Showdown
By nine A.M., horse trailers and trucks littered the roadside and had already filled up the three large fields loaned every year for the event by local farmers. Vendors from nearby Los Olivos and Santa Ynez, some even from as far afield as Santa Barbara or even Oxnard, had arrived hours earlier, ready to sell everything from fresh-grown fruit and vegetables to candles, soap, furniture, clothing, even ranching equipment to the families who flocked in the hundreds to the event. Some were serious racing fans. Others were more interested in the traditional cowboy events, such as roping and barrel racing, or the more lighthearted competitions, from cake baking to vegetable growing. There were beer stands for the moms and dads, a whole slew of games and attractions for the kids, and of course, the ubiquitous betting booths, ensuring that everybody was kept happy, busy, and, most important of all, spending.
Milly arrived with Dylan at nine fifteen, an hour and a half before she was due to race, and was blown away by the size and scale of it all.
“Holy shit.” She whistled nervously through her teeth as Dylan pulled the trailer into their reserved competitor’s spot close to the racetrack. “I’ve never seen so many people in one place in my life. I thought this was just a local thing.”
“It is,” he said, turning off the engine and unclicking his seat belt. “But ‘local’ in cowboy terms covers a lot o’ ground. Last year they had twelve thousand here on the Saturday. I’d say it’s more ’n that today.”
“D’you think they’ve come to see Ben Devino?” asked Milly.
A winner at Los Alamitos earlier in the season, Devino was the local boy made good and an undoubted rising star in the quarter horse world—not least because, as well as being a terrific jockey, he had the looks of a young Robert Redford.
“I’m sure some of ’em have,” said Dylan, smiling. “And maybe some of ’em have come to see you: Milly Lockwood Groves, the one and only English cowgirl!”
“Yeah, right.” Milly giggled. “I don’t think so, somehow.” But she was grateful for his support all the same. What with Summer being such a bitch to her and Bobby away in LA for her big day, it was nice to have at least one friendly face around.
She knew it was petty and stupid, but ever since she’d seen that bloody Tatler picture of Jasper and Rachel, she’d been gripped by a feeling of inadequacy. Overnight she’d gone from enjoying the thrill of racing again and being quietly proud of her progress in a new and very different sport to feeling like an obscure failure. Rachel had sponsorship deals, for God’s sake. She was riding topflight racehorses at tracks that everyone had heard of. Santa Ynez might as well be Mars for all it meant to people back home. It was depressing.
When Bobby talked about quarter horses, it all sounded so thrilling—network TV coverage, multimillion-dollar purses, speeds unrivaled anywhere else in the horse racing world. But she hadn’t seen much of that so far. Even today’s race, where she’d be competing against at least two nationally known riders, had a purse of only ten thousand dollars. And the only TV crews she’d seen so far were local.
“Let’s see how His Majesty’s doing, shall we?” said Dylan, lowering the back of the new aluminum trailer. Bought with Todd’s money, it was a smart, ultramodern affair with a huge black “H” for Highwood embossed on the side. The joke was that the horses now traveled in much more comfort and style than the humans.
“Hello, lovely.” Milly beamed, running up the ramp to pet Danny, one of the newest colts at Highwood but already one of her favorites. Reaching into her pocket, she held one of her dwindling supply of Polos under the horse’s dry, rubbery lips—she’d been horrified to discover they didn’t sell Polos in America—and grinned as Danny hoovered it up. “That’s for energy,” she said seriously, like a coach addressing his star player. “I want a hundred and ten percent out of you today, boy. Let’s show Bobby what he’s missing.”
As with the other races she’d been to, the atmosphere at Ballard was far more casual than anything she’d seen in England, with competitors and spectators wandering around in a giant free-for-all. With so many people on horseback, it was hard at first to determine who was competing and who wasn’t, but, thankfully, Dylan was on hand to guide her and Danny through the throng.
He led them over toward a long row of trestle tables where a group of men with clipboards were ticking off names on a list and handing out paper bibs printed with numbers to the various riders.
