Dark Horse

by Dandi Daley Mackall

  Cleo squeals and tugs at the ropes.

  Chief Mooney seems to be considering everything. Then he says, “Hank, you can try. But keep your distance. And be careful. Anything happens, you’re out of there, hear?”

  I nod, then move closer. The four men have formed a square around Cleo. Ropes on all sides are taut. One of the men is standing directly in front of the horse, right in her blind spot, making her even more nervous.

  I move in from the side. “Take it easy, Cleo. Nobody wants to hurt you.”

  She snorts. I can practically see fire coming from her nostrils. She’s that angry. And that raw, burned patch on her rump looks worse than I thought.

  I step closer and reach for the nearest rope. The others are pulling hard the whole time. I want to slack up the rope when she gives me something, anything—a look, a drop of her head, any little sign of trust. When she comes down from the rear, I can slack the pressure, tell her she’s a good girl.

  I recognize the guy holding the rope I want. Kevin something. We knew each other at Nice High. Kevin’s not that much older than me.

  “Hank,” he says, “I don’t have a good feeling about this, man.”

  “It’ll be okay.” I reach for the rope.

  “Look out!” somebody shouts.

  Kevin jerks the rope away from me.

  Cleo’s hooves crash down, and immediately she tries to bolt. She gets a few feet, but the policemen have her held.

  “Cleo?” I call, stepping closer.

  Cleo lunges in my direction but not at me. She’s just struggling, trying anything to get loose.

  “Careful, man!” Kevin shouts.

  “Somebody get him out of here!” barks the policeman standing in front of Cleo.

  Deputy Hendren jogs up to me. “Listen, the vet’s on his way. Come on. Let’s go back.”

  “Hank!” Chief Mooney shouts, as Hendren walks me away from Cleo, toward the squad car. “You know any of these farms out here? Is there somebody who’d let us put the horse in one of these pastures?”

  It’s getting dark, and I have to focus to figure out where we are and whose fields we’re near.

  “The old McCray farm’s right there!” I shout, pointing across the road. To Deputy Hendren, I explain, “The McCrays went bankrupt two years ago, and the pastures have sat empty since. The fences are still up and in good shape.”

  “Just a minute.” Hendren dashes over to Chief Mooney and says something before jogging back to me. “All set,” he says. “And the vet should be here any minute. Come on. Let’s get you home.”

  “Maybe I should stay.” But even I can hear that I don’t mean it. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I don’t want to see what they have to do to get Cleopatra sedated and into that pasture.

  I follow the deputy to his car and tell myself that it will go easier without me. To Cleo, I’m the crazy person who chased her from the barn.

  I get into the squad car and don’t look back. Even with the windows closed, I hear Cleo squeal. But I don’t look. I want to scream and drown out her cries with my own. But I don’t do that, either.

  I keep my gaze trained on the floor of the car and on my own boots. I wonder how many prisoners have done this exact same thing.

  I smell, rather than see, when we near home. The stench sneaks through our closed car windows.

  The car stops, and I look up. One fire truck still sits on the lawn. The media van is gone. There’s no sign of Dakota or Blackfire or Starlight.

  People are streaming in and out of the front door. Sacks of feed line the side of the house, apparently gifts from neighbors. Mrs. Kinney and Mrs. Shaney join two other women on the front porch. They’ve all got foil-covered dishes, like it’s a funeral gathering. Kat opens the door to let them in. Light spills outside with voices and laughter from inside.

  I wait for Deputy Hendren to let me out of his car. When he does, we shake hands and don’t speak. I want to thank him, but I don’t trust my voice.

  Like a rubberneck who can’t keep from gawking at a traffic accident, I turn and stare at the barn. Only there’s no barn. There are no stars, as if the fire’s burned them away too. Yet even in the shadows, I can see the pile of burned boards, a glimmer of the crime scene tape, and the heavy black smoke that still hovers over the remains of what used to be Starlight Animal Rescue.

  Seven

  Winnie Willis

  Ashland, Ohio

  “Calm down, Mrs. Coolidge. There, there.” Mr. Coolidge must have said this a hundred times already, but it hasn’t done much good. His wife looks even more upset now that her husband’s home.

