CHAPTER 7
“Hello?” Victor asked blearily.
“I just got off work. You tellin’ me Johnny wouldn’t pick up his phone? Where’s Taylor now?” demanded Kayla’s irritated voice.
Victor rubbed his face to wake himself up. “I put her up in my guest room. She’s asleep with my dogs.”
“Goddamnit! What the fuck is Johnny playin’ at? Bet you he went to the bar after work and got himself pissing drunk. He could be anywhere. Lemme fucking call him.” Then she abruptly hung up.
“Well,” Victor said to himself, still staring at his phone. With a sigh, he dropped it onto his nightstand and rolled back under his covers. This wasn’t going to be his problem until the sun came up.
However, shortly after Victor had drifted back to sleep, his phone rang again. This time it was Johnny.
“You would not believe the night I had,” Johnny began. “I just got off the phone with my sister.”
“What is going on?” Victor asked groggily.
“I went to the bar after work, thinkin’ I’d just have a few before I headed home.
Well, then I heard some shoutin’ so I went outside to investigate and it was some man screamin’ at his girlfriend.
I mean, they were kinda yellin’ at each other.
Anyway, he started shovin’ her and I stepped in cuz this girl was maybe 120 pounds soakin’ wet, and the guy punched me right in the chin.
Then we got to fightin’, and someone called the police, and so long story short, I spent the night in jail. ”
Victor was speechless. As shocked as he was by the story, it also seemed like something that would happen to Johnny.
He had tons of stories about the colorful people he met and how they got involved in his life.
Traveling to rodeos across the country meant you spent a lot of time in seedy places with wild men willing to crawl on top of a feral animal for a chance at a couple thousand dollars.
“You’re joking,” Victor said, because he couldn’t think of what else to say.
“Ain’t jokin’. I wouldn’t have left you high and dry like that.
I ain’t the most responsible, but I pride myself on takin’ good care of Taylor.
My sister’s real pissed at me, but I promised to make it up to her by pickin’ Taylor up this mornin’.
I gotta thank ya for lookin’ after her. She alright there by herself? ”
“Seems okay. I gave her the dogs to sleep with.”
“Sorry ‘bout all this. I’ll make it up to ya somehow.” Then Johnny hung up, and Victor groaned, dropping the phone on the empty side of the bed and deciding to try to attempt some sleep in the next hour before he had to be up again.
* * *
Victor had a hard time climbing out of bed, but he didn’t want to be asleep when Taylor woke, so he made sure to be up and dressed by seven-thirty.
He was just starting to make some coffee when Taylor shuffled out of her bedroom and walked into the living area, bringing two exuberant dogs with her.
Victor opened the door for them to run outside, then gave Taylor the brightest smile he could manage.
“Hey there, kiddo? How’d you sleep?”
“Okay…” Taylor drifted off. “Is Mama coming to pick me up?”
“Johnny will pick you up at nine.”
“Oh.” Taylor stepped over to the kitchen island and climbed up onto a stool. “Why didn’t he pick me up last night?”
“He’ll explain it to you.” Let Johnny deal with that burden. “But he’s fine, so don’t worry. You want breakfast? How does eggs and bacon sound?”
For the first time, Taylor perked up. “Really?”
“Sure. You like your eggs scrambled?”
“Yes, please!”
Victor went to work preparing her breakfast as Taylor started cycling through possible name options for the other horses, which Victor allowed even though he only had jurisdiction over the Arabian and the pony gelding.
When Victor put a plate of bacon and eggs in front of her, Taylor let out a squeal of delight and dug into her food with the fervor of a horse to sweet feed.
“Mama only makes us breakfast on special occasions,” Taylor explained. “She’s always too tired cuz she works nights.”
“What about her boyfriend? Mike, I think it is.”
Taylor’s face turned sour. “Mike can’t cook anything but hot dogs.”
“You don’t like hot dogs?”
“Yeah, but it’s all he makes us when Mama’s out. Most of the time he just sleeps or watches TV. He’s lazy. Mama says so all the time.” Taylor paused, then glanced around the house. “Do you have a girlfriend?”
