Show Barn Blues Read online

  “Are you ready for a little midnight ride?” I heard his voice as clearly as if he was truly beside me, and for a moment the bright world dimmed and it was full dark, a whip-poor-will singing somewhere in the oak trees behind us, the horses’ bits jingling as they yearned to be turned loose on that wild white road —

  “I’m all tacked up!”

  I spun around, heart pounding, the vision splintering around me. He’d been so close to me, I’d almost reached up to touch his calloused hand.

  Anna was standing in the aisle, holding the reins of her bay warmblood, Mason. She had on her hard hat and breeches, her half-chaps and boots, and her usual big smile plastered across her tan face. Her blonde hair was scooped up under her hat, nearly invisible. Just the way I liked her turned out — show-ring ready. Mason wore black polo wraps, gleaming brown tack, and his usual sleepy expression. “Is now a good time?” she asked, beaming.

  I turned my back on the Florida scrub, on my grandfather’s trails, on a past that I didn’t have time to rehash. It was time for the barn, time for business as usual. “Let’s do it!”

  We marched together down the aisle, turning at the center for the walkway to the covered arena. I immediately felt more comfortable with groomed clay beneath my feet. After all, in this business, what relevance did the woods and wilderness still have? Under cover from the blazing white sun, on safe footing, and with a comforting white PVC rail delineating our work space, we’d get down to the business of training show horses.

  I’d figure out the future later.

  Good feelings only last so long. Late that evening, as I was flipping out the barn lights, the construction company’s sign invaded my thoughts again. I walked down the paved driveway towards my house, wishing I had a dog to keep me company. It was seven thirty and dark out, the long summer evenings already a thing of the past despite the lingering heat. It would be hot until mid-October, I knew, and then we might get a cold front or two, a cool night or two. It would be a rare thing, brought by wind and storm, and everyone would be just as bad-tempered about the cold as they were about the heat.

  I took it all in stride. This was my home. Florida’s weather was unpredictable to some, but for me, the next day’s weather was always written in the clouds the night before. You just had to know what to look for.

  Tonight the night sky was clear as spring water, but the stars were more dim than they had been in years past. Light pollution had invaded my farm. When I was a kid, begging to go ride at Grandpa’s farm, the nearest street lights had been on the interstate, nearly fifteen miles away. That was before the interstate was joined by a toll road. That had been the enabler — the houses, and then the tourists, had come in a flood once the roads were improved.

  It had happened so fast, but life went in a blur, didn’t it? Look at me: one day I’d been riding with my grandfather, the next day I was installed at a show barn and perfecting my hunter rounds, and then suddenly I had been showing professionally for my entire adult life and students were asking me to start my own barn and settle down in one place.

  By the time I’d come back from the show circuit, lean and tanned and twenty years older, the farms had already started to disappear. But the tack shop was still downtown in its dilapidated brick storefront, right next to the Wagon Wheel Restaurant (Family Cooking with a Smile!), and the feed store was still a collection of rotting wood outbuildings sprawled alongside the railroad tracks. Now the feed store had made way for a home design store and nursery, and the tack shop had been renovated into a clothing boutique, part of a pretty, antique-laden downtown beloved by day-trippers. I didn’t bother going into town much anymore. The village had been reborn, but I had kind of liked it the way it was. The cost for a revitalized downtown was very high, for the farmers who had frequented the old one.

  Grandpa hadn’t had to see it change. He was gone by then.

  I crossed the grass under the live oaks and went up the sagging wooden steps of my little house. A new roof, a half-rotted front porch, and flaking paint — it was my favorite place in the world. My grandfather’s house, left for me, the black sheep of the Carter family. The only one who loved horses as he had done, the only one who would never give it up.

  I flicked at the green paint curling from the door-frame. Paint would be the fall project, now that the dry season had come. The porch… I hopped experimentally, listening to the creaking wood, feeling the sponginess in the boards beneath my boots. The porch could probably wait until spring, if no one too heavy did any jumping jacks on it. The roof and the floors had already been redone. I had been working from the inside out, a project at a time, to restore the bungalow. It would outlast me now, if a big hurricane didn’t blow through and knock one of my gorgeous oaks on top of it.

