by J A Whiting
Mae said, "It was Col. Greene that sent us to Wes in the first place when I was looking for a black horse. He said only that Wes Duncan was a 'friend.' It sounds to me like the colonel was trying to help."
"People who feel guilty sometimes do things like that," said Crystal, in a tight voice.
"But then you called and asked me to bring a black horse to the wedding. You knew it probably would be Meteor," said Mae. "How would that help Wes?"
Crystal closed her eyes. "Wes didn't mind so much that the horse was sold. Meteor deserved someone who could give him more attention. But Wes didn't want … he didn't…. " She paused, unable to go on.
"He didn't want the horse to be used at Col. Greene's funeral," said Mae. "But he knew that was going to happen. He said so when we came out to the barn to try the horse out and then offered to buy him."
Crystal just nodded, still looking away.
"But Wes figured if the horse acted up for no apparent reason while Mae drove him at that wedding, she wouldn't risk using him at a funeral." Ross looked closely at Crystal. "I'm betting that on the day of the wedding, your brother dressed up like a maintenance worker out at that golf course."
She glanced at Ross, looking a little startled, but kept silent.
"First he tried turning on the sprinklers," said Ross. "When that didn't work, he moved down and shot the dart. Then he dropped the blowgun and ran off, thinking nobody would ever find that little gun out in those woods. Is that what happened, Ms. Walsh?"
"I had to protect my brother," she said tightly. "Nobody got hurt."
"Nobody got hurt?" said Mae, her voice rising. "That horse got hurt when Wes shot him with a blowgun dart. I had to get a vet to come out and remove it."
"The man in the carriage with a heart attack might have died if a dart-shot horse had dumped over the carriage," said Ross.
"Not to mention scaring the bride half to death on her wedding day which was bad enough with her father having a heart attack," Mae went on. "No, Crystal, I'd say a lot of people got hurt that day."
The room fell silent. The only sound was Deputy Blackwood clicking away at the computer.
"The strange thing is," said Mae, "Col. Greene's funeral was canceled two days later."
Ross sat up a little straighter in his chair. "So why sabotage the horse if you knew the family was calling off the funeral anyway, thanks to your story?"
"The funny thing is, I took Fireball– Meteor– to a different military funeral that same day,” Mae told the woman. “He did just fine."
Crystal sat up and glared at Mae. "Spooking Meteor only made sure he wouldn't be used in case the funeral went ahead anyway, just as you said. Wes would not have been fine at all if his horse had been used to honor Col. Greene. Don't you understand that?”
"No, we don’t," said Ross. "How did you get the Greene family to call off the funeral?"
They all sat in silence again. Crystal seemed to be searching for the right words. "I told them … I told them that I would break the story about my brother Sam and what really happened to him over there. That's how. And it worked."
The clicking fell silent. "Please tell us, Crystal," said Mae, as gently as she could. "What happened to Sam?"
Slowly, Crystal looked at all three of them. "You're right about Wes," she whispered. "He was in shock when Sam died. He was never really able to cope with it. Our parents were the same way. They never really went on with their lives. It was the worst for Wes, though. It just ate away at him, and none of us knew what to do about it. Over the years, Wes became fixated on destroying the colonel's legacy. He said he didn't want to see him 'rewarded' for letting Sam die. And yeah, maybe I felt the same way."
"War is war, Ms. Walsh," Ross said quietly. "Soldiers are injured. Some are killed. That happens even with the best commanding officers."
Crystal sat back and glared at Ross. "Sam did not die in battle.”
She got up and paced around the room. Then she stood near the wall, just facing a bookshelf and saying nothing.
"Wes threatened suicide rather than face the truth about his brother," said Ross. His voice was low, but steady. "Do you know why he might have felt that way?"
Crystal stayed still, just looking at the wall, but then she began to speak, very quietly. "Sam joined the army largely because of his big brother. Sam had always looked up to him, even though Wes knew that he himself was not really much of a soldier. He learned quickly that army life was not for him, and all he wanted to do was go home to the farm and try to be useful there. But of course, you can't do that until your time is up."
She turned and walked a few steps across the room. "Sam, though, he loved the army and did very well. He turned out to have a hero's heart that Wes knew he himself would never have. Wes got an honorable discharge at the first possible moment and came home, but Sam was still in. And Wes felt very guilty about that. The truth is just as I told you. Sam wasn't killed in battle. It was just one of those things that should have been nothing, but ended up being everything. He was trying to help a villager. A herd boy. A few of the boy's goats got into a field where they weren't supposed to go. Sam tried to go after them so that the young boy wouldn't get into trouble with the rest of the village for losing the goats."
Mae and Ross sat up and looked at each other.
