Dark Horse

by J. Carson Black

  Dakota swallowed. She couldn’t bring up the mares now. “Don’t worry about a thing. Do whatever you have to do. Marcie can take care of things at Black Oak. If there’s anything—”

  “No. Nothing. I don’t need money. Not now.”

  Not now, the niggling little voice said again. But he had needed the money. And by the way, who killed Coke?

  They talked for a while longer before Dan hung up. Dakota sat down, her heart heavy. There was too much sadness in this world. Jerry, burning to death, leaving a sixteen-year-old daughter behind. Dan, losing the wife he adored. Coke. Oh God, Coke. She felt the tears come.

  The phone shrilled. It was Dan again. “Look, I have to get out of here. I was thinking maybe I could drive out to Ruidoso, talk to you. There’s something you should know, I’ve got to tell you in person.”

  “But what about the arrangements? This is hardly the time to—”

  “Screw the arrangements! I’m leaving now. I should be in Ruidoso by three.”

  “Are you sure this is wise?”

  “We can meet at that coffee shop on Mecham. The one across from the shopping center. Four o’clock.”

  “I have to be at the pre-race dinner—”

  “I have to get this off my chest. I’ll see you then.” And he hung up.

  Dakota stared at the phone, wondering if the man she’d just talked to was a distraught husband or a killer.

  Dakota parked outside the coffee shop, twenty minutes late because she’d just watched Clay’s horse run in the All American Derby. Although she would have liked to have Clay with her, he’d had to go to the test barn when Viento Prieto came in second. Things were so hectic, she’d told him she would be back at the cabin in time to change for dinner.

  She wondered if she was making a mistake in meeting Dan. A coffee shop was safe enough, as long as they stayed there. She would not leave with him, no matter what reason he gave.

  The man just lost his wife.

  But he still had a lot to lose. Her heart thumping wildly in her chest, she crossed the parking lot and opened the glass door, wondering if she was about to face Coke’s killer.

  I wish Clay were here.

  Dan sat on the vinyl seat that ran around the front of the coffee shop, head in his hands, apart from the rest of the people waiting for tables. Dakota almost didn’t recognize him. Once a big man, he seemed lost in his clothes. His freckles stood out in stark relief against his white face, and puffy half circles couched dazed eyes.

  She couldn’t see him running Coke off the road, or shooting at her.

  He stood up, looking uncomfortable. Dakota took his hand. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s all right.” He might as well have said “it’s nothing.” He probably didn’t even understand her words; he must be in shock.

  The hostess led them to a booth, and they ordered coffee. “You didn’t have to come all this way,” Dakota said.

  He looked down at his big hands. “Driving was kind of therapeutic.”

  “I can find you a place—”

  “No, no. I’m okay. I got a room at the Apache Motel. I’m really okay, you know?”

  The coffee came, and he spent a long time tearing the lids off the little plastic creamers, pouring and stirring, shaking in Equal and stirring again. At last he couldn’t do any more to the coffee unless he added the Tabasco that had been set next to the salt and pepper, so he stared with fierce concentration into the cup, as if it were a teleprompter. He sighed heavily. “You might as well know. I’ve been cheating you.”

  “I know.”

  The first sense of real awareness stirred in his eyes. “You know?”

  “You’ve been listing some mares as unable to conceive and then selling off their foals.”

  He rubbed his eyes. “How’d you find out?”

  She told him. About Shawnes Soliloquy, and Go Mango. “Shawnes Soliloquy might have been a mistake, but three mares listed as barren in one place and in foal in the other?”

  She didn’t add that the best-bred mares were the most unlucky when it came to producing dead foals. The best mares of Black Oak. Dan was taking Something Wicked’s most promising progeny and pocketing the money. “That’s why you didn’t want me poking around.”

  “I didn’t think you’d notice, but I wasn’t taking any chances.”

  “So you tried to keep me from seeing those files. Why didn’t you just change them?”

  “I thought you’d go back to LA right after the dispersal. It was too much work, and I wasn’t thinking too well at the time.” He toyed with his wedding ring as he spoke.

