Читать книгу Innocent Foxes: A Novel - Torey Hayden, Torey Hayden - Страница 9

Chapter Seven

Opening the side door, Spencer let himself into the barn. In the moments that it took for his eyes to adjust from dazzling sunshine to the daylight darkness inside the building, he stood quietly, deep breathing to release tension, the way his yoga instructor taught him, in order to draw in the peace he sensed in the warm, complex scent of horses and molasses-coated feed mingled with straw, wood and the ever-present pine-and-sagebrush tang of the mountains.

Beyond came the quiet rustling of the animal in his stall. Spencer approached. The horse lifted his head.

‘Hey, Ranger. How you doing?’ Spencer held his hand out flat to show the mint candies.

The horse’s ears twitched forward. Crossing the stall, he reached out and delicately picked the mints from Spencer’s palm.

The door at the other end of the barn slid open and Guff entered. ‘Morning, Mr Scott. I was just coming to saddle him for you.’

No screenwriter could have invented Guff. He didn’t look like a cowboy, more like a casting reject for a mall Santa Claus. Not that he was fat exactly, but a fair bit of extra weight hung over Guff’s belt. Short and bald except for white tufts near his ears, all he was missing in the Santa Claus department was a white beard. That, and decent skin. He had some condition, probably from the sun, that left his complexion a scaly assortment of sunset colours. None of this slowed Guff down any, however, as despite being seventy-two, and looking every day of it, he could spring up onto the back of a horse with a graceful agility that Spencer’s personal trainer and two hours a day at the gym had yet to give him.

Horses were what it was all about for Guff. He wasn’t a horse whisperer exactly. Even Spencer knew that horse whispering was probably just a romantic idea invented for the movies. What Guff had was a grittier, more obsessive connection with the animal that meant he really couldn’t think, talk or even live with anything else but horses. In fact, that was how Spencer had acquired him. He had come with Red Ranger.

This had seemed hysterically funny to Spencer at the time – that a man should belong to a horse and be sold right along with it, because that’s pretty much how it happened. In LA, he had often told this story as entertainment to illustrate what a curious world Montana was. But then Ranger wasn’t just any horse. He was the first quarter horse to take all three top cutting prizes and achieve National Cutting Horse Association Champion on his first year out, and Guff was his trainer, his rider, his carer and everything else to Ranger except his owner.

When Spencer had first decided he wanted to buy a horse, horses were just horses to him. He had never heard of ‘cutters’ – horses that were able to ‘cut’ a single cow out of a herd of cattle – nor the highly competitive world cutters belonged to. The first time one of the locals had taken him to a cutting championship, it was as if Spencer had happened across a secret society, what with the elaborate rules, the special clothes, the almost holy devotion to the horses. Spencer couldn’t quite get into it, but he had always appreciated quality and he liked owning the best. At $65,000 Red Ranger was just that. Guff had been a bonus. He was insanely devoted to the horse and he instinctively knew what he should be doing to keep both the animal and Spencer happy. He knew, for example, to ‘run Ranger off’ in the mornings, as he called it. Spencer wasn’t an experienced horseman. He’d hardly ever been on a horse before buying the ranch, and he didn’t have the time to acquire such skills. Guff understood this. He knew Ranger was ‘too fresh’ at the start of the day for Spencer to control, so he always took the horse out first thing so that if Spencer felt like riding later on, Ranger would be quiet enough. Spencer never had to tell him what to do. Nor did Spencer have to tell him to stay down in the barns and not come up to the house asking for coffee or expecting to be a part of what was going on there, like some of the other local help had. When Spencer stayed at the ranch, Guff always kept to himself, except when horses were needed, and even then he was good about not talking or making too much eye contact with Spencer or his friends, which was important. The whole point of getting away from LA was to not be stared at. Spencer liked that Guff just knew all this stuff naturally.

Spencer stroked the horse’s neck, ruffling up under the mane.

‘We been out along the ridge,’ Guff said as he pulled the saddle blanket from where it had been draped over the side of the stall. He lofted it up on to the horse’s back. ‘Up over the top and down that draw where all the aspen are, all the way down to that slough at the bottom, Ranger and me, we seen a moose and her calf this morning. It’s pretty new.’

‘I’d like to see that,’ Spencer replied. He walked with Guff as he led Ranger out into the corral. ‘And listen, if you see the boy … I’m trying to get him outside. He ought to be enjoying this place, not stuck inside with a bunch of computer games. If you see him, could you spend some time with him?’

