There was only one thing I could say to that. “Then let’s go.” I swung my legs around and scooched toward the door as Aunt Peg opened it and slid out. “We’ll follow behind them and listen. There’s no need to make our presence known if we don’t have to.”
I hopped Faith down out of the vehicle, pulled a leash out of my pocket, and slipped it on. As I straightened, a mask of thick, wet fog swirled around my head. Faith pressed her body up against my leg. We both found comfort in the contact.
“Do you know which way they went?” I whispered.
“Not toward the barn.” Aunt Peg pointed instead toward the other side of the small lot. “Over there, I think.”
I couldn’t see more than three or four feet in front of me. Whatever lay in the direction she’d indicated was invisible now. I seemed to recall from our previous visit to the training track that it was a big, open field containing a herd of curious yearlings. There hadn’t been any buildings in that direction, nor people either.
Aunt Peg must have remembered the same thing because she said ominously, “Whatever Billy has in mind, it looks like he wants to get Daniel somewhere off by himself.”
I gathered Faith close and the three of us hurried across the driveway. Our footsteps made noise but only for a few seconds. Then we reached the grassy verge on the other side. Aunt Peg and I both stopped to listen.
After a moment, I heard the muted sound of disembodied voices floating in the air ahead of us. “Over there.” I rested a hand on Aunt Peg’s shoulder and turned her in place. “I think I hear them.”
We’d only traveled another fifty feet before Daniel’s and Billy’s voices suddenly became distinct. Now they were raised in anger. Abruptly Aunt Peg and I both stopped moving.
“—don’t owe you any explanations,” Billy was saying.
“I want to know what happened,” Daniel snarled. “You tell me the truth, dammit.” It didn’t sound like the first time he’d issued that ultimatum.
“Miss Ellie had a blind spot where this farm was concerned,” Billy shot back. “That weren’t my fault. That woman badgered me and badgered me until I couldn’t stand it anymore. She never could leave well enough alone. Sometimes a family has to step up and take care of its own problems.”
“What did you do?”
“I told you. Miss Ellie slipped and fell. That’s the God’s honest truth.”
“I don’t believe you,” Daniel snapped.
“I’ll tell you somethin’,” Billy said. “A horse farm is a dangerous place. Plenty of things can go wrong. Things that people don’t even see coming. Sometimes folks get hurt for no reason. Take a city feller like you, for example. You could have an accident and nobody would ever get the blame.”
“I guess you’d know all about how that works,” Daniel replied.
He’d sounded sure of himself only moments earlier. Now his voice quavered. Then I heard the reason why.
“So why’d you bring a gun out here?” Daniel asked. “Because I’m pretty sure there’s no way you’re going to be able to pass off a gunshot wound as an accident.”
Chapter 26
Aunt Peg and I stared at each other in mute horror.
She grabbed my arm and yanked so hard that I almost lost my footing. Together we stumbled backward, retreating until we’d put several additional yards between ourselves and the two men ahead of us.
I wondered whether it was my imagination that Daniel had raised his voice when he mentioned the gun. Was he hoping that we were out here somewhere listening? Had he been he trying to send us a warning?
Aunt Peg leaned in close and pressed her lips to my ear. “Whatever Billy has in mind, we have to get Daniel away from him. Now!”
For once, she and I were in perfect agreement.
“I might have an idea,” I said.
On earlier visits both Erin and Gates had stressed the importance of keeping dogs away from the farm’s flighty Thoroughbreds. Now it occurred to me that unless we’d gotten entirely turned around in the fog, we should be near the pasture that housed a band of rowdy yearling colts. The last thing anyone would want was for an ill-behaved dog to cause those valuable horses to spook.
Unless, of course, one was looking to cause a distraction.
“You stay here,” I said to Aunt Peg. “Somewhere ahead of us is that pasture with the colts in it. Faith and I are going to find it and make our way around the other side.”
“How will that help?”
