimes you needed to come up first and some of the time I did. We got really good at telling when the other one needed to surface. At first we were fine with it, but then having to stop got frustrating." Joan was making her way through the house, securing the fireplace doors, putting a thick beige afghan over Brie, turning out lights in the upstairs hallway and bathroom, on her way to the bedroom. "At the same instant, we each realized that touching underwater was acceptable, so we continued to kiss and surface, but started a whole other level of intimacy below. The colors were so arresting, I can't begin to get across how stunning their effect was. They got all caught up in what we were doing. The more aroused we became, the more vivid the colors got." Joan closed the bedroom door behind her.

Cailen cleared her throat. "How did it end?"

"Let me just say that to the old question of whether I dream in color or black and white, I can go one better and report that in dreams I come in color."

A throaty little moan arrived from the Chicago end.

After lighting a candle on her dresser Joan undid her blouse and ran an open hand between her breasts. She asked, "So, angel, there was a clothing question?"

*****

On New Year’s Eve, Joan was alone at the barn, basking in the promise of a good day's training when Cailen called, less than twelve hours before she should be leaving Chicago. Lara had just phoned to say she'd had a change of heart and would drop by late that night to sign over her right to the house, which would give Cailen leeway to accept the first decent contract that came along. Lara even said she trusted Cailen to turn over her half of the sale price. Of course, Cailen had tried to inveigle meeting on another day, but Lara was inflexible. She would sign on New Year's Eve or not at all. The first call Joan received was not to cancel, but to discuss the possibility of postponing the start of their holiday together.

All through New Year’s Eve night, Lara strung Cailen along and caused so many delays that Cailen decided to forget about the contract and head for Louisville. But that didn’t even work, because her truck broke down two blocks from home - on New Year’s afternoon. Water had somehow gotten into the fuel tank.

It was clear their holiday plans had fallen through, and in the final, giving up phone call about the matter, Joan and Cailen had decided on comparative pain for dealing with their letdown. They were, after all, so lucky to have found each other. Whining about a brief delay not only lacked grace, it was childish, given the magnitude of true disappointment in so many lives.

"So let's buck up, little cowgirl. You sell that there house and git yerself back here as quick as you can, ya hear?"

"God, every accent you do is so terrible."

"Not. How about my British?"

"Please don't do it. Please. It's like a verbal walk across hot coals. All that ah-ah-ah."

"My tipsy Aussie, then. What about that one?"

"It sounds like your tipsy everything else."

"Now all this comes out. And after I've already told everybody we're engaged."

"Engaged? Who've you told that to?"

"Okay, nobody yet. But I was thinking the other day about how partner sounds like we really are cowgirls and I'm always tempted to pronounce it podna, and lover brings nudity and tongues to mind, and girlfriend is so froofy. Anyway, I thought fiancee would be good."

"But it isn't legal for us to marry, yet."

"Precisely. Fiancee makes a statement. Kinda assumes it's all just a matter of time, now don't it little lady?"

"Your John Wayne. It's not any good either."

"You recognized it, didn't you? Couldn't be that bad if you recognized it."

"Only because of the little lady. You always have him say little lady. Otherwise, somebody with flatulence, maybe a flatulent Aussie, would have been my first guess."

© 2006 Margo Moon

Grand Theft Equine - Chapter Twenty: Green Pasture

2009-09-27T03:01:00.001-04:00

Previous chapters are available on the sidebar.

Joan punched at her phone as she pulled from the parking area, and in the conversation that followed, Sassy took the news with understated, businesslike seriousness. She assured Joan that Anna’s signature on the vet’s report would be sufficient for her insurance claim and gave permission for Jade’s body to be transported for burial at Joan’s family home in Versailles, Kentucky. She also remembered to send condolences to Brie, commenting on how close Brie and Jade had always been.

The next call was to the farm. “Mom?”

“Joan? Joan Caulder? For heaven’s sake, so this is what my daughter’s voice sounds like over a telephone.”

“Mom, there’s been a problem with one of our horses, Jade’s Gold. Remember him?”

“Sure I remember Brie’s favorite, what happened?”

“He passed away this morning. Twisted gut. There was nothing to be done to save him.”

“Honey, I’m so sorry. Wait a minute, honey, your dad’s scared.” Joan’s mother’s voice faded as she covered the receiver. “It’s one of the horses, Miles, the one Brie loves so much died this morning.”

Joan could hear her father in the background saying that was just awful. “Mom, I called because I think burying him would be the best thing for Brie at this point. May we bring him there?”

“Honey, you don’t even have to ask, you know that. They want to bury him here, Miles. Joan, your dad wants to speak with you. Be careful, honey.”

“I will. Dad?”

“Right here. Sorry about the horse, honey. What do you need me to do?”

“Well, track maintenance will see to it that he’s gotten out of the stall in time. After that, if we aren’t having the wagon pick him up, I think we’re on our own. I’m on my way to rent one of those boxy moving trucks now. One of those should be wide enough to get him into even after his legs stiffen, don’t you think?”

“Sure, plenty wide. But you’ll need me to get a loader over there to lift him into it. Lou Anderson’s boy, Jason, has something that would work. I’m gonna see if he can free it up today. If he can’t, don’t worry, we’ll come up with something else. Now, Joan, depending on how things work out, I’ll either be coming over with the machinery or staying here to dig.”

“Are you up to that?”

“Sure, nothing to it. Just an hour on the backhoe.” Miles Caulder thought for a minute. “Better give me a number so we can reach you. Somebody’ll have to vouch for the equipment coming in the track gate.”

Joan repeated the number a few times while Betty and Miles first thought they might simply memorize it then decided to fumble around for paper and a pen and write the thing down, just in case.

Two of the ten-foot-wide enclosed trucks were available when Joan got to the rental store. Once she was on the road in one of them headed back to Churchill, she speed dialed Cailen’s number.

"Hi ya, wonderful."

Joan felt everything inside relax a notch. "Hi!" She sounded utterly grateful and desperate, which sent alarm streaking through Cailen.

"What is it, what's the matter? You or Brie?"

Finding a considerably less strained tone, Joan tried to project steadiness. "Neither, angel, it's Jade. He colicked early this morning."

"Oh God, bad?"

"There was extensive separation. We couldn't save him."

Joan waited out the expected silence on the other end of the line without pressing.

"Poor Jade. Was Brie with him?"

"At the end, yes, and I believe he was aware she was there. Hope so, anyway."

Joan recounted the details, along with her plan to move him to the farm for burial that afternoon.

Flatly, Cailen commented, "You're thinking of Digna. That's why you want Brie to have a grave to visit."

"She's so quiet, Cailen. Should we give her space, or stick close, or what?"

"Who's we?"

"Hannah and me."

"Oh, right, forgot about Hannah. I know as much about getting Brie through something this bad as you do. Mostly good things happen to Brie. Not much negativity penetrates that attitude of hers."

"Angel, I'm almost to the gate, so we'd better hang up for now."

"A couple of things first. Once you guys get on the road, tell Brie I'm waiting for a call from her."

"Good, I'd feel much better if you spoke with her."

"The other thing is you. How are you doing, aside from being everybody's rock?"

"Believe me, I'm no rock. I nearly broke down at the sound of your voice when you answered." Joan checked her watch. "This nightmare is only four hours old and it feels like days."

"Do you want me to come down? I can fix things here at work and be there by five or six this evening."

"I know, but we'll probably be at my folks' by that time and, honestly, if I had you here I don't think I could let you leave again."

"Call me from the road then?"

"We will. I love you."

"I love you, Joan."

*****

A bulky mound of beige canvass lay outside Joan's barn, over by the center spigots, when she returned. Brie and Hannah stood next to it. To Joan, Brie standing there unfazed by the cold for once, holding herself in an awkwardly formal posture, was heartbreaking. She'd seen people, her mom, stand beside caskets with that same muted dignity. And the attentive helplessness Hannah radiated was almost as unbearable to witness.

Joan found Car first thing. "Catch me up on what's gone on here."

He tilted his chin toward Brie and his sister. "They didn't see any of it. Shedrow was all put back by the time they came out."

"Good job." Joan glanced at Jade's closed stall door.

