The Payback Man (19 page)

The moment he felt the curry, he grunted once more,
lifted his head and swung it to stare at her a moment, then went back to his hay.

“Good boy,” she whispered.

Ten minutes later she’d decided that Marcus Aurelius was like most of the men she’d known—he didn’t seem to care what she did to him as long as it felt good. “You are some spoiled bovine,” she said as she worked over his beefy rump. When he stamped his back foot right beside her head, she jumped.

He relaxed again and let her work around to the other side.

She was using the soft brush on his curly forehead and trying to avoid his tongue when the team walked by on its way to take a break.

Marcus ignored them until Sweet Daddy swaggered by his pen.

Without so much as a grunt, he swung his head and swept Eleanor aside as though he were swatting a fly. She stumbled over to the side of the stall and grabbed at the top rail of the fence to keep from falling.

She felt as though she’d been hit in the ribs by a baseball bat.

Marcus Aurelius began to bellow. He backed up half a dozen steps, lowered his head, pawed the ground and charged the fence.

T
HE HEAVY TIMBERS
that made up the fence of Marcus’s stall shivered and bent but didn’t break.

As he backed up to take another run at them, Slow Rise yelled, “Damnation, Elroy, get the hell out of his sight before he kills you!”

Sweet Daddy seemed paralyzed. Then he raised his pitchfork in front of him like a lance.

“Fool!” Robert grabbed the pitchfork and shoved Sweet Daddy around the corner by the office.

Too late to stop Marcus’s charge. Eleanor cowered in her corner, although Marcus didn’t seem at all interested in this more accessible target.

She felt hands under her armpits. “Come on out of there, woman!” Slow Rise said.

“No!” Eleanor croaked. She wasn’t breathing very well. “It’s not me he’s after.” She wrenched away from Slow Rise and stood stock-still.

Marcus leaned out to see around the corner into the barn as far as he could. Eleanor could hear Sweet Daddy and Robert yelling at each other by her office. So could Marcus, but the sound didn’t seem to bother him. It was only the sight of Sweet Daddy that set him off.

Marcus finally glanced Eleanor’s way. She held her ground. He snorted as though to put her on notice that he could choose to stomp her or not.

Not,
apparently. At least not this time. As quickly as he’d freaked, he went back to chewing his hay.

Miraculously Eleanor had kept her hold on the grooming
brush. She’d heard of getting muscle spasms from sheer terror—this would certainly qualify. She got her breathing under control and slowly walked up to the bull.

From outside the pen, Selma, Gil and Slow Rise watched.

“You want me to shoot him if he goes for you?” Selma asked.

“No!” Eleanor laughed shakily. “Anybody got a red cape?”

“Yo, Toro!” Gil whispered.

She reached down, stroked Marcus’s forehead and began to brush him again. He seemed totally unconcerned. She let out a breath that she didn’t realize she’d been holding.

“Okay,” she said quietly as she backed toward the gate. “Now, please, somebody get me out of here and turn that electric fence back on.”

The minute she was out, she went to find Sweet Daddy. He leaned nonchalantly on a bale of hay, picking his teeth with a hay straw. He refused to meet her eyes.

She didn’t know whether the others had followed or not, and at this moment she didn’t care.

“I warned you not to tease that bull.” Her voice was low, almost cajoling, but she could hear the anger shaking in it.

“Who says I been teasing anything?”

“Marcus does.” She got in his face, emphasizing that she was taller and could look down on him. He tried to back up, but the hay stopped him. “Be glad those boards held, Elroy, or you’d be a dead man.”

“Shoot, I ain’t done nothin’. I coulda handled him.” But his eyes shifted.

“Handled him? One ton of angry bull against a man who weighs maybe 125?”

“You dissin’ me!”

“Damn right I am. What have you done to deserve anyone’s respect? If you ever tease him or any other animal
again, I promise I will personally turn Marcus loose and let him tromp you into the dirt.” She started to turn away. “One more thing. As of now you are on probation with this team. You put a foot wrong, you goof off, you say or do one thing I don’t like or Selma doesn’t like or one of
them
doesn’t like—” she pointed behind her to the rest of the team “—and Warden Portree will have you wading around in hydroponic muck before you can set your pitchfork down. Do I make myself clear?”

He opened his mouth, but Eleanor raised a finger. “A simple ‘yes, Doctor’ is all you better say.”

He met her eyes. This time she didn’t quail from the hatred she saw there.

