Breeding Ground (6 page)

Neither one of them said anything else till they'd stubbed out their cigarettes.

“Mr. Watkins, did you—”

“Toss.”

“D'you tell me that for a reason?”

“
If
I take you on here, you need to know to be real careful of him. That's the first thing. Pour the grain in his feed tub from the aisle-way. Throw his hay in the stall through the bottom half of the door. Don't get in the stall with him.”

“No-sir. I'd be real careful.”

“So who's gonna decide what happens to Tuffian?”

Buddy stared across at the horse, before he said, “Him.”

“Yep. I'm gonna work with him, and see what I can do. But it'll be up to him.” Toss took off his battered straw hat and wiped his forehead. “So what'd'ya figure folks want in barn help? Or in a trainer, either one?”

Buddy didn't answer till he'd scratched a circle in the dirt with his burned out match. “Somebody who's good at the work. Who's dependable, and real honest, and works harder than most.” Buddy's face was pink, under the tan, and he wasn't looking at Toss.

Toss nodded, still gazing at Tuffian. “Somebody who shows up before time, and works harder and longer than he has to. That's the kind that gets ahead. Now, some folks'll take advantage of that, but in the long run, they'll suffer, not the one that works that hard.”

Toss shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned back on the bench. “You did good today, showin' me what you know about horses, and how you can work. I take it as a fine example of what a barn hand can do. If you want the job, you can have it. You can have the tenant house on the north lane past the big house too, if that suits you and your wife.

“But if just once, you don't show, you're done. 'Cept for some real emergency, that you tell Jo or me about first. I can't say for sure how long I'll need you. Long enough to get your babies born, and more, and let you get back up on your feet, and find you a new direction.”

Buddy was looking at Toss by the time he'd quit talking with a light lit up in his eyes. “Thank you, sir. I sure do appreciate it. I won't let you down.”

“No, I don't reckon you will. There's no job here that's not important, neither. Everything you'll do will add to running this farm right, and taking good care of the horses. If you do your work well, I'll give you more opportunity, too.” They were walking then, toward the yearling barn, rolling their cigarette butts between their fingers, shredding tobacco on the ground. “Josie tells me you want to be a trainer.”

“Yes-sir.”

“Then you'll need to work for a real good trainer who can teach you what gets handed on from one down to the next. 'Course, sometimes I think a groom can have as big a part in how a race horse performs as most trainers or jockeys.”

“You do?”

“Yep. But one thing I know for sure is that what a horseman needs, man
or
woman – trainer, groom, or jockey – on top of the hard work, is some kind of instinct. Some blood-born feeling for the horse itself. For who each one is, and what they feel and think. I've seen some who have it for a lotta horses. Others for only one or two. Whether you got that, I don't know. I don't have it like I've seen with some folks. I just got enough to do what I do pretty good. Great trainers, they got lots, and it don't get passed on in the blood. You study the stud books?”

“Some. Over to Keeneland, at the racecourse library.”

“You better study 'em plenty. We got stacks in Jo's house in the study. You can borrow 'em in the evenings if you bring 'em back in the morning.”

“Thank you. I'll do that. There's one other thing, Mr. Watkins.” Buddy was looking worried again, shifting from one foot to the other, his lank sandy hair blowing across his eyes.

“Yeah?” Toss stopped and looked at him, trying not to smile.

“I got me a four-year-old mare. The barn I worked at before this last one, that barn went belly-up, and the owner give me the mare 'stead of my back pay. Could you see your way to me bringing her here, and letting her run with the broodmares? You could take something out of my pay. She's over at my dad's now, and it's real inconvenient if I move clear over here to go back and forth to take care of her. She's got real good ground manners, and better breedin' than I ever thought I'd own.”

“Well… I reckon that's okay. I won't take your pay, but I'll give you extry to do. There's something else I meant to tell ya too. The manure spreader's been acting up. The power take-off's goin' bad. The shaft's starting up too easy. Engaging too quick. Spinning the blades sooner than you'd expect when you're trying to set it in gear. I'll be working on it later this week, but you need to be real careful.”

