Saddle Up for Murder

by Leigh Hearon

  This lamb was too young. All of hers had been birthed at least three weeks ago and were accounted for. This one appeared to be only a day or two old when it met its death, although that had clearly been several days ago. It should have been joined to the hip with its mother, who probably was going nuts right now, thought Annie, baaing and baaing for the lamb that would never come home. Annie felt tears spring into her eyes. She gazed down at Wolf, who seemed oblivious to the cruelty of Mother Nature. She knew that Wolf would never have killed this animal; on the contrary, he, as well as her donkey, Trotter, knew that keeping her lambs and ewes safe was their primary job. But he couldn’t be faulted for giving in to his atavistic side and smearing the smell of a dead animal on him.

  “Damn!” Annie said again. Seeing a small animal dead because of an unknown tragic encounter with a predator was always heartbreaking, and Annie, despite her tough exterior, was no more immune to the intense grief that seeing such a death produced. She sighed and took Wolf by his collar.

  “Come on. Let’s go find a shovel. And let’s see if your buddy Dan will be a gentleman and help.”

  Dan was and did. Annie rewarded him afterward with one of her coveted glasses of Glenlivet. Once they were inside the house, Annie noticed that the phone message light was blinking, but Annie had no intention of sharing her friends with the sheriff. He knew more about her than he needed to, anyway. Besides, it might be Marcus who’d called.

  The eerie sound of baying coyotes penetrated the air when Dan opened Annie’s kitchen door to leave. Wolf sprang from his posture of repose by the woodstove to full alert and growled.

  “Easy there,” Dan told the dog. “They’re a mile away. Go back to sleep.”

  Annie looked at Wolf, who was ignoring Dan’s advice.

  “Yeah, but it sounds as if they’re coming from the area where Wolf found the lamb. Who lives over there who might have lost one?”

  Dan shrugged. “No one comes to mind. It’s just a big, old empty space that bumps up to the highway. Finding one lamb out there doesn’t really make a lot of sense.”

  Annie waited impatiently until his patrol vehicle had gone slowly up her driveway and exited onto the county road. She then leapt for the phone and jabbed the message button.

  “Hi, Annie. It’s Marcus. I just missed hearing your voice. Call me when you have a chance.”

  Annie gave Wolf a chew bone and firmly put the poor little lamb out of her mind as she quietly punched in Marcus’s number.

  CHAPTER 5

  WEDNESDAY, MAY 4

  Today, Annie decided, would be devoted to her animals. Starting with a bath for Wolf.

  This was done in her mudroom, which had hot and cold running water and a large mat on the floor for just such purposes. Annie had yet to take a shower after feeding her horses and cleaning their stalls, but she saw no reason to take one now, since Wolf was doing a fine job of making sure she was wet all over.

  “This isn’t your first rodeo, buddy,” Annie grumbled to the squirming Blue Heeler, as she vigorously scrubbed the parts of his fur that seemed most odiferous. Wolf looked up at her with big brown eyes that implied she was inflicting severe pain on his torso, while Max, Annie’s black-and-white cat, meticulously cleaned himself in the corner. The cat was in Wolf’s direct line of sight. One would have thought he was there to remind Wolf that some animals didn’t need help keeping themselves clean.

  “There!” Annie said with satisfaction, as she tossed a very hairy terry towel in the direction of the washer. “Now don’t you look handsome?”

  Finally free of his mistress’s clutches, Wolf responded with an immense shake of his entire body, splattering Annie and Max in the process. Max ran for cover. Annie merely laughed and got to her feet.

  “Time for all smart dogs to take naps by the woodstove,” she instructed Wolf, who trotted into the house, looked in vain for food in his dog bowl, and settled down by the stove with a sigh. Sasha, Annie’s young Belgian Tervuren, padded out from the bedroom and joined Wolf. She had already experienced two baths in her short lifetime and had wisely decided to hide under the bed that morning until the danger had passed.

