Divorce Horse

by Johnson, Craig

  A standard divorce with a file over fourteen inches thick.

  Vic had measured.

  “Divorce Horse.”

  Vic had coined the term.

  * * *

  I keyed the mic again. “Well then nobody stole it; nobody in their right mind would steal that horse.” I looked at the food on my plate and questioned the choice of giving the majority of my deputies the night off. “Isn’t Saizarbitoria out there?”

  Static. “He’s not answering, but that could just be because of the crowd noise.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Static. “Roger that.”

  I keyed the mic one last time. “Go home.”

  Cady worked a little faster on her cottage cheese. “My Tommy Jefferson?”

  Cady and Tommy had dated and even went to a junior prom together, but this was nothing unique—my daughter had cut a wide swath in the male populace of Durant High School and had pretty much held sway with anything in a pair of Wranglers. “Yep.”

  Henry chewed quickly. “Wow, a case.”

  I nodded and, thinking about all those phone calls, faxes, and accusations, reached up to rub the top of my ear, which was the locale of persistent frostbite.

  Cady swiped at my hand. “Stop that.” She studied me. “You don’t seem overly enthusiastic.”

  The assorted injuries I’d sustained on the mountain continued to release a collective groan. “I’m not.”

  Dorothy arrived with Cady’s cup of coffee, and I noticed it had been repoured into a to-go cup. “You know she’s back in town, right?”

  I glanced up at the chief cook and bottle washer and fount of all things social. “Who?”

  “Lisa Andrews. She was in here yesterday and said she’d rented one of those apartments over by Clear Creek.”

  I thought about it. “Well, I’m pretty sure it’s over between her and Tommy.”

  Dorothy shrugged and headed back to the counter as Cady wiggled in her chair like she had when she was a kid. “How ’bout I be the lead investigator on this one?”

  I stared at her. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Nope.” She ate the last bite of cottage cheese and swallowed, her eyes glittering with anticipation. “How hard can it be?”

  * * *

  The weekend had been blessed with three memorable spring evenings where you could smell the grass in the pastureland, and the sagebrush and cottonwoods gasped back to life after holding their breath since October. The cool of the evening was just starting to creep down from the mountains, but it was still T-shirt weather, if long-sleeve T-shirt weather.

  We argued as we climbed into the Bullet. “How’s your dog does not constitute a relationship question.”

  She ruffled the beast’s ears as he laid his head on the center console and sniffed for the styrofoam containers Cady set at her feet. “It’s a relationship; it may not be your only relationship, but it’s a relationship.”

  I lodged the to-go iced tea and the coffee into the holder on the dash, fired up the motor, and pulled the three-quarter ton down into gear and onto the vacant street to follow the Cheyenne Nation in Lola, his ’59 Baltic blue Thunderbird convertible. “You’re cheating already.”

  “Look, the other two cowboys didn’t ask, so it’s two to one. I wouldn’t complain if I was you.” She pulled her coffee from the holder. “Hey, I didn’t throw you for a loop with all that wedding talk back there, did I?”

  “Do I get a point from this conversation?”

  “No.”

  Heading toward the fairgrounds at the north edge of town, we had only driven a short distance before my truck radio crackled.

  Static. “Boss, it’s unit two.”

  Cady, always quicker on the draw, this time grabbed the mic from my dash. “Unit two, this is unit one. How’s the pow-wow?”

  Static. “Hi, Cady. The natives are restless, at least one of them is.”

  She keyed the mic. “Did somebody really steal the divorce horse, or was Tommy just high and forgot where he put it?”

  Static. “No, he seems pretty straight to me, and the horse is missing.”

  “We’re on our way.”

  Static. “Roger that.”

  I glanced at her. “Three to one.”

  * * *

  Cars and trucks were parked on the side of the road for a quarter of a mile to escape the dollar fee that Rotary collected like they were the Cosa Nostra. A thickset cowboy ambled up to my window.

  “Chip.”

  “Walt.” He looked past me and smiled at my daughter, who was making a display with her engagement ring. “Hey, Cady.” The smile faded as he stuck a palm out to me. “Gimme two dollars.”