"Left that closed out of, I don't know, respect I guess. But it's cleaned, down to the floor, with a layer of lime laid down."

"How long have they been standing out there?"

"Twenty minutes at the most. Brie won't take a chair, for some reason."

"What would we have done without you, Car? Thanks for being here."

Car’s cheeks colored some as Joan stepped onto the first rung of the loft ladder. Once up, she pushed two bales of straw to the edge and called, "Whoa back!"

Car checked the corner. "Nobody coming, Joan."

She toppled the straw bales into the shedrow below and Car dragged them off to one side. Joan climbed down and gathered the strings then carried a bale in each hand outside to the tarp.

"Sit, both of you. This could be a longish wait." Brie and Hannah sat. "Here's the situation. My dad or one of his friends is on the way with something we can use to lift Jade into that moving truck." They hadn't noticed the truck until Joan pointed to it. "After they load him, the three of us—Hannah, are you free for the rest of the day?"

Hannah nodded.

"The three of us are going to take Jade's body to my parents' farm for burial. Do you approve of all that, Brie?"

"I was so afraid we'd have to let him go to the renderers."

"That's not going to happen. Is my parents' farm okay with you? Case 'Em Out is buried there, you know that, so I'll never sell the place. It'll always be kept intact."

"It's the best place in the world for him."

Joan gave the silence about ten minutes before speaking again. "Brie?"

"Huh?"

"Could I have a little time here alone with him? After things start happening, I'll be busy and might not get another quiet spell."

"Sure." Brie stood and Hannah rose to follow.

"Why don't the two of you go to the room and find warmer clothes? That truck's heater doesn't work, so we have a frigid trip ahead of us. And, Hannah, maybe you could bring back three hot cups of that tea Brie fixed for you the other day."

"Good idea, come on Brie."

Joan was finishing a call with her dad when they returned. She hung up and locked the keys. "Dad's neighbor should be here in half an hour."

*****

The rented truck had that stark, industrial-for-its-own-protection feel, like a cheap motel room. Hard cold black vinyl, thick and comfortless enough to stand up to the abuse of renters, covered the seats and seat backs. A barren metallic no-nonsense dashboard apprised the occupants only of speed, gas and oil levels, and mileage. There were simple heater controls, apparently connected to nothing, and a big ashtray on a loose hinge that flapped open. But it was by far the better of the two trucks left to choose from. Joan had double-covered the seats with barn blankets and thrown a couple extra ones in for Brie and Hannah to wrap themselves in, especially for the late-evening return trip.

When they were on the interstate and up to cruising speed, Joan got the phone out. "May I get Cailen's number for you, Brie? She asked for a call from you when we were on the road."

Brie took the phone. "Drive, I can dial it." She punched in the number she'd committed to memory the evening after they'd given her the laptop.

Cailen was there right away. "Brie?"

"It's me, baby."

"Dígame acerca de lo, mija." The familiarity of Cailen's patient voice, her simple encouragement to 'Tell me about it, baby,' opened a valve in Brie’s heart. After so many pent up hours being barely capable of communicating the answers to direct questions, much less of expressing her feelings, she suddenly had to talk. For the next twenty miles, her stream of exotic Spanish cadence carried Hannah and Joan on its current, sparsely islanded with words they understood. There was Jade's name, along with Joan's a few times, and many Cailitas. Hannah did not hear her own name spoken once.

When the conversation was finished, Brie reminded Joan to call Cailen once she was safely home for the night. There was a change in Brie's demeanor from the phone call onward. Still subdued, she nonetheless lavished thanks on Joan for circumventing the more regular means of disposal. And she wanted to talk about exactly where Jade would be laid to rest.

"I can picture in general the top of that hill where you have Case 'Em Out, but tell me about what kind of things are growing up there."

Cailen had worked a miracle. Joan laid a hand on Brie’s knee, "Let's see, in early summer there are black raspberries along the old fence line there to the south, just inside that little stand of trees. Those are mostly just Osage orange and scrub cedars, nothing fancy, but they make a nice full wind block. We can come out in the spring and you can plant anything you like."

"Okay, we'll get advice from Cailen about that. Do you know her family, her mother, ran a bunch of greenhouses all while she was growing up?"

"No, I didn't."

"Yeah they did, so she'll know what should do well up there." Brie took Joan's hand. "This is unreal, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is."

*****

The Caulder farmhouse was not visible from the road. Its narrow river rock drive folded into a buffer of tall western pines and emerged a hundred yards further into a one-acre yard. Spread behind and around that were two pastures, the barn, a five-acre soybean field, and a few acres they had let grow wild that included the hill where Jade would rest. Wider than a pickup truck by a few feet, the square-bodied truck scraped loudly against pine boughs and left a wake of wildly waving limbs as Joan drove it through the buffer. The house itself was a two-storey clapboard painted pale blue - four bedrooms above living room, study, playroom and a great big kitchen.

They entered through the back and hung their coats on the mudroom rack before getting to the kitchen, where they heard Joan’s mom helloing from the next room before they saw her. It was a cinch Betty would be fixing chicken, because Brie always raved about the way she fried it. She rinsed batter from her hands and dried them on the way to the doorway for hugs.

"You girls sure are being put through the mill today. I'm so sorry." After releasing Joan and Brie, Betty hugged Hannah even though there hadn't been time to introduce her yet. Joan's mother was a few inches shorter and a little wider than her daughter, same coloring though, and they shared a confident ease in the way they carried themselves.

"Mom, this is our friend Hannah."

Betty had hold of both Hannah's hands and leaned back to take stock. "Hannah, are you any kin to Car? You look a whole lot like him."

“Yes ma'am, he's my twin brother.”

“He's a good boy.” Betty put her arm around Brie and walked her toward the table. “Miles should be back any minute. We can time things however you girls want. Supper will be ready in about an hour, but I can keep it on hold as long as you need. If you want to go up the hill first, that'll be fine. Whatever is going to be best for you all.”

Brie and Hannah looked to Joan. “Mom, none off us has eaten yet today. Is there something to hold us over until we've taken care of Jade? Afterward, I think we'd feel more like settling down to a whole meal.”

Betty was immediately into the refrigerator and cabinets. Joan pitched in and they had bread, cheese, sliced ham, and turkey, plus condiments, on the table by the time Brie and Hannah returned from washing up. Miles joined them, reporting that Jason Anderson was back from Louisville and had dropped off the loader. Joan didn't see any point in prolonging things, so as soon as the food was put away she suggested that she and her Dad go on up the hill. She would come back for Brie and Hannah before refilling the grave, but after Jade had been lowered in.

*****

Miles Caulder was fairly tall without a trace of lankiness. He looked as natural and at home in his body as he stood for a moment with an arm around Brie at the graveside as he did driving the bobcat back down the hill. When the diesel engine's knock had faded to nothing, the three women standing beside Jade's fresh grave took in the softer whir of a light breeze sifting itself through bare thorny Osage orange branches. The bracing air, which had been neutral, filled with sweet smoke from somebody's fireplace.

Brie inhaled and held it for a few beats. "Nice."

"Wild cherry, I think."

"It's beautiful up here, Joan." Hannah felt solid relief at having Jade's body securely in the ground and just hoped Brie was getting some comfort from it too.

Brie had spent the day between two hells. So much reverence and care extended to Jade brought back, with a renewed feeling of helplessness, the inadequacy of Digna's hasty, sandy burial. For so many years, Brie had counted on the buildup of time itself to cover Digna, but today she knew that would never be enough. Having lived those last days hungry, thirsty, and miserable, Digna had then been poorly secured in death. No going back, no changing it. But the plan was still intact. Brie's resolve to arm herself with the education for helping the overwhelmingly disadvantaged had never been stronger. Nothing would stop her.

She asked, "Are there coyotes around here, Joan?"

"Yes, a few."

Brie stooped down and smoothed her hand across some of the loose dirt. "No way they'll get to him, though. You and your parents have seen to that."

"No, I don't expect so."

*****

There was still enough daylight after supper, so Brie insisted on a visit with High and Nellie. It would be a shame to let Joan be this close to her old horses without taking time to see them.

