The Horsewoman(80)

Didn’t think Coronado was the best horse now. I thought mine was.

The buzzer sounded. Everything got quiet before what Gus liked to call bat-out-of-hell time. I took one last look around. What I was feeling right now, it was why riders did this, young or old. Man or woman. Million-dollar ride. Or a horse your dad gave you.

The toughest combination came early, a tight one, hardly any time to react after the first jump. Sky treated it all like a speed bump, clearing both jumps so easily it was like they stood half their actual height. Like the ones Mom had jumped at Ring 9 that day.

Just like that we were into it. Big-time. Feeling a strong wind at my back, even though there was no breeze to speak of.

We took a killer inside turn on the rollback two jumps later. No choice but to go inside if I was here to win. And I sure as shit wasn’t here to finish second.

How could anybody have gone faster than this?

Three jumps to the finish. Clock on the huge Rolex scoreboard behind me. But I didn’t need a clock. I knew.

Go.

Next jump clean.

Then the next.

Still flying.

I told myself not to leave anything to chance.

Bat out of hell.

I was going for it all now, deciding, on the fly, to shorten the distance before the last jump, taking out a stride like I had in the middle of the round, with no problem. Sky had done everything I asked. Sometimes the moments of the day all fell into place between horse and rider.

It was at the last second, very last, I knew I’d asked too much.

She didn’t have the length.

Was too far away.

And refused.





ONE HUNDRED



MOM’S TIME STOOD UP. This time I watched her get the ribbon and medal and champagne and pose for the pictures and hear the cheers from a crowd that looked twice as big as we got in Wellington. In our intensely private competition, she was the one on top today. She was champion. Because of the way I’d finished—Sky refusing and circling and then refusing again before I was buzzed out of the ring—I felt as if I’d finished last.

I’d done the thing that Gus preached to me about all the time:

Gotten ahead of myself. Had gotten fixed on the result and not the process. It had only been for one stride. But it had cost me.

Before Mom was out of the ring, I told her how happy I was for her, because I genuinely was. Hugged her for the first time in a long time. Now we were back at the rented house, getting ready to drive to Cincinnati for a late flight back to Florida, and I was back to being pissed off at myself.

Just not as pissed off as Gus Bennett was.

The rest of us were flying back to Palm Beach International. Gus was driving home in his van. Though he’d left Florida at dawn, the drive to Lexington had taken him fourteen hours. He’d decided to drive home overnight, telling me that he could do it with one stop, be back in Wellington in time for breakfast, and wanted me in the ring by nine o’clock, even if only to ride Tiny.

“I don’t get a day off?” I said.

“You didn’t earn it,” he said.

Mom had offered to make the drive with him. He said he wanted to be alone.

“Mom was the better rider today,” I said. “Is that some kind of crime?”

“Bullshit,” he said.

Mom and Grandmother and Daniel were inside. Emilio was already gone, my horse inside our trailer. Seamus had Coronado in Gus’s trailer.

I’d offered to throw Gus’s suitcase into the back of the van. He said he could do it himself. It was nearly two hours from when the Invitational had ended. He was still mad as hell. At me.

“You need to let up on me,” I said. “I made a mistake. I know I made a mistake. But it was one jump—the last jump—in an event I was about to win.”

“Hey,” he said, “that gives me an idea.” Making no attempt to hide the sarcasm in his voice. “Let’s call over there and get the stewards on the line and tell them that since you were about to win, we’d like them to not count the last jump. I’m sure they’ll understand.”

“I made a mistake!”

“Yeah,” he said. “You did. The kind of mistake that can be the difference between making the team and not making it. You had a chance to win the goddamn Kentucky Invitational. You think that chance comes around all the time? And you blew it.”

He’d been angry at me before. Not like this. He slammed the back door of the van and said that as soon as he said his good-byes, he was ready to take off.

But when he was halfway up the front walk, he stopped suddenly, whipped the chair around, glared at me one more time, still on fire.

“You know when you get over an important loss in this sport?” he snapped. “Never.”

“I know that,” I said.

“No,” he said, “you don’t.”





ONE HUNDRED ONE

Gorton



GORTON WAS ORDERING another vodka when Tyler Cullen found him in the owners’ tent. Cullen had finished second today, a second behind Maggie Atwood in the jump-off.

Cullen told the bartender he’d have what Gorton was having.

“Thought you might already be gone,” Cullen said.

“Well, Tyler,” Gorton said, “that’s one of several advantages of having your own plane. It’s wheels up when you say it’s wheels up.”