Venom (2 page)

There's at least one race each day she leaves up to Lady Luck. That one she marks in green and always bets on the number seven, no matter who's riding what horse. She's been playing her system for a thousand years.

“What do you think of Majestic Ensign?”

I pull a face, and Grandma puts a black
X
beside Majestic Ensign's name.

I pour a little coffee into my thermos, slap PB&J on some bread and shrug into my jacket. “Good luck at the races!” I yell over my shoulder as I jog out the door.

The bike ride to the track takes just enough time to get me warmed up and fully awake. I wonder sometimes how things would have been different if Grandma's house had been on the other side of town, away from the track. As it is, my earliest memories are of my mom dropping me off at Grandma's for weekend visits.

Grandma and I used to head straight for the track to watch the races. It was especially exciting on days when my dad had horses running. Even before the accident, Mom rarely came with us. After the accident, nobody could even say the word
track
without Mom losing it.

In the past few years, Mom and Grandma have had some unbelievable fights about
the place that cannot be named. They almost always ended with my mom screaming, “How can you do this to me? Don't put me through that again!”

I know my mom has good reasons to hate the track. At some point, though, she needs to realize I am not my dad. What happened to him won't happen to me.

I can't think about the accident, even though it happened six years ago. If I do, it makes me want to puke. That's not how I like to remember my dad. It's bad enough that the accident haunts my nightmares. I don't need it to ruin the daytime too. That's what happens when you dwell on the past. Too bad Mom doesn't see things that way.

Things got really bad the summer I turned twelve, two years after the accident. I was staying at Grandma's one weekend, and she made some comment about how wrong it was for Mom to let her boyfriend sleep over. It sort of slipped out just as we were finishing ice-cream cones at the park. That part wasn't so strange, I guess. Grandma has always worried about Mom.
My reaction, though, was definitely off the wall.

I started bawling. Blubbering like a baby. When Grandma asked what was wrong, the words gushed out. I couldn't stop them. I told her how miserable Mom was, how many days she stayed in her bedroom with the door locked. I told Grandma how I found empty liquor bottles under the couch and hidden under the newspapers in the recycling bin, and how Mom made me call her work to say she was too sick to come in.

I even showed her the bruises on my arm where Mom had grabbed me.

Through it all, Grandma just listened. When I was done, she said, “I think you need a place of your own to go.”

“Like a tree house?”

“A tree house? You're a bit old for that, aren't you?”

Grandma had something quite different planned. “You need somewhere you can go and hang out and make yourself useful. Somewhere away from your mother.
Somewhere away from me. Somewhere to be yourself.” The next thing I knew, we were at the security gate leading to the backside of the track, where all the barns are. Grandma asked for Little Joe.

Little Joe (no relation to Big Joe, who's just a big jerk) is the trainer who gave me my first job as a hot walker. Grandma fudged my age a little. And she agreed that we didn't need to tell Mom right away, at least not while she was going through such a rough patch.

The new job worked out well for a while. I earned a little pocket money on weekends when I stayed with Grandma. Lots of the people I met had known my dad, and somehow that made him seem closer. Grandma was happy. She had someone on the backside to give her tips about which horses were sore, which horses were training well, what the trainers were saying in the barn aisles. It was a great setup.

Until Mom found out. She screamed and swore and slammed me against the kitchen doorframe.

“How could you do this to me?” she yelled, throwing me sideways. “You don't care what I think! You ungrateful—” Mom grabbed the coffeepot off the counter and flung it at me. The glass pot hit the floor and shattered. Hot coffee spattered everywhere, stinging my skin where it splashed on my arms. Gary, the guy she was dating at the time, stepped in. He wrapped his arms around her from behind, but could barely hold her back.

“Get out!” he said to me, jabbing his chin in the direction of the door. “Go!”

I headed for Grandma's. Where else was I going to go?

That was three years ago, two weeks after my thirteenth birthday. I haven't lived with my mom since.

