Trickster's Odds

By Marcie Murray

In Marcie Murray's second novel, Trickster's Odds, a young Native American doctor, framed by political enemies for the murder of his beloved wife, has become a federal fugitive. Abetted by a noted Hollywood celebrity with his own agenda, Trennen Divinghawk now masquerades as a racehorse groom far from his traditional home. While waiting for crucial evidence to exonerate him, he continues his backstretch and migrant camp medical practice on the side, treating complaints from cat scratch fever and snakebite to gunshot wounds -- including his own.

He chances upon stable worker, Mikey Curry, felled by a track-side collision with a bolted horse. She wants -- upon reviving -- and other than obscuring her checkered past, to keep her runaway sister safe from their dad's widow, a vicious crank, also the beneficiary of his community property. The woman seeks to have a court declare Mikey missing, presumed deceased by summer's end, in order to defeat an escheat loophole in Mikey's dad's bequest of his land to his daughter.

All Mikey need do (besides stay alive, win back her home and recover her slightly-compromised sanity) is prevent one deep-cover FBI agent and random teams of US Immigration cops from arresting "El medico Joaquin". All while she works to improve odds on the wily Trickster's love -- he being the only man clever and compassionate enough to mend her spirit as well as her heart.

Readers of Murray's previous novel, One Diamond Shy, will discover a surprise link in Trickster's Odds, scheduled for release June 19, 2016.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marcie Murray
• Release date: Jun 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311603241

Marcie Murray

About the AuthorMarcie Murray currently makes her home in an Oregon Coast Range hamlet west of Portland. Riparian woodlands there host intriguing places to create. Her hobbies include painting and drawing; dreaming up improbable home improvement projects; reading epic historical novels, and deciphering her Snowshoe Siamese cat's English-with-Limited-Consonants requests.She has worked in advertising agencies as an art director, illustrator and graphic designer; also a bullpen artist for commercial printers. Other jobs included stints with the Forest Services [U.S. and Oregon State]; and as a trail guide for horseback outfitters.Four seasons of Thoroughbred racing hot-walker and groom experiences on Del Mar [CA] Turf Club's backstretch, inspired her second novel, "Trickster's Odds", [prequel to "One Diamond Shy"] also published at Smashwords. She thanks you for the read, and encourages mail to: [e-mail].

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TRICKSTER’S ODDS

A Novel by

Marcie Murray

© 2016, Marcie Murray

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or

transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or

otherwise, without written permission from the author.

Smashwords Edition License Statement

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is wholly and completely a work of fiction, references to people, businesses, events, organizations and locales save those existing in historical reality are inventions of the author and intended only to provide a sense of authenticity. All other characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any medicinal remedies or medical procedures mentioned herein are not necessarily endorsed by either the author or any medical establishment.

In Loving Memory of Loren and Arden

And A Toast:

To the ones who suit us

and the ones

we suit of kind

may the fractious pair unite somewhere

to guide us home betimes.

Table of Contents

Prologue – A Friend in Need

One – Post Parade

Two – Mishap

Three – Unwieldy Science

Four – Snabbled

Five – The Shy Retiring Lad

Six – A Bit Left to the Tale

Seven – Blood Money

Eight – Glass Hammer

Nine – Assault

Ten – No Future in Soothsaying

Eleven – Heat

Twelve – Payback

Thirteen – In Quest of the Promise

Fourteen – The Doctor Will See You Now

Fifteen – Hiding Rhinos

Sixteen – Haute Couture

Seventeen – The Actor Unmasked

Eighteen – The Doctor On Call

Nineteen – Dio Mediante

Twenty – Another Office Call

Twenty-one – Truth-Telling Circle

Twenty-two – The Backstroke

Twenty-three – The Friday-faced Gent

Twenty-four – Dinner Invitation

Twenty-five – Voices of Home

Twenty-six – Campfire Stories

Twenty-seven – Midterms

Twenty-eight – Disguise

Twenty-nine – Fun's Over

Thirty – Dodging Potholes on the Good Red Road

Thirty-one – Investigation

Thirty-two – Inquisition

Thirty-three – Choosing Up Sides

Thirty-four – A Sloppy World

Thirty-five – Melancolic Baby

Thirty-six – Hijacked

Thirty-seven – Bodeful Dreaming

Thirty-eight – Prison with Pergola

Thirty-nine – The Threat

Forty – The Hard Way

Forty-one – Requiem

Forty-two – Damsel in Distress

Forty-three – Aphonia

Forty-four – Keeping Clear of Trouble

Forty-five – Out of Bounds

Forty-six – Skunked

Forty-seven – Either/Or

Forty-eight – 'Fraidy-Cat

Forty-nine – Castello Pasco

Fifty – Fired

Fifty-one – Standing in Line

Fifty-two – The Deportee

Fifty-three – Ditching the Dilettante

Fifty-four – Fresh Out of Nehi

Fifty-five – Border Jumper

Fifty-six – Golden Heartache

Fifty-seven – Lightning from the East

Fifty-eight – A Fork in the Trail

Fifty-nine – Commotion

Sixty – The Waiting Room

Sixty-one – The Bribe

Sixty-two – Confession

Sixty-three – Double-Cross

Sixty-four – Reordering the Convivial World

Sixty-five – Contrary Medicine

Sixty-six – Some Reason for Hope

Sixty-seven – Aftermath

Sixty-eight – Epilogue – A Year Gone

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Another Novel by this Author

Glossary

Prologue

A Friend in Need

Only telling you this for your own good, Doc, so don't eat me.

Rance Aldred eyed his companion uneasily. And would you kindly snuff that Mona Lisa smirk. I'm serious.

Montana's steady drizzle pounded the windshield of his friend's turquoise-and-rust fifties' pickup, impervious to the squeak of struggling old wiper blades.

It's not a custom of the People to devour bearers of bad news – at least with the soup course, said his driver serenely, staring out at streams of muddy water trickling off the pickup's hood. In courtesy he did this, instead of gazing rudely into the eyes of the noted Hollywood celebrity he'd just driven to the Billings airport's private jet hangar.

"Yeah, well m' friend, the bad news is: your Good Red Road runs a damned bumpy washboard, if you mix in this little ruckus they're set to throw. You of all people know res politics. Your thinking tonight's protest will go down peaceful is pure Crazy. I don't care how many noble dreams you get or Sun dances you pledge!"

