Breeding Ground (34 page)

Alan walked over into the drive, and waved to someone, before he told Jo it was Jack.

“Good. I'll go get us some tea.”

When she came back, Jack and Alan were laughing about something, while Alan held a stick for Emmy, who tugged as though life itself were at stake.

Jo handed them both a tall cold glass and sat down in the director's chair on Alan's right.

“I told Alan I bought a secondhand car. So if he'll drive me back to his house, I'll leave you your truck.” Jack was tanned now, and healthier looking.

And Jo thought he seemed more settled in himself. More content. And calmer. More sure of who he was. “Thanks, Jack. That'd be good. It won't be long till Toss is driving. At the rate he's doing the exercises they've given him, it'll be sooner than the doctors think.”

“Also, I'm looking for an apartment that—”

“You don't have to. It's no big—”

“No, Alan. I do.” Jack looked quietly determined.

And Jo said, “You know, if you wanted to, when Toss is better and Buddy moves over to Mercer's, you could rent our tenant house. It's very small and plain but it's in decent condition, and it's good for us to have someone in it. The last foal was born this week, so I imagine Buddy will move sometime after the sales at Keeneland. Maybe the first week of August.”

“Thanks, Jo. I'll let you know. And…” Jack said it portentously, and Alan and Jo both turned to him. “I think it's about time I went to see my parents.”

Jo said, “Good for you.”

“It won't be pleasant. My mother's highly eccentric. And I almost wish there was someone to take with me to act as a kind of buffer. But I've put it off long enough. I'll write them before I show up, though, to give them some warning.”

“She's not like Tara, is she? Please, tell me she's not like Tara!”

“No. Nothing like that. Safe, in the extreme. She's a musician who can't play anymore, and she's filled the emptiness with a strange obsession. I'm planning to stay around here, by the way, for the foreseeable future. I like the countryside, and seeing the horses. I like the work I'm doing because…” He stopped then and looked shy and embarrassed, pulling at the collar of his shirt and staring out at the pond. “I'm beginning to write poetry again. Terrible poetry, but that's to be expected. And the work for Booker helps me concentrate. Being outside. Working on my own. Doing mindless tasks that let me think.”

Alan asked, “Any chance you'll use your law degree?”

“None whatsoever. I have no desire to take it up ever again.”

They all sipped their tea and watched Emmy run around, then throw herself down on her back in the shade beside the willow.

Then there were boots tramping fast up the drive where Jack had parked Jo's truck. “JO? You in back?”

It was Buddy, red-faced and sweating, as though he'd run the whole length of the lane from his house to Jo's. “Couldn't make ya hear up front.”

“What's wrong?” She knew there was something. His eyes were furious and wounded too and his bare arms looked ready for battle.

“Frankie D'Amato. 'Member the sleaze-ball at Mercer's who said he'd breed my mare without Mercer knowin'?”

“Yeah.”

“He called sayin' he come here this mornin' when me and the wife was at our church, and you and Toss was at yours. Says he was real glad we got names on the halters, 'cause it made it easy to find my mare and shoot her up with Prostaglandins!”

“Oh, Buddy! I'm so sorry!” Jo was walking toward him, when Jack asked, “What does that mean?”

Buddy wiped sweat off his face before he started to answer. “It's a drug that'll get a mare in heat. So if you give it early on to a pregnant mare, it'll make her abort right quick. The baby just kinda withers up and gets sucked back in the mare's tissue, like it was never there.”

Jo said, “What a jerk!” And squeezed Buddy's elbow.

“Told me I better git used to it. That he's my ‘enemy number one for life.' Damn, Jo! What a bastard!”

“I bet Mercer'll let you breed her again. But—”

“Frankie must have somebody at Mercer's who's feeding him information. And here too. How did he know for sure you'd be gone?” Alan was standing now, his hands on his hips, staring across at Buddy.

“Yeah, I wondered 'bout that myself. The wife says somebody called yesterday doing a poll on church attendance. I reckon that couldda been him.”

