Ring of Fear

2

I didn’t mean to, but I kept thinking about Mr. Rafe (Ralph? Surely not Rafael?) Clery for the rest of the morning, even while I was grooming and saddling Phi Bete for the afternoon class. I didn’t see him in the stands when I went to observe some of the other classes. My jaundice toward the judges changed, for I had to admit that they weren’t all that wrong in their other decisions. In fact, they chose my candidates with the one exception of the Roman-nosed bay in the Five-Gaited Class. It was obvious, to me, that the horse had been treated. He was sweating heavily as he lifted his legs with pain-driven height, and his nostrils flared redly. The other mounts were sweating, too, and they were working for those precise artificial gaits, but if you know the signs, you can tell the difference. And his rider? I don’t trust people who can keep a smile plastered on their faces round after round, but then, I don’t trust people who doctor horses.

I remember Dad the day Mrs. du Maurier (no relation to the writers) acquired the five-gaited bay gelding who had won out over her own entry in the Garden back in the early fifties. I was too young then to realize that people would deliberately mistreat an animal to win anything as paltry as a blue ribbon. (I was very young, for I didn’t know that money and prestige accompanied the blue ribbons and: silver trophies. I honestly thought the horses wanted to win. The ones Daddy trained always looked so pleased with themselves in the winner’s circles.)

Mrs. du Maurier had had a house full of guests, but Dad had marched up to the house and insisted that she come down to the paddock where he’d put the “pore

crayture.” I was weeping, I remember, for the salt of my tears is indelibly linked with that memory. Children see past sham, and I knew she was as shocked as Daddy by the bay’s condition.

“My God,” she’d said in her funny rough voice, so distracting to issue from a soft feminine face. “I’d no idea when I bought him, Russell. I’ve known Charlie Hackett for years.”

“May be, ma’am, but what’ll I do with this poor wreck, for I’m telling you flat out, I’ll not show him for you, fire me if you wish, but I’ll ride no crippled, blistered crayture.”

Regardless of her elegant dress, Mrs. du Maurier bent to lift the trembling, scarred fetlocks, traced the black calluses of recent lacerations plainly visible.

“Jesus God!” she muttered, her face grim. “Ease the poor brute if you can, Russell. Turn him out to pasture. I’ll take this up with Hackett. Don’t you just know I will. And I’ll get my price back, too.”

“You’ll not be giving the bay back to him, ma’am?”

Mrs. du Maurier gave father one of her famous stares.

“I should think you’d know me well enough not to have to ask, Russell.” And she’d gone back to her party.

I used to ride the bay later on, but never in a show. By then he no longer snapped his feet high because they hurt but because he felt good.

Mrs. du Maurier had been no such enigma as Rafe Clery, and yet there was some subtle resemblance of manners between them. A certain assurance, knowledgeability, an almost detached confidence of bearing and charm. And Mrs. du Maurier had smiled a lot with her eyes, too. She’d been a good, kind woman who had her share of troubles (even I knew about Mr. du Maurier’s drinking and wenching, although I don’t think he’d ever have forced an employee’s daughter… I mustn’t think about that), and Agnes du Maurier had kept her humor and her perspective despite all the sordid incidents, and come out on top. Yes, she and Rafe Clery were curiously alike… and there was no reason to it. Because he certainly wasn’t a Kentuckian, though there was a hint of the softened vowels, the occasionally slurred consonant.

I wondered what accounted for those odd touches of

bitterness, the shadow of defensiveness about that young man. Only… he wasn’t all that young. Now that I thought back, I realized there’d been lines around his eyes. His face was so mobile, they didn’t show often. Korea? No, that would make him almost forty. Somehow I didn’t want Rafe Clery to be forty. Then I chided myself sternly. He looked boyish, but that was partly due to his size… or lack of it. I’m wrong there, too. He didn’t give the slightest impression of a lack of anything.

I heard the PA system calling the Ladies’ Hunter Hack, and hastily led Phi Bete out of the sweltering stable. My other shirt was soaked already, and I didn’t have the jacket on yet. Oh, Lord, what a way to make a living.

I could mount Phi Bete without a block, though she’s a good sixteen hands in the shoulder. The saddle seemed a little loose as I settled myself and flicked out the off-side stirrup iron. Everything was stretching in this heat. Well, I’d let the saddle “sit” on our way to the ring, and then tighten the girth just before the class filed in.. There was almost a full brigade of entries for this class. It’s always popular, because the jumps are nominal, and anyone with any pretension to the title of equestrienne must have one hunter hack. There were, however, some damned improbable beasts, all shined up and mounted by all types, from teen-agers to beefy matrons. Under the regulation hard-top hat, they were indistinguishable except for body size.

