Other People's Horses (Alex and Alexander Book 2)

by Natalie Keller Reinert

  Every morning I saw that filly running away, jockey standing in the stirrups like a Roman rider, his death-grip on her mouth nothing at all to her, and I waited for her to break down, snap a delicate foreleg, roll head over heels in the dirt and lie there to wait for solace in a syringe while the siren wailed and the riders pulled up and waited, uncertain, looking around for a loose horse galloping towards them or a rider down, confused and frightened by the ear-piercing noise which only meant trouble and often meant tragedy, until its last echoes wound down at last and they were allowed to ride on. She was Mary Archer’s filly, and that meant she would get two chances and then get the boot. I’d heard different things about what that boot was: some bush track in Arkansas, a ramshackle breeding farm in Ohio, the stock auction in Pennsylvania where the killer’s truck ran forgotten horses to Canada twice a week.

  I watched her go by, her stark white face high and proud, her legs churning the dirt, her mouth gaped open against the steel that sought to slow her, and thought that Mary Archer was too short-sighted to ever fix such a raging spirit. Since she’d come back to the racetrack, she’d proven her specialty: squeezing out every drop of speed a horse had, and discarding the dried-out husks. It was exactly the way Dennis Perry would have trained his own horses; it was exactly the way that Roddy Ellis aspired to train. It was all money and no heart.

  My glorious red filly would be just another one of her discards. As she’d once been at Littlefield. She’d come so far to be put out with the trash again!

  She’s come to Saratoga so that I can claim her.

  The thought nagged, too metaphysical to be taken seriously, too obvious to put aside.

  I knew exactly what I’d do with her, if I could only get the chance. I could fix her. I could sort out her brain and teach her to rate, to run a race instead of just running. I knew I’d claim her as soon as she was entered into a race. There wasn’t a price too high. I had to have her. Some horses … they just get inside you.

  But though I watched her run every morning, I never saw her in the afternoon.

  Some evenings, after the races and the night’s chores were wrapped up, I made myself sit with Mike Watson and his buddies. Elton Pierce was Mike’s contemporary and nice but unremarkable. Eddie Capinelli was a retired fireman who liked to turn a fire extinguisher on the grill after dinner. And it turned out that Johnny Altman, the bearded guy who had been spying on me, was Mike’s nephew and had come up from “the city” for the summer, subletting his apartment to a French college student who was writing a research paper on recreational drug use. “I’m hoping he leaves interesting drugs in hiding places around the apartment and then forgets to take them back,” Johnny explained. “And then I’ll just like, find random shit around the apartment in baggies all the time.”

  “Does he smoke the drugs? Does he smoke in bed? He could burn the whole building down.” Eddie Capinelli seemed ready to grab his car keys and head south on an intervention.

  “I never used drugs,” Elton Pierce said thoughtfully. He put his hands behind his head and gazed up into the quaking leaves of the elm tree overhead, reflecting on risks untaken.

  “You’re going to take some weird shit and have a bad trip,” Mike said, half-serious, and Johnny laughed.

  “Trip,” Johnny repeated. “Man, you’re so, like, seventies hard-core or some shit.”

  I didn’t say much, just let the three guys banter and sipped at my beer. It was nice to get away from horse talk, although of course they did chat about the races — it was Saratoga, after all — and they all liked to ask me questions about the care and keeping of racehorses from time to time, which I would answer in an over-scientific manner, hoping to bore them. But Johnny Altman always seemed to listen carefully, and ask for more.

  “Because he likes to listen to you,” Kerri said knowingly, and I ignored her, because what difference did it make if the guy liked me or not? I had Alexander.

  If only he ever called.

  ***

  “I got news for you.”

  Manny had called while I was walking home in the summer twilight, watching lightning bugs dance through the suburban lawns. There weren’t so many lightning bugs in Florida. Here they wafted through the trees and gardens in spectral flocks, sending children with peanut butter jars into a frenzy of running and leaping and snatching at empty air. I pressed the warm glass of my phone to my cheek and brushed yellow-glowing bugs out of my path.

