Hayburner (A Gail McCarthy Mystery) (10 page)

I'm not sure exactly what she saw, but after a moment we smiled warmly at each other.

"I'll get a halter," she said.

"All right. What's the program for today?"

"Didn't Jim tell you?"

"He's on vacation."

"That's right." She smiled again. "Do you know anything about what I'm doing here?"

"No, I'm afraid I don't."

Once again, the warm smile. "I retire old horses."

"You do?"

"That's right. Good horses." She glanced at me with a twinkle in her eye. "No outlaws need apply."

"So, all these horses," I gestured at the pasture, "are retirees?"

"Yep."

"Where do they come from?"

"Here and there. I find out about them. They find me."

"I see. What do you do with them?"

"Feed them. Take care of them. Enjoy them."

"Really?" I knew I sounded amazed. "And you pay for all of this yourself?"

"I do." Jade Hudson laughed. "I know. You're thinking I'm both rich and crazy."

"No, not exactly."

"Close, though, right?" We smiled at each other again. "Let me explain," she went on, "just so you won't think you're dealing with a madwoman.

"It all started with Ernie." She pointed at a skinny bay gelding munching alfalfa hay near the fence. "I know he's a little lean," she said, "but he's thirty-seven years old and missing most of his teeth."

"Wow," I said, looking at the horse again. "For thirty-seven, he looks great."

"He's doing well," she said. "He's missing a lot of teeth, like I said, and he has a hard time keeping weight on, but he still feels good. I've had him since I was twenty."

"Wow," I said again. "That's great."

"He's been pretty much retired for the last twenty years, and when I turned him out, I wanted a companion for him. So a friend of mine gave me her old ranch horse to turn out here." She pointed at a black horse next to the bay. "That's Chaw."

"Things just sort of snowballed from there," she went on. "A couple of people came to me and asked me if I'd take their horses. I knew them; they were good people and good horses. So I took them. I made one rule-only gentle geldings. Mares cause trouble, and I didn't want any difficult horses that I couldn't handle.

"Anyway, people heard about me, or I heard about a good horse that needed a home, and, well," she gestured at the herd, "now I've got nineteen of them."

"And you buy their feed?"

"That's right," she said. She looked at me quizzically. "I found I really enjoy retiring these good old guys and giving them a life. It does cost a bit to buy hay for them all, but this is a pretty strong field; I only have to feed once a day, and only in the fall."

She glanced at me. "The truth is, it's become my hobby. I don't ride much anymore, but I really love being around horses. I was lucky enough to inherit this place from my parents, and this just seems to me to be a rewarding thing to do with it."

"So you own all this?"

"That's right. Me, myself, and I. Sole proprietor. I had a husband for a while, but he left a dozen years ago. When I turned forty." She gave me a rueful look. "These horses helped me get through it."

"It can be hard."

"It was," she agreed. "But I don't think of him much anymore."

"What do you do?" I asked, genuinely curious.

"You mean, besides look after old horses?" She grinned. "I'm a writer."

"Really? What do you write?"

"Mysteries. Whodunits. I make enough to support myself and my herd."

"That's great." Glancing around, I thought that it sounded in some ways like an idyllic life. Here in her solitary home, Jade Hudson could write her books and enjoy caring for her retirees, free of any encumbrances.

Perhaps mistaking my look for one of appraisal, Jade Hudson said, "I know. It's a little run-down. I don't have enough for frills like paint."

"I wasn't thinking that," I said truthfully. "I was thinking that it seems like a life I'd enjoy."

She looked at me curiously. "Well, most women wouldn't. All my friends think I'm crazy, and wonder why I don't try to find a man. They don't understand that I like my life. I like living alone. I like being free."

"I understand that," I told her. "I've been single all my life and I live alone."

Something in my tone must have caught her attention, because she gave me a discerning look. "Sounds like that's about to change."

"I don't know," I said, sensing that odd intimacy one can sometimes feel with perfect strangers. "I'm torn."

Jade Hudson, too, seemed to sense our connection. "I know," she said. "I've been there. Several times I almost traded in this life for a man. But somehow, I never quite did."

I nodded. "Me, too. But I feel like I'm getting closer to it."

"Think carefully," she said with a wry look. "My old boys out there give me more pleasure than my husband ever did."

I laughed.

''I'm kidding, of course," she added hastily. "But you know what I mean."

"I do," I agreed. "Horses are great. I could enjoy doing exactly what you do."

Jade Hudson nodded. "Shall we go have a look at them?"

For the next hour I checked teeth and filed them when necessary, gave tetanus shots, and evaluated various soundness problems. Jade knew all of her old boys intimately, and was able to tell me just what sort of problems each had had in the past.

Fortunately all the geldings were easy to catch and handle, and all looked well cared for. Their coats were healthy and their feet were neatly trimmed. As one would expect, many of them were lame.

There were horses with ringbone and horses with sidebone, horses with navicular disease and horses with bone spavin. The list went on and on. All of them were sound enough to get around the pasture, though, and Jade clearly monitored them with care.

"When a horse gets to the end of the road, I put him down," she said. "That's my agreement with the owners. They give the horses to me; all the horses are mine. When I feel their time is up, I make the call."

"How do you decide?" I asked her.

"If I can't keep them at a healthy weight, or they can't move around anymore, or they have too much trouble getting up and down. It's actually pretty obvious."

I nodded. I believed her. You could usually tell when an old animal wasn't enjoying his life any longer.

Jade gestured at the far side of the pasture. "See those seven humps. My neighbor has a backhoe. That's where we bury them."

"I see." I smiled at her. I thought her an entirely likable woman. "Seems like you're doing a good thing."

