by Lincoln Cole
“Because…” Emily started. A long moment passed. She shook her head and came into the room. She sat on the edge of his bed and put her hand on his leg.
“Because Jenny is different,” Jason said.
“Yeah,” Emily agreed. “Jenny is different.”
“That doesn’t make her bad.”
“I know,” Emily said. Another long pause. “Some people just get embarrassed around someone like Jenny.”
“Like Mr. White?”
Emily hesitated. And then she nodded.
Jason thought about it. “Mom,” he said, his voice timid. “Am I different?”
She smiled. It was a sad smile. “Everyone is different. You are special, just like everyone else. In your own way. One day you’ll be a great writer, and we’ll all be very proud of you.”
That made him feel better. He relaxed back into his pillow.
“I think I’ll use Jenny in one of my stories,” he said. “And you, and dad, and Rickie.”
“What about Beth?”
Jason smiled. He felt sleep approaching. His mom always made him feel better. Safer. The world made sense with her around. “Yeah,” he said, then yawned. “She can be in my story too; because every good story needs a monster.”
1975 - Bethany Greenwood
Daddy’s little girl
I smile as he finishes talking.
“That would have been an interesting day,” I say. “Definitely sounds like Mellie. Trying to keep everyone calm.”
“She was a saint.”
That she was.
“I…” I say, then hesitate. Suddenly I want to curse at Edward, because these memories feel like they are ripping me apart. I didn’t want to remember any this. That’s why I wasn’t planning on anyone coming by. “I missed so much. I loved my children completely, but I just missed so God damned much.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“Then whose fault was it?” I say.
“No ones,” he says. “It’s just…life.”
I shake my head. “I missed so damn much…”
“You got a lot back,” Edward says. “You even started working at the track again.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
“The track?” I ask. “Gods, yes. I loved going to the track. It was one of the few places I felt safe, like the world actually made sense. It was something I could actually confront. Actually deal with.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I loved taking my kids there, but they didn’t like going. Thing was, I didn’t really know how to talk to them, and things were just…easier when we were around the horses.”
“How-so?”
I pause, thinking about how to explain it.
“I only worked at the track part time, and this was years after I started working for the factory. Let me tell you about one of the times I took Bethany, and maybe it’ll make more sense to you…”
***
Bethany felt the rough texture of seasoned wood beneath her fingertips. The last time she came to the track with her father he spent an hour digging six splinters out of her fingers when they got home. This time she was being much more careful when she sat on the bench. Wherever her hand touched the wooden frame it came away with loose slivers of paint that were faded red.
The thin sticky pieces clung to her skin. She brushed them absently onto her pant leg but they didn’t want to let go. She didn’t care that she was dirty. Or sweaty. Or tired.
Right now all she cared about was the deep pitched thrum of hooves on sand. She closed her eyes and let it wash over her, carried on the wind that blew strands of hair about her face.
The horses were on the far side of the training track right now, on the backstretch. Four of them, pacing in a line at just over a two-nineteen clip: Deborah’s Breeze, Golden Anchor, Noble Land Sam, and of course Maribeth’s Vision.
Quite naturally, Maribeth’s Vision was her favorite, if only because of the name.
The sound transported her imagination. Maybe she was on a beach, far from the racetrack outside her hometown. She imagined the horses were proud Destriers, bearing armored Knights into combat against a hated enemy. Or perhaps they were sleek Arabian stallions with wedge shaped heads traversing an endless desert landscape. Still again she pictured Mongol warhorses, outliers for the horde as they traveled across fields of tall grass. Mountains rising in the distance, striving to touch the skies.
When she opened her eyes, she knew, the illusion would disappear. She clenched them shut tighter, feeling more than hearing the horses’ approach. The noise intensified, which meant they were rounding the turn. That meant they would be coming into the stretch in only a few seconds.
At the head of the Knight patrol would be a brave knight with strong features and wind whipped hair. She pictured him in her mind, involuntarily smiling as the horses approached. She couldn’t help but imagine him (the fictional man she would one day marry) and wish that the real boys at her school could be even half as perfect as the man she dreamed about.
The wind carried on it the myriad smells of sweat mixed with leather tinged with manure from the surrounding fields. Some were more pleasant than others, but each contributed to the whole. The sound pitched higher as the horses passed her bench, rounding the next turn and heading into the backstretch, and then it diminished. The drivers eased the horses down at a gradual pace, letting them relax to a more comfortable jog.
“Damn it,” her father growled from beside her.
Her eyes popped open and she glanced up at him. He was standing on the six-tiered bleachers next to her, frowning at the pocket watch in his hand. “I told him to push that last quarter. Six seconds too slow.”
“They looked good to me,” she said.
He looked at her, still distracted. He was wearing dirty overalls and an old boiler hat, a gift from Mr. Rhodes. Argus Rhodes was the owner he occasionally worked for when he found time around his job at the factory. Mr. Rhodes had hired him years ago and they’d become friends.