Miles heard them talking about it and came back in from the mudroom, already wearing his coat. "Don't look for them in the pasture. I put them up so we could leave the gates open, with all the driving back and forth. I was just now going out to secure the gates and turn them out. Gonna be two angry horses if they don't get back outside soon."

Joan shook her head and smiled fondly. "Those two. Has to be in the teens before they'll stay inside without getting an attitude. Come to the barn with us, Dad?"

"Sure."

Halfway down to the barn Joan volunteered, "Let me close the gates, Dad. You guys go ahead and I'll be right there."

The carrots and sugar cubes Brie and Hannah brought went a long way in tempering High and Nellie's indignation over being put up for the afternoon, and they were their usual sweet selves. Securing the pasture's three far-flung gates took Joan a few minutes, so Miles was showing Brie and Hannah around the barn, pointing out the rafter Joan had once hit her head on, been knocked unconscious, when she'd gotten the bright idea to mount Nellie, who wasn't fully broken at the time, from inside the stall.

"Joan thought she'd be easier to get on in a confined space. Well, she no sooner lighted in the saddle than Nellie went straight up in the air. Joan was out cold for several seconds. Wonder she didn't end up getting stepped on, too, but once she'd rid herself of the burden, Nellie stood there just as still and nice. Really scared me, though."

Hannah spied a cobweb covered wooden box sitting on a table in a doorless tack room. "Wow, that's awesome."

"Mean you can tell what it is under all that dust?"

"Sure, it's an old fashioned tack box. Look, Brie, how much brush space there is and how high the sides are. Is this handmade, Mr. Caulder?"

"Really is okay to call me Miles, Hannah. Yep, Joan keeps saying someday she's going to take it home and clean it up, sand it down and refinish it. Been saying that for about eight or nine years, now."

High and Nellie were all over Joan when she finally returned. Nellie nickered and High stomped back and forth, demanding to get closer to her. It was always like this when the three of them reunited. Brie had actually been fearful for Joan the first time she'd come to the farm and they'd walked out to the pasture. It had been summer and the horses were on the far side grazing. Joan had whistled, causing both their heads to jerk up. Recognition was instant and they set a course for Joan that began at a curious trot, but built to an all out gallop by the time they reached her. They’d managed a wild, disorderly halt just a few feet from running her down, and then the three of them had nudged and pushed and patted their hellos for a very long time.

After turning the horses out and giving them supper, Joan noted the setting sun and suggested they get back to the house and gather up to head for Churchill. Hannah told her and Brie to go on ahead and asked Miles if he'd show her the engine in his tractor. That struck Joan as odd before she surmised it was likely an excuse to give her and Brie some time alone. Hannah certainly could be generous when it came to sharing Brie's company.

*****

Eight-thirty had a middle of the night aspect, coming as it did on the heels of a miserably cold drive back to Churchill. Betty had been right about them being put through the mill. Even Joan showed fatigue. After shutting down the truck's rough engine outside the office gap, she leaned her head forward briefly, soaking up the silence and steeping in the sensations of being returned.

When she pushed back from the steering wheel and sat up straight, Brie patted her leg. "You moved a mountain for us today. That will never be forgotten, no matter what."

Joan was very aware that Brie had scarcely addressed Hannah directly throughout the entire dreadful day. "So, where are you guys spending the night? Hannah's?" They plainly had not discussed it yet, and Joan could sense Hannah holding her breath during the ensuing hush. Finally, in the stillness of Brie not answering, Joan opened her door and dropped heavy-footed from the truck. "There are a few things for me to attend to in the office."

With Joan gone, Hannah got busy retrieving something wrapped in a big black plastic bag from behind the seat. "Hurry, let's get this to the room before Joan comes back out and sees."

"What is it?"

"Tell you in the room." She kept tabs on the closed office door. "Let's just get it in there."

Inside the room, Hannah unveiled the cobwebby tack box they'd seen in the Caulders' barn and took care to shield the immaculate floor from falling dust. Brie looked a bit like herself at the unexpected sight.

"Know what this is?"

Brie frowned puzzlement. "Sure, but what's it doing here?"

"Then tell me what it is."

"Joan's old tack box."

Hannah shook her head slowly, smiling slyly. "No, this here is your Christmas gift to Joan."

The words were nonsensical, but the smile succeeded in reawakening Brie to how much Hannah felt like home to her. It was as if she were truly aware of her for the first time all day. "I think I'm a little slow right now. You will have to spell this out."

"Remember how Miles said Joan has been wanting to restore this? Well, he and I didn't really check out the tractor when we stayed behind in the barn. I asked him if he thought it would spoil things for us to refinish it for her. He said hell no, Joan was never going to get to it, but having it done would make her ecstatic. So, since you've been racking your brain about what to get her for Christmas, I thought we could fix it up for her."

Brie didn't have the gumption to envision a project. "Only thing is, no tools and no know-how."

"My parents have a workshop in their basement that rarely gets used, except by their one and only daughter. I can help you make this beautiful again. Joan'll be stunned."

Brie ran her hand along the tack box edge then across the uppercase cursive JMC carved into a side panel. "Hannah?"

"Brisada." Brie smiled at the melodramatic way Hannah said that.

"I know I've been weird with you today. I mean, you've stuck by me and I've been so, just weird." She shook her head. "I can't explain it. Why was I like that?"

"I have a theory. But do you really want to talk through it tonight? It can wait until tomorrow, or the day after. This isn't about me, and anyway I'm fine, I just want you to be all right."

Brie had a feeling they probably were too tired for a big discussion before sleeping. She went to her dresser, but before getting clean clothes out, she asked, "Am I welcome at the apartment tonight? I don't think I can stand to be away from you."

It was the most open declaration of need Brie had ever allowed herself to make to Hannah, but Hannah was not about to capitalize, not on this night. She thanked her goddesses Brie was coming home, though, and concentrated on getting her there in time for enough sleep before morning, which promised to be difficult enough, even on a full night's sleep, with Jade's empty stall sitting there in the middle of everything.

"You know the answer to that. It will always be yes. Mind if I check on Joan while you get your clothes together?"

"No, I'll be right over." Brie anticipated the airiness of Hannah's place, with its blended scents of herbal teas, basil growing in the window planter, and two tangy oranges they had picked up yesterday. Mainly, though, there would be Hannah. After Digna, there had only been the night's cold, dark trek until morning when it would be time to lie in a new ditch, frying on the hot desert floor, waiting for the next darkness to come. And then again, and again.

Joan was locking the office when Hannah came outside. "Do you need to get in here, Hannah? I can leave it open."

"No, we're on our way out, but I wanted to thank you for giving me such, I don't know what to call it, legitimacy I guess, today. Legitimacy in Brie's life, I mean. It's not like we're a real couple, yet."

Uncharacteristically philosophical after the day's solemnity, Joan pondered the capriciousness of a woman's status in another woman's life. "You know, I say lets take, and give, our legitimacy where we can find it. What defines a real couple, anyway?"

Brie practically staggered from the room carrying her little pack of clothing.

"Hannah, get that woman home before she falls on her face."

"On the way!" Hannah had moved her car to the barn next door when the loader came for Jade. "Brie, stay here while I get the car. Night, Joan, and thanks again."

"Goodnight, no thanks necessary. Brie, Car already said he and Ramon have things covered tomorrow if you and Hannah want to take the day off."

They weren't twenty feet from Jade's sealed stall. "No, here's where we belong. But don't worry about me if we disappear pretty soon after getting our horses done up. Hannah and I need to have a long talk."

"Good. Do that." Joan kissed her cheek before wrapping her in a protective hug. Poor Brie didn't even try to take advantage.

© 2006 Margo Moon

Grand Theft Equine - Chapter Nineteen: Favorite

2009-09-20T03:01:00.001-04:00

Previous chapters are available on the sidebar.

Brim Holden, the night watchman, tossed up a careless goodbye wave on his way out. He was gimping pretty good.

He paused to say something, or maybe just to rest for a few seconds. “Knees are killing me this morning, Joan.”

“See that, Brim. Anything I can do?”

The old guy had been around the track for a lot of years. With a stomach lining half chewed away from eating bute to ease his arthritic knees, and the crippling effect of the arthritis itself, even the light duties of watching over the horses and setting out morning feed were about the limit of what he could physically handle anymore. Brain still worked though, and he did know horses.