Some of the horses were fidgeting, backing, filling, tails switching, ears back as the entries crowded the gate. I kept Phi Bete back. I couldn’t risk her being kicked. Nevertheless, even though I was wary, the sudden fracas boiled over on us before I could react. Phi Bete reared to avoid the flashing hooves of a short-coupled chestnut who bucked and kicked out of the melee, rider hanging gamely about its neck. Phi Bete reared again, somehow backing up on her hind legs and swerving to the right. I could feel the saddle go, and on reflex action, got my feet free of the stirrups. As the mare came down, I let her momentum throw me onto her neck as the saddle slid to one side, to be trampled by the other horses surging around.

I sat there on Phi Bete’s bare back, looking numbly at the saddle. I could see that the girth had parted. And heavy-duty girth webbing doesn’t snap like that. It can’t. Not when you don’t have a spare. The class was moving in now. And all I could do was stare at the useless saddle in the dust.

A gnarled old man, someone’s hostler, picked the saddle up and shuffled over to where I sat, motionless, on the mare’s warm back.

“Someone cut the girth, looks like to me,” the old man said, squinting up at me. He hadn’t a tooth in his head, and his lips were stained by tobacco juice. His eyes had the milky quality of the incipient cataract, although his gaze was steady and concerned. “Got a spare? Won’t take a minute to fix.”

I swallowed and shook my head.

“Here, buckle this one on, Pete.” And Rafe Clery had appeared out of nowhere, a girth dangling from his hand. He grinned up at me. “I told them to hold the class a few minutes until you’re ready,” he said, taking Phi Bete’s bridle and holding up a hand to me to dismount.

Obediently I slid down her velvet shoulder, and found myself holding her reins. Rafe was busy unbuckling the one side of the girth as Pete’s stubby fingers moved deliberately on the other.

“Someone’s real scared of the competition you provide, Miss Dunn,” Rafe said in a sociable voice as he fitted the two parts of the girth together. The cut was obvious. Only a few threads had held the saddle on. “One, maybe two fences, and the first two are both stone, and you’d’ve bit the dust, badly.”

I swallowed, unable to meet his eyes, and I was scared. Who in this small New York State Fair could possibly know who I was? I hadn’t seen a familiar name on the list of exhibitors. Who had followed me from the West Coast? I’d hidden for almost a whole year since Dad’s murder.

“C’mon. I’ll give you a leg up. Mustn’t keep the class waiting in that hot sun. Hard on the horses.” He grinned, but his eyes didn’t. He looked worried. He’d shoved the deliberately severed girth under one arm as he laced his fingers for my knee.

I started to protest, but his effortless assist nearly sent me over Phi Bete’s back. He shoved my leg forward, checking the girth buckles carefully.

“Borrowed this from Bess Tomlinson. Wear it to victory.” Then he stepped back, and I didn’t even have time to thank either him or old Pete. I turned to wave, but Rafe was walking away, and Pete had turned his head to expectorate in the dust.

Such a close shave with disaster is no way to start a class. I managed to smile at the judges, who nodded solemnly as the gates swung shut behind me.

We were to jump the course in order of registration number. That put me at the end of a long, long line, but Phi Bete would stand quietly for hours. She would, but the others wouldn’t, for the nervousness of the riders was being communicated to their mounts, and there was much nonsense. The officials ought to have put a limit on this class. Or made a novice classification or something. The judges didn’t like the prospect of a long dusty session either. And issued additional instructions. Referees were summoned for each of the ten jumps. Eight faults disqualified. Refusal disqualified.

Well, that would pare the field down, I thought, and it did, although many of the riders as well as spectators muttered over the decision. By the time Phi Bete had faultlessly completed the round, there were only seven contenders, and much disgruntled argumentation beyond the gate, where the disqualified assembled to protest judicial prejudice.

The jumps were raised, and it was announced that this second round would finish the class. “Since we are running behind schedule, ladies and gentlemen, and it’s unseasonably warm for June, I’m sure you understand.”

Not very professional, certainly, but I was in sympathy with the decision. The wool of my jacket was steaming me, and it smelled. I longed to wipe the hatband. The damn hard-top would swim off my head at the next jump. As I looked at the altered obstacles, I could see that the added second layer of the artificial brush was a bilious show-window green, guaranteed to frighten a nervous jumper. Had they done that on purpose? And the second course of bricks were now a poisonous fluorescent red. My competition consisted of two old tried and true hunters, totally bored with the affair; two obvious novices, riders and horses, kids all; and two high-strung beauties, including the horse Mrs. Tomlinson had been schooling and cursing. Only she wasn’t up. Presumably it was her daughter. Maybe even her granddaughter, said I uncharitably to myself, but I had to consider every angle of my competition. And if she, the older Mrs. Tomlinson, did sleep with the Colonel, did his favor extend to the second and third generations? Somehow the detachment I could achieve on the bleachers failed me in the ring. I could not be objective.