“If we make enough of a ruckus out there, I’m guessing that the horses will bolt away from us and head in this direction. Even in the fog, you should be able to hear them coming. Billy’s a horseman. That should distract him long enough for you to grab Daniel and run like hell. Billy won’t be able to use that gun if he can’t see where the two of you are.”
“That might work,” Aunt Peg considered.
As it seemed to be the only idea we had between us, one could only hope.
I cupped my hand around Faith’s muzzle and guided her in close to my side as she and I began to move. Eager to avoid the two men in front of us, I angled our direction hard to the left. Eyes straining for clues that weren’t there, ears listening for the slightest sound, I was navigating blind through the soupy mist. Hopefully Faith and I weren’t retracing our steps back toward where Billy and Daniel were standing.
Abruptly Billy’s voice came floating out of the fog. He suddenly sounded a good deal closer than I wanted him to be.
“Now you’re just getting ahead of yourself,” he said. “Nobody’s going to be doing any shootin’. That would scare the horses, don’tcha know. And that wouldn’t be good for business.”
The unpleasant cackle that followed that pronouncement raised the hairs on the back of my neck. Faith felt the same way. Her lips fluttered against my fingers as she whined deep within her throat.
“Shhh,” I said on a quiet breath. “Let’s go.”
Only a few steps later the four-board fence suddenly materialized in front of us, emerging as a dark, solid, presence in a world made of silvery shadows. My shoulders sagged in relief. We weren’t out of the woods yet. Not even close. But at least we were heading in the right direction.
The fence’s highest panel was nearly as high as the top of my head. I lifted a hand and rested it on that upper edge. Now that we had a guideline, Faith and I could move much faster.
We were hurrying through the wet grass when I heard a loud, metallic bang come from somewhere behind us. It sounded like a chain was being rattled or maybe dragged slowly between a pair of metal restraints. Immediately the plots of half a dozen horror movies flashed before my eyes.
Could things possibly get any spookier?
I shouldn’t have asked. Moments later a low, moaning shriek shivered through the damp air.
I stopped and spun around, straining my eyes to see something . . . anything. There was nothing but a swirling wall of mist.
Then I heard Billy speak again. Faith and I must have moved a good distance away because his voice was fainter now. “There’s no need for me to go shootin’ anything, Daniel, when you could just disappear. After that, nobody’d ever have to know that you’d been here a’ t’all.”
I’d barely had time to register the import of Billy’s words before a new voice spoke up. This one carried clearly through the low fog that mired everything around us in half light.
“I would know,” Aunt Peg said emphatically.
Damn, I thought. That wasn’t part of the plan.
“Who the hell are you?” Billy asked. He sounded furious.
He probably wouldn’t be comforted to know that he wasn’t the only one.
If anyone answered Billy’s question, I missed it. Because all at once I heard the soft, steady thrum of approaching hooves. The herd of inquisitive yearlings must have sensed Faith’s and my presence near their fence. They were coming to see who we were and what we were doing beside their pasture.
Seconds later, the first shadowy equine emerged from th
e haze. A chestnut colt with a blaze that crooked sideways over his nose poked his head toward us and snorted under his breath. Then a bay with a broad chest and an unruly forelock came up beside him. His ears swiveled forward and back as he tried to take in everything around him at once. Several other colts quickly crowded in behind the first two.
The horses weren’t the only ones who were curious. Delighted by the yearlings’ sudden appearance, Faith hopped her front feet up on the fence and pushed her nose through the opening to have a closer look. Startled by the Poodle’s sudden move, the chestnut colt skittered sideways. That maneuver knocked him into the bay. The two colts bounced off each other. Both began to backpedal at once.
That set off a chain reaction of bumping and bucking among the entire group. Finally a large dark colt peeled back his lips and bit the yearling beside him on the crest of the neck. With a shrill squeal, the smaller colt lashed back at his aggressor.
And then a shot ran out.
The crack of gunfire was so loud and felt so immediate that reflexively I ducked down and covered my ears. Faith dropped to the ground beside me. On the other side of the fence, the colts threw up their heads and spun around, suddenly alert to danger.