  Catman and I look on, helpless, as his mom and dad cry in each other’s arms. Mr. Coolidge probably drove a hundred miles an hour to get home so fast from Smart Bart’s Used Cars all the way across town.

  “Maybe we could try to call them again?” I suggest. So far the line’s been busy.

  Mrs. Coolidge grabs her husband’s cell phone. She punches in numbers. From where I’m standing, I can hear the robotic voice telling her this call cannot be completed as dialed. “It’s broken!” she exclaims. “Maybe the fire burned the phone lines.”

  “Let me, my dear.” Mr. Coolidge loosens his tie, a Bugs Bunny tie, and takes the phone. He punches a number and listens. “Busy,” he says. He turns to Catman. “What else did they say on the news about Starlight Animal Rescue, Calvin?” I don’t think anybody calls him Calvin Coolidge except his family.

  Catman squints at the TV. It’s still on, but he’s got it on mute. The newscasters have moved on to some movie star award event. Half a minute was all the news an Illinois barn fire was worth, I guess.

  “They said nobody was hurt in the fire,” I offer. “Dakota wasn’t sure about one of the horses, though.” Just saying it makes me have to fight off tears. I send up a prayer for that horse and for everybody at Starlight.

  Catman uses the kitchen phone to try Hank’s cell phone. He listens, then leaves a message. “Dude, call us when you get this, man. We’re way bummed.” He hangs up. “Hank’s still not answering.”

  Mr. Coolidge slams his phone shut. “The line’s still busy!” he cries. He leads his wife to the couch. Then he stands in front of the television and changes channels, flipping through the few stations they get.

  I want to help. I want to do something. But I don’t even have a cell to try calling the house myself. Then I get an idea. “Catman,” I whisper, not wanting to rouse Mrs. Coolidge since she’s quit sobbing. “Let’s see if their computer’s on. Maybe we could get through to somebody with an e-mail.”

  “Solid.” He races up the stairs to the den, and I follow right behind him.

  I used to hate coming into this room. I still don’t like it. The walls are decorated with antlers and animal heads—bears, deer, elks, moose. What’s even weirder is that nobody in the Coolidge house hunts. They hate hunting and all forms of violence. Once I tried to ask them why they have stuffed dead animals in the den. Mrs. Coolidge acted puzzled and asked if I meant the leather couch or the leather chair.

  We wait for the computer to warm up. Catman logs on.

  “There’s something from Kat,” he says.

  I pull over a stuffed leather footstool. “When? When did she write it?”

  But he’s too focused on the e-mail to answer me.

  I scoot closer and read for myself.

  Catman, I don’t know what to do. So here I am. I would have called you, but Mom needs the phone. She tried to call you, but your line was busy. Hank’s got his cell, but we haven’t seen him for over an hour.

  We had a fire.

  I still can’t quite believe it’s real. It happened so fast. We’re okay. Tell everybody we’re okay. But the new horse Cleopatra is in bad shape. I don’t think she’s burned, or at least not too bad, because she took off and ran away. Hank went with the police to bring her back.

  Only there’s nothing to bring her back to. The Rescue is gone. The barn is burned to the ground. How can we take care of the anim
als without it?

  And, Catman . . . Kitten is missing.

  The e-mail stops there. I imagine Kat breaking down, unable to type another word. She loves that cat. Kat’s rescued so many cats, but Kitten is her favorite. Ever since Kat came to live at Starlight, she’s been writing Catman for advice on how to help the cats she rescues. She and Catman have been e-mail friends for a couple of years. And Catman talks about Kat like she’s his sister.

  “Type something!” I urge.

  “Poor kid,” Catman says. His left index finger is poised over the keyboard, but he doesn’t type. He bites his lip, sighs, cracks his knuckles. His eyes are misty.

  “See if she’s still online,” I suggest. I reach across Catman and click on the instant messaging icon. “She’s there! IM her.”

  Catman: Kat, we’re here, dude! Saw it on the news. Been trying to call you. Blows my mind, little Kat.

