No Good Deed (20 page)

The horse's coat was black with sweat, but Sonora recognized the red chestnut gelding from the stock trailer, same rub mark on his nose. His eyes were wide and she could see the whites along the edge.

She took a step toward him. He wheeled sideways, nostrils flared and blowing.

‘Hold still there, honey, I'll get him.'

Sonora did not much like being called honey. Darlin' was okay, she kind of liked that one. But there was something patronizing about honey.

‘Ho there, buddy, hold on.'

The man's voice brought the horse's head up. The gelding wheeled and crow-hopped sideways. Sonora, self-preservation uppermost in her mind, was moving away from the horse's hind end when he circled again, facing her.

She pitched her voice into easy-going conversational tones. ‘How you doing, fella?'

He was trembling hard. She moved toward him a couple of steps, and he skittered sideways. She stopped. Waited. Tried one step. That he would tolerate.

Step and pause, then his halter was in reach. Sonora unclipped her purse strap from one end of the soft brown Italian leather. Enzo – she'd paid too much for it, especially if the strap was going to be used for a lead rope.

But she had him. The horse lowered his head. She touched his shoulder, felt his flesh shrink and quiver. His head came back up and he snorted.

‘It's okay, boy, I've got you. You'll be all right.'

Another brown chestnut in an auction full of horses, half or more of them chestnuts. How many chestnut mares went through this auction in one day? And she was trying to find one in particular – one she was not even sure had come this way.

Wrong direction. She was going in the wrong direction.

A man in Wranglers so loose on his hips he could have stepped right out of them reached out and grabbed the purse strap from Sonora.

‘Thanks for your help.' His lead rope was red faded to pink, and topped by a long length of chain which the man threaded through the horse's halter and over his nose.

The gelding backed away, and the man, black hair glistening with oil, gel and sweat, snapped the rope sharply, racking the chain across the horse's nose.

‘Is that necessary?' Sonora said, in a tone of voice her children dreaded. She did not want to be here, did not want any more of her time wasted, and where the hell was McCarty?

The man gave her a sour look over his left shoulder. ‘I guess since I'm the one bought and paid for this horse, I'll do what I want.' But there were people watching, and he smirked. ‘Anyway, this is all I got handy. I left my purse in the truck.'

The horse's head went up and he circled the man, who snapped the lead shank again.

‘You're just making it worse,' Sonora said.

‘Honey, I'll give you some advice won't cost you a thing. And that is you don't let no animal boss you around, 'cause otherwise they'll run right over you.' He jerked the chain again. ‘Animal needs to learn respect. Thanks for catching him, though.'

‘He'd been better off if I'd let him go.'

‘You have a strange idea of what horses like, if you think it would be better for him to get squished in traffic.' The man studied her a minute, a shrewd look. He shifted his weight on to his right leg. ‘He's for sale, you know, you like him so much.'

Sonora got that wary feeling. ‘I don't have the kind of life where you can own horses.'

‘Yeah, that's too bad, this ole boy picked you right out. Surprises me that he come right up to you the way he did.' He brought the horse a few steps closer. Within petting range.

Sonora reached out a hand and waited. The horse thought about it a long minute, then stretched his nose to touch the tip of her fingers, as if he could not resist her hand any more than her son could resist trying to get the last word in any argument. The horse snorted suddenly, and blew mucus across her arm.

The man chuckled. ‘They always do that when you're cleaned up, don't they?'

Sonora nodded, and in spite of herself enjoyed being included in a sort of knowing horseman's camaraderie. She touched the gelding's neck. She liked the way horses smelled.

What would she do with a horse? Where would she keep it?

‘You could just try him out for a while, you know. If you don't like him, I'll take him back.' The man stood to one side, stroked the horse's shoulder. ‘He's awful nice, when he's not all worked up and scared.' He shifted his weight to one leg. ‘Now, any horse with a brain's going to get worked up at an auction. It's going to be a real shame to take him off to the killers, but I haven't been able to sell him, what with one thing and another, and I can't afford to keep him around.' The man looked at Sonora's face. ‘It's humane the way they do it. Over real quick.'

