The Clincher

by Lisa Preston

  Nichol walked out to the truck with his gear and Ted moseyed off to a wheelbarrow, pushing it down the barn aisle, but stopped when Junior blocked his way.

  “We’re not having Brokeback at the Flying Cross. No visitors, got it? Keep your boyfriend visits off the ranch.” Then Junior turned and tossed a horseshoe at me. “One of the new horses lost a hind shoe. Again.”

  I caught the rusted shoe left-handed. My right hand was still in my pocket, sweating about getting the baggie back into the tack room.

  The rusty shoe was nearly circular in shape, but it wasn’t level. It had a twist to it and nails curved out from the medial side. I didn’t know whose shoe I was holding, but I did know it wasn’t likely to be from any horse’s hind foot—it was just too round. Hind feet don’t have that shape; they’re pointier in the toe and not as wide through the quarters.

  “If we’re going to have problems with your shoes staying on, we’re going to be getting another shoer.” Junior lunged toward me. I jumped back, my face turned away. All that old fear boiled up. I thought I was about to be hit, but Junior just snatched the shoe back.

  Down the aisle, Ted met my gaze and raised his eyebrows.

  I tried to think about what I knew, what was real and what mattered. Horse feet. Patsy-Lynn only had the riding horses shod up front, left the hind feet bare.

  Junior scowled at me, looming large like the human hulk he was. He shook a finger in my face to commence a lecture, but the hand became a fist and his jaw clenched, too. Any sane woman, any smart person, would have backed up. I worked to stifle a gulp. Couldn’t do it. Junior was just a hair from exploding.

  His voice rang off the metal barn roof. “Are we clear?”

  Actually, we were a pretty long ways from clear. What I wanted to say was that neither of us was perfect, but at least I didn’t shtup the local hottie at my stepmama’s funeral reception. But I didn’t have the ornery in me to share that with him. Really, it was self-preservation keeping my mouth shut. This wasn’t my first time standing in front of a man who was looking for an excuse to thump on me, but this time was going to hurt bad. I’d be getting coloring books for presents if Junior smacked me in the head a couple times. I hated being scared of him.

  “Everything all right?” Nichol called, striding toward us.

  My relief came out in a sigh, but I hated how rescued I felt.

  Junior snarled that we could both bill his old man for our work and it would be my last check. He punched a finger at my face. “You’re fired.”

  What would have happened if Nichol hadn’t been there? Six years old and spanked, that’s how I felt as Junior stormed off. Seventeen years old and smacked for not having the right dinner ready.

  But that wasn’t me anymore. I’m me now. Now.

  Farriers get fired. Someone else comes in with a different idea or a lower price or the owner isn’t a big enough person to accept that he’s a moron who ought to take better care of his horses and property and—

  And the thing is, I’ve never been fired. A year here now and my client list only builds. I’ve even let a couple clients go, the third-tier type folks that don’t keep appointments, don’t pay up, that kind of hog hale. But Harpers had been a good account, at least five mares, the stud, and other peoples’ mares who rotated in and out, plus sometimes a riding horse or two. Though I’d always worked for Patsy-Lynn, hardly seen hide nor hair of her husband or stepson. Junior didn’t even live in Cowdry most of the time, was the way I understood it. I thought the horses had been mainly her deal. Guess they were Mister and Junior’s deal now. But Junior was stacking up to be a bully-boy who needed nothing so much as a speedy de-boying with my hoof knife.

  So now I got to see how Nichol would treat me after Harper Junior bawled me out. We were both needing to get our gear back into our rigs, but I didn’t want to do it under anyone smirking at me.

  Nichol glanced toward the barn and seemed to change his mind on something. Instead, he said, “Do you do anything with camel­ids?”

  Usually, I’d like to know if someone wants to give me a test but if it’s this easy to ace, I don’t mind grabbing a quick A. I shrugged Abby-style. “I do a few.”

  It wasn’t true, what they’d said in shoeing school, that real horseshoers were struck down by lightning right away if a llama’s cloven hoof touches their chaps.

