Hoofprints (Gail McCarthy series)

by Laura Crum

  "He's a bridle horse, a good one. Tony found him for me; he belongs to some friends of his and they're selling him to me cheap. I just want to get him vetted."

  I winced inwardly. Vet checks were not my favorite activity, especially not on performance horses that would be used hard and needed to stay sound. I had the impulse to flunk the horse without even looking at him.

  Stifling the chickenhearted thought, I walked over to the animal in question. He was standing quietly by the trailer, a gray gelding with a compact appearance and a plain head. Gina untied him and I got down to the business of feeling his legs, looking in his mouth and eyes, and listening to his heart. All routine.

  His legs had plenty of knots and bumps and showed the signs of a hard life. That wasn't surprising. Bridle horses take a pounding, physically, particularly their legs and feet. I couldn't find anything that definitely looked like it might cripple him.

  His teeth showed him to be eleven years old, as he was supposed to be, and it appeared he could see out of both his eyes. His heart rate was strong and even, his lungs clean. No problems there. I sighed.

  "Okay, let's jog him in some circles," I told Gina.

  This was the difficult part. What clients really wanted to know when they paid for a pre-purchase exam was-will this horse stay sound for a reasonable period of time? Say two years. The trouble was there was no way to answer that question. I could tell, most of the time, if the horse was sound today, and I could tell, some of the time, if the horse was liable to go lame in the near future. But tell if he'd stay sound for a few years? There were no guarantees.

  The worse aspect of this was a veterinarian's nightmare. Pass a horse with no obvious problem, have him come up dead lame in a week with something incurable like navicular disease-a degeneration of a small bone in the foot­-and face a furious client who's convinced you should have seen it. Sometimes you should have. Other times it's something nobody could have seen. Either way, you look like a fool. The only safe way to handle pre-purchase exams was to flunk every horse that came along. That way you'd never be blamed. On the other hand, people might catch on after awhile.

  Gina trotted the gray gelding in circles to the right and the left and my heart lifted a little. The horse looked sound. I flexed all his joints, did the spavin test, jogged him some more, and he still looked sound.

  I turned to Gina. "Do you want me to shoot some pictures?"

  "Yep. For five thousand dollars, it's worth it."

  I gave a low whistle. "Five thousand. That's cheap?"

  "Cheap for a good bridle horse."

  I shot the X rays, put them in the developer, and went back outside. Gina was standing there holding the horse's lead rope and looking uncomfortable. I patted the gelding's shoulder.

  "What's the real difference between a bridle horse, like this guy, and a cutting horse, like my friend Casey Brooks used to train?" I asked her.

  Gina's face relaxed instantly. "A bridle horse is a reined cowhorse; it's a style of working cattle that was developed here in California by the vaqueros. We train them to be real 'broke in the face'-it's like having power steering. It takes years; we start them out in the snaffle bit, then move on to the hackamore, then at six years old or so, a horse is put in a full-on bridle with a bit. A good bridle horse will spin a hole in the ground or slide a mile at the lightest touch of the reins."

  "So how are cutting horses different?"

  "Cutting comes from Texas-cowboys back there didn't get their horses broke this way at all; they just put a bit in their mouth and started them working cattle. Cutting horses work the cow on their own; you don't steer them. Reined cow horses-bridle horses, hackamore horses-work a cow under your direction. That's the main difference."

  Gina's face was animated as she talked and she looked a lot more like the Gina I was used to. Her lined and weathered skin, faded blue eyes, and graying hair showed all the signs of a life spent out in the sun and wind on the back of a horse, but normally, she had a vitality-a life force, if you will-that made her, to my eyes anyway, very appealing.

  Abruptly her face shut down. "Gail, I need to ask you something"

  "Ask away."

  "It's about Cindy. I don't know what to do, who to tell."

  I picked my words carefully. "Gina, if you know something important, you should tell the sheriff's department."

  "That's just the problem." She looked down, then back at me. "Tony doesn't want me to."

