The Stars Shine Bright Page 6

  Two men approached the vet, carrying a thick plank of plastic. It looked like a sled, with ropes on every side. The vet told them to place it in front of the horse. SunTzu’s legs twitched, as though running the race in midair. His long face lay on the turf, a puddle forming under his nose. Every breath blew ripples over the muddy water.

  “Ayuda!” the vet called out to the jockey trying to restrain the bay horse. “Ayuda nessessito!”

  The jockey caught the leather straps and handed them to the man in the green vest. Then he ran to the vet.

  “I need you to talk to him,” the vet said. “Make him feel bueno.”

  The jockey kneeled beside the rider. He spoke soft words, but the pinned man didn’t respond. With one hand, the jockey made the sign of the cross. “Deo,” he pleaded. “Mi Deo.”

  The vet looked at me. “Go back to my van, open the hatch. Pull out the second drawer and bring it here.”

  “Bring what?”

  “The drawer!”

  I didn’t understand but followed his orders, walking back to the battered vehicle. Sand and silt from the turf were filling the footbed of my sandals, and when I lifted the tailgate door, I saw a wooden bureau. It was secured to the wall with two-by-fours and its six drawers had handles made of rope. I yanked the second ligature. The drawer contained several dozen unmarked white boxes and wasn’t heavy, but carrying it kicked another round of pain down my right side. I held my breath, and when I saw the jockey on the ground, I felt ashamed of complaining.

  Doc Madison tore open four boxes and removed six glass vials, each marked with pharmaceutical labels. Stabbing the vials’ rubber ends with needles, he filled two large syringes. As he was finishing the second, Brent Roth drove up in a truck and jumped out, running to the vet’s side.

  “I’m here,” he said.

  “My grandmother could’ve walked here faster,” the vet said.

  “I was busy with—”

  The vet cut him off again. “Did you call for another ambulance?”

  Brent nodded. His acne seemed to weep in the rain. “I just—”

  “I don’t care. Go hold the head.” The vet placed one syringe in the chest pocket of his shirt. Turning to the jockey who kneeled beside the rider, he said, “Tell him just a few minutes more.”

  The jockey whispered in Spanish. The rider stared at the sky.

  Brent dropped on his knees beside SunTzu. The horse was breathing faster now, that same locomotive panic I heard in Solo two nights ago. When Brent leaned forward, I felt a wave of nausea washing up my throat. He slid his hands down the animal’s perspiring neck, wrapping his arms into an immobilizing hold that looked a lot like what FBI agents used on belligerent suspects. Only Brent’s touch was tender, gentle. And the animal didn’t protest. When the vet lifted the syringe, his assistant leaned even farther forward, shielding the horse so that it wouldn’t see the needle.

  “Son?” Doc Madison said, speaking to the pinned rider. “I’m going to get this horse off you now.”

  The jockey translated, and Brent turned his head, looking back at the man under SunTzu. He squinted at him, as if noticing him for the first time. Then he turned around, watching as the vet pressed his thumb hard into the animal’s jugular and stabbed the engorged vein with the needle. SunTzu twitched.

  “It’s okay,” Brent whispered. “Shh. It’s okay.”

  The Spanish jockey kept up a low murmur. His words were rhythmic, incantatory. After a minute I realized he was praying.

  “Where’s that ambulance?” the vet hissed.

  “I told you,” Brent said. “It’s coming.”

  Emptying both syringes into the horse, the vet stood. His chest was heaving again. He turned to face the maintenance crew. Behind them the wall of blue curtains covered fifty feet of white rail, removing the entire grandstand from view. The men stood in a silent half circle around us, and except for the horse’s breathing and the jockey’s low, murmured prayers, the world seemed too quiet, almost aquatic, as though the rippling blue curtains were an ocean, hemming us onto the sandy bottom beneath gray cumulous waves, while the animal rode on its side like a sea horse, floating to its destination. But the rain told me this was real. I could hear the drops tapping on the maintenance crew’s green baseball caps, the water rolling off the brims as the men stared down at the immobilized rider, their own faces slack with fear.

