Author: Heidi Vanderbilt
Category: Other
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“It’s allowed to continue because the people with power want it to. Simple as that.”
“And as complicated,” Addie said. “My son, for example. I didn’t raise him to be cruel to animals. But it’s all around here. You want to make a living with walking horses—with any breed of horse—you got to win. And to win with walkers, you’ve got to sore them.”
Billie nodded. “Who’s in charge?”
“What do you mean?”
“If I follow the money all the way up to the top, who will I find?”
“Honey, you won’t find anyone.”
“When I looked for the owners of the big farms around here, I couldn’t find them. Is that what you mean?”
Lucille nodded. “Corporations. Stuff like that. Syndicates.”
“But who’s in charge of them?”
“Hush. It’s a secret.”
“Really?”
Lucille cleared Billie’s plates, setting them down with a clatter out of sight behind the swinging doors, then she wiped down the counter with a sponge. “No, not really. Old boy’s network doesn’t begin to describe this,” she said. “You got to understand our society to get how this all works. If you’re not born into it, you won’t understand it.”
“Help me,” Billie said. “I’ve got to or I won’t do you, or this topic, justice.”
“Now there’s a word!” Addie said.
“What do you mean?”
Lucille said, “Your justice, mine, your friend Richard’s…they’re not the same.”
She hopped up to deal with a couple more customers, preteens in shorts and T-shirts, carrying backpacks and iPads. The kids seated themselves at the counter near the front of the store. Lucille slapped down menus, scribbled their orders, and barked, “Gotcha!” before ducking through the doors and disappearing for several minutes.
Addie’s eyes followed her, as she talked softly to Billie. “This you do need to know. I’ll try to explain. Take my son. Please. Sorry! Old joke.”
“Rodney Dangerfield.”
“Dangerfield is right. My son’s a good man, like most folk in this industry. He did well in school, went to college, served in the marines. He’s done four tours of duty and has two Purple Hearts. He married his college sweetheart, and they are raising a fine family—four good kids so far, another due at Thanksgiving. Everything’s just right. Except for the horses.”
The door to the shop opened again, and a crowd pressed into the narrow space.
“Lunchtime,” Lucille said.
Addie looked at Billie. “Tell you what, why don’t you follow me back to my place and we can go on talking there?”
“I’d like that.”
She paid Lucille and thanked her then followed Addie outside.
Addie pointed to a black Subaru Forester. “That’s me. If we get separated, I’ll wait for you at the next stop sign.”
Addie drove fast. Billie followed her out of the town square, south on a twisty tree-shrouded lane, feeling that at any second she would lose her and be lost. But good to her word, Addie waited at every stop sign until Billie had caught up.
Addie’s house sat up on a hill that fronted onto a lane, making it look taller than it really was, just a normal-size two-story farmhouse, painted white with black shutters, surrounded by sumac and azaleas and dogwood and some dark green shrub with rubbery leaves that Billie couldn’t identify.
She parked beside Addie, and together they climbed three wide wooden steps to the porch. Billie smelled honeysuckle and wood chips. Heat made sweat pour down her sides. Behind the house, a red barn stood with its doors wide open. Billie saw light from the doors at the far end falling on the wide aisle floor.
“Lemonade sound good to you?” Addie asked.
It sounded perfect.
The kitchen had a speckled linoleum floor, old white appliances, red and white cafe curtains at the windows, and a big standing fan instead of air conditioning. Billie sat at the claw-footed table, placing her glass on the square of paper towel Addie tore off for her. She admired the kitchen’s crisp white walls. Through an open door, she noticed a smaller room with walls hung with horse show ribbons.
“My son’s office,” Addie said. “Have a look if you want.”
Billie saw a rolltop desk, computer, printer, and bookcase. It was the walls that drew her inside. Framed photographs of Big Lick horses standing beside a bald stocky man in his late thirties hung beside rows of championship rosettes.
“My boy’s done well for himself,” Addie said at her shoulder.