For a moment, everything went still. Then, in a flurry of scrambling legs and lifted tails, the colts took off and raced away into the fog.
The mists were finally beginning to dissipate but even so, I lost sight of the herd within seconds. I hoped that the colts could see where they were going better than I could. Because Faith and I were up and running now too and I still couldn’t see a damn thing.
“Aunt Peg!” I yelled out. “Where are you?”
My call was swallowed by the damp air. No reply came back. Even the sound of hoofbeats was gone.
All at once I felt the same wave of half-panicked helplessness that had haunted my dream. Once again I was lost and out of control. But this time instead of racing along, I felt like I was moving much too slowly.
The fence served as a guide as Faith and I ran back the way we’d come. The colts had vanished—as invisible now as if they’d never existed at all—but suddenly I could hear them again. Judging by the rapid, syncopated rumble of their hooves on the turf, the yearlings were moving fast. It sounded like we were all racing in the same direction.
Then I heard strangled shout. It was definitely a man’s voice. Daniel? Billy? I had no idea which one.
Almost immediately that sound was followed by a resounding crash. As Faith and I rounded the corner, a weak ray of sunlight made its way through the fog and illuminated a small patch of ground before us.
The hoofbeats weren’t just echoing now, I could feel them shaking the terrain. Their movement seemed to rattle my bones. Beside me, Faith skidded to a stop and suddenly sucked back. The leash that attached us to each other whipped me around. The big Poodle pulled me back too and just in time. All at once the colts appeared out of nowhere.
The yearlings should have been on the other side of the fence, still confined within their pasture. But instead they came bursting out of the fog only feet from where the Poodle and I stood. A dozen Thoroughbred colts swept past us, nostrils flaring, muscles bunching, tails streaming in the wind. They were running free and racing for the sheer joy it.
There was no time to worry about what that might mean. A stitch in my side begged me to stop but Faith and I had to keep going. We had to find Aunt Peg and make sure that she was all right.
As if on cue, the thinning fog finally began to lift and a tableau opened up in front of us. My gaze swept anxiously back and forth across the scene. For a minute I couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing.
The gate to the pasture was hanging open and someone was lying crumpled on the ground nearby. A wave of relief swept over me as I realized that the motionless body wasn’t Aunt Peg. She was there too, though. I saw her bending solicitously over the fallen man.
“Are . . . you . . . all right?” I called out when we’d almost reached her side. It took effort to push the words out. I couldn’t catch my breath.
“There you are.” Aunt Peg stood up. She wiped her hands on her pants. “I wondered where you two were.”
Busy panicking, I thought. Running like crazy, and hoping against hope that we’d reach her in time. That was where we’d been.
Aunt Peg meanwhile was cool as a cucumber. It figured.
I looked past her and saw that it was Billy who was on the ground. His body was limp. There was a long, jagged tear in his shirt. His head, facing away from us, was cocked away from his torso at an odd angle. A spot of color nearby caught my eye and I saw that Billy’s baseball cap had been trampled into the dirt.
Aunt Peg grasped my shoulders and turned me firmly around. We both walked several steps away. A subdued Faith accompanied us.
“Is he . . . ?”
“I couldn’t find a pulse.” Aunt Peg crossed her arms over her chest and pulled them in tight. “Daniel’s gone to the barn to get help. But I think it’s too late.”
“What happened?” I asked. “Who opened the gate?”
“Billy did. He intended to take us out into the pasture. Maybe he thought that he could make us both disappear. But then the horses came running out of nowhere. . . .”
“There was a gunshot,” I said. “That was what set them off.”
Aunt Peg shook her head. “Daniel tried to be a hero. When Billy was unlatching the gate, Daniel jumped him. The two of them began to struggle and the gun went off. Nobody paid any attention when the gate fell open. Daniel and Billy were going at each other like a pair of prizefighters.”
“You’re lucky you weren’t shot,” I said gratefully.