“Yes-sir, I surely will.”

“You see Josie when you got here?”

“Stopped by the house to ask where you was. She'd been typing at the kitchen table, but it looked like she was fixin' to leave.”

“Nuts. I meant to ask her to pick up pig wire. I want to put a second layer up above the siding in Tuffian's aisle-way wall.”

Because of Buddy, Jo hadn't had to help feed horses, or turn them out, so she fed the puppy she'd decided to call Emmy, and watched her run around the side yard, while she phoned the neighbors to find out if they'd lost her, and found out none of them had. Then she made up her mind to call Alan Munro.

She hated to bother him at Equine Pharmaceuticals, and she hated to be the one to phone first to begin with (though why she wasn't sure), but she didn't see that she had a choice.

She felt awkward, but she got it done. And he was perfectly reasonable about it. He seemed glad to hear from her, and happy to meet with Jack, and asked if she'd have dinner with him that night to tell him what she knew about Jack before he went to meet him.

She thought about Jack herself while she saddled Sam, but forgot about him while she and Sam wandered cross country. But when she was standing in the small broodmare barn shortly before five, having just put Sam in his stall, she was back thinking about Jack.

She'd found a scrap of paper in the tack room, and was writing herself a list of questions she'd like to get Jack to answer – when Sam reached over the stall door and took her sleeve in his teeth, gently pulling her toward him.

She laughed and rubbed his face – before Sam grabbed her paper and rushed to the back of his stall. He looked over his shoulder at her, the small piece of paper dangling from his lips, which made Jo laugh out loud.

“Hey, give that back! You think you're pretty funny, don't you?” Jo went in and rubbed behind his ears, and he dropped the scrap on his straw bedding, before he licked the sleeve of her shirt.

Jo scratched his withers for him, and talked to him for another minute, feeling better than she had all day.

They'd already ordered, in the restaurant of the Lafayette Hotel, where a bottle of Burgundy Alan thought well of sat opened on their white linen tablecloth, ready for him to pour.

Jo had dressed up for the first time since the funeral in high heels and a good black suit with a café-au-lait silk blouse. She'd wrapped her hair up in a half-chignon so the ends curled on one side, and she'd worn the cream-colored jade earrings Tommy had brought her from Hong Kong when she'd graduated in Architecture from the U. of M.

Alan had grinned at her, at her front door, and said, “You look nice. I hardly recognize you without Tom's sweater.” Which meant that later, at the Lafayette, when Jo smiled at the dinner table, Alan asked, “What's so funny?”

“Your smart remark about Tommy's sweater. If you hadn't asked extremely intelligent questions in the car, I might not—”

“Did I?”

“When I told you about Jack. I might not think you're a serious person.”

“Oh, I'm serious alright. Many have said too serious. Most of them women.” Alan unbuttoned his navy blue jacket and smoothed his dark gray tie, as he smiled across at Jo.

“You don't look like you care a whole lot.”

“No? Maybe it depends on the woman.”

“So you think women are frivolous?”

“Some are. Some aren't. Just like men.”

“True.” Jo nodded, and changed the subject, asking if he always ate in restaurants as nice as the Lafayette's.

“Hardly ever. I thought one night of good food and fine French wine might do both of us good.” He poured the Burgundy, as their soup arrived, and looked at her appraisingly.

Which made her feel even more self-conscious than she had when he'd knocked on her door. “So when do you think you'll go and see Jack? I saw him for a little while this afternoon and he seems to be doing better.”

“Tomorrow after work, if I can. Have you listened to much of Tom's tape?”

“I listened to some of the training part. Who was the ‘Shanghai Buster'?”

Alan laughed, before he said, “William Fairbairn. Better known as ‘Fearless Dan.' He was a British Army Captain who came up through the ranks of the Shanghai police during the twenties and thirties. He created the first S.W.A.T. team, and developed a hand-to-hand combat system that combined his own version of street fighting with traditional jujitsu.”