“Naw. Goin’ home for a hot soak and put some WD-40 on ‘em. Be good as new by time to show up tonight, don’t worry.”

Joan started a pot brewing before beginning her shedrow rounds. Jade’s corner stall was the first one she passed. As usual, he was sprawled on his side, having one last snooze before training time. More often than not, the big battleship gray colt was also snoring, but all was silent this morning.

DotCom came next. She paused mid-lick on her salt block, tongue partway out, resting on the little brick as she registered, nervous filly, that it was just Joan at the door having a look at her. Before reaching Knucklehead in the next stall, Joan heard a snore down at Jade’s end and absently listened for a rhythmic repetition to kick in.

Odd, just one.

As she ran a tender hand over Knucklehead’s heels, which were wont to chap in cold dry weather like they were having, she heard what was plainly not a snore but a grunt issue from Jade’s stall. In the seconds it took her to get down there another cry, definitely pain now, escaped him.

A quick rummage through the straw around where he laid revealed no stools. Jade’s bowels had not moved overnight. His morning oats were untouched, too.

“Hey, big boy, you aren’t trying to colic on us, are you?” Maintaining outward composure, Joan laid a reassuring hand on the side of his head, up by that soft flesh at the base of the ear. “Take it easy, buddy.” She quietly left his stall, her mind sorting and prioritizing as she ran for all she was worth toward the feed room while unpocketing the cell phone and following the steps Cailen had shown her to speed dial Anna Blevins’ number. “Please answer, Anna.”

Before the fourth ring Joan had already laid out petroleum jelly and a thermometer and was drawing Banamine into a large needled syringe. On the fifth, Anna answered.

A churning sound that Joan hoped was Anna’s truck engine filled the background. “This is Dr. Blevins.”

“Anna, Joan. I just found Jade acting very colicky. Can you come take a look?”

“Right away, I’ll be there in three minutes. Less. Is he down?”

“Yes, but I can’t say for how long. Not a single pile in his straw. I’m about to take his temperature. Is ten milliliters of Banamine okay?”

“Take the temp, but since I’m so close, hold the painkiller until I’ve examined him. Turning in the gate now, go ahead and get that temp stick in him.”

Joan coolly slipped back into the stall and knelt down beside Jade. “We’ve got you, buddy. Let’s hope this is just a great big old gas pain.” She eased her hand along his neck, withers, and back, trying to avoid surprising him when she lifted his tail. Her touch above his abdomen, light as it was, brought a flinch and a groan of profound discomfort. She smeared petroleum jelly on the thermometer before inserting it gingerly into his rectum. A string tied to the protruding part of the glass column had a clothespin on the opposite end, which she carefully clipped to some tail hair as a precaution against losing the instrument inside him or in the straw before noting the time.

Help arrived before the two minutes were up. “Let’s see what we’re dealing with.” Anna dropped to her knees and got to work, checking Jade’s eyes, gum color and bowel sounds. She yanked the stethoscope from her ears. “Nothing moving in there. Absolutely nothing. How long on the temp?”

Joan consulted her watch. “Thirty more seconds.”

Anna was punching on her cell phone while checking his pulse and respiration. “I’d like to get Erin on her way with what we’ll need for emergency surgery right here, not saying we’ll need it, but just in case.” Joan nodded and Anna spoke into the phone while palpating Jade’s stomach. “Erin, we’ve got a possible volvulus at Joan Caulder’s, Barn 81B, corner stall by the office. Bring everything we’ll need for emergency surgery as quickly as you can.” Jade’s distress at being pressed, even gently, was audible through the phone. “No, I don’t expect he’ll be getting up on his own. It’ll have to be here. Any questions concerning what equipment to bring? Good.” She hung up.

“Hundred and three point four,” was Joan’s gloomy temp report.

“Okay, I’ve seen enough. Do you have any objections to my opening him up, Joan? His pain level is much higher than either gas or simple blockage should cause. From my exam, I’d say we have torsion in this area.” Anna indicated the site without actually touching him again and then drew a syringe of morphine. “This will take the edge off in a minute or two.”

Erin made it there in fifteen minutes and Joan hustled out to help her unload the panel van. Jade was groggy by then and, Joan hoped, only dimly aware, if at all, of bright lamps being clipped overhead and straw being hastily kicked from two corners to make way for monitors that hummed monotonously after they were switched on.

At that point, Joan surrendered her authority and relegated herself to being an observer. But her mind had to do something, so it empathized with Jade, much like the way she used to lie on pasture grass at home and mentally inhabit High or Nellie’s body. She knew that to his equine olfactory system, the astringent odor must have been overpowering. When the pain blocker hit, she felt the muscles loosen first in his withers and on down to his hocks. She saw Anna sterilize her hands and then wrestle with latex gloves, an exaggerated struggle to get them on without compromising their sterility that looked perversely comical, a pantomime taking place in some other reality. Only Jade’s face, so handsome and familiar, seemed real. Stainless steel instruments energetically glinted light from those overhead lamps and clanked starkly in a metal tray. Abruptly, the intrusive sounds of Car and Hannah’s straining voices filtered into the dreamlike scene.

“Brie, no, you shouldn’t!”

The moment she heard Brie’s name, Joan recognized the end of her own allotted time for being dazed, and she noiselessly moved outside. “I’ve got her, Car.” Joan’s natural strength far surpassed Brie’s, but desperation multiplies might, so she was almost more than Joan could handle. Hannah jumped in and they looked like reckless brawlers as they managed to roughly cram Brie through the office door. When the door was shut and Joan believed Jade couldn’t hear her, she yelled, “Stop it!”

Brie was at the bottom of an emotional well. Her perceptions were pushed back to a stage where she barely understood English, but spat venomous curses in her own language while clawing back toward the door.

Joan kept battling. “Stop it! I’m going to let you go in. Do you hear me, Brie? You can be with him. But Jade is in no shape to tolerate this!”

Jade’s name recalled Brie from the sickening tunnel. She went limp and in a voice hoarse from the force of her pleas she said, “I promise to be calm. Let me go in.”

The morning was still black, but the shedrow looked like exaggerated high noon. From the office threshold you’d think a movie scene was being shot in Jade’s stall with all the bystanders, bright lights, and the sense of drama. Brie crept inside and lowered herself to the straw just behind his neck and head. Joan signaled the somber stable hands to move back as she closed both panels of the white wooden door behind Hannah and herself.

Barely daring to breathe as Anna methodically located the spot where the intestine had twisted and pulled away, each woman receded to that place in herself that sanctioned spirituality.

Hannah filled her mind with tranquil thoughts for both Jade and Brie. She vividly imagined the entire universe opening its limitless store of positive, peaceful energy to them and envisioned them immersed in the natural order and flow beyond bodily confinements.

As always, Joan relied on herself. She sat behind Brie and formulated the possible outcomes, inwardly pleading with Jade. Come on, big boy, try.

The Hail Mary kept starting up in Brie’s mind and she repeatedly shut it off before the second line, The Lord is with thee, because she didn’t believe in any of that anymore. No hard feelings, she just didn’t buy it, and to spasmodically reach for it when there was trouble felt dishonorable. She found she could shut off the prayer by focusing hard on Jade. Her eyes drifted to the chevron-shaped scar on his shoulder that was probably the result of something he’d done at the farm when he was a baby.

Anna’s jaw muscles suddenly tightened down even harder.

Dios te salve, María; llena eres de gracia; el Señor es—Brie forced her attention away from Anna, down Jade’s leg and to his right front hoof, his only light colored one, the one that looked exactly like a beautiful creamy turtle shell on the bottom, such a surprise some mornings when she was still a little sleepy and forgot which hoof she was picking and the frog-shaped mud fell out to reveal that pretty pecan pattern.

Anna put an instrument down without going for another one.

Dios te salve, María; llena eres de gracia; el Señor es contigo.

She considered her incision site for a moment.

Bendita tú eres entre todas las mujeres, y bendito es el fruto de tu vientre, Jesús.

Anna made frank eye contact with Joan, then with Brie, and then with Joan again.

Santa María, Madre de Dios, ruega por nosotros pecadores—No! Not sinners.