Well, don't worry. Plenty of work I left at the clinic to keep me out of trouble. And all that firewood we used up doesn't restock itself.

Aldred gave the stubborn profile's features a final scan. Although his own camera-ready Anglo face had served him well so far, he still envied the rugged planes and angles in the yet-youthful Native American visage here beside him.

Trennen Divinghawk had claimed he was well over voting age, though he wouldn't say how far. Also covetable, the wry humor this late twentieth-century warrior used as weaponry, oftentimes aimed at piercing Aldred's own illusions of First Peoples' life.

"I'd get the door for you, Kimosabe, but better you get the cow shit on those genuine made-in-Taiwan moccasins," jibed the doctor.

Rance grinned and swung the Ford's passenger door open to step out.

No problem. Head home to your bride and bear down on the forty-ninin'. And would you please tell your serious fox of a cousin, even if she doesn't pick up, I'll just keep dialing. I got dimes. Oh yeah, and what the hell's the word for g'bye in Cheyenne, anyway?

Ain't one. Unless we take you out in battle, we always figure we'll meet each other again, somewhere.

"Ah. Well then, see you this summer, Kola."

That's a Sioux 'friend', Friend.

Okay. What’s a Cheyenne friend, then?

Without waiting, the actor had already shut the truck's door. He pulled his heavy canvas-cloth travel bag with its many zippered pockets out of the bed, tossing it easily over his shoulder. A casual salute to the man in the pickup and off he sauntered in tailored denims over his hand-stitched cowboy boots for the flight back to Los Angeles.

"In your case I guess it’d be ve'ho, murmured the doctor ruefully. A spider’s attention span being just about as developed."

You are neither 'good' nor 'red', you afflicted cow-slog faking it as a road, Trennen Divinghawk told the worn-out gravel track roundly, with your ruts to swallow a bison herd whole – did we actually have one.

Over the road's next rise glowed Bald Ridge's small collection of lights. Every bulb in the village seemed lit. There goes our peaceful repose tonight. Generally, nobody stayed up around here much past nine, unless they were partying. Or marching. Even running on Tsistsista Time the hour now was well past eleven.

He decided to check on the small, plain storefront clinic and lab he and Nena had built with the aid of a few friends – Rance Aldred included – before heading around back to climb the stairs to the one-bedroom apartment Nena was always brightening with bouquets of Añil del Muerto. Its leaves smelled like rotting meat to him, but she insisted on harvesting its handsome sunflowers from nearby roadside culverts to stick in their collection of gas station freebie hi-ball glasses – or chemistry lab beaker sets – whichever lay handiest. Their spray air-freshener bill was the highest in town, he reckoned.

The weed might indeed work as an effective anti-inflammatory for reducing hemorrhoids or even soothing sore gums, but he preferred limiting exposure to it in the form of capped vials of salve that didn't insult olfactory organs 'til absolutely needed in the practice.

After a full day's work and the long round-trip drive, he was exceedingly tired; 'way ready to hug Nena to him. Maybe tonight she'd forgive him for not making love to her incredible bod. All he wanted right now was a couple hours' restorative sleep. Only four more miles to go....

One slow cruise past the clinic's front door would work, he decided. No point in getting out of – aw shit! No point, in fact, until the unmistakable bustle at the community hall other side of the Pow-Wow Jiffy-Pak changed his mind. Silhouetted bodies moving in and around it showed both adults and the smaller forms of kids playing out 'way past their bedtimes.

He parked across the clinic's entrance in case things got weird, climbed out, shut and locked the old Ford's door.

"Just keep going, Ve'ho, this ain't your beef," piped a young male voice from behind him. He whirled to find twelve-year-old Yermo Marrón standing there. Small-statured, poorly nourished, unable to achieve his age-related healthy body mass – like a lot of kids here – he figured the boy posed little physical threat.

One glance at the small face, however, and the doctor moved apart a step. The youngster's hand was rummaging in a pocket. The kind of frustrations kids lugged around these days Trennen knew well, but he also knew himself looked upon by some folks here as part of the problem. The physician was, after all, half white, or of divided peoples, as his first name implied.

Yermo, how you doin'? his pediatrician asked him kindly, and watched the boy's sneer lighten to a half-grin.

'M okay, Doc. That stuff you gave me cured the trots good.

Glad to hear it. What can I do for you tonight?

Nuthin' – 'cept can you take a look at my Dad's eye?

Can and will. What's wrong?

It's been punched, looks kinda shitty.

How long?

'Bout a week now.

He out here tonight?

Naw, home watchin' the Indi'ns/Dodgers game. Said he'd come down after.

Home's a good place. How come you're not with him?

"Aw, dunno. Guess I'm just pissed at him. Like how can he back the council letting that damn bootlegger think he's runnin' the show, while he takes ve'ho bucks to screw everybody else on the res!"

Huh. Is yelling, burning stuff, and punching out folks you know, the way to fix that?

The boy smiled,

Mebbe not, but bustin' up fights with a li'l noise might be. Away he darted, before Divinghawk could protest. No choice but follow Marrón's bolt down the street, into the community center full of bodies likely to be stirred up worse by one kid detonating a pocketful of cherry bombs.

Only after he was released from jail and came to, groggy, stiff, and lying in some God forsook roadside culvert, did he think to question his choice – when? Last night? – for the first time. Mêlées and medics – not a good combination, Doc Dumb-ass. A look about him, beneath a three-quarter moon May sky pricked with starlight, gave little illumination.

Struggling to his knees, his palms groped mud, prairie grass hummocks, and a nasty broken bottle shard that slit and sank deep into the heel of his left hand. Launched up then, two halting steps propelled him into a trip-and-sprawl over a bulk, detail on it hidden from view by an overgrown mass of those stinky sunflowers. The bulk never moved. Its frame he judged small – a child or a woman – until he rolled it over to stare into the face.

After that, he cared nothing about the blood coating his left hand cradling the back of Nena's shot-away skull. In the right, his own ancient revolver was gripped. Nor did he care when the reservation police cars, light-bars whirling, screeched to a stop beside him where he lay rocking his wife and gasping, having dragged her body out of the ditch as far as the gravel verge.

