At Risk (8 page)

"Hungry, are we?" I said.

Marty lifted a bag of UTZ potato chips out of
the box, looked at me, and grinned. "Not for long."

I sloshed some vodka into a tall glass and
topped it off with some orange juice.

"You always put your mail in the trash?"
Marty had dropped the empty sour cream container into the can and
was holding a letter from my father between his fingers. "You
forgot to open it."

"I didn't forget."

He looked up from the envelope. "Damn, Steve.
Don't you wanna know what it says?"

"I know what it says. 'Come back home and go
to this college and major in that subject, and I'll get you in at
Johns Hopkins or Yale or wherever, and you can have whatever you
want as long as it suits me.'" I sat cross-legged on the floor.

"Ain't nothin' wrong with a little bribery,
as long as you get what you want in the end. So what if he wants
you to follow in his snotty, condescending, ivy-leagued,
scalpel-wielding footsteps."

I thought I was going to choke. "How'd you
like somebody telling you how and where and when to take a
piss?"

Marty shrugged. "Depends what I get in
return, I suppose."

I picked up the remote and turned on the CD
player.

"Why didn't you finish school, anyway?" Marty
said. "With your smarts, not to mention your old man's connections,
you could've gone anywhere, done anything, even if you did have to
kiss his ass from time to time."

"That's exactly why I didn't." Not to mention
the fact that I had felt rudderless, without purpose, and most
devastating to me . . . without passion. Then there was that sour
taste I knew I'd have in my mouth if I let him run my life. I
swallowed some orange juice, set the glass on the floor, and closed
my eyes. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, just knew
I didn't want to live his.

Marty dragged a kitchen stool around onto the
carpet, then perched on it with his heels hooked on the lower rung.
"Plus, you'd still have that sweet, motherfuckin' ride of yours.
Hell, I would of stayed just for that."

I stared at him and wondered where all this
shit was coming from.

"I can't believe he kicked you out just
'cause you quit school."

"He liked control, Marty. Quitting college
was only half of it. What really pissed him off was that I went to
work on a horse farm. It didn't go with his image, having one of
his sons slinging shit for a living. What would his colleagues
think? Guess he figured if he kicked me out, I wouldn't make it on
my own, and before long, I'd be back home, following his marching
orders like a good little boy."

"I don't know," Marty said. "It just don't
figure. You'd've thought you'd whacked somebody, the way he treats
you. Here you get the shit beat out of you, and you can't even talk
to him, can't even go to your own parents for help or--"

"Marty . . ."

"--support. He's an asshole. He should be
proud of you instead of--"

"Marty, quit."

"You're even defending him, for Christ's
sake. And all because you made the wrong fucking career
choice."

"I'm not--"

"He pisses me off. Doesn't he care?"

I was on my feet, and I think that only then
did Marty realize what he was doing. "No." I glared at him. "He
doesn't care." I walked over to the audio system, cranked up the
volume to some rock 'n roll, and said under my breath, "He only
cares about himself."

Marty was behind me then, and I hadn't heard
him. He put his hand on my shoulder, wanting me to turn around.
"Steve?"

I shrugged him off. I felt like hitting him,
but it wasn't Marty I wanted to hit. I stood there and stared at
the throbbing green and red lights arcing across the panel in sync
with the music. If I stared at them long enough, they blurred
together, everything else in the room dissolving into
nonexistence.

"They killed him, Marty." I said softly.

"What?"

"They went to steal some horses, and they
killed him."

I told him about James Peters and watched the
animation die out of his face.

At some point, I must have drifted off,
because I woke on the floor, in the dark, with a stiff neck. I
moved to check my watch and realized Marty had dropped a blanket on
top of me. Two o'clock. I staggered to my feet and saw him lying on
my bed, on my pillow, under my blankets.

"Fuck."

Well, at least he'd had the sense not to
drive home. I took some pain pills, which I probably shouldn't
have, pulled out my sleeping bag, and went back to sleep.

* * *

It took all of Sunday to recover from that
stunt, but by the time Tuesday morning rolled around, I was halfway
to normal. Even the rib pain had settled into a dull ache,
noticeable, but no longer annoying.

