Dark Horses

by Susan Mihalic

  I followed them in time to see the gurney being rolled away by a bunch of people in scrubs and the paramedic who’d been in the back of the ambulance. Darius, standing in front of a counter staffed by a receptionist, waved me over.

  “Roan, this is Anna. She needs you to answer some questions.”

  I looked toward the heavy pneumatic doors that had closed behind the gurney.

  Anna followed my gaze. “We need to stay out of the way while the doctors work on him. You can help by giving us some information.”

  Darius and I both had paperwork to complete. He led me around the desk to an empty waiting room, where we sat side by side filling out forms on matching clipboards. My father’s medical history was easy enough: He was never sick. He was invincible.

  Except now, suddenly, he wasn’t.

  I wrote in his given name, which no one ever used, and then my own name as his emergency contact, followed by Eddie and Gertrude. Did he have a medical power of attorney? An advance directive? I checked Don’t know.

  The automatic glass doors opened. Gertrude rushed in, saw me doing paperwork, and took the chair on my other side.

  “Eddie’s parking the truck. What’s happening?”

  “I don’t know. They took him in the back. Do you know who his doctor is?” I referred to the form. “His primary care physician?”

  “Hendricks.”

  I wrote it in.

  Darius took our clipboards to the receptionist, then went down the hall and through the doors to the ER.

  Eddie hurried in just as Gertrude had, but now that my father was in the care of doctors, we could only wait. He sat down across from us.

  “Have they told you anything?”

  “Not yet.”

  After twenty minutes or so, both paramedics emerged from the back with the empty gurney, their faces unreadable.

  “What’s happening back there?” I asked.

  “He’s alive,” Darius said.

  “What does that mean? A heartbeat? Brain waves?”

  If Diva had bashed his skull in, his heart could keep beating but his brain could be scrambled.

  “He’s in great physical condition, and that’s in his favor,” Darius said. “You acted quickly. You did everything right. Good luck, folks.”

  They left, and briefly, I felt abandoned.

  I rested my head on Gertrude’s shoulder.

  A cell phone rang. Eddie reached into the pocket of his jeans and looked at the screen. “Yeah, Teo.”

  Faintly, I heard Mateo’s voice.

  “Call me back after Glenn sees her,” Eddie said.

  Mateo said something.

  “Not yet.” Eddie glanced at me. “Yeah, I will.” He returned the phone to his pocket. “They caught Diva. She’s pretty lame. Glenn’s on his way.”

  I sat up. “Whatever he needs to do, I want to save her.”

  Eddie gave me a hard-to-read look.

  “I’m not losing two horses in two days.” I knew who was to blame for this, and it wasn’t Diva.

  “You want to clean up, sugar?” Gertrude said.

  In the women’s room down the hall, I scrubbed the blood from my skin and under my nails, but my shirt and jeans needed more attention than I could give them in a restroom.

  When I came out, Eddie and Gertrude were talking quietly in the waiting room. Anna wasn’t at her desk. Around the corner were the pneumatic doors that led to the ER. Authorized Personnel Only, warned a sign on one of the doors. I pushed the bar and slipped through as the doors parted.

  He was the only patient, so no one had bothered to close the curtains around his cubicle. The half-dozen people working over him looked identical in papery pale yellow masks and gowns. They spoke in calm, competent voices, not barking orders like doctors in movies.

  A tube ran down his throat. He was receiving an IV. The cervical collar and the bandage on his head had been removed, his thick hair had been shaved, and a halo immobilizer had been screwed into his skull. His scalp was bloody. His chest was purple and blue, and his abdomen was bloated. The rest of his clothes had been cut away. Urine drained into a bag hung low on the side of the gurney. It wasn’t yellow but reddish brown—blood.

  “What’s she doing in here?” a woman said.

  Half a dozen people looked my way.

  “I’m his daughter.”

  “Out. We’ll talk to you later.”

  In the waiting room, Eddie and Gertrude looked up as I approached. They’d only worry more if I told them what I’d seen. I didn’t know what any of it meant except it was bad, and we all knew that much.

