Candace Carrabus - Dreamhorse 01 - On the Buckle (16 page)

He had the decency to look embarrassed, or maybe he was confused. After all, it was his farm where the body had been found, his fence that had been cut. His horses had been hurt, too. Yet, he was being helpful and kind to me, and I was acting like an idiot.
 

I turned away and pressed fists against my eyes to stop the tears. Stupid tears. What was I crying for, anyway? Then, I sat on a log, and a moment later, I laughed. Maybe I’d been too quick to dismiss the possibility of hysteria.

“Jesus. Is this the biggest freaking cosmic joke of all time, or what?” I faced him. “Some birthday, huh?”

- 14 -

When we got back to the barn, Renee, Sandy, and Dex Two were gone. Dex One had kept water on my horse’s leg, and Hank stood with Cheyenne. Clara arrived with iced tea, pie, and, God bless her, half a dozen cans of whipped cream—three plain and three chocolate.

“A little birdie told me it was your birthday,” she said, presenting me with the bag. “I made a roast for supper, but it looks like you’re gonna be tied up here for a spell, so I brought sandwiches.”

“You’re a life-saver,” I said. “Thank you.”

I cleaned Cali’s stall and put her in it, globbed ointment on Cheyenne’s foot, wrapped a bandage around it, and returned him to a clean stall. We all went in the tack room to eat and wait for Dr. Hurt. I ran the whipped cream up to my fridge, taking a big hit off a plain one on the way.

“I heard from Frank,” Clara said when I reentered the tack room. “He’s my cousin, you know—the county coroner. That there city guy ain’t even looked at Norman, yet.” She turned to me. “Got some unsweetened tea for you, Vi.”

No way to know how she guessed I didn’t like sweet tea, but Clara was growing on me. At home, I enjoyed a comfortable anonymity. I could be aloof. Here, that was impossible. Was it what I still wanted? Sure, back home no one knew anything about me, and that made it impossible for them to help. I’d thought I didn’t need or want help.

“You mean the St. Louis Medical Examiner?” Malcolm asked.

“He’s the one,” she said. “Can’t believe it.”

“It can take days,” Dex One said. “But I’m going to make a few calls, see if they can hurry it up.”

“T’ain’t right,” Hank said. “Keepin’ the family waitin’ like that. Can’t plan the funeral or nothing’.” He pushed his MFA cap to the back of his head. “T’ain’t right.”

“His poor mother,” Clara said with a shake of her head.

Poor Norman, I thought. I crammed half of a roast-beef sandwich slathered with mayonnaise in my mouth and washed it down with tea.
 

“Sheriff don’t want us movin’ nothin’ neither,” Hank said to me. “Not the manure pile or the spreader.”

“Okay,” I said. “Guess I’ll start a new pile.” It’s not like I wanted to go near the old one. And if I never emptied the spreader again, that would be soon enough. Yellow police tape still surrounded it all anyway.

Noire barked. Malcolm poked his head out the door and peered down the barn aisle. “Lynette’s here.”
 

We filed behind him. The woman coming toward us matched Malcolm in height, was skinny as a number-two pencil, had red hair pulled into an untidy ponytail, and freckles on her tired face.

“Dr. Hurt,” Malcolm said, “this is Vi Parker. Can you look at her mare first?”

“Call me Lynette,” she said to me. “Nice to meet you.” We shook hands. Hers were strong and slightly chapped, like most vets’. “Sorry it took me so long to get here.”

I led the way and Malcolm filled her in on what had happened.
 

Clara said the food was in the tack room and she and Hank would see us later. A second after, Dex One’s beeper went off, and he said goodbye, too.

Lynette and I went into Cali’s stall.
 

“Bring her into the aisle where the light’s better. I’ll get my sewing kit.”

Lynette administered local anesthetic, then cleaned and sewed up the chest wound. She glanced at the knee, and said, “We’ll need a picture of that.”
 

