Hayburner (A Gail McCarthy Mystery)

by Laura Crum

  "I never set any fires on purpose," he said. "They were just campfires that got away."

  "You were cooking food?"

  "That's right. A rabbit I'd snared."

  "For dinner?"

  John met my eyes. "Yeah. For dinner."

  Once again, we stared at each other in silence.

  "Your mother-" I began.

  "You keep your mouth off my mother, boss. I mean it. I won't put up with it. She did what she could and I do not have to hear shit from you."

  "I didn't mean-"

  "Shut up." Anger blazed up, full force. He shoved his face in front of mine. "She's my mother, damn you."

  My eyes were riveted to his scorching-hot eyes; my ears roared, my head spun. Enough rage here to light a hundred barns on fire. In another second it was gone; the dark eyes were as quiet and surly as ever. John looked abashed and stepped back.

  "I'm sorry," he said roughly. "It's not something I can talk about."

  "I understand." My heart was drumming as if I'd run a marathon. "I'm sorry, too."

  This time, when he turned to go, I let him.

  Whew. My head was throbbing. I put a hand against the wall to steady myself. My God. After a minute had passed and my breath came more quietly, I followed John into the clinic.

  Nancy met me at the door. "Ellen Weaver has a severely lame horse and she wants you to come right away. She says he had a nail in his foot yesterday and she pulled it out, but today he's worse than ever."

  "All right. Tell her I'll be right there."

  Ellen Weaver was my only client who boarded her horse out at Quail Run Ranch. Since the place was run by Hans Schmidt's daughter, Jeanie, most of the boarders, with plenty of encouragement from the proprietor, went with Hans for their vet work.

  Quail Run Ranch, when I arrived, looked even more depressing than usual. In theory, running a large herd of horses out on several hundred acres ought to have been a pretty sight. In practice, however, it was anything but.

  Everything out at Quail Run looked neglected. What was left of an old barn was falling down and no longer in use; the barbed wire fences sagged and swayed and were virtually flat on the ground in places. Precious little grass was left to cover the dusty pasture, and what there was of it was brown and dry. I couldn't see the big horse herd anywhere, which wasn't surprising, as the ranch covered a small range of rolling hills, but the gelding who was waiting for me with his owner looked as sad as the place.

  I'd been Drummer and Ellen Weaver's vet for almost seven years now, which was perhaps the explanation for her loyalty to me in the face of Jeanie Schmidt's opposition. Jeanie herself was waiting with Ellen, I was less than pleased to see.

  The two women stood side by side, the horse on a lead line between them. Jeanie Schmidt was about my own age, Ellen Weaver some ten years older. Both women looked remarkably alike, rounded and soft, with short, neat, blondish gray hair and a little too much makeup. Though both were involved with horses, neither was in any sense an experienced horsewoman.

  I got out of my truck slowly, trying to compose myself over the din in my ears and the perpetual headache, which painkillers seemed to dim but couldn't relieve.

  "Hi, Ellen," I said. "Hi, Jeanie." The women greeted me, warmly on Ellen's part and coolly on Jeanie's, but I barely noticed. I was staring at Drummer.

  A Quarter Horse-type gelding of about 15.3 hands, Drummer was a bright bay with four high white socks and a blaze; he reminded me a little of my horse, Gunner, though Drummer lacked the blue eye. He had the same bright, inquisitive expression though, and the same playful attitude, a manner that had caused my old boyfriend, Lonny Peterson, to nickname Gunner "Clown."

  That is, Drummer had once appeared to me in this way. Now he was thin as a rail, every rib showing, his coat rough, and his eye dull. He was standing on three legs and pointing the toe of his right front foot, which was obviously too painful to bear any weight. He looked terrible.

  Neither his owner nor Jeanie seemed aware of this. Ellen chatted to me in a friendly fashion and Jeanie made desultory comments, and both of them appeared oblivious to Drummer's state.

  My examination revealed a deep puncture wound in the horse's right front sole, and Ellen told me she'd used a pair of pliers to remove a very large rusty nail from that foot the day before. It had been driven in at least two inches, she said.

