Divorce Horse (3 page)

“I understand there’s been a robbery? Something about a horse?”

Tommy danced himself between us and jerked his head in emphasis with every word. “You’re damn right there’s been a robbery—these sons-a-bitches are tryin’ to take this race away from me.”

Tommy made a dramatic display and turned on the heels of his moccasins, ignoring his uncle and walking between Henry and me toward Cady, who had been standing behind us. “And not only do these damn Indians steal the race, but one of my best horses is gone.”

The muggers walked off to wipe down the sweat-marked horses. I shrugged at Richard and the rest of the judges, but they were leaving as well, most likely relieved to be rid of the New Grass entourage.

Tommy was walking with Cady, and they were both laughing—and I had the feeling I was about to lose a point.

At the outside edge of the infield, they walked past a trailer that was attached to a white Dodge half-ton painted with the green stripes of the New Grass team, next to an event tent festooned with the banners of the team’s sponsors, most prominently
BUCKING BUFFALO SUPPLY COMPANY
,
HARDIN BAIL BONDS
, and
H-BAR HATS
. There were a number of energy drinks and sodas in a fifty-gallon cooler, and, after a few plunges into the ice, Tommy finally pulled out three power drinks, one for Cady and one each for Henry and me. “Here, supplied by one of my sponsors.”

Cady handed hers back. “Do you have diet?”

Tommy sighed. “That shit’s bad for you.” And retrieved a bottle of water. “All I got.” Then he scooped off his coyote headdress, threw himself into a lawn chair, and looked down at his bloody calf. “Oh, man . . .” He stuck out his tongue in play exhaustion and exhaled a quick breath toward Henry. “Hey, throw me one of those horse bandages, would you?”

Henry did as requested and even wrapped the leg of the young athlete. “I am sorry you lost.”

Tommy shook his head. “Just for show—we won the first heat and Colville came in seventh. We were second in this one, so all we have to do is place higher than they do by less than that in the next heat and we win it all. Lots of money riding on this one—could keep us going into next year’s competition.” He reached over and slapped the Cheyenne Nation’s shoulder as Henry taped up the rider’s bandage. “Gotta keep these Indians honest, right Bear?”

I watched as the Cheyenne Nation stood, but stooped a little and appeared to be looking closely at Tommy’s face. “So they tell me.”

Tommy, aware he was being inspected, grinned widely.
“Haaho
. New teeth.”

Henry nodded. “I thought so.”

“Big Horn County Jail. The meth ate them out, so they gave me new ones.” His hands stroked his arms and then brushed against each other in a demonstration of purification. “I’m clean.” His head bobbed and his eyes darted to Cady. “Damn, you look good, girl. Hey, you know I’m free, right?”

Her face looked sad when she responded. “That’s what I heard.”

“Yeah, it was a long winter.” Jefferson glanced at me, obviously embarrassed at the episodes that had included the Absaroka County Sheriff’s Department and assorted Durant officials. “I still miss her, you know?”

Cady nodded and stood next to his camp chair. “Yeah.”

Tommy looked up at her. “How about you, are you seeing anybody?”

I got the glance as she showed him the ring. “Yeah, I’m engaged to a guy back in Philadelphia—Dad’s undersheriff’s brother.”

He whistled and glanced at me. “Vic?”

I nodded but Cady answered. “His name is Michael.”

He folded his newly clean arms over his lean, horseman’s body. “He anything like her?”

She laughed. “No.” I watched her study him for a moment, and then ask: “I heard about you and Lisa. What happened?”

He ran his fingers through his hair, wet with sweat, the black of it shimmering blue in the half sun. “Oh, I don’t know. I guess I got so interested in the horses that she thought I wasn’t interested in her anymore.” He sighed. “We both got mad and said some things . . . That’s when I got started on the Black Road with the drugs and stuff. I told her I wasn’t sure what it was I wanted . . .” He gestured around the dirty infield at the blowing trash. “So here I am, and I guess this is what I wanted.” He swung his legs onto the dirt, pushed out of the chair, winced at the weight on his leg, and glanced at me, possibly unhappy that I was hearing all of it; then he hitched his thumbs in his loincloth. “I keep thinking that I’ll just call, but I made myself a promise that I wouldn’t bother her anymore after all that happened.”

We stood there for a moment, listening to the drumming and chanting echoing off the grandstand from the Fancy Dance competition, no one looking at Tommy, Tommy looking up at the first evening star.

I straightened my hat. “So, what’s the story on the div . . . Um, on the horse?”

His face came back to life. “Oh, that horse. He’s got an adjustable lug on his left shoe, but if we’d had him in this last heat we would’ve won straight up.”

“What happened?”

He shook his head at the injustice. “We had ’em all tied to the back side of the horse trailer over here and when we went to go take ’em to the start, he was missing.”

I looked past Saizarbitoria at the two muggers, looking like embarrassed twin towers. I remembered one of their names. “Randy, you guys look for him in the infield?”

The giant answered. “Yeah, but he’s an escape artist, that one. The only one he really liked was Lisa—he’d follow her and nicker and toss his head. Only bit me.”

The other giant added. “He can untie knots like a sailor, but I had him clipped. We looked everywhere, but he’s not here.”

Tommy’s voice rose from behind me. “Somebody stole him. He’s not in the infield and there’s no way he would’ve crossed the track on his own.”

I glanced around the sizable infield—no trees, just dirt and prairie. “No way he could’ve pulled loose, jumped the railing, and joined in as the horses raced by?”

Jefferson shook his head. “The pickup riders would’ve gotten him. He was stolen, I tell ya.”

I glanced at Henry and watched as he walked between the two giants and rounded the horse trailer. Shrugging, I started after him, noticing my daughter’s hands behind her back, three fingers extended on one hand and three on the other: tied.

