3. Bonnie
BONNIE
By the time the last class finishes, I have stopped expecting Gage to find me for a private conversation. Every time I see him, Tawny or Dewey is beside him.
I finish putting Mercy’s things away and walk to our trailer. My jacket is supposed to be in the wardrobe trailer two rows over. I intend to collect it before we leave.
Our black tack trunk stands on the gravel two spaces short of our rig, beside the loading ramp of a polished black truck I have never seen.
Its brass plate has been polished so hard that the scratches around the edges have turned pale.
I bought that trunk used, replaced the hinges and lined the bottom with rubber matting.
A long shipping label covers the old mark where I spilled hoof oil.
I bend far enough to read it, then straighten too quickly and have to wait for the dizziness to pass.
AMARILLO. TULSA. WICHITA. DENVER. CHEYENNE. BILLINGS.
Six cities. Under the route, somebody has printed MERCY — TAWNY BYERS / CROWN FEATURE TOUR.
I turn the tag over. The reverse is blank.
The trunk isn’t empty. I lift the lid and find Mercy’s show pads, her spare bridle and the blue exercise sheet I had left at home in the clean-tack room. Someone packed this before we arrived.
I lift a corner of the sheet. It still smells faintly of the lavender detergent Gage hates. He says a horse ought to smell like a horse. I tell him he is welcome to wash the blankets himself. We have been having that argument since we bought our second horse.
Underneath is the card we attach to Mercy’s stall at events. Her registered details fill the top. Along the bottom, the place where my name belongs now reads REDFERN PERFORMANCE TEAM.
The plastic warms beneath my thumb. They have packed Mercy’s things. Someone has taken the gear I use every day and put it where Tawny can reach it on the road. This has moved past a conversation I was not invited to. Staff have been given instructions and followed them.
My name is gone from the card. If I had not come looking for the jacket, would I have learned about the tour when a groom asked why I was waiting for my own mare?
“They need that closed.”
Dewey is coming down the row with a man in a Crown jacket. He slows when he sees what I have taken out.
“Where’s this going?” I ask.
“It’s an advance preparation.”
“For what?”
He looks toward the wardrobe trailer. Gage and Tawny stand on the steps. My husband is holding a bottle of water while she checks something on a phone. I cannot see which of them the phone belongs to. From this distance, they look occupied with a private problem they expect to solve together.
“Gage,” I call.
He looks up. I hold the card where he can see it.
The Crown employee moves away from Dewey and begins adjusting a strap on the truck. It doesn’t need adjusting. Gage hands Tawny the bottle and comes toward me.
“Why’s Mercy packed for six cities?”
“That’s a proposed route.”
“Her blankets are in the trunk.”
“The crew packed ahead. It doesn’t mean the whole thing’s settled.”
“Who told them they could?”
He leans down to read the card in my hand. “We can have this changed.”
“I asked who told them to pack my horse’s things.”
“I agreed we’d look at a tour.”
“Before her mare was sore?”
He glances toward the black truck.
“Gage. You told me you had a last-minute problem. How long have you been promising Tawny my horse?”
“A couple of weeks.” He says it impatiently, reaching for the card as though I have kept him from something by making him answer. I hold it against my chest.
He knew what I was asking in the tunnel. He stood there letting me believe he had made one hurried decision while somebody was calling a number.
Tawny has come up behind him. “It was provisional until we knew how Mercy and I worked together.”
“You could’ve asked me that without taking her.”
“You haven’t been traveling much.”
“I’m standing here.”
Gage holds out his hand until I let him take the card. He passes it to Dewey. “Put Bonnie Redfern back on it as Mercy’s trainer.”
Dewey takes it, relieved to have a task he can finish. The relief makes me want to grab it out of his hand. A new line on a card is going to let them believe they have fixed this.
“Mercy is coming home with me,” I say.
“Tonight, yes.”
I look at my husband. “Tonight and after tonight.”
“We need a settled answer before next Friday,” Tawny says. “And the bookings run through spring next year.”
“Next spring?” I ask.
“Through the final,” she says.
“We put our winter clinic on the calendar in February,” I tell Gage. “And the appearance before the final. You said we’d build the schedule around my coming back.”
Gage takes a breath. “We can’t build the schedule around what you might feel like doing after the baby.”
“You built it around Tawny instead,” I say.
“We needed someone who could give us dates,” Tawny says.
I keep looking at Gage. “I gave you dates. This is a conversation about what you promised me.”
“She’s part of the conversation, Bonnie.”
“You made her part of it.”
He pulls his hat off and rubs the place where the band has pressed into his forehead. “I’m trying to keep a season together. You’re acting like I’ve handed her the deed to the ranch.”
I take the blue sheet out of the trunk and drape it over my arm. It is heavier than I want to carry, but I refuse to put it back under Tawny’s name.
“Open our trailer,” I tell him.
“Bonnie.”
“I need to put this away.”
He unlocks the living quarters. I set the folded sheet on the bench inside, then go back down the steps. The baby has settled low, making every step to the gravel an effort. Gage offers his hand. I use the rail.
The wardrobe trailer’s door is still open. A woman inside is packing lights into cases. My jacket hangs from a hook near a mirror, unzipped, one sleeve turned inside out.
“I’m taking that,” I say.
She looks beyond me. “We were told to keep it with Tawny’s things.”
“It belongs to me.”
I lift it from the hook. The lining is warm from the light above it. Tawny’s perfume clings to it, a sharp sweet scent that survives the dust and horse sweat.
The wardrobe woman reaches for a clipboard, then stops. “All right.”
I fold the sleeves across the front without looking closely at them. If I find a stain now, I will probably start crying in another stranger’s trailer.
Outside, Tawny is telling Gage the photographs will be released in the morning.
I go past them toward Mercy’s barn. He follows me this time.
“Let me carry it.”
“I can manage.”
“You’re exhausted. We should’ve gone home an hour ago.”
“I was waiting for you.”
He falls silent beside me. We walk through a pool of light from an open trailer door. A man inside is watching a replay of Tawny’s run on his television. I keep my jacket against my stomach until we reach the barn, where Beryl has Mercy ready to load into our own trailer.
Gage drives us home. I sit beside him with the jacket on my lap, awake for every mile.