I was now next to last to jump. Three faults disqualified one entry; a complete refusal to go over that horrid brush struck out another. One good round to Mrs. Tomlinson’s offspring, who did tend to rush her fences, making both horse and rider appear more awkward than necessary. One fault; a fault and a refusal. Then my turn. Phi Bete was contemptuous of the course, flicking her tail in that annoying way of hers, as if brushing off her passage. There was a murmur of amusement for this trait by the end of our round, but no faults against her nimble feet. And a good public image.

The last contestant was one of the old tried-and-trues, but a slow round, as if the horse considered every step before taking it. In fact, I was unconsciously tense, helping the old dear over every jump.

So that left four in the running. The damned judges made us show gaits. Tomlinson’s entry proved fractious, and the rider a poor horsewoman, so unless local sentiment prevailed, Phi Bete had taken the blue.

She had. The Colonel attached the ribbon with a wary eye toward her heels, as if he expected her to have acquired bad habits from her stable mate. It was the other way around, but why explain?

“What’s this about your girth being deliberately sabotaged, Miss… ah…?”

“Dunn,” I supplied my name. “Sorry to delay the class.”

He harrumphed, frowning, as if my answer were the wrong one. I smiled sweetly and kneed Phi Bete out of line to take my duty circuit. The announcer, hard up for material to fill in pauses, came out with some garble about my having overcome a bad start due to a faulty girth and triumphed in the good ol’ Amurrican fashion. “Give the little lady a big hand, folks!” Irritating man, with a nasal twang that would get on your nerves even if you didn’t have to listen to it amplified, whine, wow, and all.

Well,.the applause didn’t mean anything. It got heavier when old tried-and-true took his circuit with the red fluttering from his headstall. I took no satisfaction that Mrs. Tomlinson’s progeny was third. Especially when she appeared out of the crowd, a wide grin on her freckled face, just as I dismounted. (Somehow I hadn’t put freckles in my unkind mental image of her.)

“Damned good ride, Miss Dunn. Sorry about that girth business. Rafe showed it to me, and it was deliberately cut. No question of it.” She held out a thin, sinewy hand with many charm bracelets jangling on her wrist. She was Mrs. Tailored-Lady and elegant-in-silk, but her smile was genuine, and so was her concern. “We’ve all been suffering from vandalism this year. I hope none of them think of glue in the saddles.”

“It was kind of you to be generous with your tack…”

“Nonsense. Sportsmanship and all that best-man crap. Hate to see your mare scratched for lack of a girth. You made me ride up to the mark, I can tell you.”

She meant it, too. And drifted away before I could repeat my expression of gratitude. Her offspring-and it was a girl her very image, freckles, and braced teeth showing in a rather sullen pout-came on the scene.

Mrs. Tomlinson stepped right up to her, her thin fingers spreading to pat the curved neck of the hunter. Whatever she said was soft enough to reach only the girl’s ears, but the pout was erased instantly, and the eyes reflected the reprimand.

“Good riding, Susan,” her mother said in a medium-loud voice. “Majority will crowd his fences when he’s excited. And that god-awful brush jump. However, a third for your first adult competition is ver-ree good. Very good.”

Damnation. It was awful to be under any obligation, but she was so damned likable, teeth, bangles, freckles, and all. And whatever was I going to do about another girth, I wondered as I led Phi Bete away. The money for the blue ribbon would just about buy grain and grazing privileges until the next show… if I could find a bargain on peanut butter and learned to fish better.

“Could only have been ‘vandalism.’“ Hmmm. Orfeo had to win, because that meant entrance money for the Taunton Do. And I ought not really to count on it until he’d won, only I was so sure he had to win…

“Hi there, Miss Dunn.” And when I turned, who was catching up with me but Rafe Clery, a whole girth dangling from his arm. “Sorry to miss the class, but it was a cinch you’d win. Ooops, sorry about that.”

I couldn’t help but giggle, which seemed to delight him for some reason. I thought men hated girls who giggled.

“Sorry about the word choice. Happens all the time to me. Anyway, here’s the damned girth. Pete ran it up on the machine at the harness shop. He’s buddies with the owner.”

“But I don’t have any mon-”

“Pete chaws Red Devil. He did the work.” And Rafe Clery dared me to protest as he handed me the mended girth. “A piece of chamois or sheepskin, and that’ll prevent rubbing until you can get the kind of replacement you prefer.”

First Mrs. Flashy-Black Tomlinson, and now him. I turned away, ostensibly to remove the blue ribbon for his approval.

“That calls for celebration. I’ll pick you up at seven. I know a place that serves the best steaks this side of the Hudson.” And he was off, calling to some acquaintance in the crowd before I could open my mouth.

I couldn’t stand there gawping, girth in my hand, my horse in need of walking. And he had said “steak.”

I reached the barn before I realized that he wouldn’t know where to pick me up, unless he automatically assumed the motel where most of the exhibitors from out of town stayed.