“I feel like I’m at a school sports day,” said Milly as a green bib printed with the number four was pinned unceremoniously to her T-shirt. All the jockeys were in T-shirts and jeans, and only a couple of them, Milly included, had thought it necessary to wear a helmet. “It’s not very professional, is it?”
“Well, sure it is,” said Dylan. “Professional means you get paid, right? You win, you’ll pick up ten thousand dollars. And I’ll get five hundred.”
“You will?” She looked perplexed.
“Sure. I bet on you,” he said proudly. “Ten bucks at fifty to one.”
“Fifty to one?” Milly spluttered. “Fifty to fucking one? Just exactly how shit do they think I am? There are only twelve runners, for God’s sake. How can I be on at fifty to one?”
Ignoring her, Dylan ran through the important information again.
“The green bib means you’re riding in the third race,” he explained. “That’s in about”—he looked at his watch—“fifteen minutes.”
“Shit,” said Milly, coming down from her indignation cloud with a bang. “Fifteen minutes? We’d better get over to the paddock then, no?”
There was, in fact, no paddock, just a rough stretch of grass beside the short, straight racetrack where the jockeys were chatting with one another like they didn’t have a care in the world—some of them were even sipping beer. It was a far cry from the pre-race atmosphere at Newmarket, that was for sure. The early morning cold had evaporated already, replaced by a mid-morning sun that packed a strong enough punch to have people reaching for cold drinks and horses lathering up into foamy, excitable sweats.
Fleetingly, Milly wished Bobby were here to give her some last-minute words of advice or encouragement. But then she pulled herself together. She wasn’t a child. She didn’t need Bobby to hold her hand.
She could do this. She could do it on her own.
“What time did you say she was racing again?” Bobby asked Summer, desperately scrabbling around the kitchen table for his car keys. He’d put them down only a second ago but they seemed to have gone AWOL already.
“Jeez, Bobby, I don’t know, okay?” she replied, unable to keep the irritation out of her voice. Her surprise and joy when he’d walked in the door five minutes ago, a day earlier than expected, soon turned to resentment when she realized it was Milly he had rushed home for. “I think Dylan said eleven, but I’m not sure. All I know is, they left an hour ago, and the Ballard traffic’s always superbad. Just forget it and let me make you somethin’ to eat. There’s no way you’re gonna make it in time.”
“I’m not hungry,” he snapped, flinging papers onto the floor as he searched in vain for his keys. “Goddamn it. Where are they?”
The trip out to Jimmy Price’s had been a disaster. After dinner on the Thursday night, he’d tackled Todd about Milly, expecting him to back off. But instead he’d pushed the point even further.
“It’s no good you trying to hold the girl back,” he insisted. “Eventually she’s gonna outgrow Highwood, and when she does, she’ll need someone to back her.”
“I’ll back her,” said Bobby furiously. “This has nothing to do with you.”
“Sure it does,” said Todd. “You signed a deal with me to run a training stables, remember? I don’t want you flying around the country micromanaging this kid’s career just because you’ve got the hots for her.”
“I do not have the hots for her!”
“Besides,” Todd pressed on, “are you seriously saying you can provide her with the support a guy like Jimmy can offer? The guy makes careers. He creates people
outta nothing, throws hundreds of thousands of dollars, sometimes more, behind his riders. You can’t do that for Milly.”
This conversation had bothered Bobby so much, he barely slept a wink all night. Was he holding Milly back? Was that what he was doing? Was it inevitable that she’d leave him and move on to bigger and better things, as everyone seemed to think?
As a result he spent most of Friday in a foul mood. What little appetite he’d had for milking Jimmy as a contact had now completely disappeared, and the prospect of making fruitless small talk for another forty-eight hours rapidly began to seem unbearable.
He announced at dinner that he had a family emergency that demanded his return to Highwood. It was an obvious lie, but no one questioned him. Before sunup this morning, he’d gotten a taxi back to LA where his truck was waiting and by seven thirty he was headed north on the still relatively empty 101.