ONE

Post Parade

Sunday, Too Damn Early. July Whatever, 1973. San Dieguito River Valley

Twice yesterday Davy Leary had warned me of breaking fast alone before sun-up at the greasy spoon across the racetrack's empty parking lot.

Likely himself’s Guinness glass had sat half-empty more than once. Those sad spaniel eyes 'neath their wire-rimmed Ben Franklins glowered at me in the counsel, likely for my doubting sage advice from a man of thirty – nigh four years my senior.

Spindle-shanked he was, and eucalyptus-tall compared to the likes of Puck-sized me. Still, a well-favored fella he came, of Celtic nook, smiggy chin and collar-length mousy thatch. Picking his fizz from a crowd of laborers in a nineteenth-century tintype would be a task.

After his fashion, at me he'd peer frequently – though the first here to befriend me – likely from some daft notion of rescuing a wildflower from his bulldozer Man's World. Scant idea had he, 'twas but a budding locoweed he'd scruple to save.

Irked at his shadowing I was, seeking a private word with Libby. My fair sister had been on the dodge of me the half-week now, as though I'd turned some deputy sheriff out to arrest her shop-pilfering habits.

Fault me would ye? I'd demanded of Davy upon his cornering me a third time in the stable feed room – likely for the stammering of another objection he'd dreamt up so.

Rubbing his long-bed, stubbly jaw he'd sighed before replying,

"S-setting yourself up a t-target of scumbags claiming 'a woman's place isn't on the backside, but on her backside'? Yeah."

Would he be after knowing me at all on a week's acquainting? Likely not. 'Twas him living the carefree rambling litchup whilst chasing some engineer's degree, or aimlessly roaming the backcountry in his vintage Willys'. Never did he ask who my people or situation might be. Not that I'd be craving to spill such history, but the amadán might at least have granted me the pleasure of refusing him such.

As 'twas, I warned him,

Bugger-orf, Davy Lad. Since age fifteen, about the world I've racketed – enough to pilot me own course, anyroad.

That a three years' confining at Cabazon Youth Correctional came a fine teacher of such a drom, he needn't hear.

Yeah? Well then, maybe you'll also get the folly of bolting a door with a boiled carrot.'

"Will I now?" 'Twas to chuckle at the quaint maxim.

An ol' English saying. I think you get my drift. And the name's 'David'.

"Sorry Davy, not old or Bully Jack enough, though a bit of drifting I'd know."

"So what is this chump job's appeal? Only things riskier than the dudes here are the nags."

Despite his pity for a greenhorn, Davy's esteem for folk – bound by whatever situation into our humble profession – came harsh. Likely, on ending his post-grad course, he'd give the lot of us rascal gomerels short shrift, though muck stalls he did, same as we.

My answer: Och, merely about makin' me fortune, Yer Honor!

Yeah. Big money here, all right: grossing a buck a horse. His toothy grin replaced nerviness briefly. Add it to the odd ten-spot you'll make on your guinea stake wins, IRS is probably writing you up a whole new tax bracket even now.

"Welladay. My kit of choices cinched down to hold but a pair, and always owning the tinker's fancy for a prime grai – em – horse...."

Whozat visitin' in the feed room? growled a voice. I better find it's four-legged rats and git me a new cat. A dim view our boss, Hort Bristol, took of socializing.

G'luck with your 'adventure', muttered Davy with a shrug. I'd to admire the deft nipping up of a full grain sack he tossed over his spare shoulder and carted away.

"Yerra, luck 'tis for me, where Mister Bing Crosby croons of 'surf meeting turf' each day. One grand adventure full of good cess, waking each morrow to the rooster's song."

This morrow's grand adventure being one of me lying belly-flat in a dry gulch filled with rabbitbrush and tumbleweeds – and not from any peculiar favoring of such. All breakfast intents had propped short at the sudden bang of a car backfire. To me it sounded a blast more like a gunshot.

Down in dust I'd slammed, the better to scrabble on all fours through the parking lots to the backyard of Hiram Caliber's barns, worming through brush and duff 'til I found the tarmac. Thorns clawed me tits for the sweatshirt zipper working its own merry way south. A heavy coast fog still shrouded the San Dieguito river valley. Its misty curtains wavered in the sluggish breeze. Mingling in them might save me. Socializing with the dirt likely would prove an even shrewder bet.

Och! If 'tis ending me ye seek, Erna, no need of a gun here. Bury me I will in the somewhere I'm neither craving nor wanted. At least grant a clock-tick to pluck stickers from me – OW!

There a sting to scalp, as a skull-sized river rock exploded a foot before me fizz.

Bony elbows joined jean-clad knobby knees and sneaker-shod toes then, in propelling me up the arroyo embankment. A scarper into the tracker parking rows won shelter.

'Twixt a wee ugly gray sedan with Nuke Nixon! bumper stickers, and a rusty blue pickup, I'd to dodge. The shots seemed to have halted – for the moment. Mayhap I'd not yet squandered the last of dumb cess this day.

Spent as a first wage draw, in I crawled 'neath leggy bushes lining the stable's backyard fence. Safety here: a yank of the links, a squeeze through the gringo-dubbed wetback hole and replacing the fence board would rescue me from the moment's peril.

That being the plan, what whim paused, then rounded me to peer back out over my path? Tilted so, the perch I lost, bowling smack into a scarecrow crouched behind me, likely bound for the same place.

¡Chingale! came his irritated hiss. No genial greeting intended in this word – as I'd belatedly learnt of a couple of our stable's entertained grooms.

¡Perdón! I blurted, adding it to fluttering mits.

A swift glance skipped o'er me from alerted eyes in a man's fizz full of startling natural grace, but away he pulled, pronto. Did we trade ghosts of grins, I'd not hazard, for next moment, spikey-leafed oleander shadows swallowed him.

Through the chain-link fence hole I crawled, pushing aside the plywood board on its nether side, thinking me: Safe. Rush-hour had ended. First day of week two, and back I came, like any workday commuter mildly pleased at dodging certain death.

The rock shard's nick yet burned in me scalp. A quick peek into a water bucket one of the grooms had drawn and left here, reflected a wan fizz with eyes big as sloe-plums. Its hairline, temple and cheek-knob came festooned with twin crimson streams.