When Spencer returned to the house after his ride, the kid was in the screening room. Laid out flat in one of the loungers, he was watching an ancient Vin Diesel movie. The volume was turned so high that Spencer had identified the film before he’d even entered the house.

When Spencer grabbed the control for the metal blinds and pressed it, allowing blindingly brilliant sunshine to stream in, the kid screeched like a vampire.

‘It’s eleven o’clock in the morning, for God’s sake.’

‘Fuck off.’

‘I don’t want you sitting around indoors every day, all day. Go outside.’ Spencer turned off the television.

‘Fuck off!’ the kid cried and leaped from the lounger. Clutching the remote so that Spencer couldn’t take it, he went over and turned the TV back on.

Not wanting the little bastard to wreck the mellowness of his morning ride, Spencer gave in. If he wanted to rot his brain, so be it.

Spencer turned and nearly ran into Sidonie in the doorway, her arms clutched around a small stack of scripts.

‘As soon as I’ve put these away, I’m going in the kitchen to make some cookies,’ she said to the boy. ‘Do you want to help me?’

‘Leave him alone,’ Spencer said. ‘He’s being a little fucker.’

‘He’s bored, Spence. We can’t leave him doing nothing all the time.’

‘Sidonie, there’s a whole world of things out there for him to do, if he’d just get off his fat little ass and go do them. Don’t pander to him.’

‘But it can’t be very nice here. There aren’t any other kids around. He doesn’t know anybody. And I don’t mind doing things with him.’

‘You guys. I’m right here. Why do you stand there talking like I can’t hear you?’ the boy said.

‘Tennesee, would you like to come make some cookies with me?’

‘“Tennesee, would you like to come make some cookies with me?”’ the boy mimicked back sarcastically.

‘See?’ Spencer replied. ‘What’s the point of being nice to him? He’s got his mother’s genes.’

Sidonie could never deal with conflict. No matter how much you pointed out the contrary, the world was all bunnies and rainbows to her, so she kept on with the Care Bear routine. ‘I’m making three-kinds-of-ginger cookies. My grandma’s special recipe. I’ll show you how to make really cool gingerbread men out of them. Come on. It might be fun.’

‘Quit acting like you think you’re my mom.’

‘I don’t think I’m your mom,’ Sidonie said. ‘I’m just saying it might be fun to do.’

‘Why would I want to do anything with you? You think you’re so cool, but really you’re nothing but my dad’s latest fuck,’ the boy replied and flipped her the finger.

‘Hey!’ Spencer said sharply. ‘I’m not having you talk to her like that.’

‘You mean I’m not allowed to tell the truth?’ the kid said, widening his eyes in fake innocence.

Spencer came back into the room. ‘Apologize.’

The boy sprawled nonchalantly over the lounger like a basking lizard.

‘I said, apologize.’

No response.

Spencer crossed over and pushed the lounger sharply into the upright position, knocking the boy forward. ‘Go to your room then. Right now.’

The boy held out his hand. ‘You gonna give me the money for a ticket? Because my room’s in LA.’

‘Get your ass out of that chair. Now.’

The boy just sat.

Spencer grabbed hold of the kid’s T-shirt and yanked him up to his feet. ‘You fucking well do what I say.’

For all the stage-fighting Spencer had done in his career, this was the first time he’d had to fight with someone for real, and a fight it turned out to be. The boy refused to do anything he was told and Spencer had had enough. He would not take no. There was no alternative to physically forcing him into obeying.

When he grabbed Tennesee, Spencer had assumed all the time he had to devote to the gym in order to keep his six-pack would give him the advantage over a fat nine-year-old, but the kid had insane strength and no concept of fair fighting. He gripped on to door jambs, slid on rugs, squirmed, snarled and screamed. God almighty, did he scream; ‘I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!’ the whole time, at the decibel level of a death-metal concert. I hate you too, Spencer was thinking, but he hated Phoebe even more for managing to ruin Montana by sending the kid up. She needed serious paying back for this.

At last Spencer managed to get the kid down the hall and into his room. Slamming the door shut, he held the handle to keep it closed.

‘I’m not staying in here!’ the kid shouted.

‘Indeed, you are,’ Spencer shouted back. He could hear the kid trashing the room. ‘And you’re going to fucking pay for everything you break.’

‘I HATE you!’ the kid howled through the door. ‘I won’t stay here. I’m going to run away from here and never come back.’

‘Good!’ Spencer said, still hanging on to the doorknob.

‘I will! I’m not just saying it.’

‘Good. You do that then. See how much it bothers me.’