  “That horse will be unconscious in ten seconds,” the vet told the crew. “I want two of you on each leg. When I give the word, pull the horse forward. Onto the board. Stop when I say stop.”

  SunTzu was out cold before the vet finished speaking. Grabbing the ankles, the men dragged the horse forward, the weight heavy and awkward as a dead body.

  Now the rider was exposed. His short legs splayed, thin as stilts. The jodhpurs were no longer white but stained with dirt and sweat and the thin contents of the man’s bladder.

  “Ayuda?” the other jockey asked.

  “It’s coming,” the vet said. “Tell him not to move. Anything, don’t move anything.”

  His soft Spanish fluttered through the rain, intonations rising and falling like some bird of language. And finally the pinned man blinked.

  “Brent,” the vet growled. “Where the—”

  He pointed down the track. “There it is.”

  The white ambulance raced toward us, fishtailing through the mud. The red light on top was spinning but the siren made no sound, silenced to keep the other horses from panicking. But the muted wail gave me that underwater feeling again, along with the futile hope that maybe none of this was really happening. Maybe it was a dream, soundless and horrifying.

  I looked over at the jockeys.

  The kneeling man wiped the rider’s face, brushing away the rain that now mixed with tears.

  Chapter Nine

  Eleanor’s gray battleship had come to a stop inches from the medical clinic’s wooden siding. When the vet’s dilapidated van pulled up, I could see the queen herself, standing apart from the crowd gathered by the door. Trainers, grooms, pony riders. But only one or two jockeys.

  “Raleigh!” she called out as I climbed from the vet’s van.

  She stood under a bright red umbrella held by Bill Cooper, but as I walked over, the trainer’s cold gray eyes stayed fixed on the equine ambulance pulling up behind the van. The crowd closed in as the ambulance backed into the garage door. The expressions on their faces were a parade of fear and hope. Nobody liked what had happened, but tragedy rarely doused fierce competitive natures.

  The vet mumbled behind me, “My client is the horse.” He said it twice, heading for the door, then glanced over at me. “Just remember that. I work for the horse.”

  Cooper lifted the umbrella’s wooden handle, ready to pass me the baton. But the rhinestones started glinting in Eleanor’s glasses. She shook her head.

  “No, Bill. I want Raleigh to stay with SunTzu.”

  “You—what?”

  “Raleigh’s going to stay.”

  “She’s bad luck.” He stopped. “No offense to you.”

  “None taken. But Raleigh was on the track and saw everything.”

  “But she doesn’t know one end of the horse from the other.”

  Eleanor pointed her finger at him. Her emerald ring looked as serious as a papal declaration, and when she wagged her finger, the stone sparked an electric green, as if fueled by the friction between them, the tension between servitude and independence. “Bill Cooper, you told me yourself that horse doesn’t like men. You said that’s why Juan was having trouble with him.”

  “But—Eleanor—I’m the trainer.”

  She raised her chin and I held my breath, preparing for the verbal bomb.

  But the vet interrupted her, turning to look at us. “The horse doesn’t like men?”

  Cooper didn’t reply.

  “Bill!” Eleanor bellowed. “Speak!”

  “Yeah, fine. SunTzu doesn’t like men. He rides faster with a female jockey. But there’s only two and
they both ride for Manchester.”

  Doc Madison turned, surveying the crowd now gathered around the equine ambulance.

  “Ashley,” he called out.

  The girl in the pink shirt looked up.

  “Get over here,” the vet said.

  She stepped from the crowd, her pale hair dripping wet.

  “Wait,” Cooper said. His voice sounded incredulous. “Ashley? What is this—amateur hour?”

  Eleanor said, “I believe Doc Madison has made an excellent choice. It’s about time that girl’s infatuation with horses was put to productive use.”

  “Ashley’s a groom,” Cooper said. “I’m a trainer.”

  “That’s quite enough complaining for one bad morning,” Eleanor replied.

  When he looked at me, Cooper’s eyes iced over. His face was tight with unspoken resentments. Ashley followed the vet into the clinic, and Cooper handed Eleanor the umbrella handle, pivoted, and walked away. The crowd parted, letting through the bandy-legged man and his bad temper.

