Chapter Five

Five

It was a soft, velvety indigo sky that covered the world tonight, nothing like the churning mass of black clouds that had heralded the storm’s arrival the night before. The weather was only a small comfort, though, as Mel followed the blue and white Dry Creek rig through the familiar turns that would take her to the ranch, and the Carlton estate.

When the flickering carriage lamps mounted on either side of the automated, intricate iron gate that barred entrance into the Hanoverian farm came into view, her pulse picked up. The headlights cut a bright wedge through the dark, showing the masonry pillars that held the Carlton gate, the black and gold sign emblazoned with the Carlton prancing horse. Carlton Premier Hanoverians, she read to herself with a convulsive shudder.

She pulled up a mental snapshot of that last afternoon: all the incensed furrows between Marissa Carlton’s brows, the way her red, manicured nails had curled in the air like claws. In her mind, Mel saw Arthur Carlton standing, aloof, behind his wife, coldly reinforcing her edict. The words came rushing back to her. Ungrateful, conceited, vindictive…trouble-maker….liar…white trash…

She was none of those things, and yet, her eyes had burned, because in that moment, watching the blonde trainer who was built like a ballerina and outfitted in a thousand dollar designer equestrian outfit, she’d almost, almost, believed her.

And then she’d thought about Marissa and Arthur’s son Riley, and her humiliation had hardened into bitter determination. “How dare you label me white trash?” she’d delivered in her calmest voice, though she’d been shaking on the inside. She didn’t regret the words, but as she drove past the entrance to one of the most highly-thought-of dressage farms in the Southeast, a cold knot of fear tightened in her chest. It wasn’t smart to make powerful enemies, no matter how right she’d been.

In a handful of seconds, the trucks passed the entrance to Carlton and swept onward, past the yards and yards of white board fence, then around the bend, plunging deeper into the night. Mel’s hands slowly loosened on the wheel and she pulled in a much-needed breath. Whatever awaited her at Dry Creek, she decided, wasn’t half so worrisome as being just feet from the entrance of the place she’d fled the night before.

Just within reach of her headlights, she watched the Dry Creek trailer’s brake lights flare, and then the left blinker signaled an approaching turn. Their rig was a long, white gooseneck stock trailer and a blue Ford dually with the ranch’s logo printed on the driver and passenger doors. She liked the insignia; the silhouette of a cowboy and his horse, palm trees framing the image. They were at the very northern limit of Florida, but there were still a few palms and yucca here and there amongst the ancient, gnarled live oaks she loved so much.

She followed the other trailer down a narrow two-lane labeled as Spring Road, instantly noting that the street seemed darker, the foliage crowding either side denser. Even before coming to Florida, she’d seen every conceivable type of farm, from the luxurious to the lamentable. Mel hoped Dry Creek was an actual ranch and not a “ranch” – a mudhole surrounded by barbed wire.

The terrain was flat, but the road began to curve slowly and steadily to the right. Another half mile more and suddenly, the dense section of forest ended. Melanie pulled in an appreciative breath. Even in the dark, she could sense just how expansive the clearing to the left was. And a waxing half-moon highlighted the shadows and gentle hilltops of a piece of land that she thought might be breathtaking in the daylight.

“Holy crap, boys,” she said as if speaking to her horses. How had she never explored the streets around Carlton and stumbled upon this place?

The black four-board fence was a shadow running along the roadside in the dark like this. Moonlight glittered off what she thought might be a pond. And then they were pulling up to the entrance.

The headlights illuminated enough to tease her curiosity rather than appease it. She slowed her truck to a crawl and turned up a wide gravel lane behind the ranch rig, between two telephone poles that held a sign above them. The truck in front of her halted just long enough so an arm could reach out into the night and punch a code into the panel at the edge of the drive. Mel buzzed her own window down and heard the electronic gears start to whine as a pair of steel gates swung inward, granting them access to the ranch.

The black fence bordered both sides of the drive and the posts whizzed past. Gravel crunched under the tires and one of her horses – she recognized Roman – whinnied, the call echoing inside the trailer. From the trailer ahead, one of the ranch horses answered him.