Malcolm listed everyone else’s injuries, and brought in Barbie.
 

Lynette probed all around the lump. The mare tried tossing her head, but the vet held her still. A sound like popping Bubble Wrap came from the mare’s head. “Probably a slight fracture of the sinus,” she said. “She might have an indentation after it’s healed.”

“What was that sound?” I asked.

“Air,” Lynette answered. “With a wound like this, air escapes from the sinus cavities and gets under the skin. The air will work its way out as it heals.”

That was a new one on me. My days were going to be full with all the boo-boos. Several horses would be stall-bound for a while and need to be hand-walked for exercise rather than turned out with the others.
 

Lynette lugged in the x-ray machine and began to set it up. I’d done this before with other horses. The vet would take a picture while I held a rectangular “plate” that contained the film. We’d all hold our breath hoping the horse didn’t move. They could be uncooperative, and I was unsure what my mare’s response would be. The drugs were wearing off, and she didn’t want to put any weight on the bad leg.

Cali shifted the moment the vet approached. Horses always knew, it seemed. Lynette spoke in soothing tones and stroked her shoulder. I stood at her head, talking, trying to distract her. Malcolm positioned himself near the opposite hip, but I noticed him hesitate before putting a hand on her. My gaze dropped to his shin, covered by the same slacks he’d worn to the museum. The last time he’d touched this horse, she’d nailed him, so I could understand his reticence.
 

“Why don’t you take the front end?” I suggested.

He smiled his most engaging smile, and we switched places. He gave my hand a reassuring squeeze as we passed each other. I jumped. Cali jumped and banged into the machine which tipped onto Lynette’s toe.
 

“God damn it,” she said.

“Oh, shit,” I said at that same time. “Sorry.”

“My fault,” Malcolm said.
 

He stooped to right the machine, and I returned to Cali’s head.

“What were you two doing over there, dancing?”
 

Malcolm caught my eye. “You could say that.”
 

I couldn’t help smiling. “Yeah, but he doesn’t like it when I lead.”

Lynette snorted. “I have that problem with men all the time.” After a moment of fiddling with the dials, she said, “Okay, who’s going to hold the plate?”

“I will,” Malcolm said.
 

Maybe he moved too fast, I don’t know, but Cali tossed her head and caught me in the chin. I reeled back and felt my lip, tasted blood. Malcolm pulled out a handkerchief. I don’t know any man except my uncle who still carries a perfect square of soft white cloth in his pocket. I tried to take it from him, but he held it out of my reach.

“I’m leading, okay?”

I rolled my eyes and let him dab the blood off my lip.

“You okay?” Lynette asked.
 

I nodded.

“One more try, and I’m knocking her out. Robert, you get this mare’s other front leg off the ground and keep it there.”
 

I picked up the plate, but Lynette and I collided.
 

“Maybe try it from the other side?” she asked.
 

I went to where Malcolm stood holding my horse’s bent leg. She was leaning most of her weight into his hands, and he had his shoulder set against hers.
 

I had to crouch and nearly touch my head to her steel-shod foot to position the plate. If Malcolm let go, I’d have a hoof print over my ear, a monster headache, and maybe even get to suck my whipped cream through a straw for the rest of my life.

“You got her?” I whispered.

“You bet,” he said.

“Where do you want me?” I asked Lynette.
 

Malcolm grunted and said something under is breath. I could swear it sounded like “Everywhere,” but must have heard wrong. Lynette got the plate where she wanted it, and I tried not to move.

“Okay,” she said. “Here we go. No dancing over there.”

I held my breath and heard the little buzz of the x-ray. We all exhaled. I stood, and Malcolm gently released Cali’s leg.

“How many more?” I asked.

“There’s more?” Malcolm asked, lacing his fingers together and stretching his arms.

“Three or four,” Lynette answered.
 

“No problem,” he said.
 

