Chord started to gain on the leaders.
By the time they reached the home stretch turn Chord was on the heels of the leaders.
Challenged from behind, the horses in the lead fought back, and it became a race of a kind that a small track like that rarely saw.
It was history.
Chord closed. Josh gave him a touch of the whip, and the horse surged forward obediently.
The third place runner seemed to melt behind them.
They closed on the second place runner, already pushed to its limits.
In the stands the crowd was on its feet, cheering.
It was close.
Chord closed on the leader, stretched to take him.
The two horses closed on the finish line. Both reached for it.
The other horse held on gamely, fighting as Chord kept pushing, but in the end the other horse held on that fraction of a second longer. Their fight set a record for the track, a matter of seconds, but still a record.
As they pulled up, Josh could only sit for a moment in shock.
He looked up and saw Beth coming around the corner at a dead run, her face alight, Russ beside her and gangly Tyler on their heels.
Russ looked like he would burst with pride, with shock.
“Second, Josh,” Beth called. “Chord took Second.”
One of the track employees went to block them.
“No,” Josh said, “let her through, she’s my assistant trainer.”
Beth looked at him, startled, but Russ just clamped a big hand on her shoulder and pushed her to keep her moving. He and Tyler caught Chord’s bridle as Josh came out of the bike to catch Beth up in his arms for a great big smacking kiss.
When all the hoopla was over, the next race running already, Josh stood with the check for his share of the purse in his hands, and watched Beth walk away to gather up her charges.
Her pale golden brown hair flagged in the breeze as her skirt whipped around her legs.
She was so beautiful.
“You know I’m going to ask her to marry me,” Josh said, to no one in particular.
“About time,” Russ remarked.
Startled, a little amused, Josh glanced at him.
“When?” Russ said, to Josh’s look.
“Fair’s first big race,” Josh said, watching as Beth walked through the horses, drivers, and bikes toward the stands, waving at those she’d come to know. “The first time Fair wins us a big race after the stakes race.”
He ran his fingers across the seam of the check. He’d buy her the ring with the money from this check.
“All I can say,” Russ said, “is don’t wait too long, Josh. A woman like that is rare, son.”
Josh stroked a hand down Chord’s neck. “I won’t, and don’t I know it.”
The truth was he couldn’t wait, but he wanted to make it special, something Beth would never forget.
The picture of the winning runners was mounted on the wall of Josh’s farm office.
It showed him in the bike, smiling, with a beaming Beth and Russ holding Chord’s bridle.
Chapter Twenty One
As always at the end of race day the stables bustled with activity as everyone prepared to pack up and leave, walking their charges around prior to putting them into the trailers, brushing out their horses in preparation for loading them, securing the bikes, gathering tack and equipment.
For the stablehands, of course, it was pretty much businesses as usual as they worked under the watchful eyes of the trainers while the owners – dressed in everything from pressed khakis and silk polos to their Sunday best jeans – observed from a polite distance.
Josh, that rare combination of owner/driver, nodded acknowledgement to stablehand and owner alike and received nods in return, some respectful, some assessing.
He’d changed into jeans and a simple white shirt, the sleeves rolled up to expose his forearms, in preparation for the drive home.
Beth stood, her arms clutched around their prizes, smiling so broadly it felt as if her face would split.
Looking at him, a rush of love swept through her, filled her, swelled inside her in a great tide of emotion so intense it left her a little dizzy. She hadn’t known she could feel so much, or so deeply.
It staggered her, overwhelmed her.
Already brushed out, Fair waited patiently in the stable yard.
Lowering his head, he nudged her. Braced for it, she stumbled only a little, laughed, and freed one hand enough to scrub the area between his eyes.
“Yes,” she said, showing him what was in her arms, “see what you did?”
He snorted and blew.
It had been a gamble, a risk Josh had been willing to take, had had to take, balancing the chance of injury against success. Running the horses in increasingly more challenging races, upping the ante, running them against stronger, better known opponents in a race to make a name for Fair and the others, to join the rarified circle of horses who could run in the Triple Crown of Trotters or Pacers.
There was really no choice, and no more time, not for Fair.
It was as if Fair understood that this was his last and only chance to shine, to achieve, to reach for the stars. So he’d threw his whole heart into each race.
As Josh had hoped, racing against Fair had forced the others in his stable to stretch their capabilities. With the challenge of practicing against Fair Adagio, Bella and Chord were showing the strength of their bloodlines.
But it looked as if it were paying off, Beth thought as she looked at what she held.
To their delight in his last race Adagio placed third against horses they once would have considered far above him, losing second by a nose.
It was Chord, though, who surprised them, bringing the crowd to its feet for the first time in a battle for third that pushed the two horses close enough to second to startle the driver of the horse in second place. If Chord hadn’t placed, it hadn’t been for lack of trying, the horse had put his great heart into it, and was getting the attention he deserved for the effort. He was beginning to look like a real candidate for some of the premier pacer races. Mention had been made of The Little Brown Jug in Ohio.