  “Let me get this straight,” she said, trying not to look at his wedding ring. He had cheated her, and she had to remember that, despite the pain he was going through now. “The dispersal sale threw a spanner in the works. You couldn’t very well separate a nursing foal from its mother or hide a pregnancy, so you wrote the mares’ true conditions in the catalog and took a loss on the foals.”

  “I didn’t think you’d notice.”

  No doubt. Running Black Oak as his own private fiefdom, he hadn’t bothered to alter the files. When Dakota had asked to see them, he must have banked on the fact that she wouldn’t know what to look for. He was almost right. It took Alydar’s attraction to a broodmare named Shawnes Soliloquy to make her look closer. How could she feel sorry for him? He’d cheated her father!

  “I planned on doing it only once, when Marie first got sick and we needed a heart transplant. The insurance company flat refused to pay for it. I needed hundreds of thousands of dollars, and there was Rudy Gallego telling me about his rich owner who wanted Something Wicked’s get. I sold him five yearlings, averaging twenty thousand dollars. Can you imagine that? He bought them without papers for twenty thousand dollars. We’d be lucky to get half that here. Forget NAFTA. In this business, the Mexicans have the money. So I did it. I bought her time. We waited three years for that heart, and then it was no good.” He sighed. “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” she said in all honesty.

  “I don’t care if you go to the police. My life is over now.”

  He said it simply, and Dakota believed him. He honestly didn’t care.

  “Did Jared Ames help you?”

  “It was his idea. He was the one who wanted to switch the stallions.”

  Stunned, Dakota stared at him. It was true.

  “You didn’t know about that, did you?” There was a rueful smile in his eyes. “Jared thought you’d guessed.”

  “I had Something Wicked blood-typed. It had to be him.”

  “It was him. The horse we buried was Something Wicked.”

  “Then I don’t understand . . .”

  His big hands started fiddling with the coffee mug. “It’s a long story but I’m not going anywhere.” He took a deep breath and launched into it.

  Something Wicked’s first two seasons at stud were a disappointment, he told her. The stallion didn’t seem to pass on his blinding speed to his colts, and the percentage of foals indicated his sperm count was low. Despite that, Dan didn’t discourage owners from sending their mares.

  Then disaster struck. Something Wicked came down with a virus that laid him low for several weeks.

  Mares were ready to be bred. One owner in particular, an influential force in the quarter horse industry, was threatening to withdraw his mare, a World Champion. When Dan palpated her ovaries and realized she had to be bred that day or not at all, he panicked. The owner—a bellicose know-it-all— had shown up to watch the procedure, and if he knew about Something Wicked’s virus, he would make waves throughout the industry.

  That was when Dan, walking past the stallion paddock, noticed Darkscope. He’d often joked about the two studs, how they were practically identical, except that one stallion had been a barn burner on the track, and the other had been a dud. Coke was hoping the younger stallion would at least pass on the bloodlines he shared with Something Wicked.

  The owner was shouting
at Dan. He had a meeting in Phoenix, and he didn’t want to waste any more time. Dan was sick to death of the pushy bastard, so he went to the refrigerator where the semen was stored and picked out the vial labeled “Darkscope.” He changed the labels and inseminated the mare under the owner’s watchful eyes.

  It served the son of a bitch right. And the deception went off without a hitch. It went so smoothly that he decided to try it again with the other mares to be bred. He began to store Darkscope’s semen, marking it as Something Wicked’s. It was easy.

  Then Jared Ames, who had just returned from a three-week fishing trip to Alaska, noticed the semen containers marked “Something Wicked” in the refrigerator. He knew that the horse was still suffering from the virus. At first he accused Dan of breeding a sick horse, which could endanger the mares and any potential offspring.

  Dan’s face reddened. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “You sly dog. What’re you doing? Breeding Darkscope as Something Wicked and pocketing the difference?”

  That was how Dan got a partner. After Something Wicked recovered, Darkscope wasn’t used as often, but Dan and Jared managed to make some money off the discrepancy in the stud fees.