A minute later, we prepared to do it again. My horse refused to pick up her foot for Malcolm, so I did it, and waited while he got in a good position for us to switch places. He hesitated a moment, but there was only one way to do it. I’m sure he tried to keep space between us. Just the same, his hips came against my rear end, his chest along my back, and his arms around me. Just for a moment. Then, I wriggled out from under him.
 

“She’s going to be okay,” he whispered to me as I picked up the plate and crouched.

I smiled. “You are entirely too nice for your own good,” I said. “I hope you’re right.”

“I’ve been telling Robert that for years,” Lynette said from Cali’s other side. “I’m glad to hear someone agree.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Malcolm said.

Lynette made a disgusted sound and muttered, “He’s hopeless.”

“How do you want me this time?” I asked her. If I’d had a free hand, I would have smacked myself for asking the same stupid question. I heard Malcolm’s response clearly this time, but I’m not sure he meant me to.

“You can’t imagine,” he muttered.

- 15 -

Later, I stood in Malcolm’s mudroom, which was off to one side of his kitchen. He’d insisted on making me something to eat, and I hadn’t taken much convincing. When Lynette finally left, it was dark. We returned to the tack room to find Noire had gorged herself on the rest of Clara’s roast beef.

I stared into a small mirror, turning my head from side to side to look behind me. Couldn’t tell about my aura, but I looked like crap. “Can you see dark spots in my aura?”
 

“Christ. Did Renee tell you that?”

 
“Yeah, why?”

“Apparently, I have the same problem.”

“It’s a freaking epidemic,” I said, returning to the kitchen.
 

He chuckled and put a plate of spaghetti in front of me.
 

“What’s an aura, anyway?” I asked as I dug in.

“It’s your…you know.” He sat across from me and waved his hands around in a vague outline of my body. “Your light, your energy. Hell, I haven’t a clue.”

I don’t know why I was so intrigued by the idea. Maybe if I understood my aura, the big
it
that was my life would straighten itself out. “Can she really see auras?”

Malcolm twirled a big forkful of pasta. “Damned if I know.”

It was the second time that day, no, the third, that we’d sat down to a meal together. Fourth, if you counted the quick sandwich in the tack room. And I was damned if I could point to the one thing that had happened over the course of the day to make me feel so at home in his presence. That’s not to say I was comfortable. I was too aware of him, too disconcerted by the slow smile that said he felt the same heat coiling in his belly I did.
 

I could have hung out in his dingy kitchen with him all night. But I wanted to make a last check on Cali and the others and get to bed. The next few days would be long enough. I ate quickly, said I was tired—which was true—and went out.
 

Malcolm walked with me to the barn. The moon was bright enough in the inky sky to cast shadows. It had been nearly full on Monday. Not that I wanted to remember the events of that night.
 

A howling came from behind the house and stopped me in my tracks. Noire was at my leg, so it wasn’t her, not that I’d ever known her to bay at the moon. Several sharp yips followed, then more howls that lifted the hair on my neck. I grabbed Malcolm.

“What the hell is that?”

He put his warm hand over mine, and I nearly forgot the Hounds of the Baskervilles.
 

“Coyotes.”

“Coyotes?” First vultures, now coyotes. Jesus. I thought I’d come to the Midwest, not the Old West.

Noire’s ears had come up at the first note. She had a belly full of roast beef topped with spaghetti, so I thought she might not react, but then she stuck her nose in the air and let loose a plaintive wail. Yep, we were both going crazy. I might start howling at the moon myself at the rate things were going.

I raised my voice to be heard over the chorus. “You got a lot of dead stuff needing to be cleaned up around here?” The moment the words left my mouth, I clapped my hand over my lips. “Sorry.” I was glad for the near dark. If the heat in my cheeks was any indication, I’d turned bright red. “That was a terrible thing to say.”

The corners of his mouth twitched. “Yes, terrible.” He pressed his fist against his mouth and faked a cough. I felt him shake with laughter before any sound escaped, then he let go.