  “I’m going outside for a minute,” I said.

  The night air was several degrees warmer than the hospital. I stood a few feet from the ER entrance and used my father’s cell to call Will.

  He didn’t answer. The sound of his voice on the outgoing message nearly undid me, but I sounded fairly steady when I left my own message. “It’s Roan. I’m calling from Daddy’s phone.” Forty-eight hours since I’d stopped thinking of him as “Daddy,” the name felt strange on my lips. “Call me back at this number. We’re at the hospital in Sheridan. He’s been hurt… and he may not make it.”

  The breeze picked up, and my eyes teared. Crying might not be a bad thing. It might reassure Eddie and Gertrude that I felt something. I did, but I wasn’t sure what.

  The phone rang, and Will’s number came up on the screen.

  “Will?”

  “I’m on my way. Are you all right?”

  “I wasn’t hurt. Diva trampled him. It was like she was trying to kill him.”

  More like I was trying to kill him.

  On the other side of the smoked glass windows, Eddie was on his phone, too.

  “We’ll talk when you get here,” I said.

  I hung up and went back inside.

  “Have him call me when he gets the results,” Eddie said, “and be careful. Just because she’s injured doesn’t mean she won’t strike out.… Nothing yet.… I will.”

  He disconnected.

  “What?” I said.

  “It’s either a stress fracture or a torn suspensory ligament. They’re taking her to Glenn’s for X-rays and an ultrasound.”

  At least for now, Diva wasn’t getting a needle in the neck.

  “Okay. Thanks. And thank you both for being here.”

  “Where else would we be?” Gertrude said.

  Eddie’s leg jiggled. “Wish they’d tell us something.”

  I couldn’t sit still, either. I paced and watched the double doors, but the next person to come into the ER wasn’t a doctor or a nurse. It was Will.

  I walked straight into his arms and buried my face against his neck as if we’d never broken up.

  “You’re okay?” he said.

  “She didn’t touch me.”

  “And you weren’t hurt yesterday?”

  “My shoulder’s bruised. That’s all.” In fact, sharp pains radiated from my shoulder down my arm and across my back because he was holding me so tightly, but when he released me, I wanted nothing more than for him to hold me like that again.

  He took a step back and looked at my shirt.

  “Not my blood,” I said.

  “Glad you’re here, Will.” Gertrude stood up. “There’s a vending machine somewhere. Coffee or hot chocolate?”

  I looked at her numbly. It was the simplest of decisions.

  “Eddie,” she said, “give me a hand. Let’s see what we find.”

  As they walked away, Will and I sat down on a padded bench.

  “I was watching yesterday,” he said. “You sure you’re all right?”

  “Yeah.” My physical injuries were minor compared to the emotional gutting I’d undergone in the past two days. Minor compared to my father’s injuries, too. Mine weren’t life-threatening.

  “What happened with your father?”

  It could take a lifetime to answer that, but I said, “He was in the stall with Diva. He asked me for her halter, and I fumbled w
hen I was handing it to him. She freaked.”

  He rubbed his thumb over the back of my hand. “It’s not your fault.”

  There was no reason he had to know the truth—except that I deserved to tell it.

  “When Gertrude and Eddie get back,” I said, “let’s go outside.”

  He nodded, and I leaned against him.

  A man in scrubs and a yellow gown approached us, his mask pulled below his chin. He looked familiar, but I didn’t know why.

  “You’re the daughter.”

  “Yes.”

  He looked Will over and was no more impressed with him than he was with me. Then I recognized him. Dr. Stubblehead. He’d been nicer when I’d been a patient. “I’m Dr. Campbell. Do you have an adult with you?”

  “They went to find coffee.” I thought about why he’d want an adult present, and cold overtook me, spreading from my core to my limbs.

  “I suppose I can give you the update. He’s suffered massive multiple traumas. There’s bleeding in his brain and abdomen. The surgeon’s scrubbing up.”

