A Taste of Blood and Ashes

by Jaden Terrell

  “Poor baby,” Khanh said, without a trace of sarcasm.

  Eight years old. Maybe I was making too much of a sparkly watchband, but I would have felt better if she’d been out catching tadpoles.

  Or if she hadn’t been so quick to call Khanh ugly.

  “Poor baby,” I agreed, and wondered how a rural white couple in their sixties had ended up with an eight-year-old Hispanic child.

  I held the door for Khanh, then followed her into the stable. Florescent lights illuminated the place, while industrial fans set into vaulted ceilings pushed cool air down wide aisles swept clean of hay and debris. I moved along an aisle and saw a black stallion in a large box stall with sliding doors below and metal bars above. He had a window, shuttered against the elements, and an electric fan, which he stood in front of as if to drink in the coolness. The stall was clean, the water bucket full, a hay net tacked to the back wall.

  A metal plate beneath the stall said Rogue’s Honor.

  He was tall, but the stacked shoes made him taller still. When he saw me, he pricked his ears forward and poked his nose through the bars. I gave it a stroke, and when he seemed to like that, I reached through and rubbed the broad place between his eyes, where a single whorl of hair marked him, if the old cowhands could be believed, as an uncomplicated, honest soul.

  Khanh stepped in close behind me and touched his nose with a tentative finger.

  A booming voice behind us made us both jump. “He’s a beauty, ain’t he?”

  “He is.” I took my hand out from between the bars and turned to face a jowly man with a ruddy complexion. His beige suit, expensive by the cut of it, had sweat patches under the arms, and his belt was fastened tight beneath a watermelon belly. He was a little balder and a little paunchier than his brother, and looking at him was like looking at Sheriff Hap’s future.

  “Gonna take first prize at the show this weekend,” he said. “If the USDA assholes don’t boot him.”

  There was a longstanding animosity between the Big Lick proponents and the United States Department of Agriculture, which had been charged with enforcing the antisoring laws. The brittleness in Trehorne’s voice left no doubt which side he was on. He mopped his face and forehead with a handkerchief and held out the other hand for a moist shake.

  I grasped his hand and said, “Why would they boot him?”

  “They gun for all the top horses. Can’t admit you can get a good gait without soring. Bunch of dickwits.” He pumped my hand like he might draw water from it. “Samuel Trehorne.”

  “Jared McKean,” I said, extricating my hand and surreptitiously wiping my palm on my jeans. “This is Khanh. And this—” with a nod toward the stallion, “—is a good-looking animal.”

  “You in the market?” His tone said he doubted it but didn’t want to miss an opportunity.

  “Thinking on it. I got a little money saved up, thought this might be a good investment. Stud fees, you know? I heard they can be high for a blue-ribbon Walker.”

  “Yep.” He hitched up his pants and grinned. “You know anything about horses?”

  “A bit.”

  “Walkers in particular?”

  “Not as much. Mostly quarter horses. Say I wanted this guy here. What would he run me?”

  A good cutting-horse stallion could bring almost half a million dollars, a winning Thoroughbred much more.

  “Well now, this fella, I’m not sure I’d want to let him go. His granddaddy was one of the greatest Walking Horses that ever lived. He’s a shoo-in to win the show this weekend, maybe even this year’s Celebration, if the USDA doesn’t throw a wrench into the works. Then I’m thinking to retire him and let the stud fees roll in.”

  “You got one that is for sale?”

  “Sure. I just happen to have another real nice stallion for one eighty-five.”

  “Thousand?” I said. Khanh’s eyes widened. “For that I could buy a house.”

  He laughed. “But not a very nice one. Want to see him, or are you just kickin’ tires?”

  One didn’t preclude the other, but I said, “I want to see him.”

  He led us down the aisle, past more stalls, each with a horse with a gleaming coat and stacked shoes, and stopped in front of a stallion so white he looked like he’d been spun from starlight.

  Trehorne said, “This is Galahad. He’s a good stud. Only thing is, he don’t step out quite the way he ought to. Don’t get me wrong, he’s won his share of ribbons, but he’s not the athlete Rogue is. That’s why I’m letting him go so cheap.”