  “Those critters sure have caught on,” Nichol added. I reckon this was by way of showing he was just having a conversation, not checking to see if I knew a three-dollar word, camelid.

  I grinned. “Yep, the fiber freaks across the highway have a huge herd.” Those alpaca and llama people sell bales of wool—they call it fiber—every year, and their critters need their toes done regular enough, though not quite as often as a well-used riding horse. Often enough to keep a shoer’s horse-friend in hay though.

  Nichol’s conversation was a relief after my lecture from Junior.

  “There’s been a conference this weekend down at the college,” Nichol said as he stuck his head and hands in his vehicle, loading up a couple medical kits and a cooler where he kept drugs. “I’m going down in the morning to catch the last of it. Do you want to come along?”

  “And what’s this conference on?” I asked, turning away just as casually to load up my stuff.

  “Headlining with land management, special section on BSE.” He tapped one finger against his temple. “Just more tools for the old toolbox.”

  When did the yuppie-types start saying toolbox when they meant knowledge? And hadn’t I already taken a quiz from him? I know what Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy is and I don’t reckon it’d be cured this weekend.

  “Not my field,” I pointed out.

  “Well, there’s a section on non-equine hoof care and an equine lameness segment in the afternoon.”

  “Really?” I perked right up. I hadn’t heard about a clinic and I do keep my ear to the ground for that kind of thing. There’s a reason why I’m not like a lot of newer shoers who basically repeat their first several years over and over. I’ve put so much mental and physical effort into this job choice of mine, I’m a sponge. Sponge-form, no longer bovine-shaped, and no encephalopathy. Though I’d been well on my way to being a bovine-shaped, corn-fed, breeder-

  type in school, that changed. Look at me now, a good shoer, slim and strong, and always eager to improve my work through clinics, experience, and working with anyone who could teach me something. I had clients aplenty, though I could no longer count the ranch of the one who’d been maybe murdered.

  Handy enough, my brain found the next gear and the clutch disengaged, so when Nichol pulled his head out of his fancy rig, I asked about the lameness conference. He said, chatty-like, “Oh, according to the program there’s a session for horse owners, so shoeing instructors will be there. And the shoers have some kind of session, too.”

  Among the owners who think they’re going to be their own shoer, a few are worth the time of day, but most are not motivated enough to help their horses and shouldn’t be messing around with anything more complicated than their own toenails.

  “I could pick you up bright and early,” Nichol said. “I’m coming back tomorrow night.”

  Getting out of town for a day had some real appeal. I followed the notion and told Nichol I was in; he could come get me.

  * * *

  Shedding my boots outside Guy’s house at least kept Spooky from puking on them, but there was no stopping that fine, flying hair he put everywhere. Charley was happy to see me. He wasn’t the only one.

  “I waited up for you,” Guy said. “Hungry?”

  “Yep. Are you still going to be able to start a new restaurant if Mr. Harper doesn’t back you?”

  “I think he’ll back it. He’s still interested.” Guy piled broken crab legs into the blender with some water and made an unholy racket grinding them up for his garden.

  My thinking scattered in about five directions at once. “Was Patsy-Lynn maybe not wanting her hubby to spend money o
n your restaurant?”

  “Look, even if she wasn’t thrilled, her disapproval wouldn’t necessarily have been a deal-breaker. Winston Harper said he likes community investment opportunities.”

  “What’s the deal clincher, then?”

  Guy sighed, like we were a long way from understanding and I guess we were. “There’re some things to work out.” Pretty soon, he put a slice of weird pie at the ready. I pulled up a chair at the dinette and shoveled some in my weird-pie-hole.

  “Good stuff,” I allowed, ’cause manners say I have to say that. “What is it?”

  “Seafood frittata.” Guy looked a trifle annoyed that I’d had to ask. He pushed over some silica gel packets that apparently came in the last batch of spices he’d bought.

  I bet Nichol was sitting down to steak and potatoes for a late plateful. And I don’t know where the thought came from, but I bet Nichol would be perfectly willing to save little packets of silica gel for me. He probably gets them all the time in stuff that’s shipped to his vet office.

  “Come to bed with me tonight?” Guy smiled up, earnest and sweet as a person can be.

