Ring of Fear

3

Some people don’t realize that show exhibitors have usually been up six or seven hours before the fairgrounds open or the first class has been announced. At five-thirty I was wide-eyed and dressed. Old Pete had left his straw and gone about whatever duties earned him bread and coffee. Dice had successfully concluded a hunt, for he was cleaning his paws fastidiously, an operation that always fascinates me. (I’d save the doggie bag of steak remnants for later.) I often wondered how he kept from snagging his tongue on his claws when he laved so carefully between them.

I curried Phi Bete and grained both animals, because I planned to work Orfeo out on the development roads beyond the fairgrounds. The roads were all laid out; the level dirt surfaces were perfect for breezing a horse. There were even some oddments of old foundations for jumping. I’d inspected carefully when exercising Phi Bete the previous morning. There’d be few to observe us, and none to spook at the sight of Orfeo.

Somewhere someone had brewed coffee, and my belly rumbled hungrily at the smell. The steak dinner had primed the pump, so to speak, and I was far too hungry to be sated by another mouthful of peanut butter. Woman-fully I ignored my inner rumblings and vain cravings; there couldn’t be a stand open at this hour, could there?

By the time Orfeo had munched down all his grain, I had to find that coffee source. The aroma was too pervasive to have issued from a cup of instant or a fireside pot. Looping the hackamore reins over my arm, I led Orfeo and followed my nose.

One of those snack trucks you see everywhere nowadays had drawn into the main barn parking lot. Exercise boys were taking advantage of it, their mounts tied to the hitching rails, heads down, hips cocked under their summer sheeting.

As always, Orfeo’s massive black bulk attracted attention. This time, at least, it proved to my advantage, for when it was apparent I wasn’t tying him anywhere, way cleared magically right up to the surprised vendor. I got coffee, a Danish fresh and still warm from its bakery oven, and a banana. A gentle sufficiency, as Mrs. du Maurier’s cook would have said., I moved away, and the mob surged back. Orfeo, you extract certain perquisites I could never obtain without you.”

And to show that I loved him for his own sake, I let him have a segment of the Danish.

When I’d finished and felt three times more alert, I checked his girth, side to side. Examined the stirrup leathers and the hackamore. Then I was faced with the problem of mounting my mountain without a leg up nor a block in sight.

“Alley-oop,” said a cheerful voice, and my left knee was grabbed. Up I went, to stare down at Rafe Clery’s impish grin. Behind him loomed a rangy, deep-breasted mare; her headstall’s red and black stripes marked her as belonging to the Tomlinson stables, or I missed my bet.

“Thought you’d be warming him up about now,” Rafe said, and was suddenly atop the tall mare, gathering in the reins. Then he gawked at Orfeo’s hackamore and pointed to it in dumb show.

“You cannot,” he said with measured incredulity, “be serious. You do not ride that behemoth with a hackamore? On an open road? When anything might happen?”

I didn’t dignify the inane question with an answer. I pressed my right knee, and Orfeo moved forward, his wither twitching as it always did, some unconscious reflexive action against years of crop and spur.

I didn’t look back, and I knew the mare followed. I led the way past G-Barn, through the narrow break in the old cyclone fencing, clip-clopping over the cracked concrete loading apron, let Orfeo pick his way over the old

railroad track until we reached the hard-packed dirt road. At my signal, he lifted into a dignified rocking canter, as slow and steady as any circus horse. We had a little stretch to go before the road ended in a mound of bulldozed raw, stony dirt. Beyond were the hard-packed but leveled streets of the embryo development.

Orfeo saw the impediment. His ears cocked forward, head lifted.

“You jump to level ground,” I told him, and his ears twitched. I could feel the increase in his canter, could feel power surging through his frame. Sometimes I think that Orfeo is really alive only under a rider on a jump course. He’s a born leaper, and it’s my private notion that Orfeo was nothing worse than a jump-school dropout, a training-ring delinquent. He was born knowing more than any human trainer could impart to him, and because they were forcing him against his natural inclinations and talent, he contended their right to direct him. I’d never admit it to anyone but Orfeo, but I was in the saddle only to lend countenance to his presence in a competition.

Jumping Orfeo-or rather, sitting on, when Orfeo jumped-is an experience. He doesn’t seem to leap. He just gets beyond the perpendicular obstacle in front of him smoothly, effortlessly. I could hear the rasping snort of the mare behind me, the plunging beat of her hooves, and then Rafe Clery was pulling her in beside the placidly cantering Orfeo. Before us stretched the inviting flat, curving roadbeds. The mare was excited, rolling her snaffle, trying to get her head away from Rafe Clery’s strong, steady hands.

The mare was the same height in the shoulder as Orfeo, but she looked less substantial. Rafe grinned over at me with pure creature delight for the morning, the exercise, the prospect in sight.

He gave me a mischievous nod, which I returned, and we were off at a fast canter. The mare worked for her speed, but Orfeo seemed merely to sink and glide forward, just fast enough. I kneed Orfeo toward the slope that would lead to an old stone fence, decoratively left to separate two lots. Orfeo stepped over it-all four feet at once. Beyond was a stream bed, wide, sandy, good footing on either bank, and no harm done if you took a tumble.

