It suddenly occurs to me we might not be picking up a live cat. “But your cat's okay now, right?”
“Yeah. She'll be fine. It was just kind of scary, you know?”
I press another napkin into her hand. “You might want to wipe your face before you go in.”
We pull into the parking lot at the vet's office,
and Sassy twists the rearview mirror toward her. She peers into it and glares as she mops up.
“Thanks, Travis,” she says. “I knew you'd help out.”
She's back a few minutes later with Argentina, a skinny brown tabby cat with huge ears. She doesn't seem any worse for wear.
“Yay for Mom's visa card,” Sassy says. “I guess I'll be looking for extra work to pay her back. Let me know if you need a hand.”
“Between you and Pippa I'm never going to be able to afford new boots,” I joke. It catches me by surprise how relieved I am to see Sassy turn a smile in my direction.
Sassy holds the cat close to her chest on the ride back to her Mom's mobile home. When she climbs out of the truck I roll down my window and call after her. “Sassy! We could use help in the paddock on Saturday.”
She nods and waves. “See you then!”
I'm halfway back to the track when I realize I'm humming. The trip to the vet with Sassy has put me in a very good mood.
On Friday morning, Ryan and I arrive at the barn before Jasper. As usual.
“They got one of Roger Downing's horses,” Ryan says.
“Who got one of Roger's horses?” I ask.
“The tail thieves.”
“What? They came back?”
The hairs on my arms rise.
“It was Watery Grave.” Ryan takes a long pull on his coffee.
Watery Grave is a bay. His tail was black.
“Made a mess of it too,” Ryan says. “Roger said they must have been in a rush because they left a bit. He said the tail looked so stupid with a few hairs left that he cut them off too.”
“My little sister thinks it's people who cut up animals for fun.”
“That's sick.” Ryan reaches out and rubs Romeo's face. “Like some kind of devilworshipping cult?”
“I guess. The kind of people who make sacrifices.” Nasty images of skinned rabbits crowd my mind.
“I wonder if all the horses with missing tails are virgins?” Ryan says this with a totally straight face. Then he winks at me.
“Very funny.”
“Heyâlighten up. Nobody's sacrificing virgins or anything like that.”
“What are they doing with the tails? It's creepy,” I say.
“They're probably selling them.”
“Horse tails? Why would anyone sell a horse tail? To make wigs?”
Ryan shrugs. “There's got to be a logical reason. I'll check it out on the Internet tonight when I get home. Hey, Jasper. Good morning!”
“Morning,” Jasper says, dragging an empty wheelbarrow behind him. “Did you hear they stole two more tails down in Barn D?”
“Two more? Other than Roger's?”
“I think they were both in Kitty's barn.”
“Yeahâthey were both in my barn. Green Star Rising and Peppermint Fizz.”
We all turn to see Kitty McCaughran standing in the aisle. Kitty is about the size of a shrimpy ten-year-old, but she has grand-kids. She's ancient. Dad told me she started off with Thoroughbreds but moved to harness racing after a nasty wreck smashed her hip and busted a bunch of her ribs. When she walks, she swings her bad leg out to the side.
“They got you too, right?” she asks, though it's clear she already knows the answer.
Ryan nods. “Romeo.”
“And that was, whatâon Monday?”
“Yup.”
“I'm going to write a letter to management. The suits need to do something to protect us. If morons can just walk in here and hack off horse tails⦔
Kitty's voice trails off. I'm sure we're all thinking of other horrible things crazy people could do to our horses.
“What are you going to say in the letter?” Jasper asks.
“Demand more security. Maybe tell them we'll sue if anyone hurts a horse. I don't know what I'm going to do with poor Fizz. He goes nuts in the summer with the flies as it is. Without a tail? I should sue them anyway. Are you in?”
“In?” Ryan asks.
“The letter. Will you sign the letter if I write one? If all of us sign, they'll have to do something.”
Ryan raises his eyebrows, and Jasper and I both nod.
“Yeah, we're in. We'll sign whatever you come up with,” Ryan says.