  Oh ho, I thought, so it was Tony who was the problem. Gina seemed unwilling or unable to tell me what was on her mind; she pushed a few strands of improbable corkscrew curls off her forehead and stared at the gray gelding as if he might hold the answer. The newly hectic curls, brilliant blue eye shadow on her lids, and tightly fitted and ruffled lavender blouse all gave silent testimony to Tony's current influence on her life. Why, I wondered again, had she gotten involved with that jerk.

  Now, Gail, I answered myself, maybe she was lonely. Weren't you lonely before you got involved with Lonny? A little sometimes, I had to admit. But never so much that I would have traded my independence for the company of just any man. And absolutely never for a coyote like Tony.

  Gina finally turned her eyes back to me. "Can I tell you this in confidence?"

  Now it was my turn to ponder. "Within reason," I said at last. "I mean, if you know who killed Cindy and Ed Whitney and you want me to keep it a secret, I won't." Particularly if it was Tony, I added to myself.

  "No, no, it's nothing like that," Gina reassured me, but she still looked unhappy. "It's just that Cindy called me, the day before ... the day before she was killed, I guess."

  My instincts were prickling. "What did she say?"

  "Not very much, really. But she was upset. She said she might not be able to make it to the show at Salinas, and she asked me if I'd be willing to show Plumber in the non-pro hackamore class for her."

  "And?"

  "I said I would, since I'll be over there to show my mare in the bridle-horse class, anyway." Gina looked down. "But I had to call her back and tell her I couldn't."

  "Why was that?"

  She still wouldn't meet my eyes. "Tony didn't want me to. He's showing a hackamore horse this year and his horse and Cindy's horse are running neck and neck for the year-end championship. He didn't want me to help Cindy."

  Sounded like Tony Ramiro-true to form. "Is Tony living around here now?" I asked curiously.

  "He's living with me," Gina said, almost defensively, though with a kind of shy pride, too. "He moved his horse training operation to my place a month ago."

  "Oh." I tried not to look as nonplussed as I felt. After all, maybe Tony and Gina were simply in love; it happens to the best and the worst of us. But somehow I couldn't shake the notion that Tony was always looking out for number one, and Gina was neither glamorously beautiful nor fabulously rich. Her place, an old dairy she'd inherited from her Swiss Italian father, was an adequate spot for a person to train a few horses as a hobby, but it certainly wasn't fixed up as a fancy training barn. Gina herself made a living driving a school bus; she was hardly in a position to support Tony in luxury. Still, Gina's small ranch was probably paid for; if Tony had fallen on hard times this might be the best deal he could arrange.

  Gina was talking slowly, her eyes still averted from my face. "I know I ought to tell the sheriff's department about that phone call, Gail, but Tony doesn't want me to. He didn't want me to tell even you; we fought about it last night, after we ran into you."

  "Why?"

  "He's got this crazy idea the cops will suspect him," Gina admitted miserably, "because of the year-end awards competition between the horse he's showing and Cindy's horse."

  "That doesn't seem like much of a motive to kill two people; I don't see what he's afraid of."

  "He couldn't have killed them, anyway. He was with me that night and all the next morning. He has an alibi."

  "So why's he worried?"

  "I don't know. I don't understand it. He just says he w
ants me to stay out of it and to keep my mouth shut."

  My mind was clicking like a laser printer. If Tony truly had fallen on hard times as a trainer, maybe he really needed this year-end award to reestablish his reputation. Maybe that was a motive, who could say? But, and this was the interesting part, Tony had known Gina wanted to talk to me, had known it before I got shot at. Tony had a motive, of sorts, for shooting at me.

  "Was Tony home last night?" I asked Gina, idly, I hoped.

  "No. Like I told you, we got in a big fight, never made it to the movie, and I took a cab home. I haven't seen him since."

  "He didn't come home at all, then?"

  "No." Gina looked completely miserable now, her bright makeup garish on her anxious face. "Gail, I don't know what to do. I know Tony didn't kill the Whitneys, but I ought to go down and talk to the sheriffs, and I'm afraid he'll leave me if I do. Maybe he already has."