  A knock on the back door caused Annie to involuntarily yelp. She wasn’t used to visitors to her home, especially those who were uninvited. Her ranch was a quarter mile from the nearest neighbor, and that was as the crow flies. Her relative isolation was deliberate; her favorite friends, now out in the pasture, were all the company she generally needed or desired.

  Peering through the screen door, she realized her visitor probably was the only person she would be happy to see without warning, barring Ed McMahon with an oversized check. Annie undid the dead bolt and opened the door.

  “Martha! What a nice surprise!”

  The petite octogenarian in front of her smiled back at Annie and held out her hands, which contained a covered plate.

  “I’m so glad I found you at home, Annie. I didn’t want to leave these on the doorstep. I was afraid they might be eaten by something other than yourself.”

  Annie peeked underneath the tea towel. Pecan shortbread. Annie loved pecan shortbread, and Martha Sanderson knew it.

  “You are too kind,” she said, meaning it. “Come on in. But be forewarned, I’ve just given Wolf a bath.”

  “If a bath was required, I’m glad I came now instead of sooner.”

  “Good point,” Annie replied. “He was pretty rank. And it was so sad—he found a newborn lamb that had been taken by a predator.”

  “Oh, Annie, that’s terrible. I don’t dare tell Lavender. She’d burst into tears just knowing it happened.”

  Oh, yes, let’s protect Lavender, Annie thought sourly. God forbid that she face reality head on. Lavender was good at freely dispensing advice to others on how to live but firmly shut the door on reality whenever life became too uncomfortable for herself. Ignoring a bevy of traffic tickets back in Florida was the reason her half sister was still taking the bus. She gave silent thanks that Martha had agreed to let Lavender live at her home after three weeks of sharing her own.

  “Ah, how is Lavender?” she asked cautiously.

  “Well, dear, that’s one of the reasons I stopped by.”

  Looking at Annie’s panicked face, Martha put her thin, veined hand on Annie’s arm.

  “No, nothing’s wrong with Lavender. Not really. She’s had a bit of a shock recently—an event she perhaps wasn’t quite prepared for—but I really came by to share the good news—that Lavender has found employment. I thought you might want to come over for dinner to help us celebrate.”

  “Lavender has a job?”

  “Why, yes, dear. She started work about a week ago, and for the most part seems to be enjoying it.”

  “Who hired her?” Annie’s tone suggested that no business owner in his or her right mind would want to engage her half sister for any task that required a modicum of good sense.

  “I’ll let Lavender tell you all about it,” Martha said demurely. “It’s her achievement, and she has every right to show off a bit.”

  Annie made a noncommittal sound in her throat, but Martha politely ignored it.

  “How about this Friday? And bring the dogs. I’ll make a special meat loaf for them.”

  Martha was always spoiling her dogs.

  “Oh, of course, Martha, I’d love to come.” Annie’s childhood upbringing kicked in, and she realized she was being petty over Lavender’s small success. “But please promise me that Wolf and Sasha won’t be the only ones eating meat.”

  Martha laughed. It was always such a treat to hear her laugh; it literally tinkled its way out of Martha’s throat and wafted on the air around her.

  “Of course. And Annie, do try to be supportive. You have no idea how much your younger sister looks up to you.”

  “Humph.” This time, Annie’s remark was audible, but she smiled as she said it.

  * * *

  The next animal to receive Annie’s attention was the newest boarder on the ranch, and Annie’s l
atest training project. Layla was a stunning, jet-black Tennessee Walker who needed, in her owner Sarah’s words, “a major tune-up.” The Walker had been started at three, and had developed beautifully on the ground and under saddle. By age five, Layla was leading the pack on trail rides with her natural, exquisitely elongated gait, and clearly enjoying herself. According to Sarah, theirs was a match made in heaven.

  Then the world caved in. Sarah was diagnosed with breast cancer and life irrevocably changed, both for rider and horse. As soon as she’d recovered from surgery but before she’d finished chemo, Sarah was ready to get back in the saddle. The boarding facility with which Sarah had reluctantly left Layla had promised her that her beloved mare would be faithfully exercised. She discovered that Layla had been ridden, all right, but by a person Sarah now called “the bully,” who’d jerked on Layla’s mouth and dug his spurs into her sides for the slightest reason or for no reason at all. Consequently, the Walker was now terrified of having anyone on her back; the mare was constantly fearful of doing the wrong thing.

