Puss 'N Cahoots

by Rita Mae Brown

  The drive over would take an hour, and the heat and excitement over Shortro had already tired her a little. The van explosion upset her more than she realized, as well.

  For a moment she stood in the Kalarama temporary tack room, studying the bits and equipment used, much of it different from what she used. Saddlebreds achieved a stylish tail carriage, the top of the thick tail rising above the rounded hindquarters by use of a tail set. This light harness utilized a padded crupper, which went right under the tail to elevate it. Sometimes a vet would cut the ventral tail muscles, a simple procedure, which allowed the tail more movement without harming it. Thoroughbreds and hunters bypassed these refinements, for they had no need of them. The tail carriage was the reason hunter–jumper people dubbed Saddlebreds “shaky tails.”

  Each type of equine sport developed its own tools, although the basic principles remained the same. Saddlebreds generally used longer-shanked bits than foxhunters, who often rode out in a simple snaffle bit or Tom Thumb Pelham, so named because the shank was short.

  Bitting, a discipline in itself, required wisdom. Many a poor trainer made up for his or her inadequacies by overbitting the horse—using too much bit because they didn’t know how to achieve the result with patient training. That was an excellent way to ruin a horse’s mouth, but the short-term result might be that the animal showed well, the trainer snared his fee as the animal sold, and the new owner soon discovered all was not as it seemed.

  Much as Harry deplored this, as well as running Thoroughbreds too early, she knew in her heart it would probably get worse. The tax laws forced most professional horse people to get quick results from young horses.

  Laws reflected the needs of city people to the detriment of country people, which isn’t to say that city people received adequate funding for their needs, either. A law that on the books might make perfect sense to someone in the depths of Houston could hurt the horsemen. Something as simple as removing income-averaging for farmers drove everyone to their knees when it happened. People lost farms; those that hung on battled the arbitrary rule that you had to show a profit every four years. Sounds so easy unless you’re a horseman. A quarter horse might mentally mature, understand its training, and be sold by age three or four. A Warmblood would take six or seven years to be fully made. No way to sell the slower-developing animals within the unrealistic time frame. If the horsemen diversified and grew corn, that took money as well as time away from the horse operation.

  Harry sighed deeply. “Try telling that to someone who graduated from law school and is currently honing their mastery of the sound bite.” She half-whispered this, but her animals overheard.

  “Talking to herself again.” Pewter, still fuming over her encounter with Miss Nasty, sniffed.

  “Mind goes a mile a minute.” Mrs. Murphy understood Harry and loved that the human often understood her intent, although she rarely knew what Mrs. Murphy was saying.

  Harry inhaled the heady perfume of leather and oil; the steel of the bits even gave off a light odor. She could smell the hay in the hayracks in the stalls, coupled with the sweetest aroma of all—horses. She looked down at her friends. “Sometimes this wave washes over me and I feel like I will live to see our way of life vanish.” Tears filled her eyes.

  “Don’t worry, Mom. People can’t be that dumb.” Tucker smiled, her pink tongue hanging out.

  “Are you kidding?” Pewter, still sour, replied. “Think about the revolutions. Everything goes. People die by the millions and so do cats, dogs, and horses. Humans have no more sense than that horrible, stinky monkey.” She puffed out her chest. “Figures.”

  “When an ear of corn costs fifty dollars, when mulch and manure for those suburban gardens climbs to thirty bucks a bag, they’ll wake up fast enough,” Mrs. Murphy predicted.

  “Well, that’s it, isn’t it? Agribusiness keeps the cost down.” Tucker followed Harry everywhere and overheard her conversations with other humans who farmed.

  Mrs. Murphy, swaying back and forth in a hypnotic manner, said, “Until a virus hits a crop. It’s one-crop farming; genetic diversity has been removed. It’s bound to happen, Tucker. And with oil being volatile, no one can keep prices down, because it takes gas to ship the crops, right? Sooner or later they’re loaded on a truck.”

