Dark Horse

by J. Carson Black

  He lit a Lucky, then realized one was already burning in the ashtray. The ceramic ashtray was shaped like a cowboy boot; Lucy had made it in school when she was younger.

  She’d been a good kid then. Looked up to him. Now she didn’t listen to him at all. Moving in with that DeWeil bitch, living high off the hog while he sat here in this dump. But he’d shown her that he was still the brains of this outfit. She’d dance to his tune, all right, and next time he asked her to do a little job like putting oleander in a horse’s feed, it would get done.

  His empty joined a row of them on the windowsill.

  Well, there were big changes in the air. Lucy would learn to mind him soon enough. He was finally going to come into some money, much more money than Coke ever had.

  Ka-chunk. The muffled thump seemed to come from just outside the door. The trailer swayed gently on its springs. He stood up and looked out the window. It was a dark night, but he thought he saw the pine branches move in the wind.

  His thoughts turned back to Coke McAllister. It sure was ironic that Coke’s death might just provide his old friend Jerry with money to live comfortably for the rest of his life. That was the ultimate irony.

  He lay back against the dinette seat, feeling warm and cozy. It was cold tonight, but the space heater he’d saved from the dump sure did the trick. As he dozed, his last conscious thought was: Just how much money would a person pay to keep the status quo?

  Dakota accompanied Clay to the clubhouse for dinner at the Turf Club. A bash was thrown for the owners, trainers, and jockeys of the horses running in the All American Derby and the All American Gold Cup. For Dakota, the evening was a dress rehearsal for Sunday night, when they would return for the All American Futurity pre-race dinner.

  Dakota rolled down the truck window and put her hand out to catch the cool breath of evening. The sky above the mountain was apricot with a few flamingo-pink clouds that were quickly turning plum red as twilight fell. They followed the graceful arc of road around the racetrack, watching the fading light glimmering in the infield lake. Dakota couldn’t help feeling thrilled. I’m here, Dad, she thought. Just like you wanted me to be.

  She’d never in a million years really expected this to happen. It had been her goal, but now it seemed more like a fairy tale come true.

  Situated on the top level of the grandstand, the Turf Club was open to the air. A light breeze swirled through the breezeway, lightly caressing Dakota’s bare back.

  Svelte women in evening gowns, cocktail dresses, and cowgirl dresses milled around, sipping chardonnay and tasting the shrimp and brie at the center table. Men wore everything from Brush Popper shirts and western-cut suits to Saville Row. Seven X Stetsons and hand-tooled boots dominated. Dakota wore the new outfit she’d bought, the rich, autumn colors setting off her glowing skin. After standing in line at the buffet, she and Clay searched for their table, which was decked in white linen emblazoned with the name VIENTO PRIETO on twin strips of red and blue satin.

  Next time, the letters would spell out SHAMELESS.

  She sensed her father’s ghost in the room, beaming with pride. “I hope you’re paying attention, Dad,” she muttered, spearing a shrimp. “Not very many people get here.”

  “You talking to yourself?” Clay asked, sitting down beside her.

  She let him think she was.

  They topped a perfect evening with a long session of lazy lovemaking at Dakota’s trailer. As she drifted in Clay’s arms, Dakota thought how happy she was. This was her life. Clay, the horses, racing.

  She knew then that she wouldn’t go back to LA when the All American was over.

  Clay stirred, pulled her closer to him. Dakota reveled in his touch, holding the good secret safe in her heart, and fell asleep smiling.

  A knock on the door woke them.

  Dakota shot up in bed, gripped with fear. Clay sat up and pulled on his jeans. “I’ll get it.”

  Dakota, pulling the sheet up to her chin, didn’t argue. When Clay answered the door, she strained to hear. The muffled voice belonged to a woman. “Is it Shameless?” she asked when Clay padded back to the bunk.

  “No. But I’ve got to go.”

  “What do you mean, you’ve got to go? It’s almost one in the morning!”

  He pulled on his boots. “Rita’s here. Lucy’s been picked up by the sheriff. She was with some guy at a bar, he got drunk and caused a scene when the bartender cut him off. The sheriff took both of them in.”