Beth smiled as Fair nudged her again, and she patted him enthusiastically.
He’d done the job himself, too.
She looked down into her arms once again. There was a gold cup there. She was half-tempted to fill it with water or oats and let Fair eat or drink out of it. He deserved it.
She knew Russ and Josh had debated putting blinders on Fair, worried that the noise and bustle of the larger tracks would distract him. In the end Josh had decided against it, he wanted Fair to see the other horses. It had brought out Fair’s competiveness.
Even so, given the condition Fair had been in when Josh had brought him, they hadn’t dared to hope for too much in this first major race.
The gamble had paid off.
Instead, he’d blown every other horse away.
A great roar of astonishment had erupted out of the crowd’s collective throats as they jumped up almost as one. Some in the stands had been shouting, pounding each other on the backs at the idea of a native son winning their most impressive race.
Beth had been standing at the rail screaming with them until her throat was raw, clutching the rail so tightly her fingers hurt even now.
But it had been worth it, every minute of it, to watch as Fair had come out of the corner, closing in on the lead.
It had been astonishing to watch, almost as if the lead horse had been slowing or even standing still, it looked so effortless.
Harness racing was as much a race of skill and strategy as it was a battle of horses, and Josh’s talent showed, too.
Sometimes, though, a horse comes along that just surpasses every expectation.
That was Fair, who never recognized that he wasn’t supposed to pass the leader by lengths…but he did, his legs reaching out smartly, eating up the distance as if it were nothing, to pass across the fini
sh line. Alone.
Tyler had been pounding her on the back, although Beth never felt it, jumping up and down as he’d screamed with her.
Given his time, Fair had a strong chance to at least compete in the Hambletonian at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, the first race of the Triple Crown of Trotters. It was too much to hope for the other two races.
Now they waited to go home and do some celebrating of their own.
“Excuse me,” an unfamiliar voice said softly, from nearby.
Beth turned.
A man stood there, solemnly, his eyes on Fair.
He nodded his head toward the horse.
“Would you mind?” he asked.
For a moment, Beth hesitated, looking at him, but there was something about the man, a deep sadness that spoke to her. The look in his faded blue eyes stripped her bare and made her heart ache. She knew that kind of pain.
Slowly, she nodded.
“Have a care, though,” she said, softly. “He doesn’t like to be touched much.”
The stranger stepped up, holding one hand beneath Fair’s nose for the horse to smell him.
“I know,” he said, his voice deep, a little gravelly.
There was a bitterness and pain in the man’s voice that struck deep.
Beth went still, looking at him.
The horse pushed his nose against the man, as if he recognized him.
Tall, the man was lean in face and body, leaner even than Josh, but there was muscle in his arms, his shoulders, that was visible. Fine lines that spoke of years in the sun sprayed out around his faded blue eyes. Deeper lines had been engraved around his mouth.
Her breath caught at the gentleness of his touch when he took Fair’s bridle and stroked a hand along the arch of Fair’s neck.
So much pain. It was too much. Too much for her to bear alone, just looking at him.
Automatically, instinctively, she turned and looked for Josh.
As if in answer to her thought, Josh turned and looked over his shoulder at her.
Beth, and a stranger touching Fair.
“Can you handle this?” Josh said, looking from Russ and Will to Tyler.
As Chord was Will’s baby in a way, Will was more than glad to take sole possession of ‘his’ horse.
Pride rushed through Josh as Tyler nodded, pride for both Will and Tyler. Both had stepped up to the plate as needed.
It was Tyler, though, who most amazed him, remembering the silent boy Josh had seen first in his paddock and then in the courthouse.
Both had made tremendous strides, but Tyler’s had been the greatest. He’d taken to racing as if he’d been born to it. He had great hands with the reins, so they were already teaching him to drive.
“Russ,” he said.
The other man joined him as Josh walked to Beth’s side.
Out of sheer habit, Josh slid a hand around Beth’s waist, drew her close, and looked at the stranger standing there.
The man didn’t look at him, his eyes were only for the horse. He didn’t so much as turn his head in acknowledgment, but Josh understood the man knew he and Russ were there.
Something, though, kept them both silent.
It was something about the set of the man’s face, the way he held his shoulders, as if something inside him hurt so badly he might shatter. Or the way he stroked his hand ever so gently over Fair’s neck, the gesture soothing.
A moment of silence fell over all of them, over everything, so that every word that was spoken rang clear as a bell.
Only the man’s head turned, to look at Josh.
“You know how it is,” he said grimly, his washed-out blue eyes steady, but there was grief in them. “Back east.”
A chill went through Josh. He did. Some breeders were cutting their losses. Not everyone in racing did it for the love of it. His breath shuddered in his chest when he pulled it in, a spear of pain shooting through him as both his mouth and his jaw tightened in response to the look in the man’s eyes. There had been a time not too long back when it had been just as tough, and some had chosen a different route.