Down a ridge, over the wide storm gutters, up a long slope, across another ex-pasture to a gaggle of flat-topped stones, requiring neat, short hops. For someone supposedly running an unknown course, Rafe Clery was handling the fractious mare superbly. Then I remembered that he’d been touring the circuit for many years and perhaps the natural barriers I was taking were well-known landmarks to him. No matter, he rode superbly.

There was a high stone wall at the edge of the tract, a wide but empty meadow on the other side. We could go back and forth over that obstacle for height, and in one place, for breadth.

We jumped, until I noticed that the mare’s approaches and landings were smoother, as if she’d decided that she could trust this rider and was letting him decide. When we finally eased up, even Orfeo had worked up a sweat. We walked them back to the little stream. Here the bulldozer had missed a few young willows and bushes. The sweat on Orfeo’s neck had dried, and his breathing was easy. He pulled at the reins for water, and the mare was snorting for a taste of it.

“Oh, it’s not polluted yet,” Rafe said. “Runs through farmland back to forever.” He released the reins, and the mare buried her nose in the clear water, slurping happily.

Orfeo drank with the dignity of an old veteran, his eyes marking his surroundings, and he quietly sucked in water. The mare finished, a long stream of saliva drooling from her muzzle. Alert, eyes up, neck arched, she gazed at some distant object, snorted, pawed, and pulled to get to the enticing grass on the far slope.

“Well, I’ll tell Bess not to waste her entry money, but she will. ‘Isn’t sporting to withdraw,’“ he drawled in a Westchester boarding-school accent. That wasn’t how Mrs. Tomlinson sounded; she wasn’t that artificial.

“She was jumping well for you.”

“Yes, but I won’t be riding her this afternoon. I’m just a lick and a promise.”

“A promise in return for the loan of that girth?”

“Lord love you, no.” And his blue eyes twinkled. I took that.”

I discarded every rejoinder that occurred to me, because they would be provocative or saucy or bawdy and all wrong. Instead I gave Orfeo a signal, and he moved forward obediently.

“By the way,” he said in an all too casual tone of voice, “I had a few nightcaps with some of the other exhibitors and Budnell. They are upset about that girth-slitting. A case of honor. I told them you hadn’t for a moment believed it was anyone connected with the fair.”

“Of course not.”

“But Budnell says that there’ve been some funny incidents around here-oh, a missing blanket, a wallet or two stolen, bales of hay broken open for no reason, tack boxes ransacked, glue poured on a new saddle, a sheepskin cut up, and things have been lifted from the exhibitors’ hall. In short, evidence of malicious mischief not directed at you or Orfeo.”

I murmured politely. But Caps Galvano was here. He may not have recognized me, but he could have recognized Phi Bete. “You being alone in G-Barn would make it easier for a vandal to work,” Rafe was saying.

“I never did think it could be another rider,” I said. I wished he hadn’t brought the subject up, because it had been such a lovely ride. He gave me a friendly wave as he turned the mare toward D-Barn. It had been such a nice morning.

By the time I had curried Orfeo to within a feather of his skin, wiping him till he shone, and was standing back to admire my handiwork, Rafe Clery was looking in on us with approval.

“It is now eight of the clock. You got a swimsuit?” I was so surprised that I nodded. “Get it.”

“That stream is scarcely-”

“Stream?” Utter contempt for my outrageous notion. “There’s that beautiful Olympic-style pool at my motel, complete with high dive for idiots, low board for cowards like me, even a water shoot, and it’s all pining for some bodies to break its crystal chlorine clarity and justify its existence. Get your suit.”

He grabbed my hand, outstretched in protest, and pulled me out of the stall, secured the door, whistled a call he evidently thought would bring Dice… and it did. He rolled a greasy bag from his pocket, and brushing hay dust from a patch of cobblestone, emptied meat scraps. “Your salary, sir.”

I was marched to the trailer, passing Pete on his way into G-Barn, and Rafe stood, glaring at me, until I found my bathing suit. We were off in the waiting Austin-Healey with a hearty “hiyo, Silver.”

But he was right. There weren’t any bodies in the pool, which was magnificent. He pointed officiously to a bank of louvered doors at one end of the pool. “Change!”

Unfortunately there was a full-length mirror in the bathhouse, and the reflection of me in its crystal-clear surface was disheartening. My old suit was really old. In fact, it was two-piece because I’d had to cut it in half when the middle of me elongated. I’d seamed the rough edges around elastic. It had been a good suit eight years ago when Mrs. du Maurier had handed me a whole stack of clothes her younger daughter had briefly worn and discarded. The suit was mended and darned, and it covered as much as most suits these days, but candidly speaking, all it covered was bones. I didn’t have much bust-a flat horsewoman’s figure, boyish, with too much muscle in the arms and shoulders, hard thighs, and not too much calf. I had small ankles, yes, and my toes were well shaped from the roominess of riding boots and the exercise of sandals, but who rhapsodizes over toes?

I checked my hairline. The dye had been guaranteed insoluble in water, and the hair didn’t seem to have grown much since the last coloring. Whom did I think I was fooling if Caps were here, and my saddle had been cut? The idea of teen-age hoods having funsies didn’t quite answer my circumstances. “Hey!” Rafe Clery was back.

I peered around the door, and then, disgusted with myself, flung it wide. I guess I stood there a longer time than was polite, but if I’d been a sculptor, I’d’ve wanted him to model for me. He was a man with a perfectly beautiful, superbly conformed body, in miniature, the most elegant example of “after” of a Body Beautiful ad, Steve Reeves with no coarse knots of muscle. Blow Rafe Clery up to six feet, and, well… I could sort of see why he’d attracted two wives. Why he’d detracted them could only print out “insufficient data.”