“Do you ever talk to him about it?”
“Not anymore,” she said as she turned back into the kitchen.
Addie set a blue and white plate of cookies in the center of the table and sat opposite Billie.
“I’m going to spell things out for you because you don’t have time to figure them out for yourself. It’d take you years to catch on, if you ever did.” She put a cookie in her mouth then took a sip of lemonade. She got up and came back with a bowl of sugar.
She offered it to Billie, who added a spoonful to her drink. “What you need to know,” Addie said, as if it were the title of an essay, “is that everything and everyone here’s connected to everything and everyone else.”
“May I record?”
Addie nodded and waited for Billie to get ready. “Okay? Things are connected here, as I was saying. Not in just the regular way that all people in all small towns are. It’s special here.”
“I don’t understand.”
“No, you don’t. Since you know Richard, let’s start with him.”
Billie nodded and pushed the recorder a little closer to Addie.
“Richard is married to Mary Lou Collier, nee Simons, whose family owns car dealerships here and most of the rest of the state, all the major American makes. They also own a tractor company—I forget their name. Those tractors and the trucks from their dealerships are used on most of the farms around here. Now this family also owns a meat business and raises hogs and sheep for pork and lamb. They process their own animals, so they have huge barns like Hormel does. They have slaughter plants and rendering plants, and out behind them, they’ve got anaerobics and whatever else they need to clean up the mess. So this family employs a lot of people. Those people want to keep their jobs, right?”
“Right.”
“The meat is served in our restaurants, owned outright or in partnership with other local families. Just drive down Main Street here in town, or anywhere around here, and you’ll find family-owned restaurants and chain restaurants—Flippy-Flapjacks, for example—where the animals are served. Your eggs. Your bacon. Your ribs and broilers. Sausages and roasts and stews. All raised right here. Also in the supermarkets. You getting some idea of the scope of this one family? Okay. Now let’s start to link them up, say to Dale and Eudora Thornton since Dale was in the news today.
“Those folks own the mortuaries. We have a dozen in this township, all with different family names—Addison’s, Howard and Pyke, Forever Beloved—so it looks diversified, but they’re all owned by Eudora’s family. The churches belong to Dale’s in the sense that his family donates more money than any other. They’ve funded the construction of a half dozen or more churches and Christian schools. Different denominations, all beholden to the same people. People who also own our correctional facility, and some might say our courts.
“Did I mention that the mayor is Richard’s brother-in-law?”
Billie stared at her. “No.”
“And the mayor’s father-in-law is our US senator.”
“Which one?”
“Springer.”
“And they all sore horses?”
“Nope. Not all of them. But they won’t cross those who do. Soring didn’t get going until the 1950s. I was just starting to work for the paper then. I covered the little horse shows around here. Not the big shows, not the championships. I wasn’t trusted to write about those yet. I saw trainers start burning the horse’s legs and hurting their feet a few years af
ter I came to work. By the ’70s it was so bad, you’d see blood running down their legs in the show ring.”
“What started it?”
“Just some dumbass guy riding a hurting horse in a show. The judges liked the way it pranced when its feet hurt, gave it a blue ribbon, and here we are, what, sixty, seventy years later.”
“What keeps it going?”
“Senator Springer needs those votes, that money, his friends. Now, I happen to think that piece of shit doesn’t care what’s done to anything but himself, but even if he did, he’d have a devil of a time opposing the Big Lick. By supporting it, he gets everything he needs or wants.”
Billie took a long draught of her lemonade. The sugar hadn’t sweetened it enough and she shuddered.
Addie smiled. “I enjoy a good shiver in the summer,” she said. “And I like sweating in the winter. That’s the best time for chores if you ask me. In a snowstorm. Can I pour you some more?”
Billie shook her head no. “What effect is the current scrutiny of the walking horse industry having on people here, on the industry itself? And what about the case against Dale?”
“It’s a damper, for sure. Trainers are pulling out of shows. A lot of them are selling their farms. It looks pretty bleak for the walking horse world.”