Brie’s prayer broke off as she realized Anna was speaking.

“… and with that much separation, there’s no possibility of repair.”

Joan must have nodded, because Anna looked back at Brie again. Brie nodded too, so Anna prepared the injection, located a neck vein, and repositioned her stethoscope. Brie settled herself lengthwise along Jade’s neck and back. A view from the ceiling would have given the impression she was riding him, flat out. Joan’s hand was on Brie’s shoulder and Hannah’s fingertips rested at the crown of Brie’s head. Brie buried her face in Jade’s crest and breathed his final breaths with him, taking in his distinct gray horse smell, until one exhalation seemed to go on forever.

“Fly now, mijo,” whispered Brie into the curve of his mane. She closed her eyes and witnessed a joyful beginning. “¿Es instantáneo? ¿Ahora cabalga Digna un caballo gris hermoso?”

Respectfully but efficiently, Anna and Erin packed up their gear. Joan motioned for Hannah to stay with Brie and went outside with Anna.

“How long before his legs are too stiff to get him out of there?”

“That depends. Why? Maintenance should have someone over here in plenty of time. You have your hands full, I can stop by and inform them if you like.”

Joan’s mind was darting, but purposeful. “Okay, but let them know I don’t want him transported, just extricated from the stall. We’ll cover him with a tarp and have him out of here before the day’s over.”

“Out of here, where?”

“My parents’ farm, if about a dozen pieces will fall into place right.”

Erin put the last case in the back of the van and slammed the door. Joan walked over to say, “Erin, thank you so much for everything. You got the equipment here in an impossibly short time. We appreciate your efforts.”

“I just wish the outcome could have been positive, Ms. Caulder.”

“I do too.” Joan turned to Anna. “Thank you too, Anna. You both did all that was possible.”

“So, I’m informing maintenance, correct?”

“Yes, thanks.”

“Erin, I’ll see you back at the office.”

Before the vet had driven from sight, Joan was back at Jade’s stall door. Brie was still sitting beside him, and Joan signaled for Hannah to come outside.

Whispering, because Hannah had barely cleared the door and seemed willing to go no further, Joan said, “I have some arrangements to make, so will be gone for a while. You’ll stay close to Brie?”

“As close as she’ll let me. What about my horses?”

“Car will have someone take care of yours and Brie’s other three. May I have a minute alone with her before I go?”

Taken off guard by Joan’s deference, Hannah said, “Of course.”

Brie barely looked up when Joan entered and seated herself in the straw near Jade’s face.

She slowly stroked his forelock until Brie spoke. “Maintenance will be here pretty soon, won’t they?”

“Shouldn’t be long.” Joan laid her hand flat against his muzzle. “When they do, I want you—”

“No, Joan, the groom stays with the horse until the wagon comes.”

“Listen a minute. Nobody is going to force you to do anything. Now, please listen and consider for me. When they come, it’ll be just to pull him out of the stall. I wish you’d go into the office while they do that. I’m not sending him over for the wagon to pick him up. He’s staying here until I can make some arrangements.”

“What kind of arrangements?”

“Can I tell you that after I find out how possible they are? For now, just know that we’re not sending him over for pickup, okay?”

“I’m staying with him for as long as possible. I’m his groom.”

“Yes, you are. But will you go into the office with Hannah while they move him? You’ll be right back out with him.”

Brie sighed. It didn’t matter anyway. “Okay.”

“I have to leave for a while.” Joan kissed Brie’s temple before standing.

Outside, Joan found Hannah pacing just inches from the door and put a steadying hand on her shoulder. “I’ll probably still be gone when the backhoe gets here. Brie has agreed to go inside the office with you while they move Jade out.”

“Got it.” Hannah looked like she might be sick.

“You okay?”

“Yes. Go on, do what you have to do and get back here with us.”

“This shouldn’t take more than two hours, maybe less. Here’s my cell phone number. If you or Brie needs me, don’t hesitate.” Hannah looked at the display and punched the number into her phone.

Joan caught up with Car at the schedule board making adjustments. He already had several horses out walking, released from galloping because there wouldn’t be time enough to get them all out. He stopped what he was doing when she approached.

“Good, Car. Do whatever you think best about rearranging sets. Besides getting started late, you’ll have to get everybody out of the shedrow when maintenance gets here.”

“Already talked to Mitch across the parking lot. When the backhoe gets here, we’ll shift the walkers over to his shedrow.”

“Thank him for me. I have to leave for a while. When they move Jade, make sure Hannah and Brie are in the office with the door shut tight. And clean up any hair or hide that the dragging leaves before they come back out. If I’m back I’ll do it, but I may still be gone.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got everything.”

© 2006 Margo Moon

Grand Theft Equine - Chapter Eighteen: Lead Change

2009-09-13T03:01:00.001-04:00

Previous chapters are available on the sidebar.

Singer won his first race that meet, just as Jade had won his. By the end of the first week, Caulder Stables was two for two, both quite classy races. In fact, Joan’s horses ended up hitting the board more times than not that fall, and when they weren’t in the money they usually at least got fourth or fifth, which entitled them to a piece of the purse. In Jade’s big race, his Grade II stakes attempt, he turned in a very respectable second behind Noble Consent, a horse nobody was going to beat on that particular day. Days after the race, Brie was still showering Jade with praise over his valiant stretch run.

Joan and Cailen tried hard to keep phone calls to a minimum, as they both agreed the loneliness afterward was more intense. They always talked at the end of race days, though, because Cailen knew all the horses personally and wanted to make sure they had come back uninjured. By the end of the meet, the first of December, it seemed like they’d been separated for months and Cailen could still report no progress in selling the house. It was beginning to look like they might just as well accept that people just didn’t have time to house hunt during the holidays. Even though it was priced to go, there would probably be no sale until after the New Year.

Sassy's manners had been impeccable—no inappropriate touching of Joan, no open or veiled insults to Brie, no wheedling for attention. Good thing, too, because she showed up for each race and almost every weekend. Joan was encouraged and relieved by the apparent transformation, while Brie waited for the other shoe to drop.

At the beginning of December everything slowed down. Churchill’s meet was over, and although Joan liked to ship up to Turfway for a few races on their winter card, the frenetic pace of a race every two or three days was eased for a while. She still hadn’t decided whether to leave Louisville in early January for racing at Hialeah before coming back for Churchill’s spring meet. Brie’s last class was on December 8, so there were a few weeks to look forward to during the holidays when the workday settled into routine training only.

On one particular morning, Brie banged free of her room more enthusiastically than usual. It was Saturday and she and Hannah had spent Friday evening watching a video, but never managed to get past curling up on opposite ends of Hannah’s couch talking about first loves and coming out. The evening could not have been more emotionally intimate, but physical intimacy hadn’t quite developed, which was an astonishing circumstance, given their respective histories and operating assumptions about life and sexuality. Still, Brie was feeling marvelous.

“Hey, Joan.”

“Hey.” The smile still came quickly to Joan’s features, but missing Cailen was weighing on her.

Brie paused at the office threshold. “Got a few minutes? I think we’re running a little early.”

“Sure.” When the door was securely caught behind them, Joan asked what was up.

“No one specific thing. We just haven’t talked in a while.”

“That’s true. I don’t even know what’s been happening with you and Hannah.” Joan took her seat behind the desk and propped her feet on its edge, indicating there was no hurry.

Brie parked her butt against the coffee stand. “Hannah and I are good friends.”

“Friends who spend almost every free moment together. That’s still going on, right?”

Brie shrugged. “I guess so.”

To continue to let this pass without giving Brie a hard time would have been a serious breach of the articles of their friendship. “You guess so? Unbelievable. Brisada Contenta, treasurer of the female body, champion of physical love, sustains an inseparable platonic friendship with an alluring, reputedly predatory lesbian, for a month and a half. Has to be some kind of record, Brie. Know what I think?”

“I’m sure I will in a few seconds.”

With the sparring, Joan’s eyes had regained a bit of their sparkle. “I think you’re afraid of Hannah Wells.”

Brie had no return volley. She lowered her dark brown eyes to the like-colored surface in her cup, which rippled mildly from the slight didder of her hand. “I really am.”