  “Cheap?” Khanh squeaked.

  He chuckled. “Little Lady, cheap is relative.” He looked at me. “Is she the one I need to convince, or do you wear the pants in this relationship?”

  “I wear the pants,” I said. “But one eighty-five . . . I need to think on that. Run some numbers with my accountant. And I probably want to look around, make some comparisons. This show you mentioned . . .”

  “The Hidden Hollow Walking Horse Classic, just a few miles down the road.”

  “Maybe I’ll go there and look around.”

  “You do that, boy. You’ll see a lot of fine horse flesh. And then you’ll come running to me.”

  “I heard Zane and Carlin Underwood have some top-notch animals.”

  “Zane’s mother sells good stock, but if you want to make a profit in this business, steer clear of Carlin Underwood. The money’s in the Big Lick, and she only shows flat shod.”

  “I prefer flat shod,” I said. No stacked shoes, no chains.

  He snorted. “A flat-shod stallion might bring $15,000, not much in the way of stud fees either. The audience just ain’t there. Course if she has her way, there won’t be any audience at all.”

  He’d referenced Carlin twice, no mention of Zane. It seemed he’d already dismissed Zane as a force to be reckoned with. I said, “I’m not all that comfortable with the Big Lick. The soring thing—”

  His ruddy face turned redder. “We don’t do that anymore. Few bad apples, here and there. You check the stats. We have horses showing twenty, twenty-five years. They couldn’t do that if we weren’t taking damn good care of them.”

  “But you have violations. You, personally.”

  “Hell, son. Everyone’s got violations. Those USDA judges? You think they can’t be bought? I’ve seen those fellas poke and prod a horse’s legs until it’s just plain sick of being squeezed and pulls away. Then they say he’s sore.” He mopped his head again. “You see any soring going on here? Hell, I love these horses like they were my own kin.”

  “They look well cared for. But I don’t like the stacked shoes.”

  “That’s cause you’re a quarter horse man. A Walking Horse ain’t built the same. Anyway, the pads and chains don’t hurt ’em none. Hotshots over to the University of Auburn did a study that proves it.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I got to hand it to Zane and Carlin, though. They breed good stock. If you had the time and the know-how, you could take one of their stallions, train him in the Big Lick, maybe win a couple titles. Drive up the stud fee that way. That’s how I got Rogue there.” He nodded down the aisle toward the black stallion’s stall. “Got him for a song from Carlin Underwood this time last year.”

  “I’m surprised she sold him to you, knowing you’d show him in Big Lick classes.”

  “Nobody else would have him.” His grin broadened, and he gave his face a final swipe with his handkerchief. “That’s the horse that almost killed her husband.”

  5.

  I was quiet on the way back to the office. Khanh held her peace until we’d made it to the interstate, then poked the bobblehead Batman on my dashboard and said, “You angry?”

  Batman nodded. I said, “I don’t know. A little.”

  “Angry why?”

  “I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”

  There was a lot I didn’t like about the Walking Horse show world. I didn’t like the stacks and chains. I didn’t like the long-shanked bits th
e riders used. I didn’t like the fact that the horses were stalled most of the day during the long show season, and in some cases, year-round.

  Trehorne was right about the Auburn study. I’d read it myself when I rescued Crockett, my own Walking Horse, but it didn’t take into account the vicious things some trainers did to enhance the effects of the pads and chains. A six-ounce chain placed just above the hoof on a healthy pastern might be no more annoying than a diamond watchband on a little girl’s wrist. That same chain on a pastern already irritated by caustic chemicals was a different story. A two-inch pad, or stacked shoe, alone might be harmless, but that same shoe could conceal objects—like broken glass or half a golf ball—that cut or put painful pressure on the soft tissues on the bottom of the foot.

  The problem was nobody knew for sure how common soring was. It was everybody or hardly anybody, depending on which experts you asked. So while I knew I was pissed, I didn’t know enough to know how pissed I ought to be.

  I pushed it from my mind and turned my thoughts to Rogue’s Honor. He’d seemed calm when I’d approached him. Friendly even. Not aggressive in the least. So why had he attacked Zane Underwood?