  And then a remarkable thing happened. Darkscope’s colts started winning at the track, while Something Wicked’s progeny lagged far behind. And so they switched the horses permanently. Dan fired the stallion grooms and put Darkscope in Something Wicked’s more spacious stall. He even put the halter, the one with the brass plate emblazoned with “Something Wicked,” on the pretender to the throne.

  Everyone benefited. The “Something Wicked” colts were doing well for their owners, so Coke should be happy (if he’d known). Dan had saved his job and began to siphon off a little money on the side—just a little, here and there. After all, hadn’t he saved Black Oak from disaster? Something Wicked wasn’t half the stallion Darkscope was.

  Jared Ames made out like a bandit. So far, they’d been lucky; there was no reason for the people at the AQHA to compare records, so the discrepancies in blood-typing hadn’t been noticed as yet. Dan knew he was playing a dangerous game, that one of these days he would be caught, but by that time his wife was sick and he needed all the money he could get. He continued to play Russian Roulette with every spin of the centrifuge.

  Everything was going along smoothly until Coke died, and the dispersal sale was scheduled. That was the beginning of the end. By then, Marie was very ill, and Dan was buried under hospital bills. He’d already sold two crops of colts. Dakota had called him from Ruidoso, telling him that the representative from Lone Star was on his way.

  “So Marcie always thought that Something Wicked was Darkscope and vice versa,” Dakota said.

  Dan nodded.

  “When they were switched, she thought that the horse in Darkscope’s stall was Something Wicked, even though he really was Darkscope. She just didn’t know he was Darkscope.” It was all so confusing. She was missing something in all this. Something important. It sat right at the edge of her mind, like the tip of an iceberg almost covered by murky waters. She shook her head. It eluded her.

  Dan was playing with his wedding ring again. He was quiet now, after talking so long and freely about his deception. He wouldn’t look at her.

  Then it hit her. Something Wicked was dead. She’d always thought Jerry Tanner had killed him, but now . . .

  “You didn’t have to kill him!” she said. “Why couldn’t you just switch him back? Why did you have to kill him?”

  “I didn’t kill him on purpose,” he said in an anguished voice. “I tried to switch them back. He was always hard to handle, being a stud. I was kind of in a hurry, it was dark, and he didn’t like the smell of that stall. He knew another stud had been in there, and he got agitated.” Dan tore more lids off more coffee creamers, splashed them into his coffee, but didn’t drink. His hands started tearing up the little foil lids, his big, clublike fingers surprisingly gentle. “We had a tug-o-war—I was trying to get him into the stall, and he reared up and hit his head on the beam. Just right.” He shook his head.

  “It was an accident?”

  Dan nodded.

  “So Jerry Tanner didn’t kill Something Wicked.”

  “There’s something else I have to tell you. I was so scared, when you wouldn’t leave. I wanted you to go. So I sent you those notes.”

  Dakota’s blood ran cold. “The picture of the wrecked truck?”

  “I had to, don’t you see?”

  “But I know Jerry tried to kill Shameless. He practically admitted it,” she said, remembering the way he’d stood at the rail, waving the oleander branch.

  “I didn’t know who tried to kill Shameless. I just took advantage of it.”

  Dakota remembered picking up the morning paper the next day, throwing it down in fear, TRY AND TRY AGAIN. “HOW could you?”

  “I had to do something. You were around too much, I had to scare you off.”

  “I can’t believe it,” she breathed. She felt betrayed. “That was cruel . . . What about the broodmares? Did you do that, too?”

  “I had to. You wouldn’t leave—”

  “Would you have hurt them, like you threatened?”

  “No,” he whispered. “I could never do that. That’s why I only cut their manes and tails.”

  “And yet you sold young horses down into Mexico, knowing that within the year they’d be running in match races!”

  “I had to,” he repeated, his mouth drawn into a stubborn line.

  Dakota had a headache. She’d been prepared for the broodmares, but the stallions? That meant that all the horses they’d sold in the past several years were fakes. Black Oak had defrauded the public by passing off Darkscope colts as Something Wicked’s. The enormity of it was impossible for her to grasp.