  I heard the dull thud of my father’s skull hitting the wall, saw Diva’s hoofs connecting with the back of his head. I began to shake inside. “Can I see him?”

  “He’s already in pre-op.”

  The shaking spread to the outside. “Don’t let him die.”

  “The priority is to stop the bleeding and control the swelling in his brain, but there’s also a fracture of the C4 vertebra, which has compromised the spinal cord.”

  I’d known several riders who’d sustained spinal cord injuries. The C4 was in the neck.

  “Is the cord severed?” My voice was shaky, too.

  “Yes.”

  With that one word, he took away every physical thing that made my father who he was. If he survived, he’d be a quadriplegic.

  “Someone will talk to you when we know more,” the doctor said, “but it’s going to be a long night.” He walked down the corridor toward the ER.

  Will squeezed my hand. “You know this hospital is a really good trauma center, right?”

  The shaking was out of control and I was cold inside and out by the time Gertrude and Eddie returned, each of them carrying two paper cups.

  “What is it?” Gertrude asked immediately.

  “The doctor came to talk to us.” I started to repeat what he’d said, but I didn’t get beyond “They’ve taken him to surgery” before my teeth started clacking together.

  Will told them the rest. The emotions that preceded grief—apprehension, dismay—came over their faces.

  “Here.” Gertrude held out a paper cup. “Drink this.”

  I took it, hunching over it like it was a tiny campfire. The hot chocolate warmed my fingers through the cup.

  “Do you want to call your mother?” She handed the other cup to Will.

  “No.” My hot chocolate was sloshing right to the edge of my cup.

  Will took it from me. “What if we go outside and warm up? You’re freezing.”

  “Go on,” Gertrude said. “We’ll come get you if there’s any news.”

  Even in the warm air, I couldn’t stop shaking.

  “Let’s get in the truck before you get hypothermia,” Will said.

  “Gertrude and Eddie won’t know where we are.”

  “We’re right here.” He nodded toward his truck, in a parking place near the entrance. “We’ll watch the door.” He set the cups on the roof and took his keys from the pocket of his jeans.

  He opened the door for me and I climbed in. He gave me one of the cups and I drained the hot chocolate, nearly tasteless and so hot that it scorched my tongue, but when he held out the other cup and said, “Here,” I gulped it down the same way.

  He opened the driver’s door, retrieved the sleeping bag from behind the seat, and untied the cords. Then he got in the cab, turned sideways on the seat, and held out an arm in invitation. I leaned back against him. His legs were on either side of me, and as soon as he’d spread the sleeping bag over us, he put his arms around me. It was like being in a Will recliner. Plus, I had a good view of the glass doors that led to the waiting room.

  “You’re still shaking,” he said. “Do you want the heater?”

  “No. This is good.”

  Blue-white floodlights illuminated the exterior of the hospital, spilling into the truck like starlight. He rubbed my arms briskly, warming me, until the shaking stopped.

  “Better?”

  I nodded.

  “I’m sorry about Jasper,” he said. “I didn’t realize until yesterday how risky eventing is.”

  It was the only sport in the world that required participants to wear their medical information on their sleeves, but no riders had died on that course yesterday. Only Jasper.

  “I shouldn’t have been riding this weekend. Jasper’s dead because I did.”

  “A lot of horses went down. They’re saying the course was dangerous.”

  “The course wasn’t the problem.”

  “Okay.” His tone was the same one I used with an agitated horse: Okay. All right. Easy.

  Neither lying nor telling the truth was easy. I always did what I believed would keep me safe: obey my father, make him happy, make him feel good. Keep our secrets.

  I took a deep breath, held it, and exhaled slowly. “Will… Jasper isn’t the only bad thing that happened in Louisville. Daddy found out about us. He found my phone, and he read our texts.”

  “What did he do?” he asked slowly.

  Say it. Don’t say it.

  Say it.

  “He raped me.”

  Will exhaled sharply but didn’t let go of me, didn’t recoil. He was holding me too hard again, compressing my shoulder, breathing like he’d been running.

  “It’s gone on a long time,” I said.

