Dark Horse

by J. Carson Black

  Shameless took hold of the bit and put on a blinding burst of speed, her legs working like pistons. Clods of dirt flew up as she ran by them, a dark blur.

  “Too fast,” Dakota muttered.

  Already, Ernesto was standing in the stirrups, pressing his knuckles down into the filly’s withers, taking back. Shameless fought him, shaking her head and almost pulling him out of the irons. Finally, she yielded to the pressure on her mouth, dropping back into a gallop. They made another circuit at a slow, hobbyhorse lope.

  Clay realized he’d been holding his breath the whole time the filly was running. He couldn’t remember seeing a horse that fast.

  Dakota’s strained expression was gone. “Did you see her?” she demanded. Her eyes shone with happiness. “Dad was right. She’s everything he said she was!”

  “She sure is.”

  Ernesto walked the filly back.

  “I’ve got to go,” Dakota said, reining her horse around and riding over to Shameless.

  Whatever had been bothering her had been blown away, like birds scattered by a gunshot.

  Exhilarated, Dakota bathed the filly, then started on a walking circuit of the grounds. Shameless seemed fine, except that she was jumped up. As excited as Dakota herself was.

  “You liked that, didn’t you? You wish you could do it every day,” Dakota said, patting her neck.

  “Dakota?” Rita fell into step with her, on the other side of the filly. “I think I’ve found a trainer for you.”

  “Trainer?”

  “His name’s Jack Dougherty. I knew you were looking for a trainer, and I think he’d be great for you.”

  Dakota paused. “I’ll have to think about it.”

  “Well, I know how much you want to get out from under—so I just thought, since I was looking for someone myself, to ask him for you. He said he’d be happy to talk about it.”

  The filly arched her crest and pranced, her eye ringed with white, like an eclipse. Her nostrils flared salmon-pink as she pulled in the air, and Dakota could trace the filigree of delicate veins under her sweat-dark mahogany neck. God, she was beautiful! Beautiful, but a handful. Dakota jerked hard on the lead shank. “Walk!”

  “She won’t hurt me, will she?”

  “Not if you stay back.”

  “Here’s his card. He’d heard about Shameless, and he’s eager to work with her.”

  “Thanks.” But she didn’t feel thankful. As a matter of fact, the thought of handing Shameless over to anyone was a depressing one.

  Rita shot her a superior smile, and suddenly Dakota realized what this was all about. If Shameless had a trainer, Dakota would have no reason to remain in Sonoita.

  “I’ve got to go. Clay’s invited me to lunch. Give Dougherty a call; I have a feeling he’ll be just the thing for you.” She walked away, stunning in her designer outfit and expensive boots. Dakota glanced down at her own chambray shirt, much the worse for wear, shirttail half in and half out of her jeans. Hair tucked under her Dodgers cap, a racing bat stuck in the back of her jeans, her running shoes caked with dirt and manure. Very attractive. No wonder Rita had been so friendly.

  So Clay and Rita were having lunch. Well, more power to them.

  She had the next All American winner in her stable.

  She headed for home, hot, sweaty, and victorious. Her limbs still trembling from the adrenaline rush, she threw her racing bat on the side table in the kitchen and poured herself a glass of orange juice.

  Damn, but Shameless could run! And she’d come back in beautiful shape. No heat in the ankle, no swelling. And she wasn’t even breathing hard. She wanted to run. She was born for it.

  The phone rang. Dakota’s heart lurched in her chest at the loud jangling. Three rings, four.

  Every time she picked up the phone, she was afraid who might be on the other end. Even though she’d hired security guards for each barn, there was no one to keep her from being threatened. But nothing could bring her down today. She snatched up the receiver, prepared to slam it down immediately if need be, and sighed with relief at the sound of her mother’s voice.

  “I just talked to your agent,” Eileen said briskly. “You’ll probably get a call later on today.” She paused for effect. “You got it!”

  “It?”

  “Catalina! The new show? Surely you haven’t forgotten that!”

