4
Java Java Go Joe died the night of her undoing, as Beth came to think of it. She was unconscious or sleeping or some combination of the two until the moment that the beautiful broken stallion was put down, after he’d suffered for more than five hours.
While she was unaware of her surroundings—while Phil and Fiona searched for her in the blackness, found the unspeakable devastation, and then waited to get help almost as long as they’d waited to treat Marigold—Beth developed a vivid memory that could only have been a dream, except that there was physical evidence of its reality. In this state, she understood that the hundred-plus-pound wolf took the collar of her shirt in its teeth and dragged her around Joe’s groaning, heaving body. Somehow, the rein that had held her wrist captive during the fall released it.
The wild dog dropped her close enough to Joe’s shattered leg that Beth could smell the blood that seeped out of the Thoroughbred’s broken skin. She rolled away, confusion gradually suffocating her mind. In her dream, the wolf’s muzzle worked under her hip like a pry bar under a boulder, leveraging her toward the fallen horse. She resisted the force until the delusion ended.
It was the gunshot ending Joe’s agony that brought her around, the burst so close to her head that she thought the bullet had split her own scalp in two. There was no wolf, but Mr. Kandinsky was bent over her throbbing, rigid body, his face a mixture of anxiety and fury.
Joe’s owner, whom she soon came to know as Anthony Darling, was poised to insert his rage into the Borzois’ life the way a climbing ivy invades every fissure in an established brick building and reduces it to dust. The retired champion jockey had an ego ten times the size of his own body and a net worth that could seduce any money-hungry attorney.
Near her head, Mr. Darling waved the gun he’d just discharged into Joe’s ear, spewing curses at her. She would suffer long in the misery he was about to create for her, he promised her that.
Phil tried to put distance between Mr. Darling and the scene, perhaps trying to prevent the mercy killing from becoming an act of revenge as well. Mr. Kandinsky noticed this intervention as if he was noticing Phil for the first time since the drama had been exposed. He fired Phil on the spot.
The sun rising behind the eastern Sangre de Cristos caused long shadows to fall on them all. Beth wished the very mountains would collapse and bury her before she was forced to rise and face her parents’ disbelief and try to make amends. She had faith that the mountain could move. She told it to. The mountain refused.
It took less than a week for the wealthy breeder to level his promise against Beth in the form of a lawsuit. This was the same as saying he had leveled his ire against her family and her family’s livelihood, because she was a co-owner of the Blazing B, which all Borzois became at the age of eighteen.
The claim outlined damages for the lost horse, the lost progeny of the horse, the lost progeny of the progeny, and the reduced reputation of the breeder, who might have to wait untold years until he owned a stud of Java Java Go Joe’s value once again. The demanded sum was staggering, including emotional damages for all of these real and projected losses, which had allegedly caused Mr. Darling’s latent alcoholism to rear its head, which led to further damages and losses.
Blood ties spared the Kandinskys from similar litigation.
A separate suit was filed against Phil’s family, but Beth didn’t know the details of it. She heard from the vet that Marigold had lost her eye. She didn’t call Phil, and Phil didn’t call her. She had no idea what became of the stolen saddle.
The day after having been served with legal paperwork, Beth rose at her usual hour to dress and help her mother prepare breakfast. She had been awake most of the night formulating a plan to stand between Mr. Darling and her family’s future, and she hoped they would be agreeable to it.
She scratched at the triple track of healing scabs across her collarbone where the wolf had clawed her. The doctor thought the cuts were inflicted by a shrub, and Beth hadn’t contradicted him. She rubbed antibiotic ointment into the six-inch trails before pulling on her shirt.
Her dog, Herriot, seemed to sense that Beth’s life had been disrupted, and was underfoot most days. Herriot was an Appenzell Mountain Dog, a European breed cut out for high-altitude and harsh-weather herding, even higher and harsher than Colorado’s mountains. She was a solid, stocky girl about the same weight as the average coyote, but thicker in the chest and not as tall.
The dog’s short-haired coat was the glossy color of melted chocolate. Rich white cream splashed across her chest and muzzle, cresting between her eyes. Streaks of caramel ran up all four of Herriot’s legs and also framed her happy smile with the mischievous look of a sweet-toothed troublemaker. Twin caramel dots on the inside of her brows made her seem extra intelligent to Beth, and perhaps slightly fierce from a cow’s point of view.
