“Hang on a minute!” he shouted into her ear as the audience around them exploded into applause and cheers when another horse entered the arena. “You’re a dead woman if Dale gets you.”
“What am I if he doesn’t get me?”
She lost his answer in the blare of the announcer’s call for yet another horse to enter.
“You’re hurting me! My arms are burning from stuff I got on them!”
“Sorry,” he said. “This’ll help it for a few minutes.” He pulled a small aerosol can from his back pocket and sprayed her arm. Instantly the pain stopped.
“What was that?”
“Lidocaine.”
“That’s the stuff the inspectors are looking for!”
“And aren’t you glad I have some? I’m glad you’re free, Billie. You saved me the risk of going back to get you.”
“You asshole! You’re part of this. I couldn’t see you, but I heard you with Eudora and Dale. I heard you agree to sore Sylvie’s horse. You told me you were through with all that. You goddamned lying—”
“Wait! You’ve got it wrong!”
Billie stood to leave. Richard pulled her back into her seat.
“Ow! My shoulder!”
He let go of her. “What happened?”
“You try being tied up and thrown into a tack box and see how you make out.”
“I’m truly sorry Billie, but still—you’ve got this all wrong. Please just think a minute and imagine what I walked into,” he said. “You tied up on the floor. Eudora with a gun. And my daughter there in the middle of it all, acting like this was some kind of lark! I had maybe two seconds to get her out of there before she became an accessory to kidnapping. She could have ended up in prison. You could have been shot. I’d sore a hundred horses if that’s what it took to get the two most…to get you and Sylvie to safety.”
The crowd exploded into cheers as Jazz entered the arena.
“What about the horse you sored, Richard?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to the horse!”
“You matter more, Billie. Surely by now you realize that everything you’re doing to expose the walking horse industry puts you in danger. Your barn was burned as a warning—”
“And to destroy evidence, Richard! That fire killed a filly your friends had nearly crippled.”
“They’re not my friends anymore Billie, and I told you before I’m doing what I can.” He pointed toward Sylvie, just visible in the warm up area, poised and ready to perform. “That’s my little girl same as Alice Dean. Alice Dean’s getting help. Now it’s time for Sylvie to get help.”
Billie stood up. “Might be time for you and Mary Lou to get some too.”
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I’m getting to work.”
“Please sit. You’re safe here with me—”
“Dale and Eudora are busy watching Sylvie.” She hoped that was true. “Goodbye, Richard.”
The audience roared as Sylvie entered the arena. Grooms ran beside her horse, slapping its belly with a crop, shouting along with the crowd. Billie expected to see Charley running along too, but he didn’t appear. Billie glanced at Richard, who was focused on his daughter’s entrance. As best she could in the crowd, she ran, intent on circling the arena to find the fried chicken stand and Addie.
Before she reached the arena exit, Dale stepped out in front of her from behind a huge stack of hay bales. The last thing she remembered before blacking out was a knot of baling twine on the ground and the feel of his thumbs digging into her neck.
CHAPTER 29
BILLIE SMELLED HAY. Her hands were tied behind her back, and her knees and ankles were tied together. There was tape on her mouth. She tried to straighten her legs and bumped into what felt like a bale. When she pushed with her feet, her head contacted another bale. She tried to wriggle into a sitting position, but pain in her shoulder made her moan. On her second attempt she bumped into hay overhead and fell backward. She seemed to be sealed into the middle of a mow. How big it was, she couldn’t guess. It might be just one bale in each direction, or a dozen.
She could hear the PA system but couldn’t tell how far away it was. She didn’t know how much the hay would dampen sound. Above the crowd’s roar, the announcer bellowed Sylvie’s name. Youngest rider ever, he said. Then he announced the horse’s owner—Eudora Thornton—and trainer—Dale Thornton.
“In spite of meddling by our government!” she heard. “In spite of the war being waged against our sport and our breed! War against our very way of life!” he shouted. “We take PRIDE in this victory! PRIDE in our glorious breed! PRIDE in our trainers and owners and riders!”
With each shouted PRIDE the audience roared louder, screamed more shrilly, whistled.
“Victory lap!” the announcer bellowed to more roars.
She wrenched her body against the ties, beat her feet against the bale, trying to push it away. She hurt. She wanted to go home and forget she’d ever learned anything about walking horses. She’d write whatever Frank wanted her to write, never argue with him again. She missed Gulliver. What would become of him and her horses if she didn’t make it out of this?
She heard Dale and Eudora nearby, their voices muffled by the arena’s cacophony.
Then she heard Eudora ask, “What about our friends in the hay?”
“Unfortunate accident awaits. Spontaneous combustion. Nasty.”
Friends? Billie wondered. Her arms burned, the pain increasing moment by moment. She shut her eyes and clenched her teeth. A bale thudded onto the pile above her, then another. Someone was out there, stacking them on her.
“Please!” she cried into the tape that covered her mouth. “Help me!”
In her mind she saw the filly Hope burned to death, limbs contracted, face contorted into a scream. Billie saw the empty eye sockets and smelled burned flesh.
“No! Please!” But no sound escaped her gag.
She felt the thuds of hoof beats approaching, slowing, stopping. Sylvie said something she couldn’t make out either, but she heard the girl’s excitement.
“We’ll go to the inspectors,” Dale said. “Now!” and