“And your son?”
“Bleak for him too. Like everyone else here. A way of life ending, yadda, yadda…” She filled her own glass. “But…”
“But?”
“The good old boys are being called names in the press, trashed on the internet, exposed for the slime they are. All very unpleasant. But really, is this any reason for them to stop?”
“What do you mean? I thought that everything was falling off—attendance and sales. I thought the big shows were closing or going to close.”
“And so they are. The walking horse world is letting the media, the outraged public—get what it wants. The walking horse world is shutting down and, in quotes, going away.”
“But that’s not what’s really happening?”
“Bingo, my friend. The Big Lick world is a chain of linked interests going all the way from the stable hand to our man in Washington.”
“Your man in Washington?”
“Really, there’s more than one. Senators. Congressmen. But for now, let’s stick with Senator Springer.”
Billie recalled the senator’s round face and aggressive manner from TV appearances. He was popular with certain conservatives for his positions on gun control—he was against it, and abortion—also against it, and war—in favor, it seemed to her, of every conflict the administration considered.
As if reading her mind, Addie said, “It’s not just the right wing. Liberals like Dickinson are on the wrong side of this too.”
Dickinson was a favorite of Billie’s. She had long admired his compassion for children in the courts, and for those in foster care. Kids like herself. “Why?”
“Money,” Addie said. “The lickers pay off a lot of politicians. They make donations to their causes and their campaigns. Sixty thousand and more.”
Billie whistled.
“The scrutiny now on soring isn’t enough to stop it, but it’s enough to be making people uncomfortable. For example, you’re here. And other reporters covering protests and issues. In years past, there’d be a spurt of interest, outraged articles. Then it’d die back.”
“Now?” Billie asked
“Social media. This won’t fade out the way it used to. There’s a brighter light shining on it. Twitter. Facebook.”
“That’s why Dale and Eudora went to Arizona?”
Addie nodded. “They went there to get horses ready for the shows where they won’t be hassled. Where they can do whatever they want to get ready for the Big Show, somewhere no one knows them or cares about them. Listen, when you get to the show, find me. I have seats above the fried chicken stand. Same seats every year. Stop by.”
CHAPTER 22
BILLIE PULLED OUT of Addie’s driveway, wondering about the trainers like Dale and Eudora who were looking for places to continue to abuse their horses, out of sight of people like her, journalists who fed outrage to activists. A few yards down the road, she pulled off onto the shoulder, turned on her hazard lights and scribbled into her notebook. “What will happen if soring gets driven out of Tennessee? It’s tolerated here, championed even, but at least it’s visible. If the trainers and owners seem to comply, pretend to quit, but really just relocate for most of the year… The pressure to end it will ease up. Face it, not enough people care enough. Why fight over this when there are seals being clubbed, thoroughbreds being drugged, dog fighting?”
Her pen skidded across the page when a semi-truck blasted its air horn at her as it passed. The Ford rocked in the slipstream and her heart thudded in her throat. She slipped the notebook back into her bag and pulled back onto the narrow road.
It was lined with farms. Barns set back in fields lush with summer grass. As Billie passed, she saw horses grazing, flocks of goats and sheep, and ducks and geese drifting on ponds. Wherever the roads intersected, antique shops alternated with diners and gas stations on the corners. Farm stands, laden with produce, hand-lettered signs advertising ridiculously low prices begged her to stop. But she drove on by until she found the narrow road leading to Bell Buckle. When she’d mapped the walking horse farms, she had found a concentration down this road. Her plan was to start here, just drive up to barns, get out and say hey.
By the end of the day, she’d have a list of places scoped out, maybe even a few interviews to report on to Frank. Preliminary for sure, but she’d be oriented at least. He’d always liked her to check in with him when she was on staff at the magazine, let him know what she had found out, who she’d spoken to, and what she had planned. He was one of those editors who liked to be involved. She’d known writers who hated Frank’s style. They wanted independence and lots of space to work in. But she liked his involvement. Conversations about their work that started early in the day continued in the taxi on the way home, through dinner, and went to bed with them. She loved it.