Joan’s face went into free fall as she got to her feet and rounded the desk to get to Brie. “Oh, God, you are. I’m sorry. I’ve been so wrapped up in myself I didn’t realize.” Joan took Brie by the shoulders and peered into her face. “Why? Is there a girlfriend? Surely not, I mean, with the amount of time you two spend together. Tell me about it so I can help.”

Brie shrugged, trying to discount the subject’s import but her words, as always, were honest. “I’m a walking cliché. She’s on my mind constantly, when we’re apart I live for the minute we get back together, when we’re together all I can think of is touching her, and on and on and on. Total clichés, but it’s like this is the first time anybody ever felt this way.” The most tepid smile Joan had ever seen on Brie’s face came and went unceremoniously. “That was one more cliché for you.”

Joan was stooping by the chair. “Do you know why you’re afraid?”

Brie nodded and rolled her eyes in self-mockery.

With a mild, not unkind laugh Joan said, “I’ve certainly never seen you like this. So, what is it you’re afraid of?”

“Joan, look how hard I’ve worked on my plan to get through law school. Even if everything works out perfectly, it’s going to take me six whole more years. And that depends on a bunch of things, like getting the right job after becoming a paralegal. I just don’t need to fall in love right now. It’s sure to slow me down. Slow me down and slow her down. I don’t want Hannah treading water for years waiting for me to have time for a regular life. It’s not easy living with someone who’s in school full time, and when I really get into law school, well, there’s going to be absolutely no spare time, no spare energy.”

“What does Hannah say?”

Glumly, Brie reported, “She says we’re going to be together for the rest of our lives. All I have to do is get used to the idea.”

“Hannah comes right out and says that to you?”

“Every day or two.” Brie’s delivery couldn’t have been dourer.

“Sex?”

“Says she’ll wait as long as it takes.” A little smile surfaced. “And that I better be worth it.”

Joan returned to her chair to think for a minute. When she spoke, she didn’t rush her words. “You say Hannah is going to ruin your plans. Seems to me that all she’s done since the first day you met is help with your plans. She’s taken over your meals, she sees to it that you do your homework and get enough sleep. Then there’s the vitamin thing.” She flipped the desk calendar edge a few times. “Maybe you should consider letting your guard down some.”

“Maybe.”

Joan mused over a few sips of coffee before warning, “But perhaps not this morning.”

Off her guard because most of what she’d just acknowledged was news to her, Brie didn’t catch the hint of consternation in Joan’s voice. “Why’s that?”

“Hannah tied Thunder to the back wall for grooming this morning. I saw him there just before she saw me, so I made my escape.”

“I must have missed something. What are you talking about?”

Joan hit the high points of that conversation with Hannah about Thunder being the kind of stallion who notices when a woman is having her period, complete with Hannah’s black mumbled warning.

Brie jumped to her feet and began to pace with one hand flat on her forehead, which Joan knew was never a good sign. Finding a little coffee left in the pot, Brie sloshed it into Joan’s cup without asking first. “I need to run some plain water through this,” she said, as she put an empty filter in the basket and poured spring water into the maker. Then she ordered, “Watch that while I go to the room. There’s some tea, supposed to be very soothing, that I swiped from the apartment to give her when this happened.” And she was gone.

By the time Brie returned with the tea, there was enough hot water to fill the mug she brought along with it. Concentration slowed her words, made them elastic, as she prepared the concoction. “Hannah told me to stay clear of her on these days, but that’s not how it’s going to go. I found this tea shoved to the back of one of her kitchen cabinets. The box says it restores a woman’s sense of well being on her special days. Something stupid like that.” Brie pressed carefully at the tea bag and added just a spoon tip of honey. “But it’s worth a try.” When she was satisfied with the tea’s strength, she stood up straight, looking hopeful, and said, “Wish me luck.”

“Luck. May I make more coffee now?”

“Sure.”

Joan hopped across the room ahead of Brie to catch the door—no sense in risking the precious contents of that mug. Then instead of closing the door, Joan watched Brie carry her holy tea to Hannah’s stalls.

Rejection of the tea and any other assistance Brie might get it into her head to offer was swift and loud, easily heard inside the office. Poor Brie rushed back inside, all in a flurry, then rebounded to the shedrow and tossed the tea into the ditch.

“That didn’t go over so well. She said it smells like coffee from running the water through that maker.” Brie contemptuously indicated the machine that was dutifully sputtering out its next pot.

“She did warn us, Brie. Maybe keeping clear really is the best tactic.”

“No. She’s miserable, that’s why she acts so badly. Don’t be mad at her, Joan.”

“I’m not mad at anyone. I just know when to stay away from a hormonally challenged woman, that’s all. You never met Amanda.”

“All I know is that she’s miserable and I’m not going to let her go through it alone every month now that I’m here. She can be as mean to me as she wants, but I’m not going to let her scare me off.” Brie checked the cabinet underneath the coffee bar to make sure they were well stocked with spring water. “Joan, I have to run to Walgreen’s to buy a virgin coffee maker. Would you tack up Jade for me? This should only take twenty minutes, total.”

Joan was floored. She would have happily assumed Brie’s entire job for as long as she needed, no reasons necessary. But that willingness to oblige didn’t lessen the force of such an exceptional moment. Asking for help of any kind was far enough outside Brie’s nature to make this request seem phenomenal to Joan.

“Of course, but don’t drive fast or hurry, I’ve got you covered,” was Joan’s stunned reply.

By late the next evening, the worst was over. But the passing of the storm itself didn’t bring an all clear. Once the chemicals evened out and she felt less bloated and ugly, Hannah was consumed with regret over how she’d behaved and Brie had to rally all her powers of persuasion to mollify Hannah’s self-reproach. Things weren’t fully back to normal until the third day after Hannah started. And once it was over, Brie embarked on a new mission to tame Hannah’s unruly ovaries, not so much for herself—three rough days out of twenty-eight weren’t so much to put up with—but for Hannah.

© 2006 Margo Moon

Grand Theft Equine - Chapter Seventeen: Winning Meet

2009-09-06T03:01:00.001-04:00

Previous chapters are available on the sidebar.

Joan canvassed her shedrow for a good long while on the morning Cailen left. A week away from her horses, an entire enchanted week of being out of touch with their daily small crises—a hoof drying out, a tendon filling up, snot in a nose, loose stools, hard stools—had her feeling a little out of the loop, so she’d come in super early to reconnect with each horse before embarking on her first morning back in the action.

Half an hour earlier, she and Cailen had kissed goodbye at the curbstone in front of the house. Now Joan was ready to train horses. Her right rear jeans pocket was the new home of the cell phone Cailen had given her, and she pulled it out to reassure herself it was still on, keys locked to prevent inadvertent engagement, and that it was ready to receive Cailen’s call, which was expected sometime between nine and ten, as the drive to Chicago took roughly five hours, plus the time it took to get to the house in Arlington Heights. Joan’s phone check revealed no change in status. If Cailen needed to get through, she could.

An increasingly familiar-sounding engine neared and cut off just outside the parking area then glided silently into its spot. Brie and Hannah climbed up and out of the low-slung car. Hannah peeled off toward her stalls, hips and arms swinging freely, as Brie cut left to join Joan.

Brie stopped a few yards short of Joan and planted her hands on her hips. “How do you do that?”

Joan’s eyes quit the gratifying sight of her shedrow to flash a confident smile at Brie. “Do what?”

“Make everything seem so much more under control just by standing there?” Brie led their way to the coffee pot. “I mean, Car and I had it, we really did. No problem. Everything went great while you were gone. But now that you’re back…forget it, it’s hard to explain.”

“Just habit, Brie, merely what you’re accustomed to. The horses look wonderful, and the few changes Car had to make to our long-term schedule were right on the money, perfect decisions. You guys did great.” Joan’s eyes did a there and back in the direction of Hannah’s section of shedrow. “Do you need to change clothes?”

“No, I showered and dressed at the apartment before we left.”

“In that case, would you mind getting our coffee ready?” Joan thrust her empty cup at Brie. “I’d like a moment with Hannah. All four of her horses are dappled out to the max, really quite a stunning improvement in only a week.”

