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door and lead him inside. I stand at his head awhile talking to him and at first he just keeps looking around, expecting something terrifying to suddenly appear in his stall. After a long five minutes, he finally puts his head down and rubs against my chest. The terror has abated. I start taking the tack off him. He’s wet with sweat and I’ve got to walk him off but I don’t want to risk taking him out of his stall again with all the brouhaha going on out there. I feel myself getting angry at the rubberneckers and, as I let myself out of the stall, I glare at them. Carla is evidently enjoying a moment in the sun over it all, holding court, recounting the event. This annoys me. I clear my throat: “Folks, please move along, I got a scared horse I gotta walk off.”

At first Carla looks at me like I’m a fool, but eventually she starts nodding in agreement.

“He’s right,” she says, “we need some quiet here.”

Which is when I notice the big bald guy. The one that’s always hanging around that jockey husband of Ava’s. His is one of at least six faces staring at me, though what the hell he’s doing here I couldn’t tell you. I thought I saw the guy get in his truck and drive away when I was tagging after Attila two hours ago. The guy was upset about the girl dying on the track and I’d watched him yelling at the jockey—seeming to hold him somehow responsible. I had also felt like the shooter was after the jockey—who’d been dressed the same as the girl exercise rider. I wished the shooter had offed the jockey—then it wouldn’t be my problem anymore. Now though, I’ve got even more problems. Once I do get the jockey out of the way, I figure I have to find that shooter. After all, he almost killed a horse.

The onlookers start leaving, but the big bald guy keeps standing there, looking at me. I look right back at him to the point where it’s getting weird. Just when I’m about to say something to the big guy, he turns and goes away.

I’ve got a lot of thoughts clouding my head but I need to get Soft Demon cooled off, so I keep the thoughts away and go back into the colt’s stall. I put his halter on and run a stud chain under his lip. I lead him outside and start walking him. He snorts a little at Crow, who’s tied up outside the tack room, but on the whole, the colt is back to his normal self. I match my pace to his and we walk, my right foot hitting the dirt at the same time as his right front hoof.

ATTILA JOHNSON

26.

The Layout of Eternity

It can all turn on a dime. Two days ago I had hope. The blizzard had stopped, I was about to get on a horse, and I had a romance going with a very attractive woman. I knew some folks were ticked off that I was refusing to hold horses back, knew maybe there’d be consequences, but meeting Ruby had made me want to clean my slate. I never suspected how severe the consequences would be.

Right now, I’m sitting in a far corner of the grandstands where no one would think to look for me. I’ve got a watch cap pulled down over my telltale pale hair and I’m wearing a thick overcoat to disguise my smallness. And I feel pretty goddamned small. It’s forty-five minutes till the first race and I have to get to the jocks room soon, but I needed to be alone first, to stare at the track, to attempt to clear my head. All around me, Aqueduct is coming to life. Bettors are arriving swollen with hopes and jocks are going into the jocks room and owners are wondering if this is their day and trainers are cautiously optimistic and horses are being led from their barns and I just don’t care about any of it, can’t feel any of the adrenaline and beauty coursing through me because Layla is dead and it should have been me. By now, I’m sure the unlucky sniper has learned of his mistake and is hunting me. And Layla is hopefully off somewhere, her soul transported to a calmer place. I’m not sure what I think about the potential for afterlives and souls but in all likelihood, I’ll be getting a tour of the layout of eternity very soon. I’m not planning to hold Jack Valentine back this afternoon. I’m going to give him my all.