Then he grinned as if he were aware of his effect on womankind and I hadn’t disappointed him. At least, with my reaction to him. He padded across the green concrete skirting of the pool, and taking both my hands, held them out from my sides.

“You’re neat, you know. Neat. Not gaudy.” His expression was almost… proprietary? His hands slid up my arms to my shoulders.

I was close enough now to see the light dusting of black hair on his tanned arms and across the muscular plane of his chest, making a thin line down the ridge of the diaphragm muscles, disappearing into the excuse for a bikini he was wearing, which barely covered nature’s compensation for his lack of stature.

There was a satisfied expression in his eyes when I jerked mine back from where propriety decreed a well-bred miss ought not to look. He looked suddenly so knowing, so smug, that he was no longer an objet d’art, but man, male, masculine…

“Neat, not gaudy, compact and…” His expression became avid. I’d seen that peculiar look once before. It revolted me. “… and sexy!”

I tried to wrench free, but his hands tightened, and our bare bodies touched. I struggled, remembering another bare hard body. Then I was free, staggering backward. He caught my elbow, steadying me, his eyes concerned, startled at my reaction.

“Hey, hey, gently,” he murmured, his voice deepening to the tone he’d used with Orfeo. “Easy, girl.”

“I’m not a mare.” I thought, “Two-legged ride.”

“Indeed you aren’t. Last one in is a rotten egg.” And he had swiveled around, launching his body flat out over the water in a long shallow dive. “Hey, it’s great!” he called to me, surfacing, shaking wet hair out of his face.

I saw the scar then. With a hat on, with wavy black hair worn long, the hairless scar that went from the back of his neck up the side of his head to one temple wasn’t noticeable.

I dived in, landing badly, and the contact with the water surface made my side smart as I came up.

“Tsk, tsk.” He trod water, shaking his head.

I splashed him and ducked before he could retaliate.

He hadn’t done anything, and certainly he had released me quickly enough when he saw his attentions bothered me. And I liked him. I liked him. I liked looking at him. We began to swim about, the easy companionship of the morning’s ride infecting us again.

“Hey, miss. Miss!” A stern summons floated to us. A mahogany lifeguard in trunks the same bright blue used as a decorative motif by the motel was gesturing to me. “You have to have a cap. Hair clogs the filter.”

“I don’t have one,” Obediently I swam to the edge of the pool. Rafe’s short fingers closed around my forearm and pulled me back into the water. “Find the lady a cap, please, George.” “Sure, Mr. Clery.”

Holding onto the gutter, I turned. “ ‘Sure, Mr. Clery.’ Do you always get that response from people?”

The pleasure was wiped from his face as if he’d been douched in cold water. He regarded me with no expression at all. The water dripped from his hair, and some strands leaped up at odd angles but did not cover the heavy white keloid of that scar. The lines in his face were unrelieved by any touch of humor, and he looked weary as well as much, much older.

“Who turned you off, Nialla Dunn?” I tried to pull myself away from him, but his arms caged me against the side of the pool. His chest pressed water against me, his legs dangled against mine, and the weightlessness of water brought our hips together. “Here you are, Mr. Clery. It’ll fit any size head, miss.” A disembodied hand thrust a white cap between us. Rafe took it, his eyes never leaving mine. Treading water, he stretched it and fitted it deftly over my head, tucking my hair up under the edges.

“Silly, actually. Your hair’s sopping.” “It’ll keep long hair out of the filter,” George said above us, and then I could hear, above my roaring desolation, the slap of his feet moving away from us. Rafe’s body drifted against mine again. “Who turned you off sex, Nialla Dunn?” I wanted very much to cry. My head felt tight, my eyes smarted, and I desired more than anything else to put my head down on his shoulder. Which was a ridiculous notion.

“I’ll rephrase that,” he said in the deep gentle voice that was unnerving me. “Did someone turn you off sex, Nialla Dunn?”

I managed a short nod.

“Rape?”

It was almost a relief to admit it.

He began to curse softly, our bodies drifting apart from intimate contact. Only then did I realize how impersonal that contact had been. For him, at any rate. I shivered. The water was a good temperature when you were swimming, but cold, cold, when you stayed in one place.

With a rush of water, he had erupted from the pool.

“Hands up!” And his voice was light again.

I looked up, and he had extended his arms to me, crossed at the wrists. Puzzled, I obediently lifted mine, and the next thing, he had neatly extracted me from the water, twisted me around-so that I was sitting on the edge. I was getting to my feet when a huge towel enveloped me and strong fingers massaged the back of my neck.

“George, would you ask Renzo to bring out two of those hearty executive breakfasts he’s been touting?”.

“Sure, Mr. Clery.”

Only I heard an odd echo of that cheerful affirmative in my ear and realized, when I saw Rafe Clery’s mischievous grin, that he’d chimed in. He gestured toward one of the double lounges at the pool terrace, scooped up a second towel, and began drying himself briskly, scattering his hair every which way, oblivious to the scar that showed so horribly. He smoothed his hair back, without even checking to be sure the scar was covered. He’d know it was, Rafe Clery would.