"But the field was mined," said Mae. "That's why not even the goats were supposed to go in there. And, trying to help that child cost Sam his life."
Crystal turned back to them. "How did you know that?"
"A friend of ours. Joe Burke. He talked about how Col. Greene lost a soldier in just that way. He didn't know Sam. He just knew the story."
Crystal walked back to her chair and stood beside it. "Did your friend also tell you that Sam received a couple of medals for his actions? He died a hero, because if Sam hadn't walked out onto that mined field, the child would have walked out there because he had to bring the goats back. Sam saved that little boy's life, whether he knew it or not."
"But Wes blames himself, even though it wasn’t his fault that Sam joined the army," said Mae.
Crystal nodded. "Wes blames himself. He blames the colonel. He blames the army. He blames the goats. He blames…. "
"Everyone except his brother," said Ross.
Silence fell over the room again. Mae was a little shocked at Ross's words.
Crystal just nodded her head very slowly and then sat down in her chair once more. "Wes loved his brother. The last thing he wanted to do was be angry at Sam for causing his own death, however inadvertently. But blaming himself wasn't enough," Crystal went on. "I think that's why Col. Greene became the focus of all of Wes's anger and guilt. It had to go somewhere because he couldn’t handle it. I heard Wes say once that he wished people would stop looking at him and thinking, why are you still here and your brave brother is gone?"
Mae closed her eyes.
"You can't compete with a good dead person unless you turn them into a bad dead person," said Ross. "And it was easier to turn the colonel into a bad person than to do that to Sam."
"I guess so," said Crystal, sounding immeasurably weary.
"So, how did Wes know that the blowgun had been found?" asked Mae.
Crystal took a deep breath and seemed to compose herself a little. "It was on the afternoon TV news. Wes always watches it in case I have a story. But I didn't know about that story in time to try to stop it."
She ran her fingers through her blonde ponytail. "Wes realized that the police were looking for the owner of the blowgun. Looking for him. He was sure he was about to pay the price for letting Sam join the army and get killed… and for being so angry at his commanding officer for so long. I mean, that's the way he saw it.
"He was so upset that he called me. He threatened to get his gun and go to the Greene's home and take himself out in their driveway. He swore he wouldn't hurt anyone else, but kept yelling that he didn't know any other way to make things right.
"I was able to keep him talking long enough f
or a couple of sheriff's deputies to get to our house out at Lowlands Farm. They held him until the ambulance got there to take him to a psychiatric hospital… and, that was how it ended."
"I think I see now," said Mae. "You were still trying to protect Wes. You knew he wasn't in his right mind, and probably hasn't been for a long time. You figured I couldn't use Wes's horse at Colonel Green's funeral if there was no funeral at all."
Crystal's eyes flicked to Mae, and then she looked away again. "I guess I thought that now that the colonel was gone, Wes would calm down. I thought he'd be able to move on with his life and just stay on the farm, knowing his horse was fine and would never be used for something that would upset Wes so much."
"But of course, it's never that simple," said Mae.
Deputy Blackwood stood up. "Ms. Walsh, you will be booked on suspicion of extortion, blackmail, harassment, reckless disregard for public safety, and possibly a few other things. I believe I can get you released on your own recognizance, but our next step is to take you to the booking desk."
Crystal looked down in defeated silence.
The deputy said, "Mae, Ross, thank you for coming in. You can go now."
But Mae found that even after all that had happened, she felt only pity for the woman.
"Crystal… I can see that you need some help too, almost as much as Wes does. You were not a soldier, but you’re suffering, too, over the death of one brother and the pain of the other."
Crystal raised her head and looked as though she was about to snap back at Mae, but then her eyes filled with tears. "I felt like I'd lost them both," she whispered, her voice breaking. "And I just didn't know what to do."
"It's all right now," Mae said, and very gently placed one hand on Crystal's slim shoulder. "You were the strong one. You had to hold the family together on your own and it was too much. I think it would have been too much for anyone."
Mae took a step back. "It will get better from here," she said. "It won't be easy, but I think things will begin to get better now."
22
Sitting in the barn aisle in the white plastic chairs with Mick and Mack at their feet, Mae and Ross held their cups of coffee and watched the sun set. It was the perfect spot since the rear door of the barn opened to the west and there was nothing else out there except the hay barn and the trees.
They’d taken Steel to a wedding earlier that afternoon, and all had gone well.
"Yes, that was a good event," said Mae. "A suburban church, nice people, and no one shooting darts from blowguns. Nobody had a heart attack, either. Everyone stayed healthy."
"Wish they were all that easy," said Ross. Then he sat gazing out of the back door of the barn for a moment, watching as the sun dropped and the light begin to fade. "Heard you've got a funeral to do tomorrow."