  “I’m on a call.”

  He repeated. “Gimme two dollars.”

  “It’s official.”

  “Gimme two dollars.”

  “The sign says a dollar.”

  Chip looked at the Bear as the vintage T-Bird made a beeline for the VIP parking area by the grandstands and then back at me. “He said you’d pay.” He took the money and smiled at Cady. “Nice rock. I heard you were getting married?”

  She fluttered her eyelashes at him, and it seemed to me she’d dated him at one point, too. “I am.”

  “Congratulations.”

  As we pulled in beside Henry, I cried foul. “That was a blatant use of a prop.”

  She twirled the enormous diamond on her finger. “What, this little ol’ thing?” She opened the door and slid out. “Three–two.”

  * * *

  The roar of the crowd intimated that the Indian Relay Races had already begun, a single rider, three-horse free-for-all that involved the three horses, one for each leg of the relay, a rider in traditional dress of loincloth and moccasins who leapt from one mount to the other, and muggers, the name given to the unfortunate individuals who had to hold on to the half-wild horses in the exchange. This was an old native practice that made the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association look like a lady’s afternoon tea.

  I stretched my legs and followed Henry as he led us through the tunnels that met with the main, lateral walkway. We took a left through the throngs toward the paddocks, down a set of steps to ground level.

  Ken Thorpe, another of the Rotary mafia, was leaning against the gate but turned and looked at us as we arrived. “Hey, Walt.”

  “I’m not giving you a dollar.”

  He looked a little confused. “Okay.”

  “Tommy Jefferson, New Grass team, had a horse stolen?”

  “Yep, but he’s riding on a spare.”

  We all crowded at the gate in time to see the riders making the near turn, bareback and crouched into the manes of their horses. The men were painted and so were their mounts. One of the beauties of the sport was the pageantry—some of the riders in full warbonnets, some in shaman headdresses; the riders and their ponies resplendent in team colors, the designs reflecting the lines, spots, handprints, and lightning bolts that are recorded in the old Indian ledger drawings.

  Henry pointed. “That’s Tommy in the green.”

  Sporting the three vertical stripes of the New Grass team, Tommy was hard-charging in second coming up on the last leg of the second part of the relay. It was possible that the young man was simply pacing himself, but it didn’t look like it: it looked like the ride of his life.

  We watched as they cannoned by, the fine dust of the fairgrounds settling on our hats and shoulders as we all jockeyed to see the riders transfer onto the last horse in the race. It was at this exchange where the majority of wrecks occurred.

  The lead rider, a lanky fellow from the Coleville Reservation in eastern Washington, always a powerhouse, vaulted from his mount as one of his muggers grabbed that horse’s reigns while another held the last horse steady. The Spokane Indian misjudged the distance, or maybe it was the horse making a tiny surge to see what was leaping onto its back, but the rider managed to grab hold of the mane on the Appaloosa and launched skyward before settling into a rocket traje
ctory past the grandstand, the poor man bouncing off the horse’s rump but still hanging on.

  The crowd of close to four thousand went crazy, but by that time Tommy Jefferson, New Grass team of the Crow Nation, had leapt from his own mount. His mugger attempted to hold the chestnut steady, but the horse was now circling him with Tommy holding on to the mane, one ankle draped over the horse’s spine.

  The mugger, not knowing what to do, did the only sensible thing and let go., The only one that knew what it was supposed to be doing was the horse, who reared and blasted down the straightaway with Tommy hanging off the side, the rest of the field fumbling with their own transfers and losing in their attempts to catch up.

  “Oh, no.” The Bear, of course, was the first to see the danger.

  At the far end of the grandstand were the chutes for the roping and bull-dogging events—massive, metal gates, reinforced with what looked like highway guardrails. Tommy was headed straight toward them.

  The chestnut, in its attempt to catch up with the Appaloosa, had set a course that would give it the best advantage but would also carry it and its rider next to the metal barrier. We could see that the horse would likely make it, but Tommy, most assuredly, would not.