“Sure, Mr. Clery”-and yet I couldn’t resent him. Couldn’t even resent the admission that he had forced out of me. Water torture. New variety. “Who turned you off?” That was what Marchmount had done, wasn’t it? He’d turned me off sex. Well?

Rafe pushed his arms into a thick toweling pullover, which, to my unsurprised notice, bore an intricate RC on the breast pocket in red embroidery floss.

“You warm enough, Nialla?” he asked courteously as he sat down on the glider.

I guess I’d been tense with anticipation of that beautiful body near mine, but he had evidently turned off that considerable sensuality of his. I might have been seated next to my father. The man was centaur, sybarite, rouй… a chameleon. I gave up then, but he didn’t know it. Nor did I.

“Yes, thank you,” I replied with the same degree of courtesy. The sun was slanting in over the top of the motel now and warming me.

“ ‘Yes, thank you,’ “ he mimicked. “Take off that bloody stupid cap.” Only he reached over and flipped it off.

“ ‘Sure, Mr. Clery.’ “ And I giggled.

“That’s right. Giggle for your breakfast.” Oh, Mr. Clery, could the impossible be remotely probable? Even passing-fancy probable?

I assumed that no one else was awake and eating in that motel complex, to judge by the speed with which breakfast appeared for us by the pool. I was wagging my head from side to side with silent facetious “Sure, Mr. Clery” and “Thank you, Mr. Clery,” while the waiter, Renzo, duck-toed around the pool and out of sight.

Then I tucked into that hearty executive breakfast with an appetite not a bit curbed by my six-o’clock snack. Before the first pool-monopolizing family of kids could invade the area, we had eaten, dressed, and were on our way back to the grounds.

Pete emerged from the dark shadows of G-Barn, nodded to Rafe Clery and me, and ambled off, marking his passage with neat squirts of tobacco juice. Did or did not Rafe Clery believe that glib tale of kid vandals?

“I’ll be cheering in the bleachers at one, Nialla. Thanks for the company.”

“Sure, Mr. Clery.”

When I was safely in the barn, I let out an exasperated sigh, part tears, part frustration, but mostly anger, with myself.

By eleven I’d washed and ironed both shirts, sponged my breeches, shined my boots, brushed my hard-top, groomed both horses again, straightened my trailer and the wagon, saddle-soaped the saddle and Orfeo’s bridle, locked away all unused tack, and developed a bad case of jitters. So much depended on winning the jump prize money. I knew that Rafe Clery had been honest about the Tomlinson entry. But was there other strong competition that he didn’t know about? And why, if not for nefarious purposes, was he making such an effort to be kindly, but scarcely avuncular, to Nialla Donnelly-Dunn.

I’d gone over every word we’d exchanged, conjured back every expression in his repertoire, felt his body against mine and absorbed the shock again, the delight that I had then suppressed. His beautiful, beautiful body-so unlike that bony hard filth that had stolen from me what I could never give again and wished so much I could still bestow. Oh, impossibility!

Marchmount punishing himself! The revulsion of his flabby thin flesh pressing against me. The pain; the sound of his hoarse, piteous exhortations, the slaps, the curses and promises, the demands for compliance. For me, to help him! Those ghastly sobs when he fell to one side of me, mouth agape, eyes closed, sunken into his head. I’d escaped him then. Gathered my clothes up, dressed hastily in the dark hallway, wanting to kill him! Wanting to die so I could forget the shame, the degradation.

And I was the girl who’d always been thrilled to see a stallion mount a mare, thrilled and stirred by his bugling, amused by the mare’s coquetry and surrender. There’d been a dignity about such couplings that had been totally absent in my experience.

If that was what it was for humans, I didn’t want any part of it. I’d crept away from Marchmount’s so deceivingly elegant house. I’d packed as much of my belongings as I could cram into two bags. I’d’ve had to vacate the cottage anyway as soon as the new trainer came. The horse trailer and the sedan were Dad’s. The tack was his and mine, and so was Phi Bete. And the price of my virginity? Now both Donnellys had sullied reputations!

I’d considered going to some of Dad’s friends south of the border. But Marchmount could find me too easily there, and so could Galvano. So I turned north, crossed the Rockies at the Donner Pass, and headed east.

The sedan died in Kansas, and I picked up the battered station wagon. I’d stayed at a farm long enough to get a Kansas driver’s license and let Phi Bete rest her legs after the constant swaying of the small trailer. The farmer offered to buy her from me.

By the time I’d crossed the Mississippi, I knew I couldn’t go back to the Lexington area either. Marchmount would be likely to turn up there, looking for yearlings. About then I remembered that one of Mrs. du Maurier’s stockmen, whom Dad had always liked, had taken a position in Pennsylvania for a DuPont stable. The Poiriers took me in, no questions asked. I paid my own way, helping exercise and train the stock, helping Jean Poirier in the house. Jack had been very helpful in suggesting which shows would be best for me, and in February I’d turned myself, Dice, Phi Bete, and Orfeo south toward Florida and the first of the horse shows, and here I was. And where was I?

The PA system blared out the call for the Jumpers’ Class. Pete appeared in the yard to give me a leg up. He made the victory sign, a toothy grin, then shuffled off, spitting.

Twelve horses were competing, most of them veterans of show rings, judging by their manner. A little fidgeting, bridle-shaking, anticipatory bad temper. They were in this for the money; $350 was a good prize for such a small fair. There were some riders I hadn’t seen before, so I guessed that they had come in for this class alone. I saw the Tomlinson mare, too, Mrs. T. up, and she smiled at me. Funny how her freckles didn’t show when she wore a hard-top.