A wee penknife I dug from jeans. Hacking a fringe of bangs from red locks pulled free of the washerwoman bun took precious moments. Frantic work covered the gash with only the yard light-lit bucket for a mirror. The seepage I blotted, inflicting added smarting to the sting. Another squint in the pail showed more leaked sap than I'd normally share with the world. So too, I'd hold close the huffed breaths and blurring sight.

Och then, no bowlin' over, Lackeen, on such a hen-witted excuse as swooning at sighting blood!

Still, stable yard property rose 'neath me toes. Or mayhap 'twas weary gams folding like a church supper card table. Dimly, I noted a sawhorse joining me in the fall.

And there with it I'd have bided – save for the full pail overturned. Two gallons drenched me, brisket to collarbone, then drained off, pooling mud about the back of me yud.

In groggy due time, and after a clamber up to right us all, a cotton saddlecloth I snabbled from a clothesline strung 'twixt two of the barn roof's rafter tails. Into the pail's fleeing rivulets I dunked the cloth – both for wetting whistle and stanching the gash. A look about me found my wee transistor radio hard by, itself also plunked in the mud. 'Twas yet trilling Good Morning Star Shine.

Next moment, the gravelly voice of our boss I could hear ranting in the near-distance,

Just can't git good barn help no more...!

The towel found the bucket again. From a hastily-grabbed garden hose, I ran more water to float the rag. A gallon tin of creosote I added, watching as the brown disinfectant roiled into white suds.

Och, Jaysus, 'twould be pleasin' keepin' this job....

"...Like I'm saying, ain't none 'round here. You, Rook! Where'd your bud go?"

Striding into the backyard through the breezeway 'twixt the barns appeared our jockey-sized boss swipe. Hort's yellow tobacco stream splatted in the dirt 'twixt me sneakers even in tossing me a halter. "Shit, are we playin' Statues here? Move it or lose it, Rook!"

No rise to the fly from me. Matter-of-course came the hoo-rahing of greenhorns here.

The taunting ended to resume his bitching to Davy who'd be leading a big sorrel colt and its rider into the wash racks:

They're either wetbacks, cons, or damned pussies! And ain't the pussies always back here doin' God-knows-what, while the rest of us puts in a day!

Yessir. Davy replied blandly. Already he'd caught my grimace and tossed me a wink.

That so? came from the colt's exercise rider – one of the club of deplored females, much the same size as me. Biggest choice 'twixt us, she'd be the one gave Hort a cocky grin. The long-striding daylighter she halted before us. 'Twas in me to envy her riding-habit of brimless schooling helmet, royal-blue warm-up jacket topping a white turtleneck sweater, russet leather shotgun chaps over buff-colored breeches, and polished top boots. Over her shoulder she flipped a long braid, black as mine had been only last week.

My hotwalker job charging me with ...receiving, holding, and walking cool the stable's exercised horses... in I slipped to halter the colt. His puffed plumes in the chill morning air warmed me, even as he snuffled at the rip in me yud. Too close for comfort I judged this, telling him sharp,

Get on wit' ye then!

On his snort, away I ducked to dodge his sassy feint. Sweat washed his shoulders and lathered 'twixt his hindquarters as Hort took stock of his form.

Soft as custard, ain'cha, ya Bastard. How'd he go, Cass?

Hort's carelessly-grabbed halter for the colt being too small, with its clasp I fumbled. Busy pulling off leg wraps and bell boots, Davy reached up without a glance to hand me the bigger halter slung over his shoulder. About the animal's neck I slipped it whilst Cass pulled the rest of her tack from her ride.

A slight grimace she gave in answering Hort's query, Regular.

Yeah, but he'll tighten up, Hort decided. Bosses must think he's got jam or they wouldn't be daylightin' 'im. Bet he keeps clockers hoppin', tryna nab his fracts.

"Doubt they'd be thrilled today, even if they could find him in this soup." Cass muttered.

"Mebbe not – aw Fuckit. Like the yard needs another shit-load of mud, Puss? Kill the damn tap, ya dumbass Rook!"

Another voice chimed in:

Hortie, be nice! 'S ladies here.

"Yeah? Where?"

One better suiting the word had wandered in – a stately amazon in a lime pantsuit, all Playboy model mascara and tangerine lipstick – but Janie Doe had a vendor badge and Darby Saddlers Tack to sell the backstretch stables.

So, Hi-Calibers, what'll I do you for? Out came her pencil and order pad. "Hortie-darlin', Darb just got in this awesome bitty cat o’ nine tails – genuine brass-studded handle, perfect for the backside – and you know you want it!"

"Now you know Bowen orders our tack, Baby. Hort replied. He'll be along soon as the county drunk tank empties."

Janie pouted, rolling her eyes. "Anybody else accountable here? Where'd Gabe go? You do know there's two front-side suits steaming like shit piles in your office already? – Hey!" She'd to dodge off as the colt’s big hindquarters swung at her without warning.

Dave, scram, I got him, Hort appeared 'twixt Davy and the horse. "You get Rubidium, and dammit, hold onto the fucker this time –! Aw, what the hell you doin', Rook? Toldja to kill the damn tap! Where is that other fool chick?"

Curry, Sor. Mikey Curry. With two r’s. Wasn't I at the tap already, the tip-end of the colt's lead shank in one mit, doing Hort's bidding with the other, but unable to apprise him of Libby's direction.

"Cass! Stick around. Got another one goin' next set."

"Yo. Coorrry Two-Rs, mucho gusto. Cass Elkington." She'd the girth, her saddle and cloth from the colt's back. The reins she pushed up to the leather crownpiece atop the colt's cropped bridle path 'twixt his long ears. The headstall she slipped off easily over his face, and the bit from his mouth. After rinsing the metal in Hort's bucket, a handshake she thrust out but dropped as quick, in order to stare startled, straight at me.

Huh. I know a doc won't charge much to fix that scratch.

Her forefinger she put to me yud, wiping up a new trickle of red, then reached out and coolly pulled up me sweatshirt zipper a pinch. Off she turned, to find Janie in her path.

"'Scuse me, Ma'am."

Janie stood firm. 'Twould only be meself close enough to hear her hushed,

Busted, Sugar Britches. Gimme back m' toy.

The rider's graceful brows went from passive to puckered. She turned to Hort, still briskly sponging the colt.