Like clockwork, Foxdale's farrier bumped his
pickup down the lane at precisely seven-fifty-nine on the first
Tuesday in March. He swung the truck around, backed up to the barn
door, and braked to a halt.

"What've you got for me today, Steve?" Nick
asked as he lowered the tailgate.

"Thirteen. You've done them before." I pulled
a crumpled sheet of paper out of my back pocket and handed it to
him.

He skimmed the list, grunting at a name or
two, then tossed it back at me. I leaned against the barn door and
watched him rummage through an assortment of shoes, pads, and
nails. Anything an equine athlete might require to produce a
winning performance.

Nick was a short, compact man with wiry black
hair and a heavily-muscled back from years spent doubled up under
the bellies of countless horses. I'd never seen him without a
twisted bandanna tied around his head, even in winter, and his
thick neck always looked sunburned. Unlike Foxdale's last farrier,
Nick always had what we needed in stock, even for the most
complicated job. But what I appreciated most was the fact that he
actually liked horses. I'd known more than one farrier who behaved
as if they didn't like horses at all.

Nick hopped off the tailgate, reached back
into the bed, and dragged the anvil toward him. The resultant
screech of metal against metal caused me to grit my teeth. When he
switched on the forge, I brought out the first horse, a bright
chestnut gelding with exceptionally thin soles. He had been one of
the most difficult horse I'd ever held for Nick.

"Well, this ol' boy's finally come round,"
Nick said, reading my thoughts.

"Thanks to you," I said.

"No . . . I think it was your singin' that
did it," he said straight-faced.

I groaned. "Don't remind me."

"Well, come on now," Nick drawled in a
hillbilly twang that I had long since concluded was mostly act. "It
was torture all right, but it calmed 'im down. Must have a twisted
sense of music." He ran his hand down the gelding's neck. "He's
finally recovered his trust. Who did 'im before me?"

"Barren."

"Well then, that explains it. He's screwed up
more of 'em than a hooker on a Saturday night."

I snorted.

We were on the second horse of the day when I
heard the hay truck pull down the lane. Since Nick was working at
the forge, I cross-tied the mare and told him I'd be back in a
minute. I ran outside and caught up with Marty before he got to the
truck.

"Marty, wait."

"What's up?"

"I want you to supervise the unloading. Get
some of the guys to help you. Count every bale they throw off that
truck. And," I paused and caught my breath, "I left a scale in the
implement building. It's hung up and ready to go. I want you to
weigh bales, say, at twenty-bale intervals. Let me have the figures
as soon as you're done."

"What, they're ripping us off?"

"I think so."

"Stupid bastards," Marty said through a yawn.
"How come it don't surprise me?"

"Thanks . . . oh, and did Brian come in
yet?"

"Nope. Called in sick."

"All right. And let me know what the tonnage
on Harrison's paperwork is, too."

"Sure thing, boss." I watched him head for
the truck, knowing full well Marty couldn't care less about little
scams like that. I wondered why I did.

Forty-five minutes later, we were almost
finished with horse number three, and Marty still hadn't come
back.

"Nick," I said. "Do you know anyone who owns
a white dualie and an old, dark-colored, six-horse? A
gooseneck."

He straightened and stretched the kinks out
of his back. "Not offhand. Why?"

"Here you go, boss," Marty said in my ear. He
handed me a slip of paper. "Anything else?"

I shook my head, and Marty spun around and
headed back to barn B.

I worked out the sums. The tonnage was off.
Somehow, Harrison was altering the figures from the weigh station.
In the past, all I'd had were suspicions. Now I had proof.
Unfortunately, bringing this to Harrison's attention would not to
be pleasant. He was irritated with me anyway, because I didn't
hesitate to return moldy or poor-quality hay and demand
credit--services he touted, but when it came to the actual case in
point, he did so grudgingly.

"What about that trailer, Steve?" Nick said
as he clinched a nail flush against the hoof wall.

"Oh. A rig like that was used by whoever
stole the horses."

"From Foxdale?" he said.

"Yep."

"I didn't think the police had any
leads."

