Kara Whittenbrook is an unlikely heiress. Down-to-earth and lovably quirky, she's never fit in with the stodgy Whittenbrook clan of Connecticut. Growing up at her parents' rainforest preserve in Brazil, she has a quaintly off-beat view of life. Now her beloved parents have died in a plane crash, and Kara's learned a stunning truth.
Kara, using a fake identity on the advice of her lawyer, gets a job at Ben's ranch in Fountain Springs, Florida, where her adventures include entering an unpredictable mare in a local horse show. |
Kara
Welcome to small town Florida on Independence Day. Pranksters had placed American flags and sparklers in the trickling statuary hand of Ponce de Leon. Fountain Spring’s square, with its ornate faux-Moroccan courthouse, was the centerpiece of a craft show, clogging demonstrations, bluegrass bands, patriotic speeches and church bake sales.
I inhaled the aroma of barbecue, hamburgers, hotdogs and roasted ears of corn. Those and other mouth-watering scents wafted from a long grill beside the horse show’s modest, concrete-block concession stand. The concession stand offered an eclectic menu including hush puppies, fried shrimp, saw palmetto cole slaw and Cuban black beans on yellow rice. The sweet fragrance of iced watermelon rose from large coolers, mingling with the tang of freezing-cold beer and the musky drift of pot from some hidden clutch of teenagers. If only my stomach weren’t tied in knots.
As I paced beside Ben’s horse trailer I watched carefree spectators dine at picnic tables under spreading oaks. Lily brought me a huge paper cup of sweet iced tea decorated with large lemon wedges and mint. I downed the tea nervously, adding a sugar buzz to my anxiety. Beside me, tied loosely to the trailer with her water tub and netted bag of hay at hand, Estrela watched the equine action with pricked ears and flared nostrils.
Her fellow show horses ignored her, as if her scarred forehead made her unfit for their sorority. Yet she watched them eagerly for clues to future acceptance. So did I.
Regular competitors brought their own special placards to pin to their backs, sporting their lucky competition numbers there. Neophytes such as me had to make do with the equivalent of government-issue numbers. When asked to choose an official contest I.D. from a stack of dusty paper entry numbers I sorted through them and stopped abruptly at a symbolic watershed. 472. Mother and Dads’ anniversary. The month and year. They’d married in Paris in April 1972. Mitterrand, Marceau and Montand attended their ceremony.
“What do you think of this number?” I asked Lily and Mac.
“It’s a big one,” Lily said happily.
“We’ll take it home and tape to the r-refrigerator beside the r-ribbon you and Estrela are gonna win,” Mac added. “And when she wins a million dollars, we’ll p-put a picture of the m-money on the refrigerator, t-too. I bet it’ll make a big s-stack.”
My heart sank. Money couldn’t buy the miracle I wanted to give them.
Wooden bleachers accommodated the crowd. I estimated attendance at three hundred hardy souls. Classes began at ten a.m. and went on until about seven in the evening. During the morning and late afternoon the encircling oaks cast pretty hummocks of shade across the bleachers and the ring, but in midday the arena was shadowless and broiling hot.
“Aren’t you hungry?” Lily asked, keeping Estrela and me company in the shade of the horse trailer.
I patted my stomach. “I need to keep my weight down. Every extra pound is a pound that might slow Estrela’s competitive time.”
Mac, awkward but careful, settled his large frame on a folding camp stool, holding a small plate of barbecue in his large hands. He held it out to me solemnly. “Maybe just one p-pork rib wouldn’t weight too much. I think this p-pig was on a diet.”
I smiled but declined. Ben and the rest of the crew sat at a large picnic table. I watched Ben adjust a portable fan he’d set up for Joey, who looked pale and a little bloated in the heat. Nonetheless, Joey beamed, smiling and pointing our way every time friends and neighbors stopped by to say hello. Mr. Darcy sat on his shoulder, nibbling hush puppies Joey handed him. Some people attach leashes to their macaw’s legs, but Mr. Darcy would have been insulted. He would never deliberately leave Joey’s side.