Her father looked tired. His skin was blotched and burnt around the neck from constant exposure to the welding equipment he used, and his hair was turning salt and pepper as he got older. His eyes were hard, though, and intensely focused. Especially when he was angry.
“Six seconds too slow,” he repeated. “I told him to hit two-oh-nine, he hit two-fifteen.”
Bethany wasn’t sure which driver ‘he’ was of the four men. Probably Jarod. He was the driver that worked most often for her father. And she only knew him because he’d been over to dinner at their house a few months ago. He was several years older than she was (and occasionally it was his face she imagined on the Knight, but only occasionally). He was friendly, handsome, and perpetually dirty.
He rode in all of the races for Mr. Rhodes. That meant he also helped train the horses. He was also the man who drove Maribeth’s Vision in all of her fair starts, which endeared him to Bethany right away. Especially her most recent streak of wins.
She watched as the horses headed for the track exit. It was a quiet day in late June, the air heavy and sweltering. Her hair clung to her face and she found herself absently brushing it away every few seconds. The wind was nice, when it rolled by, but when it didn’t the air tasted stale.
And if she was hot, she couldn’t even imagine how hard days like this were on the horses. They worked the horses around nine miles on training days. Her father always told her that was what made standard-bred horses better than thoroughbred. Standard-bred horses were desired originally for strength and durability.
Thoroughbred were only prized for speed. Endurance mattered for longer races, but never at the cost of increased speed. Thoroughbred horses—through generations of inbreeding with speed as the only desired quality—were prone to breaking legs or hurting tendons. She knew her father trained thoroughbred when he was younger, but Mr. Rhodes worked around the county fair circuit. That meant standard-bred.
Her fath
er always told her that if you ever wanted a horse that was useful beyond racing, to buy a standard-bred. That’s what the Amish always wanted, because they needed horses that could work all day.
It was also the everyman racing animal. Mr. Rhodes horses raced locally where everyone could watch and enjoy in person. Most owners were blue collar people, getting their hands dirty right alongside trainers and grooms. It wasn’t just rich families or Sheikhs competing with million dollar animals.
She liked them because they reminded her of carriage races in the Roman Coliseum, albeit less dangerous and with lighter carriages.
She loved to come to the training track with her father. Occasionally Jason came too. He never offered to bring Rickie, and Rickie never wanted to go.
And to be honest, she didn’t really care that much about the races. It was being around the horses that she loved. It didn’t matter that these weren’t the fastest horses alive. They were strong, beautiful, friendly, and intelligent. She loved petting them. Touching them. Taking care of them. They were simple and happy, each with a unique personality not unlike that of a person.
It was fun when her family went to county fairs and watched Mr. Rhodes’ horses compete. They sat in the grandstand along with a few hundred other spectators and cheered along with the crowd.
But it was an entirely different experience to go into the stall with the animal; to rub its muscles down after a hard workout and offer it an apple.
Maybe she would get to give Maribeth’s Vision an apple once her workout was complete.
Her father dropped down off the bleacher to the sand below and Bethany dropped down after him. He marched toward the barn like a man on a mission. The grooms were removing the carts and the four horses were being led into the barn, out of the sunlight, so the horses could get a breather. The barn had twenty-six stalls, two baths, and enough cross-ties down the aisle for seven horses to be prepped for training simultaneously.
“Jarod!” her dad shouted as they stepped through the haze of the summer sun and into the gloom of the shadowy barn.
Bethany sneezed. Dust hung in the air, caught by rivulets of light piercing through holes in the ceiling. The barn was old, the ventilation lacking, and just being wreaked havoc on Bethany’s allergies.
Jarod was unbuckling his helmet, mild fear in his eyes. He dropped the helmet on a nearby gray tack trunk and turned to her father.
“I know what you’re going to say…”
“You damn well better know what I’m going to say,” Calvin said. “I told you to push them for two-six. Or at least hit two-nine.”
“Sam had a hitch in his step when I tried to pick him up. I think he tossed a shoe.”
“Well did you check?”
The driver opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it again. Bethany was fairly certain he was about to ask her father when he was supposed to have checked, since he just now got into the barn and hadn’t even had time to finish tying the horse off. Or, at least, that’s what she would have asked if she was in his shoes.
But it would have been what her father liked to call a ‘smart-ass comment.’ He didn’t like ‘smart-ass comments’.
Instead, Jarod turned to face the standing horse. Noble Land Sam was breathing in and out of his nostrils, occasionally tossing his head. His coat was covered in frothy sweat where the leather equipment rubbed his sides.
Jarod first checked the rear hooves, and after verifying that the shoes were still solidly attached, moved to the front. The right shoe was still fine and solid, but the front left was missing. The horse was also reluctant to adjust his weight off that side. Jarod squeezed the callused knob on the inside of the leg, just above the horse’s knee, and finally got it up.
“Well?” Calvin asked, folding his arms and staring at Jarod. He leaned back against a tack trunk.
“Uh. He lost it.”
“No shit.”
A moment passed.
“Well, Jarod, what are you waiting for?”
“Uh…what…?”
“Go. Get. It.”