  “About the filly?”

  “She dropping in for thirty five tag.”

  I sighed. This really was a beautiful night. “Manny, that’s great.”

  “You sure about this filly?”

  I was. “I am.”

  “Then go get her, boss.”

  He hung up. I pocketed my phone and walked beneath the Saratoga trees, thinking about my crazy filly, and how we would teach her how to be a racehorse at last.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Putting in a Claim

  “So we just bring her back to the barn with us?”

  “That’s right.”

  “That’s really … that’s wow.”

  “I know.”

  We were standing by the rail, watching the field go to post for an unremarkable sprint for unremarkable fillies. Well, they weren’t exactly classless. Thirty-five thousand dollars is not a little bit of money, and that’s what it would take to bring home any one of these six ladies. But it was distinctly mid-level at a racetrack like Saratoga. And there in the middle, with her head pulled to the pony rider’s side and her hind end flailing out sideways as she tried to get free, was my mad filly.

  Luna Park was in for a surprise when she finished this race. So was her groom.

  So was Mary Archer.

  I had a halter and chain shank in a shopping bag over my arm, along with a water bucket and sponge. It was hidden, but the clink of the metal inside the large bag was still a dead giveaway. I saw Manny in line at an auto-tote, voucher in hand. He looked at the bag and then nodded at me, lips twitching to hide a smile.

  Kerri giggled nervously and I put a hand on her shoulder to steady her. Hell, we were both on edge. I’d never claimed a horse before. She’d never seen such a thing before. I’d signed the ticket and slid it across the counter like some sort of illicit deal. I’d bought someone’s horse without their knowledge. I was going to slip my own halter over her head instead of the one their groom had brought, and lead her back to my own barn, while the groom trudged home alone to strip the straw from an empty stall. It was strange, and disturbing, and incredibly invigorating. I shushed Kerri, whose giggles were bordering on hysteria. “Not so obvious,” I told her. “People are staring.”

  I shifted the bag on my shoulder and the lead chain clinked against the bucket handle. A few heads turned at the metallic rattle.

  “People are staring anyway,” Kerri hissed back. “Keep that bag still.”

  The bag was digging into my shoulder, but I steeled myself to be a big girl and left it alone. I wasn’t sure why we needed the clandestine approach; claiming was a perfectly aboveboard way to acquire a racehorse. There would probably be other claims in this race anyway. In fact … Yes … I glanced over to the winner’s circle entrance where several track officials and employees were standing, and noticed the paddock steward had a small cluster of red plastic tags in her hand. I wasn’t the only one in this crowd who had brought along a spare halter. When the horses came back in from the race, the steward would clip the red tag on the bridles of the claimed horses before their grooms could so much as take their horses’ reins, and then everyone would know.

  It just felt like something that should be kept quiet, that was all. Something about the whole scenario felt unreal to me. I couldn’t will myself to believe that Luna Park was coming back to the barn with us. I’d done the paperwork and everything was set, and yet I couldn’t envision her walking home beside me. I watched her on the LED and felt the same aching love for her that I always did, felt the same conviction that she was a g
reat horse just waiting to be let out of her crazy shell as I always did, but I didn’t think it was going to happen today.

  The fillies loaded, the bell rang, the gates opened. She broke the way she always did: on top, at full speed, and if she could have kept up the entire six furlongs the way that she ran her first quarter, she would have been the new world champion. She would have been a freak. She ran that first quarter like a running Quarter Horse: ears pinned, hindquarters churning, absolutely flat-out furious. She put twelve lengths between herself and the rest of the field by the time they had reached the far turn.

  And then she folded.

  She stopped with stunning suddenness, dropping back so hard and fast she seemed to be running backwards. The other five maidens in the field plunged ahead into what turned out to be a thrilling duel, with a three-way photo for the win, but it might as well have been the next race on the card for Luna Park. The filly bobbled tiredly under the wire well after the other horses, head low and ears flopping, jockey balancing above her withers in a bored sort of way. He’d probably known the race was lost the second she catapulted out of the gate with the bit between her teeth.