As the miles shot by, he found himself plagued by horrible, worrying thoughts. When Todd had said all those things to him about Milly, he wanted to tell him to shut up, that he would damn well manage her career if he wanted to, that it was none of Todd’s goddamn business what he did with his life or hers. But now the creeping realization dawned on him that it was, in fact, Todd’s business. That having a partner meant more than getting the bank off your back and being able to train quarter horses. It also meant a loss of freedom, a loss of control.
He’d been so impatient to get started, to prove to everyone that he could do a better job of running Highwood than Hank, that he’d sold a share in his life, and the land he loved, to a man he barely knew. A man who, increasingly, he found he didn’t much like.
He was far too proud to admit it. But Wyatt had been right all along.
Somehow he’d have to find a way out of his partnership with Todd. In the meantime, the last two days had been a wake-up call as far as Milly was concerned. The vultures were already circling. He’d have to keep a much, much closer eye on her from now on.
“Aha!” he said, catching sight of a glint of silver beneath a pile of open envelopes. “There you are.”
Snatching up the keys, he was halfway out the door when the kitchen phone rang.
“Aren’t you gonna answer that?” said Summer petulantly.
Bobby shrugged. “It’s not my house.” But seeing that she made no move to get it herself, he reluctantly doubled back and, giving her a dirty look, picked up the call.
“Highwood.”
Summer watched in silence as his expression turned from annoyance, to shock, to something not far from panic. After a few “I see”s and “sure, of course”s he put down the receiver and stood there swaying, while all the blood drained from his face.
“Bobby?” She went over to him. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
He stared at her blankly. “I have to get over to Ballard,” he whispered. “Right now.”
The fifteen minutes she spent waiting for her race to be called were the longest Milly could ever remember. Pacing Danny round and round in a slow circle, she tried to focus her energies inward, like Bobby had told her to, and not to pay attention to the gaggle of cowboys staring at her as though she’d just emerged from a UFO. But it was hard.
Unlike traditional racing, quarter horse events were short sprints along ramrod-straight tracks, over almost before they’d begun. Even so, the two warm-up races before the main event seemed to take an absolute age. With every minute that passed she felt her nerves fraying further till it was all she could do to hold on to her reins and breathe in and out.
At last, a laconic voice crackled out through the ancient speaker system, asking all entrants for the third and final race of the morning to make their way down to the starting line.
“Good luck,” said Dylan, smiling up at her. “And for God’s sake, relax a little, wouldya? It’s a horse race, not an execution.”
Everybody else certainly seemed relaxed enough, thought Milly. The slow trickle of cowboys making their leisurely way over to the track, handing their Stetsons, beer bottles, and any other paraphernalia to family and friends, all looked as unconcerned as if they were setting off on a family picnic.
Leaning forward in her saddle, she patted Danny’s neck affectionately, and smiled as he whinnied in response. The love affair between the two of them was entirely mutual.
“You’ve got to help me, sweetheart,” Milly murmured into his cashmere-soft ear. “Okay? Let’s make this the last time anyone gives us odds of fifty to one.”
The starting line they’d been summoned to turned out to be little more than a simple white crease of chalk, drawn by hand across the grass. (This thing was getting more like sports day by the minute.) Glancing to her left, Milly saw the godlike figure of Ben Devino on his beautiful buckskin colt, Domino. It was funny to think that this time last year she’d been mad about Robbie Pemberton. Now he seemed tiny and doll-like in comparison to the divinely brawny Ben. Like most quarter horse jockeys, Devino could have made a light lunch of Robbie Pemberton and still had room for dessert.
“Hi.” Tipping his hat he smiled at her, reducing her already shaky stomach to pure liquid.
“Hi.” Nervously, she smiled back. Bloody hell, he was fit, almost chiseled and brooding enough to give Bobby a run for his money. Almost.