  Dakota pressed her fingertips against her forehead. “I can’t deal with this now.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t deal with it? Don’t you understand English? You’ve made it!”

  Suddenly it hit her. What her mother was talking about was what she’d been working for for years. As much security as you could get in Hollywood. “You mean it?”

  “Would I lie? They start production next month . . .”

  As her mother babbled on, Dakota listened in stunned silence. After all these years . . . she couldn’t believe it. If she packed up the truck, she could leave tomorrow morning—

  Except that tomorrow morning Shameless had to be checked over, then walked for a good hour. Dakota didn’t trust anyone to do it but herself.

  When at last she put the phone down, Dakota stared out the window, her mind in turmoil. She found Jack Dougherty’s card in her pocket, started to punch in the number. Hung up the phone. What did she know about him? What kind of trainer would he be? Shameless was doing so well, she didn’t want to set her back.

  All the joy, the exhilaration, went out of her day. It was as if a cloud had covered the sun.

  Her big break had finally come, and she didn’t know what to do with it.

  NINETEEN

  Dakota couldn’t sleep that night. Around and around she went. One minute, she was leaving for California; the next, she was staying here with Shameless.

  Around midnight, she decided this chance was too good to give up. She could be out of here in a day. There was nothing stopping her. She’d pack some of her father’s things and send for them later. Finding some boxes, Dakota put them together and started grabbing stuff, energized by her decision. The photo albums, a few of the best photographs on the walls. She’d take her father’s plates and glasses, the ones he got as giveaways from the gas stations in the sixties. As she reached up into the kitchen cupboard to pull down one of the frosted glasses, her hand brushed something that wasn’t contact paper. She withdrew a small notebook from behind the glasses.

  It was Coke’s journal.

  When Dakota looked up from her father’s journal, it was two a.m. Her head ached. The sheer number of incidents Coke recorded was chilling:

  “Ruidoso, July 5: Thrilled with Yawl came back from a work looking good. While I was bathing him he keeled over dead from a heart attack. I’m getting an autopsy. July 8: Colt loose in the shedrow again. This time it was Elvis. He got into the feed. Thank God he didn’t founder! I have a combination lock for the feed shed door. Jerry never did give me back all my keys. How’s that for proof? If the cops would just search his place, but of course they won’t. July 24: Cyber Cat’s leg caught in hay net, he’s hurt bad. He’ll be out of action for a long time. August 1: Catch on halter broke on Fuel while I was ponying him, he got loose, spooked, ran into the rail. Torn up bad. August 15: One of our babies got loose again last night again. Replace bolts, latches.”

  Just a run of bad luck? It was said that if a horse will find a way to kill himself, he’ll do it.

  “Ruidoso, August 24: Bay filly had colic, nearly didn’t make it. September 10: Shipped to Los Alamitos. Tire blew about forty miles outside of Las Cruces. Trailer ended up on its side in a ditch, took two hours to get Tiny’s Garland out. Touch and go for a while, but we think she’ll come out of it all right. Those tires were brand new. Turf Paradise, September 18: Drug test came back positive on Glamorous. What the hell’s going on? She was a cinch to win. Everyone should know I wouldn’t take that risk. September 23: Found three-inch nail in Benny’s foot. Won’t be able to run for a month at least. Still suspended, so I guess it’s a moot point anyway.
Horse got out again last night. I know the latches are good. I’m gonna get combination locks for all of them. September 24: Seems the stewards call me in every day. What have I done this time?

  “Turf Paradise, October 11: Loose horse, again! No damage. Turf Paradise, October 23: Another goddamn infraction! I’m paying so many fines I could build them a new clubhouse. Turf Paradise, November 3: Twister broke down in a work. Had to be destroyed.”

  Some of these incidents could have happened to anyone, but not all of them. When Coke was suspended for drugging a horse at Turf Paradise, his outrage was real. He had been set up. Everyone knew it. There was little doubt that Tanner had been the culprit. He had been fired in early June, and the recorded incidents started on July 5.

  Dakota read on.