With the exception of Beth’s father, the dog was the only living creature at the ranch who didn’t seem to be judging Beth’s fool actions. She pressed into Beth’s legs as they went downstairs to the kitchen, bumping her haunches along the wall.
Rose Borzoi was already at the stove. Beth’s mother was a striking woman made even more beautiful than she was in youth by a quarter century of admiration poured over her by her husband. No one took more pride in Rose’s physical and intellectual strength than Abel Borzoi. His wife was nearly six feet tall barefoot, and she always went barefoot in the house, summer and winter. Her one vanity was her feet.
Her coarse brown hair was still as long and as thick as it appeared in her wedding picture, though it had started to gray. Rose bound it daily in a braid, then threw it back over the wide shoulders of her husband’s work shirts, which were too big for her at the shoulders and yet also seemed to fit like a good trademark, rolled up to the elbows and billowing out over hips widened by childbirth and horse riding.
Beth’s father was at the table, drinking his coffee.
“Hi, baby girl.” He beckoned her into a snug embrace while he stayed seated. Abel Borzoi was an overweight, grizzly bear man with a wide jaw and clean-shaven face and an open spirit that smiled on sinners and saints alike.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said, though the truth was her parents had risen early.
Rose acknowledged Beth by saying, “Dog goes out.”
Beth put Herriot out every morning. Her mother didn’t need to make a point of ordering it. Nevertheless, Beth sent Herriot out the back door without comment. The Blazing B had four dogs, and though Herriot was the only one who slept with the humans, she was not allowed to dine with them. Her food would have been already set out with the horses’ near the barn.
Beth washed her hands at the sink and then fetched the pot, the water, and the steel-cut oats she’d need to make the oatmeal. There were fresh berries in a strainer in the sink, and her mother tossed slabs of ham onto a hot griddle. Her brothers, Levi and Danny, would come in at six to eat. Rose and a hired cook made the big hot midday meal for everyone down at the Hub. When it came to supper, usually cold sandwiches and leftovers, it was every man for himself.
Whatever her parents had been speaking about, they weren’t going to continue in front of her.
“I’m going to fix this,” Beth announced. “I have a plan. Today I’m going to go speak to Mr. Darling’s attorney.”
“You shouldn’t do anything without speaking to ours first,” her father advised.
“Hear me out—maybe we won’t need him. Maybe we won’t need to go to court. I’m to blame here. I did a stupid thing, and I can own up to that. I’ll pay Mr. Darling what he wants. I’ll pay him back for as long as it takes.”
“And just where are you going to get the money for that small country it seems he wants to buy?” Rose asked.
“I’ll start with my tuition.”
Abel set his coffee cup on the table. “You will not. You’re going to vet school in September, Beth. There’s no reason for this incident to derail that plan.”
Rose scoffed. “Incident. Hear her out, Abel. She has a part to play in whatever solution we’ve got to come up with.”
Beth measured salt into her hand and tossed it into the pot of water. “My tuition will be like a down payment. And then I’ll get a job. Two jobs. We’ll negotiate a payment plan. Ten years, twenty years, whatever it takes. I might have to put vet school off for a few years, but I can save up for it again.”
Her father shook his head. “I don’t support the idea.”
“If we don’t come up with some money we won’t be able to support anything,” Rose said. “Not this ranch, not those men, not our own flesh and blood.” She stabbed at the pork with a spatula. “I can’t believe you put us in this position, Beth.”
“Rose, honey. You’re too hard on her. We did fool things when we were her age.”
“Nothing like this,” her mother said. “Nothing that jeopardized the lives of a dozen other people.”
Beth’s insides were bound up in knots of shame. She wouldn’t be eating breakfast today.
“If I make a proposal like this now, he might agree to a lesser amount of money, don’t you think?” she said. “He’ll avoid all the legal hassles, the attorney’s fees—”
“It doesn’t usually work that way,” Abel observed. “Men like Darling tend to enjoy those things. And they’re impatient.”
“They’re hiring for summer down at the feed-and-tack,” Beth said. “Might turn into a full-time job. And I can work at King Soopers on the off shifts.”
“And while you’re working twenty-four-seven elsewhere, who’s going to pick up your slack around here?” her mom said.
Beth’s older brother, Levi, strode into the kitchen and snatched up a slice of ham with his bare fingers right off the griddle. “Won’t be me,” he said. At twenty-six, Levi had his father’s broad-faced features but none of his body mass. “I’m not gonna lie in this bed Beth made.”
