Gargantuan_ A Ruby Murphy Mystery - Maggie Estep [47]
“I can’t believe there are horses here.”
“It’s kind of beautiful, huh?” Ruby says.
I nod, though I’m not sure I agree.
“Hey,” Ruby says, “I think Coleman’s here.” She indicates a light that is emanating from a stable about a hundred yards ahead of us.
We walk over and are greeted by two surly-looking pitbulls. Ruby starts talking sweetly to the dogs but this doesn’t seem to soothe them much until an older black guy emerges from the ramshackle stable.
“Shush up, Honey,” he calls to one of the dogs. “Who’s that?” he says, squinting into the darkness.
“It’s me, Coleman. Ruby Murphy.”
“Ruby? Where the hell you been?” The man fumbles with the gate’s lock, his big knobby fingers working slowly at the padlock.
He pulls the gate open and squints at Ruby, like he’s still not sure it’s her. His brown eyes are slightly milky and it’s not until Ruby is standing a few inches in front of him that his whole face lights up. He puts his arms around her in a loose hug and looks at me over her shoulder.
“Who’s this you running around with?”
Ruby makes introductions but the cowboy seems wary of me.
“He’s a jockey,” Ruby tells Coleman.
This appears to elevate me slightly in the cowboy’s esteem.
“Oh yeah?” He cocks an eyebrow at me.
I put my face into a pleasant expression.
“What kind of name is Attila for a white man?”
I smile and shrug though in truth I’d like to slug him. This is probably the hundredth time someone has asked me that question. Although the only other Attila I know of is Attila the Hun, who was, as far as anyone knows, a Mongol, Attila Johnson evidently sounds like a black man’s name. People of all colors have asked me about it and the fact is, I long ago demanded an explanation of my name from the responsible parties—my parents—to little avail. My father would grunt and my late mother would get defensive. It is one of our family mysteries. No one knows what possessed my parents. They weren’t hippies, intellectuals, or anything other than working-class white Southerners. My brother’s name is Wayne and my sister is Susan. I was their last child but, since I have only two siblings, it’s hard to imagine they’d already exhausted the list of conventional names. At one point I considered changing it, but eventually, I came to embrace it. Besides, by all accounts, the original Attila was an excellent horseman.
Coleman invites us inside his tiny barn. Horses poke their heads out in the aisle and appraise us with varying degrees of interest. As Ruby and Coleman talk, I visit with some of the horses and just zone out, not thinking of anything at all.
I snap out of my reverie when I realize that Ruby has led an Appaloosa out of its stall and appears to be tacking the horse up.
“What are you doing?” I ask my girl.
“That girl needs to get on a horse,” Coleman intervenes irritably, like I have personally been keeping Ruby away from horses.
“You’re gonna ride now?” I ask, looking from my watch to Ruby. “It’s almost ten P.M.”
“Lucky doesn’t care,” Ruby states.
I gather that Lucky is the horse and that I have no say in any of this.
I feel a sudden and complete sense of powerlessness. The one thing I felt certain of during this erratic week was the developing bond between Ruby and me. Now it seems like that’s tenuous too.
I stand to the side, watching her tighten the girth on the saddle. He’s no great beauty this Lucky. His head is a big square thing stuck haphazardly at the end of a thin neck. His body is small and not particularly developed, but the horse is well groomed and there’s a healthy shine to his flecked-with-rust white coat. As Ruby leads him outside, I notice that Lucky’s croup, the engine at the back end of him, looks good, like the horse could really generate some power if he needed to.
I follow girl and horse to a small riding paddock behind Coleman’s barn. Coleman drapes his arms over