  I explained to her that such a puncture wound could be really serious, took the horse's temperature and confirmed he was running a fever of 103 degrees, took X rays that showed no structural damage, blocked the foot so that the horse felt no pain, and used my hoof knife to dig out at the wound so it could drain. Then I wrapped the foot with bandaging materials, gave the horse IV antibiotics and painkillers, informed Ellen she'd need to soak the injured hoof in hot water and Epsom salts at least once a day and rewrap it, and that Drummer would need antibiotics in both his breakfast and his dinner for at least ten days. After that I handed her the bill.

  Ellen Weaver stared at me in disbelief. "How am I going to do all that? I don't have time. And he's just turned out here in this pasture. How can I catch him, or give him the antibiotics?"

  Jeanie looked over Ellen's shoulder at the bill and sniffed. Ostensibly to Ellen, but quite audibly, she whispered, "My father would have charged you half of that. And you really don't need to do all that. It's overkill. Nature will heal this horse."

  I saw red. Literally, for a second. I closed my eyes and through the constant roar in my head I seemed to see flashes of red light. Enough was enough.

  "Ellen, haven't I been your vet for seven years?" I demanded.

  "Yes." Ellen looked startled.

  "Have you found me trustworthy."

  "Well, yes."

  "Then listen to me here, because I'm going to give you a piece of truth. I don't care if you want to use Hans Schmidt as your vet. It doesn't bother me at all. I don't even really care if you renege on your bill. But I do care what you do to this horse."

  I put a hand on Drummer's shoulder. "This is a nice horse and I've known him a long time. He's been good to you. When you bought him you were a beginner and he never gave you any trouble. He pretty much taught you to ride. There are a lot of horses who wouldn't have taken care of you like that. In my view, you owe this guy one.

  "Now look at him, really look at him. He looks terrible."

  I ran my hand over the gelding's rib cage. "You shouldn't be able to see his ribs like this. And look at his hair coat. I don't know who convinced you to turn him out here, or what Jeanie and her dad have been saying about Nature's ways, but this horse is not getting enough to eat. He needs hay twice a day, and maybe a little grain, at this point.

  "And trust me on this one. Your horse does need the regime I just described to you if you want him to recover and be sound. A horse who gets injured like this in the wild will often die of it. That's Nature's way. If you can't get him doctored here, then move him to a stable where you can keep him in a pen for a while. Take care of him. Feed him, for God's sake."

  I took a deep breath. Both the women were staring at me with big eyes, as if I'd suddenly turned into a raging lunatic. Maybe I had. I knew, I really knew, that launching off into an angry tirade was not the way to convince a client to treat a horse properly. I simply hadn't been able to help myself.

  After a moment I dropped my eyes from the two shocked faces. ''I'm sorry," I said. "He does need the treatment. I guess I'll be going."

  As I turned away, I could hear Jeanie's sibilant whisper. "Call my dad. I'm sure he'll help. He's really wonderful."

  I got in my truck with angry tears filling my eyes. I hadn't done that poor horse a bit of good, I was sure of it. I'd only alienated Ellen Weaver, a longtime client. Just how stupid could I be? Perhaps this concussion really was affecting my judgment. Staring unseeingly through the windshield as I drove, I imagined that Ellen was even now calling Hans Schmidt to come out and have a look at her horse.

  I let my mind dwell on Hans awhile. Hans with hi
s flashy looks, fit body, constant rhetoric. Rhetoric that had, in the past, apparently led to action. Could Hans be the arsonist? Was Hans stalking me?

  Nothing came to my mind. No image, no intuition. Only a memory. Hans himself had told me that he trained by running the deer paths through these hills. And he lived only a few miles away from me. It would have been a simple thing for Hans Schmidt to have made his way through the brush to my place. And, for that matter, to have left Judith's barn in the dark, on foot.

  Hans was more than athletic enough and very familiar with the trails. But then, I reminded myself, John Romero had once hunted animals for food. I wondered where John lived.

  After a minute, I called the office. Nancy had set me up with two more calls. A horse in Watsonville who had been intermittently lame for a week and a recheck on Angie Madison's mare, Sugar.

  "Where does John live?" I asked her.