It was about time the inmates stopped running the asylum. She’d put up with almost anything except the mistreatment of animals. He’d probably poked at Marcus and taunted him. No real damage, but enough to sour the animal on the sight of him. “Yes,
Doctor.
” He tried to say it with his customary swagger, but it didn’t quite come off. She turned on her heel and saw the others melt away around the corner. She’d done the thing Gil had warned her against, and now in the cool light of returning reason she knew that she’d created a truly dangerous enemy, where before there had only been potential danger.

She would have to watch her back. So would the others.

“Y
OU DON’T LISTEN TOO GOOD
,” Gil said quietly the first time he could get out of earshot of the others.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t take your advice. Not only because I can’t endure having an animal mistreated or teased, but because Marcus is big enough to kill somebody if he goes rank. He might be happy to take out his temper on any one of us if Sweet Daddy isn’t immediately available. At least Sweet Daddy’s on notice that he’d better shape up or I’ll ship him out. I’ll make a report to the warden. He can alert the COs.”

“That’ll do about a nickel’s worth of good in a dollar
economy.” Gil walked away from her. She could tell by the set of his shoulders that he was annoyed.

At least her headache was better. All that adrenaline must have cleared out whatever was causing it. She checked her watch. She was due at the clinic in thirty minutes.

Steve would be there. She wanted to tell him about Sweet Daddy before he got back to the compound. It wouldn’t be fair to ask Big to watch out for him. Big could get in serious trouble and Steve would be furious if he found out she’d done something like that. Should she do it anyway?

She picked up the electric coffeepot from her cottage, stopped by the mess hall long enough to assemble the other things she’d need to keep a steady flow of hot caffeine in the team’s veins and drove to the clinic.

Her stupid heart began to flutter at the prospect of seeing Steve. They’d be on a totally different footing here—no Selma to watch their every move. Steve would be doing what he was trained to do. He’d be treated like a human being, instead of like a prisoner.

Her car phone rang. She jumped as she always did when she heard its nervous
brap.
She kept her hands on the steering wheel and answered in hands-free mode.

“Dr. Grayson? Please hold for Mr. Vickers.”

“Doctor?” The voice was low, rich, an actor’s voice. “Sorry to take so long to return your call. I’ve been in court.”

“How did you get this number, Mr. Vickers?”

“What? Oh, my secretary called your clinic. They gave it to me.”

“I see. I’m calling about Steve Chadwick. I’m working with him at the prison farm. He’s been there several weeks now. I’ve read the transcript of his trial, and I’ve become convinced he didn’t kill his wife.”

“I see.” Silence. “I don’t think we should have this discussion over an open line, Doctor. Are you available
at—” pause “—say, ten-thirty tomorrow morning? My office?”

“I’ll be there. Would you mind if I tried to bring Steve’s sister Mary Beth Chadwick with me?”

“Not at all. I remember her from the trial.” He laughed shortly. “For God’s sake, don’t let the Colonel catch you. The man’s a Tartar.”

“I’ve heard.”

“For what it’s worth, I agree with you about Steve’s innocence. I’m not certain there’s much in law we can do about it, however.”

“We’ll talk about that tomorrow. Thanks for calling, Mr. Vickers.”

That plumby voice again. “Please, Eleanor, call me Leslie. Everybody does.”

As she hung up, she thought,
If he agrees with me that Steve is innocent, then why isn’t he doing something about it? Why is there nothing to do? In law? Or in justice?

Should she tell Steve? No. But she could call Mary Beth to tell her Steve would be at the clinic until five in the afternoon and ask her to come with her to her meeting with Mr. Vickers.

When she pulled into the staff parking lot, she saw a shiny new oversize red two-horse trailer backed up to the loading-dock doors. Good. Business.

But first she had to find Steve. She had to see him, to warn him. But mostly simply to see him.

Hoping to be able to go directly to Mark’s office, she slipped in the side door beside the cattle holding pen. No doubt that was where they’d put Steve so he could work on the computer system.

“Eleanor, thank God you’re here!” Rick Hazard stood at the back door of the horse trailer. From inside came the rhythmic sounds of an angry horse fiercely trying to kick his way out.

“What’s the problem?” So much for finding Steve.

“It’s that young stallion of Abel Neyland’s. Abel thinks
he’s broken a sesamoid from jackassing around in the pasture this morning. He went out sound and came in on three legs. Abel had to sedate him to get him loaded, but whatever he used has worn off. If he keeps on the way he’s going, he’ll break all four of his legs and his neck, too.”

“Where’s Jack? He can handle any horse on the planet.”

“Gone home with a bad cold. Mac’s operating, Sarah’s off duty, Bill is down at the zoo working on a siamang gibbon, and Liz is down at Mississippi State on her opthamology course. Abel says that stallion’s been in pasture. He’s only two and hasn’t been handled much, and he’s never been in a trailer before.” Rick listened to the metallic noise a moment. “He doesn’t like it.”