"D'jou set good furniture on my next ride – or that shit Darby sold ya?" The frayed saddle girth she caught up to dangle before Janie's nook, but Janie countered,

Cheap Fred sold you that crap. Our stuff's Guild quality.

Glares lobbed 'twixt the two women. Cass’s shoulder wacked Janie's solid arm on her way past, whilst asking me,

Curry Two-Rs, ya got a shed or a roomie yet? Mine's wore out her welcome.

At my denial, Janie tossed her golden fall of curls.

Hortie, you can dropkick this baby butch any time!

Cass looked a moment as though she'd go after the goddess, fists clenched, but came to a stop at Hort's call,

"My black filly goes next, Girl. Past that, you're free to deck the bitch. Hey. Cassita, hear me? F' fucksake, wake up!"

Gosh whiz, Uncle Hortie, Cass 'rounded, Rankest nag in the barn you save for my last? A sigh, then quieter to me, Doc's office hours run 'til noon after works, in the utility yard, other end of T barn.

Och, no need. I'm grand.

Huh. Think you'd be 'grander', dodging lockjaw – with all the germs here. I'd find him. But hey, you look sharp enough to ride your own line. G'luck, Darlin'. Don'cha wish you was me.

That I did once again.

TWO

Mishap

Sunday, 5:46 a. m.

Alas, wasn't I only Aenidt Fiona O' Curráin, decent cess-blessed, but not quite clever enough to keep our strayed hotwalker from singling out randy backside pony boys to prat. A wracked ruin today's candidate would likely be the now.

All I'd asked of my half-sister: Keep seemly, Lib, and leave off finking me out to yer mum.

Yerra and Oi will, she'd mimicked me with her cupid's bow moue, Soon's you hand over my ten-spot.

Anybody, not knowing Lib, would see her a hapless baby bird fallen from its nest. Once rescued, however, what, wisely, did one do – with herself so hungry for all life's temptings?

Other than stuffing hamburger in her beak, to be sure. Those oh-so-busy fledgling wings needed stretching to their limits. Since her mitch of the school where she'd been dumped by a mum piking off once again to squander the spoils of our cuckholded father's estate, Libby had fluttered free.

The last wish aimed for in my quest of Erna's payback: acting wet-nurse to a fugitive minor. Still, 'twould be done. That much I owed our da.

Flay the brat! A full fortnight it had taken me to find her. Armed with a fake ID card, she'd been after noogling the pants off merely-passable barkeeps at both smarmy tracker dives. There I'd gone for sussing out what I might of a horse owner already known to me in both name and deed: The honorable Judge Adley Weisel, gigolo to one merry widow Erna Pasco, long before our da's ashes had cooled.

Still and all – running down Lib's shenanigans being critical here – lingering tule fog might hide me from Hort long enough to find her. A wee respite from work I’d nick. The sorrel colt in hand – Tabarin, by name – I left at the walking machines across the road from our barns for Slacker Joe to water off.

Aptly nicknamed this gomerel, but unperturbed by it he kept so. That remarkable mane of wheat-chaff flocking his otherwise well-favored yud likely aimed him at rockstar fame one day. Already he'd mastered a madly acrobatic air guitar, a skill he'd be after honing this very morn when I interrupted his tuneless Pete Townshend solo with,

Och, Slack, seen our Libby about?

With his back to us, Tab and I intruding on his gyrations might have spooked him, but recover he did quickly. A witless grin ambled from one dimple of his rogue beal to the other. Jade eyes on him glittered for my repeating the query, but quickly his lids drooped in taking pleasure of a certain musical passage only he could hear through his one earbud.

No word did he vouch, but a cocked thumb doffed over his shoulder hinted me into checking two tackrooms sited hard by the bermed dirt of the track's clubhouse turn. 'Twas off with me after leaving Tabby biding as Slack's newest fan.

Across the road from me traipse, another of our barn's four-horse sets readied for taking to the track, save now their jocks rode a restive holding pattern, circling the front yard pile where the grooms dumped stall muck for the disposal crew.

Angry words, sounding of Janie Doe and Cass Elkington, cut the peace. Fickle mists thinned whimsically to show me Cass getting a leg-up from Hort on her final ride of the day.

A glimpse I had of Janie's fist gripping the coal-black filly’s bridle cheek piece 'til Cass reined forcibly away. Their dispute grew, sounding to me like,

You let...that crow fly...Doll!

"...none of your business...Get outa my life...!"

"Hey! Ya ladies wanna kiss and make up? We'll just wait while you do." Forbearing had its limits for Hort.

Janie, of a sudden, threw up frustrated mits in a wave-off. Skittish under the best of conditions, the gesture sent Cass's black filly into an arching buck-jump, pitching her rider heavenward. Only canny balance landed Cass back aboard her exercise saddle. Extraordinary skill curbed her mount's blast-off for the barn seconds later, circling the horse 'neath an iron hold, bringing it to a plunging halt.

Purposeful spooking of a horse came inexcusable conduct, even in the laxest of stables; all riders not busied in calming their own mounts now glared at the pair. Another insult flew from Janie, who then whirled to flounce off in the direction of the front side.

"You goddamn veyhyo...no dog in this scrap!" Cass yelled after her, still maneuvering her circling capal.

Back stalked Janie. A look about, and her shrill tone suddenly lowered to exclude all but Cass. From their expressions more scolds flew 'twixt the pair, sharp as blue jay squabbles.

Curiously then, Janie appeared to regain aplomb. Did no truce occur, the barney ended, still and all; herself being sudden-collared by an outraged Hort. To the Caliber office she was propelled by the imperious wee man, not half her size.

Into the fairing soft day the set struck out. Possessed of the service lane, the quartet passed me without a nod, moving 'round the outside turn rail to the dirt course entrance gap 'twixt finish line and furlong marker.

The track sprinkler truck lumbered by moments after, dampening the lane's clay dust into ooze like a butterscotch sundae.

A scant fifteen-minute lull –for hotwalkers at least – before the set returned from its works, was my best chance to snabble Lib. Though little she knew it, her job turned on me finding her before Hort did.

Quickly, shifting progress sent me hard right, past the restrooms, to a short scamper up the track embankment.

