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But when I am spent,I find I’m in some new circle of hell, whichever one it is where just thinking of the man I ought to hate in every possible way makes me feel so good.
At least Mr. Wigginsloves me, climbing up onto the bed and turning circles on my feet.
Sleep comes,and with it dreams of the man I love to hate.
The morning breaks,the birds as sing-songy as ever, and the barn already in motion. I rarely sleep through my alarm, but I guess I needed it. I scrub the remnants of last night’s horror from my face, kicking the scarlet silk dress out of the way. My barn clothes are good enough for me, grass smears and horse shit and muck included.
“Lolly!”Gustavo shouts up the stairs. “Now!Ven rápido!Ahorita!”
I’mdown the stairs in a flash.
“Lolly, the manure!”Mariano’s walking Tattle just outside the huge barn doors, his face creased in worry, and I immediately know it’s colic: every horsewoman’s worst nightmare. “The sand test.”
Well,shit! We’re there already? That means I’ve missed a ton. I race to the wall cabinet and snag a Ziploc bag, dart into Tattle’s stall, and grab a lump of her manure. At least she’s passed some—that’s a reassuring sign there’s no blockage.
“We’ve administered the Banamine.”Gustavo brings a water bucket and fills my Ziploc bag halfway. “Mariano has been walking her gently, with rests, for the last two hours.”
Damn,damn, double damn. The vet’s involved, meds onboard, I’m just here for diagnostics. I shake the bag, squishing it from side to side to break up Tattle’s stool. “Was she down in her stall when you found her?”
Gustavo shakes his head.“Still as a statue when I came in, but I could see she’d been pawing. Even then, she was still reaching for her food like it was going out of fashion.”
What a darling horse,trying the only way she knew how to calm her stomach’s ills. The manure’s distributed through the Zippy, which means all we can do is watch and wait. “Has anyone called Stephanie?”
Gustavo makes a face,then shakes his head. Of course it only makes sense that I be the one to do the honors. I dial the number on Tattle’s stall card—and Stephanie’s phone goes straight to voicemail. Of course. The situation isn’t the sort of thing I want to leave in a message, so I hang up.
The vet’struck pulls up, voices loud in the yard. Mariano’s reeling off her symptoms, quiet and gentle as he strokes her neck. “Her temperature was normal before we gave her the Banamine, but she’s passed nothing—no gas, no manure—since we found her.”
The vet checksTattle’s gums, her temperature again, and then pulls out her stethoscope, putting it to the horse’s belly, then moves to another spot and listens again. Finally, she straightens. “Do you want to listen?”
I step forward. “I do.”The vet keeps the stethoscope pressed to Tattle’s side but hands the headset to me. Sure enough, it sounds like ocean waves crashing against a beach. Not normal, in other words.
“We can manage her pain,give her some bigger guns than what you’ve already administered. I’d like to try tubing her, giving her some mineral oil and psyllium to get things moving. We could stop there and just monitor her response to treatment. But really, I’d like to take her in for some imaging, see what we’re really dealing with here. Make sure she doesn’t have a blockage or a twist.”
My throat closes.A blockage or a twist is the worst possible outcome. Everyone who’s been around horses long enough knows at least one who’s died from such a thing. My nose burns with unshed tears. “I haven’t been able to reach her owner, so I don’t know…”
“There is no question.”Mariano steps in to answer. “We do what it takes to get her right again and stay that way.”
Gustavo pullsthe trailer around and slowly, with murmurs that are barely words, Mariano walks Tattle up the ramp. Sure enough, the trailer works its magic and Tattle poops—but it’s diarrhea, another clue.
By the timeshe’s loaded and ready for transport to the veterinary hospital, we have a definitive answer. The manure has separated out, the sand falling to the bottom of the Zippy. “Sand colic,” I say out loud, though from the other evidence we all had a good idea what we were looking at.
Mariano takesthe bag from me. “I know no one in the barn would ever allow such a thing to happen. The stalls have mats to prevent exactly this. Our turnouts are grass, and never overgrazed.” He speaks over me, so Gustavo is included in the release from blame. “We all know who rides and reads on her phone and does not pay attention to what her horse does, let alone puts in her mouth. If Tattle has eaten the sand, it will have been while Stephanie rode.”
And there we have it.We’re not to blame. We’ve all seen Stephanie texting away while Tattle grabbed for scraps along the sandy bridle path. Mariano will defend us if she tries to make us the fall guys.
But where wasthatgentle,kind, honorable man last night when I needed him? He’s so full of contradictions all I can do is turn from his gaze and get back to work.
But damnif those eyes don’t say he wants me, I’ll get down on all fours and eat sand myself.
CLEAN BODY, DIRTY MIND
Mariano Arias. High Winds Polo Club. Palm Beach, Florida.
My night was fitful and full of Lolly. My middle-of-the-night churnings led me to a single realization: if I give up polo, I can stitch together a life as a horse trainer that at least pays for the foundation but doesn’t ask me—or Lolly, who I’ve already injured—to move forward with this patronage plan.
Lolly, who surrendered to me on the dance, her body telling me things her heart could not. Her eyes asking what her mouth would not. Each step we took, a question answered, turning and gliding and covering that dance floor with a tale so old it barely needs repeating. We fit together, she and I, as few ever do.
There’s a complication—not insurmountable but somewhat delicate. It seems there’s a potential patroness who might be willing to sponsor my season. Juliette Parkinson, who invited herself to dance with me, was charm itself. A lively conversationalist, her attention never wavered as she covered everything from polo stats and rankings to an archeological dig she attended in the summer and the seminar series she was putting together on the ecological importance of the Florida Everglades. The woman has boundless energy, eclectic tastes, and a nimble wit. I’d be lucky to call her my friend. She wishes it so, having already summoned me to dine with her.
