A Basket of Trouble (6 page)

“Yeah, for the side walkers, too,” Brittany quipped.

Jessica smiled. “Eventually we want our clients to make all of

the corrections themselves, if they can. Think you’ve got it?”

“I think so.” A nervous butterfly fluttered in Claire’s stomach.

“I have a feeling we’ll soon find out.”

Jessica pulled a safety harness off the corral fence and belted it on herself. “Okay, I’ll be a pretend client, and you can practice on me. Sometimes, I’ll try to let a foot slip out of the stirrup and you have to reposition it. And sometimes I’ll slide my body to one side or the other.”

She mounted Daisy and took the reins. “Normally either I or

another volunteer will be walking in front, holding onto the reins to lead Daisy. Ready?”

Both Claire and Brittany said, “Ready.”

Jessica clicked her tongue to get Daisy moving in a slow walk.

Surprised at first, Claire stumbled then quickly righted herself

and caught up with Daisy. She gave out an awkward laugh. “Al-

most took a tumble there.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Brittany said. “I’ve tripped and fallen a few times, even did a face plant in a pile of manure once.”

Jessica laughed. “I remember that. Cracked little Sally right up.

I think she keeps hoping you’ll do it again.” She turned to Claire.

“That’s the most rewarding part of hippotherapy, seeing the smiles on the clients’ faces, even hearing the kids giggle. They can feel the 38

improvement in their bodies, and they’re having fun at the same

time.”

As they circled the corral, Claire fell into an easy pace walking beside the horse, even started to feel a little confident. Then she noticed all of a sudden that Jessica’s foot had slid out of the stirrup on her side.

“Whoops.” She awkwardly pushed Jessica’s foot back in.

“That’s it,” Jessica said. “Now keep your hand on the stirrup,

and partly on my boot, so you can feel if it moves. You’re looking at the ground a lot now, to get your footing. That’s understand-able. But after we go around the corral another time, start glancing at me out of the side of your eyes to check my balance.”

“What about
my
balance?” Claire asked, as she stumbled again.

Brittany laughed. “It’ll come to you. After you walk a few hun-

dred circles in this corral, your feet will know every inch of it.”

They practiced for about half an hour, with Jessica slipping

sideways in the saddle or shuffling her feet. Eventually, Claire felt less nervous and thought she could actually be responsible for

someone’s safety on the horse.

“Let’s take a break,” Jessica said. “I think Daisy could use some water.”

Claire realized her lips were dry and licked them. “Me, too.”

After Daisy and the women had all gotten some water, Jessica

said, “I need to make a couple of phone calls before we start again.

I have to confirm delivery on some orders from suppliers, and I

know I can’t count on Charley to do it.”

Irritated by yet another crack from Jessica about Charley,

Claire wondered if Jessica really meant to cut down her brother

like this, or if it was an unconscious means of building herself up.

39

Maybe Jessica had some buried feelings of inadequacy or guilt af-

ter her daughter’s death, and this, like the hippotherapy, was a way of compensating. And maybe that’s why Charley put up with it.

“Brittany,” Jessica continued, “maybe you could introduce

Claire to the other horses we use for hippotherapy.”

Brittany nodded and led Claire to the barn. “We didn’t have a

trail ride scheduled this morning, so the horses are taking a break, either in the barn or out in the pasture.”

As they entered the barn, Claire heard a man shouting from

within one of the stalls. “Pedro, you piece of shit! How many times do I have to tell you to clean out the brushes before you put them away?”

“He’s new, still learning,” said a quiet voice that Claire recog-

nized as Jorge’s.

“That’s no God damn excuse!” A horse brush sailed across the

aisle between the stalls and landed in a wheelbarrow full of urine and manure-soaked hay. A bitter cackle followed. “Now go clean

it!”

Pedro, the young Hispanic man who ran out of the barn the

day before to announce Kyle’s death, stepped out of the stall be-

hind the wheelbarrow. He held a rake that he must have been us-

ing to muck out the stall. His boots and jeans were spattered with mud and straw, and he wore an angry frown on his face.

Jorge stepped out of another stall with a hoof pick in his hand.

He caught Pedro’s eye and shook his head.