  “How long?”

  “I was six the first time, but he did other things before that.”

  His heart thumped against my back.

  “Carrie’s six. I…”

  When he didn’t go on, I sat up and turned toward him. He glanced down at his chest, where I’d been leaning, as if he’d spilled the rest of his words there.

  “Will, if you can’t hear it—”

  “I can hear it.” His face twisted. “I want to fucking kill him, but if you could go through it, I can hear it. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  I searched for an answer that had some dignity. “It was private.”

  That was what my father had said, but he wasn’t wrong. My humiliation and shame were mine—to hold on to, to let go of… I didn’t know yet. I only knew Will didn’t have the power to make me feel better about the ugly, jagged truth that had kept me silent all these years: It didn’t always feel like abuse. Most of the time, it felt good. Most of the time, I liked it.

  “Do you need a doctor?” he asked.

  I shook my head. I didn’t require a doctor, or a police report, or a social worker. The physical abrasions and tears would heal naturally. I’d find a way to deal with the rest.

  He held out his arms, and I let myself be drawn back into the Will recliner.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry he did that to you. I’m sorry I never asked you about it.”

  “You didn’t have any reason to.”

  He sighed. “No, I did. I could feel something wasn’t right, but I kept finding ways not to know. I should’ve asked you outright.”

  “I’d have lied. I lied to almost everyone.”

  “Almost? You told someone?”

  “My mother.”

  His shock traveled through him and into me. “Why didn’t she stop it?”

  “She didn’t love me enough.”

  Another ugly, jagged truth. Mama’s feelings about me weren’t any more complicated than that.

  Will pressed his lips to the top of my head.

  “There’s more,” I said.

  “I can hear it.”

  I smiled a little, but I took my time before I went on. “This afternoon”—instantly I was bac
k in my father’s closed-up, overheated room—“he said I wasn’t going back to school, not even to take exams. He locked me in my room. My world was shrinking down to him and me.” I was shaking again. “Tonight, during the walk-through, when he went into Diva’s stall, I didn’t fumble with that halter. I snapped the rope at her like a whip.”

  It sounded cold-blooded when I said it out loud, but killing or crippling my father hadn’t been what I’d had in mind. I’d had nothing in mind. Something quicker and more primal than thought had been at work. The instinct to survive.

  “I’m glad you did it.” Will’s voice was low, savage. “I wish Diva had killed him.”

  “If he dies, what happens to the farm? What happens to me?”

  He scoffed. “You think he’d jeopardize the legacy?”

  As soon as he said it, I understood my father would have arranged for whatever it took to protect his precious legacy. The legacy was the thing he loved, not me.

  I knew that wasn’t true, just like what would happen to me wasn’t the only reason I didn’t want him to die. But I wasn’t ready to think about that yet.

  * * *

  EVENTUALLY, HIS ARMS clasped around me, Will dozed off.

  I nearly did, too, but out of nowhere my body bristled with the memory of my father holding me down. Panic and fear stabbed through me like quills shooting out of my skin.

  I breathed my way through it and eventually came back to myself and Will’s arms, not my father’s, and the cell phone lodged against my hip bone.

  My phone had been small, easy to stash. This one was too big to fit comfortably in the front pocket of my jeans. I pulled it out and checked the time. 1:40 A.M.

  I brought up the home screen. Dozens of icons popped up. For all those icons, my father used only a fraction of his phone’s features. He made calls and texted and made pictures.

  I tapped Gallery.

  Thumbnails of Jasper and me populated the screen. They’d been made before and during the dressage phase on Friday. I enlarged the first image, Jasper and me leaving the arena, a mid-stride shot that showed his muscles in remarkable detail. My heart hurt.

  I swiped through the photos. Jasper’s final dressage test played out one image at a time in reverse chronological order. Then came pictures of me feeding him sugar cubes, signing autographs, talking to Eddie outside the barn at home, grooming Vigo, saddling Diva, in flight over jumps, pushing a manure cart, walking down the driveway with Vic.