“No,” I told Phi Bete, “that one will know to meet me at G-Barn. Just as he knew I didn’t have a spare girth, or money enough for a replacement or anything. How does it happen he knows so much about me, and I don’t know a damn thing about him?” Phi Bete butted me sympathetically, and we walked on.

When we reached the cross-aisle, there was a tiny breeze feeling its way in the back door. Dice spoke from Orfeo’s stall, jumping neatly to the black’s rump to continue his report. He yawned halfway through, but his tone was casual, so nothing had happened.

The heat of the stable was suddenly oppressive. I let myself out of the box, stripping off the heavy jacket as I did. My toes felt baked in the boots, and I reeked of horse and human sweat. And he asked me to dinner! For a steak! Maybe there’d be enough for a doggy bag, and Dice could join the feast? I’d go for Dice’s sake.

I couldn’t stand my clothes, but I took time to gather up all the gear. Maybe it had been vandalism. I’d been out of the barn. There’d been opportunity for malicious mischief. God knows, the papers reported enough bizarre incidents. So, I’d lock the small tack box in the trailer, and at least prevent the saddle and bridles from being sabotaged.

It was while I was bathing from a horse bucket in the cramped quarters of a John stall in the ladies’ that I realized I’d have to forgo that steak. Whoever had slit the girth had done it too expertly-just enough to hold through mounting, but not enough to endure the strain of jumping. My horses might be next. I couldn’t leave them with just Dice on guard.

A woman came stomping into the “comfort” station. There were only the two booths, and the other’ toilet was overflowing.

“Can you hurry up in there?”

“I’m not feeling well,” I said in a week voice, and dunked my face cloth suggestively in the pail.

“Oh, dear.” And the woman started out, then hesitated. “D’you want me to call the first-aid people?”

“No.” I felt awfully guilty. People are always being nice when you don’t need it. “The sun, I think. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” was the polite rejoinder, and the outer door banged to.

I hurried through my sponging then, and although the atmosphere in the ladies’ was only slightly cooler than G-Barn, I knew I was clean. My one luxury was the remnants of a bottle of good cologne, and I used it, for its morale-building value, so that, clean, sweet-smelling, in a cool shift and sandals, I could even face the loss of that evening’s steak. I’d do my errands and then have my own “dinner.”

This being a farm community, chewing tobacco was obtainable, though I got a quick stare when I asked for it at the cigarette counter. I could also afford it. Then I had to find Pete. I looked first among the groups of handlers awaiting the end of the class that had followed the jumpers. Great Percherons and Clydesdales were cavorting, causing the earth to vibrate with their thunder-hoofed maneuvers. I paused to watch respectfully, for their magnificence is part of the passing scene.

“That’s what I said,” repeated a man to my right, a little in front of me. “Juggernaut’s here, and the girl who took the blue in Hunter Hacks is going to ride him for the trophy.”

His companion cursed. “Thought he went to the knackers when he savaged a man a year or so back.”

“Go down to G-Barn. He’s there, large, as life.”

“No use spending entrance money in the Trophy Class, then.” The second man was plainly disgruntled.

“He’s changed. Colonel Kingsley said Clery walked him to water like he was leading a lamb.”

“Clery? That bastard here? Looking for stock?”

“Going to sell him that tendon-sprung gray of yours?”

“Hah!”

The gray was evidently a source of much amusement to the first man and some irritation to the second.

“If he’s looking, he’s usually selling. And he trains a good jumper. He inherited his old man’s eyes for horseflesh, even if he didn’t get much else.”

“Got a good eye for mares, too.” There was a poke in the ribs and a leer.

“Oh?” The other man perked up. “Who’s he after now? Thought he’d covered about anything that’d stand still for it.”

“That sorrel hunter’s rider. Saw him feeding her in the snack tent. He’s after a two-legged ride, if I know Clery.”

“She looked like a nice kid, too. Heard her girth was cut clean through.”

I ducked away for fear they might turn. I refused to credit the conversation.

I finally had to ask in the barns for Pete.

“Look in D-Barn, miss,” I was told by the spokesmen for the loungers in A.

“Does he work for one of the showers?”

“Only long enough to get a chow stake. But he’s good with horses. Reliable, too, miss. Doesn’t drink. Just chews.”

Hat brims were fingered, a courtesy that gave me a needed lift. But did they think I was looking for a handler? Or a guard?

“Gossip doesn’t fly among circuit riders, Nialla,” Dad had told me four years ago when I first started riding shows in California. “It oozes through the ground like electricity, and suddenly everyone at a show knows what’s happened. Watch your step and you’ll be all right. Don’t slight anyone. The guy in the patched pants may own the whole string. Pay your debts on time, and don’t ever neglect your horses. Gives you a bad name that you’ll never shake.”