When Brie was feeling proud of something she loved, Jade for instance, her chest and stomach jutted outward and upward ever so slightly and her dimples all but disappeared. It interested Joan to see this transformation on Hannah’s behalf.

“She has them glowing for sure, but wait until you see how they act with her already. Hannah’s really something, Joan.”

“So it seems. I’ll be right back. Let me go tell her how much I appreciate her work.” Playfully, she added, “I certainly hope you haven’t forgotten how I take my coffee.”

Thunder was one who always went in the first set, so Hannah was busy knocking the night’s dust off him. She had him facing the front of the stall and was brushing his tail as he munched alfalfa from a bulging hay net. Thunder wore his halter, but wasn’t secured to anything. He acknowledged Joan’s pat on his neck by making eye contact without withdrawing his nose from deep in the sweet, leafy hay.

“Hannah, I can’t say how impressive it is that you’ve won such trust from this colt after so few days working with him.”

Hannah suspended her brush and ran a hand along Thunder’s body as she walked toward the door. “Thank you. He’s such a great boy,” she said, scratching the side of his unconcerned face. “Just needed some extra interest taken in him, that’s all.”

Joan gave herself a couple of seconds to study Hannah, the woman. “You’ve worked your tail off on all four of them and it shows.”

“That’s my job. I wasn’t bullshitting you during my interview. I totally love being a groom. It’s selfish, really, not a bit of work ethic involved. I love having my hands on them, smelling them, listening to them eat. That’s a biggie, the rhythmic crunching of hungry, healthy horses eating oats and rustling through their hay is at least as soothing as the sound of the ocean, I think. And …” Hannah fluffed her short gold hair. “From what Brie says, I don’t have to sell you on all this. Preaching to the choir, aren’t I?”

“Even so, it’s good to hear someone else voice it. We’re lucky people, Hannah, to have found and recognize what we want in life.” Joan thumped Thunder’s sturdy neck once more. “Brie will have my hide if I let my coffee get cold. I’ll let you get back to work. One thing, though. Thunder is one of those stallions who gets on the muscle with women during our, uh, when the moon catches up with us. So you might want to revert to the practice of tying him to the wall for grooming on those days, or he’ll likely bite. You know how his kind can be.”

“Yeah, thanks for the warning. I’ll do that.”

Joan laughed. “Of course, that means there’s the drawback that your cycle becomes common knowledge around the barn.”

As Joan started for the office she barely caught Hannah’s grimly delivered low reply of, “Huh, as if it isn’t obvious enough to anybody within striking or spitting distance anyway.”

Joan made a mental note to avoid Hannah’s shedrow whenever Thunder was tied to the wall, and then checked her cell phone again on the way to the office. All systems were still go.

Stretching with satisfaction before sitting down to her coffee, Joan took in a long, deep breath and beamed smugly at Brie. “The apartment, eh?”

“So?” Brie blinked umbrage.

“Hey, don’t get defensive with me. I’m glad, it’s nice, I mean Hannah really does seem to be something else.” Joan tested her coffee. “Aw, you did remember. Still coming over tonight to play on the computer? If there’s something more…pressing…with Hannah, I understand.”

Brie, ever comfortable and serenely secure, actually fidgeted. “Look, we aren’t sleeping together. Nothing physical, okay? Nada.”

In a display of non-aggression, Joan put up her hands. “Whoa back there, girl. Fine with me.” But she could not resist adding, “Whose idea is that? The nada part?”

“Mine.”

“Yours?” Hard to believe, knowing Brie.

“What’s wrong with that? Can’t I enjoy having a friend? You and I are friends and I think it works out pretty great.” Brie shook her head. “Except for times like this.”

“It works out very great.” But we don’t spend every free minute together and you aren’t nervous as a waxed-over mare whose water’s about to break at the mention of my name.

“Okay then, just so you know. And yes, I’m still coming over. That computer’s a blast. Did you see all the extra software Cailen put on it?”

“Mmm hmm, she’s brilliant with that technical stuff, isn’t she?” Joan’s hand reflexively went to the phone in her pocket. “Cailen should be calling in a few hours to say she got there safely.”

Brie said, “Good, let me know when she does. Think we better get out there and get to work?”

“Yes, ma’am, I do.”

The return of Joan’s energy to the barn stirred a ripple of fresh incentive through everyone, even the horses. Grooms moved more sharply and hotwalkers paid crisper attention to picking up hot horses the second they got back from the track. Jokes flew between the exercise riders as they sat imperiously on their mounts turning left in the shedrow. Car and Brie had done a clean job of running things, but with Joan back, the feeling of greater sureness and trust was palpable.

Anytime Joan and Car caucused about a horse, or just spoke in low tones, heads inclined toward one another, within view of the shedrow, their sight lines fell into a tightly synchronized routine, eyes flitting in unison first from a passing horse’s right front foot, say, to the carriage of another’s head, to a twitch on another’s withers. When it came to the horses, they were a team of mystic quality.

Deep within their consultive cocoon as they hustled in behind the returning fourth set, Joan and Car appeared wholly reconnected. She tapped his shoulder as they separated, he heading to the far side to tell Nesto not to grease Foxy Friend’s hooves before the farrier arrived and she rushing to tell Brie that Cailen had phoned.

“She’s there, safe and sound. I just spoke with her.”

Brie sidestepped an attempted nip from Singer as a hotwalker led him by. “Anything else? Is the scorpion there?”

“Not a sign of her. It doesn’t look as if Lara’s been there since Cailen left.”

*****

That evening a gust of cold wind fairly punted Brie past the massive front door the instant Joan cracked it open.

Breathing hard, she said, “Tomorrow morning will be a doozy.”

“Doozy? Where’d you pick that up?”

“Hannah, probably.” Brie shut her eyes and leaned her back against the foyer wall, gratefully inhaling the warm aroma of simmering vegetables and hot apples. “Have I ever known this house to be without the smell of wonderful food? I don’t think so.”

“I’m glad. Where’s the laptop?”

Brie’s eyes snapped open. Pulling the case from beneath her parka, she said with a degree of gravity, “The manual says don’t expose it to extreme temperatures.”

After dinner but before pie, they sat side by side on the couch to explore the games Cailen had downloaded.

Brie conducted the tour. “She put a million of them on here.” A few mouse clicks and a pool game began to load. “We could play pool.”

“Nah. Too mundane.”

“Okay, then.” Click, click. “Here’s one that’s so very Cailen.” Brie rolled her eyes and launched When Wildlife Goes Redneck. “See? The woodland animals drink beer and drive trucks and hunt humans. Is that something Cailen would appreciate, or what? Let’s not play it first, though. You’ll die when you see this next one.” Brie double-clicked on a triangular purple icon.

Joan threw her head back and laughed. “I wondered how long it would take you to discover that one.”

As a dance mix of Leather and Lace played behind the tumbling entry onto the screen of lavender letters that settled to form the game’s title, Brie said, “This will crack you up even more. I found it right away, but not because I had any idea it was a simulated leather bar. When I saw the title, I thought Cailen must have remembered how much I like roller coasters. I thought she had gotten me an amusement park game. I mean, Topsy Turvy, doesn’t that sound more like roller coasters than top and bottom or butch and femme or whatever?”

Joan was holding her sides, laughing way too hard. “Stop talking. My God, there’s a stitch under my ribcage and it feels like all those mashed potatoes I ate are clumping around it.”

Brie was brutal. “Of course, you’d be the one to ask about all those labels, wouldn’t you?”

Joan leaned back against the couch arm and moaned as she jabbed at Brie with sock feet. “Shut up for just a minute. I’m in pain.”

“Sure, I’ll just assign my character’s persona while you compose yourself.” Brie studiously tapped some keys then clicked the mouse here and there. She tapped a couple of more keys before glancing over at Joan. “Better?”

“I might live.”

“Good.” Brie consulted the screen again. “Would you spell Kenna with one “n” or two?”

Joan delivered a sharp kick to the side of her butt. “Hey, that hurt. Oh, sorry Joan, maybe Kenna, two n’s I guess, was the name you wanted to use.”

“Brisada, that whole adventure was a string of complete misunderstandings and you know it.”

“Yeah, whatever. Here, your turn to create your character.”

Joan carefully settled the keyboard on her lap and Brie watched her build a profile.