“Yes you will,” Rose said, grabbing the meat out of his hand and throwing it back down to cook longer. “We’re a family. Breakfast will be ready in five.”
“It’s ready now,” Levi said.
“Clock says it’s not. Where’s Danny?”
“How should I know?”
Beth said, “We already made plans to redistribute the chores when I go to school in the fall. So we make the switch a month ahead of schedule. And I won’t be at school. That’s all.”
No one seemed to be listening to her.
Levi said, “You couldn’t sell this land for what Darling wants out of it. He wants us to bleed.”
The salty scent of ham came off the stove. Beth’s water seemed unwilling to boil. She couldn’t argue with the likely truth of Levi’s mean-spirited point. Rose tended to the strawberries that needed slicing by slamming the colander onto the cutting block. Levi poured himself a cup of coffee.
Fifteen-year-old Danny entered the silence with a whistle and went straight to the sink to wash up.
“Taciturn and sullen, all of you,” Danny said. “Who are you and what have you done with my family?”
“Beth killed them off,” Levi said.
“All but you, you mean.” Danny dried his hands at the sink. “You’re the same as ever.”
“You’re early,” Rose said.
“It’s the ham’s fault. Who can resist redolence like that?”
“Shut up, Danny,” Levi ordered. “If you’ve got time to be assimilating the dictionary, you’ve got time to do more work around here. Beth’s about to shirk all her responsibilities.”
“No, I’m going to work harder than ever before,” she said. She tried to remind herself that Levi’s sharp edge had been honed for years prior to this moment and had little to do with her. It was the ranch that he hated—the charity of it, to be precise. His vision for how the Blazing B might reach its full potential diverged from their father’s view in significant ways.
Of course, both men would perceive this suit as a terrible setback. Perhaps an insurmountable one.
“Everyone in this family works hard,” Abel said. He leaned back in his chair and smoothed his shirt over his ample belly with one hand. “And no one works harder on our behalf than the Lord himself, and I expect you all to remember that. Bethesda, no mistake is beyond God’s ability to repair it. Your heart is in the right place, and I know that. We’ll come through it.”
“Bethesda,” Levi mocked. “You know you’re in a bad spot when you’ve got the full name coming at you.”
Her father dropped his fist on the table and then lifted his finger toward Levi. “Let’s have some respect, son.”
“She hasn’t earned mine yet.”
“But I demand it. We’ve got a tough row to hoe here, and if we don’t do it together this is going to end as badly for you alone as it will for the Blazing B. Your mother and I named her Bethesda on purpose, and I say it as a blessing, not a punishment. You know what it means.”
“House of mercy,” Danny offered. He couldn’t help it. And he couldn’t know how his ability to irritate Levi was a salve on Beth’s heartache. Rose shoveled ham slices onto four plates and left the fifth one bare. Beth stirred the pot of oats without looking at anyone.
“House of mercy.” Abel’s confirmation also had lighthearted warning in it for his youngest child. Hold your tongue for a minute, would you? “That’s what we’re about, isn’t it? This ranch is all about showing mercy to people who need it, people who maybe haven’t ever had any in their lifetimes. We are the Blazing Bethesda.”
“Your great-grandpa named this place the Blazing B long before any of us were born,” Levi challenged.
Beth felt his eyes on her back, resenting her status as her father’s only daughter, the princess with the privileges.
Levi continued. “He named it for the Borzois, and for those Wasatch maples that turn to fire every fall.”
“That’s the greatness of a great name,” Abel said. “It grows into itself. After five generations, we now blaze year-round with the work of the Holy Spirit. This ranch belongs to God, not to us. He’ll see us through.”
Levi shook his head and took his feet off the table. Danny took his seat next to his older brother. As Beth poured the oatmeal into bowls, she planned a time to call Mr. Darling’s attorney.
Rose placed the oatmeal and plate of strawberries in front of her husband.
“Where’s my ham?” He grabbed his wife around the waist before she could get away.
“Just what you need is another heart attack right now,” she said.
He kissed her hand. “I’m three years plaque-free, Rose. I’m healthy as a horse.”
“An old horse. And you’re not plaque-free.”
Abel winked at Beth as she sat down beside him. “She runs a tight ship, your mother. Don’t take it personal. She’s part of the reason why we’re all going to make it. Let’s pray.”