“Good. Travis, is your dad around?”
“I think so.”
“He wasn't in his barn, and he's not at The Bog.”
I shrug. Before I was a Musketeer, back when I worked with my dad, I knew where he was pretty well every minute of the day. Now, I can barely keep track of myself.
“Sorry, Kitty. Good luck finding him.”
Kitty limps off, and we get started. Soon we are caught up in the rhythm of the work. We clean stalls, groom horses, slide harnesses on and off and guide training carts into place. Jasper and Ryan take turns driving the horses during their training sessions. We're all paying attention to how they are feeling: if they are stiff and sore or have tons of energy or seem a little depressed. If there's a problem, we'll figure out a solution. Maybe we need to change the training routine. Maybe add some vitamins. Leg wraps. Poultices. For every problem a horse might have, we have all kinds of possible solutions. Like any team, we work together to win.
For more than a week no tails go missing. Our luck doesn't turn. We can't win a race even though it's beginning to feel like our lives depend on it. Dad said he'll wait a little longer for another payment on the money I still owe him. Chick-a-Biddy Tack and Feed has agreed to extend my credit until the end of the month. That means we have a little time to make some money before I need to pay my bill there. I guess I'm not such a big risk because the store can always keep my paycheck, but I hate owing people money.
The only good thing I've done is help Dad work on the deck. We got a ton done on Monday. That made Mom so happy she made her world-famous shepherd's pie. It's hard to believe deck day was a week ago. The sun blazed all day. Dad and I worked in T-shirts.
Today, it's pouring. A nasty wind gusts from the north. The loose piece of tin at the far end of the barn roof flaps and thumps with each gust.
It just figures that today is my morning to drive. I'm wearing a knitted wool hat under my helmet. My old down ski jacket is puffed up, but I'm still freezing. The cold bites through my leather gloves as I hold the lines. It's too late in the season for the weather to be this terrible.
Dig in to Win clears the end of the long low side of B-Barn. A fraction of a second later a blast of wind smacks me. I'm already soaked, and we haven't even reached the track. Watching for horse traffic, we pass through the gate to the track. I turn Dig in to Win to the left so we're heading clockwise. That's the direction we need to be going for the slow part of the workout. I flick the whip lightly over his side, both lines in my left hand. I cluck at the same time. Dig in to Win springs forward, pacing easily into the rain.
Horses hitched to training carts whiz past, moving in both directions around the track. Those doing faster workouts are on the rail and traveling counter-clockwise.
I let the whip rest casually over my right shoulder, pointing backward.
Mud and water spatter the front of my jacket. I have my mesh screen visor pulled down. It snaps onto my driving helmet and helps stop the mud from hitting my face. It isn't long before my gloves are covered with gritty gray streaks kicked up from the wet gravel track. Dig in to Win settles into a steady working pace.
Pacing is a funny gait. It's different from a trot, where the horse moves diagonal pairs of legs forward at the same time. In the pace, the horse moves the front and back legs on the same side of the body at the same time. Dig in to Win wears hopples, loops that go around the upper part of each leg and sort of tie the front and back legs on each side together. The hopples remind him to pace instead of trot.
We do a few slow laps before getting down to serious business. I check over my shoulder to make sure we have lots of room and then make a big circle across the track so we're heading in the other direction. The minute we've turned around, Dig in to Win picks up speed. The horses know this is the way we go for speed, the same direction the horses race. On the curves, the jog cart pulls to the outside and I lean the other way so we don't tip or skid.
Wheels hiss through the sloppy footing. Every time Dig in to Win lifts a foot I imagine him pulling his hoof free with a little
pop.
The horse is breathing hard, the track is slow and slick. I don't want to push too fast in this mess, but he needs a good workout. We round the curve and emerge onto the straightaway. In a race, this would be the final stretch heading toward the grandstand. The finish line is along at the far end. We head straight into the wind. It's like we're running into a wall.