  I couldn’t take much more of that.

  When I didn’t respond he tried an extra enticement. “I’ll vacuum the pillows.”

  “No, I’m shoving off early, conference thing in Corvallis. Going to ride down with Nichol.” I turned away and heard Guy coming after me as I cleared the kitchen, headed for the side door to the garage, Charley at my side.

  “The vet? You’re going down to Corvallis with him?” Guy followed me to the garage. Which is my space, I pay for it. I turned to give him a good growl, but he stopped at the doorway, like he’d remembered some manners. “Look, Rainy, I’d just like to kind of nail down our relationship here a little. Are we still together?”

  I looked at Guy and thought, well, I thought a whole lot of things. I know a bit about nailing things and clinching them, after all, that’s me. But I know nothing about nailing down a relationship. Nothing.

  “Ask me a shoeing detective question,” I suggested.

  “What, like about that hammer the deputy brought over here?”

  Guy tries too hard sometimes. Anyone should know that all I’d really wanted was for him to shut up, but he kept flailing away at the quicksand of my mood.

  He rubbed his jaw. “That hammer that was at the vet’s place. You know, like the one you use, to nail on horseshoes.”

  I was ice. “That was a rounding hammer, used to shape shoes, not a nailing hammer.” And I gave him a pre-growl look.

  Guy bit back with “Please, don’t do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Look at me like I’m an idiot. There’s nothing wrong with not knowing the difference between a nailing hammer and a rounding hammer.”

  I growled and gave him the You’re An Idiot look again. This sure wasn’t a night when Guy would launch into singing “If I Had a Hammer” in his usual good mood. I sighed. The emergency call had broken my evening routine. I still needed to take care of Red, but I gave Guy this scrap. “I’m going to Corvallis on a professional thing.”

  What would have happened if Guy had been at the Flying Cross instead of Nichol when Junior all but belted me?

  “I’ve got to feed Red.”

  Outside, I scowled at Ol’ Blue, resting my hands over the little hole in my hood’s center. Who’d bothered my truck? And why? Dixon Talbot? Just because? And did he break into Nichol’s office? Then Guy was beside me, cupping a palm over my fists.

  “I can fix that.” Guy’s voice was gentle as though he was talking to an injured foal. Since he can’t fix much outside a kitchen, and that doesn’t include the plumbing and electrical matters found in such a room, I held my breath to keep ugly from coming out.

  Guy said, “Give me fifteen minutes.”

  I suppose I owed him that much.

  By the time I got back from feeding Red and telling him again how sorry I was for his getting sold back in the day, blinking away the awfulness of how I didn’t fix things that mattered more, Guy was done, capping a bottle of stinky contact cement.

  The little anvil he’d thought was a Pocket Anvil now rode the front center of Ol’ Blue. My work truck again had a hood ornament, a real horseshoer’s hood ornament, way better than miniature Texas longhorns.

  Wasn’t it silly that I teared up?

  Chapter 21

  A FORD EXPEDITION WITH A LEATHER interior makes for a mighty comfy few hours’ road trip, yes indeedy. Nichol picked me up early enough for the morning to be cold, and pointed out the seat-heating button.

  We both eyed Red dozing in the side pasture when we drove out, and Nichol asked, “Been getting in much riding?”

  “Not enough.” I always say that. What would be enough?

  We had the same vocabulary about horse feet, could talk physiology, anatomy, gaits, and therapeutic shoeing. It was nice talking horse with Nichol.

  Despite Guy’s sweetness and good intentions, we just aren’t alike enough, I reckon. No matter how he tries to present the deal, no matter how much I try to teach him just to say riding instead of horseback riding, or learn him the difference between my tools, or how to tell a bay horse from a brown. And forget him understanding the difference between overo and tobiano patterns on pintos and Paints. But Nichol? He knew these things.

  “When I first met you,” Nichol said, “I thought you had a bit of an attitude. If I came across as arrogant or disrespectful toward you, then I apologize.”