When I first moved in, Grandma thought maybe we'd made a mistake getting me a job at the track. But I'd say it was the best idea Grandma has ever had. I did need a place of my own to go, somewhere away from Mom and her booze and her boyfriends. The only time I see Mom is when she
has a parenting moment and shows up at Grandma's. Christmas, my birthday and Thanksgiving usually mean a visit. So does a phone call from my school. That's why I actually show up there on most days. I sure don't go because I like the place.

Living with Grandma is a good arrangement. As long as I more or less keep out of trouble and keep feeding her tips, we get along great. So far, we've never had an awkward hole in a conversation. As long as the Thoroughbreds are running at Hilltop Racetrack, I don't suppose we ever will.

“Hey, Em,” I say. “Where's Scampy?”

Ever since the firing incident, I like to keep track of Scampy. I try to get an idea of how his day is going before I talk to him. We have a truce. I don't say anything he could take the wrong way. He doesn't pick on me any more than he picks on anyone else. I know something is going on with Lordy. I keep my eyes open and my thoughts to myself.

“Scampy left about ten minutes ago. He's picking up that horse from Johnson's farm. Check the board.”

The whiteboard in Scampy's tack room is the master plan. All the horses he's training are listed down the left. Beside each one he's written instructions for the day.
Walk only. Walk jog. Slow gallop. Turnout 60 mins
. There's a spot for feed, a place to write supplements, and notes about everything from bandaging to equipment changes to medication doses.

I don't need to worry about anything except what's in the exercise-ride column. He's assigned numbers to the horses that need to be worked this morning, and I know he likes them to go in the right order.

Tony and Em get here even earlier than I do. They've been busy this morning. The fourteen horses Scampy trains have all been fed and watered.

Lordy is the first horse on the ride list. I wonder if it's a test. Maybe Scampy has left instructions with Em to keep an eye on me. She'll probably report everything I say.

Lord of the Fires has already been groomed. Tony comes out of a stall just as I come out of the tack room.

“Lordy looks good,” I say, careful to sound casual.

“He's a good horse,” Tony says, giving Lordy a pat on the neck.

Em nods and checks the girth.

I fasten my helmet buckle with a snap.

“Take it easy,” Tony says to me. It's an innocent enough thing to say, but something about the way Tony smirks makes me wonder what he means. Is everyone spying and ready to report back to Scampy?

Em laces her fingers together and I bend my left leg. She cups my knee in her hands and we count—
one
,
two
,
three
. Em might not be big, but she's strong. With my jump and her push, I'm in the saddle as if I weighed nothing.

Lord of the Fires doesn't wait. He's an old pro and all business as he strides off. Horses pop their heads over their stall doors and watch us go by. At the end of our row I look left, wait for a gap in the
horse traffic and call out, “Horse moving in!” We slip into the procession heading for the track.

Post time for the first race is 2:00
PM
. The horses that aren't racing still need their workouts. It's like a carnival every morning, with horses coming and going. Golf carts and bicycles zip around the maze of barns. Grooms and stable hands scurry this way and that, pushing wheelbarrows piled high with manure or bales of hay. Trainers yell instructions and rude jokes in about equal doses. A few jockeys and their agents hang around, meeting with trainers and checking out horses the jockeys will ride later in the day.

“Hey, Spencer, you gonna stop growing any time soon?” Fletcher, an older guy who does more work these days as a gallop boy than he does as a jockey, is always giving me a hard time about my height. He's riding one of Chester MacGuire's horses, a big black colt with a brilliant white blaze and four evenly matched white socks. Fletcher pulls up beside me. He continues his ribbing as
we make our way to the gate at the back of the track.

For a while last summer, I prayed that maybe I'd get lucky and never grow. Jockeys are about the only people who think that way. Right around Christmas, Grandma and I were horrified to discover all my jeans were too short.

I'm as skinny as ever, but already too tall to hope to be a jockey. But I can still work the horses, keeping them in shape and getting them ready to race. That's almost as good.

Fletcher and I ride through the gate together, and then he takes off at a fast canter, his horse glossy and well-muscled. Lord of the Fires waits until I ask, and then lifts into a long, reaching trot. No sign of soreness. He's moving easily and seems relaxed. We keep to the outside, giving up the inside to the horses having fast workouts. I cluck to Lordy and he picks up to a canter. We gather speed as we move around the track.

