Author: Heidi Vanderbilt
Category: Other
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She held the microphone a few inches in front of his lips. He cleared his throat and took it away from her. She looked startled, but he ignored her and faced the camera.
“My family has raised walking horses for generations,” he said. “I have been privileged to work with these gentle animals all my life. I have ridden, trained, and shown them to the highest championships in the land.”
Billie looked out at the faces in the crowd before him. The media vans had attracted passers-by, and there was quite a crowd. She spotted Richard’s daughter Sylvie flirting with a cute tech guy.
She was aware that Richard’s pause had gone on too long. People were worried, restless. Wondering if he was finished, if he had frozen from stage fright. He licked his lips, swallowed.
“Every horse I showed, every horse I won on was sore. Every single one.” He paused to let it sink in and heard a rustle, then a rumble from the crowd. He interrupted it. “You cannot make a horse move like that—can’t make a horse do the Big Lick—can’t make a horse pick up its front feet so high and fast and step under so deeply behind unless you sore it.”
Reporters stepped toward him, shouting questions.
He raised his hand. “Hear me out!”
They subsided enough for him to continue.
“I am a God-fearing man!”
They fell silent at this. Billie had never heard him use this come-to-meeting voice before. He sounded like a politician.
“Raised among you and with you. I have already said that I have come to believe that soring is wrong. But more than that, I have come to believe that soring is a sin. So I am here to tell you that I have sinned against God’s creatures. I have sinned but I repent. I am here to speak the truth. I have done that. There is not a single Big Lick horse who is not sore. There is no horse going into the ring at the Big Show who has not been sored. There is no trainer, no owner, no show rider, no exercise rider, no groom, no stable hand who does not know this. We are all guilty of this sin. We must all stop it now. What we do is wrong. I never thought I’d side with PETA or the Humane Society or any other animal rights group. But I’m telling you, in this instance if in no other, they are right. What they say we do, we do. We must stop. We must.”
Over the cacophony of shouted questions, Billie heard applause. And booing. She stepped in and extended her iPhone. She saw wariness in his eyes, uncertainty.
“Mr. Collier,” she said, “why have you said this? Aren’t you worried about your safety?”
“I said it because it’s true. It needs to be said.” He raised his hand in a silencing gesture. “No questions. Thank you,” he said then turned away.
The crowd followed him to the truck, honking questions. He ignored them, his walk faster than theirs. But when he arrived at the truck, Billie was already there.
“Thank you for your time.” She wanted to put her arms around him, tell him she was proud of him.
“I’ll call.” He closed the door.
She wondered if he would.
When she turned to look back at the crowd, she spotted the witness whose presence in the courtroom had gotten the case thrown out, talking with a couple of reporters.
“Dr. Spearman!” she approached him. “Arabella Snow. Frankly magazine. Can I talk to you?”
CHAPTER 25
BILLIE SAT CROSS-LEGGED on the motel bed, pillows behind her, a slice of take-out pizza from the greasy box on the bureau balanced on her knee. She had tidied the room and balled her laundry into a plastic bag then stuffed it into a corner of her suitcase. She hadn’t been able to eat any of the pizza. Her stomach kept dropping as if she were on a roller coaster. A note lay on the bureau beside the TV, printed in a computer font that looked like an old typewriter. Go home now or you’ll never see home again.
Claps of thunder shook the motel and lights flickered. The TV spewed news of the foul weather, viewer photos of thick gray skies, rain against buildings, and trees bent over onto a road. If Gulliver were with her, he’d be shivering in fear. She’d bundle him in his Thundershirt and cuddle him until he slept. Her chest constricted with longing for places she knew, for Richard.
“Another summer storm has dropped an inch and a half of moisture onto our already soaked countryside,” the announcer said. “High winds downed tree limbs and power lines in Marshall County, and parts of the city of Lewisburg are without electricity. But that has not put a damper on Shelbyville’s preparations for the horse show. Let’s go over to station meteorologist Sue Ellen Rosemont at the main arena. Sue Ellen?”
The screen cut to a shot of a young woman with streaming wet bangs, cradling her mike inside the flaps of a yellow slicker.
Billie turned off the TV and set the unfinished pizza slice on the bed. She got up and checked the door to be sure it was really locked, the chain securely in place. She brushed aside the curtain and checked the window, which was locked but leaking. She took one of the thin towels from the bathroom, rolled it, and stuffed it against the sill. When she closed the curtain, she made certain it covered the window. She wanted a shower, the comfort of hot water, but didn’t want to be naked, didn’t want to be behind the closed bathroom door with the water running.
This wasn’t the first threat she’d ever received. They’d been a pretty regular fact of her earlier life when she worked for Frankly, digging into the filth of child prostitution and urban sex clubs with powerful members. Threats were just part of the landscape. She routinely turned them over to legal to take care of. But this sodden note, slipped under the flimsy door to her room for her to find, terrified her.
Her cell phone buzzed. By the time she’d searched the bed and found it under a snarl of sheets and T-shirts, it had gone to voice mail. Richard’s name appeared in caller ID. “Billie, I can’t make it tonight. I’m sorry. I’ll try to reach you later.” She called him back. When he didn’t answer and she got his voice mail, she hung up.