“Bottom? You’re going to be a bottom?”

Joan was fully attending her choices. “Cailen warned me to start out with that. Beginners apparently never win if they try to start out being a top.”

“Then let me change mine before we start.”

“No way, hotshot, if you thought you could start out as a top, you’ll just have to live with the consequences. Your character’s already set.”

“But we haven’t entered the bar yet. Cailen warned you. It’s cheating if you don’t let me change mine.”

Joan impatiently clicked her final selection, no blindfold, and passed the keyboard to Brie.

“No blindfold? Did Cailen give you a tip about that? Because if she did, I’m changing mine, too.”

Joan sat with arms folded. “She only advised me on the dominant/submissive choice. I’ve got sense enough to pick no blindfold on my own. You seriously picked yes blindfold?”

“Maybe. But now that Kenna is switching to a bottom, I might go with no blindfold.” Brie made her adjustments. “Yep. No blindfold. By the way, when you and Cailen talked about this game did you tell her about Kenna?”

“I don’t recall the name coming up, no. But I’m sure the story will come out someday, and I’m also sure Cailen will be fully as fascinated by it as you still seem to be.”

“How can you be so sure it’ll come up?”

Joan’s eyes glittered, picturing Cailen’s teasing expression. “Because twice now she has emerged from the bedroom wearing T-shirts I keep in the same drawer where I put those restraint things Kenna left behind. Each time, she’s also worn this smug grin and hummed some cutesy tune, taunting me, you know? Just daring me to not explain. So I pretend nothing’s up. Now it’s a contest to see who’ll mention it first.” Joan took the controls and allowed her character, Marie, to enter the bar and purchase a beer in a frosted glass.”
“Marie? You’re a bottom named Marie? Jesus, Mary and Joseph!”

“Who are they, the threesome at the corner table?”

“Blasphemer.”

“In hell with the sinners. Anyway, the whole time Cailen was telling me about this game, she had that same smirk on her face. I know she was ready to fly apart wanting to ask me about the toys in the T-shirt drawer. She’ll break someday, don’t worry.”

“You two deserve each other.”
“Thanks.”

Brie squealed. “Somebody just bought me a drink! Can you believe it? Joan, it’s that incredibly fit looking woman.” Brie put the cursor over the tall blonde who was slowly approaching Kenna from the bar. “She’s gorgeous. No blindfold, definitely no blindfold! Do you love this game, or what?”

*****

It snowed and froze hard in the overnight hours, creating a Thursday morning pleasant to look at, but not much good for training horses. Joan pulled all her trackers from the schedule except four and on the board beneath their names she’d written large EVERYBODY ELSE WALKS. It would seem like a Sunday.

Hannah had somehow managed enough traction in that toy car to make it to work safely.

“Hannah, you’re as dependable as the mail, first one here even on roads like these.” Joan walked alongside her the short distance to her stalls.

“Roads were no trouble. Did you guys have a good time last night?”

“Brie and me? Sure. Next time you’ll both have to come.”

Hannah shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t want to infringe on the two of you, though. Brie said you were going to explore that new laptop.”

Joan was curious about the infringe remark, but didn’t probe right away. “There wasn’t much exploration beyond one of the games Cailen put on the thing. We got started playing Topsy Turvy and didn’t quit until I made Brie go home around nine-thirty. She’s supposed to be relaxing during this short school break and I want her to save her energy for that paper due at the end of it.”

With obvious appreciation, Hannah paused after standing back up from removing Bolero Blouse’s bandages. “That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to do, let her rest up for a few days before starting that monster paper. A week might sound like a long time, but it isn’t, not really.” She brushed loose straw from her knees and brought Bolero’s leg pads closer to Joan, examining them and deciding they were a little too dingy to re-use before laundering. “Topsy Turvy, eh?” Hannah winked and Joan caught a glimpse of what was undoing Brie. “Anybody get lucky?”

“As a matter of fact, Brie’s little sim slut certainly had a good time.”

“How about yours?”

“Mine may join a convent. So, you’ve played it? Very much?”
Hannah intentionally sounded boastful. “On my PC, in the leather bars in four major cities, I’m the top top. Which city were you guys in?”

“Atlanta.”

“Atlanta. Tough. And Brie got decent attention? First time playing, right? That’s not easy.”

Joan glanced in the direction of Brie’s room. Still no movement down there. “So, Hannah, give me a quick tip or two that might help next time.”

“First thing, and this is important, what was Brie’s statement of current mood? You know what I mean, that sentence or two you’re supposed to enter as part of your profile?”

“Yes, I remember. Brie’s was something like, ‘Rescue me, I’m wet. I’m really, really wet.’” Joan focused thoughtfully on a piece of straw that had gotten tracked into the otherwise speckless shedrow. “There might have even been another ‘really’ in there, she was extremely enthusiastic.”

Flicking a brief smile toward Brie’s still-closed door, Hannah tried to remain analytical. “And yours?”

“Mine expressed the hope that the bar’s pool tables would be of good quality, which pales in comparison to Brie’s, but the instructions explicitly said others in the bar would not be privy to the statement. So that didn’t affect anything, did it?”

“Joan, you have to remember, the computer still has access to those pieces of information and it uses them to create your, you know, aura, or attitude or whatever. See what I mean?”

Looking past Hannah’s shoulder, Joan spotted Brie. “Here comes Ms. Popularity now.” The sight of Brie incapacitated by heavy clothing always tickled Joan. “Morning, Frosty.”

“Morning.”

“Joan was just telling me what a hit you were last night in Atlanta.”

Brie’s voice was still rough from sleep. “Not me, Kenna.”

“Congratulations to Kenna, then. You look like you need your coffee. Why don’t you guys go have the morning meeting? Since none of mine are trackers, I’m going to get started on stalls and might walk Thunder myself to free up a hotwalker.”

Brie was already piloting her many-layered self toward the office. “Great idea. See you in a while.”

Hannah called after her, “Oh, and I’ve packaged up your morning vitamins and supplements. They’ll be in your room by the time you come back outside. Be sure to take them before it gets much later.”

“I will.”

Joan fixed the coffees with exaggerated gentility and delicately placed a cup in front of Brie before sitting down with her own, all in meticulous, pregnant silence.

Before they had a chance to speak, someone’s courteous tap on the door drew a, “Come in,” from Joan.

It was Sassy, clad tip to toe in a shockingly suitable outfit. No spike heels for aerating the shedrow, no painted-on pants, no why-bother-to-even-cover-the-boobs blouse, no lacquered hair, and no I-could-buy-and-sell-you-a-hundred-times jewelry. While not exactly workaday, her appearance had by some miracle been downplayed to that of a carbon-based life form.

Her tone eerily absent the slightest trace of sarcasm, Sassy said, “Excuse me, Brie, I didn’t realize you were in here too. That sweet young woman, Hannah, directed me this way when I asked for Joan.”

“No problem.” Brie was waiting for the punch line.

Joan unfolded an extra chair. “Sit down, Sassy. Coffee?”

Sassy extended a hand, palm down. “No, thank you, to either. I just came by to let you know I’m in town a day early for Singer’s race.” She nodded politely to Brie. “Congratulations, by the way, on Jade’s win.” There was an awkward moment before she added, “Well, that’s all. I’ll look forward to seeing you both tomorrow.” Sassy smiled kind of genuinely and respectfully closed the door behind her as she left.

Joan and Brie sat motionless, briefly incapacitated.

“I’m confused.” Joan swiped a hand through her hair.

“Me too. How should we interpret that? Did it even really happen?”

Joan took a bracing slug of coffee. “It happened all right. Maybe Mag was right. When Cailen and I were in Camden, she was worried Sassy might be heading for some kind of breakdown. This could be the aftermath."

“Doubt it. It was a good performance, but I’m suspicious of the whole act.”

Joan put her feet up. “Whatever the case, a Sassy visit can certainly make you grateful for your mental health.”

“Sure can.”

Joan saw her chance and launched into oratory. “And I always say there’s no better safeguard for one’s health than proper nutrition. A good vitamin and supplement regimen is absolutely essential in maintaining—”

Since there were no horses circling yet, Brie slammed the door on her way out.

© 2006 Margo Moon