  “Bring horses back in a big way. Then maybe people will appreciate animals again.” Tucker laughed with delight at the thought, not considering the potential abuse from people who had no feelings for animals.

  Overhearing the animals, Point Guard nickered, “When the automobile became affordable, the horse population dwindled to the point where we were afraid we’d become extinct. Thank God, some humans still loved us. My mother told me what her mother told her and so on down the line. Do you know that today there are more horses than since before World War One?”

  “Still rather use draft horses to timber and plow on steep hills.” Pewter was finally settling herself. “Safer.”

  “Doesn’t suck up gas, either,” Point Guard called over his stall.

  Rousing herself at the horse’s nicker, Harry told her friends, “Sorry, guys. Gave in to the slough of despondency. Too much happening. I don’t have it figured out. Scares me. And it’s odd, but being given such a big present kind of knocks me out, too. I’ll be all right.” She walked into the hospitality room, pulled a can of lemonade out of the small fridge, downed it as she watched the cats and dog drink from the water bowl. “Okay, I’m better.” She walked back out, down the aisle to Shortro.

  He turned his lovely gray head when she came into the stall. “Buddy Bud, you and I are going to become very good friends.”

  His large kind eyes promised sweetness and fun. “What do I have to do?”

  Mrs. Murphy climbed up the wooden side, stepping onto his back since he was against the stall.

  “Shortro, you’re coming with us to Virginia.”

  “Do they have Saddlebred shows there?”

  “They do,” Tucker answered. “There’s a big one down in Lexington, Virginia, called the Bonnie Bell, but you’re coming home to be a foxhunter. You’ll love it.”

  “I don’t want to kill anything,” Shortro, troubled, replied as Harry stroked his long, glossy neck.

  “Don’t kill ’em. You just chase them.” Pewter preferred to watch the hunt. She wasn’t going to run around after foxes. Actually, Pewter wasn’t going to run after anything if she could help it.

  “Is Renata going to hunt?” the gelding inquired.

  “Says she is, but she’s given you to Harry because Harry will love you and you can play in pastures a lot, too,” Tucker said. “There are other nice horses there. You’ll make friends.”

  “I’ll miss Renata.” Shortro hung his head, then lifted it to look Harry full in the face. “But you look kind.”

  Harry rubbed his ears. “We’ll have a lot of fun, you beautiful guy.” She looked down at his tail. He’d be the only horse in the hunt field with his tail up like that, but, hey, if folks could ride mules and draft horses out there, she could go on a horse with a shaky tail. The more she touched Shortro and talked to him, the happier she felt. Him, too. So many times when she was distressed, words didn’t lift Harry, but touching her horses, her cats and dog brought her back to a good place. She thought that humans didn’t touch enough. When they did, the purpose was usually sex or violence. No wonder so many people felt disconnected.

  Her cell rang. She pulled it out of her hip pocket. “Hi.”

  “Harry.” Joan’s voice was excited.

  Before Joan said more, Harry spoke. “I didn’t call you about Ward’s van because I figured everyone else had.”

  “Did. I called you because I found out—took a little wooing of the Shelby County sheriff, but I found out—that Jorge withdrew his money from his savings account on the day he was murdered. He wired it to his mother in Mexico.”

  “Jeez.” Harry felt the net closing.

  “Seventy-five thousand dollars.” Joan paused. “That’s a lot
of money. It’s really a lot of money for a groom.”

  “You said he didn’t spend much.”

  “He didn’t, but he still couldn’t have saved that much in two years. No way.”

  “He sure was smart enough to hide it.” Harry lowered her voice.

  Everyone in the barn was at late lunch or taking a siesta before the madness of the final night, but still, she half-whispered.

  Joan’s tone was definitive. “I ask myself what could Jorge do that someone else couldn’t.”

  “And?”

  “He could go back and forth to Mexico. He had his green card. He could speak to people on the phone from Mexico or Arizona or wherever. He was learning a lot from Manuel, he was becoming a good horseman, but that’s not special enough. This has to do with his background.”

