Changes of Heart (7 page)

Taking care of animals didn’t allow Maggie a lot of time for grief, and her domesticated horses required more hours and effort than most large animals except perhaps dairy cattle. There was feeding to be done twice daily, stalls to be mucked out, fresh straw to be spread, and well-trained, high-maintenance barrel-racing horses to be exercised at least three times per week.

Maggie did what she had to do, and it filled some of the hollow places in her days. The work was essentially mindless: lift, carry, rake, shovel—and there was no joy to it. At one time Maggie had reveled in the scents of the barn and the personalities of her horses. Their need for attention and
affection had touched her, and the carrots and half apples she offered the horses on a flattened palm were gifts of love. Those benefits—the sweaty pleasures of working with the animals—seemed to have drifted off into the sky with the smoke from Rich’s X-417.

She slumped down, sitting on a bale of hay outside a stall, and let her pitchfork drop from her fingers.
If we’d had a child, there’d be something left of Rich other than pain and longing
. A vision of a toddler in tiny jeans and Western boots and a shirt with little pearl snaps appeared in her mind. Maggie saw herself holding out her arms to her baby, but when the baby turned, the face was Rich’s.

She stood quickly, angrily, and snatched her manure fork from the floor on her way up.
I can’t do this. I won’t do this—I won’t let myself slip into becoming a delusional, whining widow. I won’t be a crazy lady sitting in a corner, twisting a Kleenex to bits and feeling sorry for myself. I always knew that flying those things was a gamble, a roll of the dice, every time he went up
. She eased herself down to the cement floor of the barn again, this time on her knees, and set her pitchfork aside.

But, Lord, it’s so hard
...

The prayer stopped there. She had no words, no images, nothing to convey except her bleakness and despair. This time, not even tears would come.

Maggie had both anticipated and dreaded the day her mother left. Forcing smiles and rehearsing chitchat were heavy and unnatural burdens for Maggie, but when her
mother was gone, her love and her very presence were deeply missed.

Six weeks had passed since Maggie had driven Janice to the airport, and the following days had blended into one another, like spilled paint of different colors taking on a drab sameness, a dull monotony.

Maggie stood outside Dusty and Dancer’s stall with Dr. Pulver, marveling, even through the lethargy that had become as much a part of her life as breathing, at the rate of growth of the colt. His legs, still spindly, seemed ludicrously long for the size of his body. But his hips were filling out, beginning to take on the breadth of the quarter horse butt—the powerful launching pad that provided the breed with its lightning acceleration. Danny reached out and scratched Dancer between the ears. The colt grunted with pleasure.

His head and muzzle had grown too—Dancer no longer had the deerlike quality of a very young horse. His eyes, liquid, shiny, and insistently curious, drew the gaze of anyone who looked at him. And Dusty’s grooming, her constant licking and nuzzling, kept her foal’s coat show-ring perfect.

“I’d start putting them out a couple of hours a day,” Danny said, palming an apple to Dusty. “Mama’s going to go nuts in here if she doesn’t get some exercise.” He leaned over the top rail of the stall. “She hasn’t missed many meals, has she? Some of that’s postpartum, but she’s starting to look like a bowl of Jell-O.”

“She’ll work it off when Dancer’s weaned,” Maggie said.
“She’s a good mother, isn’t she?” It wasn’t actually a question; she knew Danny knew the answer.

“The best. Look at Dancer’s coat—not a manure stain or a bit of straw clinging to him.” Danny focused on the colt for a moment. “He’s going to be tall. I wouldn’t doubt that he goes over sixteen hands as a two-year-old. He’ll be rangy too. His bones are long.”

Dancer, catching the scent of the apple his mother was industriously chewing, moved to her head and reached upward to her mouth. Then the colt amazed both Maggie and Danny: he shifted his body, rose quickly and gracefully upward, and placed his forefeet on Dusty’s neck, his muzzle probing at her mouth, seeking the apple.

“Whew,” Danny breathed. “This boy is agile! I’ve never seen one this young use his body and balance like that. Never.”

