Show Stopper cover

Copyright © 1992 by Mary Monica Pulver

CHAPTER ONE

Kori’s lips were pursed; she was whistling Bach’s Little Fugue, but so softly it could not be heard over the pickup’s monstrous engine. She was a slender woman with long hair pinned up in old-fashioned braids, a pale complexion, and steady gray eyes; at twenty-six not as beautiful as she would be at thirty-five. She was wearing jeans, a dark red turtleneck sweater and heavy sheepskin jacket. Her hair was frizzy-curly, so dark it looked black in any but the strongest sunlight, of which there was none right now; and even this close to the start of her day it was working its way out of its braids.

She cast a little glance into the side mirrors. Was the Bronco still behind them? She moved the steering wheel just a little to the right, glanced in the mirror, and way, way back, behind the horse trailer, caught a glimpse of familiar headlights. Very good.

She heard a scattered thump of raindrops on the truck’s roof, and then there were eggwhite spots on the windshield. The pavement was shiny from a previous shower. The rain was seldom heavy, but never quite over. It had come mixed with a thin fog that frustrated any hope of hurry. The wipers leaped up and settled back on intermittent, and Kori pressed the accelerator down just a little. They were half an hour behind schedule.

There was a dazzle of oncoming headlights, then the bellow of a semi truck and trailer churning up a hurricane in the other lane. Its passing was felt all down the length of the six-horse trailer, an unwelcome complication even with the heavy engine. But then the soft, weighty sway faded and her hands loosened their grip on the steering wheel. She hadn’t met many of the behemoths, but they made for a scary meeting, with only a broken yellow line between them and her. She consulted her watch; getting on for eight o’clock.

They were nearly half an hour behind schedule. Worse, this was a revised schedule; they had planned on arriving at the show site yesterday afternoon, giving them ample time to set up and get Blue Wind ready for the dressage competition this morning. But the day before yesterday the farrier had called to say he’d been in a car accident, nothing too serious, but he was laid up for at least a week. Three of the horses going to the show were scheduled to be re-shod, and it took five phone calls to find another farrier who could fit them into his schedule — late tomorrow. And so time that should have been spent on the road was spent waiting. The farrier called twice to say he was running late, and finally showed up at eleven p.m. to wake them from their doze in the tack room. It had been well after two a.m. before he finished.

Her thoughts went to the five horses in the trailer. Copper Wind, her stallion, was an experienced traveler, as were the three mares; no doubt they were standing well braced, aware the noise and bouncing were not life-threatening, and would end. Coppy would even be pleased to be on the road; for all he was a gentle soul at home, he loved the excitement and applause of a horse show.

Lazy, clever Storm Wind would be hoping the door latch on her box stall at the show was one she could unfasten, so she could get out and go find a meadow with a mud hole in it, perfect for alternately snacking and rolling—Kori sometimes thought Stormy was as much pig as horse. Except that she was also dainty and exquisitely pretty as only the Arabian can be.

Hurricane’s name described her nature: large (too large, thought Kori, who refused to breed her), energetic and determined. She also was beautiful, but performed unevenly at halter, sometimes “setting up—” going into the official pose—almost without guidance, and other times discovering someone in the crowd or another horse so interesting she would ignore Danny’s cues. Last year she had gotten a fourth, a sixth, a championship, and no ribbon at all.

Even more of an unknown quantity was the yearling, Leaves You Breathless. Kori didn’t like bringing babies to shows; too often they reacted poorly to the stress of travel, to the strange smells and unfamiliar box stalls. But Breathless was not only particularly lovely and elegant, she had seemed from birth to consider everything a well-meaning attempt to amuse her.

The road abruptly widened into four lanes; they were coming into a town. Cars appeared as if from nowhere, most headed in her direction; a few passed them with a high spray of road water. She lifted her foot a little from the accelerator as the traffic suddenly thickened, a small town’s version of rush hour. It was going to be a close thing whether or not they’d arrive in time for that first competition.

Red taillights glowed ahead; she downshifted, slowing. In an effort at patience, she sent her thoughts drifting to the yearling riding in the trailer.

Leaves You Breathless had been named at birth, when her character and beauty were scarcely promises, but it was as if she had learned the name’s meaning early on and done her best to live up to it. Kori was almost afraid to show her, afraid that the beauty was an illusion that would vanish under the cruel gaze of a show judge.

Or that the filly would hate the stress of being shown and come home with her sweet disposition soured forever.

Or catch some disease from another horse at the show and after prolonged, painful, and expensive treatment, die.

Snap out of it, my girl, thought Kori. This morbidity is not because you are afraid for the filly, it’s because you are entered in the dressage competition. If she had only to arrive, unpack, set up, and prepare to show at halter and in Country English Pleasure, as usual, she wouldn’t be fretting like this.