The waiting was painful. There were western pleasure classes, conformation competitions, English pleasure, racking, pole bending, and many classes devoted to children and their steeds. The adult barrel racing competition would be the last event of the one-day show, and the list of entrants numbered more than fifty.
I walked the perimeter of the ring the way a mountain climber surveys a peak before attempting to climb it. Estrela may bolt there, or there, or there, and perhaps attack the ring assistant’s white cowboy hat if he stands where he’s standing near the gate. I tried to anticipate every possible disaster. A wide gate anchored the main entrance beside a two-story announcer’s booth draped in patriotic bunting.
Estrela would probably bite it.
Ben
Karen put on a brave face waiting for the barrel class, even though her and me both knew Estrela was gonna be the laughing stock of the whole show. People’d snicker for weeks about the little gray mare from the Thocco Ranch who loped around the barrels like she was a shopper enjoyin’ a slow stroll at the mall. They were already snickering about Karen.
“Need to buy your Yankee cowgirl some western boots, Ben,” one of the barrel racers hooted as she trotted her muscled bay gelding toward the warm-up ring. “I ain’t never seen a barrel-racing gal wear them knee-high, fox-huntin’ boots. Is she gonna circle the barrels or jump ’em?”
“A boot’s a boot.”
Truth was, Karen stuck out like a sore thumb. I mean that in a good way, at least from my own point of view. She looked downright odd in khakis, a Green Peace t-shirt, and the kind of tall, black boots that only go with English-style ridin’.
“What kinda racer you got there, Ben?” another gal drawled as she rode by. “A New-Age hippie?” Barrel racing gals on the smalltime show circuit are a little mean, a little tough. Have to be. It’s serious business, dog-eat-dog. They love horses but they don’t compete just for some pretty trophies to set over the fireplace of their doublewide, no sir. They’re hoping to take home a cash purse that helps pay the rent and puts food on the table for hungry kids.
Their horses are tough, too. They wear tie-downs, wide breast bands, and leather cuffs on their hind legs, low on the fetlock, to protect them when they haunch-slide around the barrels.
But not Estrela. Estrela wasn’t done up like a biker. Estrela was wearing a plastic daisy on her bridle. For good luck, Lily said.
I sighed. I just wanted this humiliation over with.
Kara
My hands sweated. The afternoon sun cast long shadows over the ring. The crowd cheered. The barrel race class began. Fifty horses and riders. Ben and I stood by the rail, watching the first few contestants. Estrela was saddled and ready to go. I’d left her tied at the trailer with a halter and lead over her bridle. The first horse and rider blazed through the course in just under seventeen seconds. The crowd cheered. The second horse and rider completed the cloverleaf in sixteen-five. More cheers.
“Loose horse!” someone yelled behind us.
“Lemme guess,” Ben said darkly.
We whirled around. Estrela galloped up to us. The chewed end of her lead swung jauntily. I grabbed her, but she had no plans to bolt elsewhere. With her ears on alert and her eyes wide, she pushed up to the rail beside us, stuck her head over, and gazed avidly at the event.
When the third horse and rider burst into the ring, Estrela raised her head, inhaled their scent deeply, and tracked every move they made. She trembled with excitement. Ben and I stared at her.
“Godawmighty,” he whispered. “She’s watching the competition. It’s like she’s figured it out. Like she’s sayin, ‘Oh, so this is the point.’”
“Ben, she couldn’t possibly connect the dots that way—”
“Watch out, she’s aimin’ a hoof.”
Estrela pawed at the fence. When the next horse and rider raced through the gate she pushed even closer to the top rail, straining her neck as far over it as she could. Ben helped me hold her. She ignored him, for once. He shook his head in wonder. “We’ll let her stand here until right before y’all are called. Let her watch. Let her learn.”