  "Do you want me to tell the sheriffs for you?"

  Gina looked half-panic-stricken, half-relieved. "I don't know. Can it wait one day? Let me see if he comes home; let me talk to him."

  "All right," I agreed. "One day. And then one of us has to tell them."

  She nodded affirmatively, seeming a little more relaxed at having made a decision.

  "I better go get those X rays," I told her.

  The X rays, when I got them out, proved inconclusive. I showed them to Gina and explained. "His navicular bones have a lot of changes; see these little shadows on them. Those are signs of bone deterioration. A horse with changes in his bones like this could easily be lame. Every horse is different, though. Since this one is sound now, it's a hard call to make. Some horses have X rays that look a lot worse than this and yet they stay sound. Others look a lot better and go lame."

  Gina sighed. "It figures. Now I don't know what to do about this, either. What do you think?"

  I shook my head. "There's no way I can make a guess on whether he'll stay sound unless you can show me some X rays from a year or so ago. Then we could see if the disease was progressing."

  "Under the circumstances, I don't really like to ask. His owners are friends of Tony's; they told me he was sound. They don't even know I'm vetting him."

  "Okay. Well, maybe I'll talk to Jim. He's had a lot more experience than I have. I'll show him these X rays and tell him about the horse when he gets in."

  "Thanks, Gail. We'll talk about that other deal tomorrow, I promise."

  Gina led the horse back to the trailer and tied him up, then came walking back over to me, carrying her checkbook. I started to tell her the cost of the exam when motion in the comer of my eye caught at me. I looked back. The gray horse was trotting away from the trailer, ears forward, moving like he meant to go somewhere. There was no lead rope on his halter.

  I didn't stop to wonder how he'd gotten loose. I just ran for the gate, knowing before I started that I wouldn't beat him. He was out in the paved front parking lot when I made the gate, and he broke into a lope and headed for the road. I yelled, "Whoa" desperately. He didn't even cock an ear. The heavy midday traffic whizzed up and down Soquel Avenue and the gray horse charged out into it.

  Miraculously no one was coming. There was no screech, no crash. The horse galloped down the middle of the street, headed for the freeway, his hooves clattering on the pavement. I chased after him, running as fast· as I could, not quite believing it was all happening. This five-thousand dollar horse couldn't be out here among all these deadly solid cars. He couldn't.

  He was. I had to catch him. He was way ahead of me now, up by the stoplight. No one had hit him yet, but it was just a matter of time. I ran, legs pumping, heart pounding.

  People stared from their cars, faces full of shock and apprehension. No one in Santa Cruz was used to horses on a main street. Up at the intersection the cars had come to a stop. The horse skittered to a stop, too, his head up, his eyes big. Nothing looked familiar to him-no grass, no other horses. Only these shiny, noisy machines all around him. He didn't like it.

  I was closer to him now. I slowed down, said, "Whoa" as firmly as I knew how. He looked at me; the whoa was familiar. A human on two legs, walking toward him with authority, that was familiar. He put his head down and walked to meet me, and I could have sworn there was relief in his eyes; I know there was plenty in mine.

  Taking hold of his halter, I led him up on the sidewalk and started back for the office, waving a grateful hand at the cars. My heart was pounding as though it wanted to jump out of my chest.

  A shaken Gina met me halfway back. Her face was pale and she had a hard time thanking me. It wasn't lack of gratitude; she was having a hard time talking. She clipped the lead rope back on the halter and we both stared at it.

  "I don't know how it came off," she said.

  I wondered if her anxiety level over Tony was so high she'd simply forgotten to clip the rope on correctly in the first place, then decided it didn't much matter at this point.

  Back in the parking lot, I helped her load the horse and watched her pull out while my heart slowed down. Then I went in the office to check my schedule.