  Pogo-hopping on one foot, the young man was scrambling to get both legs up, but with only about a hundred feet to go, it looked like he only had maybe two hops left.

  He wasn’t going to make it.

  It was so evident that he wasn’t going to make it that I reached for Cady’s hand in an attempt to distract her from what appeared to be Jefferson’s imminent death. Her hand was already reaching behind her for mine, and I felt her grip as Tommy post-holed one miraculous stamp on the ground and barely slithered past the abutment, his calf grazing the steel fence.

  The crowd, which I thought might’ve exhausted itself, went ballistic. All four thousand were standing as Tommy rounded the far corner and actually appeared to be gaining on the Coleville rider, the rest of the field a far third.

  Through the back straight, I could see the warbonnet of the Spokane Indian traveling across the ground as if by magic, levitated above the infield and the far railing at close to forty miles an hour. But there was a vengeance that followed him, a Crow centaur who rounded the far corner and blew into the straight like an arrow. You could see Tommy’s head tucked into the horse’s mane, allowing them the most aerodynamic advantage, or maybe it was the whispering of the Indian’s voice that carried them along like Crow chain-lightning.

  The Spokane rider, feeling the breath on the back of his neck, turned to get a glimpse of his pursuer, and when he did, the warbonnet he wore inverted, the eagle feathers tunneling around his face like shaft-shaped blinders. His arm came up to catch it at the crucial moment when they turned the near curve, which caused the Appaloosa to go wide and miss the apex.

  Tommy, taking full advantage, veered his pony to the inside, and the two were neck and neck.

  From our ground-level viewpoint, it looked as if they were headed straight toward us, and as they drew to the corner it appeared as if the Colville rider had the advantage. When they rounded the curve nearest us, though, Tommy made up the distance on the inside, and they were once again running as if the two horses were in traces.

  They crossed the finish line, no one able to tell which horse, the chestnut or the Appaloosa, had finished in first place. We had to take the judge’s word on it.

  Tommy had lost by a nose.

  Henry turned to look at our little group. “It was not for lack of trying.”

  “No.” I spoke to Ken. “How long till the next race?”

  “Oh, it’s a good hour. They’re doing the Fancy Dance competition down here in front of the grandstand as soon as they pick up the poop and smooth the track over with the grader.”

  “Can we cut across to the infield and talk with Tommy?”

  “If you give me a dollar.” He smiled. Then he opened the gate and ushered us through.

  * * *

  Saizarbitoria was waiting on the other side. “Did you guys see that?”

  I nodded. “I guess he had at least one life left, huh?”

  He fell in step as we approached the heated conversation going on over by the announcer’s tower, the gist of which was that Tommy was going to burn the announcer’s booth down with flaming arrows if the judges didn’t change their opinion as to which horse had crossed the finish line first.

  Tommy’s demeanor was amplified by his leg, which was bleeding and streaking the chartreuse war paint he still wore. “You fuckin’ Indians are trying to rob me!”

  So much for Native American discrimination.

  “Now, Tommy, calm down . . .”

  The Colville Agency, far from home and deep in enemy territory, had wisely chosen not to attend the unofficial inquest, so the two camps in contention were Tommy and his muggers—two men almost a big as Henry and me—and the three judges, one of whom was giving extra attention to the rules since he was Tommy’s uncle.

  The head judge, Richard New Grass, glanced over his nephew’s shoulder at me, and perhaps more important, at Henry. He nodded at the Bear and turned his attention back to the agitated rider. “It was an electronic finish, Tommy; there’s nothing we can do about it. The Colville rider won fair and square, and that’s all there is to it.” Tipping his trademark black cowboy hat back on his head, Richard turned his patrician face toward me, effectively ignoring his nephew. “Can I help you, Sheriff?”

  “I understand there’s been a robbery? Something about a horse?”

  Tommy danced himself between us and jerked his head in emphasis with every word. “You’re damn right there’s been a robbery—these sons-a-bitches are tryin’ to take this race away from me.”

  Tommy made a dramatic display and turned on the heels of his moccasins, ignoring his uncle and walking between Henry and me toward Cady, who had been standing behind us. “And not only do these damn Indians steal the race, but one of my best horses is gone.”

