She spat onto her skin where it met the trailer slats, spat until she had no more spit. She pulled again. Her arm slipped, she pulled the lever, and the door swung open.
CHAPTER 28
DISORIENTED, BILLIE GLANCED around the alley behind Dale’s barn. People in the distance led horses, rode, and strolled from barn to barn. An elderly couple in an electric golf cart rolled past her. She fought an impulse to duck and hide, an even stronger impulse to go find water—a drinking fountain would do—to try to rinse the burning chemicals off her arms. Instead, she smiled and raised her hand in what she prayed was a casual greeting. They waved back. She didn’t see anyone else nearby and no one seemed to have noticed her. From the arena, she heard the announcer calling horses and riders into the ring. Dale and Eudora and Sylvie were probably there. She didn’t know how long she’d been in the tack box, then in the trailer. If one of Sylvie’s classes was going on now, that would give Billie time to get away while everyone was at the arena.
This is going to be one hell of a good article, she thought through the pain in her arms, through her fear. She forced her hand into her front pocket, feeling for her phone. Gone. Of course, they’d taken it from her. There were phone booths on the arena grounds, holdovers from a pre-cell phone age, but she wasn’t about to stop to use one to call Frank. That time would be better spent searching for her own phone.
She found it in the barn tack room, discarded on the floor and partially covered with hay. It had been smashed beyond any hope of repair, but she returned it to her pocket anyway.
She took a deep breath and stepped out from the barn onto the walkway. A team of carriage horses decked out in the Big Lick boots trotted past her. She didn’t see until they passed that Sylvie stood behind them, her back to Billie, surrounded by a bunch of teenagers. Spurs jangled off their heels, and the legs of their pants were turned up to keep them from dragging in the dirt. Sylvie was handing out an armload of sodas and cigarettes. The blue roan stallion stood beside her, its reins held by a stocky redheaded boy about her age. She leaned toward him for a lingering kiss, took the reins from his hand and turned to put her foot in the stirrup. And saw Billie. For the briefest moment, they stared at each other.
Billie bolted into a tight alley between buildings and pressed herself against the wall. She struggled against a panicky need to escape, run anywhere, hide. Her mind racing with images of the showgrounds, she took a deep breath and held it. She couldn’t just flee. She had to get the story. For Frank. For herself. For the horses. Her legs felt weird and tingly from being cramped up in the tack box, but she had to keep moving or they’d catch her. Should she take time to try contacting the police? Dale had dodged an indictment, no problem. It would just be her word against his. Not much chance of success. A federal marshal? How long would that take? She’d have to find one then get a search going for evidence in the box she’d been locked in. If she could even find someone to believe her.
She decided to slip into the crowd, let the flow of people carry her to the in-gate and disappear into the turmoil there. She expelled the breath she’d been holding, drew in another, and stepped out of the alley.
A dense crowd surrounded her, people pushing in opposite directions. Some tried to reach the metal stairway that led up to the bleachers, while others shoved and dodged toward the inspection area and the vendors beyond. She remembered Addie saying that she had seats somewhere near food in the grandstand. Billie decided to head there. First, she had to cross a pathway, a sort of chute—designated for horses leaving the warm-up and inspection area to enter the arena. A class was announced as Billie approached. Shouts drew her attention down that pathway into a covered area where horses and riders milled about. Fluorescent lights shone down from the high ceiling, casting a greenish light.
“Look out!” A woman in riding clothes shoved her out of the way.
A cluster of people surrounded a Big Lick horse as it staggered into the chute. They shouted at each other and at the horse, goading it to frenetic excitement. Its ears pinned back, eyes ringed in white, saliva dripping from its mouth. The horse reeked of terror. Billie recognized Simeon, the man she had met in his derelict barn, the man whose horse she’d ridden. She realized that the black horse in front of her was that same one, Jazz, now led by his owner. Simeon saw her, recognition flickering briefly in his face before Royal shouted something that took his father’s attention away from her.
Behind them, Sylvie sat astride Dale’s blue roan. Eudora hung onto its shanked bit while Charley snapped a rag over the girl’s boots. He rolled down her pants leg so the cuff settled across her instep and dipped below her heel, then reached up and tugged at her jacket until it lay smoothly. Dale wrestled the horse’s broken tail into a waterfall of hair then lashed it into a metal tail set, slapping the horse each time it tried to kick him away. When it tried to