  The first thing on the list made me say, "Uh-oh" out loud. It was a horse I'd seen earlier that week, a twenty-six-year-old horse that belonged to a woman who'd owned him since she was sixteen and he was seven. She'd turned him out to pasture with some friends who didn't know much about horses, and the old horse had gotten to be skin and bones without their realizing it. When his owner had gone to see him she'd been aghast and brought him home, but shortly after that he'd gotten a respiratory disease. I'd been to see him and given her the appropriate antibiotics and instructions, but it didn't look good, and I'd told her so. Old horses had a tendency to get pneumonia under those circumstances, and if they were as run-down as this one they tended to die of it.

  I went on out and got in the truck, checking to make sure I had the necessary drugs to put the horse down. Giving a horse the green needle, as it had been called in vet school, always filled me with a mix of sadness and anger, even when it was obviously the only thing to do. I hated to lose a patient; it was both a personal defeat and a reinforcement of the underlying futility of my profession. It was my job to preserve life, and I always battled fiercely to do so, but neither I nor anyone else could succeed in an ultimate sense.

  Teresa Kelly was waiting for me out at her barn, and I could tell by one look at her face that the news wasn't good. It was obvious she'd been crying. She had bright red hair and a round, chubby face with lots of freckles and she looked terrible, her skin dead white, with the freckles standing out like sores, her eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot. I felt a rush of sympathy for her. I knew that I was going to feel pretty bad when Blue's time was up, or Gunner's.

  Teresa shook her head when I got out of the truck. "He's a lot worse, Gail. I probably should have called you a couple of days ago, but I kept hoping he'd get better. I know what you're going to say when you see him."

  I looked at her and looked down, wishing I could find the right thing to say. This type of situation was hard, and unfortunately common in the veterinary trade. I felt a lot of empathy with people when they were grief-stricken over their animals, but I also knew I couldn't let my emotions run away with me. If I took every animal I lost too deeply to heart, the job would rapidly become so stressful I wouldn't be able to do it.

  "Let's go have a look at him," I told Teresa gently.

  She led me to a clean stall at the back of the old shed that served as a barn. The horse was there, lying on his chest in a bed of crisp shavings. I could hear the labored wheeze of his breathing from the door.

  I checked him over carefully as a matter of routine, but I knew what was wrong with him. He was painfully thin, his spine standing up in a row of sharp ridges, his hipbones and ribs jutting out. The old brown eyes under their sunken hollows looked at me calmly. This horse had seen enough to take anything in his stride.

  I stood up and saw Teresa was crying. Shit. This was going to be difficult. "I'm sorry, Teres
a." I tried to say it as kindly as I could. "He's got pneumonia and he looks like he's going downhill fast. I think the best thing to do is put him down."

  She nodded, not speaking, and walked over to pet the horse. He pushed his face up against her and she rubbed his ears. It was clearly a routine they had.

  Tears were running down her face, but when she spoke her voice was under control. "I just feel so bad, like it's my fault he got so thin and run-down and all. I meant to do him a favor, turning him out to pasture, and it's ended so badly." She looked at her horse while she talked, gently rubbing his ears. "I've had him a long time. He's always been a good horse."

  The old horse bumped his head against her again and her voice caught in her throat. She gave him a final pat and stood up. "Okay, Gail, I know it's the right thing to do."

  "It might be easier if you don't watch."

  She looked at me and then at the horse and reached down to stroke his ears again. "All right," she said. "Will you pet him while you do it?"

  "Yeah, I will."

  She turned away, her face still wet with tears. I took the syringe out of my pocket, where I had put it earlier, just in case, and bent to the old horse to make the injection in his jugular vein. I rubbed his ears and spoke to him as Teresa had done and was relieved when he died easily, folding over on his side. The shot killed quickly, but some horses reacted more violently in the first instant of its effect than others. I'd seen one flip over backward.

  When I walked out of the shed, Teresa was waiting for me, her face more composed. She gave me a questioning look and I said, "He died real peacefully."

  She nodded in relief and, obviously making an effort to change the subject, said, "I heard you found Ed and Cindy Whitney, Gail. That must have been hard on you."

  "It was pretty bad."

  Teresa went on talking as we walked out to my truck. "My husband's a deputy sheriff and he says they're getting ready to arrest one of those street people. I guess they found him at the house and he ran away."