Pedro bit his lip and flung the rake down. He stared at the roof

for a moment as if asking God to give him strength. Then he fished the brush out of the wheelbarrow and walked out of the barn past

Claire and Brittany, mumbling, “
excusame por favor
.”

40

Brittany asked Claire, “Have you met Pedro Trujillo?”

“Not yet, not formally,” Claire replied. “But that can wait. He

looks upset.”

“Yeah, Gil can do that to people. How about Jorge? Have you

met him?”

Jorge straightened after picking up Pedro’s rake. He leaned it

against the stall wall and nodded at Claire. “
Señora
Hanover.”

“Please call me Claire, Jorge. We’ll be seeing a lot of each other since I’m volunteering with Jessica’s hippotherapy charity.”

He pinched the brim of his straw cowboy hat and dipped his

head. “Nice to see you again, Claire.”

Another man stepped out of the stall that the brush had come

flying out of. Claire remembered that he was one of the men in the barn the day before. He seemed to be in his mid-thirties and had

pale skin reddened by the sun. Like the other men, he wore jeans, work boots, and a tan-and-brown striped work shirt with the

sleeves rolled up. He tossed his head to fling a lank of stringy dish-water blond hair out of his eyes. As he swaggered, or staggered, toward them, those watery eyes seemed to have trouble focusing on

the women.

“Hey there, Brittany, you sweet young thang,” he said. “Who

you got with you?”

Brittany wrinkled her nose. “This is Claire Hanover, Gil, Char-

ley’s
sister
. Claire, this is Gil Kaplan, one of the wranglers who work here.”

Claire realized that the emphasis on her relationship to Char-

ley was a warning by Brittany to Gil to behave. “Nice to meet you.”

Claire held out her hand.

41

The hand that clasped hers felt roughened and dry. “Sorry

about the cussing. Didn’t know there was ladies present.” Gil

leered and arched a brow at Brittany.

The strong odor of alcohol on Gil’s breath almost overpowered

Claire. It was not just beer, more like whiskey, and here it was still mid-morning.

“These lousy wetbacks,” Gil continued. “Take jobs away from

decent, hard-working Americans, then can’t even do the work. It’s enough to rile up anyone.”

“Pedro is not a wetback,” Jorge said stiffly. “He has proper doc-

umentation. And horse sense. Otherwise, Charley would not have

hired him.”

Gil snorted. “Proper, my ass.” He threw the brush he was hold-

ing down on the ground and headed for the barn door. “I need to

take a pi—sorry, ladies.” He put a hand on his chest and made a

mocking bow. “I mean use the facilities.”

Claire turned to watch him go and saw the outline of a flask in

his back pocket. After he left the barn, she looked at Jorge. “Does Charley know Gil drinks?” Claire found it hard to believe that her brother would tolerate one of his employees drinking on the job.

She found it even harder to believe that he hadn’t noticed it.

Jorge straightened after retrieving the brush and began picking

horse hair out of it. “I do not know, but it is not my place to tell him.”

Anger at Gil boiled up inside Claire. “But here you are cleaning

out Gil’s brush right after he complained about Pedro not cleaning one. It may not be your place to tell Charley, but there’s nothing stopping me from doing so.”

42

“Good
vaqueros
are hard to find.” Finished with pulling hair out of the brush, Jorge raised a foot and knocked the brush against the heel of his scuffed brown boots. Dust and dirt flaked out. “Gil knows horses. Just doesn’t get along with people as well. He is

more ornery than usual today. Something must be bothering him.”

A horse whinnied at the far end of the barn, and Jorge looked

back, a flicker of worry passing over his brow.

“Is that Gunpowder?” Brittany asked. “What’s he doing all the

way in the back of the barn?”

“I’m keeping him quiet, away from people and the other horses

for awhile, until Charley decides what to do with him.”

“I wonder what set him off Sunday night,” Brittany said. “I’ve

never had any problem with him.”

Jorge slapped the brush against his thigh. “Neither have I. Or

Kyle, that I know of.”

Brittany shook her head. “Kyle wasn’t rough with the horses.

