Kit Ehrman - At Risk

"Christ, Marty, you're sick." And I almost didn't get Whitcombe's saddle onto the rack before I dropped it on the floor, I was laughing so hard.

I handed Fleet over to Whitcombe-amazingly he kept his mouth shut-and went into the lounge to get a cup of coffee. Voices floated in from the office, and I walked over and leaned against the doorjamb. A scrawny-looking guy, dressed in a suit, tie, and wrinkled overcoat, had his hands pressed down on Mrs. Hill's desk, his fingers splayed on the blotter. His mousy brown hair was windblown, and his face was pinched with displeasure.

"You'll have to talk to Mr. Ambrose about that," Mrs. Hill said.

"But I can't get past his assistant."

Mrs. Hill shrugged. "Well, I'm sorry. I can't help you."

He snatched his card off her blotter, glanced at me, and stalked out the door.

"What was that about?" I asked.

"Real estate agent. Vultures. That's what I call 'em. That one's been here before. Now that they're building next door, I imagine they'll be crawling out of the woodwork."

The brothers' farm was now dotted with survey flags, and I imagined it wouldn't be long before the heavy earth-moving equipment rolled over the fallow fields.

"Thank God for the park," I said.

Early the next morning, the wheels of Greg's truck hadn't slowed to a stop, and already some of the horses were uptight. I rolled a utility cart out of the feed room and parked it alongside the tailgate.

Greg popped open a side compartment on his red vetmobile. "Well, Steve. You up to this?"

"More or less." I leaned against the back fender.

"What's it been," he said, "three weeks since you got pummeled?"

"There about." I watched him sort through a bin and wondered if I was up to the day ahead. "Want me to do anything?"

"Not yet. Just give me a minute to get organized."

"Hey," a voice said in my ear.

I looked over my shoulder.

Marty was standing behind me, grinning. "Boy, I hate this shit. Nothing like restraining a hundred one-thousand-pound, pea-brained animals to liven up your day."

"Oh, come on, Marty," I said. "They aren't that bad."

"Wasn't it you that got knocked down last time?"

"No. Cliff." I pulled a crumpled sheet of paper out of my pocket and handed it to Marty. "What do you think of the people on this list?"

He squinted at my printing and ran his fingers through his black hair. "Well, for one thing, they're the wrong sex."

I rolled my eyes. "I mean, do you think any of them could be behind what's going on around here?" I waved my hand. "The horse theft and all."

He frowned. "I don't know, Steve. I'd put my money on Sanders or Whitcombe. Well, maybe not Whitcombe. Not personally, anyway. He doesn't have the balls for it."

I snorted.

"And don't forget Tony and Mark," he said. "They both swore they'd get even after you fired them."

"That was almost two years ago."

Marty looked at me and shrugged.

"And they aren't organized enough for it," I added.

"All right, gentlemen."

I turned around.

Greg had the cart loaded down with enough paste wormers and vaccinations to do half the farm, and he was watching us with a devilish grin on his face. "Ready?"

Marty and I groaned in unison.

While the rest of the crew mucked out the other barn, the three of us worked our way down one side of the aisle and up the other. Greg dropped an empty paste wormer and two used syringes in the trash bag hanging off the cart and went into the next stall where Marty was already restraining a bay mare. I walked past them and realized I'd come up with the short end of the stick. The next horse in line was Chase. Most of them offered little resistance, but that particular gelding was difficult about everything. I got the chain on his halter without too much trouble and clamped the twitch on his nose before he realized what I was up to.

When Greg slid the door open, the gelding ran backward, bumped into the corner of his stall, then reared. He lifted me off my feet. He was still balanced on his hind legs, when he pivoted and crashed against the wall. My back smacked into a support post. The sharp edge slammed into my back right between my shoulder blades. I held on, knowing instinctively that it was safer to go with him than end up on the floor under his feet. When he came back down, he lunged forward, and I ran with him. Marty and Greg were in the stall then. Greg cursed as he jabbed the gelding with a needle.

"Let go of the shank and get out," Greg yelled.

The three of us jumped out of the stall, and the horse spun around as Marty rammed the door home.

"You all right?" Greg asked.

I nodded and tried to catch my breath. "What about the other shots and the wormer?"

"That wasn't a vaccination. I gave him a tranquilizer. We'll come back in a little while and finish the job." He peered at me. "You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah." I rolled my shoulders. "Next time, bring a tranquilizer gun."

"How about a real gun?" Marty said, and I didn't think he was joking.

Twenty minutes later, we went back and looked in at Greg's patient. The gelding seemed unaware of our presence. His legs were splayed, head lowered, nose close to the sawdust.

"Greg," I said. "Did you know James Peters?"

"Who?" He was watching the horse, lost in thought.

"James Peters. Owned Hunter's Ridge Farm."

"Oh… yeah. I used to work for him, but it's been ten years or better. He'd call me out to check on the status of one of his mares or to check for uterine infections, that sort of thing."

A breeding operation hadn't been what I'd expected. "I thought he boarded show horses."

"Used to. About twenty years ago." Greg rubbed the back of his neck. "They switched to breeding. It was easier on them as they got older. No boarders to keep happy. Just their own stock to take care of."

"How were they making out?"

"Good. As I recall, they were getting ready to add on to their barn when he was killed."

"You didn't work for him… near the end?"

"No. You know, it's one thing to die, we all face that, but to be murdered." Greg shook his head. "You never think you'll know someone who's been murdered. What an awful fate, and for what? He was a nice man. Never hurt anyone in his life."

"Is his family still running the place?"

"No. I don't think they had any children, and his wife had a nervous breakdown after what happened. She's in a nursing home, I think. They weren't young. Both of them had to have been in their sixties when it happened."

"Do you recall who their barn manager was?"

"They didn't have one. The place wasn't all that big. They hired school kids to muck out. Far as I know, Peters did everything else."

"Did they have any tack stolen before the horse theft?"

"Not that I heard." Greg was no longer idly watching the gelding but had turned around and was studying me with his piercing blue eyes. "What's this about, Steve?"

"Do you know anybody who worked for him just before he died, anybody I could arrange to talk with?"

"Not offhand." He glanced at the gelding. "You're thinking the people who stole his horses were behind what happened at Foxdale, aren't you?"

"The police consider it a possibility."

"Shit."

I dreamt I was lying in the woods.

The earth was hard and damp and cold, the world thickly black. I tried to touch my face, to see if my eyes were open, but my arms were stuck to my sides. I couldn't move. Couldn't move because I was buried. Buried alive.

I bolted upright. Above me, the familiar knotty-pine ceiling rose toward the ridge beam. Vast empty space. I was safe in my own bed, not suffocating in a shallow grave. I breathed in a great lungful of air and felt my heart pounding against my ribs. The dream had been too real.

After a minute or two, I got up and walked over to the kitchen sink. I turned on the tap, let the water run until it was icy cold, then took a swallow and felt the chill settle in my chest. I picked up the copy of Sanders' insurance papers off the counter. I had been surprised when they'd arrived in the mail and disappointed when I'd leafed through them. They looked unremarkable, and I could see why the claim wasn't being contested. The only thing that had caught my attention was Greg's signature on the vet exam.