I force myself to stare straight ahead, to regulate my breathing. I startle at a shrill whinny, and then I see Belle Star. She is prancing with a limp. With every step her shoulder dives and snaps up abruptly. There is blood streaming from her nose.
Episode 21:
Something’s Not Right
We all know when something is truly, deeply wrong. We know it in our bones. Sometimes we blame it on other things—our jobs, our lives, ourselves. But the truth is, there is evil around us all the time, infecting us. . . .
I stumble off the tractor and start toward the house, panicked. I run, like I ran in my dream, picking up speed so my lungs swell. I don’t know if there is too much oxygen or not enough, but I can’t breathe. I can’t catch my breath, and the muscles above my heart contract like a fist. As I pass the lodge, I hear the plaintive cry of a phone ringing off the hook, but it only makes me go faster. I run all the way to your mother’s house. I rap on the back door so electrified, I am shaking.
“Come in.” Your mother’s voice. I open the door to the mudroom. Beyond it, your mother and father sit at the breakfast table.
I try to catch my breath.
Your father blinks benignly. His eyes seem brown and blue at once, like he’s wearing color contacts. He is unexpectedly small, effeminate. His hair is the same matte brown as your mother’s, like they dye it from the same bottle. He pushes back from the table, sets his hands on his knees. “Nice to meet you, Sera. Addy’s been telling me all about you.”
“There’s something—one of the horses is injured.”
Your mother’s brow creases. “Which horse?”
“One in the pasture by the barn.” Something stops me from telling her it’s Belle Star. I know she doesn’t like her.
“Injured how?” Your father sticks a finger between his teeth and sucks.
“She’s bleeding; her nose is bleeding. And she’s limping.”
“Which horse?” your mother repeats.
“Uh-oh,” your father says in a goofy voice. “Looks like I better get the shotgun.” He grins like I will find this funny.
I realize now that I shouldn’t have come to them first. I should have taken Belle out of the pasture myself. I panicked, in the moment. This is their ranch; I thought I needed to get their permission. “We need to take her out of that pasture. I think the other horses are bullying her.”
Your mother’s eyes expand and contract. She knows it’s Belle Star. “You can put her in the round pen.”
“Should we call a vet?”
Their eyes meet over the table; then your father says, “I better have a look at her first.”
And your mother says, “You’re supposed to be feeding the horses.”
I nod dumbly and walk out, shutting the door behind me. My limbs feel heavy as I walk back. I am nervous about going into the pasture, afraid the alpha horses will charge me again, but Belle Star stumbles right to the gate to meet me, as if she knows I am here to rescue her. I lead her slowly to the round pen, and she limps along beside me, blood gushing from her nose.
I think of your gang, and I run my hand down her face, trying to see if she’s been hit, trying to find a fracture in the bone.
I find a flashlight in the tack room. I angle it so I can see into the long chasm of her nostril, but I can’t figure out what’s causing the bleeding. I think, Stroke! Brain hemorrhage! Blunt-force trauma! I can’t even google it because I don’t have Wi-Fi.
I think of your mother’s expression, her repeated questioning, as if she knew it was Belle Star or hoped it was. I think of the dead cat. The tumorous, wheezing dogs. I try to tell myself that this is normal on a farm. This is the “real wilderness.” I am being too sensitive. But the part of my brain your podcast triggers thinks, Serial killers kill animals too. I bring alfalfa for Belle Star. There is no water in the round pen, so I drag in a water trough from behind the barn and fill it with the hose from a nearby guest cabin. Once she is quietly grazing, I leave to feed the other horses.
When I get back, your father is in the round pen with her, trying to look at her nose as she shies and throws her head.
He approaches her again. She balks and runs, tripping, to the other side of the pasture. He grins boyishly at me. “Might be time to send this one to the great big pasture in the sky.” He points two fingers at her forehead, and she shies away.
“I don’t think that’s funny.” My voice is steely.
“No,” he says, chastised but still smiling. He slaps his hands together. “It’s a flesh wound, m’lady! Merely a flesh wound!”
“Can we call a vet to make sure?”
“Where we gonna get that kind of money?” He plays the same game your mother does. I think of the four hundred guns, the miniature train and the marble statue of Christ.
“I’ll pay for it.” I know I shouldn’t put my foot down like this. I need to play along, to make them like me, but suddenly I’m wondering if working here is the right way to go about my investigation. They don’t want me to go to the police. They don’t want me to go to Happy Camp. They don’t want me to go near your house. Maybe I am approaching this from the wrong angle.
But I remind myself that you were here. You lived here. You were here when you disappeared. And Jed will be back in a few days. Maybe he will be different from your parents. Maybe I will be able to trust him. I can’t risk losing my foothold here. And anyway, I want to keep an eye on Belle Star. I need to stick this out. I need to play the game, and I need to keep your family close.
Your father frowns. “Okay! Okay! I’ll ask someone to come by, but I think it’s a waste of time.” He takes off his hat and fans his leg. “They usually get better on their own. Or they don’t. Anyway, we better get back to work!” He gives me a “stern” look, but every look is comical on his face, like he’s a rodeo clown performing a normal life.
I get back to work, but I keep an eye on Belle Star, as if someone might sneak in and attack her when I’m not looking.
The tack needs to be organized and cleaned. The other horses need to be checked out. One has a hoof cracked almost to the bone; your mother tells me to put oil on it. Half the horses have rain rot; their hair is matted and fungal from their being left to fend for themselves all winter. Your mother gives me a metal currycomb, and I scrape the infected hair out, leaving scaly patches of exposed skin. The horses are spicy. They’ve been off work all winter and they don’t like to be separated from the herd and they kick and they bite on the ground and they buck and they balk under saddle. They are nothing like the pleasant ponies of my youth. They are hardy. They are furry. They are stooped and barn sour.