The two men hadn’t implied that Clery’s name was bad. On the contrary, they’d said he knew horses so well they were willing to buy his rejects. A two-legged ride, huh? And I looked like a nice girl? If they but knew!

D-Barn was cool, shaded as it was by the Exhibition Hall from the worst of the afternoon sun, and surrounded by big oaks. What is there about New York that cherishes enormous, long-lived oaks?

“Is Pete about?”

“Try the loft,” one man said over his shoulder.

“Wait a minute, miss. I’ll call him,” said another, pushing himself off the red-and-black-striped tack box. “Nice ride in Hunter Hack, miss. Too bad about that girth.”

He climbed the ladder, craning his neck, which corded when he yelled for Pete. I could see the old man’s head fill the opening.

“Lady to see you.”

Well, I had acquired that distinction, at least.

“Me?” Old Pete scurried down the ladder so fast he nearly trod on the other man’s hands.

“I wanted to thank you for sewing the girth, Pete.”

He wasn’t much taller than I, and he seemed reluctant to take the tobacco. He kept not looking directly at me.

“Don’t want nothing, miss. Shame to put you off just before a class. Heard you won anyway. Fine mare, that sorrel.”

“Please, Pete,” I whispered, and shoved the tobacco at him. I ended up stuffing it in his torn shirt pocket. “Haying’s dusty work,” I said in a louder voice.

He snorted, and turned his head a fraction to one side, spitting neatly and accurately into a coffee-can spittoon, scratching at his ribs with a stained hand.

“Finished haying.”

“Ah, would you know where Mrs. Tomlinson is stabling?” I asked him, holding up the girth I’d been lent.

“Here,” Pete replied, taking the girth from me and tossing it to the man on the tack box. He seized it neatly out of the air and touched his cap at me, grinning.

“Is Mrs. Tomlinson around? I’d like to tell her…”

“No need, miss. I’ll tell her.”

I suppose it was naive of me to think that she’d be back in the barn in that silk dress when she had all these men on tap.

“I’m ready now, ma’am,” Pete said abruptly.

“Ready?”

“Yep. Said I’d keep an eye on your stock tonight. I can sleep one place’s good as another.”

I stared at him, puzzled. He jerked his head at me to go out and gestured with one hand. He was so emphatic that I nodded again at the other men and went out with him.

“Mr. Clery asked could I keep an eye on G-Barn,” he said in a low voice as soon as we were in the yard. “Said he was taking you to feed. You need it. Don’t know as I want to fool with that black bastard… begging your pardon…” And he reached for the brim of a nonexistent hat. “Girths cut’n all that. Don’t like it. Said I could sleep there same as anywhere else. G-Barn’s warm.” He gave me a toothless grin. “Old bones like warmth.”

“Pete, I can’t…”

Pete had been someone once, for a trace of an old dignity returned with the offended stare he gave me.

“A little girl like you can turn old Jug into a lamb like I seen him this afternoon, and ride like she was hide of her horse-I can sleep in G-Barn same’s anywhere else. And I got something to chaw, too.”

And that was to be the end of the matter, according to the Word of Pete. We continued in silence to G-Barn.

“Known Mr. Clery long?” I heard myself asking.

“Yep.”

A man of few words. But he had called him “Mr. Clery.” Horsemen are as quick as any other subsociety to attach disrespectful nicknames to people they don’t like or respect.

The afternoon’s crowd was noticeably thinning, though the grounds officially stayed open until nine, when the exhibits in the hall closed. It was slightly cooler, I thought, as we turned into the barn. Pete’s broken-seamed army-surplus boots made a shuffling sound on the cobbles. My sandals slip-slopped. A hoof stamped. The flies were bad, but I didn’t like aerosol bombs around hay that horses would eat or wood that they might gnaw.

“Don’t believe half what you hear about Mr. Clery,” Pete said unexpectedly, and frowned at me a moment before he looked away.

Much as I’d’ve like to have him qualify that commendation, I knew I would lower myself in Pete’s estimation if I did.

We’d reached the lone occupants of G-Barn now. Pete peered rheumily at Orfeo as if to satisfy some doubt.

“He’s watered and grained, and the straw’s down for both,” I told Pete. “The mare may need watering later, but I left a pail for Orfeo.”

“No sweat,” Pete said on the end of a grunt, and swung open the box stall directly opposite my horses. “Be comfortable here.” He took the pitchfork and had a cube of straw on the end of it before I could blink. “Be just fine.” He separated the straw with neat, quick strokes.

“Here’s a blanket.” I handed him the clean one.

“Why, that’s right thoughtful, ma’am, but I can see it’s been washed recent, and I ain’t. Won’t need…”

As we heard the click of leather heels on the cobbles, we both stood still. But the quick steps were easily identified by Pete, who grunted and went on making his straw bed.

Just as Rafe Clery reached us, Dice appeared. The cat startled Pete so much that he had hefted the pitchfork defensively.