  It was true that some horses, especially stallions, were more territorial inside their stalls, but Rogue hadn’t sent out any such signals, not so much as a flattened ear. Had there been a mare nearby the day of the attack? That seemed like a rookie mistake, one someone as experienced as Zane would not have made.

  Khanh said, “You think that man set fire to the Underwood barn?”

  “I didn’t like him much. That doesn’t make him an arsonist.”

  “He good ol’ boy.” She grinned, proud of herself for knowing the term. “Everybody like.”

  “Not everyone. How about you? Did you like him?”

  She wrinkled her nose, smile fading. “Not me. He too much politician.”

  We drove the rest of the way in silence. As I opened the passenger door and lifted her down from the Silverado, I said, “If you still want to see the show, I’ll pick you up at seven. Bring a bag. We’ll stay at the showground.”

  “Four day?” At my nod, she smiled and said, “See you at seven. I make coffee.”

  I watched until she’d closed and locked the door behind her. Then I drove home to the Victorian-style farmhouse I shared with my friend and landlord, Jay Renfield. Jay and his lover, Eric, were on a three-week vacation in Italy, and I was glad of it. Jay and I had known each other since kindergarten, and our friendship had survived his uncloseting, his AIDS diagnosis, and the uncertainties and dangers of my job. It had put him at risk more than once, and short of moving out and cutting him out of my life completely, a cure he deemed worse than the disease, I was damned if I knew how to keep it from happening again. But for the next few weeks, it was something I didn’t have to worry about.

  By the time I got out of the truck, both horses had their heads over the pasture fence. I paused to give them each a scratch. Tex, the palomino quarter horse I’d had since I was a boy, had just celebrated his thirty-seventh birthday. Crockett was a black Tennessee Walker, rescued from a trainer who’d sored him. He was a trail horse now, and I liked the walk God gave him well enough.

  I pointed toward the barn and said, “Suppertime.”

  Unlike Samuel Trehorne’s stable, mine had only four stalls, two of them occupied. Each had a gate that opened out into the aisle and a door in back that led into a paddock. These, in turn, connected to the pasture. Unless one of the horses had to be confined because of injury or illness, the back doors and the paddock gates stayed open so the boys could come and go as they pleased.

  By the time I got inside, both horses were in Tex’s stall. I gave Crockett a gentle push and said, “Go to your own room, go on.” He looked at me for a moment, as if to make sure I meant it, then flicked his tail and sauntered out the back and around to his own stall. Tex whickered and nuzzled my hand.

  “Get some rest tonight,” I told them after they’d been fed, brushed, and watered. “Tomorrow’s a big day.”

  Luca, the papillon pup we’d inherited from Jay’s ex met me at the front door, bouncing like a popcorn kernel in hot oil. I rubbed his ears and grabbed a cold beer from the kitchen, then let him out and watched him putter in the garden. I kept half an eye out for hawks, since at six pounds, Luca was about the size of a rabbit.

  I sipped my beer and drank in the scent of lavender while the dog did his business and the sky turned red, then plum, then purple-blue. The shadows lengthened, and the part of my awareness tuned to danger turned from hawks to owls. The little dog came to lie on the step beside me, a warm spot against my thigh. I took one last swallow, then pulled out my phone and dialed my son’s number.

  Paulie’s mother and I had given him the phone, along with a Scooby watch of his own, for his ninth birthday. It was hard to say which made him prouder.

  He picked up, and his gravelly voice, typical of children with Down syndrome, said, “Daddy!”

  “Hey, sport. How’d you know it was me?”

  “Said Daddy in the window.”

  Pride tugged my lips into a smile. He’d recognized my name in the caller ID function. “Good job, buddy. How’s school?”

  “Good. I can read Clifford the Dog.” He rattled off a few lines from one of his favorite books, then said, “You come get me this weekend?”

  “Not this time. It’s your mom’s week. You remember where she and D.W. are taking you?”

  “Sky High!”