  "In Harkins Valley somewhere," she said, sounding surprised. "I can look the address up for you, if you want."

  "That's okay," I said hastily.

  I hung up the phone with the feeling of having forgotten something important looming large in my mind. What, I asked myself, what? But no answer presented itself. Just that sense that there was something, something there.

  * * *

  I diagnosed the horse with the intermittent lameness as having a small stone trapped between the shoe and the hoof. When this was confirmed by the simple expedient of pulling the shoe, I got a large smile and a clap on the back from the owner, a hearty-seeming man in his sixties.

  "I thank you, Doc. 1 thought it would be something bad like navicular, for sure."

  I smiled back, pleased to be the bearer of good news rather than bad for once. Fifteen minutes later, I was pulling into the Bishop Ranch driveway, looking for Angie.

  Automatically it seemed, my eyes went to Clay's house. His pickup was gone; the little sports car sat neatly covered in the driveway. Clay was most likely off at work. The big dually pickup Bart drove seemed to be absent also.

  There was a blue truck with a matching horse trailer hitched to it sitting in the dirt parking lot, however, and after a minute Angie Madison emerged from a nearby shed row, leading Sugar. She tied the mare to the blue trailer as if she belonged there and motioned me in that direction.

  Even from a distance I could see that Angie was mad as hell. Her dark, springy curls seemed to wave wildly in all directions as she moved with short, sharp, jerky strides. Everything about her was choppy. Sugar shied violently as Angie passed by, even though the woman seemed to have done nothing overt to startle the horse.

  I walked in the direction of the blue truck and crossed my fingers. Something had pissed Angie off, and I sure as hell hoped it wasn't me. I was not in the mood for being bawled out.

  For once I seemed to be in the clear. Angie spoke to me in perfectly civil tones, despite the displeasure written all over her face. She wanted to start training Sugar again, she said. She just wanted to be sure the mare's lungs were clear.

  I listened carefully and verified that all seemed well. "Are you going somewhere?" I asked, gesturing at the truck and trailer.

  "Just home."

  "Oh."

  And then, in a rush, as if she couldn't help herself, Angie added, "And away from that asshole, Bart."

  "Oh," I said again. It was a well-known fact that Bart's romantic attachments tended to be short and to end badly. Usually his current girlfriend would take offense at some too-obvious flirtation and that would be that.

  "Are you and Bart calling it quits, then?"

  "I am," Angie snapped. And then, with a mollifying smile, "How about you? Are you still dating Clay?"

  "Uh, no."

  "Oh. Well for my money, he's the nice brother."

  "What happened with you and Bart?" I asked curiously.

  "Nothing really. I just got tired of him thinking his shit doesn't stink." Angie sniffed. "Like he was doing me a favor to go out with me. Believe me, I can find another one."

  I believed her.

  ''I'm sorry," I said awkwardly. "Must be a hassle, finding a new place for your horse."

  "It's no big deal," Angie said crisply. "I live just down the road, right next to Christy George. I can keep Sugar at home. I only brought her here because it was convenient to use the arena to train her."

  And to see Bart, I added to myself.

  "Thanks, Gail," Angie added.

  "Start her out slow, all right?"

  "I will. She's too good a mare for me to take a chance."

  And Angie loaded Sugar in the trailer and was gone.

  I followed her out, staring at Clay's little house as I went. I still couldn't fathom Clay Bishop and what appeared to be his mysterious devotion to me. The nice brother, Angie had said. Something about it was bothersome.

  And then my cell phone rang. "Gail, we've got a bad emergency, up in Scotts Valley. A broken leg. Jim and John are both tied up."

  "I'll be right there."

  Immediately I forgot about anything but horses. Horses and their slender, fragile, all too easily damaged legs, which seemed much too insubstantial for such large creatures. Once again I took a deep breath and prayed. "Let this not be too bad. Let me be able to help this horse. Please."

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Friday morning I awoke at dawn to the crack of a rifle. Heart pounding, I lay next to Blue's quietly sleeping form and trembled. That was a shot. My mind repeated it obsessively, over and over. That was close.

