Free Catch Rider (9780544034303) by Jennifer H. Lyne Page B

time. Wayne told me about Dee Dee, how she was a champion rider but had a reputation for what he called “funny stuff.” He meant that she gave her horses drugs.
    I had read that people like that were always staying one step ahead of USEF—the United States Equestrian Federation—but sometimes their horses were drug tested at shows. One time, a lady’s horse got disqualified after she’d given him a can of Coke and he’d tested positive for caffeine. Wayne didn’t judge people who played around with the rules unless they were downright inhumane. So for him to make a comment about Dee Dee—that was something.
    I looked for Wes but he wasn’t around. Not like I really cared—I just thought I might run into him. I saw myself in the dirty tack-room mirror, my hair frizzy from sweating, circles under my eyes. Kelly had such smooth, shiny hair, and she was so confident.
    I sat silently in the lunchroom while Uncle Wayne talked horses with the stable hands. I was picking at a blister on the inside of my knuckle at the base of my index finger.
    â€œLet me see your hand,” Wayne said. I showed him my palms, rubbed raw with fat blisters. He reached up into a cabinet, opened a saltshaker, and set it down. He opened his pocketknife and grabbed my hand. I jerked it away.
    â€œFine. It’ll be infected and hurt a hell of a lot more than it does now.”
    I let him slice the blister open and rub salt into it. It burned like hell. I clamped my teeth down and my eyes teared up.
    â€œAfter a few days, you won’t need no gloves.”
    Wayne let me bathe a bay mare in the wash stall. I scrubbed her tail with soap and sprayed it with ShowSheen to repel the dust. I painted her feet with hoof polish, the dark lacquer dripping off the golden brush, leaving mahogany horseshoe prints on the concrete. I could have done it for hours. The mare liked me and closed her eyes sleepily while I worked on her tail. She rested her big head in the crossties and fell asleep.
    I knew I could untangle this horse’s dirty tail every day, clean her stall and a hundred more, wash every damn horse in the field, if I didn’t have to speak to another human being for the rest of my life. Horses trusted me, and I could be myself around them.
    Kelly, Wes, and Dee Dee appeared just as the mare pawed to get out, raking her metal shoe against the concrete, the grinding sound echoing through the barn. When Wes saw me, he smiled and said hello.
    â€œIs someone watching this horse?” Kelly yelled. She sure didn’t miss an opportunity to make somebody look bad. I didn’t answer. I unhooked the mare from the crossties and walked her down the aisle.
    It was time for Kelly’s lesson, and there was activity in the barn. A couple of other riders were getting their horses ready to join her. Her mother was walking down the aisle inspecting horses with her arms crossed.
    I saw a silver Mercedes pull into the driveway and park right next to the building. The driver was an old man who wore an oxford shirt and riding breeches with socks pulled up over them to his knees, worn loafers, and a tweed newsboy cap. His face was pink with gin blossoms. He opened his door, and a pint of vodka, stuffed behind old maps and mail, fell out from the door’s side compartment and clinked on the gravel.
    â€œJesus Christ, Herbert,” said the old lady in the passenger’s seat. She had short gray hair and pink lipstick.
These must be the Wakefields,
I thought.
    â€œNo one saw, Martha,” the man hissed.
    He picked up the flask and tucked it into the door compartment. Two fat Jack Russell terriers spilled out of the car and trotted toward the barn.
    â€œGrandma’s here,” Kelly called out to her mother.
    I tied the mare to a pole and went back to the wash stall to get the fly spray. The Jack Russells trotted down the aisle as I returned. All of the horses ignored them, except one.
    The mare saw