Heiress (35 page)

"What?" But she knew playing dumb wouldn't work. "It was probably one of the horses in the barn."

"This isn't where you usually park the horse trailer." MacCrea studied her suspiciously. "What's it doing hitched up to the truck?"

"We were using it today." A second later she heard the restless shifting of hooves as the filly grew tired of standing quietly. She knew MacCrea had heard it, too. She was almost relieved when Ben came walking out from behind the trailer, leading the blanketed horse. She was trapping herself in a snare of lies and she wanted it to end. "So we decided we might as well haul River Breeze over to Dobie's place before we unhooked the trailer." She walked over to the trailer and unlatched the endgate so Ben could load the filly.

"Wait a minute. I thought she was being sold at the auction." MacCrea frowned. "Was Lane finally able to arrange for you to keep her?"

"Something like that." She was reluctant to tell him of her plan. The fewer people who knew about it, the better chance she had to keep the horse hidden.

"All right, Abbie." He caught her by the wrist and forced her to turn around and look at him. "What's really going on here?"

"I told you. We're taking River Breeze over to the Hix farm," she replied, trying to appear tolerant of his supposedly stupid question.

"It's nearly midnight."

"A few minutes after eleven is not midnight."

"That clever little mind of yours is at work again, isn't it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Abbie declared.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about." But he turned to Ben when he emerged from the trailer after tying the filly inside. "Maybe you'd like to explain to me what's going on here?"

"It is for Abbie to say," Ben replied, but his look prodded Abbie to tell the truth.

"It's simple, MacCrea," she said, her voice becoming curt "If the filly isn't here, she can't be sold."

"I should have guessed," he said grimly. "There are bound to be questions. Horses don't just simply disappear. How are you going to explain it?"

"Horses get loose all the time. A fence was down or a gate was left open and she got out. There are any number of ways she could get away." The strain of secrecy and the stress of lying followed by the forced admission all combined to make Abbie feel defensive.

"In the meantime, you're going to have her hidden away."

"That's right—until after the sale, when I can arrange to buy her."

"And what happens if someone finds out what you're doing?"

"They won't find out unless you tell them." The questions, the tension became too much. "Look, Rachel is coming to the auction to buy some horses. She isn't going to get River Breeze!" She twisted her wrist free of his hand and swung the endgate closed, then slid the locking bolt into place, shaking inside with emotion. Finally she turned back around to confront him. "Well, MacCrea?"

"I take it you're in this with her, Ben," he said.

"The filly belongs to her. Sometimes risks must be taken to do what is the right thing."

"Are you going to tell Lane?" Abbie needed to know where he stood.

"Why should I?" MacCrea countered.

"You think we're doing something wrong—" she began.

"I never said that. I think it's a damned-fool stunt, and you two are going about it like a pair of amateurs. I'm surprised you aren't dressed in black and have grease smeared on your faces. It would have been a helluva lot less suspicious if you'd simply ridden the horse over there and had your redheaded friend drive you back. Just how much does your friend know about this?"

"Nothing." She knew she had MacCrea's support even though he hadn't said it in so many words. She felt her confidence return. "I've let him assume that Breeze belongs to me, and any question about it has been resolved."

"Once you report the horse missing, what happens if someone asks him whether he's seen it?"

"That won't happen, because I'm not going to report that she's missing until the morning of the sale. With the pressure of getting all the horses ready for the auction, there won't be time to organize anything. Ben and I can pretend to look for her." So far he hadn't asked her a question that she couldn't answer. Confident that she had every contingency covered, Abbie grew impatient with the delay. "Everything's set. It's too late to change the plan now. Dobie is waiting for us, and if we waste any more time here, he's going to start asking questions. Come on, Ben. Let's go." As Ben headed for the driver's side, Abbie walked the length of the trailer to the passenger door, aware that MacCrea followed her. The interior light flashed on when Abbie opened the cab door. MacCrea held it as she climbed onto the seat, then turned to look at him. "I'll see you when I get back. You'll be here, won't you?"