Eleanor took a deep breath. Rick wasn’t comfortable around bad-tempered horses. He’d go into that trailer and face the beast if he had to, but given his choice, he’d prefer to send someone with what he called “greater rapport” to unload the horse.

“Where’s Abel?”

“At the front desk filling in the forms to give us permission to operate.”

“Big?”

“Mopping the kennels, I think.”

“And Steve?”

“Last I saw of him he was hunched over Mark’s computer.”

“Okay. Is there a stall ready for the stallion?”

“Abel called ahead to tell us he was coming, so we got one ready. Mac can do the surgery if you’ll assist, but we’ve got to get that youngster out of that trailer in one piece first.”

“I’m considerably more concerned about keeping
us
in one piece. Buzz Alva Jean, tell her to send Big and Steve out here. Big’s a natural with animals, and Steve knows horses. With Abel we should be able to handle whatever this two-year-old throws at us.”

Rick sighed. “Thanks. That means I can go back to work. Egg Roll has just acquired a mate.”

“Judy bought another potbellied pig? Where does she keep them?”

“In the house, so she says. Anyway, she’s bringing Char Shu over for shots and an exam. She’s still pretty young, but Judy says she’s a handful.”

“As if Egg Roll weren’t. What is Judy going to do when she winds up with a dozen piglets?”

“More clients for us,” Rick said.

“All right, you’re excused.”

Rick almost ran from the room. He called over his shoulder, “I’ll send Steve and Big.”

Eleanor walked to the front of the trailer. It looked as though it would be large enough at the front to give her room to stand in front of the stallion and yet be out of biting range. He was only two. How bad could he be? She opened the front side door as quietly as possible, planning just to stick her head in to see what they were dealing with.

The big teeth followed by the striking left front hoof missed her face by inches. She slammed the door as the stallion began to scream with fury. “Oh, brother. He must be seventeen hands tall at least. Some two-year-old.”

Two maddened male animals in one day was more than enough. She sat on the back bumper of the truck that had towed the trailer. Then she walked over to the wall phone and buzzed Rick.

“Where does Bill keep his capture pistol?”

“Huh?”

“I know that darting a horse isn’t the best idea, but I might be able to get enough tranquilizer into the muscle in his rump to calm him down a little, then I can slip in and give him the real intravenous shot in his neck.”

“You ever dart a horse before?” Rick sounded worried.

“Once. With Jerry, right after we’d started practicing.”

“Successfully?”

“Jerry shot so many darts into his rear end that he looked like a pincushion. He still managed to stagger all over that pasture and stay just out of reach for half an hour. A cow would have keeled over and gone to sleep like a baby after the first dart.”

“So maybe it’s not such a good idea.”

“Got any better ones? We’ll try the regular way first. Here comes Abel. Talk to you later. I hope.”

“He’s not usually this bad,” Abel said without preliminary. “He’s in a lot of pain and he hates confinement, and he’s so damned big he gets away with murder. My grooms are scared of him and he knows it. I’m supposed to be sending him off to my trainer next month for basic training. Or I was.”

“With luck you still will. And with a lot better manners than he had when he came.”

Abel laughed. “You planning on a lobotomy along with the sesamoid?”

“Trust me.” She turned as Big and Steve walked into the room.

Her heart lifted at the sight of Steve. He’d been in good physical shape before, but now his shoulders looked broader, his step lighter, and his eyes were alive in a way she hadn’t seen before. She longed to go throw her arms around him. He’d respond, she was sure of it.

But not now. She explained the problem.

“I know where Dr. Bill keeps his pistol,” Big said. “And the dart things.” He trotted off without further instruction.

“How’d you get him loaded into the trailer in the first place?” Eleanor asked Abel while they waited.

“Hit him with a small shot of tranquilizer. Should have lasted a lot longer. His metabolism must be sky-high.”

“He’s settling down,” Steve said. The noise from the trailer had largely subsided.

“Don’t trust him,” Abel said. “He’s saving up.”

“Here’s Dr. Bill’s stuff.” Big carefully handed Eleanor
a heavy revolver and a cardboard box with shells and darts. “I ain’t supposed to touch guns.” He blushed and glanced at Abel.

“I’m sorry, Big, that never occurred to me,” Eleanor said. “But this one uses tranquilizer darts, not bullets.”

“Dr. Bill said all you got to do is change the cylinder and it shoots real bullets.”

“Oh. I don’t know much about guns, I’m afraid. I hope we don’t have to use this one. Big, are you game to try to hold his head long enough for me to give him a shot in his neck?”