I started to repeat that not even the smartest horse could make a cognitive connection like that, but as I studied Estrela’s intense and concentrated expression, I bit my tongue. Why not try to believe in impossibilities?
She was special, after all.
Horse and rider number forty-eight had just posted an admirable time. Forty-nine was on deck, backing her muscular buckskin gelding into place at the end of a long entrance chute cordoned off by sawhorses and orange highway cones. A dozen sunbaked men and women guarded the high-speed chute and the gate. A pair of righteous older men in tractor caps and suspendered knee shorts sat in lawn chairs beside an infrared timer.
I climbed aboard Estrela. She danced sideways.
“Results get sent straight to a website for the North Florida Barrel Racing Association,” Miriam called from the sidelines. “We’re hooked up to the . . . the blogosphere, ya know. Look at all those kids in the audience. They take video of their favorite horses and riders with their cell phones.”
Wonderful, I thought. This will be on YouTube.
I hoped the sport’s reputation could survive mine and Estrela’s debut. I rode her in a large circle in the warm-up area behind the trailers. She was jittery; so was I.
Lily’s small plastic daisy wobbled wildly on her bridle.
Ben
Estrela was ready to run. Well, to lope or trot or whatever. Just because she seemed to understand the point didn’t mean she’d put the know-how into practice. She was so jittery she might knock over all the barrels and bounce Karen off a rail.
“I’ll be right there by the gate,” I told Karen, keeping my distance. Jumpy, snappy, and on high-alert.
So was the mare.
Karen looked down at me, pale-faced. “Walk with us to the end of the entrance chute, if you don’t mind. She’s incredibly agitated.”
“Awright.” I strolled alongside as she steered Estrela to the end of the alley. “Good layer of wood shavings here,” I pointed out. “And the ring’s got six inches of soft sand. So if you take a fall, you got a cushion.”
The mare pranced. Karen tightened her reins and swallowed hard. “Until you said that, falling was the one fear I didn’t have.”
I winced. “Sorry.”
“Tell me something happy.”
“Okay. This ain’t the Indy 500, naw, it’s a backyard bathtub race. These gals and their horses run a good two seconds behind world-class time.”
“But still, they’re admirable competitors.” She wheeled Estrela into place.
I stepped back. “So are you.”
“I want Estrela to have her chance. And I want everyone who cares about her to feel proud of her. My saddest concern is that Mac, Lily, Joey and the others will think less of her for not doing well. That they’ll be so disappointed because their horse is not a winner.”
“Naw. They don’t think that way. Look how they put up with me. I ain’t the fastest hoss in the race, or the most lovable, but they find excuses to like me anyhow. That’s what really makes ’em special. Most people look at a leaky soul and see nothing but trickles of good intentions fallin’ on bone-dry earth. But these folks? They see a gentle rain.”
She got real still, even while maneuvering the jumpy mare. She tilted her head and looked down at me like I’d just written a poem. “What a lovely and profound description.”
“Aw.”
We held each other’s gaze in a quiet little trance.
“Up next, number four-seven-two,” the announcer boomed. “Four-seven-two. Karen Johnson on Es . . . E . . . E-strela, from the Thocco Ranch. E-strela and Karen are makin’ their first run ever! So let’s give ’em plenty of applause.”
Karen backed Estrela into place. The mare got her hind legs under her then stood real still but electrified. She stared up the chute toward the open gate with her ears pricked and her nostrils on high-flare. Karen wrapped one hand around the saddle horn, ready for take-off. A rider has to have a good grip when a horse is about to leap-start. Assuming Estrela had a leap in her start.
The announcer yelled, “Here you go, folks, here’s E-strela and Karen, from the Thocco Ranch! Cooooome oooon iiiin!”
Karen patted the mare’s neck. “Estrela, you’re not a trickle of wasted intentions. You’re a gentle rain.” Karen looked over at me. “And so are you.”