  That something at the edge of her consciousness crowded in again. Something she instinctively shied away from, something she didn’t want to know.

  “I don’t know how to make it up to you.”

  “You can’t,” she said brusquely. The torment in his eyes made her feel small. “I guess we’ll muddle through all this somehow.” She couldn’t think about this now. The All American was tomorrow. She’d have to sort this out later, if it could be sorted out. But even now, she had the terrible feeling that there would be no easy answer.

  They had defrauded the public.

  All of Something Wicked’s foals were actually Darkscope’s. It was so hard to believe.

  Something, something really bad, just at the edge . . . and then it hit her, with the sound of the world caving in around her.

  Shameless was Darkscope’s foal, too.

  FORTY-SIX

  As Dakota hurried home to change for the pre-race dinner, she tried to deny the obvious. There had to be some kind of mistake, something she was missing.

  Well, she’d be damned if she wasn’t going to the dinner. This was the biggest night of her life, and she would not be cheated from it. Coke wouldn’t be cheated from it. Every time her subconscious tried to bring it up, she shied away. Slam the door, bolt it shut. It wasn’t true, it couldn’t be true.

  Think about the dinner. Coke would be so proud.

  “Where’ve you been?” Clay asked when she walked through the door. He buttoned a crisp white shirt and tucked the tail into pleated pants.

  Dakota didn’t know what to say. If she told him now, her decision was made. Denying Shameless her chance to win the Futurity would haunt her for the rest of her life. She needed time, serious thinking time to ponder all the ramifications, before committing herself. “I had errands,” she lied.

  Dakota saw the disappointment in his eyes, and knew he was wondering why she hadn’t stuck around with him to celebrate Viento Prieto’s good showing. What kind of errand was more important than that? “I’m sorry. Clay. They were things I had to do, or you know I would have stayed,” she added lamely.

  “Sure,” he said.

  This time, the drive to the clubhouse was a tense
one. Dakota knew that Clay didn’t buy her explanation, but he didn’t say anything. And all the time the little voice in her head chanted like a mantra—imposter, imposter, imposter, imposter—until she thought she’d go mad.

  This time the sunset looked like a gaudily painted backdrop, the shrimp was tasteless, the band dissonant. She took no pleasure in her surroundings or the glorious man at her side. There was her table, just as she’d pictured it, with the name SHAMELESS running down the center in satin. It mocked her now. The night had an unreal feeling to it, as if she were swimming in an aquarium, and everyone could see in.

  After they ate, the racing secretary spoke about the many changes for the good that would be coming to Ruidoso, then told the story about how the All American started. Dakota had heard the story many times before, but concentrated on the racing secretary’s words, hoping they’d drown out her own inner voice.

  In 1953, he told them, some of the West’s top horsemen were swapping stories in the Hilton bar in Albuquerque, and boasted about their fine racing mares. These mares read like the Who’s Who of quarter horse racing; Stella Moore, Shue Fly, Miss Princess, and High Deal. As horsemen had done for centuries, they argued about which was the best, finally agreeing on a race that would decide it once and for all. The following morning, in a more sober frame of mind, they realized their mistake. All the mares were in foal. And so they decided instead to race the foals that were in utero in two years’ time. That was how the All American Futurity was born.

  “Now, let’s take a look at our ten qualifiers. As you know. Runaway Train, owned by Sid Lasco and trained by Dwayne Carouthers, was the fastest qualifier, followed by . . .” The secretary read the names in order of their times: First Down Dallas, Chamiso Te, Can’t Touch This, Money Bunny, Yawl Yeller, Rampaging Ronda, Dreamcatcher, Shameless, and Dashforatouchdown.

  Dakota stared up at the monitors until her neck hurt, watching the qualifiers run their races. Runaway Train was the most impressive, winning his trial by one length at a blistering speed, just an eighth of a second off the track record for a two-year-old. In Shameless’s trial, the filly seemed to strain to catch Dreamcatcher. But the extra week and the tough race had made a difference, and Dakota believed the filly was back to her old self. Shameless was ready to run.