  The muggers walked off to wipe down the sweat-marked horses. I shrugged at Richard and the rest of the judges, but they were leaving as well, most likely relieved to be rid of the New Grass entourage.

  Tommy was walking with Cady, and they were both laughing—and I had the feeling I was about to lose a point.

  At the outside edge of the infield, they walked past a trailer that was attached to a white Dodge half-ton painted with the green stripes of the New Grass team, next to an event tent festooned with the banners of the team’s sponsors, most prominently BUCKING BUFFALO SUPPLY COMPANY, HARDIN BAIL BONDS, and H-BAR HATS. There were a number of energy drinks and sodas in a fifty-gallon cooler, and, after a few plunges into the ice, Tommy finally pulled out three power drinks, one for Cady and one each for Henry and me. “Here, supplied by one of my sponsors.”

  Cady handed hers back. “Do you have diet?”

  Tommy sighed. “That shit’s bad for you.” And retrieved a bottle of water. “All I got.” Then he scooped off his coyote headdress, threw himself into a lawn chair, and looked down at his bloody calf. “Oh, man . . .” He stuck out his tongue in play exhaustion and exhaled a quick breath toward Henry. “Hey, throw me one of those horse bandages, would you?”

  Henry did as requested and even wrapped the leg of the young athlete. “I am sorry you lost.”

  Tommy shook his head. “Just for show—we won the first heat and Colville came in seventh. We were second in this one, so all we have to do is place higher than they do by less than that in the next heat and we win it all. Lots of money riding on this one—could keep us going into next year’s competition.” He reached over and slapped the Cheyenne Nation’s shoulder as Henry taped up the rider’s bandage. “Gotta keep these Indians honest, right Bear?”

  I watched as the Cheyenne Nation stood, but stooped a little and appeared to be looking closely at Tommy’s face. “So they tell me.”

  Tommy, aware he was being inspected, grinned widely. “Haaho. New teeth.”

  Henry nodded.
“I thought so.”

  “Big Horn County Jail. The meth ate them out, so they gave me new ones.” His hands stroked his arms and then brushed against each other in a demonstration of purification. “I’m clean.” His head bobbed and his eyes darted to Cady. “Damn, you look good, girl. Hey, you know I’m free, right?”

  Her face looked sad when she responded. “That’s what I heard.”

  “Yeah, it was a long winter.” Jefferson glanced at me, obviously embarrassed at the episodes that had included the Absaroka County Sheriff’s Department and assorted Durant officials. “I still miss her, you know?”

  Cady nodded and stood next to his camp chair. “Yeah.”

  Tommy looked up at her. “How about you, are you seeing anybody?”

  I got the glance as she showed him the ring. “Yeah, I’m engaged to a guy back in Philadelphia—Dad’s undersheriff’s brother.”

  He whistled and glanced at me. “Vic?”

  I nodded but Cady answered. “His name is Michael.”

  He folded his newly clean arms over his lean, horseman’s body. “He anything like her?”

  She laughed. “No.” I watched her study him for a moment, and then ask: “I heard about you and Lisa. What happened?”

  He ran his fingers through his hair, wet with sweat, the black of it shimmering blue in the half sun. “Oh, I don’t know. I guess I got so interested in the horses that she thought I wasn’t interested in her anymore.” He sighed. “We both got mad and said some things . . . That’s when I got started on the Black Road with the drugs and stuff. I told her I wasn’t sure what it was I wanted . . .” He gestured around the dirty infield at the blowing trash. “So here I am, and I guess this is what I wanted.” He swung his legs onto the dirt, pushed out of the chair, winced at the weight on his leg, and glanced at me, possibly unhappy that I was hearing all of it; then he hitched his thumbs in his loincloth. “I keep thinking that I’ll just call, but I made myself a promise that I wouldn’t bother her anymore after all that happened.”

  We stood there for a moment, listening to the drumming and chanting echoing off the grandstand from the Fancy Dance competition, no one looking at Tommy, Tommy looking up at the first evening star.