Hayburner (A Gail McCarthy Mystery) (26 page)

The noise came again, hard and sharp. I jumped out of bed. I knew, even as I moved across the room that the rifle and whoever held it were not on my ridge. My mind had assimilated the sound and found it familiar-just poachers, a mile or so away, perhaps hunting the very buck I had seen last weekend.

The fact that hunting was illegal in these parts did not prevent a few folks from pursuing it, and I often heard rifle shots early in the morning this time of year. I leaned on my window and noticed with surprise that the sky outside was cloudy.

It had been clear and warm for so long that any deviation seemed unheard of. Blue had told me last night that a front was coming in, but I'd rebutted by reminding him of all the other potential fronts that had never materialized.

"This one's for real," he'd said. "It's a cold front. They're predicting thunder and lightning, maybe hail, the whole works."

"I'll believe it when I see it," I told him.

Well, the sky was certainly heavy and gray. I stood in my bare feet and looked out the window while my heart slowed down. I took note that the buzz in my ears, though faint, was still apparent, and that I ached right behind my temples. My symptoms were diminishing, but they were still there.

When I felt calm again, I looked over my shoulder at the bed and Blue. He lay on his back, still asleep, breathing quietly. Quite suddenly, he appeared to me as heroic, noble, a Greek statue of a man. I stared at the way his wavy hair sprang back from his high brow, his straight nose, the strong, square, cleft chin.

Equally suddenly, I was consumed by the urge to touch him. Padding softly to the bedside, I knelt on the floor and pressed my lips to his chest. Breathing in, I trailed my mouth through the fine red-gold hair that covered his skin. I kissed the hollow between his collarbones; I nibbled gently at his shoulder.

Blue opened his eyes. "Hmmm," he said sleepily, and stretched. I kissed my way across his belly, pulled the covers down, and moved lower.

"Mmmm," Blue said again. "That feels good."

I didn't reply, being otherwise occupied.

Many long minutes later, Blue cradled me in his arms and kissed my mouth. "You are so sweet, Stormy. Now what about you?"

"I'm not feeling too randy these days," I told him honestly. "Something to do with my head hurting all the time, I guess."

"I can imagine."

"It'll come back."

"I know." Blue squeezed me comfortably. "I'm not worried."

"That's good." Disentangling myself from his arms, I stood up. "Looks like you were right about the rain."

We both stared out the window. The sky seemed to be pressing down against the treetops in that dark way that indicated this particular front meant business.

"We might get a little wet," Blue agreed.

"Well, it's sure time." I pulled on my jeans. "And I've got to hurry. I've got a full day today."

An hour later, chores done, I drove out my front gate, sipping coffee from an insulated cup. The boughs of the Monterey pine that arched overhead moved and tossed in the rising wind. Storm coming up.

My mind tossed right along with the branches. Though I felt momentary peace in Blue's company, overriding anxiety crept in as soon as I was alone. The perennial sense that I knew something I needed to remember tormented me. But I could bring up nothing from the depths of my psyche.

Work was my only consolation, work and its constant busyness. While I was occupied with horses I forgot my fear; I even forgot my headache. Being occupied was my respite.

To keep the ever-present tension at bay, I reviewed my scheduled calls as I drove. A mysterious lump on a useful rope horse, a soundness exam on a prospective jumper, a culture on a mare who had absorbed her foal.

And of course, there would be emergencies. There almost always were. And there would be John.

At the thought of John Romero, my heart started to accelerate. This was my constant reaction to the man, to his physical presence or his image in my mind. A rush of adrenaline.

Not for the first time, I pondered what this meant. Was John my assailant? One thing I knew; John was avoiding me with an adroitness that verged on amazing. Considering that we worked in the same office, I barely saw him.

Today looked like no exception. John's truck was in the parking lot when I got to the clinic, and one of the vet trucks was already gone. Nancy confirmed what I suspected. Just like the last few mornings, John had come in early and left on his calls before I arrived.

I was discussing my own calls with Nancy when the phone rang. In another minute, Kelly, the youngest receptionist, ran toward me.

"Gail. There's a bad wreck on Highway One. Up near Davenport. Horses on the road, some are dead. People, too. You've got to go now."

Kelly was too upset to be very coherent, but I got the picture. "I'm on my way."

I drove as fast as the law allowed, headed north of Santa Cruz, on Highway 1. My own fears forgotten, I prayed my usual prayer. Please let this not be too bad. Protect these horses and people from suffering.

I was never sure exactly whom I was praying to. I only knew that the words came-a plea to that which is, a longing for compassion.

Well before I reached the scene of the wreck, I both heard and saw it. Sirens wailed, traffic stopped, up ahead lights flashed red, blue, and yellow. After an indecisive moment, I pulled my truck onto the shoulder and made my way forward. In another minute, I reached a police car.

"I'm a vet," I said. "They called me."

He waved me through.

For a second I had a hard time sorting out the disaster. Cars scattered here and there, twisted and smashed, interspersed with flashing emergency vehicles and uniformed cops, firefighters, and paramedics. Then my eyes caught the sorrel bulk of a horse in the roadway.

The carcass of a horse, my mind corrected. The body lay flat on its side, unnaturally still. And then I saw the other horse.

He was on the shoulder, another sorrel, lying on his belly, with his head up. At a glance, he looked undamaged, but I knew immediately that something was wrong. If he were all right, the horse would be on his feet. It goes against a horse's every instinct to be down in a scene of danger.

A little knot of people stood by the horse. I made my way over. "I'm a vet," I said. "Dr. McCarthy."

"Right," a very young-looking Highway Patrolman answered. "We think this horse was hurt in the crash. He won't get up."

"Is the owner here?"