  A lot of things ran through Dakota’s mind, but the words that came out of her mouth must have made her look mean-spirited. “Why do you have to go?”

  “Rita needs my help.” He stuffed an unbuttoned shirt into his jeans.

  “I still don’t understand. Where’s her father? What’s this got to do with you?” She regretted the words even as she said them. She should be worried about Lucy, not bean-counting to see how many hours Clay spent with Rita as opposed to her. But she couldn’t help it. Another ugly thought popped into her head. “How often have you been playing surrogate dad?”

  “What are you talking about?” He stared at her, his eyes like midnight. Unreadable. “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation,” he said at last. He strode to the door, and in another moment, Dakota heard a car pull out of the stable yard.

  She sat on the bed, shivering and miserable. How in God’s name did Rita know Clay was here?

  Rita must have heard them arguing. Dakota knew she’d sounded like a harpy—a jealous, insecure harpy. Just a while ago, she’d planned to spend the rest of her life in Sonoita, presumably with Clay. How could she act that way?

  Her gaze fell on the Black Oak Dispersal Sale catalog. She picked it up and leafed through it. Anything to keep her mind off the fool she’d made of herself. It didn’t take long for her to realize she’d chosen the wrong medicine. Looking at the catalog depressed her.

  All gone, she thought. All the mares, all the foals. The yearlings, the two-year-olds. Something Wicked. She realized how foolish she’d been. Why hadn’t she listened to Norm and waited awhile before selling? She wanted to go back to Black Oak, but what was left? She’d sold off the ranch’s life’s blood. Wicked Witch. Palomita. Go Mango.

  Go Mango had been her father’s joke. The mare was a granddaughter of the great running sire. Go Man Go. Dakota forced herself to read the dry statistics on the page. It might put her to sleep, and she wanted to sleep. She didn’t want to sit up all night waiting for the sound of Rita’s Range Rover. She didn’t want to appear dependent, or codependent, or whatever they called it these days. When he came back, she wanted to be dead to the world, with a peaceful smile on her face.

  Go Mango had produced some fine stakes winners, but her produce record had slipped recently. Well, she was an old mare. In the last five years, only one of her foals had lived to see a racetrack.

  Dakota glanced at the clock. Clay had been gone for an hour, and she was wide awake. She turned the page, surprised at how familiar she was with each mare’s history. As she read, her mind kept returning to Go Mango. What was it that bothered her about the mare? Whatever it was, it eluded her now.

  Three broodmares later, Dakota understood.

  She knew what Dan Bolin had been doing.

  She wondered if Coke had found out. And if he had, what Dan would have done to protect his secret.

  Suddenly, she was very, very scared.

  FORTY-THREE

  Tanner dreamed he was burning a mattress behind the house. As he swam up to consciousness, the boiling smoke of the dream followed him. His eyes opened to dense, ominous blackness. He could smell something burning, and his open mouth sucked at air as thick as cotton candy.

  It took a moment for his beer-addled brain to make the connection. Smoke. Burning. The trailer was on fire!

  He staggered to his feet, breathing in fumes and coughing them right back out. It was okay. The dinette was at the front of the trailer—the door was only a couple of yards away. He couldn’t see a thing, but he
knew where it was.

  He stumbled over some junk, went sprawling. Found a pocket of oxygen. Don’t panic. When people panicked, that was when they died. The door was right here. He could reach out and touch it.

  His hand fumbled for the handle. He screamed, jumped back and shook his hand, amazed at how quickly he’d been burned. He’d need ice for that.

  Right now he needed something to open the door with—an oven mitt, a blanket . . . anything.

  The horse blanket was right by his knees. Closing his eyes against the stinging heat—he couldn’t see anyway—Jerry grabbed a handful of horse blanket and clamped it on the door handle. This should do her. He wrenched it to the left.

  It didn’t budge.

  Calm down! Try again.

  The handle was frozen in place.