  If? As if. But since we were getting cozy and reminiscing, should I tell him I’d thought he was a total prick? I mean, turd. He was a turd. Capital T and a big, juicy one at that. Something not to kick on a hot day as he’ll stick all over your shi—

  “Rainy?”

  “Yeah, hey.” I studied him. He looked sincere, and my gaze fell from his face to what he held out. His right hand. I took it, shook it.

  He watched me. Too long. Watch the road, I almost said. Someone’s got to and I’d always vote for the driver to give it a run, especially once we neared I-5. It’s a greenbelt of a freeway, but hardly hints at the grand forests beyond the concrete corridor. Turns out, Nichol chews cinnamon gum while he drives and his manners have him offer it to his passenger. We visited about the school we were headed to, and Nichol was properly impressed to hear I’d attended Ivy League shoeing school. He’d graduated vet school right there in Corvallis.

  The forecast rain didn’t show up. Before we made it to the campus, the windshield was coated in road boogers and bugs.

  The main conference was mostly about pasture management, leading into laminitis issues for horses and grass production for raising beef cattle. Then they talked mad cow and watershed protection and specified risk material and advanced meat recovery and confined animal feeding operations. Blah blah blah, heard it all before. Nichol mentioned to every little group at every little break that he was just really pleased to be there. Guess he’s trying to win points wherever he goes. He pumped hands and looked at me, like I was supposed to say the same thing.

  I nodded. “Yep, real pleased. You bet your bippy.”

  There were a lot of vet types in this crowd, plus cattlemen and gentleman farmers. A lot of posturing. Jeans and clean shirts, bolo ties for those dressed-up. During the late morning break, a couple of bible-less guys in suits walked across the campus.

  “Do you know who they are?” Nichol asked me, sounding like he well knew and was Answer Man if only I’d beg of him some wisdom.

  “Feds?” I can be Idea Woman, if pressed.

  He gawked at me and laughed, his face lit up.

  “Feds?” Nichol shook his head, still laughing. “Have you ever heard of the World Anti-Doping Agency?”

  “Nope.” I kept myself from asking him about it. I didn’t want any questions directed my way, ’cause I remembered what was in the pocket of my other jeans, the ones I’d kicked under my cot when I’d turned in for the night after Spartacus’s emergency.

  Toward
the end of the first afternoon session, Nichol sat up front with a final Q & A panel that talked safe grass to avoid laminitis and everything else under the sun. I made my way to the gathering of horse owners and horseshoers who were having a chitchat and hands-on bit in an outdoor area across the way. Talk of preventing laminitis with this group turned into a basic owners’ shoeing class, how to remove a twisted shoe, even how to tack a shoe back on in an emergency. Those demos always grow into owners’ general questions and complaints about their past experiences with different shoers.

  The lead instructor looked to be about a hundred and seventy years old. He had a couple of young bucks apprenticing under him, swinging hammers, getting some anvil time in hopes of taking their intern test soon.

  The geezer brought to mind Willie Nelson, but with less fashion sense. He caught my watching things, realized I was one of them and nodded me over. Then one of the young knuckleheads got altogether flustered when he asked the old man for a hand pulling some clips on a shoe and I got waved up to take a turn.

  “But you’re just a girl,” the punk said. There was more gear to be set up. I moved to the empty anvil stand and went for the last anvil. It looked to be about a hundred-twenty-five pounder. I gripped it against my body, set it on the stand, and we had no more of that just-a-girl business.

  The young knucklehead was a cold shoer and could no more hand-make a horseshoe from bar stock than he was going to have any success pulling those clips. With one more nod from grandpa, I jumped in, held the hot shoe with the tongs at something more like a forty-five-degree angle to the anvil’s face. I struck steady, even blows with the rounding hammer to force a bubble of metal. The young fellow got the idea as the clip was forming, and I let him finish before we lost the heat in the shoe.

  The silly man wore his jeans so tight his religion was near evident. Given that he would have numb feet if he crouched under a horse in skintight jeans, I figured he didn’t really have much of a habit of shoeing. Plus, he wore Lee jeans. I’m a Wrangler person, myself, and as I’ve said, I wear them loose enough to crouch—and to stuff my pockets full of drugs.