The drive seemed to go on forever, and finally ended in a large circle that looped around a stand of live oak trees that positively dripped with Spanish moss. Melanie felt a thrill of excitement run through her, smiling at the gray, clinging moss that hung down in thick clumps from the long, reaching branches. Through the open window, the damp, heavy smells of a warm Florida night came filtering in on a light breeze. It was the warm darkness of night, a caressing, reassuring darkness, and she no longer felt any trepidation as she put her truck in park, killed the engine, and climbed out.

Gravel crunched under her boots. It smelled like blooming flowers – too many strains of fragrance to identify the individual plants – and salty bog water. Cicadas, tree frogs and crickets created a symphony of sound, and the horses stamped restlessly in the trailers now that their rides had halted.

The long, low-slung barn that faced them was ablaze with lights that punched into the dark through the wide double doors, and the skylights allowed pale yellow fingers to reach up from the roofline. Mel could only see the width of the building from this angle, but the aisle that stretched before her was long, the barn’s outer wall white, the doors red.

“Melanie!” She heard Larry call to her and she shook off the trance that had settled over her.

“Coming,” she said, leaving her horses for the moment and going to join the men who were emptying out of the ranch rig.

Larry gave instructions to his crew and then gestured toward the yawning barn doors. “Come on, let’s see what empty stalls I got,” he told her and Mel followed. He cupped a hand around his mouth and yelled, “Toto!” in a voice that echoed down the length of the barn aisle.

Down near the opposite set of double doors, a man propped a rake up against the wall and headed their direction.

“We don’t have as many horses as we used to, so there should be room for yours,” Larry said as they crossed the threshold into the spotless, well-lit building.

Melanie took a deep, appreciative breath of the hay and sawdust smell that was the trademark of any barn, and glanced around her. The stalls were steel frames, the bottoms filled with pine boards, the tops vertical bars through which she could see the horses. Each had a wide window above the door through which bay and black and chestnut heads protruded. The wide aisle was concrete, as were the floors of the three wash stalls just inside the door to the left. To the right, a pedestrian door and pair of windows marked what was most likely an office. There was a box fan suspended by bungee cords on the front of each stall and they thrummed like the droning of so many bees.

The man walking toward them drew within earshot and Mel registered him as being in his early forties or so, Hispanic, his black hair short and somewhat spiky on top, solidly built and looking very much like a man who spent most of his time in a barn with his jeans, muddied boots and hay-speckled blue t-shirt.

“Toto,” Larry said to the man, “this is Melanie Walsh. Melanie, my right hand Toto. He’s got the answer to every question you’re gonna have around here.”

“Toto?” Mel asked for clarification as she extended her hand.

He grabbed it in a firm shake and smiled, revealed straight, white teeth that contrasted sharply with his tan face. “Like the dog,” he chuckled. He had only the barest hint of an accent. “When Larry said he picked up a stray, I wasn’t expecting you.”

His smile was so infectious, Mel couldn’t find a trace of anything creepy about the statement, so she grinned back, hooking her thumbs through her belt loops when she pulled her hand away. “No shower, bad hair…I was thinking I fit the bill pretty well,” she said.

His chuckle was approving.

“How’d it go today?” Larry asked Toto.

The other man heaved a sigh. “Those Danville boys…they dunno shit, boss.”

Mel stepped away, giving them a moment’s privacy, and began inspecting the occupants of the stalls. The first on the right was a rangy, bold dapple gray, with smoke and black rings on its coat. It looked young – thin and awkward – but friendly, thrusting its head over the door and reaching toward her outstretched palm with its nose. “Hey,” she greeted him. “Aren’t you pretty.”

“Hey!” a shout whirled her around.

Larry and Toto had turned also, staring toward the open doors.

Dan was in the threshold, scowling. His nasty gaze leveled on Melanie, his dark eyes boring straight into hers. “Your horse is going apeshit,” he said and then disappeared into the shadows beyond the door once again.

Scolding herself, Mel headed for the door. Larry halted her with a wave. “Don’t be too worried about him,” he said, drawing another grin from Toto. “He’s all bark.”

His bark, she thought, was pretty unpleasant, though.