  “There are a couple of ways he could of done it. Lucy worked over in the next shedrow to mine at Ruidoso. Her old man could’ve put her up to it. The apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree. But I think it’s Dave, who worked as a groom for me most of the summer. I fired him for laying down on the job, and later found out he worked for Jerry before me, both here and at Ruidoso. The bastard said the weirdest thing to me when I gave him his week’s pay. ‘Bet you think Velvet Elvis’s gonna win you a ton of money tomorrow. I wouldn’t bet on it.’ The colt was the odds-on favorite in that race! Came in dead last, like he was waterlogged. Must’ve poured a gallon of water down his throat! The next week, the son of a bitch is back working for Jerry. One thing’s for damn sure, Jerry didn’t do it himself. I’d run him off with a shotgun if he ever showed his face at my shedrow. I don’t know how he’s doing it, but I do know why. Sour grapes.”

  From what Dakota had seen of Tanner, he didn’t have a lot of discretionary income, but maybe he’d been willing to pay for his vice. He struck her as the type to be fueled by revenge fantasies.

  She thought of the broodmares and shivered.

  If the journal was a record of the accidents that had befallen the horses of Black Oak, it also painted a clear picture of Coke’s daily work with Shameless. Dakota smiled as she saw the way he did things, and how similar her own program was. Shameless was a project that she and her father shared.

  “I had a feeling that breeding Dash to Judgment to Wicked would be a good nick,” he wrote. “And it was. This filly has it all. I know it’s not a good idea to tempt fate, but if this isn’t a Grade 1 stakes winner, I’ll eat my hat. I’ll never forget the day I bred that mare. There was a partial eclipse, like the gods were telling me something.”

  As she read, Dakota fell into the rhythm of Coke’s everyday life. She lived with him the long, thankless hours of hard work. Coke thought of little else but his horses; they always came first. But there was one other thing he thought about, especially in the latter part of the journal.

  He thought about her.

  “Can’t keep any good help. I wish Dakota was here.”

  “Dakota had the makings of a fine trainer.”

  “I keep remembering her when she was little, before her mother turned her against me. She was the cutest little thing, with those pigtails and that Annie Oakley jacket, and she could ride just about anything.”

  In one revealing segment he wrote that he wished he’d fought to keep Dakota with him after the divorce. At the time, he was afraid of how much a custody battle would affect her. He did extract a promise from Eileen that Dakota would spend some time with him on the ranch and at the racetrack in Ruidoso.

  “I told myself I wouldn’t push her, but she’s made for this way of life, and I got impatient. I just wanted her to see how much she fit, and I guess I scared her off. I guess it’s just a pipe dream, but I could see Dakota and Clay raising Black Oak horses and training winners together. I’d be the grand pooh-bah, telling my grandchildren about the good old days at Rillito.”

  Given the chance, Coke had written about everything that mattered to him. It might have started out as a record of vandalism for his lawyer, but it ended up as a diary. Tears filled Dakota’s eyes. She could see it all, the growing sense of menace, his worry that something would happen to Shameless, his regret at not being closer to his daughter. He had been alone, fighting a battle he could not win.

  She discovered the real reason Tanner was fired. Last summer had been an especially busy time for Coke. He ran his top string in California, and Tanner had charge of the younger horses at Ruidoso. Apparently, when Coke wasn’t around, Jerry was sloppy. He never bothered to clean up his shedrow, and his trash accumulated. One day a plastic bag had blown off the pile and got under a colt’s feet as it walked on the hot walker. The colt had been playing with his halter fastener when the bag spooked him and he had cut his mouth. It had been a simple enough cut, but it had become infected. A month later, despite all efforts to save him, Coke’s most promising two-year-old—the one he’d thought would win the Futurity last year—had died in his arms. His heartbreak was clear in the words on the page, for he had loved that colt.

  Dakota set the notebook down and straightened up, rubbing her back. Last year. Coke had been cheated out of a run for the All American by Tanner.

  This year, he had been cheated by death.

  She stared at the blank TV screen, remembering the videotape of her father showing off his filly.