  “And it’s all my fault,” Sarah tearfully told Annie when she dropped off Layla at her stables. “If only I’d taken the time to actually watch the bully while he so-called ‘exercised’ her, I would have seen what was happening and yanked his butt off my horse. But every time I called the facility’s owner, she assured me that Layla was doing just fine and loving all the attention. And I believed her.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Annie replied. “How were you to know the exerciser was a jerk-and-spur? You were doing what you had to do—get well. Remember, I took you to chemo a time or two last year. You had about as much strength as a kitten. But now you’re back, loaded for bear, and fully capable of stomping on the cowboy’s head next time you see him. Until that time, let’s work on getting Layla back on track.”

  Sarah had laughed at Annie’s bluntness, but at least she’d stopped crying.

  Annie knew that the memories Layla had stored up from her year away from her human companion would never be erased. Fortunately, the Walker had not acted out during this time. She hadn’t bit anyone, kicked a human, or shown any kind of violent behavior. This was excellent news, because if Layla had, she would never be 100% trustworthy again, even though she could be rehabilitated. It wouldn’t be her fault; she would only be remembering what idiot humans had done to her previously and responding with equine PTSD.

  In the month that Layla had boarded at Carson Stables, Annie had worked with her only a half dozen times; the return of her ewes and the lambing season that quickly followed had taken up most of her time. But Layla had been out with Annie’s herd, and Annie knew that her mares were teaching the Walker when she could not. And when she had found time with the mare, what she saw looked very promising. Layla was essentially a forgiving horse, and smart enough to know that one bad human does not all humans make. She trusted Annie, and that was half the battle.

  Today, Annie decided to work on Layla’s mouth, which had become granite-like under the rough rein of her previous rider.

  She was in the round pen, teaching the Walker to yield through the not hard but consistent backward pull of her reins when her peripheral vision caught the sight of another unexpected visitor to her ranch. This one Annie was certain she did not know.

  Well, it was time to see how Layla reacted around strangers, she decided. She bent down, opened the round pen gate, and gently asked the mare to walk outside. She was pleased to see Layla respond to just the slightest touch of her heels to her side. In a week or two, she hoped she wouldn’t even have to do that, and could simply use her energy as the cue to “walk.”

  The young woman approaching them was reed slender, perhaps nineteen or twenty years old. She was dressed entirely in Western garb—clean and pressed Levi’s jeans, a plaid button-snapped blouse, and traditional cowboy boots. Her long, blond hair swirled around her shoulders. Despite her smart appearance, the young woman did not come across at all confident to Annie. She admiringly looked around Annie’s expanse of tack room, hay barn, and stables, but the expression on her face reflected her uncertainty as to whether she’d get a warm welcome.

  When she saw Annie advance on horseback, she stood still and waited calmly for them to join her. Annie’s brain clicked into gear: The kid must know something about horses to wait for our approach.

  “Can I help you?” Annie said once Layla was within a few feet of the young woman. “Are you out of gas?”

  “No,” was the nervous reply. “Actually, I’m looking for work. I’m Ashley Lawton. We met a few years ago at one of the horse club meetings in Port Chester. You probably don’t remember me. You told us about your rescue brigade.”

  Something in Annie’s memory stirred. “You were part of the Port Chester Equestrian Drill Team, right? You were about to perform at the State Fair.”

  “That’s right.” The young woman’s face lit up. She seemed happy that Annie had remembered the event, at least, if not every attendee. Then she averted her head in sudden shyness. Annie looked directly at her, and noticed that her visitor had difficulty making eye contact again. Finally, the young woman spoke, tentatively.

  “You have a beautiful place.”

  “Thanks.”

  Silence ensued. Normally, Annie would have tried to truncate the conversation at this point, but there was something so appealing about the waif that she decided to play it out a bit longer.