“That’s only Dice, your associate guardian, Pete,” Rafe said, so amused by Pete’s reaction to the cat that he, mercifully, did not see mine to the pitchfork’s menacing angle. (I had thought I’d got over that reflex.) “Has that cat caught any foreign cars lately?”

“That’s no cat,” Pete said in a liquid growl. “That’s a cougar. Ain’t seen one of them since I crossed the Rockies.”

“Back in fifty-two, wasn’t that, Pete?” Rafe suggested, all too helpfully. “Eighteen-fifty-two, I mean.” And winked broadly at me.

As Pete wheezed appreciatively, I gathered this must be an old joke between them. Then the old man noticed that Dice was eyeing him warily. He leaned forward on the pitchfork.

“Well, puss? Do I pass?”

Dice “spoke” in his throat and wandered over to me, to strop my legs and weave over to Rafe Clery, stepping on the high shine of the man’s polished Weejuns with the utter disregard only a cat of high degree can assume.

“No scratching, cat, or it’s back to the nether regions on the tip of my toe,” Rafe abjured him sternly.

“Gawd!” Pete cried out in surprise, as Dice was suddenly on top of the bars surrounding Orfeo’s stall. “You don’t need me here.” He sounded disgusted as he fussed with his straw.

Rafe took my arm, bidding him a cheerful good night, and led me out.

“That was very kind of you-”

“Horseshit, I’m never kind,” he interrupted me. “Knew damned well you’d probably chicken out if you got to thinking about that slit girth. Besides”-and he grinned at me-”Pete can sleep in G-Barn same’s anywhere else.” His mimicry of the old man was perfect. I giggled. “You’ve got the goddamnedest giggle I ever heard.”

I covered my mouth, but he dragged my hand down, his eyes looking directly into mine.

“I like it. Say, any idea who did slice that cinch?”

I shook my head. He favored me with another long look, somewhat quizzical.

“I could understand if it’d been Orfeo. But the mare?”

“A mistake?” I suggested.

He made a derisive noise. “The only two horses in that barn? The only saddle in the barn?” He stared out over the grounds, where some people were still wandering around. “Hoods? Out to make trouble for funsies?” He shrugged. “Bess Tomlinson doesn’t play that kind of game. Well, here’s the chariot.”

He gestured toward the gun-metal-gray Austin-Healey of old but good vintage, and striding forward, opened the door with a flourish of his free hand. I giggled, because he didn’t seem the type to make courtly motions.

“God, I like that silly chuckle of yours.”

“So I giggle for my goodies, do I?”

I meant to be facetious, but he straightened, a cold austere light in his eyes. He turned his chin slightly, his eyes never leaving mine, as if he were a boxer, guarding a glass jaw.

“You’ve been warned about Rafael Clery?”

His sudden change startled me almost as much as his pronunciation of his first name. Then I coped with the fact that he knew there was something I shouldn’t hear, or something he didn’t want me to hear.

“Forewarned is forearmed,” I said as gaily as I could, giving him my best grin. No matter what I’d overheard about “two-legged rides,” I wanted to erase that awful wariness about Rafe Clery. I stepped into the car, and he closed the door.

He got in on his side and had his hand on the key when he paused. From the depths of the glove compartment he flicked out a gauzy yellow scarf. It harmonized with the background of my shift.

“Keep your hair in place. This is a breezy riding car.”

He laid it across my hand, when I realized that there had been a nest of scarves in that compartment, all colors, as well as the round ends of lipstick cases and the edge of a compact. The leather seat whispered as he suddenly turned, while I sat stiffly, the filmy scarf dangling from my hand.

“Look, Nialla Dunn,” he said in a very hard voice, his eyes narrowed. “I’m not out for a fast lay. I can get willing cooperation anytime I need it without having to spend time and effort broaching the Iron Maiden. Believe it or not, occasionally I can look at a woman without wondering how she strips. My invitation to dinner comes from what there is left of camaraderie in my evil heart, and was prompted solely by admiration for a horsewoman. Now, accept me on those terms, such as they are, as I have accepted you, or just get out and we’ll part friendly.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be…”

“Hostile?”

I started to protest, although how I’d explain myself, I didn’t know.

“Yes, hostile.” His voice was neutral.

“I didn’t know who you were when you came into G-Barn.”

“There’re half a dozen people who would enjoy giving you all the vital statistics on Rafael Clery.”

“But…”

He was wound up and wouldn’t stop. “I have been in jail. I have gambled heavily. I have a violent temper, and I’m a dirty infighter. Small guys have to be. No reach. And I confess to having done any number of wild, unpredictable, irresponsible stunts. However, most of those incidents, colorful though they were, took place in my misspent youth.” And he gave me a terribly bitter smile. “I’m thirty-eight. I’ve been married and divorced two times. Did they remember that? But I’m a horseman. I’m sure I was allowed one virtue. I’m a good capable trainer and a decent rider. And this invitation to dinner is just that, and no more, between two horsemen.”