She shifted into first, pulled forward, stopped again. It started when she was at an all-breed show in Chicago two years ago. Someone had given her a ticket as a gift, then turned up and insisted she come along to the Dressage-to-Music event. Kori had grown up on horseback and thought she was pretty good at it, but dressage was a revelation. The riders were young, some of them barely in their teens, but they addressed their horses in a subtle, almost invisible way. And their horses moved differently, using their haunches for impulsion, and reaching so far forward in the extended trots that they seemed to float over the ground. The horses angled cross-legged across the arena, made small circles to show how flexible their necks and spines were, stopped, backed, and changed leads during tiny, collected canters, sometimes so frequently they looked as if they were skipping. And during the whole demonstration, the riders appeared to sit perfectly still, erect and calm, no heels poking flanks, no visible rein pulling. It was incredible, fascinating.

Then a month later that same friend remarked that it was peculiar that someone who was as good a rider as Kori was, with a horse as obviously talented as Blue Wind was, wasn’t competing in something more advanced than English Country Pleasure classes — and did Kori know there was a very talented dressage instructor in her neighborhood?

Kori took the hint and signed up for an evaluation. A week later a car drove up to Tretower and from it emerged a Prussian, complete with accent.

He watched her ride Blue Wind in her indoor arena for half an hour, then conceded that she wasn’t so bad. It did appear, however, that she didn’t know how to sit on a horse, nor did she use her legs properly, or realize that the reason she had a tailbone was to address her horse with it through the saddle. She had signed up for lessons at once, ashamed of her many failures.

Then began a song with endless verses. One verse went, “No, no!”—All the verses began No, no!—”You go from a rising trot to a sitting trot just three steps before a halt. Not two, not four. Now, so, tilt the pelvis—” This always demonstrated with a graphic pelvic thrust—”squeeze with the thighs, drop the hands, and she will halt. Again please.”

This was generally followed by the verse, “No, no! Do it again; she must stop with all four feet right under her. And always, keep eyes forward, elbows bent, heels down. And sit up straight; you look like a dying flower.”

The song always ended, “As much as you practice, as better you get,” which he said at the end of every lesson.

So she would go home and much practice. The exercises to deepen her seat left her sore, the long hours made her dependent on Danny for the training of the other horses, and she had less time to spend with her son, who at two was turning into a strong-willed charmer.

But Blue Wind became ever more of a joy to ride, soft in the mouth, flexible, generous, athletic. And her ability to master the combinations of foot positions, leg pressures, shifts of posture in the saddle, and subtle rein signals seemed bottomless.

Kori was brought back to the present as the car ahead of her stopped abruptly. She braked, frowning. Had she remembered to pack her hairnet? Her new gloves? Yes and yes. The smile bloomed again. Dressage competition had her scared, but she would use what they had learned in dressage in the Country English Pleasure class, and there Kori was sure she and Blue would finish in the ribbons.

But first they had to arrive at the fairgrounds.

She glanced over at the young man crumpled against the passenger door, fast asleep. Danny could sleep anywhere, through anything. She had volunteered to make this morning drive; he was not a morning person and had a hard day ahead of him. Not that she didn’t as well, but she was a lark, the unfortunate sort of person who could not sleep in, particularly when there was important business at hand.

The traffic crawled forward, and the headlights picked up a sign: Lafite, Pop. 73,650, it said. Kori began looking for another sign. A quarter mile later, there it was: Fairgrounds. An arrow pointed right. Kori, signaling, pulled into the right turn lane, then swung the truck and its trailer onto a narrow road, careful not to cut the corner, because the trailer followed its nose in a straight line and would fall into the ditch if she did.

“Danny.”

“Hm?”

“Danny, wake up, we’re here.”

“Um. What timezit?”

“Eight twenty. We’ve got fifty minutes until I’m due in the arena with Blue Wind.”

Danny pushed himself upright, groaning, then yawned prodigiously, stretching until he realized he was about to thrust a fist into the face of his boss. “Ah. So this is it, huh?” He peered through the windshield. “Shit, what is that?”

“Fog mixed with rain. It rained most of the way, or we’d have been here forty minutes ago.”

“And you drove the whole way? Why didn’t you wake me up? Is Brit still with us?”

Kori checked the mirror again. “Yes. And I’m fine.”

“Well, still— Fifty minutes? Good thing Brit’s got show experience.”

“We need more than experience, we need jet propelled skill. I hope she’s got that, too. Get the map out.”

Brit was new, a temporary groom hired just for this show. Tretower’s groom had left to have a baby, and might not be back, so Kori had Brit come to Tretower a week ago, both to find out how good she was and let the horses get used to her.