Sonora felt a heavy sort of depression settle over her shoulders. All these people, this guy, the kid on the gray gelding he clearly loved, all of them seemed to think nothing of sending a horse straight to hell as soon as it became inconvenient. The guy with the mare they were tracking was a red herring. Joelle's killer would not have bothered to keep the horse alive.

Except that killers were quirky. And the mare was valuable. And there might be a reason to keep the horse around Sonora hadn't thought of. He'd gone to the trouble to take it in the first place.

She looked into the horse's eyes. Encountered a look of intelligence that surprised her.
Take me home. It'll work out, somehow. Please don't leave me behind.

‘How much?' she asked. Only curious. No way could she afford to get serious here.

‘Well, this fella here is a full-blooded Arabian horse.'

Sonora nodded, stroking the horse's neck. ‘Are they good first horses? For beginners?'

‘There are as many opinions about that as there are horses and people who ride 'em.
I
think they are, 'cause they're so intelligent. And Arabians, you can ride 'em all day, they don't get tired. They got endurance. Easy keepers, too, live on almost nothing.'

Sonora looked at the horse's jutting hips and sunken rump. This one had been living on almost nothing.

‘I'd say eight hundred seems fair.'

The horse in the arena had gone for three hundred.

‘Too much,' Sonora said.

‘I guess, seeing that the two of you have bonded, I could go seven twenty-five.'

‘You already said you couldn't sell him.'

‘Killers pay by the pound.'

Sonora opened her purse. Took out her checkbook and looked at the register. ‘I have six hundred dollars in my checking account and thirty-seven dollars in cash.'

‘You give me a check for six hundred, and twenty-five dollars of your cash, and honey, you got yourself a horse.'

Sonora took a deep breath and tried not to think. There went the grocery money.

Sonora's hand shook when she wrote out the check. The man had said she could bring the horse back if she wanted, and she could probably clean him up and sell him herself. He was a full-blooded Arabian – he'd have to be valuable.

‘How old is he?' she asked. She hadn't had such a mix of Christmas-morning excitement and sheer terror since she'd gotten her first mortgage on a house.

‘Oh, about eleven or twelve.'

‘What does he eat?'

The man did not seem the least surprised by her question. ‘Just run him round on a little patch of grass, throw him some hay when the weather gets cold, and a coffee can of grain a couple times of day, he'll do. Make sure he's got lots of fresh, clean water.' He reached into his pocket, handed her a dirty, wrinkled card. The Horseman's Buddy. ‘You got any questions, he don't work out and you want to sell him back, you just give me a call. You got a trailer?'

She nodded and led him to the truck. Wondered if he expected her to put the horse in herself. She would just open that back door and hope the horse went in.

‘Nice trailer,' the man said. ‘You buy it new?'

‘It's not mine. Belongs to a friend.'

‘You should've been here day before yesterday. Could've got you a horse and a trailer in one package deal.'

Sonora thought of the missing mare. Beardsley, saying he saw a man with a horse and trailer.

‘I could use one of my own,' Sonora said. ‘You buy that one that went through here, I might be willing to take it off your hands.'

He shook his head. ‘It was a honey, too, a Sundowner, white with a maroon stripe. Snazzy.'

‘Sounds just like what I want,' Sonora said. With absolute truth.

‘I tried to buy it, but the guy wouldn't do no business with me. I'd've give him a good price for the trailer and took the horse off his hands too. He was trying to work a package deal.'

‘What kind of horse was he selling?'

‘Saddlebred brood mare, looking like she's about ready to bust. He seemed to think she was going to throw a pretty nice baby, but didn't look to me like she'd been much taken care of.'

You ought to know, Sonora thought, resisting a look at the overcrowded stock trailer. When was the last time those horses had had any water?

‘Took them all back home, then, did he? Maybe I could track him down.'

‘You'd be out of luck. I saw him sell the lot to a lady got a stable up near Lebanon. I believe she wanted that trailer more'n she wanted that horse he was sweatin'.'

‘What do you mean, sweating?'