  “You’re right.” A lightbulb turned on in Harry’s head, although the wattage was still pitifully low. “INS.”

  “Or against them.”

  “What do you mean, Joan?”

  “I mean, what if he was bringing people here?”

  “I considered that, but wouldn’t he have been off the farm more? How could he do that? Did he go back to Mexico a lot?”

  “Christmas, but he could leave in the middle of the night. Larry and I wouldn’t know. We’re down at the end of the road, and Mom and Dad wouldn’t know. Their bedroom doesn’t face the farm road. It’s possible.”

  “Did he have a cell phone?”

  “No one can find it. He had one. I saw it enough times.”

  “Ah. Well, now what?” Harry reached up to scratch Mrs. Murphy’s ears.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Larry still showing tonight?”

  “Yes. I’m nervous, but he said we have to go on. We owe it to Shelbyville. They’ve been good to all Saddlebred people.”

  “Joan, you don’t think all this is some kind of effort to destroy the show?”

  “No. Every county has their date. Hurting Shelbyville would only hurt them. People use those shows to prepare for this one and for Louisville.”

  “What if a county wanted to get as fancy as Shelbyville?”

  “Sure brings in the horsemen’s dollars, and the tourists, too. Nothing to stop county commissioners from building up a show, a fairgrounds. The trick is getting the residents to pay for it via taxes, but, hey, the fairgrounds here are used nearly every week of the year. It generates revenue and pays for itself. That’s a long-winded answer, but there’s no gain for anyone to hurt this show.”

  “What about the animal-rights nuts? They like to stir up trouble and they don’t mind twisting the facts.”

  “They’d go right after us straight up. This isn’t direct. They’d take public credit for the disruption.” Joan, always three steps ahead, had considered that. “We aren’t abusive.” She paused. “Not that that matters.”

  “Weird, isn’t it? No one loves animals more than you and me, and now there are people actually saying we shouldn’t domesticate them. Hell, they’ve domesticated us. Well, I’m off the track and I’m sorry. It’s been pretty intense here.”

  “You saw the explosion?”

  “Heard it and ran right out. If Ward, Benny, or horses had been there, they’d be in pieces all over the parking lot. It was by the grace of God that Benny left the van once he cranked it to warm up. He walked over to Charly’s barn to talk to Carlos.”

  “Whoever did this wanted them dead just like Jorge.”

  “Connected?” Harry thought so.

  “I believe it is, but I don’t know why. Something to do with the illegal workers. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “I think about illegal workers, but Ward works like a slave. It’s only himself and Benny. If he were part of some kind of smuggling ring, wouldn’t he have help at his own barn? He could afford grooms. Maybe he’s getting close to whoever did kill Jorge.”

  “That’s what I’ve come to think, but…” She took a while. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’ll relax until the five-gaited class is over, and Larry, Manuel, the boys, and the horses are back at Kalarama. Harry, I’m not sure I want to know.”

  “You do.”

  “Well, then I don’t want anyone else to know I know except you, of course.”

  “One other thing.” Harry scrupulously did not spill the beans about Renata leaving, but she did say, “Renata gave me Shortro.”

  “She did!”

  “She’s grateful I found Queen Esther. She promised to help me with my wine if it turns out potable. ’Course, that’s three years down the road. Guess she wanted to do something now.”

  “How good of her. He’s a great guy. The Shortros of the world should be gold-plated. That wonderful mind.”

  “You’ll lose a boarder. Sorry.”

  Joan laughed. “He wouldn’t stay long. She’ll wind up back with Charly. Too much emotion there. Takes a woman to know a woman.”

  “Yes.” Harry bit her lip.

  “I expect her to pull Queen Esther after the show. She did call and say she wasn’t showing the mare tonight. I wanted to make sure—after all, this is her last prep before Louisville. She’ll be up against even more horses at Louisville. Said she didn’t trust whatever was happening, so she wasn’t going to show her. I thought she’d do it for the publicity.”

  “Can’t blame her.”