  Dakota had no doubt that Jack Dougherty was a good trainer. He’d probably do right by Shameless.

  But that wasn’t what Coke had wanted. And she was beginning to realize, it wasn’t what she wanted either.

  Dakota suddenly understood what had been there, under the surface, for some time. In her heart of hearts, she wanted to win the All American for her father. And she wanted to win it by herself.

  TWENTY

  When she reached the track at six that morning, Dakota could barely keep from blurting out her news to everyone she met. The tension that had been her constant companion the last couple of months had evaporated, replaced by an almost unbearable excitement. Dakota became aware that she was holding the secret close to her chest, waiting to tell Clay.

  I’m staying. I’m going to train Shameless for the All American. She could hear herself say the words, but her mind wouldn’t go beyond that point. Of course he would be glad. Hadn’t he been pestering her to stay?

  Not that it was important what Clay thought. He was her ex, remember? But Dakota glanced over at his shedrow every few minutes, hoping he’d see her and come over.

  Ernesto had cleaned out the water buckets and kept out the feed bucket for Dakota to look at. Shameless had eaten well; she always did. When Ernesto led the filly out of the stall, Dakota caught her breath. Shameless was a superb balance of clean lines and solidly defined muscle. She might have been carved out of marble. Her coat, dappled with the effects of good nutrition and conditioning, shimmered in the sunlight.

  Muy bien,” Dakota told Ernesto.

  Lucy was mucking out Tyke’s stall. “You still want to go to the seminar?” Dakota asked her.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Lucy replied. She sifted the soiled sawdust through the pitchfork with clockwork efficiency. Her ability for hard work impressed Dakota, especially considering the junky environment she came from. “Are we still going to the Mountain Oyster Club?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Ernesto got some more rides,” Lucy said, her forehead knitted with worry. “I hope he gets done in time. We can still go, can’t we? Even if he’s busy?”

  “We can wait for him.”

  “Good.” Going to the Mountain Oyster Club obviously meant a lot to Lucy.

  Dakota gave Ernesto a leg up onto Shameless and ponied the filly out to the track.

  Clay, on his palomino, was watching his horse gallop. Dakota reined in beside him. It had become a ritual, sitting their horses in companionable silence, enjoying the cool breeze blowing off the mountains, the sun warm on their backs. Today, however, Dakota was impatient with desultory conversation. She was just about to tell him her news, when he stood in his stirrups, watching as his horse galloped by.
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  The moment passed. This wasn’t the time. She wanted some fanfare, and his mind was on his work—as hers should be.

  There was a lull in the action. As they waited, Clay told her about his new barn mascot: a potbellied pig.

  “Alydar’s got a love affair going with one of our mares.” As Dakota told him about it, the mare’s name suddenly popped into her head. “Shawnes Soliloquy. It’s been on the tip of my tongue since yesterday morning, driving me crazy.”

  “She’s that’s sorrel with a heart on her forehead? Nice mare.” He checked his watch. “You going to Tucson for the seminar?”

  “Yup.”

  “You could come with us.”

  “Us?”

  He shifted uncomfortably in his saddle. “Rita’s going.”

  “Oh. No thanks.” Rita, again. If there was something going on between them, why couldn’t he be honest about it?

  “I’d like your company.”

  “To be honest, Clay, I’m not too fond of Rita.”

  “I can’t uninvite her.”

  “I know.”

  He leaned forward and parted Goldenrod’s cream-colored mane to the left side of her neck. “I don’t think you should drive all that way by yourself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I noticed your security guard. Maybe the horse isn’t the only thing that needs guarding.”

  In a few words he had maneuvered her out of her good mood—and made her think of something that scared her to the core. She’d be damned if she’d tell him her news now. “So you feel it’s your duty to be my bodyguard. When did you decide to switch careers?”

  He looked straight ahead. “I know what happened with the mares.”

  “What?”

  “I talked to Dan Bolin the other day.”

  “He had no right—”

  “It’s getting serious.”

  “It’s nothing.”