  What was going on? One good pull and the locking mechanism should come free and the door should open and he should be out in the fresh air, saying what a close goddamn call, I almost bought it this time—-and tomorrow he’d find a cheap motel and stay in it until he could work out a deal, and then he’d stay at the Inn of the Mountain Gods if he wanted to if only this goddamn door handle would get with the program and turn—

  But it didn’t. He tried pulling to the right. Nothing. Kicked it. The door rattled in the frame. “Open, you goddamn-piece-of-shit-door!” he yelled. He shoved his full weight at it. The door wouldn’t budge.

  Fear clawed at his insides. He was locked in here! He couldn’t get out. He couldn’t get out!

  He started pounding, shrieking for help. The screaming was only in his mind because by now he couldn’t get enough breath to make a sound. His brain was sluggish, and he could almost feel all the little cogs and pistons and belts in his body freeze, refuse to obey him. He’d pass out any minute, and then he’d be done for.

  Then he heard a rumbling. He turned to face what was coming.

  In the split second before it hit him, he knew it was over.

  The gust of superheated flame barreled down the hallway and slammed into him, lighting him like a straw effigy, and his last thought before he exploded in a ball of fire was: he’d known it was too good to be true.

  It promised to be a busy All American weekend for the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office. Only Thursday night, and already there was one drunk-driving accident and three bar fights. At ten thirty, they answered a call at a trailer fire near the racetrack.

  By the time the Ruidoso Downs Volunteer Fire Department and the sheriff arrived, the trailer was engulfed in flames. The black skeleton caved in under a whoosh of bright sparks.

  Undersheriff Robert Millar watched as the sheriff’s department arson investigator pulled up near the old turquoise truck.

  Bonnie Jardin emerged. “Any word yet who owns the trailer?” she asked as she approached.

  Robert scratched his neck. “The truck belongs to a racehorse trainer named Jerry Tanner.”

  “You know him?”

  “I’ve scraped him off a bar stool or two in my time,” he said.

  Dakota awoke to the crowing of a rooster. Automatically, she reached for Clay. His side of the bed was empty.

  She remembered last night, their argument. Was he still at the sheriff’s office? Dakota rose to one elbow, her hand crushing the catalog. Something bothered her, something frightening—

  Dan.

  A spear of reflected sunlight flashed on the cupboard above the sink, and she heard car tires outside. Startled, Dakota jumped up and rapped her head on the overhanging bunk.

  She saw Clay close the door to Rita’s SUV and walk toward the trailer.

  She met him at the door.

  “Sorry I didn’t call, but I didn’t want to wake you.”

  Unreasoning anger shot through her. Even so, she tried to keep her voice calm. “Where were you?”

  “I promised Rita and Lucy I’d take them home.”

  “Well, that’s—”

  “Dakota, Lucy’s father died last night.”

  His words hit her hard. “What?”

  ‘They’re pretty sure he was in the trailer,” Clay amended. “They’ll go through the rubble later today. We just got Lucy to bed. She was . . . upset.”

  “A trailer fire,” Dakota repeated.

  “She was at the station when it came over the dispatch.”

  “Oh God. Poor thing.” Dakota closed her eyes, but couldn’t obliterate the grisly vision just behind her eyeballs: the silver skin of Jerry’s trailer engulfed in flames, turning charred and black. She dared not think of the man inside.

  That morning, the medical examiner, the fire marshal, all thirteen members of the sheriff’s department and their arson investigator, the state police and their arson investigator, and the Ruidoso Downs Volunteer Fire Department converged on the scene, giving Jerry Tanner considerably more than his allotted fifteen minutes of fame.

  They found the body just inside the door. Foreshortened tendons had caused the arms to curl up to the chin like a praying mantis. Although a positive ID would take time, the sheriff’s department had run the truck’s registration and learned from the daughter that the trailer belonged to her dad.

  An empty gas can, wiped of prints, had been thrown into the grass near the trailer.

  The sheriff, Davis McGrath, hunkered down near the doorway, which had been reduced to something resembling a messy floor plan. “You thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked Bonnie.