She kissed me with those sweet words. Then she touched her heels to Estrela’s sides. The next thing I saw were clumps of wood shavings as Estrela’s hind hooves dug in and pushed off. Karen and the mare disappeared into the ring at warp speed.
Not lopin’.
Not takin’ a slow Sunday gallop.
Flying.
I ran to the gate. By that time Estrela was already around the first barrel and sprintin’ to the second. Mr. Darcy, sittin’ on Joey’s shoulder in a prime wheelchair-parking spot by the ring, let out an ear-ringin’ whistle of excitement. I got a glimpse of Joey’s face, and he was yellin’ like a happy banshee. Next to him in the stands, Mac and Lily were on their feet, cheerin’. Miriam, Lula and the others were hoppin’ up and down at various points around the ring.
Karen was hunched over Estrela’s neck like a hungry panther ridin’ a wild pig.
And I mean that in a very good way.
Estrela rounded the second barrel with inches between her and it, then zoomed toward the third. When she reached it she slid and pivoted like a tight end swivelin’ in full stride to snare a long pass. She and Karen were a single soul. Karen slapped a hand on her neck to urge her flat-out during the straightaway back to the gate. Red hair and silver flashed by me. Karen sat back in the saddle, and Estrela slid to stop inches from the barricade at the chute’s end.
I whirled toward the timekeepers. Both old men were gaping at the digital screen. They had lockjaw. When I got a look at the screen, too, I understood.
Fifteen-seven.
Fifteen and seven-tenths seconds.
The crowd knew they’d just seen a moment in history. Joey was pounding the arms of his wheelchair. Mr. Darcy wasn’t sure what the to-do was about but he bobbed up and down and flapped his wings. Cheech, Bigfoot, Roy and Dale were jumping for joy. Miriam and Lula hugged them and they hugged back. Possum hunkered down by a rail and hugged himself, but that meant he was happy. Mac and Lily were already off the bleachers and headed our way. Lily couldn’t run cause of her bad leg, so Mac picked her up and ran for the both of them.
Karen trotted Estrela up to me. Estrela chomped at the bit, side-danced, and kept lookin’ toward the open gate with a gleam in her dark eyes that said she might bolt inside for a second run. “B-Ben, all she’d needed was inspiration—a few equine role m-models and an a-au-audience.”
The stutter. Instant misery. Karen clamped her mouth shut and looked away.
“Baby, let it go,” I said gruffly. I put a hand on her booted foot. “Nobody around here gives a damn if you stutter. Keep talkin’. It’ll pass.”
She swallowed hard and nodded. “Estrela k-knew this was the real deal! It was . . . amazing! How d-did we do?”
“Fifteen-seven. She ran fifteen-seven.”
She blinked. “That’s . . . isn’t that . . . quite a few seconds faster than everyone else?” Her jaw loosened. The stutter? Gone. She stared down at me. “Ben? Fifteen-seven? Fifteen and seven-tenths seconds? That’s more than two full seconds faster than the fastest . . . oh, Ben.”
I grinned. “Baby, you and this mare just ran a world-class time. World-class.” I burst out laughing. I wanted to grab her off Estrela and hug her, and then hug Estrela, even if she bit me. I had to settle for petting Karen’s boot some more. Nothing else mattered. The consequences hadn’t settled on me, yet.
“Folks, we have us a winner!” the announcer boomed. “Not just a winner, I swear, but the start of a legend! First place goes to Karen Johnson and E-strela of the Thocco Ranch!”
Mac and Lily reached us, Lily bouncing in Mac’s arms. He lifted her up and her hands fluttered out, patting Estrela’s nose, patting Karen’s knee. Karen smiled down at her and Mac. “Your mare is a winner!”
Mac laughed. “We k-knew you and her could d-do it!”
Lily put her hands over her heart. “Now we can enter that big contest! And win a million zillion thousand million dollars! Like Ben promised!”
My smile faded. So did Karen’s.
What had we done? Be careful what you wish for.
Sometimes, you get it.
But other times, it gets you.