Venom (4 page)

“Race you to security,” Em says. She takes off fast. Her feet pound down the gravel road leading to the security gate. I sprint to catch up and overtake her. My lungs burn. She's fast. I dig deep and run harder. I arrive at the security gate first and bend in half, resting my hands on my knees, puffing and blowing.

Em breezes past me, waves at Jo-Anne in the window and then slows to a walk. “You coming?” she calls over her shoulder. Even though I clearly won the race, the toss of her head and the way she strides off make me feel like I lost.

Ten days later, I'm back up on Lord of the Fires, crouched low over his neck. It's bucketing down rain, and I'm squinting so I can see where we're going. Mud flies up in my face. My goggles are soon smeared with muck.

One of the riders from Doc Masters' barn is on a pretty bay filly. They match us stride for stride as we move into the turn just past the grandstand. It's when we lean into the turn that I feel it again: hesitation
when I ask the horse to maintain his speed. Coming out of the turn, he eases up just as I'm about to ask him to slow down. Did he sense I was going to ask? Or did he pull up because he's hurting again? Or is it the mucky footing? It's been a long time since I galloped Lordy on such a wet day. I ease the horse off the rail, and he slows, his breath coming in sharp snorts.

Still galloping, the bay filly goes an extra few strides before moving off the rail and gradually slowing down. We catch up and then keep pace as the horses wind down like giant mechanical toys. I concentrate on each stride, trying to feel where the problem is. Lordy is cantering now, and I let the reins out a little. As long as he's quiet and relaxed, I don't mind letting him have a bit of a stretch. We reach the turn again, and Lordy switches leads. Then he switches back again. Does it mean anything? I ask him to change leads again, and he does, but he doesn't stay on the new lead. He switches back and tosses his head, one ear flicking back toward me.

He drops into a trot, and I partially straighten my legs and stand up in the stirrups. Water drips off the back of my helmet. When I change position, a trickle runs down the back of my neck. We have just started walking and turned to the gate when Scampy starts yelling at me from under his ballcap.

“What the hell are you doing up there? This ain't no fancy dressage show.”

“What?”

“Don't
what
me. You know exactly what I mean. Freakin' lead changes all the way down the stretch. I don't pay you to make the damned horses dance!”

“I was just trying to—”

“Did I ask you to work on freakin' lead changes? Did I?”

I open my mouth and take in a breath.

“Save it! Get Lordy back to Em and then you can help her clean stalls.”

“What about Chiquita?”

“Never mind Chiquita. Jimmy can handle her. Stalls. Do I make myself clear?”

Perfectly clear. No more rides for me today. No more money either. Cleaning stalls is usually up to Em and Tony. That's part of what grooms get paid for. Exercise riders get paid to ride. No more rides today, no more money. It's one thing when I volunteer to give Em a hand. It's quite another when Scampy orders me to do something that's not my job.

I'm not stupid enough to say anything aloud, but in my mind, I have plenty to say to Scampy. None of it is polite.

“What's up?” Em asks as I jump off Lordy. Part of me wants to tell her exactly what I think of her bad-tempered uncle. No matter what I say, it would make me seem pretty bad-tempered myself. “Nothing.”

“Em! Get the tack off that horse. Don't just stand there.” Scampy must have sprinted to get back to the barn so fast. “Stretch here is going to help you with stalls today. So take your time cooling out Lordy.”

Em looks from Scampy to me and back to Scampy.
Stretch?
she mouths. It's a new
nickname, and I have the sickening feeling it's going to stick. Then she moves into cooling-out mode. Smoothly, efficiently, she pulls off the saddle and pad. Off comes the bridle, on goes the halter. On goes a mesh sweat sheet. It's done in seconds.

“Come on, big boy. Let's go for a walk,” she says. Em turns to go back out the way we just came in. Lordy turns neatly in a circle around her. He's sweating and still breathing hard after his workout. As they walk away, I watch, trying to detect any sign of lameness.

“Keep him under the covered walkway,” Scampy calls after Em. She lifts an arm to indicate she heard. Then she and the horse disappear around the corner. All the shed-rows are joined up with covered walkways— it's possible to do a circuit of the whole barn area without ever going outside. On a day like this, that's a good thing.

