Last Man Standing (39 page)

T
hey found Billy Canfield down at the equestrian center examining the foreleg of a stallion while Nemo Strait and two young
men dressed in riding clothes looked on.

Canfield said to one of the young men, “Better call the vet; might only be a sprain, but maybe a fracture. Hope to hell it’s
not.” As the man walked off, Canfield called after him, “And tell that damn farrier that unless he comes up with a better
shoe, I’m changing shops. We got some stock with soft hooves and the glue-ons are pretty damn good for that and he doesn’t
even carry ’em.”

“Yes, sir.”

Canfield patted the horse’s flank, wiped off his hands and walked over to the HRT men.

“Farrier?” asked Romano.

“The horseshoer man,” answered Canfield. “A glorified blacksmith. In the old days horse farms would keep one on full-time.
Now they come around once a week in their truck with a forge in the bed and their anvil and hammer and prestamped shoes and
do their work. They’re not cheap, but who’d want to do that kind of work? It’s hard, hot and dangerous, what with crazy horses
trying to kick your brains out.”

“What are those glue-ons you mentioned?” Web wanted to know. Strait answered, “Sometimes a horse’s hoof walls get too thin
for the nails and they break up, especially horses imported from Europe, because of the climate and soil differences; their
hooves get brittle. A soft shoe doesn’t require any nails, it’s like a little bag over the hooves. It lasts a couple of months
if done right. And the glue-ons are just what they sound like. Shoes glued on, no nails.”

“Sound like a lot to learn about this business.”

“Well, I’ve always been a quick learner,” said Billy with a glance at Strait. Next he stared over at Bates. “You guys done
talking to my boys? I’ve got a farm to run.”

“We’ll be out of here pretty soon.”

Canfield looked at Web then pointed at Bates. “He told me about the phone killings and all. But that was still pretty quick
thinking on your part.”

“I’m a fast learner too,” said Web.

Canfield studied him curiously. “Well, what’s the next thing you’d like to learn about?”

“East Winds. I’d like to go over every inch of it.”

“Have to get Gwen to do that. I’ve got things requiring my attention.”

Web looked at Romano. “Paulie here will go with you.” Canfield looked like he was going to erupt but then seemed to pull it
back in. “All right.” He looked at Romano. “Paul, how are you on a horse?”

Romano jerked, blinked and looked at Web and then at Canfield. “I’ve never been on one.”

Canfield put an arm around the HRT man and smiled. “Well, I hope you’re as fast a learner as your partner.”

G
wen was at the equestrian center with Baron when her husband asked her to show Web around the place. She led Web to the horse
stalls.

“The best way to see the farm is on horseback. Do you ride?” she asked.

“A little. I’m certainly not in your league.”

“Then I’ve got just the horse for you.”

Boo, Gwen told him, was a Trakehner, a German breed, a warm-blooded horse bred to be superior warhorses and a cross between
a hot-blooded, high-spirited and temperamental Arabian and a cold-blooded, calm and hardworking draft. The horse weighed about
seventeen hundred pounds, stood almost eighteen hands high and looked at Web like he wanted to take a bite out of his skull
as they stood next to Boo in the stall.

“Boo was a great dressage horse, but now his work is done and he doesn’t really like to move all that much. He’s gotten fat
and happy. We call him ‘old grump’ because that’s what he pretty much is. But deep down he’s a sweetheart, and he’s very flexible
too. You can ride him English or western saddle.”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” said Web as he stared up at the beast. Boo didn’t look the least bit happy that Web was in his personal
space.

Gwen put the square saddle pad over the horse’s back and next had Web help her place the heavy Western-style saddle over the
pad. “Now watch while I cinch the saddle, he’ll hold his breath and push out his belly.” Web watched in fascination as the
horse did exactly that.

“When you think it’s tight, he’ll let out his breath and it loosens. Then you try and climb on and the saddle slides over
his withers. The horse gets a good laugh and the rider gets a few bruises.”

“Good to know dumb animals are that smart,” said Web.

Gwen showed Web how to transfer from the halter to the bridle and how to slip the latter over Boo’s head, seat it correctly
and then buckle it. They led Boo outside and over to a stone mounting block.