"No. I'm coming with you, so move over." He climbed into the truck, barely giving Abbie time to scoot to the middle.

Leaving the headlights off, Ben drove slowly away from the stables with the horse trailer in tow. As soon as they were beyond the illumination of the yardlights, he slowed the truck to a crawl and sat hunched over the wheel, staring intently ahead to keep the truck and trailer aimed down the center of the narrow lane, with only the dim starlight to show him the path in the darkness.

"There usually isn't much traffic on the road at this hour of the night, but we don't want to take the risk of someone driving by and seeing us leaving here with the horse trailer," Abbie explained to MacCrea.

"They're liable to take more notice of you because you aren't running with lights." He grabbed the dashboard in front of him. "Watch the ditch on the right!"

Ben swerved the truck away from it and drove even slower. "It was like this in Poland. The night was so dark you could not see the ditches by the road. And so many people, too, fleeing with what possessions they could save. Wheels of the carts were always sliding off the road into the ditch."

"Ben took part in the evacuation of the Arabian horses from the Polish stud farm during World War Two when the Germans invaded Poland," Abbie explained in a quick aside to MacCrea.

"It took us three nights to reach a place where we could cross the Bug River, traveling only after dark and hiding the horses wherever we could during the day. German planes filled the sky over Poland like flocks of birds when autumn comes, but they did not fly beyond the Bug River. After we crossed it, we could travel during the day. We were maybe two days from Kowel, our destination, when we heard the artillery fire and learned that the Russians had invaded eastern Poland. So close we came, only to turn around and make the long trek back to Janow. We all agreed if the horses were to be captured, we would rather have them taken by the Nazis."

"In the First World War, the Soviet armies overran the stud farms and slaughtered nearly all the horses," Abbie added.

"When we returned to Janow Podlaski, the Germans were there." Ben turned onto the road and continued to drive without lights. "The commandant ordered us to move all the horses to the Vistula River, which was another hundred and fifty kilometers west of Janow. The horses needed rest. They had marched far and long, and the manager refused. It would have been better if we had gone, but we did not know the Germans and Soviets had made a treaty. Everything east of the Vistula was to be under Russian occupation. We tried to save the horses from them, but the Germans surrendered the studs to the Russians. It was only a few weeks later, the line was changed to the Bug River, but when the Soviet forces left Janow, they took with them the horses—spoils of war. That is how the great Ofir arrived in Tersk, a war prize stolen from Poland."

"Fortunately for the Arabian horse world, some seventy horses, too exhausted, lame, or too young to endure that first evacuation attempt, had been left in the care of farmers along the way. The Polish stud was able to recover most of them, including Balalajka, the dam of Bask, probably one of the greatest stallions since Skowronek," Abbie explained as the truck rumbled over the old bridge that spanned the creek.

"Yes, the owner of Balalajka was given sugar and alcohol in trade for her. We were able to obtain many horses in this way, so we could start breeding Arabian horses again."

"We're coming up on the intersection," MacCrea warned, then added dryly, "This is Texas, Ben, not Poland. I think it would be safe to turn on your lights anytime now."

"We are away from the farm now. It would be okay, I think." Reaching down, he pulled the knob that activated the lights. As the beam illuminated the road ahead of them, the truck picked up speed.

"This is more like the second time Janow, was evacuated, isn't it, Ben?" Abbie smiled at him, his craggy face now bathed in the faint glow from the dashboard lights.

"That time we went by train. Thirty-one boxcars it took to carry all the horses. That was in 'forty-four. The Soviets had driven the Nazi armies out of Russia and were marching into Poland. It was a good thing we were able to escape with the horses. Much heavy fighting occurred around Janow Podlaski. The barns were destroyed by the artillery shelling, and some houses at Janow, also."

"What about Dresden and all the bombings there? You were in Dresden then. It was probably just as bad if not worse than Janow," Abbie said.

"I have the feeling you know the story better than Ben does," MacCrea mocked.

"I should," she retorted, smiling. "When I was a little girl, they were my bedtime stories. I was raised on his exploits during the war."