Great, now Victor had to hear this from a nine-year-old. “Why do you care?” Victor asked, trying to sound playful.
“I dunno.” Taylor shrugged. “Most old people have girlfriends.”
“Oh, old people, I see,” Victor replied with a laugh.
“Yeah!” Taylor responded with a grin. “You’re so old! You’re like a grandpa. Do you ever need a cane when you walk?”
Grinning, Victor replied, “I’m going to throw you outside with the dogs, what do you think about that?”
Taylor giggled, shoving more eggs in her mouth. “Good! I wanna sleep in the barn with the horses.”
“Do you want to eat hay like the horses, too?”
“I’ve tried eating grass but it doesn’t taste good.”
After Taylor finished breakfast, she asked if Victor had a hairbrush so she could put her hair in a ponytail. Victor offered to braid her hair instead, if she wanted.
“You know how to braid hair?” Taylor asked, wrinkling her nose.
“Sure I do. Is that weird?”
“Mike doesn’t know how to do that.”
“Mike also doesn’t know how to cook, does he?”
“Yeah, he sucks,” Taylor agreed as she followed Victor to the couch and plopped herself on the floor so that Victor had a good angle at which to braid her hair.
“Do you want a regular braid or a French braid?” Victor asked.
Taylor twisted around with narrowed eyes. “You know how to French braid too?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” Taylor didn’t give it much more thought than that. “French braid, please.”
It had been a long time since Victor had braided someone’s hair, but he’d practiced so much on his friends in high school that the muscle memory was still there.
Afterward, Taylor insisted on running to the bathroom to look at her hair when Victor finished, and she cried, “Wow, it looks good!” as if that were some kind of revelation.
When she ran back into the living room, she was smiling.
“You should have a girlfriend,” she said with a sage nod. “Then you’d have someone’s hair to braid.”
“I have horses with plenty of hair.”
“Can we go out now and see them?”
“Sure. Want to help me feed and water them?”
“Yeah!”
“Alright, put your shoes on.”
With her shoes on, Taylor practically skipped outside and darted ahead like the dogs did first thing in the morning when they were at their most energetic.
Victor had to speed up his pace just to keep up, and by the time he got to the overflow barn, Taylor was already climbing a panel to get inside of a pen.
She was greeted by several curious noses, one of them belonging to the gray-faced elderly horse and the other the skinny black Arabian mare who looked even worse now that she was under full sun.
Her coat had gone to shit from lack of nutrition, and her hooves definitely needed work.
Victor would have to call the farrier out today or tomorrow to trim them all.
Taylor hugged the neck of the Arabian mare, running her fingers over a knotted mane and looking at her as if she were a new puppy under the Christmas tree.
To distract her, Victor asked her to check the water and fill it up if needed.
Victor went to work on bringing over a few bales of hay for them to eat.
Victor had just retrieved his medical supplies with a thermometer when he saw Johnny’s truck heading up the driveway.
Taylor had already dashed out of the horse pen to wave at him, so he pulled around the main barn and parked.
When he stepped out, Taylor ran to him and hugged him tightly around the waist.
“Hey there, redhead,” Johnny said, hugging her back. He had a large swollen bruise across his jaw and a dark mark across the bridge of his nose. “What have you been up to, eh?” He paused. “Your mama do this braid for ya?”
“Come look!” Taylor insisted, grabbing his hand. “Look at the horses we got at the auction!”
She pulled Johnny along, and Victor went as well, the buckles of the lead ropes thrown over his shoulder jingling. Johnny turned to Victor with a smile, his face cast in shadow by his black cowboy hat.
“Howdy,” he said by way of greeting. “You need help?”
“I’d love that, actually. I’d like to tie up all the horses so that I can look them over and take their temperature. If their temps are up, it could mean Strangles.”
“Sure thing.”
Johnny and Taylor went to work without complaint, catching horses and tying them along the fence so that each was ready for Victor to analyze.
He took pictures of them from the front, side, and back, noted their temperature, resting heart rate, and foot condition.