Web adjusted the chaps Gwen had given him to prevent the saddle from chafing his legs and to allow Web to get a better grip,
stepped onto the block and climbed aboard, while Boo just stood there patiently.

“So what do you think?” asked Gwen.

“It’s a long way down.”

She noted the pistol in his holster. “Do you have to bring the gun?” “Yes,” Web said firmly.

They went to the riding ring and Gwen led horse and rider around the ring. Next Gwen showed Web neck-reining to brake, turn
and back the horse up, and sounds and leg pressure to make the animal go and stop. “Boo’s been all over the farm, so if you
let him, he’ll go where he’s supposed to. Nice and easy.”

Hired help had brought Baron around while they were working with Boo. Gwen mounted up on her horse. “Now, Boo is the patriarch
of this place and he and Baron have never ridden together before. So Boo may try and establish his dominance over Baron to
show him who’s boss.”

“Sort of like guys with too much testosterone,” opined Web. Gwen looked at him in a strange way. “Boo’s a gelding, Web.” He
looked at her blankly, not getting it. “If he were a man, we’d call him a eunuch.”

“Poor Boo.”

The two horses seemed to establish a grudging truce, and Web watched as Gwen slipped a Motorola walkie-talkie radio out of
her back pocket and turned it on. “Just in case there’s a problem,” she said.

“Smart to keep in communication,” said Web. “I’ve got my cell phone too.”

“After what happened today with Billy, I’m not sure I’ll ever use one again,” she said.

Web looked down at his phone and started having some doubts.

They started off, trailed by a golden retriever named Opie, and another compact but strongly built canine Gwen called Tuff.
“Strait has a dog running around here too,” she said. “Calls him Old Cuss, and it’s an apt description because he’s nothing
but trouble.” The sky was clear, and as they went up and down the small hills on the property, it seemed to Web that he could
see almost all the way to Charlottesville. Boo was content to follow Baron and kept up a sedate pace that didn’t tax Web.

Gwen reined Baron to a halt. Web eased Boo next to her.

“As I said, East Winds has been around a very long time. The King of England gave Lord Culpeper a land grant consisting of
millions of acres in the 1600s. A descendant of Lord Culpeper’s gave a thousand acres of this land grant to his eldest daughter
upon her marriage to a man named Adam Rolfe. The central part of the house was started in 1765 and completed in 1781 by Rolfe,
who was an expert builder and also a merchant. You’ve seen the outside of the main house?” Web nodded. “Well, it was constructed
in the Georgian style. And the millwork, particularly the dentil moldings, are some of the best I have ever seen.”

“Georgian, that’s what I would have guessed.” Web was lying; he wouldn’t have known a Georgian style if it leapt up and bit
him in his dentil moldings.

“The estate remained in the Rolfe family until the early 1900s. During that time it was a true working plantation and crops
were raised here: tobacco, soybeans, hemp, that sort of thing.”

“And slaves to work it, I guess,” said Web. “At least until the end of the Civil War.”

“Actually, no, the plantation was close enough to Washington that its owners were Northern sympathizers. In fact, East Winds
was part of the Underground Railroad.

“In 1910,” Gwen continued, “the estate was sold out of the family. It passed through a series of hands until Walter Sennick
bought it at the end of World War II. He was an inventor and made a huge fortune selling his ideas to the automobile manufacturers.
He made East Winds into a small self-contained town, and at its peak he had over three hundred full-time employees here. There
was also a company store, phone exchange, firehouse, those sorts of things.”

“Nothing like never having to leave home.” The whole time Gwen was talking, Web had been surveying the grounds, judging where
possible attacks might come from and how best to defend against them. Yet if there was a rat on the inside, that sort of strategy
might be futile. A Trojan horse worked as well now as it had thousands of years ago.

Gwen nodded. “Now there are sixty-eight buildings in total with twenty-seven miles of board fencing. Nineteen paddocks. Fifteen
full-time employees. And we still farm here—corn, mostly— although our main interest is breeding Thoroughbreds. Next year
we have twenty-two foals due. And we’ve got a great crop of year-lings going to sale very soon. It’s all very exciting.”