Well-merged with mists behind Hort's wee tackroom, a portable bunk-box sporting a single slider window, I found. A saddle towel blocked its prospect, but to be sure, a Daily Racing Form page would better muffle the goings-on within.

A caution signal 'twixt us I'd devised: a few bars of our da's favorite pub ditty, Whiskey You're the Devil. Irony in recalling then: though favoring his one glass of daffy after his workday, never had scholarly Aloysius O' Curráin favored the boozy stereotype – that is 'til his third wife began accusing him of it. After that, with his wry damnedest he seemed resolute in gratifying her.

In answer to my snooping now, rhythmic bedspring creaks joined my warning thumps on the wall. For the eavesdropping came a muted squeal, then a languid moan.

Faugh, Libby Delilah! No tune I'm after piping here for your delight in buckling some silly clunch.

Sharply, the wall got whacked this time. The noise from within never paused. Likely – did Lib note the summons at all – she'd judge my raps clods sent flying off-track from the hooves of passing gallopers.

No depending on Hort's detaining of Janie lasting long. A lull would bring him back here for his own drop of the pure from the rumored stash of Mother's Ruin padlocked in a wee rented fridge. About the back side such knowledge of his habits were widespread.

Vibrations drummed 'neath me feet. Two shadowy breezers on the inside rail thundered by. Our own set would rejoin us, soon as the outriders pulled them up, to exit through the backstretch gap. From there we'd a scant five minutes before they returned.

"Whisht, Pasco! loud as I dared it. Stubble it now!"

The lusty din ended, leaving a silence as hushed as advice from the Almighty. A sigh I heaved, and turned to scarper off the rail back to work.

From behind me another stretch runner’s tempo pounded. A peep over-shoulder spotted their form just breaking the fog. Along the inside rail a half-furlong off, they closed ground 'twixt us fast. The horse in work fought its rider with rock-hard neck muscles and the bit 'twixt its teeth, loath to relinquish its liberty. Out the bottom of the clubhouse turn it sailed, snorts pumping time with giant strides, its run-out line shifting away from the inner rail....

"...Sonuvabitch. You! Tarry – Curry – Rook! Getchoo lazy ass in here – now!" Hort's bellow cut the fog and no leap too quick.

"Lib! Set's in!" bleated I.

On the double, back down onto the soupy road I skidded. Sure as shite, Lib and her trick would be exposed. Might I rout her before the fickle dinge cleared? 'Twould be himself coming the now, and a dire meeting with the track stewards not far off....

From hard-by, a cry veered scream. A peek aft me fetched the track rail's Bang! a vast muscled chest; a white-rimmed eye; flailing hooves carrying into – black.

Aenidt? Come –. From far-off, a voice echoed amidst our cottonwoods down at the creek. The call roused me a bit.

To a pounding yud, blown twice its size, came scent of wood smoke and sight of an ashy sky over head, its flakes wafting down into crashing surf on a beach, its roar hissing like radio static. Over all, however, that well-loved voice asked,

Aenidt? Are you coming?

The silhouetted figure immersed in floating ash I'd implore,

"A-Asa? – candt breathe augh –!" Not only for air I gasped, but for one of his big mits reaching out as his height rose, towering stories o'er me, going taller upon each hard-won breath.

– come f' me – 'ave ye –?

No, he hasn't. Breathe now....

Firm touches to me yud traded spells of warmth with chilling. Sinewy fingers danced, teased eyelids open. Helpless I'd lie yet, caught up in shimmery notes stroked from temples to smothered nook, 'til bit by bit, blockages there began to dissolve.

...back to us, Gringa, that's it and... you're good...the mousetrap missed the vital stuff....

Asa!? – won't I be after joinin' ye then? Golden the glow opening up, centering his figure in it.

Niyimi –

Afloat I'd be, in a colorful sky beckoning me to enter the glow. Forceful 'twas, as a headlong tumble into love.

C'mon, don' go there, Gringa....

The trim, smooth fizz on the speaker got my dodgy notice. Bewildering, those deep-set furtive eyes: black-shadowed, yet lucid as a polished obsidian mirror.

Into the depths of me the stranger peered calmly with but a pinch of sadness. Yet tucked into his searching fizz, a hint of proud lips 'neath spare cheekbones and a bit of a crow-beak nook. This man with the copper-rimed skin I'd known a long time – but where?

Drifting freely again, looking down from above, was to glimpse his urgent listening lug put to me breast. A moment later he raised to regroup, then let his own pair drop purposefully on my lips. Came buoyant strength flooding me. His gusts pumped my listless bellows into hacking spasms and gasps.

Radiant heaven retreated to sullen dawn. A wee holiday it canceled, this one filched from natural life. My view from above began to blur. The faster the transiting from spirit to flesh, the more the bludgeoning pain battled back, forcing the notion on me: broke as a lamb roast we'd be.

...No Ma'am. Come up now.

Struggle I would then, to escape the crush, keen to gulp the vigor flowing 'twixt us like cool water after a long drought. His touch of me scalp grieved it, but in his next fingertip browse, even such wee jabs shed their ability to shock.

The weight trapping me shifted, lightened. Bit of a try, a half-twist rolled me from flat on me back, shifting over onto the left hip. Planted in mud, a forearm levered me up. Shite! – the nook's returning pain clouted me ‘twixt the eye sockets, sending its pang body-wide again. Best ease the bockety lackeen back down...not feeling quite the thing yet....

Sorry 'bout that – forgot the bear medicine for your nosebleed. Hang on one more minute.

And as the pain began to ebb, glims on me opened again, to roam the surrounds – finding nobody.

Nobody, that is, 'til down I peered at the body lain alongside. 'Twas our Cass, her wide-open, black-onyx eyes looking me back. Bless her, not a blink there stirred, her pupils were fixed. Another glim found the contours of her shapely fizz a bit off-plumb – half her helmet lay beside her, its leather chinstrap parted. Blood ponded above her right eyebrow.

The ache crashed me yud again. Slowly, oh-so-slowly, down I'd ease for a bit of a nap –

Not now, Girl.

For the author of such a denial I scanned, questing better proof of his concern.

Deny me unconsciousness, so? A flashback, then, Your Honor, beggin' ye to view....