  KoolKat: Catman! I’m so glad you’re here. It’s awful, just awful. I know I should be thanking God that we’re all okay. The house didn’t catch fire (and I’m so grateful for that). But Kitten . . . oh, I can’t stand to think of her being out there all by herself. She might be hurt.

  Catman: Don’t go there, little Kat. That’s one smart, happening feline you got there. She’s cool.

  Catman: Kat, this is Winnie. I’m so sorry, honey. I wish we were there and could help you find Kitten. I elbowed Catman for the keyboard because I have to know about Cleopatra. Hank’s been e-mailing me about that mare, the one he rescued from the circus. She’s safe from the fire, right? She got out?

  KoolKat: Hey, Winnie. Yeah. Cleo’s okay. I think she got burned a little, but nobody can get near her to tell.

  Catman: Where is she?

  KoolKat: She’s in a pasture not too far from here.

  Catman: Catman here again. What’s the skinny with Hank? The dude won’t answer his cell.

  KoolKat: He’s acting weird. I’ve never seen him like this. Hank went with the police to get Cleopatra, but he came back without her. He wouldn’t talk about it, but the deputy said the horse wouldn’t let Hank anywhere near her. Two of the officers are still here, but Hank won’t come out of his room.

  Catman: The cops? The fuzz are still there? Why haven’t they split yet?

  There’s no response. Catman and I wait, staring at the screen, at the blinking cursor. I’m just about to type another message to see if Kat’s still online when she answers.

  KoolKat: The police are still here because they’re investigating the fire. They’re asking questions about who hated us enough to burn down Starlight Animal Rescue.

  Eight

  Hank Coolidge

  Nice, Illinois

  “Hank, maybe we should call it quits for a while.” Dakota stretches in the computer chair and rubs the small of her back.

  I’m not sure how long we’ve been sitting at the computer, but I don’t care. “Look, you said you wanted to stay home from school and work on this with me. If you didn’t mean it, you should have let me do this on my own.”

  “I didn’t know we were going to sit in front of the computer all day and try to find people who hate us. I could have gone to school for that.” She glances at the kitchen clock. “School’s getting out about now. Man, I thought my high school teachers were slave drivers, but you beat them all.” She stands. “How about we take a break? We could ride Blackfire and Starlight before Kat and Wes get home. I’ll bet our horses could use the company.”

  “I don’t have time for that.”

  “Well, let’s go see Cleo. Maybe she’s calmer now.”

  Something catches in my throat, and I feel the burning there. It makes me cough. Our house still smells like smoke. So do our clothes. So does the world.

  “Look, Dakota, this is what I need to do. I have to find out who burned down our barn. I don’t have time to play with the horses. But don’t let me stop you. Do what you want.” She’s twice as fast as I am at typing. And she can find anything on the Internet, when it takes me forever. But I’ll do this all by myself if I have to.

  She sighs and drops back into the chair. “You win. But we’re going in circles. You’ve got notes on barn fires in Illinois. A stack of printouts from news archives. There haven’t been any suspicious fires in this whole county for six years, right?”

  “That we know about,” I admit.

  “And even if it was arson, we’ll never prove who did it.” She reads from one of the sites she printed out. “About 90 percent of all arson cases go unsolved. No convictions.”

  “Doesn’t mean they didn’t know who did it,” I tell her. “They couldn’t prove it because all the evidence burned up. But they knew. I want to know.”

  “Okay.” Dakota lifts her long hair off her neck, then lets it fall. “Fine. But you’re all over the place with your whodunit suspects. Like these.” She taps a pile of printouts I ran off. “Your mom’s patients? Make that your mom’s dead patients—which, quite frankly, is grossing me out.”

  “So? Maybe somebody blames her.”

  Dakota tilts her head at me, letting me know she doesn’t buy it. “They blame her and then burn down your barn? Not very logical, Sherlock.”

  “Who said fires are logical?” She’s making me mad, but I rein it in. I need Dakota’s help, no matter how crazy she makes me. “Besides, I have other ideas.”

  “Like the fires your dad’s fought?”

