For the last six months or so, I’d been on the hunt for a Very Specific horse. Specific enough that the client was now colloquially called Goddamn Cahill around here.
The man seemed to have more money than good sense, based on the ludicrous amount he’d wired me when I started my search. The sum was to be used to buy the horse of his dreams and then to begin the training.
I’d finally found the mare a few months ago in Kentucky. Since we were in Colorado, it was a 20-hour drive to the appaloosa breeders, the Knight Family, who had her.
She was everything Carter Goddamn Cahill had wanted, once I trained her to his liking. The horse needed to be a mare, above a certain height, and a very,veryspecific color that was rarer than hen’s teeth, as Russ, our old foreman, would say.
Speaking of the devil, I heard him greet the horses one by one as he shuffled his way across to the hay loft stairs.
Russ had been here before my parents ever acquired the property almost thirty years ago. He’d worked as the foreman until my brother Crew took over a few years ago. Russ was getting old, but he was tenacious as ever. He’d been my best friend since I was a kid, because somehow we’d just clicked.
“Here you are, kid,” he grunted when he got to the top of the stairs. “What’s got you grinnin’ like that this early?”
He moved to the visitor’s chair and sat down heavily enough that I had to do my best to not react to it. He’d been getting slower in the last year or so, given that he was about seventy. I hoped it was just his struggle to get going in the mornings and nothing more than that.
“Suzanne Knight emailed me. The foal has been weaned and as soon as I wire her the money, the mare is ours.”
Russ let out a big huff and chuckled. “Well, I’ll be damned. Cahill needs to be appreciative or I’ll kick his ass; I don’t particularly care that he’s richer than Jesus.”
I snorted. “Yeah, yeah. I’m just happy to have the money he promised me so I can start to really make plans for the pool building.”
Russ scratched his stubbly, weathered cheek. “That’ll be a big project.”
“Yeah, but with the money Cahill is paying, I can afford to have it done right and by professionals.”
“True, true….”
The door downstairs opened and closed, and Gemma whistled a tune as she started up the stairs.
“Guess what, Sis?”
She stopped by the stairs and looked at me. “What?”
“We got the mare.”
She whooped loud and jumped a couple of times before rushing around the desk to hug me vigorously. She was a year older than me, but sometimes she felt like she was the younger one of us.
“That’s awesome! I’m so happy for you!”
After some more celebration, she went to start the day downstairs and Russ ambled along with her. I called Suzanne and made the arrangements. Since she had a trusted company she used for long distance transport, I was willing to go with them without question.
“Once I know when we’ll be loading her in and when she’s supposed to be there, I’ll let you know. Oh and I’ll give them your contact information and such.”
“That sounds good to me.” I exhaled quietly, I hoped. “Are you absolutely sure I’m not stealing her from you?”
She chuckled. “No, Hawk. It’s okay. She had a rough pregnancy with this last one and she’s not going to have any more babies. She’s pretty to look at, but I don’t have a true need for her. I’d rather not have her reduced into a gorgeous lawn ornament, you know.”
The mare, who Suzanne called Ramona—a name I was sure Cahill would change to his liking—was eight years old, and she’d had three foals. She hadn’t been used for anything else for the last four years, which meant I had to pretty much treat her like a young horse to give her a proper chance to get back to whatever level of training she’d had before the foals.
“Okay then. I’ll wire you the money and once you have the information, let me know. We’ll be waiting for her.”
“Are you going to tell the buyer now?” she asked. She hadn’t really understood why I hadn’t told Cahill when Russ and I had initially traveled to Kentucky and paid a reservation fee for the mare.
“Yeah. I’ll have to call him and let him know when she’s going to be here. I’m sure he’ll want to be here as soon as he can.” I wasn’t even sure where Cahill was now or whether he was going to be staying for more than a little while during the initial arrival.
“Well, I know she’s in good hands with you at Blue Creek.”
“And you also know I wouldn’t be buying an asshole a horse in the first place,” I reminded her.