He glanced at Russ, saw a like expression mirrored there, a bitterness and a sorrow.
Bewildered, Beth glanced from one to the other of them.
Seeing her look¸ the man took a breath, and nodded.
This was what he’d come here for, she could see it in his eyes.
Absolution.
“Times have changed,” the stranger said softly. “You know it, I know it. Time was when people did it for the love of racing, for the excitement as well as the investment. Some still do…but not many. For most it’s still an investment. And a losing one.”
He paused, almost bowing his head against Fair’s neck.
“Times changed, racing changed, the economy changed,” the man said. “Everything changed.”
For a breath it seemed there was only a strange silence broken by the faint voices of those around them, the jingle of harness, and the anticipation of the man’s next words.
Josh wanted to protest, but found he couldn’t. It was nothing more than the truth.
“It got more expensive,” the man said, “to maintain stables, to provide the feed, the land became more valuable for building condos and townhouses. And the insurance on things like barns, stables…and horses, became much more attractive.”
The man’s voice fell into that breathless silence, his words like stones.
“Not that long back there was a rash of unexplained fires in the east, particularly in the Northeast,” the stranger said. “A lot of fires.”
“Some blamed it on the stable hands smoking, but fire is something all stables fear, being around so much flammable stuff,” he said grimly, and there was an aching grief in his voice. “Strangely, most of those fires started late at night or early in the morning. Very few of the horses survived.”
“One of the owners said he was grateful that only property damage had been done,” the stranger said, his voice thick with grief. “There was no loss of life. It was sad, but at least only horses had died.”
Beth didn’t know how to encompass the depths of the grief in his voice. Her eyes burned.
She looked up at Josh, who tightened his arm around her, his face stark as he pressed a kiss to her forehead.
The stranger’s eyes were on Fair’s neck, but it was clear that wasn’t what he was seeing.
He was watching whatever had happened that night.
“I can still hear them screaming,” the stranger said. “The horses.”
Her heart broke.
Tears streamed down her face.
“I found Fair in his stall, wearing his halter, tied to the rail. He had done well in his early races, but it hadn’t been enough. He was more valuable dead because of it.”
The stranger looked to Josh, then to Russ. “You understand.”
The impact of the man’s words struck Josh hard. His mouth and jaw tightened in helpless fury and grief. He glanced at Russ, and saw his own expression mirrored there.
“Yes,” he said, bitterly.
The nameless man nodded.
“I see you do.”
Those ghostly eyes settled on Beth, as understanding dawned on her.
Horror whispered.
No.
It wasn’t the stranger who spoke, but Josh.
“They led him in there,” he said.
“Yes,” the stranger said. “He was worth more dead than alive. The rope would have burned in the fire. All they would have found was the horse, dead in his stall.”
Josh swore, softly, bitterly.
No wonder Fair had hated being inside, if the arsonist had led him into the burning barn.
The stranger stroked Fair’s strong neck.
“No one wanted to talk about it,” the man said. “No one did. It was happening too far apart for police jurisdictions. Truth was, they’re just animals as far as the police are concerned. It’s fraud and theft, but money isn’t enough to save them.”
&n
bsp; He looked at Fair.
“The owner, after the fire? He said he was just grateful no one died.”
He took a breath. “Fourteen horses died that night.”
There was a pause.
“I can still hear them screaming, the ones we couldn’t save.”
He patted Fair’s neck.
“I’m glad he’s found a good home,” he said. “Show them what you’ve got, son. Show them what they missed.”
Chapter Twenty Two
This racetrack was much bigger and much fancier than the ones they’d been to in the spring. In this they were behind, since Fair was an unknown. He had no races as a two-year-old to establish himself and only one race as a yearling.
So they needed to at least get him some seasoning before they could start him in the bigger races. He was handicapped by that lost year with only slight advantages.
He had easily won his last two races, buying him a spot in this one, but not in the best position at the gates. It would take a lot more skill on Josh’s part to get him into a good position to win.
Beth thought she’d never been so nervous.
This time they hadn’t been able to bring some of the folks from the home, but Tyler was with her, and Tyler’s mother, Mary, had come, too. Will was helping down at the stables, of course, but Tony and the boys had come, too.
Still it was Tyler who was her rock at moments like these.
Beth glanced up at him and shook her head. “When are you going to stop growing?”
Grinning, he just shrugged. “I’m not complaining.”
“I am,” his mother groused affectionately, “it’s a good thing he makes his own money, because I had to buy him three new pairs of pants the other day or it would look like we were preparing for a flood.”
Tyler blushed.
“It won’t be long now,” he said, to change the subject.
Down in the stable yard they were almost finished with the last of the prep, Fair waiting only a little impatiently, shifting from one foot to the other. Will held him steady.
Russ soothed him with a pat. “He’s not jumping out of his skin, just excited. It’s a good sign.”
Climbing into the bike, settling himself, Josh felt something in his pocket.
The Girl in the Window Page 16