He wouldn’t have hurt Gunpowder deliberately. And Gunpow-

der wouldn’t have hurt him deliberately either. All I can think of is that he startled Gunpowder or accidentally hit him with something while he was in the stall. But why would he have been in

Gunpowder’s stall?”

“I have no idea,” Jorge said with a shrug. “The horses had all

been fed and watered for the night before I left. And even if Kyle hurt him, Gunpowder wouldn’t stomp him. Maybe a bite or a kick,

that’s all. He’s high-strung, but he’s a good horse. He’s stressed now, though, won’t even let me brush him. I’ve been talking to

him, trying to calm him down.”

“If anyone can do it, you can.” Brittany glanced at Claire. “He’s our horse-whisperer.”

43

“That’s what Charley said when he introduced us.” Claire won-

dered if Jorge was just wasting his efforts if Gunpowder was go-

ing to have to be put down anyway. But the man obviously really

cared about the horse, so she said nothing. Instead, she turned to Brittany. “So, you were going to introduce me to the other horses, right?”

Jorge tipped his hat and went back to his work. Brittany led

Claire to each of the stalls and introduced the horses that were

in the barn. Then she described and named the ones out in the

pasture with Charley and Hank. When Pedro came back in, grim-

faced and holding the dripping brush he had washed, Brittany in-

troduced Claire to him, too.

“It’s too bad you have to put up with abuse from that Gil char-

acter,” Claire said.

Pedro gave a nervous glance out the barn door, as if checking

for Gil’s return. “
El gringo
es
always
furioso
. As Jorge say, I make easy target.” He sighed and headed for the tack room.

Being an easy target didn’t mean he had to put up with Gil’s

bullying, though. Claire resolved to tell Charley, no matter what Jorge said about Gil’s capability.

“Claire! Brittany!” Jessica called from the corral.

“Time to start up again,” Brittany said.

When they left the barn, they passed Gil smoking a cigarette

outside. He stubbed it out in an ash can set near the port-a-pot-

ties. He strode back into the barn without a glance or word to the women. Claire thought his behavior rude, but then if he had said

anything to them, it might have been even ruder.

44

Just as Brittany and Claire reached the corral, a green Dodge

mini-van drove into the parking lot. Daisy raised her head and

snorted.

“Oh, dear,” Jessica said. “That’s Ana Mendoza’s car. I wonder

why she’s here now. Petey’s session isn’t until three.” She walked toward the parking lot, with Claire and Brittany following.

Ana trudged purposefully up the path under the stable sign,

tugging Petey along with her. When the wind teased her graying

black shoulder-length hair, she impatiently shoved the locks out of her face, revealing dark eyes flashing with anger.

Not grief
, Claire noted with surprise.
Oh dear, this is not going
to go well.

“Ana, I am so, so sorry about what happened to Kyle. Char-

ley and I are heart-broken about it.” Jessica opened her arms and moved forward to hug Ana.

Stepping away, Ana pulled Petey to her side. “We are not here

for your false sympathy,” she said stiffly. “We’re here to pick up a jacket Petey left here Sunday and to tell you he won’t be coming

for therapy anymore.”

Petey’s lips quivered in a sad, confused frown.

Jessica’s arms flopped awkwardly at her sides. “But, but why?

Why stop Petey’s therapy? And false? Our sympathy isn’t false. We loved Kyle! We’re as confused and saddened by his death as you

are.”

Ana pointed a wavering finger at Jessica. “It’s because of your

and Charley’s negligence that Kyle is dead. You keep that danger-

ous horse here, and you exposed Kyle to him, without giving him

proper training.”

45

Claire narrowed her eyes. Those words sounded like legalese—

and like they were rehearsed.

Jessica glanced at Claire and Brittany then back at Ana. “Gun-

powder never acted up before—”

“See, even his name is dangerous!” Ana said. “You probably

named him that because he was likely to blow up. That horse is a

killer and you knew it.”

“No!” Jessica’s face reddened. “All of our male horses have

Western gun-related names, like Sharpshooter, Rifle and Pistol.

None of them are dangerous. That’s why we don’t keep stallions

here.”

“I’m not going to argue with you.” Ana let go of Petey’s hand