  The noise came again, hard and sharp. I jumped out of bed. I knew, even as I moved across the room that the rifle and whoever held it were not on my ridge. My mind had assimilated the sound and found it familiar-just poachers, a mile or so away, perhaps hunting the very buck I had seen last weekend.

  The fact that hunting was illegal in these parts did not prevent a few folks from pursuing it, and I often heard rifle shots early in the morning this time of year. I leaned on my window and noticed with surprise that the sky outside was cloudy.

  It had been clear and warm for so long that any deviation seemed unheard of. Blue had told me last night that a front was coming in, but I'd rebutted by reminding him of all the other potential fronts that had never materialized.

  "This one's for real," he'd said. "It's a cold front. They're predicting thunder and lightning, maybe hail, the whole works."

  "I'll believe it when I see it," I told him.

  Well, the sky was certainly heavy and gray. I stood in my bare feet and looked out the window while my heart slowed down. I took note that the buzz in my ears, though faint, was still apparent, and that I ached right behind my temples. My symptoms were diminishing, but they were still there.

  When I felt calm again, I looked over my shoulder at the bed and Blue. He lay on his back, still asleep, breathing quietly. Quite suddenly, he appeared to me as heroic, noble, a Greek statue of a man. I stared at the way his wavy hair sprang back from his high brow, his straight nose, the strong, square, cleft chin.

  Equally suddenly, I was consumed by the urge to touch him. Padding softly to the bedside, I knelt on the floor and pressed my lips to his chest. Breathing in, I trailed my mouth through the fine red-gold hair that covered his skin. I kissed the hollow between his collarbones; I nibbled gently at his shoulder.

  Blue opened his eyes. "Hmmm," he said sleepily, and stretched. I kissed my way across his belly, pulled the covers down, and moved lower.

  "Mmmm," Blue said again. "That feels good."

  I didn't reply, being otherwise occupied.

  Many long minutes later, Blue cradled me in his arms and kissed my mouth. "You are so sweet, Stormy. Now what about you?"

  "I'm not feeling too randy these days," I told him honestly. "Something to do with my head hurting all the time, I guess."

  "I can imagine."

  "It'll come back."

  "I know." Blue squeezed me comfortably. "I'm not worried."

  "That's good." Disentangling myself from his arms, I stood up. "Looks l
ike you were right about the rain."

  We both stared out the window. The sky seemed to be pressing down against the treetops in that dark way that indicated this particular front meant business.

  "We might get a little wet," Blue agreed.

  "Well, it's sure time." I pulled on my jeans. "And I've got to hurry. I've got a full day today."

  An hour later, chores done, I drove out my front gate, sipping coffee from an insulated cup. The boughs of the Monterey pine that arched overhead moved and tossed in the rising wind. Storm coming up.

  My mind tossed right along with the branches. Though I felt momentary peace in Blue's company, overriding anxiety crept in as soon as I was alone. The perennial sense that I knew something I needed to remember tormented me. But I could bring up nothing from the depths of my psyche.

  Work was my only consolation, work and its constant busyness. While I was occupied with horses I forgot my fear; I even forgot my headache. Being occupied was my respite.

  To keep the ever-present tension at bay, I reviewed my scheduled calls as I drove. A mysterious lump on a useful rope horse, a soundness exam on a prospective jumper, a culture on a mare who had absorbed her foal.

  And of course, there would be emergencies. There almost always were. And there would be John.

  At the thought of John Romero, my heart started to accelerate. This was my constant reaction to the man, to his physical presence or his image in my mind. A rush of adrenaline.

  Not for the first time, I pondered what this meant. Was John my assailant? One thing I knew; John was avoiding me with an adroitness that verged on amazing. Considering that we worked in the same office, I barely saw him.

  Today looked like no exception. John's truck was in the parking lot when I got to the clinic, and one of the vet trucks was already gone. Nancy confirmed what I suspected. Just like the last few mornings, John had come in early and left on his calls before I arrived.

  I was discussing my own calls with Nancy when the phone rang. In another minute, Kelly, the youngest receptionist, ran toward me.

  "Gail. There's a bad wreck on Highway One. Up near Davenport. Horses on the road, some are dead. People, too. You've got to go now."