The bleachers were nearly full. Well, one o’clock of a fine June Sunday. With church over, there were no guilty consciences, and people were still pouring in.

As we filed into the ring, the announcer was twanging out all the vital statistics about horses, riders, owners, and trainers; and finally he got around to the rules of the jump course. Twelve jumps, one for each of us, I thought to myself, eyeing the angle of the nasty water gate, the course laid out in a rough figure eight. We could inspect the jumps, on foot; then we were to retire from the field, return on call, position decided by our competition number. There was a time limit for the run, with one fault for every two seconds over the limit. Lowest score determined the winner. In case of ties, there would be a shorter course run with a stricter time limit. We were dismissed to wait our turn.

I’d had a look at the jumps as they were setting them up, because I jolly well had no one to hold Orfeo. We sat in the hot sun and waited while the others had their look-see.

Just before the first contestant was called, the announcer abjured the audience to remain silent until the rider had completed the round. Anyone disobeying would be removed from the bleachers by the stewards. He meant it. There were a lot of kids in the audience, and hoody types. A sudden noise during a jump could put a nervous horse off his stride.

From where I waited with Orfeo, I couldn’t see too well. But three horses racked up enough faults to be disqualified completely. Orfeo jumped as if he were on a Sunday amble in a park, completing the circuit exactly within the time limit.

As I waited for the others to go, sometimes a gasp of dismay or appreciation would indicate success or failure. I could also hear the rider of the leggy gray cursing his mount over the jumps. Mrs. Tomlinson employed a vocabulary of assorted monosyllables in praise, silence for under-performance.

The PA announced the winners of the first round and the time limit of the jump-off, over jumps 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12. I wondered if they’d decreased the time limit so drastically to eliminate the “slow” horse, me. But then I decided that was foolish. I was being unnecessarily paranoid.

We were down to seven contestants now, three clear rounds, and the others two faults apiece. Best score should win in this round.

I could see better this time. The rangy gray went first and fought for his head between seven and nine, which slowed him badly. He knocked the top bar of the third in the triple-barred fence, which gave him two faults, and he picked up a time fault. Mrs. T. on her mare slid at the water gate, but it was the penultimate fence. The mare managed the final one, but knocked off the top row of bricks, and by the time she wheeled out of the ring, she was favoring her off-front leg.

Then it was my turn. The suspense was palpable as we came onto the course as the time clock began to turn. Those things make me nervous anyhow. I had him well in hand (or vice versa), and he took the first three jumps neatly. From nine on, the jumps were trickier, and his ears came forward as we swung toward the broad gate. He aimed himself squarely, flew over, and then was in position from the triple gate, which you can’t rush. Just as he gathered himself for the third of that trio, a car horn blasted right beside the ring. The audience reacted with an indrawn gasp of horror, but old Orfeo soared effortlessly over, his hooves tucked up. Over the double sixes, away to the water jump, and out. Right on time. There was a spontaneous cheer for us, and as we came cantering out of the ring, people in the end seats leaned toward me to shout their congratulations and heap fury on the inconsiderate lout who had leaned on the car horn. I? I was trembling with reaction, and I wanted very badly to get to a John. Who had touched that horn? At just that precise moment? That close to a horse at a difficult takeoff. That couldn’t have been an accident. No hood, unless he was very, very knowledgeable about horses, could have timed that blast. But someone who knew Orfeo’s reputation, knew how tense the second round could be, how dangerous that turn and jump could be, might try to spook my mount. I’d’ve lost the competition at the least, more likely been hurt.

But Orfeo was impervious to such distractions. There were no faults against him, and he won the blue.

Respectful admirers crowded around us, extolling my intrepid horsemanship. Someone took a photo with a big flash, but I ducked my head and, I hoped, spoiled the picture. Finally, pleading Orfeo’s needs, I got away. As we passed D-Barn, Mrs. Tomlinson was deep in conversation with her trainer as he inspected the mare’s off-front leg.

“Strain or pull?” I asked.

“Not to worry, Miss Dunn,” Mrs. T. shouted, straightening and waving at me. “Beautiful ride. Beautiful ride. Absolutely faultless!”

That horn blowing had come from the south side of the field. She couldn’t possibly have touched it off. Nor would she. She’d already had two faults before the mare went into the second round.

I was suddenly very tired. The fairground clock registered two-fifty, and while it seemed incredible that two hours had passed, I felt their passage in every muscle. Now was when I could have used that swim. And the heartening of Rafe Clery’s cheerful presence. I’d looked for him again when we exited triumphant, but no short man had barged through the mob to congratulate me.

I’d fouled up that relationship, if there’d been a chance of one. He’d only wanted company for dinner last night, a companion to jump against this morning, and a little funsies with a neat not gaudy girl at breakfast.

Oh, gawd, would George think I’d spent the night with Rafe Clery? How many guests went swimming at eight o’clock in a motel, if they hadn’t been badgered to it by their kids?

I dragged the saddle from Orfeo’s high back and stuck it on the top rail of the little practice ring. I shrugged out of my hot coat. I would really have to get it cleaned before the next show. It was like being incased in an unaired gym locker. The hard-top had left a rim around my head, and I pulled off the ribbon, shaking out my damp hair, wishing I could also shake the elephant parade of Marchmount-Clery-Marchmount-Clery out of my mind.