“Maybe we ought to put a gate at the road. We figured as far back as we are, and up the hill too, where you can't even see the barns, that that made us safe enough. But now, I don't know.”

Buddy nodded and watched her for a minute, then lit a cigarette and took a deep drag.

“Still…” Jo stopped looking at Buddy, thinking maybe she ought to keep her mouth shut.

“What?” He was staring at her, fury and anger and some kind of hope on his face, vying for the upper hand.

“Better to be you than Frankie. I wouldn't want to be living in his head. Any more than I would Tara's.”

Alan said, “You and me both.”

And he and Jo smiled at each other in a way that made Jack look from one to the other, then smile a half-surprised smile himself.

Buddy leaned against the arbor's corner post and hooked his thumbs in his belt. “I know what ya mean, and I reckon you're right. But him and me, here, in the horse business, it ain't gunna be pretty.”

Alan said, “Maybe Mr. Tate will have some idea who could be talking to Frankie, and figure out how to help.”

“Maybe. I sure hate to bother him none, with the Keeneland Sales and all coming up, when he's done so much already. Anyway. I gotta go help Toss. I'll see you folks later on.” Buddy disappeared around the corner of the house, his boots crunching gravel till he cut off across the lawn.”

Jo said, “Poor Buddy.”

“He's tough, though. He'll get himself through it. He's overcome a lot already. So…” Alan stared intently at Jo, until she looked at him. “You want to get dressed up and go out to dinner? We could drive Jack home, and you could talk to him while I change.”

“Sure. Where do you want to go?”

“Would you want to try the Lafayette one more time? See if we can eat there just once without some kind of emergency?”

“Sure. I'd like that a lot.”

“Good.”

“I've got to grab Emmy, and get her in, and make sure she's got food and water in the pantry, before I can—”

Alan said, “I'll do that. You go ahead and get dressed.”

“Thanks.”

Jack had stood up and was grinning at Alan. “So you don't want me to come with you? I mean I could. I don't have anything else planned.” He looked at the badly disguised disappointment on both faces and laughed out loud. “I'm kidding. Trust me. I'm not without some observational abilities. Three, in this case, is a crowd.”

They did get through dinner at the Lafayette Hotel without being interrupted while they talked about life in the large world, and the small. They started with politics and the state of the Cold War, with Khrushchev and Kennedy, and the Berlin Wall that hadn't been up a year.

They talked about what Tommy had meant to both of them, and what Alan's family had been like growing up. What Jo was doing at White Hall, and the kind of research Alan thought Equine Pharmaceuticals should pursue. What the sales at Keeneland would be like, and how Jo had seen the horse business change in the last ten years.

They moved on to the books they were reading, and their all-time favorites. And how Jo felt about Tara, and what it'd been like to be attacked.

Then Alan asked about Buddy, and what she thought Mercer would do.

“I bet he'll let him breed his mare again, and make sure it stays a secret. And figure out where the information leak is too, and make it go away. But that doesn't mean that Frankie D'Amato won't be an enemy forever.”

“I've never met Mercer, but I'd like to.”

“You think Jack'll go to France and try to figure out how he was framed?”

“He hasn't mentioned it recently, but I'd be surprised if he didn't sometime, even though he seems calmer and noticeably more resigned. Did you think he was kind of asking if one of us would go with him when he goes to see his folks? 'Member how he said he wished he could take someone who'd act like a buffer?”

“I wondered about that too. But he's come farther than I thought he would. It's like I'm waiting for a relapse, or some kind of alarming behavior.”

Alan nodded, and said, “I know. It seems almost too good to be true.”

“Would you go with him to Detroit?”

“Maybe we should flip for it. Heads you go with Jack, tails I stay here.”

“Very amusing.” Jo smiled, and ate a first bite of strawberry shortcake. “You know, one good thing about me not going East, if I hadn't stayed home I might not have had the guts to try to start my own practice. Certainly not yet. It's your lab work and the White Hall job that have made me think I should take the risk.”