"We're not sure who the owner is. No one seems to know. These neighbors say they don't recognize the horses. They don't know where they came from. They were loose on the highway apparently."

I looked from face to face. Two older men, three women, several young men. No one said anything. The twisted cars on the road, surrounded by emergency personnel, told their own story. Big-time lawsuits. If one of the people gathered here owned these horses, he or she was keeping quiet. Horses loose on a public roadway made the owner liable.

"Right," I said. "Let's have a look at him."

The sorrel horse lay there quietly, but his gums were pale and there was sweat on his neck. His pulse and respiration were very elevated. Not good.

"Let's get him up," I said.

"He doesn't want to," the young cop replied.

"We'll lift him." I got a halter from my truck and put it on the horse's head.

Several more cops came forward. I pulled on the lead rope and clucked to the horse; the young men set their shoulders against him and pushed. In another minute he was standing.

His right hind leg dangled, swinging freely. I palpitated it gently, though I knew what the outcome would be. "It's broken up high," I said. "I'm afraid he needs to be euthanized." I stroked the horse's neck.

The young cop who had spoken to me first stepped forward and took hold of the lead rope. "Go ahead and do it."

"All right."

I went to my truck, got the syringe, and filled it. Strange, disjointed thoughts floated through my mind. I seemed to be doing this so much lately. Was this all my life was about, killing horses?

Come on, I chided. Relieving this horse's suffering is a good thing to do. You didn't cause his injury.

But I still felt responsible somehow as I carried the kill shot toward the animal. Along with the rest of humanity, I had created this world of hurtling steel, so alien to horses.

Even as I injected the shot and felt the horse slowly settle, I longed to undo the damage, unmake the world, create a space of peace and harmony where a horse would not come to such an end. As I stood blinking back tears, I saw the stretcher with an ominously covered figure being loaded into the ambulance.

Or a person, I thought. Why must so much suffering be?

For a second the young cop met my eyes and I knew we were reading each other's minds. "It's too bad," he said.

I felt a cold wind riffle through the gray clouds above us. "Yeah," I said. I didn't have any words to offer him.

"Thanks," he added.

"No problem."

I walked to my truck and got in, shut the door, started the engine, and drove away, all without a clue as to how I was doing it. I could feel my head throb; I could hear my ears making a tinny whine.

"I am so tired," I said out loud.

Tired or not, more calls waited for me. The horse with the lump turned out to have pigeon fever. I had to flunk the prospective jumper. Though sound, his X rays showed incipient ringbone. Neither the buyer nor the seller was happy with me.

By the end of the day, I was more tired than ever. At six thirty, as I was headed home, my cell phone rang. The voice of the answering service operator was brisk.

"A Jeri Ward says ET is colicked."

"Damn. I'll be right there."

"He's at the upper barn, the client says."

"Right."

Shit. I'd forgotten I was on call this evening. I peered through my window at the darkening sky. Great gusts of wind swept across the landscape, bending the trees and beating the thin brown grass flat. It looked as if it were about to start pouring any minute.

Poor Jeri. ET was her first horse, and she was very fond of him, I knew. I stepped on the gas. It would take me at least twenty minutes to reach the Bishop Ranch.

The sky grew colder, grayer, and darker as I drove; the wind rattled against the truck. Occasional drops hit my windshield, but it wasn't really raining yet. Soon, though.

I hoped ET's colic wasn't too bad. I hoped I would get a chance to talk to Jeri about the arson investigation. It had been awhile since we spoke.

More rain splattered against the windshield as I pulled into the Bishop Ranch. Dusk was verging on dark. I could see no one around. Rolling the window down, I shivered as a blast of chilly rain whipped against my face. Simultaneously, a clap of thunder sounded in the distance.

I peered out my window at the empty barnyard. The upper barn, the operator had said. I remembered the place. Above the ranch house.

My headlights cut a path through the gathering rain. Their beams showed me the ranch house, and then farther on, the narrow road that led past the pasture and the upper barn. I reached the driveway, pulled in, parked my truck, and got out. Lights were on in the barn; I walked forward through a tunnel of arching branches that whipped and tossed in the cold wind.

Peering through the darkness, I looked for the forms of Jeri and ET. Next to me a twig snapped. I turned sharply and my head exploded.

TWENTY-SIX

I came to in darkness. Blinking my eyes, I was aware of myself as a presence, nothing more. My head hurt. Slowly pain in blackness evolved into dawning consciousness.

I remembered myself. I knew who I was; I knew what had happened. And I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, who had hit me.

Not that I had seen him. Not this time. But something had jolted free in my brain, and I remembered his face, arm raised to strike, in Judith's barn.

I turned my head. I was lying flat on my back with my hands together on my belly. I tried to separate my wrists and couldn't do it. Eventually I realized they were tied together. As were my feet. I turned my face from side to side. The prickly feel and sweet green smell of alfalfa were unmistakable. I was lying on hay.

The darkness, which had initially seemed absolute, was lighter when I turned my face to the right. After a minute, I made out the shape of an open doorway, with a disturbed milky light filtering through it. Moonlight.

There was noise, too. A steady drumming sound. Rain. Rain on the roof. And loud squeaks and creaks. Something rattled overhead.

I was in a barn, I thought. It was storming outside. As if in confirmation, I caught a greenish flash of lightning in the corner of my eye. A few seconds later, thunder boomed out.

I was pretty sure what barn I was in. But I wondered why I was alive. My assailant meant to kill me; I was sure of it. Why had I been left here?

At the thought, the hairs on the back of my neck lifted in primitive dread. Time to do something.

Slowly and carefully, I explored the material that tied my wrists together. Baling twine, it felt like. Not terribly tight, either. As if my hands had been hastily bound.