Orfeo butted me with his head, and I realized he wanted a rub where the headband had sweated his forehead. I’d have to wash the shirt anyway.

Could I pick up my prize money this afternoon? Or would I have to wait until evening, when the steward tallied his accounts? The stalls were mine until tomorrow morning. I could pack up and get out this afternoon and disappear into the…

“Grand ride, gal.” There he was, propping up the gate post, hat back on his head, figured silk scarf at the throat of the strawberry-pink body shirt. How could I have missed him in the stands? “Gave the crowd some real exhibition jumping. They loved you!” He fell in step by me.

“They loved me… indeed! Blew their horns to tell me so.”

He scratched the side of his neck. “Well, now…”

“The south side of the field. If I knew…”

“Black Chevy country wagon, with simulated-oak panels, late model.” He rattled off the description. “License number DN-1352, New York.”

“Oh, thank you. I’ll report it to the steward.”

“Already did, and the owner was in the stands at the time. He was a bit put out that someone had used his car for such shenanigans.”

Orfeo butted me with his head. I ignored him, staring at Rafe.

“That wasn’t hoods or troublemakers, Rafe. I’m going to…”

“…Pack up your tent like an A-rab and silently steal away? Fair doesn’t close until eight,” he pointed out. “You’ll have to eat. And you ought to celebrate. So we will. Taking all sensible precautions for your stock. Pick you up at six. The lousy restaurants close early on Sundays in this burg.”

He ducked under the rails and left. I wasn’t alone the rest of the afternoon, though the “sensible precautions” were subtle-a man soaping a saddle draped on the practice-ring bar, someone airing blankets, another fellow washing a car. Two breeders came in, offering a good price for Phi Bete, talking horse with me unaffectedly for almost half an hour. Some kids, impressed by Orfeo’s size, came wandering in (they were genuine, I think); they asked all kinds of things that self-conscious horse-struck kids ask. Pete wandered over to congratulate me in an inarticulate manner, muttering imprecations about the horn-blowing. But he also inspected the barn, peering into every stall and up in the loft. I fretted about not being able to leave. That was silly, when I thought on it later, because at least at the fair there were many people close by-protection. On the road, by myself, in an old car with a slightly shaky trailer, I’d be so vulnerable. But I had to collect the prize money first. So I might as well have one last good dinner in the pleasurable company of Shorty Clery.

I passed time by inspecting the station wagon and trailer, and moving them from the rear of G-Barn to the shade by the ring. They’d be in clear view of people at F- and E-barns. I washed out my shirt and did eenie-meenie over my three dresses. The black linen looked more sophisticated, so there wasn’t any real choice.

Then all of a sudden it was six. The moment I heard the crisp staccato sound of heels on the cobbles, my pulses began to hammer and my cheeks flushed with more than heat. Rafe was talking to someone, his words clear, the answers muffled. But it could only be Pete with him, and it was. He had a white Chicken Delight sack in his hand, and he was grinning. But how could he manage fried chicken without teeth? Then I saw Rafe.

He was a stranger. The white silk turtleneck emphasized his tan, the elegant dark red pongee jacket had been built for him, and the gray pants flared in swinging bells over the darker gray leather boots. I’d seen him in a different outfit every time we’d met this weekend. I wanted to hide, so I held my head up.

“Evening, Nialla. Heard you won’t sell the mare for any price,” he said, eyes dancing.

Dice smelled the chicken and began to make up to Pete, who’d settled himself on an upturned pail.

“When I’ve finished, cat, when I’ve finished,” Pete said, and as Rafe guided me out, I saw Dice obediently sitting down to wait.

Rafe chuckled. “Between that damned lion and Orfeo’s reputation, Pete’s redundant. No, now, don’t start hedging.” He handed me into the car. “It wasn’t a kid who blew that horn. A couple of people saw a seedy guy in a golf cap hanging around cars in that area.”

Caps Galvano!

“Rafe, really. I don’t think I’d better…”

I stopped talking because Rafe Clery leaned toward me, his face blank, his eyes… not angry… clouded.

“That’s why Pete is not redundant, Nialla. You have to eat, and Budnell isn’t on hand till around eight. That’s two hours to stew yourself into a real swivet when you could be packing in a steak. I promise to have you back here. Scout’s honor!”

I nodded, unconvinced. He shrugged and got in.

The Charcoal Grill across from the motel was like many others of the same name all across the country. This one was determinedly picturesque, with wagon wheels and ox yokes, but the management had had the sense to branch out with a bar wing that looked onto an agreeable patio, complete, of course, with the omnipresent charcoal fireplace, white-gowned, mushroom-hatted chef making appropriate passes with a long-handled fork over the broiling beef.

The maitre d’ ushered us immediately, and with deferential cordiality to a corner-window table, although there were a good number of people waiting for seats. That’s the first time thats happened to me. Chalk up another one for Shorty.

It was obvious to me that this place was many cuts above last night’s-real linen, good silver, and the glassware was not restaurant-standard. Judging by the prices of appetizers, the originality was going to be amortized there for many years. A dollar and a quarter for a baked potato?

“Very good potato, grown for this place special. The cows who make the sour cream are bullied night and day. The chives are grown by itty-bitty green men…”

I stared at Rafe before I realized I must have muttered out loud. I giggled, and he gave his head a little shake. “You have the goddamnedest nice giggle.”