Dig in to Win's ears flick back and he pounds along, his hooves flying. There is a moment in each stride when all four feet are in the air. It's a moment of suspension, a wild mix of brute force and sheer elegance. His backside rocks from side to side with every stride. His tail, wet and heavy, lifts back toward me. I could reach out and grab it, if I wanted to.
I let him go all the way around again at a good clip and then take a tighter hold on the lines.
“Easy, buddy,” I say, guiding him away from the rail. “Slooow down.” I check over my shoulder and when there's a gap in traffic, I turn him so we're moving clockwise again.
He relaxes and slows right away, responsive and well-behaved as usual. I like driving Dig in to Win. No surprises.
The fast work over, we keep pacing steadily around the track for another ten minutes or so. Dig in to Win is fit and handles the workout with no problems. I'm the one with the problems. I'm soaked and freezing.
My dad flies past on the rail, heading in the opposite direction. I catch a glimpse of the horizontal white snip on the horse's upper lip. That's Stash, one of Dad's favorite horses. Not only is he fast, he's funny. He likes eating potato chips and paws the ground like he's trying to dig his way to China if he spots someone with a bag. He has us all trained to share.
“Let's get out of here,” I say to Dig in to Win. We might have gone around another time or two in better weather. But the horse has worked well, and I feel like I'm freezing, so I pull him to a walk, and we roll through the gate.
My nose is running, and my cheeks sting when I hop off the back of the jog cart and turn Dig in to Win into the barn.
Ryan is waiting to help with the horse. Jasper has an English exam first thing this morning, so it's just the two of us.
I unhitch the jog cart and push it back to where Romeo stands in crossties, waiting. He's all ready to go, and it only takes a minute to hitch him up. There isn't much time to enjoy the relative warmth of the barn. The minute I move around behind Romeo and the cart, he starts moving. I hop onto the seat and swing my legs around as we move along between the barns. I brace myself for the blast of wind when we clear the end of the barns. Then we're on the track, and all I can hear is the
clop-clop-clop
of Romeo's steady pace, the swish of the wheels through the wet gravel and the spatter of icy rain on my helmet.
All three of us meet back at the barn again after school. We hunch over the card table where Jasper has already marked up the conditions sheet, the list of every race that's available on the following weekend.
“I'm thinking we should move Dusty Rose up a class,” Jasper says.
“Really? Why would we embarrass ourselves like that?”
“I'm with Travis on that,” Ryan says, tipping his chair back. “We need a win. She doesn't stand a chance if we move her up.”
“She's a funny girl,” Jasper says. “I'm thinking she'll work hard to keep up with this bunch.” He points at the third race on Friday night. It's a race for fillies and mares that haven't won more than ten grand in their last five races. The claiming price is a little higher than the other races she's been in recently. The higher the price the horses are listed to sell for, the better quality they tend to be.
Ryan folds his beefy hands over his stomach. “Yeah?”
“And when we drop her back down a class the following week, she should do okay.”
“It's a theory,” I say. It's not unusual to bump a horse up a class to run against stiffer competition to try to get a better performance. Sometimes the faster speed will inspire a horse to come up with a personal best time, even if it doesn't stand much of a chance to finish in the money. Sometimes the horse will have another good fast race the following week, running against horses that are a closer match. It's risky though. The opposite can sometimes happen. If a horse is too far out-classed, it can just give up and not bother trying. With Dusty Rose, it's hard to say how she'll respond.
“We don't have anything to lose at this point,” Jasper says. “What we've been doing hasn't been getting us into the winner's circle.”
I can't argue with that. Neither can Ryan. “Fine,” he says. “Put her in.”
Jasper fills in the entry form.
While he's filling out the details, Ryan studies the list of races for Friday night. “Nothing. How about we put Finnegan in the eighth on Saturday?”
The eighth is a race for horses six years old and younger that haven't won $30,000 in their lifetime. Even though Finnegan is nearly seven, he has only earned $18,978 and most of that was with his previous owner. He was in the same race last week and finished sixth. But he was moving up and looking strong at the end. If we draw a decent post position, he might do better.