  I looked at Kerri. She looked back, an expression related to panic in her eyes. I knew what she was thinking: What have we done?

  “Well,” I said bravely. “She isn’t lame.”

  Kerri turned back and watched her jogging. The jock didn’t even take her to the clubhouse turn before he turned her back towards the grandstand, bringing her in before the other horses had finished their gallop out. He was that Canadian jockey that rode for Mary Archer nearly exclusively. Few other trainers were desperate enough to ride him. He was just too brutal a rider. But he hadn’t seemed to use any of that fierce anger he drove his mounts with on Luna Park. I supposed she hadn’t seemed worth his time, when she was clearly running herself into the ground.

  “You’re right,” Kerri agreed, eyes on the filly’s even gait. “She’s trotting just fine. She’s exhausted, of course. She’ll need a few days walking to come out of this. And extra feed. She’ll probably drop weight in the next few days.”

  I nodded. “Well, we know what to do with her. Let’s go get her.”

  We set off toward the gate to the track alongside the grooms with halters over their shoulders and buckets in their hands, and the trainers in their business casual attire and their phones at their ears, already explaining to owners what went wrong and how it would go differently in the next race. You could hear them saying“Next time, next time, next time” into the mouthpieces. It was the most common phrase in horse racing. Everyone was excited for next time.

  The steward was faster than anyone, clipping tags onto halters. One, two, three. A lot, especially considering the high price of the fillies. We waited for a fourth. But there wasn’t one. The chestnut filly was already in the hands of her groom; the jockey was already stripping his tack. Mary Archer was on her way over in her graceless cowboy boots and baggy jeans. And then the steward stopped her, said a few words, and Mary nodded in a tight sort of way. Both women looked our way, made brief eye contact, and then gazed past us.

  Kerri looked alarmed. “What happened? We didn’t get her?”

  But my heart was in my throat, and I couldn’t answer her. I couldn’t tell her that it was all tumbling down.

  We stumbled through the thick clay of the track, stopping by the reddish-gold filly. Her eyes were tired, and the wild look was gone: the white sclera that usually ringed the brown iris was invisible. She looked miserable. My heart ached for her, but she wasn’t mine. . . as I had felt she wouldn’t be.

  Roddy Ellis stepped up beside us. Kerri looked up at him in surprise. “Roddy!” she exclaimed, and he gave her a lopsided grin.

  “Well, howdy, Kerri,” he drawled. “Funny place to meet.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Kerri—” I put out my hand to draw her away from our neighbor. “He put in a claim for her too.”

  “What? He wouldn’t … he knew we—” Kerri stopped when she saw the expression coming over my face. She took a step backward, but I tightened my grip on her arm. I wanted to strangle her, but I contented myself with holding onto her so hard I was sure I’d leave bruises. My head was swimming: outrage and disappointment and betrayal all making my vision blurry and my heart pounding nearly out of my chest. I felt the blood rise up in my face.

  “And this is why you’re supposed to stay away from him!” I hissed. “What was I thinking, bringing you here? You’re too naive for this game. Such a child, thinking everyone’s your best friend. No one is your friend, Kerri. Everyone is your rival.”

  “That’s not quite true,” Roddy put in. I shot him a fierce look, but he wasn’t as easily cowed as my little assistant. “I have tried to be your friend, Alex, God knows, but you won’t have me or anyone else. You have a chip on your shoulder the size of New York.”

  “Well-deserved, as you can see!” I spat. “You knew I was coming after her, so you did too!”

  “Folks, can we calm down?” The steward was looking at us with an expression of distaste. “We need to step aside and settle this, but if you can’t manage to behave professionally, I’ll slap you both with a fine and a suspension and sleep perfectly fine tonight.”

