Kit Ehrman - At Risk

I tried to keep a straight face. "Funny, real funny," I said through the glass.

He unlocked the door, and we stood just inside the building's entrance.

Dorsett whistled. "Could be worse. They could've smashed up everything." He slid a flashlight from a loop on his belt.

"We had to pull the muck wagon and one of the tractors out of here this morning," I said, "so we could get some work done. Hope that was okay."

He had angled the cone of light along the walls and was reading the graffiti. "Do you have any enemies, someone who hates you personally?"

"No… Not really. Not like this."

"Pretty disturbing stuff," he said. "And the guy ain't no genius either."

"You mean the 'y-o-u-r dead' bit?"

Dorsett glanced over his shoulder and grinned. "Right-o. Can't spell, but he's sure into anatomy and bodily functions, ain't he."

"Yeah. But most of it's physically impossible." I watched Dorsett's partner walk back to the cruiser and pop the trunk. "You gotta hand it to him though," I said. "He did get a 12-letter word right."

"Probably had lots of practice. You sure this ain't directed at you?" Dorsett had turned to face me. "It sounds personal."

"Shit, I hope not."

He stepped closer to the wall and played the light across the dusty ground. "We might have some footprints here, Mark."

I edged along the 960 and stopped beside him. Sure enough, a row of prints were distinct in the soft dirt, and what caught my attention most was the fact that they pointed toward the wall-consistent with someone having stood there, painting their sick little message.

Dorsett squatted down. "Steve, these look familiar?"

"No. They're sneakers. Everybody around here wears boots. Especially when it's wet." I looked closer. "There were two of them. See over there?" I pointed to a different pattern tracked through the dirt near Dave's storage room.

"Okay," Dorsett said. "We'll take photos and make casts of both sets."

I leaned against Dave's workbench. "Now you just need the owners."

"Yeah, but we find 'em, we'll make the case." He pointed to a particularly clear print of a left shoe. "See the wear pattern in the tread on that one? There's a notch out of the edge on the inside heel, see?"

"Uh-huh."

"We get the guy, and he's still got the shoes, we got 'im nailed."

I sat on a row of hay and, with increasing fascination, watched them make casts, take photographs, and dust for prints. Maybe we were getting somewhere after all. I finished my lunch and glanced at my watch. I was way behind schedule, and they looked like they were going to be awhile.

I told them where they could find me and hopped off the hay bale. "After you're done today, can we clean up?"

"Don't see why not." He straightened up from where he'd been working on one of the footprints, a packet of plaster of Paris in one hand and a wooden stick in the other. "Just to be on the safe side, though, I'll talk to Linquist and get back to you."

I got a cup of coffee from the lounge and wondered if a drunk gate-crasher counted as an enemy. Maybe since I'd started checking hay shipments, he was an enemy, but he wasn't "the" enemy. The horse theft had happened before I'd confronted Harrison, and the burnt jump felt like the same old campaign against Foxdale.

I cupped my fingers around the Styrofoam and realized that the headache I'd been nursing for the last couple of days had disappeared. Only later did I realize how easy it was to take things for granted.

Toward the end of the day, I set my grooming tote on the ground outside Chase's stall. As soon as the realization that I was going to do something with him seeped into his tiny brain, he pinned his ears flat against his head. I unlatched his door, and he swung sideways so he could shift his hindquarters toward me. I grabbed the noseband on his halter and stopped him before he had the chance. He curled his neck around and tried to sink his teeth into my arm.

"You stupid son of a bitch," I muttered. His ear flicked at the sound of my voice.

I threaded the chain shank through his halter and cross-tied him in the center of his stall. I hadn't groomed him for three days, but damned if his coat didn't shine like copper. He was one beautiful horse. Too bad his mind was screwed. He bobbed his head as I worked the curry comb in small circles down his neck.

"Who's this?"

I turned around. Rachel was grinning at me through the grillwork. "Cut to the Chase," I said. "He's an open jumper."

"Kind of nasty, isn't he?"

"Yeah. But with his talent, nobody cares."

"Humph, poor thing. He seems so unhappy."

I snorted.

"What do you think his problem is?"

"Life."

"Steeve…"

I paused and considered him. Wrinkles creased the skin around his worried eyes, and his jaw was tight with tension. Hell. His entire body was tense.

"Damned if I know," I said. "He's hell on the ground, totally unpredictable, but point him at a jump, and he's one happy puppy. It's like he was born to it." I ran my hand down his neck, and he ground his teeth. "He lives for it."

"Hum. Looks like he lives for getting a piece of your hide between those molars of his."

"Yeah, but he can't help himself. If I discipline him, he gets worse, he's so strung up." I sighed. "He'll kick you as soon as look at you."

She groaned. "And you're the lucky one who gets to do him."

"I'm the only one who gets to do him. He's gotten used to me a little. I really think he hates men."

"So, why not have a girl groom him?"

"Right now, we don't have any girls on the weekday crew. Only the weekend."

"I pity whoever rides him," Rachel said.

"Oh, he's not so bad then, 'cause he knows he'll be jumping."

"So, did you have a nice day slopping around in the rain and mud?" She wrapped her fingers around the metal bars and grinned at me. She had a great smile. Straight, white teeth, gorgeous lips, a dimple in her left cheek.

"Cute, Rachel."

"No matter how awful the weather is," she said, "I love getting away from the office. Where I work, we don't have any windows. None you can see out of, anyway. That's one reason why I like riding so much, being outside and doing something physical. Maybe that's his problem."

Maybe that was my problem. I sure wouldn't have minded doing something physical with her.

"… And an indoor arena makes it even better." She reached up and worked her hair into a ponytail. "Where I boarded last, the footing was lousy most of the year. The ground was either frozen, sloppy with mud, or dry and hard as rock. I couldn't work on anything consistently."

I knocked the curry against the wall and dislodged a build-up of dirt. "Do you show?"

"Only at local shows. And when I can bum a ride off someone Well, I'd better get going. I left Koby tacked up in his stall." She adjusted a pair of headphones over her ears. "Music helps me concentrate," she said when she noticed me watching her.

From what I'd seen, she didn't need help in that department. She tuned out everything when she rode. I, on the other hand, was thoroughly distracted by her and found concentrating on anything else difficult when she was around.

After I transferred Chase into Anne's capable hands, I grained the horses, then went in search of Rachel. She had finished cooling out her horse and was in the tack room. I leaned against the locker next to hers and watched her stow her gear. Her face was damp with sweat, and loose wisps of hair clung to the back of her neck. She bent over and rifled through the clutter in the back of her locker. Her britches clung tightly to the full curves and narrow crease of her backside, and there was a nice gap between her thighs. I wanted to take her in my arms and kiss her. Wanted to feel her body against mine. She squatted back on her haunches and looked up at me. A quizzical expression crossed her face, and I supposed I must have appeared odd just standing there.