He gave her a wary look. She was full of questions. Sonora gave him her innocent, wide-eyed look. And this was a man who loved to talk.

‘He and me didn't come to terms on the whole, because he didn't want to see that mare go to the killers. I told him I might could sell her, seeing she was in foal. But he wouldn't take me up on it.'

Sonora gave him a sideways glance. She wouldn't have taken him up on it either. Odd to find herself siding with the killer. A man who would kill a teenage girl, but balked at sending a horse to slaughter.

The man was still talking. ‘I tell you one thing. That poor ole mare'd be better off at the killers than out at the Four Wishes Farm. Joke about that place is the horses out there only got one wish, which is to get the heck out.'

Four Wishes Farm. Lebanon, Ohio. Sonora committed it to memory, took a look at her horse.
Her
horse, God help her. His ears were pricked forward, curving in a little on the sides. She got the impression he was taking in every word.

‘Get in the trailer,' she told the horse, who made no indication that he heard.

The man smiled a little. ‘I'll load him up for you, honey. Who's that other fella you got in there? That's a nice-looking horse. You buy him here?' There was surprise in the voice.

Sonora didn't answer. Oklahoma shifted his weight, but did not bother to turn and look.

Sonora felt suddenly shy about reaching out and touching the animal she had just cleaned out her checking account to buy. ‘He got a name?'

‘All I know's his barn name. But I think they got the registered name stamped here on the halter.' The man spit on his fingertip and rubbed the brass plate attached to the side of the leather halter. Squinted. ‘Looks like … Hell-Z-Poppin.'

‘What did they call him at the barn?' Sonora asked. ‘Poppin?'

The man grinned, showing a crooked front tooth. ‘As I remember, they called him Hell.'

Chapter Thirty-Four

McCarty lifted a hand to Sonora, headed to the side of the trailer.

She leaned across the seat, opened the door. ‘I already checked, Hal. Oklahoma is fine.'

He slid into the front seat of the pickup, gave Sonora a tired smile. ‘What are you looking so bright-eyed about? Glad to see me?'

Sonora didn't answer. She would tell him about Poppin once they were under way. Otherwise, he might talk her out of it. She did not want to be sensible. She did not want to see that horse stand, quivering, in that dirt-floored, smoke-filled arena.

McCarty grabbed her wrist, glanced at her watch. ‘We better get Okie back to the barn.' He took her wrist between his thumb and finger. ‘Your pulse is jumping.'

He thought it was him. She'd bought a horse in a fit of insanity and he thought she was excited by him.

Which wasn't to say she would not have been at this time yesterday, or wouldn't be at this time tomorrow. But just at the moment the horse was taking all available mind space.

‘So, McCarty, did you find out anything about our brood mare?'

He turned the key in the ignition, put the truck in gear. ‘Nothing new. I think our killer was here – I've gotten it from more than one source that some guy was trying to sell a mare and trailer as a package deal late Tuesday afternoon, and that he wouldn't let the horse go to the killers, or go to auction. I'm just having trouble pinning him down.'

‘They say what he looked like?'

‘They
all
remember him perfectly. Brown hat, with the flaps on the side, that's consistent. Short and fat, only tall and thin.' He turned the trailer, put on his turn indicator, waited his turn to get out of the lot. Gave her a lopsided grin. ‘Where'd you disappear to? I half expected this cab to be full of puppies by the time I got back.'

‘Puppies? I'm doing undercover work, and you accuse me of buying puppies?'

He waited till the road was clear, pulled out slowly. Frowned.

‘I found a horse,' Sonora said.

‘Chestnut?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Like two million others. Mare in foal, I'm hoping.'

‘Gelding.'

He braked, watching the turns. ‘We're looking for a brood mare. Our killer may have sold it, he may have killed it, he may have taken it home to Mama, but I guarantee you he didn't give it a sex change.'

Sonora pulled out the business card in her shirt pocket. ‘I talked to this guy, the Horseman's Buddy. He told me about a man that came to the auction last Tuesday afternoon, guy was looking to sell a horse and trailer. Package deal.'