  “As for you,” Eleanor said, turning to me. “Don’t miss it.”

  “Miss what?”

  “The moment.” She raised her chin. “Life is all memory except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick you hardly catch it going.”

  I really didn’t have time for this. But. “Blanche?” I guessed. “Streetcar?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said. “It was Mrs. Goforth. Now—go forth!”

  The horse was flying through the clinic upside down.

  Slung into a canvas blanket, legs encircled by padded cuffs, SunTzu was being carried across the open space by a series of heavy chains and pulleys. The contraption ran along the ceiling’s steel I-beams, and the horse’s path was controlled by Brent Roth. He stood against the far wall, depressing a series of levers that carefully maneuvered the passed-out horse to an enormous padded exam table.

  Doc Madison was pulling on latex gloves and a rubber apron. Behind him Ashley stood, her bright pink shirt marred by dark lashes of rain.

  “Look out,” the vet said calmly. “I think he’s waking up.”

  The horse’s back touched the table. SunTzu’s eyes fluttered.

  “Ashley, start talking to him.” The vet turned toward a stainless steel counter, pulling open a cabinet full of syringes.

  The horse’s eyes were rolling in their sockets. Ashley ran forward as the horse began rattling his chains. She placed her small chapped hands on his face, and when his lips pulled back, revealing long teeth, she pressed her face into his rippling neck muscles, whispering into his ear. The horse made a hollow sound, like wind blowing over an empty bottle. I glanced at the vet. He was holding a filled syringe, waiting, I supposed, for the horse to settle down. But I saw a bittersweet expression crossing his old face. Pity, appreciation. Bafflement. All of it tumbling together until he placed his thumb on the animal’s glistening neck and pricked the bulging vein with the needle. But before the syringe was empty, the horse slumped back into its sling.

  “Paddles!” The vet dropped the syringe to the floor.

  Brent wheeled a cart across the bare concrete floor, pushing it toward the vet. Doc Madison yanked two paddles from its side. A high whine filled the clinic as he grabbed a plastic bottle below and squirted clear gel onto one of the paddles, rubbing them together. The sound of the defibrillating electricity seemed to harmonize with the girl, suddenly crying.

  “Help him,” she whispered. “Please help him.”

  Brent wheeled a second cart toward the table, with a machine shaped like a box. Several long, crimped tubes extended from its side. A warning label on its side read Flammable. Oxygen. As the assistant rushed past, I caught an acrid odor. Almost a stench.

  The vet pressed the paddles into SunTzu’s brown chest.

  “Hit!”

  A burst of unsynchronized electricity slammed into the horse, quivering his body. The vet waited, watching as Brent pried open the animal’s long jaw and shoved a crimped plastic tube down its throat.

  “Hit!”

  Brent stepped back. Another shock wave pounded the animal. The chains rattled again, only the horse didn’t wake up.

  “Again!”

  The ionized air smelled like summer thunderstorms. And with each hit, the horse’s noble face seemed to grow longer. The black whiskers drooped toward the floor. The oxygen tube slipped to one side. Ashley backed up and reached for her own throat. Dirt was nestled in her fingernails and it spread across her chin as she covered her mouth. The vet gave one more hit. His own chest heaved again, but as he gazed at the horse, waiting, his old face collapsed into itself. Finally, he let go of the paddles, dropping them in a clatter of plastic and metal and defeat.

  “No . . .” Ashley looked at the vet. “No. You can’t . . . He can’t be dead.”

  The vet continued to stare at the horse. His eyes had a distracted expression, like he was listening to his own thoughts, and when he stepped forward, he touched a gloved finger to SunTzu’s chest. He tapped the spot.

  Ashley said, “What’s wrong?”

  The vet touched the spot again. Right where the horse’s brown coat formed a cowlick, the hair on either side meeting in the middle of his chest.

  “Swabs,” the vet said quietly. “Please.”

  Brent was also staring at the dead horse. On his pale skin the acne looked like measles.