Staring at her phone, she saw that she had missed a call from Frank.
“We need to talk,” Frank’s voice said. “And soon. I don’t think much of this stuff you sent me yesterday. You know the kind of material I use and this isn’t it. Call me.”
She sat back on the bed, her spine hard against the headboard, pulling pillows into her lap. The air conditioner was so loud it would cover the sound of anyone approaching her room. But when she turned it off, the room became a sauna within minutes. So she turned it back on. If only Gulliver were here with her to greet her, curl onto her pillow wagging his tail and wiggling. He made her feel welcome, at home. She missed him, her horses, her ranch, her desert where the storms were intense and powerful then over. Minutes after a storm passed, the sun had baked cactus and humans, steam rose from the dirt, and flooded washes subsided.
She reached for her cell and called Josie.
“Wilde Adventures,” Billie’s neighbor answered.
“Hey, Josie.”
“Hay is for horses, Billie. How’s it going back there?”
Billie heard Josie’s sucking inhale on a cigarette, the pop of her lips when she held the smoke inside. “Thought I’d call and see how everything is out where you are. How’re the horses? How’s Gulliver?”
“That little hooligan’s doing alright,” Josie said. “He’s sitting on my lap right now. We’ve got a big old storm coming, but he don’t seem one bit bothered.”
“And the horses?”
“Mostly okay.”
Billie waited a beat for the bad news she heard brewing.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s all okay now, I guess. Your gray horse, Starship, colicked. I got Doc out for him. Figured that’s what you’d want.”
“How bad was it?”
“He was on the ground, thrashing. I couldn’t tell if it was just a bad gas colic or if he’d got a twist or an impaction. Old Doc gave him a couple shots and tubed him with mineral oil, and he got back up in about a half an hour. Doc gave him some fluids too.”
“Is he okay now?
�
�Seems just perfect. But Doc noticed he had a couple of summer sores from the flies laying eggs on his belly and nose, so he treated them and left some ointment for me to put on every day. Turned out two other horses had ’em too. Hashtag had one on her lip. ”
“Should be easy to clear that up,” Billie said.
“You won’t need to. I told the owner about it, and she decided to take her home. Picked her up this morning.”
Billie could have yowled. The vet bill for Starship alone could wipe her out, probably reaching over a thousand dollars. And she’d lost her only boarder. “Did she pay what she owed before she took him?”
“I didn’t know what she owed, Billie, so I couldn’t ask. Guess you’ll have to settle up with her later.” Billie heard Josie’s husband Sam in the background. “Hold on, Billie. Sam’s got something he wants to say.”
“Hey there, Billie. I hate to add to things, but I checked on your house, and you’ve got a big old leak in the roof right over that couch thing you sleep on. I’m afraid it’s ruined, and you’re going to have to get the roof repaired.”
She could scream, but what good would that do? This time of year, everything went wrong in the desert. Stuff you weren’t even aware of in the dry months broke, leaked, shorted, and washed away. She’d grown up in it, but every damned year something caught her by surprise. The roof shouldn’t have, as it had leaked each of the five years she’d lived there. But those other years she’d been home and had moved the futon and set out a big stew pot to catch the drips. She’d forgotten about it, and now her bed was wrecked and the house needed repairs. “You want to fix it, Sam?”
“Heck no. My roof days are long over. You want I should call Ty for you? He could come out after he loads up the last order at the feed store today, stop by your place on his way here for dinner.”
She should have thought of Ty herself. He’d get the job done fine for her. She had no idea how she’d pay him unless Frank accepted the article.
“Thanks, Sam. Maybe I should get an estimate for the work.”
“No point. No one’ll do it cheaper, and you need it done. And fast, before we get more rain. You get mold in that old adobe, and you’re going to be in a world of sorry.”
She hung up and pressed her phone to her forehead.
It felt like every creature on earth depended on her. She couldn’t get fired. She covered her eyes with her palms and exhaled, breathed in, then slowly forced the air out. And again. What had Frank taught her when she first worked for him? Put yourself into your work, he’d said.
She opened her eyes and looked across the room at the note she’d found when she got back.
She pulled her laptop onto her knees.
Tonight, she wrote, I found a death threat in my motel room when I got back from interviewing owners of Tennessee walking horses. A note slipped under my door. I am huddled on my bed, shaking…
She stopped at about five hundred words and sent what she’d written to Frank with one word typed on the subject line at the top: Better?
It was an hour later in New York than in Tennessee. She pictured him working in his office in the apartment they’d shared, a pool of light on the papers on his desk, light thrown by the Tiffany lamp she’d bought at auction and given him for their fourth anniversary. When she left him, she had almost taken it with her, but decided instead to leave everything except a carry-on suitcase and her computer. Maybe he’d already gone to bed.
She lay back on the pillow, holding her phone in her hand to be certain she’d get the call. If it came. After a while, her eyes closed. Just for a second, she told herself. Just to rest. The ping of the mail program woke her.
You’ve got the job.