  Her gaze followed his to the charred two-by-four, lying beside the boulder opposite the trailer door. “It could have been wedged against the boulder and propped under the door handle.”

  McGrath stood up. “The first murder in Lincoln County in three years.”

  FORTY-FOUR

  “Marcie, I want you to do me a favor,” Dakota said into the phone. She paced by the picture window of her father’s cabin, watching a Steller’s Jay peck at the bird feeder. With Tanner dead, Dakota thought no one else would try to hurt the filly, so she’d moved back into the cabin this morning.

  “Sure.”

  “There are some broodmare files on my father’s desk in the study. I’d like you to find the files for Shawnes Soliloquy, Go Mango, Narcolepsy, Globe Mallow, and Jimsonweed, and call me back. Okay?”

  Mystified, the groom replied that she would, and Dakota hung up.

  Clay looked up from his seat on the couch, where he was rolling clean bandages. “You think the files will be different from what’s in the catalog?”

  “I have no idea.” She’d already told him her theory, which seemed far-fetched in the light of day.

  “Those two-year-olds,” Clay said. “The ones you saw at Dan’s place. You think they’re from Black Oak mares?”

  Dakota sighed. “I don’t know. They could be his. He could have bred his mares to Something Wicked at the regular fee. Or Coke could have even let him breed his mares for free—as a perk. It could all be perfectly legitimate. Except I know Rudy Gallego and Ames were shipping them somewhere. Ames was lying when he told me he’d come for Dan’s roping horse. Where do you think they are?”

  “Mexico.”

  The heaviness in her heart told her he was right. “Do you think we could get them back?”

  Clay passed a hand over the back of his neck. “It would be hard.”

  The phone rang—Marcie calling back. Dakota asked her to read the produce records of each mare. She wrote everything down to make sure she wasn’t hearing things.

  Clay looked over her shoulder. “Holy cow.”

  Two of the five mares were listed as not conceiving the previous summer, and yet those same mares had foals at their side in the dispersal catalog this spring. Another mare’s foal died after only two days. Like Lazarus, he’d returned from the dead to appear at the dispersal. And Shawnes Soliloquy, Alydar’s friend, had dropped her foal while Dakota was there.

  Clay cradled her in his arms and grazed his lips over her hair. “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. Marcie said that Dan’s wife is dying.
He’s been with her night and day for a week. I can’t confront him now.”

  “I don’t think you should either. You’ve got to concentrate on the Futurity.”

  “And the derby,” she said, thinking of Clay’s horse Viento Prieto.

  “And the derby.”

  But all that weekend, Dakota felt an encroaching sense of doom. Which was ridiculous. Dan was in Tucson. She was safe, at least for now.

  Still, the questions ran through her mind. Was Dan a good man desperate for money to save his wife? Or was he a killer?

  She thought of the satellite dish, the boat. How many years had he been siphoning off colts from Black Oak? Coke had never paid much attention to the breeding program, delegating all the responsibility to Dan. Her father was a racetracker at heart and spent all his time at Los Alamitos, or Ruidoso, or Turf Paradise.

  But what if he’d found out? What if Dan had killed him to keep the whole thing from blowing up in his face? What if he wanted her dead, too, to cover up what he’d done? Should she feel sorry for him, or should she fear him?

  FORTY-FIVE

  As it turned out, Dakota didn’t have to call Dan Bolin. He called her. “I have to see you.” It was very early Sunday morning, the day before the All American Futurity. Dakota had come back for breakfast after walking Shameless.

  Dakota could tell he’d been crying. Alarmed, she asked him how Marie was.

  There was a pause. “She didn’t make it.” When he continued talking, his voice was dull and faraway. “Did I tell you they had a heart for her? It was being flown in from California. I asked her to hold on, but she couldn’t hear me. I don’t think she ever knew. It was some young guy, twenty-two years old, a motorcycle crash, he had a good strong heart. I really think if she’d held on . . . but I guess it wasn’t to be.” He sounded as if he were discussing the weather. Obviously, it hadn’t hit home yet. “She died this morning around six. They were just about to prep her, and now, now I don’t know what to do.”