“A two-legged ride”-that phrase was determined to haunt me. I always thought it was tunes you couldn’t forget.

“Now,” he was saying, “shall we enjoy a good dinner and some professional rapping, or will you return to a solitary peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich in the sanctum of your trailer?”

Had he looked in my trailer, too?

“I’ve run out of peanut butter,” I said as contritely as I could, and spoiled the apology by giggling.

Only it was the smartest thing I could have done, because all the tension disappeared from his face, and his eyes began to thaw. He flicked the scarf from my hand, twitched it over my head, and tied it deftly under my chin. I caught his hand, a little astonished at myself even as I did it. His fingers closed lightly on mine. “And,” I

went on truthfully, “the only person who said anything to me about you was Pete. He said I wasn’t to believe the half I heard about Mr. Clery.”

The smile reached the blue eyes first. The expressive lips curved up.

“Of course,” I added flippantly, “he didn’t say which half.”

He chuckled and eased the car into first to pass the pedestrians also using the exhibitors’ gate. A rather seedy man leaned against the fencepost on my side, the golf cap shading eyes that flicked over everyone. It was the golf cap that did it, and I suddenly felt everything falling in on me, as if the bottom of the Austin had dropped out onto the cattle grating.

Caps Galvano! There couldn’t be two men in the world with the same S-shaped posture, chicken-breasted, adenoidal, raven-nosed, with wisps of stringy black hair, like a bird’s crest, darting out all ways under the cap edge. It couldn’t be Caps Galvano! That man wore nothing but houndstooth checks-pants, jacket, socks, tie, and always the same filthy spotted snagged-thread cap.

This man had on a gray cap. It couldn’t be Galvano. How could he know where I was? How could he have followed me? And why? During my cross-country flight, I’d figured out what an absolute fool I’d been to listen to his whining assurances that he could help me clear my father’s name. Yet it had seemed logical at the time: Caps Galvano knew everyone at the racetracks. He also knew just how straight Dad was, because Dad had shown him the door when he’d come around the house with a deal. Hindsight had shown me how very foolish I’d been, but at the time, Caps Galvano had been the only person to show an active interest in helping me prove to the police that Dad couldn’t’ve been involved in anything shady. And if Caps had had to have money to gather that evidence, well, after what the police had been suggesting, I’d’ve hired the Devil himself to vindicate my father’s reputation. So another sucker was born, and I had given Caps every cent I had in my checking account. Dad’s assets were frozen (as they say), pending probate and the investigation. So when Caps had come to me for more money, hinting that he was on to something very hot,

it hadn’t seemed the least bit wrong for me to approach Louis Marchmount. He had plenty of money. He was Dad’s employer. He should be just as interested in clearing his employee’s name as I was.

Louis Marchmount-racehorse owner, bon vivant, yacht captain, dressed by Cardin, received by society, fleeced by a series of voluptuous blondes who seemed to spring from the same mold. Louis Marchmount, whose lavish promises to my father had never materialized; Louis Marchmount, who had been perfectly willing to lend me any amount of money my heart desired, if… if I “submitted” to Louis Marchmount, rapist.

With an effort, I controlled myself. I couldn’t have seen Caps Galvano. And the man had looked directly at me as we passed and hadn’t registered any sign of recognition. Ergo, he couldn’t be Caps Galvano. Besides which, Galvano was undoubtedly still on the West Coast, running despicable errands for Louis Marchmount. And Louis Marchmount had all he’d wanted of me, and from me. He’d done the worst. That hideous old man, his artificially tanned skin mocking the healthy young bodies that had wanted mine, so staunchly virgin. But it was Marchmount’s bony frame that had covered mine, once he had punished himself enough to raise the man in him. I’d never forget his awful imprecations and the curses he’d used, blaming me for his impotency, screaming directions as he forced me to assist at my own rape.

“Too cool?” another voice inquired in the here and now.

I must have shuddered.

“No. Just one of those convulsive shakes you get.”

He had to keep his eyes on the road, but he was so unusually sensitive… had he somehow been aware of my painful reflections? Oh, I hoped not. Surely I’d be allowed to enjoy his company for one evening. Because he was good company. Four-legged friends have limited conversational topics.

He took me to a quiet steak house, not, as I’d first feared, to the posh place across from the big motel complex on the highway. The restaurant was back from the county road, set among pines, where detached tourist cabins were unobtrusively, if unimaginatively, settled. The food turned out to be good, even if the decor was modern mother-in-law, down to the heavy crockery and the checkered plastic tablecloths.

Local high-school students, hired for this show weekend, served with enthusiasm, if not efficiency. Rafe ignored the waiter’s suggestion of a cocktail, though I’d somehow thought he was a drinker. Maybe he still had trouble getting service? No, besides the lines on his face, he had much too much easy assurance to be mistaken for a callow youth, of any age.