Jarod opened his mouth again, then closed it, then opened it again. This time it stayed that way for a good five seconds. Her father stared at him, narrowing his eyes and waiting for an objection.
The driver thought better of it. “Okay,” Jarod said, nodding. With a sigh, he took off his driving jacket and dropped it on the tack trunk. Then he disappeared back out into the sunlight, plodding his way toward the track.
Finding a lost shoe on the track, Bethany knew, was about as hard as finding a needle in a haystack. It was a half mile oval and there was no telling where the shoe might have landed or when it came loose. It could be in the grass of the infield, buried under the sand of the track, or any number of places.
The only thing worse was searching for a lost shoe in a four acre field of grass. That was why her father often pulled their shoes before turning them out into the paddock.
Her father turned to face her. “Clean Sam down and give him a bucket bath.”
“I thought this was a training day?” she asked, scrunching her nose. On training days they normally took the horses out for at least four separate trips. This was only Noble Land Sam’s second time out.
Calvin shook his head. “He’s done for the day. Mr. Rhodes has to get a blacksmith out here and that’s going to take an hour. And then he’s going to have to reshape the shoe and put it back on which is another hour. I’m not going to make him stand in full gear during that time.”
“Oh,” she said.
“Plus he has a hurt leg,” he said, gesturing vaguely at the tied animal.
“The front left?” she asked. He shook his head.
“The front right,” he replied. She scrunched up her face again.
“But it was the left one he wouldn’t pick up,” she argued
“That’s because he had his weight on it. He didn’t want to put any weight on his right leg, which means that’s the one that’s hurt. He’s standing okay, though, so it’s just sore. Go ahead and rub that leg down too and wrap it up.”
“Okay.”
“Use poultice,” Calvin said, then shook his head. “No never mind. We ran out. Use Green Cool.”
“Okay,” she said, removing the bit from the horse’s mouth.
She began unhooking the equipment and hanging it up in front of Noble Land Sam’s stall. The harness was a mix of both old and new leather straps, reused whenever one horse retired and another took his place. The girth that went over his back and snapped under his belly was particularly expensive. She carefully dried all of the leather with a towel.
Several of the leather lines were stiff from age and wear. They could use a good application of leather softener, but right now she had neither the time nor ambition. Instead she made sure they were clean and dry and turned her attention back to the horse.
She moved him to one of the bathing stalls and tied him up, then she proceeded to fill a pair of buckets with warm water. The water heater wasn’t the most impressive, so lukewarm would have to do. She carried the buckets back over, splashing quite a bit of water onto her arms and legs as she walked.
Noble Land Sam stood in the center of the bath stall, still tossing his head, but his breathing had slowed to normal. He tried to nip while she washed his legs off and she swatted him on the nose with a sponge.
Her father watched, leaning against the tack trunk and folding his arms. This was only the third time she’d performed the cool down routine without his guidance, and she knew he was making sure she didn’t miss anything. These were living animals, he always told her.
It would be easy to forget something, to accidentally leave some equipment on them. Or forget to water them. Or forget to feed them. So many things to do that sometimes one would just slip the mind.
But forgetting that the horse needed water after a workout was a dangerous mistake to make. ‘Like the difference between owning a typewriter and a gun,’ her father always said. ‘Make an error with a typewriter an
d you just stick another sheet in and start over. But if you owned a gun, the stakes were higher. You couldn’t afford to make any mistake. Ever. The first mistake you made could very well be your last.’
‘People are only worth what their responsibilities make them,’ he liked to tell her.
Once the grooming process became habit, she knew, it would be easy. But until then, she was terrified she would forget something. Or that she would hurt the animal.
She used a concave scraper to squeegee excess water off of him after his bath, and then she grabbed a towel to rub him down. It didn’t really matter right now in this heat, but in the middle of the winter putting him away dripping wet was a sure-fire way to make him sick.
Then she took out the Cool Green—it was mostly menthol and camphor, her father had told her—and started rubbing it onto the horse’s legs. She put it on all of the legs, even though she was only planning on wrapping one. She loved the way the camphor smelled. Fresh and clean. It made her hands tingle.
“Here’s a wrap,” her father said once she finished rubbing it on the horse’s legs.
“Front right?”
“Front right,” he agreed. She knelt down, first wrapping the large padded cloth around the leg and then using a long black cloth wrap to hold it in place.
Or at least that was the plan. She managed to make two clean passes before the horse shifted his weight and took a step. She lost her grip and spilled the wrap onto the floor. She tried to catch it and only succeeded in tangling the entire thing.
“Tighter,” her father admonished, kneeling down next to her. He gently took the wrap from her and rerolled it into a ball. “It needs to be tighter or it won’t hold, but not so tight it cuts off circulation. If the wrap comes loose in his stall when we aren’t here and he hooks it on something he could really hurt himself.”
“Okay,” she said. He rolled it back into position and then handed it back to her.
She knelt to her work once more. This time her father stood by Noble Land Sam’s head to keep him from moving. She pulled the wrap as tight as she could on each successive pass, ending by snapping it closed with the Velcro strap.