"I hope so," she said. "I have Jim out once a year, and now," she added, "you. Thanks, Gail."

"Thank you," I said. "I've enjoyed meeting you and your herd. I take it you have an account with us."

"I do," she said. "And thanks again."

I climbed back in my truck and rolled down her driveway wondering quite sincerely if Jade Hudson's wasn't the life I wanted. All this dithering over Blue and Clay was so unrestful, and a relationship, I knew full well from past experience, could be even more so. The tranquillity of the solitary life was in some ways very alluring to me.

Alluring enough?

NINE

Friday night Clay called. I was just climbing into bed after a long week, and I answered the phone reluctantly. "Gail, Christy George just called here. Her barn's on fire. I know you're not on call, but I thought you'd want to know."

"I'm on my way," I said, as Clay hung up.

Shit. Christy George. The next sizable barn down the road from the Bishop Ranch. It had to be a repeat.

I scrambled into my jeans and sweatshirt, pulled my boots onto bare feet. Even as I dashed from the door to my truck, I registered a breath of warm breeze on my face, heard a soft flickering sound in the big blue gum tree on the ridge.

Oh no, I thought.

My fears were realized as I pulled into Christy George's place fifteen minutes later. Billows of orange flame roiled into the air from the south end of her big barn, fanned by a brisk wind. Already several patches of brush on the hill behind the barn were burning. And the roof of her house was on fire.

"Oh no," I said out loud.

Then I was out of my truck and dashing toward the crowd in front of the barn. People were bringing horses out, I could see, and firefighters were deploying everywhere. Screaming sirens announced the arrival of more. I didn't see Christy George. I didn't see Clay. I moved toward the barn, trying to decide what I could most usefully do to help.

The knot of spectators around me seemed to surge forward with me; pushing past the man on my right, I registered a familiar face. I did a quick double-take.

Yes, it was him. The same, paunchy, overweight middle-aged man I had shoved past at the Bishop Ranch fire. I recognized his pudgy face, curly hair, heavy glasses. Once again, he stared at the blaze as if mesmerized.

Giving him a long look, I pushed through the people in front of me. "I'm a vet!" I shouted.

The crowd parted slightly; in a minute I'd reached the north entrance to the barn. Christy George came running out, leading a gray horse. Handing his lead rope off to a man, she turned to go back in the barn. I followed her.

Christy grabbed a halter from a rack near the entrance; I did likewise. Then we were running down the central barn aisle toward a roaring inferno at the rear.

I could see people moving through the smoke; someone dashed by, leading a skittering horse. Coughing and choking, holding my breath, I saw Christy disappear into a box stall on my left. Ahead of me a wave of intense heat and light seemed to repel all advance.

A horse neighed on my right. I could see the box stall door. I opened it, and the horse came out almost on top of me.

His wide red chest and the underside of his neck were all I could see; he was tall, towering above me like a giraffe. I slapped his chest as hard as I could and yelled, "Whoa!"

Amazingly, he paused. Even more amazingly he lowered his head and let me put the halter on him. Then we were charging together down the barn aisle, with him more or less dragging me.

Outside the barn, I saw Christy hanging on to a rearing horse.

"Where do you want this one?" I yelled.

"Oh my God. Clifford. Take him down to the ring with the others, I guess. Gail, see if they're all okay." Christy sounded near tears. Then she ran back into the barn.

"Just open all the doors and let them out!" I yelled after her. "We'll catch them out here." I didn't know if she heard me.

Controlling my enormous, skittering charge as well as I could, I led him to the riding ring. A dozen other horses were galloping wildly about inside. Should I let Clifford loose or tie him up?

"We've got some people here to hold horses now." Clay's voice, next to me.

I looked up at him in surprise.

"Give this one to Amy, here, she'll hold him. Let's go catch the rest of them. Christy's afraid they'll hurt themselves. And they're all worth thirty thousand or more." Clay's quiet, competent voice was calming.

Handing Clifford off, I followed Clay into the riding ring. He had an armload of halters and roughly a dozen folks in tow.

"Wait here by the gate," he said to the group at large. "Gail, Tony, and I will catch the horses and bring them up to you. Then just hang onto them and keep them from hurting themselves or each other." Clay's voice stayed calm and confident; his little army arrayed themselves by the gate obediently.

As he distributed halters to myself and Tony Sanchez, a neighboring horseman whom I recognized, Clay's voice was equally controlled. "Let's see if we can get the whole herd cornered down in this end of the arena, away from the fire. See if we can keep them from running. Then we'll walk up to them one-by-one."

Tony and I both nodded and followed Clay. Like a dragnet we pushed the snorting, spooking horses up the riding arena, holding our arms outstretched and stepping sharply in the path of any horse who tried to break and run.

I could hear the roar of the fire behind me and the shouts of the firefighters, but I didn't turn my head to look. Eye contact was important to control the nervous, loose animals. Still, I wondered desperately if the whole hillside was ablaze. Shit. This could be bad.

We had the horse herd cornered now. Wary and scared, the horses milled nervously in one end of the ring, their eyes on us.

"Tony and I will hold them here," Clay said. "Gail, you catch them one-by-one and bring them to the holders by the gate."

"All right," I said. Moving slowly, I approached the closest horse-dark, with a white stripe down his face-who looked at me alertly, ears up, muzzle outstretched. As I expected by his expression, he was a pup, standing quietly while I stroked his neck and lowering his nose into the halter willingly.

When I turned to lead him toward the group by the gate, I saw the blaze. "My God," I said.

The barn seemed consumed in flames; they rolled and leaped heavenward. Even as I watched, I could feel waves of heat from the fire, despite the fact that it was several hundred feet away. A steady wind ruffled through my hair. Damn.