They rode on and soon came to a high-banked water crossing, where Gwen instructed Web on how to let the horse choose its own
footing when going down into the mud. She had Web lean back very far, so that his head was almost resting on Boo’s rump when
the horse was going down the bank. Then she had Web meld his body into the horse’s neck and grasp Boo’s mane when the horse
was heading up the bank on the other side. Web successfully navigated the stream and earned high praise from Gwen.

They passed an old stone and wood building that Gwen told him was an old Civil War–era hospital that they were thinking of
turning into a museum. “We’ve rehabbed it, put in central air and heat, it’s got a kitchen, bedroom, so the curator could
live in there,” Gwen told him. “An operating table and surgical instruments from the time period are there as well.”

“From what I know of that, a Civil War soldier would’ve taken a minié ball any day over a trip to the hospital.”

They rode by a two-hundred-year-old bank barn, so named because it was two stories and built on such a steep grade that it
had two entrances on separate levels. There was also a riding ring where horse and rider practiced their dressage. Dressage,
Gwen explained, consisted of specialized steps and movements of a horse and rider, akin to a figure skater’s routine. They
passed a tall wooden tower with a stone foundation that Gwen told him had been used for both observation of wildfires and
also for the horse races that had been held here a century ago.

Web studied the place and the surrounding countryside. As a former sniper constantly on the lookout for the best ground, Web
concluded that the tower would definitely be a good observation post, yet he didn’t have the manpower to utilize it properly.

They rode past a two-story frame building that Gwen identified as the farm manager’s house.

“Nemo Strait seems to do a good job for you.”

“He’s experienced and knows what he’s doing, and he brought a full handpicked crew with him, so that was a plus,” Gwen said
with what Web perceived as little interest.

They examined entry and exit points in the rear grounds and Web made mental notes of each. Once, a deer broke clear of the
tree line and Opie and Tuff took off after it. Neither horse reacted to this clamor, although Web was so startled by the deer
flashing in front of him that he had almost fallen off Boo.

Next she led him into a little tree-shaded glen. Web could hear water running nearby and he was not prepared, as they rounded
a short curve, to see a small, open building, painted white and with a cedar shake roof, that looked like a gazebo until Web
saw the cross on top and the small altar inside with a kneeling pad and a small statue of Jesus on the cross.

He looked over at Gwen for an explanation. She was staring at the small temple as though in a trance and then she glanced
over at him.

“This is my chapel, I guess you’d call it. I’m Catholic. My father was a Eucharistic minister, and two of my uncles are priests.
Religion runs pretty deep in my life.”

“So you had this built?”

“Yes, for my son. I come out here and pray for him just about every day, rain or cold. Do you mind?”

“Please.”

“Are you a religious person?”

“In my own way, I guess,” Web answered vaguely.

“I used to be a lot more than I am now, actually. I’ve tried to understand why what happened could happen to someone so innocent.
I’ve never been able to find an answer.”

She dismounted and went inside the chapel, crossed herself, took out her rosary from her pocket and then knelt down and started
to pray while Web watched her in silence.

After a few minutes she rose and rejoined him.

They rode on and finally came to a large building that had clearly been abandoned for some time.

“The old Monkey House,” said Gwen. “Sennick built it and kept all sorts of chimps, baboons, even gorillas there. Why, I don’t
know. Legend has it that when some of the animals would escape from their cages they’d be chased through the trees by beer-drinking
local yokels with shotguns, who didn’t want the monkeys around anyway. For that reason they called the forest around here
the monkey jungle. The thought of those poor animals being gunned down by a pack of drunken morons makes me sick.”

They dismounted and went into the building. Web could see through the roof where large holes had been worn in by time and
the elements. The old cages, rusted and broken, were still lined up against the walls, and there were trenches presumably
for catching animal waste and other disgusting things. Trash and old broken machinery littered the concrete floor, along with
tree branches and rotted leaves. Tree roots clung to the outside walls and there was what looked to be a loading dock. Web
tried to imagine what an inventor of auto accessories would want with a pack of monkeys. None of his theories were pleasant
ones. All Web could think of was animals strapped to gurneys, electrical lines capturing the power of lightning bolts and
old man Sennick in surgical garb ready to do his dirty work on the terrified simians. The place had a distinct feeling of
melancholy, of hopelessness, of death, even, and Web was glad to leave it.