  “What’s wrong with that? If Dad’s department took a long time getting to a fire, maybe somebody blames the fire department,” I explain. “You know, we should work on getting response times on those fires.”

  Dakota isn’t paying attention to a word I’m saying. She stares up at the ceiling. “Then we’ve got the places you’ve turned in for abusing horses.”

  “That’s a strong lead, Dakota. Even you have to see that. Like that last trail ride place we got closed down. Those guys were pretty angry. You were there. You saw it. Tell me you don’t think that guy with the red beard would love to get even with us for taking in their horses.”

  “Then why did they wait so long to do something about it?” Dakota asks. “We’ve already found homes for most of their horses. And you still think they did it?”

  “I didn’t say they did it. I’m just coming up with possibles. You think I like listing people who hate us?”

  “Now there you go. Finally. That’s what we need here,” Dakota says. “We need lists.”

  I groan. Dakota is the queen of list making. She’s got journals all over the place, and she’s always making her lists.

  She starts to get up again. “Fine. If you don’t want to take advantage of my list-making skills . . .”

  “No.” I put my hand on her head and press her back down in the chair. “No. You’re right.”

  “Excuse me?” Dakota has the most infuriating, smug look on her face. “I’m what? I don’t think I heard that correctly. Did you actually say I was right about something?”

  I ignore her and her sarcasm. “Lists of possible suspects—people with grudges against any of us—could help the sheriff take us seriously. That fire inspector who came out this morning wouldn’t even talk to me. He didn’t want me anywhere near the barn.”

  “He’s got to do his job,” Dakota says. “Fire inspector, huh? Who knew this podunk county even had a fire inspector?”

  Dakota’s from Chicago, and every other town in Illinois is “podunk” to her. I let it go. I don’t feel like getting into it with her. I’ve got more important things on my mind.

  “Anyway, I can start listing the places we’ve reported for animal abuse since I’ve lived here.” She types four names.

  I give her three more, but my mind’s not working. I can picture every horrible scene at every farm, ranch, pasture, or stable where we reported animal abuse, but the names aren’t coming back to me. “I’ll have to check my records to get the names of the other places I reported—” I stop.

  Dakota turns and gives me a sad smile. She gets it. I don’t
have records anymore.

  “I should have kept copies on the computer,” I mutter. Every record I had was in the wooden file cabinet in my barn office. They’re not there now. This must be the 10th thing I’ve started to get, then remembered it wasn’t there. It doesn’t exist any longer because of the fire.

  “Never mind,” Dakota says. “The names will come to you.”

  “Yeah.”

  She shrinks the document she started and googles fire investigations. She gets 79,202 hits. “Too many,” she says. She goes back to her list. “What about Popeye?”

  “What?”

  “Popeye,” she repeats. “Your dad? You remember him—short, no hair.” She opens a new document. “Does Popeye think it’s arson?”

  I shrug. I haven’t been able to talk to Dad much since the fire. This morning he was already out with the fire inspector when I got up. I listened to the two of them talk, and it didn’t take long to figure out that neither one of them sees what I do in this fire. I know it’s arson.

  Dakota stops typing and stares at me, silently demanding an answer to her question. Does he think it’s arson?

  “You know Dad,” I finally answer. “He’d never believe anything bad about anybody.”

  “So that would be a no?” Dakota says. “He doesn’t think somebody set the fire on purpose?”

  “I don’t know what he thinks. Besides, he’s a fireman, not an inspector.” I shove my chair back from the computer desk and walk to the window. It’s a dreary day with a heavy gray sky. The fire inspector is still there, standing in the middle of the rubble. He’s wearing his hard hat, even though there’s nothing left to fall on him. I watch as he writes something in his notebook. He squats down. Then he writes again.

  “What could he be doing out there all day?” I mutter.

  “The fire inspector?” Dakota asks. “Inspecting, I suppose.” She joins me at the window.

  We watch the man move around what used to be our barn.

  “Look on the bright side,” Dakota says, which is pretty funny coming from the all-time pro of looking on the dark side. “Maybe the investigator will find out who did it—if anybody did it. Then we can go ride our horses.”