“Even luckier that I wasn’t trampled,” Aunt Peg retorted. “Billy looked up in that last moment. He must have heard the horses coming. He knew what that sound meant even if Daniel and I didn’t. He stopped paying attention for only a second, but when he did, Daniel cold-cocked him. Billy dropped like a stone. By the time Daniel and I realized what was happening, there wasn’t time to help him. There wasn’t time to do anything but scramble out of the way ourselves.”
“Horse farms are dangerous places,” I said softly. “That’s what Billy said. He told Daniel how easy it was for accidents to happen out here.”
“It turns out he was right.” Aunt Peg sighed.
The fog was melting away quickly now and I could see the band of loose yearlings. They’d only gone as far as the training barn. The dozen colts were milling in confusion around the open courtyard. Several grooms had come hurrying out of the building to deal with them. Daniel and two other men were running toward us.
As Aunt Peg headed over to meet them, I turned away and gazed out over the beautiful land that surrounded us. A few remaining tendrils of mist clung to the treetops, giving the scene an other-worldly feel. Suddenly I was so homesick that my breath clogged in my throat.
Faith was close beside me, waiting to see what we were going to do next. I reached down and tangled my fingers in the silky hair of her topknot.
“It’s time to go home,” I said.
Faith wagged her tail in agreement.
* * *
Sheldon Gates was the first to arrive.
By that time the loose colts had been rounded up and put away. The grooms had disappeared back into the barn. Sheldon strode across the wide, grassy tract and knelt down beside his cousin’s body. Like Aunt Peg, he checked briefly for a pulse. I was too far away to be sure, but after that it looked as though he slid something out from underneath Billy—the gun, perhaps—and slipped it into his pocket. Then Sheldon walked over to Daniel and pulled him aside to talk.
Miss Ellie’s son, Gates, appeared next. His pickup truck came careening much too swiftly down the rutted driveway. Gates stopped near the barn and surveyed the scene from the cab of his vehicle. His gaze went first to the open gate, then to the empty field. Last of all, it rested upon Billy’s battered body. When Gates hopped out of the truck, he didn’t approach any of us. Instead h
e went directly into the barn and remained there.
“I feel extraneous,” Aunt Peg said under her breath.
“Me, too,” I agreed. But having left Aunt Peg’s minivan at the hotel, we had no choice but to hang around. We were stuck at the farm until Daniel decided to depart.
The police came, followed shortly thereafter by an ambulance. Two officers climbed out of their patrol car and immediately made a beeline for Sheldon. Despite the fact that he hadn’t been present when Billy died, the farm’s co-owner now appeared to be the one in charge.
Daniel returned to stand with Aunt Peg and me.
“I told Sheldon what happened,” he said. “What he’s actually telling the authorities is anybody’s guess.”
We discovered the answer to that quickly enough. The officers declared themselves to be both shocked and saddened to hear that a second calamitous accident had befallen a member of the Gates family. It was tragic that a group of frisky Thoroughbred yearlings had spooked in the fog and that Billy’d had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Nobody mentioned that fact that Billy, a lifelong horseman, would have known better than to allow the pasture gate to swing open wide. Nor did anyone inquire why Aunt Peg and I were there so early in the morning, or what we might have seen. Indeed, although Faith drew several curious glances, no one said anything to us at all.
I decided that was probably just as well. I was in no position to contradict whatever story was being offered up for public consumption. I’d heard mention of a gun but never actually seen one. Nor had I witnessed Billy and Daniel fighting, or the yearlings bursting through the open gate. In fact, now that the fog had cleared and the world around us came into sharper focus, the whole episode was assuming a hazy, dreamlike quality in my mind.
As for Aunt Peg, she waited with a ferocious scowl on her face until Billy’s body had been loaded into the ambulance and the vehicle had disappeared down the driveway. Then she turned and strode purposefully into the barn. By that time, Daniel was already heading toward his SUV. Faith and I hurried to catch up. I didn’t want him to forget that he was our ride.
Live and Let Growl Page 25