Dusty quickly had enough of her son prodding his muzzle at her mouth and shook her head and neck. Dancer settled back on all fours—and took a quick nip at her side. Dusty spun toward him, spewing bits of partially chewed apple, and bared her teeth at the colt. Dancer backed rapidly into a corner of the stall, shrinking somehow, his stance and his eyes frightened. Dusty glared at him for a long moment and then turned away, snorting sharply to show her anger.

“Attagirl, Dusty!” Danny laughed. “Don’t let that rabbit chew holes in your hide.”

A gust of wind rattled a window, and Dancer, still in the corner, focused his attention on the sound, his ear tips pointing toward it. The sounds of the barn—the occasional
creak of wood, the light buffeting of the wind against the outside, Dusty’s now slower and rhythmic grinding of the apple—were comfortable ones, sounds both Danny and Maggie had enjoyed for years, without really paying a great deal of attention to them. Perhaps it was the breaking of that peace that made them more embarrassed than they should have been when they both began to speak at once.

“No—go on, Danny,” Maggie said.

“I was just saying that we haven’t seen you in church for a lot of weeks. You’re missed, Maggie. Ellie asked about you.”

“I’ve been busy. People wanting to check out horses to buy want to do it on weekends, and that includes Sundays.”

“Sure,” Danny said. “That’s true.” After a moment, he said, “How about if I stop by tomorrow and kind of watch things and you go to church? If anyone shows up to look at a horse, I’ll say you’ll be back in a bit, and they’ll wait if they’re interested enough.”

Maggie shook her head. “No—no thanks, Danny.” That the words came abruptly wasn’t lost on either of them.

Maggie saw that her fingers were clenched so tightly on the top board of the stall that her knuckles were a pale white. She squeezed her eyes shut as a blockade against the tears that were already flowing. Danny reached his arms out to her, and she stepped quickly into his hug, pressing her face against his chest, rocking both their bodies with her wrenching sobs.

The sound of a car outside separated them. Maggie used her hands to wipe tears from her face, and her eyes found a
wet spot the size of a saucer on Danny’s shirt. “I’m sorry,” she said, trying for a smile she didn’t feel. “I cried all over your shirt.”

Danny grinned. “That’s not nearly as bad as what a German shepherd pup did on the first shirt I put on this morning.”

An auto horn, deep and resonant, sounded from outside. Maggie rushed to the faucet used to fill water buckets and ran the icy cold water on her hands, and then rubbed her face. “Somebody to see a horse, I guess,” she said. “I need to...”

“Yeah,” Danny said quickly. “I gotta shove off.”

“We’ll talk soon, OK?”

“Sure, Maggie. Let’s do that.”

Maggie hustled past him to the front of the barn and stepped out into the sunlight. A metallic blue Rolls-Royce sedan idled smoothly on the concrete apron, the sun sending shards of light from the highly polished automobile that were almost painful to Maggie’s eyes. The driver’s door swung open as Danny left the barn and walked toward his GMC, openly eyeing the expensive British luxury vehicle. He grinned when he saw the two people in the car.

“Hi, Dr. Morrison, Tessa. Sorry, I’ve got to run.”

Both women in the car waved to the vet. “Ms. Locke?” the older woman asked, easing out of the car. There was an understated elegance to her that was impossible to miss. Her face was richly tanned, and Maggie could tell that the tan came from the sun, not from a series of carcinogenic light
tubes. The woman’s charcoal slacks were simple and perfectly cut, and her white silk blouse and light jacket didn’t come from Target, where Maggie shopped. There were no rings on her fingers; she wore small gold studs in her ears but no other jewelry. It was her face, though, that transfixed Maggie. She wasn’t beautiful by contemporary standards—she had an actual woman’s form rather than the stick-figure physique of fashion models—but the high, softly defined cheekbones and the liquid depth of her cornflower-blue eyes were striking. The word
patrician
flitted into Maggie’s mind.

“I’m Sarah Morrison,” the woman said as she walked toward Maggie and extended her hand. Her voice was a bit deeper than Maggie expected, with a texture of the South to it. Maggie wiped her right palm on her jeans and took the offered hand.

“Maggie Locke, Ms. Morrison. Pleased to meet you.”

“Sarah suits me better. May I call you Maggie?”

