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.