“It makes sense. You can work at home, with no overhead to speak of.”

“And develop it from the relationships with all the folks I know around town, even if it starts slowly.”

“You'll still go East, and to Europe, though, won't you, sometime later?”

“I'm dying to go. It's just when, I don't know.”

A storm was blowing in when they were on their way back to Jo's farm, and the night hung dark and heavy – till lightning shattered the sky in front of them, lighting up the rack of hills that rippled and rolled away. Jo sighed slowly, bracing herself for the next strike, then leaned her head against the seat. “You know, one thing this whole experience with Tara taught me is how much I've got that I don't look at the way I should.”

“Like what?”

“Every day, for instance. Having one. Getting up and starting again, no matter what comes by the end of it. It's a gift, having that chance. Even to do boring things. Cleaning stalls. Paying the bills. The fact that I'm here and okay means a lot more than it did.”

“I think I can understand that.”

“The farm too. Being able to live here where it's beautiful. Where there's a business for Toss doing horse work he loves, that enables me to keep the house. That's an amazing opportunity I've almost been too close to, to see for what it is.”

“Getting to wake up in a hospital with all my body parts attached got my attention the same way.”

They were both quiet for a minute, after Alan had turned off the engine up by her front porch. But when Alan looked at Jo he saw something was wrong. Her face looked stiff and embarrassed, as though she was preparing herself for something painful. “What is it? You feel okay? Is it something I—”

“No. I'm fine. It's just that I was thinking about my Mom. You know what bothers me most?”

“No.”

“The last time she could say something… Well, it wasn't that it was a surprise. She'd said it a lot, and I knew why. It wasn't her anymore. It was the brain tumor changing her whole personality. But she said, ‘I hate you! I hate you!' And I answered back. I said, ‘I'm not so fond of you either!' And I knew better. How could I let that be the last thing I said that she could understand?”

“Do you know that
is
the last thing she understood? She might've understood a lot more after that, even if she couldn't speak.”

“And Tommy. The last time we talked, I asked him to come home for a few days and spend some time with me and help me sort through Mom's stuff, and he said he would but he wasn't sure when. And I said, ‘It's a lot easier from a distance, isn't it? You only have to do what
you
want to do.' How could I let that be the last thing I said to him?” Jo was looking down at her lap and her hands were gripping her purse as though something important depended on it.

“You lived under a lot of stress for a very long time. And you couldn't have known it'd be the last time you spoke. And besides—”

“What?”

“You're human. You can't see the future. You've got to be fair to yourself.”

“What I said was mean. He would've come home and helped. I knew that then, when I said it. I just lashed out because—”

“You know what else?”

“What?”

“They both understand now.”

Jo leaned her head back on the seat again. But didn't look at Alan. “I believe that. When I remember. It's just the curse of being so blasted blunt. I hate hypocrisy, and any kind of phoniness, and people saying flattering things they don't mean. So I say exactly what I think, and wake up in the middle of the night and wish I could take back a lot of it.”

They were both quiet then. Alan reached over and pulled the purse out of Jo's left hand so he could fit his fingers into hers.

Then Jo laughed softly, and left her hand in his. “There is something else I'm glad about. I'm glad I didn't go East. Not just because of my practice.” She looked painfully self-conscious, as she glanced at Alan out the edges of her eyes, in the light from the two brass carriage lamps Toss had lit on the porch.

“I'm glad you didn't too. I wouldn't have gotten to know you nearly as well as I have this soon.”

“Good.”

The lightning had moved north, taking the rain shower with it, and they sat with their windows rolled down letting the wind blow through.

Alan said, “May I ask you something?”

“Sure. You know the worst about me. Almost.”

“May I call you Josie sometimes? It makes me remember Tom. And I also like the name.”

“Okay. I guess. If it's that big a deal.”

They both laughed, without knowing why, before he put his arms around her and kissed her long and hard. Then they got out and walked up on the porch and stood gazing at each other in front of the white double doors.