Behind the Bonehouse (38 page)

Spencer and Jack and Toss, Bob Harrison and Equine, Charlie Smalls at Claiborne, where he cared for Secretariat when he first went there to stud – I'd like to tell what happened to them all.

I'd like to write about the home places too that get passed on, or sold, or crumble into dust, that teach, or taint, or turn us toward the past in ways that can heal and harm, depending on the ingrown pride in the folks they belong to over time.

The work we do around here with the horses on our land lets us see a little way inside a complicated alien species in a way that's very rare, and there's more I'd like to say about the horses I've raised and lost too soon.

I'd like to write about an unusually gifted equine painter who was injured riding cross country. And what I found in a wall I tore down in an old pioneer house that was home to a very strange horse connected family I've pondered before and since.

But the year it took to write
Behind The Bonehouse
was a gift from God, the way I see it, after more than one doc said I'd be dead two years before. I can't count on another (any more than anyone else), but I'll start the next book anyway. Because contemplating interesting lives in an earlier time keeps me from losing the gift of today in what might happen tomorrow.

We all die alone, we all know that, even with someone we love standing next to us. It's worrying about the pain that'll lead there that wakes me up in the night and makes me ask for the worry to be taken and peace to be put in its place. It has been, always, every time I've asked. And that's changed more than my mood.

Yet I've learned the most from sickness and trouble. They make me grateful for the small and simple. The taste of a peach. Redbuds in the woods. Alan's smile in the bathroom mirror. A two-year-old grandchild holding my hand while we talk about the sky.

The way Alan and I are with each other gets deeper and wider and stronger all the time. And as we've loved our sons, and learned from them, and seen their babies born, as we've done the work we've loved, even when it's exhausting, we've seen the gifts and grace more clearly than we could before.

There're so many stories I hope I can tell. And maybe that's part of why I'm still here. But with what I've seen in our lives and others', whether or not I write the next book, it'll happen the way it should.

Jo Grant Munro

December 25th 1997

Rolling Ridge Farm

McGowan's Ferry Road

Versailles, Kentucky

F
rank Mellon is a chemical engineer and innovation-process consultant who's worked with my husband over the years, and become a very good friend in the process. He helped me to conceptualize the formulation and scale-up processes in
Behind The Bonehouse
, as well as what making a paste at Equine would've entailed in the early '60s.

Dr. Rick Martin was the vet who cared for my favorite horse, Max, through the loss of his eye (which is part of the plot in
Watches of The Night
). Rick's gotten used to my peculiar questions, and when I asked, “What kind of equine pharmaceutical would've been an interesting way of killing someone in the early '60s?”, he came up with several options, but leaned toward the organophosphates, Dylox in particular. I did too. Which led to more questions, which he answered patiently, before and after he found me a Merck Veterinary Manual from 1961 on e-bay that's filled with detailed information on vet medicine at that time.

Jeff Nelson, our long time family attorney, very kindly helped me with the employment contract noncompete issues and the options Bob would've had in dealing with Carl, as well as various procedures related to Alan's arrest.

Jim Rouse is a well-known Woodford County attorney (whose farm I've commandeered and given to Jo and Alan) who helped me with Woodford County history and legal procedures as well. He also arranged for me to interview Loren “Squirrel” Carl, a former Woodford County Sheriff.

Squirrel, who's now a U.S. Marshal (and yes, I couldn't keep myself from asking about the nickname), described how the investigation of the crime scene would've been conducted, as well as what the court proceedings would've been like in Woodford County at that time. He also told me that the pay phones in Versailles were privately owned in 1964, and that that's where records of calls would have been found, which smoothed a wrinkle in the storyline.

Betsy Pratt Kelly (who once owned the house I describe as Jo and Alan's, which is actually on McCracken Pike and is now a part of the Irish stud farm where American Pharoah is standing at stud) knows so much of the history and social context of Versailles and Woodford County that there aren't too many questions she can't answer. She's also introduced me to all kinds of people who've told me things I've needed to know, and given me ideas for characters as well. When I told her I wanted Esther Wilkes to live in an African American community somewhere in the country, she took me to Frog Town (where there were no signs of a town, much less frogs, and the origin of the name has been lost in time). I saw a house Esther could live in and drew a quick sketch before we drove around a curve – where we saw an old gentleman working in his garden. Betsy thought he looked vaguely familiar, and she stopped the car and got out. As soon as they started talking, they discovered that they'd known each other when she was a child, for Betsy had lived on a farm nearby where his parents and older relations had helped from time to time. It was good to watch them reminisce about folks remembered but long gone and what their families are like today.

Betsy's husband, Bob Kelly (who's lived and worked all over the world, first in the Air Force, later in academia), did research on aspects of Keeneland I hadn't thought to investigate when I was there. In the course of various visits, he also helped me develop a better sense of what it was like to be raised in Woodford County and watch it change since the '40s.

M
ack (MacKenzie) Miller was a real life Thoroughbred trainer of admirable character and substantial accomplishment. See the Acknowledgements and Historical Notes in
Breeding Ground
for more information about him and the time I spent with him and his wife, who have both passed away since. I found the book
MacKenzie Miller: The Gentleman Trainer from Morgan Street
by Jonelle Fisher to be well worth reading.

Jack Freeman's experience with the OSS and the French Resistance in the Loire Valley during WWII grew out of a wide range of reading on both underground groups. The Resistance leader in Tours was not set-up by a traitor in his organization, but others in France were. The depictions of the factions within the Resistance are accurate, and the tensions between them did compromise the functioning of the underground, and complicated politics all across France after the war.

For those interested in reading more about the OSS and the French Resistance see the Historical Notes at the end of
Breeding Ground
.

E
dgar Alan Poe Award Finalist Sally Wright's most recent novel,
Breeding Ground
, is the first in her new Jo Grant mystery series, which has to do with the horse industry in Lexington, Kentucky.
Behind The Bonehouse
is the second in the series.

Sally has studied rare books, falconry, early explorers, painting restoration, WWII Tech-Teams, the Venona Code, and much more, to write her university-archivist-ex-WWII-Ranger books about Ben Reese, who's based on a real person.

Sally and her husband have two children, three young grandchildren, and a highly entertaining boxer dog, and live in the country in northwestern Ohio.