“Rare, medium, or destroyed?” Rafe asked. “Remember, I did promise steak.”

“Medium, please.”

“The minestrone here is first-rate.”

That suited me. I could go without lunch with such a full dinner in me.

“Tell Brown that Mr. Clery is here and doesn’t want the tough steaks he’s been saving for his wayward cousin.”

The boy looked startled but grinned as he hurried off.

We got such astonishingly good service, judging by what the other tables didn’t get, that Mr. Brown must know Mr. Clery very well. The fillets were definitely well aged, and tender enough to be cut with a fork. I was used to Daddy’s silence at meals, but Rafe Clery liked to talk anytime. Which was fine by me. I could concentrate on the first meat I’d had in several weeks. He had a thousand and one anecdotes about circuit shows. He must know everyone. He certainly could sketch out characters, raising images in my mind that would let me identify everyone I’d be likely to meet.

By the time coffee and a very good rum cake had arrived, I realized that Rafe Clery had adroitly handed me years of experience in capsulated form. He had given me pointers about every fairground and show meet I’d be likely to enter this summer. I only hoped that I could remember the half of what he’d said when I needed it.

“I’m talking too much,” he said abruptly, with a self-deprecating smile.

“I’ve listened to every word. So help me! You promised we’d rap professionally…”

“Rap, not bludgeon.” And he grinned. “You need some fresh air.”

The night was sweet and rich with the summer and the sun-baked woods beyond the restaurant. He took a deep, appreciative lungful, and I did too. The restaurant had been smoky.

“Did you ever have the feeling that you were smelling the same scent on the air as you did somewhere else… totally different?” I asked him.

“Indeed.”

“Memory isn’t supposed to be smell-oriented.”

“Who says?”

“Well, colors are hard to remember, and smells are infinitely variable.”

He held the door for me, and again I was intensely curious about him. Hold it, Nialla. He’s not for you, girl.

“What does the air tonight remind you of?” he asked as he settled himself, checking the car’s many dials by the dashboard light. I could see there was plenty of gas in the tank. He grinned as if he’d seen the line of my glance.

“Oh, a May night, as warm as this,” I replied with as much poise as I could muster. “The night Phi Bete was born.”

“Don’t tell me you named a wee tiny wobble-legged filly Phi Bete? How in hell did you know she’d have brain one in her skull?”

“I’d picked the name, whatever the foal. Her dam was Smart Set, and her sire Professor D.”

“Professor D? He’s a West Coast stud. Doesn’t Lou Marchmount still own him?”

“Yes.”

“‘Yes,’“ he mimicked me. “Cold flat ‘yes,’ just like that, huh?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” And that was said in as flat and cold a voice as he used in my company. “You apologized, and I’ll clue you,” he went on in a kinder tone; “I don’t get them very often.” He flashed me that grin. “I don’t often deserve them, come to think of it.”

When we approached the fairgrounds, I found myself in still another quandary. He probably would insist on escorting me to my “room”-only I didn’t have one.

“Could you turn in at the barns?”

“Tuck your babies in bed, huh? I’ll tag along, in that case.”

Well, you can’t win ‘em all.

He pulled into the main exhibitors’ parking lot and guided me over the cattle grate.

“Some enterprising locals were charging ten cents a shoe to fish ‘em out of the stream or prize the heels out of the gratings,” he said as we crossed it, his heels ringing. I was glad of my sandals, flat and safe. “Shouldn’t wonder. Worse than subway grates.” Pete was snoring magnificently when we reached the horses. He rolled over the next moment, looked at us, hawked, and spat deftly in the gutter. Then he turned over and fell right back to snoring again. In the cool dark barn I could barely make out the horses’ bulks, but Dice, ensconced on Orfeo’s rump, turned his white-accented face to us, and his eyes gleamed, blinked, and were obscured.

“Except that he doesn’t chaw, do you notice a slight resemblance between watchmen?”

I giggled, but muffled it, because Pete’s snoring rhythm halted and then resumed. I moved away from the sleepers, into the center of the barn’s aisles, and extended my hand to Rafe.

“Thank you for a lovely evening,” I said, hoping it didn’t sound ungracious as well as stilted. “That steak was heavenly.”

“The pleasure was mine,” he replied automatically, taking my hand. Then he brought it to his lips, clicking his heels in stalwart Prussian style. “All mine, modom,” he added in a guttural voice.

He did a precise about-face and goose-stepped down the aisle.

I stood for a long time, reviewing that departing figure, half-wishing many impossibilities, all of them involving Mr. Rafael Clery. The bubble of illusion was shattered by a raucous snore from Pete.

Well, I couldn’t bed in the barn tonight. I’d never get to sleep with that cacophony. And I did have an air mattress to cushion me against the load bed of the station wagon.