“What are you gawking at, Stretch? Wheelbarrow's where it always is.”

“I'm going.”

Scampy doesn't comment on my tone of voice. The tack-room door bangs shut behind him. Despite the fact my stomach is twisting with hunger, there's no way I'm going in there after him to get my sandwich out of the fridge.

I grab a manure rake, a broom and the wheelbarrow and set to work. My Mp3 player is in the tack room. I can't even crank up the volume to drown out the rain hammering on the roof, the blood roaring in my ears.

I strip two stalls and steel myself for a sprint through the rain with the barrow piled high with shavings and horse manure. Just then Tony saunters down the aisle.

“Don't trip, Stretch,” he yells after me as I slosh out through the puddles. It's a good thing he's behind me and doesn't see me pull a nasty face. It takes about ninety seconds to get from the back end of our row of stalls to the manure pile and back. By the time I jog back inside, I am drenched.

“Having a good day, Stretch?” Tony asks.

I don't trust myself to speak.

We both turn when we hear Lordy clip-clopping down the aisle. Em puts him back in his stall and says to me, “We're worming today, Stretch.”

Could this day get any better?

The next thing I know, I'm staring at the closed tack-room door. Again.

Tony slaps me on the back. “Guess she's not sharing her lunch with you today.”

“Whatever.”

Tony starts to laugh, but is overtaken by a wicked cough.

“Why don't you go suck on another cancer stick?” I ask.

Tony's left hand shoots out and cuffs me on the side of the head.

“Get lost!” I say, grabbing my ear.

“Suck it up, Stretch. Nobody wants to hear your whining.” With that, he deliberately reaches into the back pocket of his jeans and pulls out a pack of cigarettes.

“I'm stepping outside for some fresh air. You don't have a problem with that, do you?” Tony's other hand curls into a fist. I don't say anything. Jerk.

Bang. Bang-bang
.

The tack-room door slams open and Scampy charges through. “Stop with the bloody kicking!” he yells at Devil May Care. The horse still kicks for no good reason. Scampy will put up with pretty well anything the horse does. Devil May Care is blazing fast.

Devil pops his head over the rubber stall guard.

“I'll deal with you later.” I'm not sure if Scampy's talking to me or to the horse. He storms off down the aisle, turning his jacket collar up and tugging his ballcap down low over his ears. Em appears in the tack-room doorway.

“You coming in? Or did you eat already?”

I turn to give Tony my best
screw you
look, but he has disappeared.

“Where's Scampy going?” I ask Em.

“Feed store. Well? You coming? All the heat's escaping.”

“I'm coming. I'm starving.”

Inside the tack room, I peel off my work gloves and hang them up over the space heater. I take a deep breath and push aside all thoughts of the pounding I'd like to give Tony. Em and I have at least half an hour before Scampy gets back. There's no way I'm going to let Tony get in the way of me enjoying a few minutes of hanging out.

“This is June! How can it be so freezing?” I rub my hands together and unzip my jacket.

“Grape?”

Em holds a plastic bag of purple grapes out to me. A peace offering. They probably have seeds. I take one anyway.

“Thanks.” I should leave it at that, I know, but I can't stop myself from asking. “So, how was Lordy when you cooled him out?”

“Are you still on about him being sore? He's not sore. He's fine.”

She pulls the bag of grapes back and cradles it against her stomach. The temperature in the room feels like it just dropped ten degrees.

Em leans her head against the back of the truck bench. “You think I wouldn't notice if something was wrong with him?”

I don't say anything. There's no question she knows her stuff. Knows her horses. She practically lives at the barn.

“I spend more time with that horse than anyone. You ride him for—what?—five minutes a week?”

It's more than that, but I'm not going to argue.

“There's no heat. No swelling. And he was fine when I walked him. I'm going to ice him after this”—she waves the bag of grapes at me—”and then wrap him. If there is something bugging him that he's not telling me about, that will take care of it.”

“Em, I know what I felt.”

“What did you feel, Mr. Expert?”