"They don't. Not if they can't figure out who
owns the trailer." I watched Boris, Foxdale's lone barn cat, make
his way down the aisle. When he saw me, he trotted over and leaned
against my leg. I pushed him away with my foot, but he came right
back, not getting the hint. "Damn it."

Gene paused with the rasp in his hand.
"What's that?"

"Oh, nothing," I said. "Just that this stupid
cat won't leave me alone. Have you heard of any other horse thefts
or--" I glanced over my shoulder.

Mr. Harrison had squeezed between Nick's
truck and the barn door and was walking down the aisle toward us. A
tall, plain-faced man, he kept his thinning blond hair combed
across his scalp in a misplaced effort to hide the fact that he was
balding prematurely.

He nodded to Nick, then handed me his
clipboard. "Any return bales?"

"No." I hesitated. "There's a problem,
though."

"What?"

I looked from the paperwork to his face. He
had narrowed his eyes, and I had a sudden impression that the
muscles in his face had settled into an arrangement they were
accustomed to. Deep wrinkles creased his forehead, and his eyebrows
had bunched together into a straight line that shadowed his gray
eyes.

I cleared my throat. "There's a discrepancy
between the tonnage stated on the invoice and what we actually
received."

"What are you talking about?" His face was
turning red, and he'd clenched his hands.

"By my calculations, we're about
twelve-hundred pounds short, give or take a bale or two. And that's
just this one delivery," I said and saw he knew exactly what I
meant.

He looked so angry; I thought he might hit
me. Instead, he grabbed the clipboard, scratched out his figure,
wrote in a new one, and shoved it back into my hand.

I looked at the invoice. He'd pressed so
hard, the pen's tip had ripped through the top sheet. I checked it,
signed it, gave it back to him.

He stood there for a couple of seconds,
staring at me with eyes that had become oddly vacant. The muscles
along his jaw were bunched with tension, and I still thought he
might slug me.

He turned abruptly and headed down the aisle.
His shoulders were hunched forward under his stained coveralls as
he walked out of the barn and into the flood of sunlight.

Behind me, Nick chuckled. "You sure know how
to make friends."

"I wouldn't want him for a friend," I said
quietly.

"No. He's a creepy bastard. Mean too, what
with that incident a while back."

"What incident?"

"You didn't hear about that?"

I shook my head.

He slid the hoof knife into its slot on his
leather apron and picked up a rasp. "Well, about a year ago, there
was a stink about him beating a horse—"

"He has horses?"

"Yep. Owns a farm west of here. Can't
remember the name right now. Anyway, some horse did somethin' that
pissed 'im off, so he tied it to a post and beat it with a whip.
Cut the animal up good, so they say. Blood everywhere. Somebody
reported him to the Humane Society. Course, by the time they
showed, the horse was nowhere to be found." He spit a glob of
chewing tobacco into an open stall. "Nothin' ever came of it."

"What kind of farm's he run?"

"Hunter/jumpers, lessons, sales, anything, I
imagine. . . . Got his hand in everything. Makes 'im feel
important."

"You shoe for him?" I said and wondered
whether Harrison would have the nerve to continue supplying us.

"Yep. For 'bout a year now. But I'm thinkin'
of droppin' him."

"Why's that?"

"Guy's got a major cash flow problem." Nick
flipped the rasp over in his hand. "Ol' Steel use to board at his
farm?"

"You mean Mr. Sanders' horse?"

"Yep."

"He's one of the horses that was stolen," I
said.

"I know. Sanders had him insured for twenty
grand while he was at Harrison's."

"You're kidding?"

"Nope. My sister works for the insurance
company that issued the claim. Agent who sold 'im the policy had a
couple of tense minutes over it, 'cause in retrospect, it appears
the horse ain't worth as much as all that."

"I wouldn't have thought so."

* * *

By the time Nick's truck disappeared down the
road, my side was throbbing, and I was beat. Thinking about Mr.
Sanders' little insurance policy, I left a message for Detective
Ralston and headed home. As I climbed the steps to the loft, a
trace of light lingered in the west, conclusive evidence that the
days were getting longer.