  Selling to the developers would have meant more than giving up the business. It would mean giving up this house, and I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else, now that it was mine and mine alone. Too many sweet memories here, of staying with my Grandpa on the weekends, playing with his couple of Thoroughbred broodmares and any foals that might happen to be hanging around the place, crossing the two-lane county highway, which had been less-frequented then, to the orange grove stand he ran in the picking season. Stealing oranges from the big bins he set out for the tourists, sharing them with Sailor when I was allowed to keep him here, when we weren’t off at shows, before I made the mistake, before the accident.

  The grove was two dozen luxury homes and a clubhouse with pool now, hidden behind a brick wall and Queen Anne palms. The old wooden fruit stand had burned down long before my return, victim of a midnight lightning strike. I’d been in Virginia, at a horse show. My parents told me after I won the finals and came home flushed with triumph and exhausted from nerves. That fire was the beginning of the end of the orange grove; by the time I came back to take over the farm, the trees had died in a freeze and the homesites were being sold. The pastures and the scrubland where Grandpa rode with his buddies, and with me, was all that was left.

  That, and this lovely little house. Thank God it had been built on this side of the street.

  The front door whined open and old floorboards creaked beneath my feet, sloping in places like rolling hills. The wood had warped as the house slowly sank into the soft Florida ground. But wood was flexible, and adapted more readily than concrete to the shifting sands. Things were built better in my grandfather’s day, and houses made more sense. This low-slung bungalow was dark and cool in summer, with a broad front porch made for capturing breezes. The shade from the overhanging live oak trees came with a price, since those lovely trees housed entirely too many spiders for my comfort. Other pests I could handle: I fed a few feral cats outside to keep the mouse population down, and reluctantly sprayed for bugs. Someone had suggested chickens, to keep down the palmetto bugs (that’s what Floridians call massive flying cockroaches) but I hadn’t been willing to commit to the birds yet, in case they required more maintenance work than folks were letting on.

  On the other hand, I really liked eggs, and I had an idea that if I had a couple of chickens there would be eggs all over the place, so that was a temptation.

  My stomach grumbled.

  “Speaking of food…” I said aloud, slipping off my boots and setting them neatly next to the door. In breeches and boot socks I went down the hall to the little kitchen, hoping I still had some food in the freezer from my last expedition into town.

  I peered into the tiny freezer of my ancient fridge and was rewarded with a bag of frozen pasta and shrimp. “I am Italian tonight,” I announced, pulling the bag out with a triumphant smile. “I dine on sea-bugs and noodles.”

  I ripped the bag open, dumping the contents into a pan. “A little olive oil…” I usually had a dog, but I’d been alone for a few months now, and in the quiet of my house, I hadn’t gotten out of the habit of narrating my life to the dog, who would be watching me right now, sitting on the linoleum floor maybe, wagging a bristly tail, or a wavy one, or maybe just a little st
ump, hoping for a bit of shrimp as a treat. It was a break from the silence of the house, even if it was only my own voice.

  “And don’t forget to turn the gas on,” I finished, because it wouldn’t be the first time I had waltzed out of the kitchen, thinking with pleasure of the gourmet stove-top dinner awaiting me, and realized twenty minutes later that I had never flipped on the burner. The flame burst into life under the pan. I looked at the floor next to me, where the dog should have been, watching me hopefully. “Lord, I need a dog,” I told the empty spot, and took my wine into the living room.

