All Hat by Brad Smith Page B

Ray was finishing up, Pete came back, walking through the mud with a lanky brunette with dark eyes, wearing jeans and cowboy boots, a faded Nirvana T-shirt.
    â€œThis is Chrissie Nugent,” Pete said. “Ray Dokes.”
    Chrissie Nugent wore dark eyeshadow and lipstick, and she looked to Ray like a wasted fashion model from the 1960s. Her eyes were rimmed with red, and she had a fuzzy look about her with which Ray was familiar. She was maybe twenty-five. She shook Ray’s hand, then turned and hacked and spit in the mud.
    â€œChrissie was up when he won in July,” Pete was saying. “Girl’s been having a hell of a year, got near fifty wins. But she’s fixin’ to lose her bug.”
    Chrissie was in the stall with the horse now, her hands on his withers, talking softly to him, words Ray couldn’t make out. Ray had never seen a jockey—male or female—wearing makeup before. But then he’d been away awhile.
    When Chrissie came out she lit a cigarette and looked at Pete. “Anything I need to know? What about the hoof?”
    â€œRide the horse like he’s sound,” Pete told her. “I’d like to keep him middle of the pack ’til the stretch, but if this rain keeps up you might have to move him sooner. I wouldn’t go wide with him. He gets a little lonely out there.”
    Chrissie nodded, looked at Ray a moment, then back to Pete. “That it?”
    â€œThat’s it,” Pete said. “The silks are in the pickup.”
    â€œWell, I don’t have a mount ’til the fourth,” Chrissie said. “I’m gonna go catch some sleep in my truck. I got a hangover that would kill a fucking Clydesdale.”
    They watched as she retrieved the silks from the truck and then walked away in the rain.
    â€œWhere’d you find her?” Ray asked.
    â€œTurned around one day, and there she was,” Pete said. “Gal’s a comer; she’s tougher than a boot sandwich, and she’s a natural jock. Horses just plain relax around her. Ain’t nothing you can teach. She’s gonna be a great one if she doesn’t kill herself. I think she’s about half crazy.”
    â€œWell,” Ray said, watching her walk in the tight jeans. “Half ain’t as bad as whole.”
    They stood in the doorway of the barn and watched the rain come down. The lanes between the barns had turned to muck; the water ran off the tin roofs and pooled up on the ground below, sending rivulets along the lanes, racing for the lower ground.
    Pete retrieved a bale of straw from the trailer and broke it up, tossed half in under the horse and spread the rest outside to keep the mud down outside the barn. Then he stepped back inside and had another long look at the sky.
    â€œI guess I better change those shoes,” he said at last. “I hate to bother that hoof two days running, but I got no choice with this weather.”
    Ray got the nail pullers from the trailer and removed the shoes from the gelding. The hoof that had been cracked looked sound enough, and he took extra care in pulling the nails from it. The gelding stood calmly as he worked, occasionally looking back at Ray as if checking to see that the job was being done right.
    Pete Culpepper set to work shoeing the horse. Ray was in the way, so he decided to head over to the grandstand to have a look around. He walked between the rows of barns, trying to keep to the thin strip of grass alongside the lane, avoiding the mud. Luis Salvo loped by him, sitting a western saddle on a stout chestnut mare, the mare’s hooves throwing mud in the air.
    â€œHey Raymond,” he called. “You are free!”
    â€œSo they tell me. You riding today, Luis?”
    â€œNo more. I’m a fat mon, can’t you see? Dese days I just exercise.” He rode on, standing in the stirrups, easing the mare through the mire toward the track.
    Ray walked around the west end of the grandstand