Exhibit A: Call it Mikey's Fair Decent Cess. This, a cosmic payback, I assumed, for acting Lib's doctrinaire. 'Twas courting a fate I'd warned her of, on a day gathering dusk went about tidying up leftover sunset. On our backs we'd lain in a greensward of the turf course, secreted 'neath a thick boxwood hedge from racetrack security's minions. The tiny green leaves above us shivered a bit in the dying onshore breeze.

Lib, mark me well here: no sweet land is this for novices.

"Yeah? Doesn't look to me like you're doing so bad. She rolled over to fiddle with her wee traveling chess set. Soundly she'd trounced me in a game minutes before. No dumb blonde" she – not with her verified genius I Q – still, her sense of unlooked-for costs came sadly wanting.

True mayhap, but chary I keep. Y'self, acting careless of settings, risks peril from unruly horse – or man. Och, aye, Davy's cautioning I’d revised a bit in the borrowing, but it fit here better for her than for me.

Oh. And you’ve turned my legal guardian, precisely when?

"But, Mo chroi, where'd be the harm in working a burger stand or an ice cream shop?"

A rude raspberry she blew this.

I'm sixteen in a week. I'll make my own decisions. Remember you kidnapped me to save my life.

"That I'd not! And there ye'll scuttle the bare-arsed lies."

Huh. Like you yacking a bog-trotter's brogue ain't a lie?

Nay. Only a-a voice that won't ignore me from whatever forbearer's ghost guides us.

Bah! Who believes such bunk?

To be sure, being logical-minded, ye'd not. And bounded away from our talk, off into tall grasses ye've traveled, anyroad.

Admitting it, bog Latin blás came mimicry of Da's oul' country speech, peppered with the Shelta gammon of me own lost mamaí. To fluent use he'd put such when rushed or fatched. Early-dipped in the well of Hibernicisms, small wonder Gaeltacht flowed from me like poteen from its jar. Small wonder too, upon finding another way to annoy the pernicious step-mom.

"Fine. If you don't want Erna conning your whereabouts – and I might tip her off anyway – you'd better help me emancipate. Then I’ll be outa these...."

The red-dyed locks on me she gave a playful tug.

"...Your roots are showing. Drop by Gabe's tonight. Sneak in through my window and I'll touch ‘em up for you.'

Gabe's?

Didn't I tell you? He and his wife rent in the Village – no, don't start on me.

Libby!

"He offered it. Shit, I gotta crash somewhere! You won't let me live with you – wherever the hell that is."

That I won't, I agreed. So grandly lodged as I am in the arse-end of Nowhere.

Well, then, just be cool, 'kay? Nuthin's goin' on. All I know is barn bosses gotta be making decent bread. It's a cool little toff cottage he and Charmaine got. Hydrangeas 'n' hollyhocks everywhere. Okay, so what's the caper? How'll you score on the locoweed patch deed from Mom when you don't have clue One where she keeps it?

"A name to the place it has, ye know. Kwinamish being only two hundred sixty-eight acres of our Soul!"

"Okay, Ye Oul' Viper Patch. Tell me again how it makes us rich, living on nuthin' but swamp mallow and range oats. No house, barns or stock going for it."

Alanna, to be sure ye've only trod the planet sixteen quicksilver years, but history might mean a bit of aught to ye.

What's 'aught' again?

"Something! Anything whatever." A cheek pinch I gave her.

Ow, dammit! So give. It's a checkmate gambit, an' you pull it off. White Queen bites it! Too bad you never had the head for chess.

"Mo chroi...."

And ten years’ over me does not make you the canny one!

Mo chroi, grant hearin' me out?

Hard knocks schooling, I'd flatter me, had gathered a fair amount of savvy for what I'd be about here. Ye'll not regret a bit of insight from somebody, as a friend, who's been out in the world a bit longer than y'self?

"What. You're demoting me to 'friend' now?' Oh fine. Subject: Locoweed patch. How, Aenidt? Pray do enlighten. A toss of her yud and the Libby I most detested – nay, never say so! Say only despaired of" – came bulling through.

No fine detailing to the plan had I filled in yet. Only might I wing my justifying in fits, starts and stammers, and the scribblings in a wee cherished notebook here in me pocket.

Annoyed sure, a loud sigh escaped my half-sister and,

'S what I thought. No clue, huh.

They'll come, won't they. So will their connectings. I'd yet hope.

Yeah. Well, snap it up a bit, I'm growin' fungus and bugs here. That winsome grin, then – the one with the gap ‘twixt the right eyetooth and its nearer partner, her one imperfect feature – let me know her father's daughter she'd yet be, ever moreso than Erna's. Hope to be had for us still.

Lying beside me in the grass, seeing Lib, her snowflake eyes fixed on the sky, a thousand un-winnowed dreams heaped in her granary, gave me pride in her superb intelligence. Guide her through this coltish phase was all I need do.

"Aye, well. A court date looms at summer's end. There we'll show the judge I'm not lost, stolen or strayed...."

Even mishap-forged reveries fade. Lib's wraith vanished, leaving Slacker Joe knelt over me in her stead, a clutch of foolish questions in tow; none of them holding the pith of her one.

What's today's date? asked he, looking down on me scrabbling in mud like an overset tortoise striving to right itself.

Mm. Sun-tur-day?

Who’s the President?

Tricky, and no civil nod for him on the street from me hereafter!

How many fingers am I holding up?

"Six, ye great Amadán, and give over grilling me!"

Slack paid less heed to this, however, than grunting at Davy's anxious fizz I'd see orbiting just beyond him:

Call the medics. Tell 'em they got two to package. One 12-49.

She okay?

Scram dammit!

After a spate, where Slack and Davy argued whether 'twas better I be seated or laid out again in the mud, up drove an ambulance to halt close by us. Two medical gents towing a rolling cot appeared directly. Stepped 'twixt us, they fussed with their diagnostic gadgets, then scooped up the rider to load. Sit up once more I did then, over Davy's protests, the better to see her. Out came a cotton sheet unfolded by the gents to cover Cass, head to toe. That sight pushed a still-bockety me to unsteady feet.

Here! Air she'll be needing – Sickly, the pang sending me its urgings. Amidst such, sudden came a soft female voice, though no lips had it for me to see move. It whispered,

'S-s-sokay...'m free...lissen, Curry Two Rs, changed m' mind...changed...don' le'm...take Divin'awk. Promise?