Every fiber of my body is tuned to the horse. Have I imagined he hasn't been himself?
I don't want him to be lame, but I don't want to be wrong either. I've felt him hesitate when I've pushed him hard and when we've worked fast through the turns. Right now, though, he feels okay.

I'm not even aware of when it happens, when I slip into my riding bubble and the rest of the world disappears. Today the bubble pops practically before it forms when the alarm buzzer sounds. A voice over the loudspeaker warns, “Loose horse! Heads up! Loose horse!”

“Whoa...easy...”

I concentrate all my attention on Lord of the Fires.
Stay calm
. When the riderless gray horse tears past us, head up and eyes wild, a ripple of crazy energy radiates from Lordy. I grab hold of his mane. He gives a hearty buck and bolts off after the loose horse. Somehow, I manage to stay on.

I'm vaguely aware of riders trying to keep their horses under control and out of
the way. Ahead, one of the track outriders heads off the gray. The horse wheels around and gallops straight toward us.

I haul on Lordy, trying to pull his head around. He clamps down on the bit and ignores me. The loose horse charges past us. Lordy hits the brakes, and I fly up onto his neck. It's all I can do to hang on. Lordy spins so we are facing the other direction. I
thunk
back into the saddle. I've lost both my stirrups. Lordy races off after the gray. Someone shouts as we whip past.

Ahead, several people on foot have formed a line across the track. They wave their arms in the air. At first I think the gray is going to plow right into them. At the last second the horse turns back toward the outrider, who passes me, yelling, “Pull up! Pull up!”

I haul on Lordy's left rein and drive my bootheel into his left side. My arm muscles feel like they're going to rip. Finally I pull Lordy into a small circle.
A man runs over and catches hold of Lordy's bridle. The horse flings his head up, half rearing.

“You okay?” the guy who has hold of Lordy's bridle asks.

Lordy snorts. He skitters sideways as we try to get him under control. He isn't paying much attention to either of us. Lordy's head jerks up and his ears prick forward, intent on the gray, who has been caught by the outrider. The outrider's dun-colored Quarter Horse is completely calm despite the stupid behavior of the young Thoroughbred.

“Easy, nutbar,” the guy on the ground says to Lordy.

I nudge my toes back into the stirrups and get a better grip on the reins with my left hand. The fingers of my right hand are still twisted through Lordy's wild mane. Lord of the Fires feels like he could explode at any moment. Stripes of white lather mark sweaty lines where the reins run alongside his neck.

“Settle down, settle down,” the guy on the ground murmurs through clenched teeth.

“Let him go,” I say. The gray has been led away. I'm pretty sure that if I can let Lordy move again, he'll feel happier. For all Lordy knows, the gray was escaping from a saber-toothed tiger, and the only sensible thing to do was run away. We humans like to think we are in charge, but horses are big strong prey animals. Their best defense is to run faster than whatever is chasing them. God help the rider who thinks it's actually possible to reason with a horse in flight mode.

“Let go!” I say again.

“You sure?”

“I'm fine.” My heart hammers in my chest. “I'm fine,” I repeat a little louder. Some of the other riders have started moving again, even though the all-clear buzzer hasn't sounded. I'm not the only one having trouble controlling my horse.

Over on the outside rail, Angie and Taylor, two riders from Doc Masters' barn,
are walking their mounts in small circles. Just being close to the other horses seems to calm Lord of the Fires. He lets out a loud whinny that nearly shakes me out of the saddle. Angie and Taylor see my death grip on the mane and laugh. It's not a mean laugh, more like the kind of laugh that happens after you nearly die, but don't.

“Crazy mare, that gray,” Angie says.

“Don't know why Geoff bothers to keep her in training,” Taylor adds. “She's got a brain the size of a pea.”

The all clear sounds, and the three of us turn our horses and pick up an easy canter on the outside rail. Inside, the faster horses are soon back in gear, manes and tails streaming behind them. We take it easy, Angie and Taylor chatting all the way around the track.