  “What kind of work are you looking for, Ashley?”

  “Anything to do with horses,” she responded eagerly. “I grew up with them. Had one until I graduated from high school, but then he got sold.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t know he was sold until my dad told me.” A note of bitterness had crept into the young woman’s tone. Evidently she disapproved of her father’s decision. “He said Jumper was a 4-H project and that part of my life was done.”

  “How horrible. But you said you grew up around horses. That seems like a strange thing for a father to do.”

  “Oh, we didn’t have horses ourselves. I just used to ride a neighbor’s horse. Started when I was seven years old. Then I got jobs working at local stables to pay for my own horse and save for college.”

  Well, she’s certainly got the right work ethic, Annie thought.

  “I can do anything—muck stalls, feed, exercise, do turnout. And I’m a pretty good vet assistant, too.”

  “Do you have a vet tech degree?”

  “Well, no. Not yet, anyway. That’s what I was saving up for. Still am. But I need to work to get there.”

  “I hear you. Well, who have you worked for recently?”

  “Um, for a while I was working for an in-home nursing service. You know, the kind where you go into people’s homes and care for them so they don’t have to go into old folks homes?”

  Dan just mentioned one, remembered Annie. “How’d you like that?”

  “Oh, it was fine.... Actually, a lot of it was really rewarding. Old people are so sweet and they’re so grateful for your help. But after a while, well, it just got too heavy on the soul.”

  Too heavy on the soul. Now, that wasn’t an expression you’d expect to hear out of the mouth of a millennial.

  “Do you have references?”

  “Oh, yes.” The woman pulled a piece of paper out of her jeans pocket and handed it to Annie. “These are the names and phone numbers of all the stables I’ve worked at for the past five years. They’ll all vouch for me.”

  Annie leaned down and took the paper, torn from a lined notebook and containing neatly printed information from a ballpoint pen. Apparently not everyone owns a laptop, she realized. She recognized most of the names on the sheet. They were all good horsewomen whom Annie respected.

  “Where are you living now? Is it far from here?”

  “On the Squill River. In a cabin with my boyfriend.” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and then looked up at Annie, squinting a little from the unexpected sun that
had emerged from the clouds. She was so patently hopeful that Annie would give her a job.

  Annie smiled. “Well, Ashley, I’m sure your references check out fine. But here’s the deal. I’m pretty much a one-woman show around here. I train one or two horses at a time, and the rest of my workday I’m tending to my sheep. I don’t really need any extra help. But you might try contacting Samantha Higgins in Arndrop, on the other side of the water. She’s got a much bigger operation than I do, and I know she’s always looking for good, reliable help.”

  “But I don’t have a car.” The woman looked down, so clearly disappointed that Annie’s heart momentarily ached for her.

  “Listen. Give me your cell number. If I hear of anything, I’ll give you a call.”

  “Thanks.” The word came out without a shred of enthusiasm. Annie wordlessly handed back the reference sheet. The young woman scrawled a number on it and then handed it back to Annie. But her facial expression had changed. Instead of the downtrodden, shy look, Ashley’s face now showed a touch of defiance and determination.

  In a clear, even voice, she told Annie, “If you’re trying to get a backup on that horse, you might try talking to her feet, maybe disengage her hindquarter first. Her mouth looks pretty hard. She might respond better. I think she knows what you want.” Then she turned, and said in the same listless voice as before, “Well, have a nice day.”

  “You too, Ashley.” Annie sat still on Layla as she watched the woman trudge up her driveway. Then she shifted to the left, and Layla picked up her feet and turned with her, heading back to the round pen. No doubt about it, the horse is more responsive every time I ride her. At least, going forward.

  They reached the round pen and Annie bent down to open the gate, belatedly realizing the latch was a good eight inches behind her. It was time to test Layla’s yield to pressure once more. But what had Ashley suggested? Talk to the feet. Of course. She tightened up one rein and asked Layla to bring her head toward her leg. As soon as the horse moved, she gently toggled a few backward pulls with both reins. As if on cue, the Walker quickly backed up two pretty steps.