  I sank into the sagging couch, sighing as its upholstery took me in. A tired old couch, like me, I thought, but charming in its own way, faded plush covered with a brocade throw decorated with prancing racehorses, their nineteenth-century tack and long willowy legs the relics of another age and another way of looking at the horse, and sipped at my wine. There was a thump somewhere beneath my feet, but it didn’t bother me — just a cat under the house, stalking mice, doing its cat job. I liked animals to have jobs. I considered chickens once more. I didn’t love the roaches, after all, but they were part of life in Florida. Roaches had no job, but I could employ chickens. “I think I’ll get chickens,” I told the living room, and no one answered. “And a dog,” I added. A big dog, maybe, that barked all night. Tourists loved that.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A good manager smooths over silly fights, and, as promised, I made sure that Stacy’s bridle was fixed. She accepted it with a lack of grace that didn’t surprise me, but at least the fight was over and everyone was happy again. Briefly, I supposed. The week ticked by quietly. I rode, I taught lessons, I tried not to worry about the impending development next door. Rodney didn’t call back about the trail horses, which I hoped meant that he’d found a better solution for them — some place a bit more appropriate for them than my equestrian center. Sailor arrived without fanfare, walking quietly into his stall and eating his hay as if he had always lived there.

  Then, turmoil.

  Stacy canceled her riding lesson.

  It doesn’t sound that dramatic, even though the lesson was prime Saturday afternoon spot that Stacy had been hanging on to with grim determination for the past four years, refusing all comers when they sought to barter time slots, armed with sob stories about soccer games, band trips, and lunches with in-laws. Stacy Hummel knew what she had and wasn’t letting anyone else have a sniff. Still, anyone might have to cancel a lesson. Kids got sick, cars had to go to the shop, mothers-in-law dropped by and the house had to be cleaned. If it had been any of those reasons, the world might have kept on turning.

  As it was, I saw everything begin to tilt dangerously.

  I was standing in the barn aisle, observing the grooms as they threw lunch hay to the thirty-odd hungry equines of impeccable European lineage, and also to Sailor. The barn was echoing with horses and their shouting — big bold whinnies, throaty nickers, high-pitched neighs. Everyone went gaga for lunch hay — it broke up the monotony of the day. Breakfast hay had been so long ago. Dinner hay was so far in the future, it was barely worth contemplating. A grooming and a ride? Didn’t have the same ring as a big old pile of dried grass. Stall doors were rattled, teeth were run up steel stall bars with eye-watering results. Feeding time at the zoo.

  My phone rang and I walked outside to get out of the cacophony, a little relieved at the excuse.

  “Hello, this is Grace,” I said, holding the phone to my ear. The sun was hot on the parking lot asphalt and I tilted my face up into its rays, closing my eyes. The light was red through my eyelids. “Stacy? Hello, what’s up?”

  “I just need to cancel today’s lesson,” Stacy said. She sounded out of breath. I wondered if she was running away from something — a fire, a burglar, an alligator.

  “Is everything all right?”

  “Oh, yeah. Can we just reschedule for midweek?”

  “I can check the calendar and call you back.” I bit the inside of my cheek to stop a gusty sigh from letting her know how annoying I found a late cancellation. An empty hour in my Saturday afternoon was a chunk of money lost. I paced along the barn wall, kicking at stones that had escaped the edging. A toad hopped under a hedge and peered out at me resentfully. “Want me to ride Fallon for you this afternoon, then? You have that show next weekend. I’d hate for him to get an unauthorized day off!” I forced a laugh.

  “Oh, no thanks,” Stacy said lightly. “I’m going to go trail riding with Kennedy this afternoon.”

  There it was — the ground tilting beneath my feet. I stopped pacing and stood still, too surprised to reply. The toad blinked at me and hopped away to safety.

  The grooms went driving by on the Gator, and I let the roar of the motor serve as a convenient excuse for my radio silence, but in reality I was reeling from those few simple words. No one on the farm went trail riding. Their beautiful show horses were just that — beautiful show horses. They were not accustomed to the rigors of the natural world, and they would surely get themselves into trouble out there.

  I certainly did not trail ride, not since the accident. I hadn’t been out there since I was a kid, and I had impressed upon my students that the arena way was the proper way to ride. We were all much safer in the arena, with rails and groomed footing, and lovely shade if we were in the covered arena, than we could ever be out there in the swamps and scrubland, where anything might happen.