Ruthless.

I glanced at Saizarbitoria. “You can head back over to the grandstand, Sancho, but turn your radio up so you can hear it.”

*  *  *

I joined the Bear between the infield railing and the side of the trailer where the horses were tethered to a piece of rebar steel attached to the side just for that purpose. Two-year-olds, the horses were skittish, and moved away, stamping their hooves and showing us the whites of their eyes.

The Cheyenne Nation reached up and ran a hand over the nearest horse, a dark bay, nut brown with a black mane, black ear points and tail, who immediately settled with a sighing rush of air from his distended nostrils; the Bear had magic in his hands, and besides, the animal was probably happy to meet an Indian who wasn’t trying to catapult onto his back.

Henry stepped forward and then ducked under the halter leads attached to the bar. Some of the other horses backed away, and one tried to rear but was held down by the length of the rope strung through his halter. The Bear mumbled something and they settled. Magic, indeed.

At the ends of the leads were the metal snaps that could only be manipulated by an opposing thumb, and I didn’t see a lot of those around on that side of the trailer.

At the other side of the horses, Henry kneeled and placed his fingertips in the impacted dirt. I felt like I always did whenever I followed his intuitive skills. The Bear was a part of everything that went on around him in a way that I could only witness. He had described scenarios to me so clearly from the remnants of events that I would have sworn that I’d been there. Crouching behind the trailer and looking at the hitching bar, he sighed. “
If
they had him clipped to the end of the bar—somebody took him.”

“Where?”

His dark eyes shifted as he stood, and he walked past the rear of the trailer to run his hand along the inside railing, finally stopping and lifting the top loose. He stared at the ground. “Here, the horse was led through here.”

I joined him and looked past the dimpled, poached surface of the track at a forgotten gate leading to a fairground building that hadn’t been used since the renovation of the place back in the eighties. “Across the track and through there—toward the old paddocks.”

We stepped through the gate, walked across the track, and opened the top rung of a rail that you’d never have noticed unless you were looking for it. The Bear paused at the end of the walkway that stretched a good hundred yards, the darkness permeated by the rectangular light shining through the windows of the old barn in staccato. “Which do you think will get us first, the black widows or the field mice?”

The place looked its age, deserted, and as if it might collapse at any time, the peeling white paint scaling from the untreated lumber like parchment in abandoned books. “Termites would be my bet.”

In the powdery dirt you could see where a horse with an adjustable screw attachment had been walked through. I kneeled this time and studied the boot prints that ran alongside the pony tracks, smallish and worn down on the heels.

“Female, or a very small man.”

We were away from the road and parking lots, which would make it difficult to load an animal and whisk it away. That was the beauty of horse stealing, though—you could always ride your stolen property. Of course, that might be difficult to do with a headstrong, half-broke two-year-old that bites. “Did you see how those horses fought the muggers in front of the grandstand?”

“Yes.”

“And this horse is the worst of the bunch.”

“Yes.” He smiled, having the same thought.

*  *  *

We got back to the infield, rounded the trailer, and found Team New Grass and my daughter where we had left them. The muggers were still attending the horses, getting them ready for the next race, while Tommy and Cady sat talking under the tent.

Tommy looked at me, and I had to admit that the Big Horn County Jail dentist had done a wonderful job on his teeth. “So, what do I do? Come into the office and fill out some paperwork?”

I pulled up short, took off my hat, and wiped the sweat from my forehead with my shirtsleeve. “Your horse is in the abandoned paddocks across the track in stall number thirty-three.”

He looked past my shoulder toward the condemned buildings. “Over there?”

“Yep.”

“How the hell did he get over there?”

“No idea.”

“How come you didn’t bring him back?”

I shook my head. “He wouldn’t let me anywhere near him, but we got him blocked off in the stall.”

He stood and glanced at the wristwatch on his arm, which looked incongruous in the middle of the war paint. “If we hurry we can get him in this next race.” He looked down at Cady and took her hand. “I gotta go, but good luck with your marriage.” He smiled with the new teeth and held her hands long enough for her to know that he meant what he said next. “There’s no way you’ll screw it up like I did.”

We watched as he walked past the muggers, who were busy currying the next team. They asked if he needed any help, but he shook his head no and lithely jumped over the railing, injured leg notwithstanding.

Randy turned and looked at me. “I’m really sorry about this, Walt. I don’t know how it is that he could’ve gotten out.”

“That’s okay. We were in the area, and it gave the two of them a chance to catch up.” Cady threw her water bottle in the trash bucket, and we made our way across the infield toward the gate where we’d come in.

Saizarbitoria was standing near the judge’s tower and joined us as we walked by. “You find the horse thief?”

“In a way.”

Cady volunteered. “The Bear and Dad found the horse over in the old paddocks.” She glanced up at Henry and then to me. “He must’ve wandered off on his own.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”

The Basquo looked at me a little puzzled, and I gave him a soft punch in the chest. “I’ll tell you about it on Monday.”

I’d almost made a clean getaway when he shouted out to my daughter. “Congratulations on the engagement.”

Acting as if she was admiring her nail polish, Cady held up four fingers on one hand and three on the other as we walked across the track onto the ramp. Over the loud speaker, the announcer called all the contestants to the last heat of the World Champion Indian Relay Race.

“Did he just say ‘Indian Really Race’?” Cady caught my arm as Ken Thorpe shut the gate behind us.

“Just sounds that way with his accent.” I kept walking.

“Can we stay for the last go-round, Daddy?”

“Why?”

She made a face. “Don’t you want to see if Tommy wins?”

We watched as the other teams rode into the area in front of the grandstand, leading their remudas, but Team New Grass was suspiciously absent. Cady glanced around and then toward the infield and Tommy’s tent. “Do you think he couldn’t catch the horse?”