“Were you and Tommy trained by him?”

“Yes. Most of us were. In what he called gutter fighting. He was a small guy. With big glasses. Who was deceptively unthreatening looking. He actually taught us to fold a newspaper into a knife that could kill.” Alan sipped his Burgundy, and passed Jo the rolls.

“Really!” Jo was staring at Alan – the strong face, the dark hair, the green eyes watching her back, the thin white scar in the ten-o'clock shadow on the left side of his jaw. “You don't look like a hardened killer.”

“Did Tom?” Alan smiled, then ate the last of his lobster bisque.

Jo said, “No,” after she'd thought about it. “But I knew from experience he was plenty tough. You never met Jack?”

“Nope. Our paths never crossed. So why haven't you listened to the rest of Tom's tape?”

“I'm working on it now. I needed time to miss him. To get over it a little before hearing him tell me the horrible things he had to live through.”

“Has he talked about himself much?”

“No. Actually. Now that you mention it, he's talked more about the people he met.”

“That's what I would've thought.

“So what did you do?”

“In the war?”

“Yes.”

Alan didn't answer. He took a first bite of leg of lamb, and another sip of wine. He gazed at his plate, at the table, at the wine, swirling it slowly in his glass, without once looking at Jo. “I'm not allowed to talk about it.”

“Okay. Then how do you know about French wines?”

“My mother's French, and I've spent time there. She teaches French in a high school in Schenectady, New York. My dad works for G.E. as an aeronautical engineer. I have three sisters. Two older. One younger.”

“Were you in France during the war?”

Alan paused for a second, before he said, “Yes.”

“That must've been scary.”

“Especially for someone as mild-mannered as I?” Alan's eyes smiled even if his mouth didn't, as he poured her more wine. “You do what you have to do, Jo. We were everyday guys. From every possible niche in society. From every part of the country.”

“So what can you tell me about what you did?”

“All I think I can say is that when the U.S. Army was moving into an area, I'd help them establish local civil governments. There were a lot of political factions inside France, in and out of the Resistance, and I tried to help sort things out.”

“That couldn't have been easy. Trying to figure out what was going on, and who was telling you the truth, and not trample on French toes.”

“
That
would be an understatement!” Alan laughed and shook his head, before he cut a forkful of lamb. “Bob Harrison seems to like you.”

“Are you trying to change the subject?”

“No, but—”

“He and my dad were really good friends. How do you like working in a family business?”

“I like it so far. Though it's too early to tell long term. The family part is interesting.”

“Yeah, I'll bet it is.”

“Do you know anything about the son?”

Jo looked left and right, as though she was afraid of eavesdroppers, before she said, “I'm not allowed to talk about it.”

“Very amusing.”

“Sorry. I couldn't resist. Anyway, I don't know Brad well, but it's always seemed to me he wasn't really interested in the business. I know he was kind of coddled as a kid. He had some sort of health problems. Nothing serious I don't think, but he didn't do any sports, and he didn't work too hard at anything he tried.”

“Thanks. That actually helps.”

“Miss Grant?” A short, plump, middle-aged waiter was walking up to the booth carrying a plug-in phone. “A gentleman wishes to speak with you.”

It was Buddy Jones calling to tell Jo her Uncle Toss had been kicked by Tuffian, and he'd taken Toss to the hospital and was calling from there.

“Toss's one leg is broke in a couple places, and the other leg's hurt some too from a real nasty double-barrel kick. A truck backfired, or a gun got shot or somethin', over toward the road, and Tuffian, he twirled around and kicked out. Mr. Toss had just got his lead rope on him, and was fixin' to lead him to the gate. They're operating on Mr. Toss now, and they say it'll take a good long while.”

Alan watched Jo pace the corridor, high heels clicking on the vinyl tile, as she waited for the surgeon to tell her about Toss.

She flopped down eventually in the plastic chair next to Alan, and crossed one good-looking leg over another, swinging it fast while she shifted in her seat. “You see what this means, don't you?”