  With its ten trampoline floors and trampoline walls, the indoor park on Harding was Paul’s new favorite hot spot. “You got it, sport. Bounce a few times for me, okay?”

  He chattered for a while about the trampolines, school, and his baby sister’s latest exploits—putting blocks in a bucket and crawling up steps. Then we said good-bye, and the pup and I went back inside for supper.

  I gave the dog a high-dollar, grain-free kibble, then grilled myself a rib eye and roasted a hobo packet of garlic cloves, new potatoes, carrots, squash, and corn on the cob. I ate in front of my computer, reserving a camping spot at the Hidden Hollow showground and working my way through the red tape required to take Crockett and Tex along.

  The stalls at the showground were all spoken for, but for a hefty fee the show organizers would let me set up a portable corral at the campsite. When I’d finally tracked down the necessary links and filled out the additional forms, I settled in to learn everything I could about what Carlin Underwood had called the Big Lick crowd.

  “HELP HER,” Zane had said. His need—and his wife’s—had given me a sense of urgency, exacerbated by the bones of a victim unidentified and unavenged.

  But there was something more personal to it than even that. Someone had set fire to a barn full of live horses. One way or another, there was going to be a reckoning.

  6.

  Early the next morning, I hitched the horse trailer to the Silverado and loaded Tex and Crockett into it. It was a sweet little gooseneck, with room for both horses in the back, a compartment for feed and tack, and connectors for the portable corral. The living quarters were cramped but functional, with a closet, kitchenette, shower and toilet, and a short ladder leading up to the small loft with a double bed.

  I stashed Luca in a soft-sided crate in the storage area behind the front seat of the Silverado, along with a tote bag of dog food and chew toys and as much camping and surveillance equipment as I could squeeze in. A faded quilt covered the metal box that held my rifle, a shotgun, and a few boxes of ammunition.

  At the small of my back, slightly offset and tucked into a holster inside the waistband of my jeans, the Glock was a familiar weight. A little Beretta Tomcat rested against my left ankle.

  I dropped off the pup and the tote with a sweet, elderly woman who carried a Smith & Wesson revolver tucked into the waistband of her skirt. She gave me a dry kiss on the cheek, wished me luck with the case, and promptly forgot me in her haste to scoop up my dog and spoil him rotten. Since the arsonist obviously
had no compunction about hurting horses, I would have liked to leave Tex and Crockett behind too, but with Jay in Italy, there was no one to take care of them.

  I stopped at McDonald’s to fortify myself with a cup of black coffee and pulled the rig up to the sidewalk in front of the office at three minutes after seven. Khanh waited on the front stoop, the strap of an oversize duffel slung over one shoulder, a stainless steel thermos in one hand and another clasped between her stump and her chest.

  She scanned the rig with a scrutinizing eye. “Big trailer.”

  “Modest,” I said. “On a relative scale.”

  “Only modest, maybe you let me drive.”

  “On the can-you-drive-the-truck scale, it’s big. It’s very big.”

  Khanh pretended to pout, but I knew it was a sham. She was a small woman, and it was a big truck. She had to climb up or be boosted into it, but once there, she was just tall enough to reach the pedals and see over the dashboard. Maneuvering a loaded trailer raised the difficulty quotient exponentially. Ignoring the theatrics, I stashed the duffel in the trailer and boosted her into the passenger seat.

  “Buckle up,” I said.

  “You always say buckle up,” she said. “You think I forget?”

  “I know you do. Only it’s not forgetting. It’s willful disregard.”

  “Fancy talk.” She buckled up and handed me a thermos filled with Vietnamese coffee. Made from strong coffee and condensed milk, the ca phe sua da was more dessert than beverage, but since Khanh made it for me almost every morning, I’d acquired a taste for it.

  Khanh took a sip and said, “How we going to learn who start barn fire?”

  “Talk to people. See who has a motive, who doesn’t have an alibi.” That was simplifying things, but not by much.

  “Alibi?” She wrinkled her nose. “Everybody lie.”

  “There is that. But if being a detective was easy, everybody would be doing it.”

  “I watch you three month. Think you have some different plan.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “Talk to everybody. Stir pot. See who try to kill you.”