  The grooms parked the Gator in the hay and equipment shed on the other side of the parking lot, switched off the roaring motor, and quiet returned to the farm. My window of acceptable silence had closed. I gathered my wits about me and tried to remind Stacy that she had goals. “Are you sure you want to skip a lesson for a trail ride, right before a show? Surely there’s a better time down the road. You don’t want to give up any training time, do you?”

  “There’s always a show coming up, though,” Stacy said, aggrieved, (and since it was October and the beginning of the winter season, she was right). “And I know I’ve never taken Fallon trail-riding, but I’m sure he’ll like it. Kennedy says he’s very stiff in the top-line and a nice trail ride will relax him and help him move forward more naturally. And she says Sailor is the perfect babysitter for a green trail horse — Fallon can just scoot up against him and feel perfectly safe —”

  She prattled on a little bit longer in a similar vein, her sentences peppered with “Kennedy said…” By the end of the call, I was ready to call the sheriff to have Kennedy Phillips and her perfect Quarter Horse removed from the property. If her “live life to the fullest/just have fun/YOLO” spirit infected my performance-minded students, I’d lose half my business.

  And, more immediately, despite her bad temper, Stacy was a pretty rider with a talented horse. They could always be depended upon to bring home a few blues. We were going to a dressage show next weekend, to make sure our show jumpers were paying attention and ready for the upcoming season, and I was looking forward to seeing some excellent scores from Fallon. And from Stacy, of course. She sat very prettily, always in the perfect pose, and Fallon did his thing. They were a good team, and I was always proud of them, happy to show them off in front of rival trainers.

  Despite all that, it didn’t seem there was much I could say on the phone to convince her that she was making a mistake. Someone had gotten her all jazzed up over this trail riding business. I could probably get her back in the show-ring state of my mind, but my power over my students’ decisions was best conveyed in person, standing before them with the convincing uniform of custom riding boots and German riding breeches, with tapping riding crop in one hand, and the reins of a 17.2 hand Oldenburg stallion with a rebellious streak in the other. I was pretty hard to argue with, then. I was a queen.

  Stacy finished carrying on about seeing the natural side of Florida from the back of her darling horse and hung up, and I pocketed the cell phone and looked across the heat waves shimmering up from the parking lot. Beyond the asphalt, wilderness reigned, and the thirsty pine t
rees cast their thin shade on the sharp-edged palmettos. The natural side of Florida looked about as appealing as the Sahara right now.

  The grooms came out of the hay-shed and headed across the parking lot for the barn, their normally quick gait slowing to a languid stroll in the blazing sunshine, ready for their lunch and a break from endless chores. They saw me watching them, and the older two wisely affected careful nonchalance.

  Anna, being the working student, was the one to foolishly make eye contact with me, and so she was the first to reluctantly veer from her intended trajectory, the shady oasis of the picnic area behind the barn, and head my way instead to see what the boss wanted. Margaret and Tom, older and wiser and more irritable, brought up the rear, casting disgusted glares at their youthful colleague. They could have made it all the way to their break area without ever acknowledging my presence, as they had proven on more than one occasion. Trust Anna to get them into extra work, they were thinking. I knew. I’d been a working student, and then a groom. I’d done my share of avoiding the boss.

  “Hey guys,” I called as they drew near, and Anna smiled, genuinely, the way very young working students still do, and Margaret and Tom nodded, warily, the way older and wiser grooms do for the rest of their careers. “Has anyone used the trails recently, that you know of?”

  “The new boarder has,” Anna volunteered brightly. “She went out there the first — no, the second day her horse was here. Then she went out the next day with a machete.”

  “A machete?” This was unwelcome news. We didn’t have a farm where swords were encouraged, of course, but it had never occurred to me to specifically ban machetes from my property. Cigarettes, yes. Dogs, obviously. Weaponry? The subject had never even come up.

  “For chopping overgrown palmetto, branches, crap like that,” Margaret drawled. She ran a hand through gray-streaked hair, sweaty from a morning of hard work, and pulled it back up in an untidy bun without much thought. “My old boss always cut trails with ’em. They’ll hack right through brush.”