“I thought men didn’t like giggling girls.”

“Yours is an uncommon one, dear heart.”

“Hi there, Clery, thought I saw you buzzing around the fair,” said an overhearty voice. I looked up at a man whom I immediately recognized as one of the two I’d heard gossiping.

“Miss Dunn, may I present Jim Field.” Jim Field rested his hands on the back of Rafe’s captain’s chair. Now he stared at me with slightly narrowed eyes, his glance flicking over my dress, my bosom, my left hand.

“Damn fine ride, Miss Dunn. And I want you to know that I don’t believe for an instant that the gelding had been tranquilized. Just your fine riding.”

“Tranquilized?” I was overwhelmed with a white-hot fury.

“Nialla…”

“Oh, no.” And I pushed at the table to make Rafe let me out.

“Nialla!” His voice was still low, but the reprimand was cutting. I was forced to remain seated, seething. “You’re a ring-tailed bastard, Field,” he said very pleasantly, turning his head toward the man but not bothering to look the man in the face.

“What’s this all about?” I demanded, and although I tried to keep my voice down, my rage was being communicated to the people at the next table. “Don’t I have a right to know? He’s my horse!”

“Sorry, Miss Dunn. Thought you’d…”

“You never have thought, Field,” Rafe cut in a flat voice. “Why start now? It’s nice to have seen you.” And he turned away from the man with complete dismissal of his presence.

When Field had drifted off, I leaned across the table. “Tell me, Rafael Clery, who had the-”

“Goddamned bastard,” Rafe muttered, but he looked only mildly annoyed, which inflamed me further. “Sure there was some babble. Too many people remember Orfeo, but it was only idle speculation. Because you damned well can’t tranquilize a horse and have him jump a stiff course so flawlessly.” He put his hand on mine, his eyes dark with sincerity. “Don’t let anger obscure logic, Nialla. Tranquilizers put a horse off his stride, slow his reflexes. By the time Orfeo had completed the first round-you should have seen him in the old bad days charging his fences, wild-eyed, frothing-there was no question in anyone’s mind that he could be drugged. Goddamn Jim Field. Sheer sour grapes. That rangy gray was his. What really shook the audience was your riding Orfeo with a hackamore!” And his grin was malicious, and proud.

The waiter was suddenly at Rafe’s elbow.

“You like shellfish? Two appetizers with the house sauce. Two fillets, one medium, one rare, and I mean rare. Baked potatoes, plenty of butter on the side, green salads. And ask Jack if he put aside that Chateau Mouton Rothschild fifty-nine for me? Cork it now, please. It’ll need to breathe. Don’t rush the steaks.”

“Sure, Mr. Clery.” And the waiter went off, hurriedly scribbling.

“ ‘Sure, Mr. Clery,’“ muttered Mr. Clery, grinning impishly at me, and began to talk of other things with an unforced cheerfulness that was impossible for me to resist.

While he talked, I had to concede that it was ridiculous to fret over snide assumptions. However, I fumed all through the shrimp cocktail, which I really didn’t taste until I was nearly finished.

The wine was presented to Rafe, and he really checked it, label and cork. When the waiter drew the cork and placed it on the table, Rafe picked it up and sniffed it, then nodded to the waiter, who placed the accepted bottle on the table.

“Why does wine need to breathe?” I asked, then wondered if I should display such naivetй. Rafe launched into a gentle lecture with such pleasure in his subject that 1 forgot to be self-conscious.

He knew so much about too many things. It was just as well I would be leaving that night. In two weeks, between this show and the next one I planned to make, I’d get back my perspective on the impossibilities of horses casually passing midstream in the night.

The waiter didn’t rush the steaks, and I forgot the time. The wine was marvelous to sip, and it was so wonderful to be with Rafe. Dessert and coffee were naturally followed by an after-dinner liqueur. So it was long past eight o’clock when we finally rose from the table.

“What does the air remind you of tonight?” Rafe Clery asked as we stepped out into full dark of a cooling summer eve.

I took a deep breath. “Smells like fall. Burning leaves-’’ We both heard the fire sirens, wailing down the road’ the road toward the fairgrounds.

“Goddamnit,” Rafe cried, pointing to the baleful yellow glow above the trees.

It was too bright to be the lights of the town. He and I made for I made for the Austin with single-minded haste, scrambling over the doors. The roadster zoomed out of the parking lot and onto the main road with only inches to spare from the honking Mustang. When Rafe saw stack-up of traffic ahead, he ducked down a side lane that paralleled the wide parking field on the south side of the show grounds. Risking more than he ought with such a low-slung car, he turned the Austin-Healey into the pasture, gunning it up the slope regardless of rocks we both knew littered the field.

It was a barn burning! And I knew it was G-Barn. When Rafe had come as far as he could, he jammed on the brakes. I was out of the car and running toward the deserted ring. I’d forgotten the snow fencing that separated the parking lot from the grounds, and I bounced off the paling. Rafe landed with both feet on the fence, and it splintered and flopped free of its stanchions and onto the grass. I skipped over and toward the bleachers.

“Oh, please, Pete,” I heard myself gasping as I ran. “Please get Orfeo out. Please get Orfeo out.”

The barn yards were crowded with screaming horses being led away, heads blanketed, with people rushing back for others from F- and E-barns, carrying tack, impeding the firemen, who struggled to position their hoses.

