Gargantuan_ A Ruby Murphy Mystery - Maggie Estep [49]
“No, fella, not today. Footing’s still bad,” I talk to him softly. He flicks his left ear back to better hear me but the right ear is keening forward, telling me he doesn’t care about footing. I have to work hard to keep him steady and slow and my arms start to ache from the effort. Jack in turn is confused. He’s basically a gentle horse—takes pride in his work and in pleasing the humans around him—but he’s a racehorse, a thoroughbred, a descendant of Seattle Slew. He wants to run.
Around us, other horses are working at full speed and Jack wants to follow. I hold him. A gray colt blisters by, pinning his ears, saying something that only Jack understands. Jack seems offended. He pins his own ears and pulls on me. I talk to him. Cajole with my hands. He throws his head, bolts for a second, then feels guilty about this behavior and lets up a little, arches his neck, and puts in a few yards of soft, measured cantering. When we’ve finished, I can tell he still wants more.
“Sorry, buddy, not today. Soon though,” I croon in his ear as I steer him over to where Ruby is standing at the rail. I’d actually forgotten about her for a few minutes. Forgotten to worry over her mood and the fact that she must be freezing as she stands there in the blackness of morning.
“He’s gorgeous,” Ruby says softly as she looks Jack over.
“He’s a nice horse too,” I tell her. She cracks a smile as she rubs the brown gelding’s nose and coos over his expressive eyes. Jack seems to be cooing over her too. He needs to be walked off but Sophie, his groom, has a hard time pulling him away from Ruby. He’s ruffling Ruby’s hair, already trying to groom her though he’s only known her two minutes.
Violet Kravitz is standing nearby. She appreciates anyone who appreciates Jack Valentine—who is the only horse she and Henry actually own—so she’s quite warm to Ruby when I make introductions. The two women glow at each other and, a few moments later, as Big Sal and I head over to John Troxler’s barn, Violet takes Ruby’s arm and the two walk off, heads together, like they’ve known each other for years.
I stare after them for a second.
“I guess those two hit it off, huh?” Sal says.
I nod and bury my hands in my pockets as we approach John Troxler’s shedrow.
Troxler is in a stall, removing a bay colt’s night wraps.
“Hi, John,” I call in. He glances up at me. Doesn’t look like he’s slept in days. His kind face is puffy and deathly pale.
“I’d like you on that Kissin’ Kris filly,” he tells me.
I nod. A tall order. The filly is only two and everything frightens her. I’ve only been on her once and I just couldn’t find a way in. Every movement of my body seemed to shoot down into hers like an electrical shock.
“Laura’s got her almost ready,” John says.
I go to the filly’s stall and look in. Laura, John’s assistant, has the filly ready to go, but she is standing with her, talking to her in a soothing voice that doesn’t seem to be helping much. The filly looks at me and her eyes seem to widen in fright, like she knows something terrible is coming. I put myself into a calm, almost dead state of mind, trying to make it impossible for her to find a trace of anxiety in me.
As Laura leads the filly out of the stall, she looks around and snorts. She catches sight of a tarp that she clearly thinks is some sort of filly-killing monster and she spooks, skittering to the left and nearly getting away from Laura who, the whole time, keeps talking to the filly in a soft voice.
It doesn’t get much better on the track. Laura gives me a leg up and the moment the filly feels my weight on her back, she starts trembling. I take a very light hold of her mouth and ask her to walk forward. She takes a few steps to the side, then spins and crow hops. I struggle to stay in the saddle and, when she comes to a standstill for a moment, I close my eyes and reach for the filly’s fragile mind. It’s fine, I tell her, I will not let anything hurt you. She seems to take