Danny punched open the glove box, took out a thrice-folded sheet of paper and smoothed it flat on the dash. He was the Tretower horse trainer, a thin man of twenty-three with straight mud-brown hair and narrow eyes. He was wearing a thick brown sweater strewn with hay stems, a consequence of loading the empty space in the trailer with hay. He reached up and turned on a map light.

The paper was, on one side, a simplified map of the fairgrounds, with the horse barn circled in red. It was located diagonally from a big rectangle marked Arena. The map was standard issue; other barns, uncircled, were labeled Sheep, Swine, and Fowl; and there were areas marked Midway, Racetrack, Office, Concessions.

“What street are we on?” asked Danny.

“Illinois Avenue,” replied Kori.

Danny located it on the map, then peered ahead into the wet murk. “Turn left on Livestock Lane, which will run us right by the horse barn.”

He turned the paper over. On its reverse was a line drawing labeled Horse Barn. The barn was a long rectangle cut into sixths by five aisles and three parts lengthwise by two aisles. The main entrance was at the east end of the center aisle, a very broad affair, though there were doors on all four sides of the barn. The box stalls were in sets of eight, four each back to back. Inside the main entrance, a row of four had been set aside as the show office, and other sets of two had become wash stations, straw storage, and rest rooms.

Two facing sections of four stalls were circled in green and marked <em>Tretower</em>.

“The southeast or southwest doors are equally close to our stalls,” said Danny. “But there’s a sharp curve in the middle of that alley on that side, so let’s just go in the main door on the east side.” He lifted the sheet and checked the forms stapled to it, their confirmation of entry and receipt for fees paid. “Where’s our papers?” he asked, meaning the entry forms, horse registration, membership cards and veterinary certificates necessary to make them official entrants in the show.

“Big brown envelope behind your seat.” Danny squirmed around and found it. “You go straight in and get us registered and come right to us with Blue’s number,” she said. “Let’s see — ” She slowed, ducking to look for a street sign, couldn’t find it but saw instead a small green board with blue lettering and an arrow pointing right: Lafite All-Arab Horse Show. “Here we are.” She did a hand-over-hand turn, engine whining, checking her mirrors to ensure the heavy trailer wasn’t going to climb the corner and crush the fireplug that also marked the corner. The new road was curbed like a street, and in the next block there was even a crumbling blacktop sidewalk, lined with hot dog emporiums, cotton candy stands, Fresh Lemonade Fresh kiosks, all boarded up and sad-faced in the rain, some in need of paint. The fair wasn’t until July; meanwhile the county earned fixup money by renting to horse shows, antique fairs, classic car conventions, travelling rodeos, even big family reunions.

Kori rolled her window down a little to test the air. A chill, moisture-laden breeze immediately flowed in across her hands and face. “Blue won’t like this,” she said. “And I won’t have time to warm her up. Darn, we’re going to make a real mess of this.”

“Aw, it’s only Training Level; they can’t expect much, can they?”

Kori made a wry face. “With Loretta judging? She’ll expect perfection at the least. I hope there isn’t a line at check-in.”

“Shouldn’t be; the only thing going on today is dressage and we’re cutting it so close, everyone else riding in it should be already here. You want me to come and clap?”

“You don’t clap at dressage; the audience sits in ghastly silence. Anyway, you’ll be busy unloading and getting set up.”

Kori caught a whiff of horse mixed with the odor of fresh-baked sweet rolls. Fresh-baked anything was Kori’s weakness; ordinarily her stomach would have spoken up to remind her she had sent down only half a hasty muffin so far today, and that was some hours ago. But the dressage competition to come overawed her stomach, pulling it into a silent knot. She checked her watch; Blue Wind liked at least fifteen minutes of warm-up before she performed, and she wasn’t going to get it; they were going to be lucky to make it to the arena on time. Perhaps Kori should scratch her entry and try again when she was better organized?

But Loretta only rarely condescended to judge Training Level performances; even if Kori did poorly, Loretta’s comments on the marking sheet might prove very helpful. Besides, Kori didn’t like backing out just because she wouldn’t be at her best.

The street opened to four lanes, but was mostly blocked at that point by sawhorses with signs on them: <em>Lafite County/All Arabian Horse Show/Competitors Only.</em> Beyond the sawhorses were the big cement block show arena and the livestock barns, low and white, with red roofs. She maneuvered the truck and its trailer around the blockade, and stopped halfway along the white barn marked HORSES. She was still reaching to shut the engine off when Danny opened the door on his side and hopped out, envelope in hand.

She set the brake and spent a few seconds being grateful for having arrived safely and shifting mental gears from truck driver to horseback rider. Right, she thought, and bailed out on her side.