I was trying to get past a knot of wardens when Rafe grabbed me.

“Pete was there, Nialla. He’ll have got the horses out.”

“Not Orfeo. Not Orfeo!”

The stillness of his face, illuminated by the roaring fire that was consuming the loft of G-Barn, reflected the truth. And his moment’s hesitation allowed me to break free and squeeze past the fire wardens.

“Hey, miss! Miss! Come back here, you damn fool!” The firemen were not trying to put out the conflagration in G-Barn. They were doing everything they could to keep the fire from jumping to F- and E-barns. I could hear the screaming horse. One horse. Orfeo! Then I spotted my station wagon, where I’d left it, up against the ring fence. I dashed, fumbling for the keys in my bag. The motor started right away, bless it. Before anyone realized what I intended, I backed it around, pointed it toward the flaming barn door, and jackrabbited right down the main aisle. Burning timbers fell around me, into the stalls, over the corridor. The tires bumped over one huge rafter. At the cross of the T, I looked right. Orfeo was rearing in his stall, striking futilely at the bars, his gallant head and neck outlined against the fiery debris crashing down around him. I drove through the back door.

“The blanket, the blanket,” I told myself, fumbling for it, grasping it, falling out of the car, slipping on the muddy ground. Someone came tearing around the barn, shouting at me. I ran for the door, jumping somehow over the burning timbers and bales. “Orfeo! Orfeo!”

He couldn’t hear me over his shrieks of terror. But when I flung the stall door wide, I had just time to flip the blanket at his head as he lunged through. He pushed me back against the metal post of the next stall. Something seared my side, and the pain thrust me forward against Orfeo. I grabbed the blanket ends. His hooves skidded on the cobbles and gave me just enough time to secure my grip as Orfeo’s hysterical lunge pulled us both free of the box stall.

Then someone threw himself bodily at Orfeo’s head, and hung on to the frayed halter rope. Between us we got Orfeo aimed at the back door.

I tripped and got pulled over the threshold, but the man was practically riding the horse’s head. Orfeo was so fire-crazed that he plunged on in spite of the double impediments.

We got him clear of the barn. He crashed blindly into the practice-ring fence, snapping off the rails like sticks, pulling me, pushing the man at his head, on his head.

Men came to our aid now. Someone threw another blanket at Orfeo, someone else flipped a rope around his neck. Another man sloshed a bucket of water across his rump to put out the cinders. Sheer weight of numbers and lack of sight slowed the poor mad beast. He reared, shrieking, though, at the noise when G-Barn collapsed, showering us all with more sparks and debris.

“Take him to A-Barn,” someone bellowed right in my ear.

“He’ll respond to your weight, Nialla. Up you go!” It was Rafe, and then I was on Orfeo’s trembling wet back. I circled his neck with my arms, calling encouragements to him. A rough halter was fastened over the blankets. The horse was breathing in gasps, half-suffocated, exhausted with terror and pain. Two men were at his head, holding it down; three more paced alongside, ready to assist. Thus he was led through the firemen, the troopers, the noise, the fire heat, and up to the relative calm of A-Barn. Into the blessed confines of a stall.

By the time the cocoon of blankets was unwound from his head, all the fight and fear had left him a quivering, heaving wreck. I went to his head, holding it down, talking to him, comforting him. His forelock was singed, bloody burn marks pocked his face, his eyes were rolling and wild, and all I could do was talk, talk, talk.

“Where’s that vet? This horse is singed meat, and he’s favoring the left rear,” Rafe was bellowing nearby.

“Vet’s coming, Mr. Clery,” someone hollered, and then I saw a gray-haired man fumbling with the stall fastening.

“Then lemme in. Lemme in. Gawd, he’s a mess!” The vet had his bag open, sorting through for a jar. “Here, you take the off-side,” he ordered Rafe, shoving the jar at him. “This is what he needs. God in heaven, why’d they wait so long to pull him out?”

“That’s Juggernaut, Doc,” a spectator said.

The doctor jerked away from Orfeo, glanced at the whole horse.

“Can’t be!” He went back to his medicating while Orfeo gave gasping snorts of pain, dancing halfheartedly when the longer, bleeding wounds were treated.

“Take a look at that off-rear, doctor,” Rafe said.

“In a minute. In a minute. I can see he’s favoring it. I can smell scorched hoof.”

He got the brown goo on all the wounds before he tipped back the hoof. “Yeah, must have stepped on a hot coal. Burned the frog slightly. Not too bad. Oops, easy now, fella.” Orfeo squealed in pain, trying to pull his foot free. “Get this piece out… there!”

He jumped back from Orfeo as the horse instinctively lashed out with the sore hoof, put it down, lifted it quickly, trying to pull his head up. The next time the hoof went down, it stayed down, but it bore no weight.

“Did they get the mare out?” Rafe asked of the watchers.

“Yeah, she’s down the aisle. Pete Sankey got her and turned in the alarm. The damned barn was going up so fast-”

“Thanks!” Rafe replied with acid ingratitude.

“He’ll be all right?” I asked the doctor as he started a second go-round with the burn salve.

As if only then aware of my presence, the vet looked at me curiously.

“God in heaven, the horse doesn’t need a doctor as much as you do.”

He held out his hand to me, and I remember reaching for it, but the man seemed to be moving away from me rapidly, down a darkening tunnel.