“Saves me a shit load of time if I keep my writers on track as they work,” Frank said. “Otherwise I’ve got to fix copy later and redirect them.”
She wanted to be sure that things were going to work the same now.
Trees, thickly covered in kudzu vines, grew close to the road. Their branches arched overhead, throwing deep shade. Ahead, she spotted a farm sign and slowed until she could make out the logo—white letters inside a gold oval: Angel Hair Walkers. Home of the Best Ever Walking Horses. Dale and Eudora’s farm. She squinted down a long drive toward neat rows of barns in a wide field. A wooded hill rose behind the barns, creating a scene of bucolic peace.
A half dozen media vans were parked on the side of the road. Billie pulled over and sat with the engine idling. She’d planned to interview the Thorntons last, but here she was at their farm, along with local reporters and even media vans from Nashville and Knoxville. She could back up to the gate, ring the buzzer, and see if they let her in. Now that Dale was in trouble, they could make her life difficult by letting everyone know who she was and what she was doing. There’d be no sneaking into barns for clandestine interviews under false pretenses. On the other hand, if they were helpful, they’d make everything so much easier for her. Dale might talk to her about the charges against him. That would be a coup. Dale and Eudora were exactly the kind of people Frank would want her to interview and use to get her to the highest levels within the industry.
While she debated what to do, another heavy livestock trailer stuffed full of hogs passed her, its slipstream rocking her car, trying to pull her along. She steered onto the road and followed it for a mile or so until it turned into the driveway of an agrifarm like those she’d seen earlier. She wondered if it was bringing animals to the farm, and from where, and for what.
She decided not to risk an early meeting with the Thorntons and drove on until she came upon another farm. Its we
athered barn stood close to the road, a large Simeon Wilkerson’s Walking Horses for Sale sign teetered at the foot of the drive. She turned in and parked in front of the open double doors. A pregnant calico cat licked her belly on a pile of manure speckled straw. Pigeons fluttered in and out of the barn doors, and a one-legged rooster hopped up onto a bench that tilted against the barn wall.
Billie lowered her window. “Hello?” she called. When no one answered, she got out of the car and slammed the door to draw attention, but no one came. She knocked on the open barn door and shouted, “Hi?” Then she stepped into the barn, allowed her eyes to adjust, and called, “Anyone here?”
She heard a door at the far end of the barn open then close, and a man lumbered toward her. The barn reeked so badly her eyes watered, but the tools had been picked up and leaned against the walls. A manure cart was heaped with soiled bedding and parked in the middle of the aisle, but she saw rake marks in the aisle dirt, and the stall fronts had been swept clean.
“Help ya?” The man was sloppy fat, his face whiskery, head bald. Pouches under his eyes spoke of ill health.
“This your place?” she asked. “Are you Mr. Wilkerson?”
“Simeon,” he said. “And you?”
“Billie Snow.” She extended her hand.
He gasped and coughed. He took her hand in his and squeezed, fleshy and moist. “Can I do for you?”
“I think I might want a walking horse to show. I’m driving around to see what I can find for myself. Your door was open, so I just came on in. I hope that’s okay?”
“Sure, sure. Nothing to hide. Not like some others around here. Nothing to hide, me. You might say that’s ’cause I got nothing. Lost it all. Losing it all. First the economy, now the damned inspections at the shows and all the bad publicity. Really hurting business. You can’t imagine.”
“Guess not,” Billie agreed.
“What kind of horse you want, Miz Snow?”
“Call me Billie.”
“Billie. I got horses. Some of ’em are nice. Were nice. But I’m selling out.” He waved his hand at the barn aisle. “I can show you what I’ve got. Of course they’re not really ready to show just yet. Well, one of ’em is. If you tell me what you’d like to see, I could fix it up, and you come back later to see it.”