"I do."
"Brandon helping you?"
"Not this time. He's got a break from school this week. He and Chloe are driving up to Michigan to visit Andrew."
"Think you can handle your black horse all right?"
Mae smiled. "I think so. He's been doing very well. And funerals mean just a quiet cemetery with no traffic or rowdy crowds like those festivals we're always doing. I'll be all right by myself."
"Well, if you need any help getting loaded up, all you have to do is call."
"Will do."
They sat in silence for a short time, just relaxing in the quiet spring evening and watching the birds fly into the trees for their night's rest. And then, to Mae's surprise, Ross began to speak.
"When I bought this place, I was trying to start over. Maybe I thought I could disappear. Just take care of old horses who only want a few years of peace and leisure before they die. Maybe I thought I was doing the same thing myself."
Tears burned her eyes, but she kept very still as Ross went on talking.
"Being in law enforcement all those years, I've been to too many funerals to count. As sheriff I saw too many dead folks, some of them kids, even Tex, our K-9, shot right in front of me that terrible night."
Mae kept silent for a moment. "I don't think I could deal with seeing those children, either," she said quietly, making every effort to keep her voice steady. "And nothing can break your heart like a dog."
He nodded slightly. "I guess I decided I'd been to enough funerals."
"It's all right. Really. I can always get Brandon if it's at a place where I need a helper, or even Chloe. Chloe loves being a horse hand."
Ross nodded. "I have thought about doing something new, though."
"Oh?"
"I may want to take up golf."
She blinked, and sat up a little straighter. "Did you say– golf?"
"Yeah. Golf. I kind of like it. And I sure know where I can get more golf balls, if I need any."
Mae just grinned and shook her head, glad that Ross was taking up a new interest in something he thought he’d enjoy.
Early the following morning, Mae got the black Landau, the set of black harness, and Fireball all loaded up and ready to leave for the funeral. She got behind the wheel, checked her GPS, and gave it the address of the cemetery. All seemed ready, and then the passenger-side door opened.
To Mae's surprise, Ross got into the truck. "Mind if I go with you?"
"Of course not. I'd love some company for this. But are you sure?"
"I’m sure. I brought coffee," he said, and placed two steaming travel cups into the holders.
"Can't ask for more than that," said Mae with a smile, and started up the truck.
At the cemetery, Mae sat up tall and silent on the driver's box, holding Fireball's reins. At the back of the black Landau was a good-sized crowd of family, friends, and well-wishers who planned to walk behind the carriage to the Greene family crypt on the other side of the cemetery. A few cars would carry those who were not up to walking, but wanted to be there nonetheless.
Ross opened the carriage door as Mrs. Greene and five other family members walked out of the chapel building. Once they got in and sat down, two men in Army dress uniforms walked to the carriage. One of them gave Mrs. Greene a bronze urn. The other one presented an American flag, neatly folded into the shape of a triangle, to one of the younger men.
The two soldiers walked to the back of the Landau.
Ross closed the carriage door and then moved to stand at the horse's head.
A short distance ahead, Joe Burke and another piper from the Dublin Police Department began sounding up their bagpipes. They were joined in a moment by three drummers walking behind them. Fireball handled it well and just watched everything with interest. As the pipers and drummers stepped off, Ross climbed back up to the driver's box.
Mae sent Fireball forward. The big black horse moved out high and proud, making a beautiful picture in front of the shining black carriage. But after only a moment, without saying a word, she handed the reins to Ross … and he took them.
Together, listening to the solemn sounds of the pipes and drums, Mae, Ross, and Fireball took Col. Greene to his final rest.
While one man was being honored at the end of his life, another man was heading toward a new beginning. Mae looked at Ross, placed her hand on his arm for a moment, and smiled.
This is why horses still matter. Even in the twenty-first century, there is no car or truck that could have done this. This is all because of a horse.
Thank you for reading!
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Books By J.A. Whiting
OLIVIA MILLER MYSTERIES (not cozy)
SWEET COVE COZY MYSTERIES
LIN COFFIN COZY MYSTERIES
CLAIRE ROLLINS COZY
MYSTERIES
PAXTON PARK COZY MYSTERIES
SEEING COLORS MYSTERIES
ELLA DANIELS COZY WITCH MYSTERIES
SWEET BEGINNINGS BOX SETS
SWEET ROMANCES by JENA WINTER
Books By J.A. Whiting & Nell McCarthy
HOPE HERRING MYSTERIES
TIPPERARY CARRIAGE COMPANY MYSTERIES
Books By J.A. Whiting & Amanda Diamond
PEACHTREE POINT MYSTERIES
DIGGING UP SECRETS MYSTERIES
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