  We both looked at her blankly. She was a squat little woman with a tangle of dirty blonde curls and electric blue eyeshadow, and she looked deeply un-amused by our feud. I had no doubt she’d do exactly as she promised. Roddy, Kerri, and I shuffled over to the winner’s circle, which was already cleared of the winning horse and her jubilant connections, and on to the steward’s desk.

  It would be a shake.

  It happened so quickly, and so simply. She put the two balls into the cup. She covered the cup. She shook it. She took one out. She held it up. It was Roddy’s.

  I adjusted the bag on my shoulder and turned, marched out of the winner’s circle, back into the apron of the clubhouse, around the curve of the trackside cafe, straight to the Jim Dandy bar. I didn’t look behind me to see if Kerri followed, or if she stayed to talk to her chum Roddy, maybe help him out with his pretty new filly. I didn’t look behind to see the look of triumph on Mary Archer’s face as she watched me fail one more time, publicly this time, as she had predicted I would when we’d met in Florida. I didn’t look behind me to see Roddy slip his halter over my filly’s head, or to see his groom lead her back to the wrong side of my barn.

  I ordered a bourbon and soda and leaned against one of the high tables and sipped at it until I felt a little better.

  And then I ordered another.

  ***

  I wouldn’t go back to the barn that night. I was resolved in that.

  I would let Kerri do it. Kerri was the one who could walk across the street, up the few blocks to our stable, with the unneeded shopping bag over her arm and the lead shank jingling merrily inside, declaring to anyone who passed by that there should have been a horse at her side. She would feed dinner to the six horses in our shedrow, and ignore the seventh stall with the fresh bale of straw scattered within; she’d pull up the straw tomorrow when she was mucking stalls, but for tonight she would just close the bottom door to keep any animals from wandering in and burrowing in the bedding.

  She would go over to Roddy’s side of the barn and admire the filly with him, and mention that she knew how much Alex had wanted the filly, but that Alex was sensible and understood that horses came and horses went. Alex will get over it, she would say. She’s just having a rough summer. Her husband’s in Australia, you know.

  She would think I was being irrational if I didn’t get over it by tomorrow. It would go against everything I’d tried to teach her about the racing business, about making a living with horses, about making sound decisions based on the appropriate ratios of risk and return.

  I ordered another bourbon.

  I wasn’t even sure she understood the way that I felt about the chestnut filly; I wasn’t particularly eager to explain it to her, either. Ho
w do you explain love at first sight, how do you explain the feeling of destiny, the certainty that fate has led you to this point? I thought, I knew, the moment I laid eyes on that filly, that she was the one. That however wonderful Personal Best was, my darling naughty fast-as-lightning colt, this filly held something strange and wonderful and only for me, and to see her pass into the hands of my enemy, a man I didn’t think I could ever trust, a man whose figures were too good for reality and whose horses were too overworked for soundness, was just the worst sort of tragedy to me.

  I wondered why Kerri didn’t see Roddy’s tired horses and realize what sort of man he was.

  Maybe she was in love with him.

  Love was blind.

  I ordered another bourbon.

  I should talk to her. Again. Until she listens. Explain why Alexander and I did not think that running a horse twice in the same week was acceptable. Explain to her that no one needed three shelves of a bookcase for medications unless they were running horses who should be out in a field recuperating from whatever ailed them. Explain to her that the old ways of just running a horse in a circle and then dropping it in a race would not be good enough for Luna Park, and that all her potential would be lost because he would never have the wits to see what was going on with her was in her mind, not in her body.

  But now, leaning against the wall outside the bar, watching the crowds thin out as we wound down toward the last two races of the hot summer evening, I thought I’d rather not speak to her tonight, rather not see her tonight. Roddy wouldn’t have known I was after the filly if she would have just listened to me. I would want to scream and I mustn’t scream. I would get a cab, and climb into the backseat and give the driver my address, and then slip inside and creep upstairs to my little bedroom and fall into my little double bed, a bed smaller than any I’d slept in since I’d moved into Alexander’s bedroom years before, and turn my window air conditioner up as high as it went and huddle beneath a quilt until sleep found me.