Damn bloody Bobby. She knew she was being childish. Of course he had to work, and that came first. But she still wished he’d cared enough to rearrange a few things and be here for her today.
“On your marks, boys.” The starter raised his pistol in the air, and Milly instinctively leaned forward to reassure Danny. In an instant all thoughts of Devino, Bobby, and every other man in the world vanished from her mind. All that existed was the five hundred yards of straight track stretching out in front of her.
A hush fell over the chattering crowds of spectators, lining the course on rough, tiered wooden benches. It seemed to Milly as though they all took one long, collective breath, before the crack of a single shot rang out through the silence, and they were off.
Bobby had drummed two key, unbreakable rules into her head in the last two months: to move back a little in her saddle for balance and to keep loose with her reins. As the gun went off, she forgot both of them, throwing her body so far forward she could almost feel the tips of Danny’s ears against her belly and digging both heels into his flank for all she was worth. The result was that the surprised pony shot forward like a heat-seeking missile. Breaking sharply from post four, he surged straight into a half-length lead over Domino, the favorite. The only question now was could he hold it.
On such a short, straight track, with horses reaching speeds of over forty miles per hour, there was no time for the sort of tactical race planning Milly had learned in England. This was all about instinct. She really had no idea what she was doing. But whatever it was, it seemed to be working.
Dylan, watching her from a front row seat a few feet short of the finishing post, shook his head in wonder. He’d seen her in training and at the local race in Santa Ynez, so he already knew she was good. But today was like nothing he’d ever witnessed before. She rode like a woman possessed.
Whooping encouragement as the tight group of leaders came closer—there was so much dust it was hard to see who was where, but the top four were lengths ahead of the others—he was surprised to see Bobby, head down and scowling, pushing his way through disgruntled fellow spectators toward him.
“You been watching this?” he yelled through the din, once Bobby was within earshot. “Milly’s been phenomenal. Aren’t you supposed to be in LA, by the way?”
“Never mind that. I need to talk to you,” Bobby shouted back. But his words were carried away by the roar of the crowd as sixteen hooves thundered past, hurtling toward the finish with all the speed and power of runaway trucks.
Through the frenzy, Bobby could see that Milly was in second place, behind Devino, but there was hardly a whisker in it. Her style was horrific—she was all over the place, leaning much too far forward, barely in control
—but somehow she was managing to wrench every last ounce of power from Danny, who looked magnificent with his rippling, oversized hindquarters and long, thin neck, bounding forward like a giant hare.
In seconds it was over. Milly came tearing past the finishing post, one long pigtail of hair flying out behind her, apparently neck and neck with Ben Devino.
“Awesome!” Dylan punched the air. Then, turning excitedly to Bobby, “Did she win? If she won, I just made myself a ton o’ money.”
“She didn’t win,” said Bobby, deadpan.
He was already making his way down to the area of open grass where the jockeys were gathering for postrace congratulations or commiserations with family and friends. Jogging to keep up, it dawned on Dylan for the first time that something was seriously wrong.
“Hey, man,” he said, resting a concerned hand on his friend’s shoulder as they finally drew level. “What is it?”
“Bobby!” Milly’s shriek of delight could be heard all around the showground. Leaping from the saddle, she sprinted over to where he and Dylan were standing and, throwing caution to the wind in her elation, launched herself into his arms.
“You came! I can’t believe you came!”
“Milly . . .” he began, but her excitement overwhelmed him.
“How much did you see? Did you see the whole race?” she jabbered. “Omigod, Danny was amazing. Amazing! Ben Devino only beat us by, like, a foot or something. Ben Devino! And they had us on at fifty to one, did Dyl tell you? Can you believe the cheek of it, fifty to fucking one? Sorry,” she said, misinterpreting Bobby’s stony face. “’Scuse my language. But, honestly, don’t you think that’s ridiculous?”
“Milly,” he said again. This time she heard him.
“Yes?” she giggled. “What? You look awfully serious, you know.”
“I’ve got some bad news. I think you’d better sit down.”