  “Brent!”

  He jumped.

  “Swabs!”

  Stumbling for the counter, he pulled several cotton swabs from a tall jar and handed them to Doc Madison. The vet touched one to SunTzu’s chest. When he pulled it away, the bleached cotton tip was pink.

  “Is that . . . blood?” Ashley said. “He’s bleeding? Why is he bleeding?”

  The vet didn’t answer.

  “You did that,” she said. “With those paddles. You hurt him!”

  The vet shook his head and dabbed another swab, then dropped them both into a plastic bag, sealing the top.

  Evidence, I thought. He’s gathering evidence.

  Ashley’s voice quavered. “What happened to him?”

  Keeping his back to her, standing at the counter, the vet wrote something on a small pad.

  Ashley turned to Brent. “Tell me what happened!”

  “Who knows.” He shrugged. “Maybe he hit something. When he fell on the turf.”

  “He’s bleeding.”

  “Get a grip on yourself,” Brent said. “He’s dead. You need to move on.”

  Her lips closed, but a keening sound was leaking through her mouth. I turned away, unwilling to watch all that agony and confusion distort her pretty face. Instead I stared at the horse. Stiff and immobile on the exam table, he looked perfect and dead, like the taxidermist had already come.

  “I’ll send the swabs to the lab.” The vet waited for my eyes to move from the horse. “If Eleanor wants, I’ll do X-rays.”

  X-rays. On a dead horse.

  “Something looks suspicious to you?” I asked.

  He glanced at the girl. She came forward again, grabbing the horse by its neck, burying her face in his mane. She cried into the bristly coat.

  “Not SunTzu,” she said. “Not SunTzu.”

  She repeated his name over and over again, until it sounded to me like she was saying, Not you too, not you too . . .

  Chapter Ten

  After Ashley bolted, sobbing, I left the clinic. I had taken a long, hard look at the wound on SunTzu’s chest, and my years visiting crime scenes gave me some basic knowledge about blood evidence and injuries. The mark on the horse’s chest looked like some kind of shallow puncture wound. But it was difficult to tell what sort of object had struck him because of the thick coat of hair.

  I felt almost numb, walking across the backstretch toward the barns. Over the loudspeaker the announcer’s voice sounded tinny. It ran rapid-fire without pauses. The races had resumed. The show must go on. But the rain had stopped, and the sun was peeking from behind the clouds, leaving misty tendri
ls in the humid air. The moist warmth was almost cloying, like summer air back home in Virginia.

  And just like that, I felt homesick. Lonely. Alone.

  I heard Eleanor before I’d even reached the corner of Hot Tin’s barn. Bill Cooper’s office door was open. I stood for a moment, listening, just out of view.

  “You’re wrong,” she said.

  “Eleanor, I get it. She’s your niece. But she’s not helping.”

  “She’s learning.”

  “Learning how to mess us up? I don’t want to give you an ultimatum, but at some point you’re going to have to choose. Her or me.”

  There was a considerable silence. When I stepped into the doorway, Cooper had his dusty boots kicked up on a steel desk. The bulldog heels rested beside an open bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Eleanor, to his right, perched on a worn loveseat, holding a shot glass like a teacup.

  “We heard the news.” She lifted her chin. “The grim reaper has put up his tent on our doorstep.”

  I nodded.

  “Blanche.” She threw back the whiskey in her glass and shivered. “Scene ten.”

  “Another way to say that, Eleanor, is we’re cursed with bad luck.” Cooper kicked his boots off the desk. “Bad, bad luck. And I won’t stick around for much more.”

  He pushed past me in the doorway and strode down the gallery. The stabled horses watched him pass, swiveling their long heads, following his exit. I watched him too, but thought of another playwright. The one who said that a man doth protest too much. All the bluster from Cooper, all the finger-pointing at me. But the barn’s trouble began long before I arrived at Emerald Meadows. Was he really blaming me—or shifting blame?

  Eleanor said, “You have a question that hangs in the air.”

  I did. But I offered her a different one. “Do you want Doc Madison to take X-rays?”