All Hat (11 page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Where are the totes?” he asked.

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

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

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

Ray looked around. “Look at this place.”

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

“What is it?”

“A tax on the stupid.”

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

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

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

He bet a hundred to win on the gelding.

*   *   *

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

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

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

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

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

“How'd you do?” Pete asked Chrissie.

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

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

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

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

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

“I've been away.”

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

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

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

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

“You make the bets?” Pete asked suddenly.

“I made them.”

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

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

“So much for our strategy,” Pete said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ray put on a pot of coffee and sat down.

“Figuring on a new truck, Pete?”

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

“Today had to help.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ray sipped at his cup and watched the old man.

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

“Where would you go?”

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

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

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

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

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

*   *   *

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Get a receipt,” he told them.

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

“Just get it.”

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

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

“Where is he?” Dean asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dean climbed out of the truck, took over.