What
had
I felt? Anything that couldn't be attributed to the mud and an off day?
Have I just ridden the horse on his bad days?

“You know he had his feet done yesterday?” Em asks.

And, yes, sometimes a horse will be a little sore for a day or two after getting new shoes.

“Forget it,” I say. “You're probably right.” It takes me all of three minutes to bolt down my sandwich and guzzle a cup of stale coffee. Em offers me another grape, and then she pulls out a carton of worming paste.

“Ready, Stretch? This should be fun.”

Worming Scampy's horses is never exactly fun, but it's not the worst job at the barn. As always, Em is efficient. In a pail, fourteen individual doses in separate tubes are uncapped and ready to go. I grab the halter and lead rope from the hook outside the stall door. Then I duck inside and slip the halter on the first horse, Bananorama.

Meanwhile, Em dials back the little wheel that measures the dose on the worming paste
dispenser. By the time she's done that, I have Bananorama turned around in the stall so her back end is pointing into a corner and her head is away from the door. That way, she can't go backward and is less likely to plunge forward and try to get out past us.

Em slips under the stall guard, and I hang on to the horse's halter. Em slides the dispenser into the side of Bananorama's mouth, aiming toward the back of the tongue. She presses the plunger and wiggles the tube from side to side to smear the paste around.

Not bad. We're in and out in under two minutes.

Unfortunately, most of the horses try to make the job difficult.

The worst is Chiquita. She throws her head straight up and jerks it from side to side. The worming tube flies through the air and lands in Chiquita's water bucket.

“Get a better hold of her, would you!” Em says. She fishes the tube out of the water and dries it off against her jeans.

“Bucket?” I suggest.

Em scowls at me. She hates it when I try to tell her how to do her job. Whenever we try to worm Chiquita, Em figures she'll outsmart the filly without needing the bucket. And, every time, Chiquita is an idiot. After a short tussle with a stubborn Chiquita, Em sighs and fetches a bucket. She turns it upside down and stands on it. Between me hanging onto the halter and Em balancing on the bucket, Chiquita loses the worming battle every time.

Then Chiquita moves on to the second part of her defense. She refuses to swallow. Instead, she holds the glob of nasty paste on her tongue and purses her lips. Em and I take turns stroking the filly's throat, holding her mouth shut and lifting her head up. The minute the paste is in her mouth, she shoves her head so low her chin scrapes the ground. It takes two of us to heave Chiquita's head up to stop her from spitting out the medication. Eventually, the saliva must build up in her mouth, because finally she gives a huge sigh and swallows. The muscles of her gullet ripple as the blob of worming paste
and about a gallon of horse spit slide down her throat.

When it's Lordy's turn, he clamps his teeth shut tight and pokes his nose down toward the shavings.

“Come on, don't be such a wimp,” Em says, smoothly sliding the tube into the side of his mouth, forcing it between his rubbery lips. She depresses the plunger and delivers the dose right where it's supposed to go. “You'll run faster next week if you don't have a belly full of passengers.”

“Run?”

“Run. Race. He's a racehorse. That's what he does.”

“He's racing again next week?”

“Spencer, leave it alone. He's running. He's fit. He's fine. And this time, get your grandmother to bet on him. She's a pensioner. You're supposed to be helping her pick winners.”

“She told you what happened?”

Em rubs Lordy's shoulder when the horse swallows and slips him a piece of carrot from her back pocket. He bobs his head
up and down like he's agreeing that carrot tastes way better than worming paste.

“You were riding when she dropped off your lunch. Last week, I guess. She wanted to know how Lordy was feeling.”

Now my own grandmother doubts my judgment?

“So I told her. The horse is good to go.”

Em runs her hand down Lordy's legs, one at a time. She gets a look on her face that's far away and totally in tune with the horse. I love that look. For some reason it makes me want to bend over and kiss the back of her neck.

“No heat. No swelling,” she says to me. Then she adds, “I'll be back to slap some mud on those legs, okay, big boy?” She rubs Lordy in a spot right behind his withers. “Look at his lip.” She grins as Lordy's upper lip begins to wobble with pleasure.