“Of course.”

Sarah was older than Maggie had initially estimated—perhaps well into her fifties. Her age detracted not in the least from her presence and the aura of gentility that she projected.

“We spoke very briefly early last week. About the horse for my daughter.” The passenger door of the Rolls opened, and a smaller, much younger version of Sarah Morrison got out of the car and looked over at the two women. She was about fourteen and was dressed in well-worn jeans, a Western shirt, scuffed but clean boots, and an unbuttoned, lined Levi jacket. Her eyes, Maggie realized even with the
distance between them, were precise reproductions of her mother’s—except that the girl’s were sparkling with excitement and anticipation.

“My daughter, Tessa,” Sarah said.

The girl moved forward, a tentative smile showing a few thousand dollars’ worth of silver braces on her teeth. She was thin-limbed and coltish as she walked to Maggie with her left hand extended. It was then Maggie noticed that the child’s right sleeve was empty and hanging vacantly at her side. Maggie put out her left hand to the girl, pleased that the motion had been smooth, without fumbling or confusion.

“I lost it a long time ago,” Tessa said, answering the unasked question. “No big deal. I hold the reins in my left hand—as I’m supposed to—when I’m trail riding. When I run barrels I use a game rein—a single piece. As I said, it’s no big deal.”

“Glad to meet you, Tessa,” Maggie said.
How many kids today know the difference between
like
and
as—
and use the words correctly
?

“When we spoke, you mentioned a horse named Tinker,” Sarah said. “A five-year-old mare?”

Maggie looked at Tessa. “I’m awfully sorry, but Tinker’s been sold.”

Tessa swallowed hard, and her eyes lost their sparkle. “I see,” she said. “I wish we could have come sooner. Dr. Pulver said good things about Tinker. I already knew that you and Tinker won open barrel racing at Tri-County last summer.”

“I’m sorry, honey,” Sarah said, stepping to her daughter and touching her face gently. She looked at Maggie. “I’m a cardiac surgeon, and my schedule has been horrendous—one emergency after another. I should’ve had our groundskeeper bring Tessa over to look at the mare, but I wanted to see Tinker too.”

Maggie had learned to live with the slight swelling she’d felt in her throat since she’d stood in the same barnyard and heard Rich’s plane strike the earth. The lump she felt now was different—maybe because she could do something about this one.

“How good are you, Tessa? Really—no hype. Tell me when you started and tell me what you’ve done on horseback.”

Much of the life came back to the girl’s eyes. “I’ll be fourteen in a couple of months.”

“Six,” Sarah noted. “Six months.”

“And I’ve had weekly lessons since I was about eight. My dad wanted me to ride a pancake, but I told him I wouldn’t ride a saddle without a horn. I’ve been to horse camps each summer.”

“How were the camps?” Maggie asked.

“Not good—but I got to ride a whole lot. I didn’t go to learn about rock stars, makeup, and boys. I wanted to learn to ride Western horses and to run barrels.”

Maggie’s smile came quickly and naturally, and it felt slightly strange on her face, as if those muscles hadn’t been used much in the past months. “What are the main bone structures in a horse’s legs, Tessa?” she asked.

There was no pause for thought before the girl answered. “Cannon, fetlock, and pastern.”

“OK.” Maggie laughed. “How about this: what do Arabian horses have that other breeds don’t?”

“Two things—an extra vertebra and a third eyelid, a membrane that protects their eyes in sandstorms.”

“Very good, Tessa—you’ve done your reading. That’s important.”

The young girl’s smile was the first burst of radiant sunshine following a long day of drizzle and clouds. “Thanks, Mrs. Locke.”

“Call me Maggie.” She thought for a moment. “I have a five-year-old quarter horse gelding named Turnip who knows the barrel pattern but tends to be a little silly at times—and he’s headstrong too. There’s not a mean bone in Turnip’s body, but he’ll take advantage of a rider if he’s allowed to do so.”

She met Tessa’s eyes. “One thing—if you’ve been riding school horses and camp stock, you’ve probably never ridden a horse with the speed this guy has. He’s a fireball, and he needs good, confident hands on the reins.”