Whuh?

Promise!

Och, aye – see to the harse, sure....

No! R'member...

And who'd be here to block me swoon back to the seaside holiday but the suits we’d tripped over in the stable office this morn.

The bigger of them came into view o'er me like some ominous raincloud. From his gloomy suit this bloke pulled a wee leather case. To a shiny badge he flipped it. Too stern by half, that sculpted eagle frowning atop it, to be any cereal box prize. Ditto the captured angel gripping sword and balance scales. Officer McSuit’s unyielding fizz said likewise. Any calm left to me crumbled.

Grabbing Davy, my crutch, I struggled up, aiming to scarper.

Halt! Cassandra Elk Singer – Special Agents Silcox and Payne. You're under arrest on federal charges of aiding and abetting – Pounced on me they did, guns drawn....

Yo, Dudes, whoa! Gotta match?

No answer from the busy duo. They ignored Slack.

"Hey, Gumshoes! You catch morning line on that ‘Niners/Chargers game?" Slack’s bored voice proposed.

...You’ve the right to remain silent. You’ve the right to an attor–

"Yo! Spooky-boys!"

The outraged suits turned as one to Slack's eye-roll. Durable stares circulated 'twixt them all before Slack's prompt of,

What I said?

It ain’t even football seas – oh. Uh, yeah. Twelve–Five? It came clipped and a bit puzzled from McSerious Suit.

Nah. Talkin' pre-season. Twelve–Three. 'Niners'll choke on a fourth and goal. Got bread on it.

Shit. Disappointed, the bloke seemed; the excitement draining out of him in his turn away from us – at least from the slump to his shoulders. To Slack blearily I looked for explaining. Only came back his wink.

Before I'd caught another lungful of air, both spooks had vanished.

Bubye. Suckahs, Slack grinned. Crow's feet wrinkles danced at the corners of his eyes.

In moments I'd be thinking me in less need of a treating. Waive it I did for the medics' clipboards with Slack signing as witness. We watched the van creak away, carrying Cass – the suits in their gray sedan rolling in dogged, but silent pursuit.

Time I needed; time to brush free dried muck and deal with the stanch ache to me yud.

First risk of a peek about me spied a gaggle of trackers before Hort's shed. Their bodies blocked my view.

'Twould be what, there?

Huh-uh, Girl! Davy took my arm to pull in the other direction. Not now. C'mon with me. Some of that cafeteria drain sludge they call 'coffee' sounds awesome. Hey, I thought you refused medical aid.

As din’t I?

Then who taped your nose?

A feel of me nook discovered a small plaster just south of its bridge. Gingerly touch moved to the scuff in me yud, and discovered dampness there. Hastily I raked bangs over it.

Nil ach braon beag fula ort.

Huh? Both looked at me suddenly as though I'd spoke a foreign tongue – as suddenly as I realized I had, in fact.

Oh, em – only a bit of blood there'd be. I'm grand.

Y' oughta hit First Aid, even though you blew off the meat wagon, Slack proposed. A second opinion never hurts.

Divil a bit. Grand I am, Slack. Would ye ever leave orf the blocking of me boreen.

Determined witness I'd bear to the mishap. Failed at thwarting my purpose, Davy pushed on into the crowd before us. Backwards he walked, talking like a priest rebuking a bumper-crop of backsliders.

Thus parting the crowd, in we closed on the shed corner where lay the body of a horse – our black filly – impaled on a foot-long splinter of track rail run through her belly. Stained hide – brains, blood and bone bits mingled – had ripped well away from her skull. The crash into the shed corner had broken her neck, twisting it back upon itself just behind her yud.

Was it me the only living soul devastated by such? The prospect of the dulling eye on the animal whirled me 'round, sent me apart from the crowd. Slack and Davy followed. A few steps apart of the crowd, I'd to brace and bend down to catch breath.

Indebted I am to both of yis a-and t'other lad – where'd he go?

Slack? Davy’s blue eyes seemed puzzled. He's right here –

Nay, t'other helping me back. Just here he – oahjaayz! A filthy breeze only fortified bloody niffs from the carcass. 'Twould need a wee tornado to blow off such, with it fixed so in me nook. The sicking-up spun me. One more beat and another bout of dry heaves I'd hurl.

Slack turned away. Davy, otherhand, stood prop to keep me from toppling. When I'd finished, he calmly offered a 'kerchief from his back pocket, saying,

Didn’t see anybody. C'mon away. We'll walk. What happened? I heard that wham from behind the union trailer while Slack and I were yakkin'.

A grateful wipe of me slobbery beal, and needing to feel, if not better, then inches this side of it,

"Wisha! I-I'm not recalling – only crossing the road, then Hort yelled a-and 'twas all she wrote. Gah. Poor luckless Divinghawk!"

Who? Slack was back with us. The gaze to him sharpened, fixed on me like an expectant hound.

"The filly, sure. 'See to it,' Cass said, though precious good 'twill do it – oh, damn. Have ye seen Libby?" A wobble. Davy steadied me, though nought could he do for the surf 'twixt me ears, whilst humbug from bystanders buzzed,

...Holy shit. Crammed ‘er straight through the rail!

Check out that busted near rein...

...chick reefed it so hard she hauled it clean off the turn. Rookie goof. Shoulda knowed she'us riding a hanger...

Our barn's swipe crew – at least the two or three who spoke English – had been parsing no words, yet all grew quiet when joined by red-headed Janie Doe – she not one of us, after all. Enquiring, bland and unvexed her gaze 'til she glimpsed the wreck. To my eye, 'neath her tan, her skin blanched. Fingers crept up her chin to cover her bitten lip. A thin, choked sound she gave, though not long did she peer. On a billow of the fog curtain blown 'twixt us, away she eased, neither walking nor running, but purposeful enough, with the yud on her lowered. Off through the crowd starting to thin in the gaining light, down the shed row she vanished.

A pinch of me bum. This from Libby, emerging tousled, yet unabashed from the throng. To see her was to behold an autumn’s first snowfall; born naturally albescent as the frost giant’s daughter. The beauty on that one was said to illumine both air and sea. Lib's comeliness came mysteriously from mousy Erna's side, whose own assets were kept bleached, powdered and secret from all save her husband and me, who, as a childer on an ill-starred day, had