  “No. Well, does this mean you’re going to show a Saddlebred?” A merry tone lifted Joan’s voice.

  “Actually, Joan, I’ll just walk him under tack, then see if he’s willing to do more.”

  “I knew it. I knew you’d turn him into a foxhunter.”

  Harry laughed. “He’ll tell me what he wants to do.”

  “That’s why you’re a good horseman.”

  “I’ll do anything,” Shortro promised.

  As Harry and Joan finished up their conversation, Fair stood in the aisle of Charly’s barn. The smoke finally was dissipating and wafting eastward. The smell of it, the burned oil and metal, still hung over the place.

  “Seeing more of it.” Charly walked the aisle with Fair as they looked in on each horse. “More shows. More pressure. And if you have a client who has a four-hundred-thousand-dollar horse and they tell you not to turn him out in the pasture because they’re afraid of an injury, what do you do?”

  “I know it takes patience, but you need to show them what gastric ulcers are and how they affect an animal. Keep a horse in a stall with limited turnout, cram them full of high-energy food, subject them to high stress, you’re going to get ulcers. Performance drops. Once the ulcers are diagnosed, it takes twenty-eight days of a full tube of Ulcergard every day. And after that it’s a quarter tube a day. Don’t change the regimen and the ulcers return. People have to learn these are living, breathing, emotional creatures. They aren’t cars.”

  “I know. I know. Had five horses in my barn suffer from them.”

  “How many horses at the farm?”

  “Sixty. Give or take.”

  “How many in work?”

  “Well, horses come in and out. Some are there for specific training, a course, and they’re gone in a month, say, but on average, twenty-five.”

  “If you only have five with ulcers, you have a good program. Some people don’t use Ulcergard, by the way. They use papaya juice. I prefer Ulcergard. Ulcers are a bitch.”

  “Now if I could calm mine.” Charly smiled ruefully. “It’s feast or famine in this business.”

  “This last week can’t have helped.”

  “Never been through anything like it.” Charly folded his arms across his chest. “Well, the first Gulf War was bad, but we knew what we were about. This,” he held out one hand, keeping the other arm across his chest, “I don’t know. I feel like there’s someone behind every bush. That damned raid, along with Jorge’s murder, has everyone looking over their shoulders. Now this.” He shook his head, then stood straighter. “I’ll worry about it after the show. I will beat Booty if it kills me.”

  “Or him.�
��

  “Given all that’s happened, I probably shouldn’t say that, but I really do want to wipe his face in the dirt. Frederick the Great is going to win Shelbyville, and Louisville, too. He’s a world champion.”

  “For my part, I hope there’s good competition tonight.” Fair smiled at him and said, “No glory in a walkover.”

  Charly smiled, too. “They’ll make it hard for me. You’ll see a pretty damned exciting class.”

  As if the portents since August 2 hadn’t filled people with wonder and anxiety, the yellow stakeout around the debris of the van completed the aura of incipient danger.

  The show officials wanted the bits hauled off, but the sheriff declared they had to stay. Plus, they still were warm. Bomb experts called in from Louisville needed time to consider the pattern of debris.

  The result of this wise decision on the part of young Sheriff Howlett caused the officials consternation. Half of the main parking lot would be cordoned off, so they petitioned the sheriff and the mayor to allow them to mark the westbound shoulder of Route 60 for parking, as well as side streets closest to the fairgrounds. Residents didn’t complain about Route 60, but having their streets clogged up proved a major irritant. The smarter ones parked their cars at the foot of their driveway so no one could block them. Windows had been smashed for less.

  As for Route 60, traffic to the show from both east and west would need to be rerouted to park along the curb of town streets.

  Many of the officials feared that spectators would remain home after the week of wild events; after all, how many Saddlebred shows endured a murder, a van blowing up, and a horse being stolen, and then recovered? The reverse proved true. What is it about the human race that draws it to danger, drama? Let there be a car crash, a house fire, a bridge collapse, and folks will travel for miles to view the disaster. The final night of the horse show was no exception. People started pouring in two hours before the first class.