CHAPTER 26
A CEMENT SIDEWALK cut across the lawn outside the stadium where the Big Show was held. Hundreds of fans lined up waiting for the gates to open so they could get their seats. Vendors pushing carts with grilled corn, fried chicken, tamales, and ice cream sold out early. Children catapulted from excited to cranky to weepy. Their parents lay raincoats and picnic blankets on the lawn for them, and they slept or played with blades of grass and fat black ants. The parking lot filled then overflowed. Cars and vans and SUVs parked on the street, wheels up on the curb. The police didn’t bother to write tickets.
Billie felt awkward, almost shy about approaching strangers with her questions. Her reticence was useless and didn’t even make sense. In her experience, there was always someone willing to answer any question she might pose.
She stepped up to the line and caught the eye of a man standing near her. “Excuse me,” she said. “I’m working on a story about the horse show. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”
The man gave a who-me? shrug, looking past her as if hoping someone would intercede.
She forged ahead. “How do you feel about the negative publicity about the Big Lick gait?”
“What? Who are you? Beat it!” he said. “Leave me alone.”
The response, even though unfriendly, relieved her of her shyness. She was simply working. She stepped onto the lawn and pulled out her iPhone.
“The town of Shelbyville is putting on a party,” Billie dictated. “Come one and all. This is the culmination of a year of preparations, training, grooming, and showing the most magnificent Tennessee walking horses in the country, in the world.” What she’d said was awkward, but she’d fix it later. “Tonight in this very arena is the ultimate competition, when the best of the breed meets the best of the breed. But what makes a great walking horse?” She spoke loudly enough for her phone to hear her, softly enough so, she hoped, few others did.
“Pardon me.” She extended the phone toward a woman with four small kids hanging on her arms and legs like sloths on a tree. The mother seemed to constantly pluck children off some part of herself only to have them reattach. The oldest boy leaned against her, jabbing at a tablet. Peeking, Billie saw that he was playing Angry Birds. His mother was pregnant with what was at least her fifth child, and Billie wondered how many more there were at home.
“What would you say makes a great walking horse?” Billie asked her.
The woman stared at her with exhausted eyes.
Billie tried again. “Is there a horse you’re rooting for tonight?”
The woman pried a toddler’s fingers from the waistband of her shorts and handed him a PayDay candy bar. “I don’t know,” she sighed.
The older boy spoke up. “I want last year’s world grand champion to become this year’s world grand champion. I want him to win.”
“How old are you?” Billie asked.
“Nine.”
“Do you think the Big Show is a good horse show?” she asked. “Do you think it’s fair?”
He looked at her as if she had serpents exiting her ears. “You asked about winning.”
Billie turned back to see if his mother agreed but saw that she had grabbed another child by its wrist and was shaking it loose from one of its siblings.
“Where’s your father?” the woman asked no one.
Billie’s phone pinged. Frank’s name appeared in bold type, followed by his message: Getting anything good?
Local color, she tapped into the phone.
Just got a bribe offer, Frank wrote. Good one. To trade you for a senator.
She didn’t understand what he meant.
I call you off, kill the article, and get everything I ever wanted to know about the senator. Haven’t decided if I should take it.
Out at the end of the professional gangplank, she felt him slice through the rope behind her. It had happened before. She’d be drowning in a second.
LOL, he texted.
She typed, Very funny.
He didn’t reply.
She separated from the line of customers waiting to go inside the arena and found a quiet spot under a vast maple tree. Leaning against it, she tried to breathe, to think. How should she play this? If she let Frank know that she was terrified, he might call her off the piece. She’d lose t
he job. She didn’t want to revisit the chain of catastrophes that would befall her and everything she loved if she got fired. She needed the payment, in full, and soon.
But if she acted flippant, too casual, he might not realize how dangerous this assignment was. And she needed him to know, to admire her for what she was doing. The greater the danger to her, the better her chances of selling the piece that grew out of the danger. He’d said the job was hers, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t change his mind.
Her phone rang. Frank had called instead of continuing to text.
“You scared, Billie?”
Of course she was scared.
“No.”
“Good. Tell me what you’re looking at.”
“People lined up to see horses tortured.”
“Is this different from bullfighting?”
“How the fuck would I know?”
“Okay. That’s the Billie I hired. Now go get me what I need.”
She stared at the screen for a moment, wondering if she could get her fingers to let go of the phone. Keeping it in her fist, she stuffed her hand into her pocket and hung on.
Billie worked her way toward the front of the line, excusing herself, saying she was looking for someone while reporters worked the edges of the line like grass tickling a snake.
A couple of Patterdale terriers chased each other between her legs and across the lawn—small, dark, wiry dogs who were used to hunt opossum and boar. They were featured on some walking horse websites that advertised them with multiple fonts in varying sizes and colors. The dogs were displayed with their slaughtered victims on one page, their darling puppies on the next. These two barreled through the crowd, making kids shriek and adults laugh.
The line finally moved. People poured through the gates into the arena. Billie found a seat behind two overdressed women and a whip-thin man all in black. She tapped his shoulder. “Do you think we’ll have to wait much longer?”