The Bourbon Thief(29)

“You haven’t lost your seat,” Levi said as they passed the woodshed and took the easy main trail. The entire Happy Trails estate was about three hundred acres of woods and fields and horse trails.

“Guess riding a horse is like riding a bike.”

He’d opened her up to flirt by complimenting her seat. Nothing. Not a word. How unlike her.

“Guess so.”

“You like it here?” Tamara asked.

“It’s all right. I get five dollars an hour to give riding lessons to rich girls like you and not so rich girls who want to feel rich. Ten dollars for a private lesson. When I’m not working, I can ride all I want. I don’t much like living in a stable loft, but I save a lot of money on rent. One more year and I can buy a place of my own.”

“You said Granddaddy paid you better?”

“A lot better. More money for less work. But we know how that turned out.”

“You know, you never told me how you ended up working for Granddaddy,” Tamara said.

“Not much to tell. Mom got sick my senior year of high school. There went college. I had to work, so I got a job. I mucked stalls at Churchill. After Mom died—”

“How did she die?”

“Mouth cancer. Killed her slow, but it got her eventually. Your grandfather stopped by for the wake. No one was more surprised to see him than me. But he shook my hand and said Mom had told him I had experience with horses, and that sure surprised the hell out of me. Mom hadn’t worked for him in years. I told him I did and he asked if I’d be interested in coming to work for him at his place. I said yes. The end.”

“Granddaddy and your mom kept in touch?”

“Must have, I guess. No offense but your grandfather didn’t seem the type to care much about a cleaning lady. Still don’t know what possessed him to come to the funeral. But I didn’t complain. It was a good job while it lasted.”

Tamara didn’t say anything to that.

“So what’s the richest girl in the state want with the poorest stable hand in the state?” Levi asked as they crossed a wooden bridge into the deeper darker parts of the woods.

“I’m not the richest girl in the state. Not yet, anyway. Everything’s held in trust until I turn twenty-one or get married.”

“You’ll be twenty-one someday.”

“Not soon enough. Momma’s selling Red Thread. She accepted an offer this week.”

“Isn’t that where y’all get your money?”

“We have lots of money. We’ll have more money if we sell the distillery. But we shouldn’t sell it.”

“Tell your mother that, then. I can’t help you.”

“Momma and I don’t talk anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Because I hate her and she hates me.”

“I know why you hate her—who wouldn’t? But why does she hate you?”

“She thinks it’s my fault granddaddy’s dead. I let him drown downstairs and didn’t go check on him.”

“Did you let him drown?”

“I didn’t let him drown.”

“Don’t feel bad your mother accused you of murder. She accused me of rape.”

“Raping who?”

“You.”

“I think I’d remember you trying to rape me.”

“I’d remember it, too.”

“No, you wouldn’t. You’d be dead.”

“Tell that to your mother.”

“I will someday. Momma has a lot to answer for.”

“Yeah, well, don’t we all?”

The old Tamara would have said, “Not me.” The old Tamara would have said, “Speak for yourself.” But this wasn’t the old Tamara. This was the older Tamara and she only nodded like she had something to answer for, too.

He trotted up to her and met her eye-to-eye.

“Look at me. Why are you here, Tamara? You’re real good at asking questions and terrible at giving answers.”

“I’m trying to figure out what to say.”

“Tell the truth. That shouldn’t be too hard.”

“The truth is the hardest thing to say.”

Levi noticed something he hadn’t seen before. Around Tamara’s neck hung a little gold cross on a little gold chain. He reached over and touched the cross, lifted it off her skin. Tamara’s body stiffened at the contact, but she didn’t shy away.

“You never wore that before,” Levi said, instantly regretting saying that. “Is this why you’re on your best behavior now? You got religion?”

“God saved me during the flood.”

“But you carry a knife with you. You don’t think God’ll save you again if you need Him?”

“I can save myself.”

Levi let the cross fall back onto her skin.

“Even your religion is made of eighteen-karat gold.”

“God saved me,” she said.

“Nobody saved you. A grand total of two people died in that flood. One old lady who had a heart attack, and your grandfather, and the heart attack might have had nothing to do with the flood. You got lucky like everybody minus two people in town. You might be rich and you might be pretty, but you ain’t that special.”