"We are here," Ben announced as he swung the truck and trailer onto the dirt driveway that went a quarter of a mile back to the headquarters of the Hix farm.

"Dobie waited up for us. There's a light on in the house," Abbie observed. "We might as well go straight to the barn, Ben.”

A porch light flashed on as they drove past the main farmhouse to the old wood and stone barn, nearly dwarfed by the large machine shed next to it. Ben made a looping circle and parked near a side door. Abbie climbed out of the truck after MacCrea, then waited as Dobie loped across the farmyard to meet them.

"I figured you'd be here an hour ago. Did you have problems?" Dobie darted an accusing look at MacCrea as if convinced he was the cause for Abbie being late.

"We got tied up with a few things that took longer than we expected. I'm sorry you had to wait so long for us to get here, Dobie.”

"I've got a place all fixed up for your filly in the barn," Dobie said.

The area was large and roomy, nearly twice the size of the box stalls at River Bend. A short partition in the middle divided one side into two open, double stalls complete with mangers and feed troughs. Abbie led River Breeze inside. The blanketed filly stepped daintily across the straw-covered floor, snorting loudly and breathing in all the new smells.

Abbie tied the lead rope to one of the manger rings, then removed the blanket and handed it over the manger to Ben. After she made sure the filly knew where the water bucket was located, she put some grain in the feed trough and turned her loose to investigate the new surroundings.

"I think she likes it," Dobie said as the filly nibbled at the grain, appearing to relax a little.

"She will." Abbie was concerned about that. "Thanks for letting me keep her over here."

"Now or later, it doesn't really make much difference." Dobie shrugged. "Do you want me to turn her out in the morning?"

"No, don't do that," Abbie said, conscious of MacCrea's taunting glance. "I think it would be better if she stayed inside. . . at least until she gets used to her new home."

"If that's what you want."

"It is." She gave the filly a final hug and crawled over the manger to join the others. "It's late, and all of us have to work in the morning. Thanks again for everything, Dobie."

"If there's anything else I can do for you, you just ask."

As they walked out of the barn, MacCrea muttered close to her ear, "That poor fool would jump off a cliff if you asked him to."

"And you wouldn't," she guessed.

“No.”

"That's what I thought." But she really didn't mind.

Chapter 21

On the surface, the scene at River Bend appeared to be one of confusion, but the pother was organized. In the center aisle of the broodmare barn, a horse stood tied and waiting while one of the grooms curried another. Farther down the aisle, a second groom combed out the tangled mane and tail of a third horse. The low hum of a pair of clippers came from the stud barn where a third groom worked, trimming the bridle path, fetlock feathers, whiskers, and any excess hairs under the jaw of another horse. Outside, the local farrier hooked the foreleg of an already groomed and trimmed mare between his legs and snipped away at an overgrown hoof while his young helper held the mare's head.

Abbie checked, but the mare's halter had no yellow tag tied to it, indicating she was to remain barefoot. In the assembly-line system they'd established, once the horseshoer was finished with a horse, it would be taken to the stud barn and bathed by the fourth groom, then confined to a stall.

The gusting wind riffled the sheets of paper attached to the clipboard Abbie carried. Impatiently she smoothed them down, then checked the list again for the name of the next horse. Somewhere a horn blared, breaking across the whinnies and snorts of the horses, the buzz of the clippers, and the rasp of the farrier's file. It sounded again and again a sense of urgency accompanying the tooting blasts. Frowning, Abbie looked up as Dobie's old pickup came roaring up the driveway.

It squealed into the yard, the nearly bald tires spitting back the loose gravel. Impelled forward by a sense of foreboding, Abbie started toward it, then broke into a run when it rattled to a stop and Dobie poked his head out the driver's window.

"There's been an accident!" he shouted. "Your horse is hurt. You better come quick!"

"My God," Abbie whispered. Fear, cold as an icy finger, shivered down her spine. She stopped and whirled toward the barn. "Ben!" she yelled for him just as he emerged from the stud barn to learn the cause of all the commotion. "It's River Breeze! She's hurt!" She spun back to Dobie. "Have you called the vet?"