The horse with the pus-filled eye had one shoe that needed to be removed, but no one else was shod.
The donkeys also were exempt from the exam, considering they were feral and ran off any time they were approached.
Taylor was surprisingly good with each horse, and Victor thought that if her grades were better, she might make a competent vet.
He had to call his own, though the only urgent thing was the one horse’s bad eye.
The rest were scraped up, battered, and skinny but it was nothing some time and good feed couldn’t fix.
The yearling would need surgery for the hernia, but that could wait until the quarantine period was over and it moved on to Melissa’s rescue.
Taylor told Johnny all about the Arabian mare and how much she liked her, and Johnny kept throwing looks at Victor, as if questioning Taylor’s account. When she involved herself in picking out horse’s feet, Johnny sidled over to Victor and spoke in a low voice with his arms crossed over his chest.
“She convince you to buy that horse or what?” he asked.
“I didn’t buy it solely because she asked me to,” Victor replied.
“No? You got a dire need for an Arabian?”
Victor sighed. “She can be very persuasive.”
There was a buzzing in his pocket, and Victor pulled out his phone. He got a text from Kayla.
Is Johnny there yet?
Victor texted back, He arrived half an hour ago.
Her response was: I’m gonna beat his ass, but thank you for looking after Taylor last night.
“How’d everything go last night in jail?” Victor asked Johnny.
“Ain’t the first time I been there, I’m ashamed to say.
Sometimes I do get a little too, uh, drunk.
The damn cop they sent out knew me from a few run-ins I’ve had before, and he assumed I was causing a ruckus, and he wouldn’t listen to me cuz I did have a few drinks, so he took us both in and wouldn’t let me out until they talked to the Kevin. ”
“Who is Kevin?”
“Bartender. We’ve known each other a while. Good guy. But would you believe that the lady that man was pickin’ on wouldn’t vouch for me? Last time I help out I guess. Some of these women are fuckin’ crazy.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Sorry you had to look after Taylor last minute, but she seems to be in one piece. How’d she do overnight?”
“Great. She’s very brave.”
“Yeah, that’s my Tay. Gets it from me, ya know.” Johnny winked. “What do ya want for your time?”
“Huh?”
“Payment. You looked after her all of last night and this mornin’. I feel like I need to give you somethin’.”
“Oh! Oh, no, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it. We were happy to have her tag along.”
“Sounds like she guilted you into buying a horse.”
“Two horses, actually, but it’s fine. The pony I can use in my lesson program if he’s a good fit. The Arabian…” Victor trailed off. “Training prospect, I guess.”
“Now you’ll never get rid of her. She’s gonna wanna be here every damn day.”
Taylor came jogging over, interrupting their conversation. “While you two are talking, can I walk Midnight around a little?” She pointed to the Arabian mare.
“You already named it? Damn, girl. It ain’t your horse.”
“I know, but…” Taylor trailed off, looking a little sheepish. “I really like her. Can her name be Midnight? Pleeeease?”
“Midnight is fine. And yes, you can walk her around a bit but stay in our sight. Don’t let her eat too much grass, either. She’s too thin to be eating that right now, and I don’t need anyone collicking on the first day they’re here.”
“Okay!” Taylor ran off, braid bouncing.
Johnny chuckled, shaking his head. “You’re a rare breed, Vic.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“From where I stand it is.”
“Well… thank you.” Victor didn’t know what else to say.
Eventually Johnny was able to convince Taylor to put the horse back so they could head home. Before Taylor got into Johnny’s truck, she gave Victor a firm hug around the waist.
“Thank you for buying her,” she muttered into his shirt. “Now she’s safe.”
“I’ll test her out and see if she’s rideable. Either way, if you help out a bit around the farm I promise you can work with her. How’s that sound?”
Taylor pulled back and nodded enthusiastically. “I’d love that!”
“Alright, kiddo.” Victor patted her head. “Off with your uncle now.”
She darted away, waving at Victor over her shoulder. Johnny chased her into the cab of his truck, then gave Victor a lazy salute before climbing in after her. Victor watched the truck turn and drive off before heading back to his new equine acquisitions.