Behind the Bonehouse by Sally Wright Page A

where they drove in the west gate, and parked on the backside next to the track kitchen. Then they walked up the road to where the runners were stabled on both sides of the drive in long rows of shed roofed stalls—facing each other, most of them, across pea gravel paths, with ovals of grass in the center.
    They talked to Wilder Son’s owner, and the trainer Toss had known since they were kids, while the groom finished the final brushing and wrapped the big colt’s legs. They walked with them to the paddock, where there were two rows of trees planted in the center of small circular walks numbered according to post position.
    They led Wilder to circle number six, where Toss talked to him, and stroked his shoulder, while the groom held his lead shank and the trainer discussed the race with his jockey as he smoothed the purple and turquoise cloth across Wilder’s broad chestnut back.
    He threw on his lightweight racing saddle and half tightened the girth, as Jo and Alan talked to the owner again, a quiet woman with wavy gray hair whose mares Toss had cared for for six or seven years. They stood to one side then and watched Wilder and his people walk round and around the number six tree. They studied the other runners Wilder seemed to be eying too, comparing conformation and discussing who was riding whom, till a gate was opened and the horses were led into the walking ring outside the jockeys’ room.
    The trainers and jockeys conferred, while the horses were led around the oval, completely surrounded outside the fence by race goers watching their every move. When the “jockeys up” call came, the trainers tightened girths and gave their riders a leg up, then walked their horses around the ring one more time in postposition order before leading them across to the tunnel that led out to the track.
    Jo and Alan and Toss walked through the north entrance under the grandstand, and out toward the track, having decided to stand by the rail and watch the horses warm up with their lead ponies, before they were called to the gate.
    When Jo and Alan were halfway across the sloping concrete apron, heading toward the rail, Carl Seeger stepped in front of Alan, staring directly at him with a lopsided smirk.
    â€œI hear you’re in trouble with the IRS.” He was grinning under his narrow mustache, squinting up at Alan, sunglasses perched on top of his head.
    Alan stopped and stared at him, letting go of Jo’s hand, his eyes furious, his jaw a ridge of knotted muscles, his wide soft gentle-looking mouth clamped in a fierce line. He stepped straight toward Carl with his arms clamped at his sides.
    â€œGet away from me!” Carl stepped back as he said it, bumping into an elderly woman who was reading the race program behind him. “Don’t come any closer!”
    â€œWhy? You’re not afraid, are you Carl? You haven’t done something to me that’s making you nervous?”
    â€œNo, of course not! I haven’t done anything to you!”
    â€œStealing my formulas? How ’bout that? Siccing the IRS on Bob,
and
me,
and
my wife,
and
her uncle? You think that might tick somebody off?”
    Carl looked around him with a half-amused, condescending expression at the bystanders who were listening now, even when they pretended they weren’t. “
You
are a liar, and this attack’s unprovoked.”
    â€œ
I’m
a liar!
That’s
interesting! If you’d fought in the war with the rest of us you wouldn’t have gotten away with the kind of crap you pull. Maybe it’s time somebody taught you how to act like a man!”
    â€œIs that a threat?” Carl stepped off to the side this time, and the watchers cleared him a space.
    â€œYou and your IRS buddy don’t have a principle between you.”
    â€œAlan?” Alan didn’t look at Jo, but she still said, “Why don’t we go watch Wilder? The race is about to start.”
    Toss was staring