Ring of Fear
- Автор: Маккефри Энн
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Ring of Fear». Краткое содержание книги:
The announcer was calling another class, juniors sixteen or under, limit only. It was a large class, half the kids nervous and communicating it to their mounts. The raw-boned bay was almost on me before I recognized the colored Tomlinson headstall and saw Bess Tomlinson's daughter go by.
"I thought I'd find the bride and groom here," called a cheery voice. I whirled to see Bess herself bearing down on us. As usual she had one freckled arm loaded with bangles. They cut into my back as she embraced me warmly. She really did seem pleased, too, her grin threatening to split the biggest freckles on her cheeks. "By God, you look a thousand percent better already. If Rafe hadn't been taking good care of you…" Her threat trailed off. "Anne, you look disgustingly young; how's Jeffrey?"
Mention of this person seemed to dampen everyone's spirits.
"Jeff's just fine," Steve replied, but Anne's gentle smile and Steve's stock reply told me that "just fine" wasn't all
that good. "Your girl up on old Majority?"
"Yes. I try to keep her out of the game, but she's determined to compete with her old mother."
There was a kind of taut determination in the lumpy girl's straightly held shoulders.
"I used to think excitement followed Rafe," Bess was saying to me, "but you manage to gather a fair amount of it yourself. Recovered from the fire? How's that leaping fool of a Juggernaut?"
"Juggernaut? Thought he went to glue years ago," Steve said.
"No, as a matter of fact," Rafe said in the manner of someone who's held on to a surprise, "he's up at my place. Nialla is actually a white witch and worked a spell on him. On me, too. But she jumped him to a blue at Sunbury…"
"You were in that fire?" Anne exclaimed with concern. "Oh, your legs and arms." She could now admit she'd noticed them.
"The girl's a real heroine," Bess went on proudly, and launched into a reasonably accurate account of the fire and my part in it. All the time she had one eye on her daughter.
"Actually, if Rafe hadn't come to my aid, I'd never have got Orfeo out," I said, obliged to tone down her exaggerations.
"Rode the damned horse's head to keep the blanket on,"
Rafe added.
"Did you lose any stock?"
"No horses."
"But a lot of peanut butter," Rafe put in with a straight face. "And all her clothes and tack. I got me a bride with only tatters to cover her…"
"I'd've thought you'd remedy that," Bess said outrageously. I didn't dare look around. "However, Rafe Clery, you did get Juggernaut and that sweet-moving sorrel mare. Say, they haven't discovered who killed old Pete, have they? And what's all this about Lou Marchmount taking an overdose of drugs? I saw him with Wendy in charge at the Marshalls'." Bess grimaced. "She was put out…" Bess broke off, her eyes flicking to mine, and she flushed. "Oh, good girl!"
We all concentrated very intently on the jumping.
"She is still letting him crowd his fences," Bess said with a dismal groan. "And she wobbled all over the saddle on the hurdle jump. If she'd lose ten pounds, she'd be able to get her thighs into the saddle properly. But that doesn't get you off the hook, Clerys," she continued, jabbing Rafe in the shoulder with a bony forefinger. "Girth cut, horn blaring, barn burning… not to mention old Pete with his head broken. I don't believe that hogwash about spontaneous combustion, either."
"Bess, you're a love, and I promise not to compete against your string all summer, but I can't give you answers I don't have," Rafe said, his expression grim.
Bess looked at his arm around my waist and raised her sun-bleached eyebrows.
"Well, I see you're intent on guarding your own interests and counsel. Just remember, I stood up for this girl, and I dislike having my arrangements broken."
"Mrs.-Bess"-I corrected myself as she glared at me-"was my matron of honor," I told the Eldicotts, who were politely hoping for an explanation of something. "D'you know, she brought me her veil and flowers?"
"D'you blame me for rushing Nialla off her feet?" Rafe said, giving me a rather shameless leer.
"If she's got that black jumper, no. You always swore you only needed a chance at him to get him working properly," Steve said. "I admit I thought Brader would take your offer. Six thousand was a damned good price for that beast, considering his manners."
Six thousand? I'd paid forty dollars for Orfeo because that's all I had on me that day. And I expect that the farm who'd been holding Orfeo for the knackers considered that a bargain for taking a near corpse off his hands.
"Steve!" His wife regarded him with mock horror, then smiled at me. Had my face revealed something? "You'll make Nialla think Rafe's mercenary."
"As far as horseflesh is concerned, he is," Steve said in a succinct fashion, softening by the smile he gave me. "However, I think he's met his match on all points in Russ Donnelly's daughter." Steve frowned then, his eyes. going from my face to Rafe's, but whatever he thought, he said nothing, although from time to time he watched me intently.
I'd been genuinely glad to see Bess Tomlinson, but her questions, however well intentioned, only brought back the shadows which the show had briefly banished.
"Gawd, it's boiling here. C'mon, Nialla. Spot you to a Coke," Rafe said when the judges had announced their decisions.
Bess's girl had a fifth-place ribbon and looked rather put out. She'd had stiffer competition here, though, since it was a class in equitation rather than the horse's performance.
"That'll knock Madam's yarn," Rafe. chuckled as we got out of earshot of the Eldicotts and Bess. "Though why she wanted to be at the wedding is beyond me."
"She didn't go to the others?" The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. Rafe looked perversely pleased.
"No indeed. But then," he told me in a bland voice, "I've never been to any of hers." His arm linked through mine, and he matched my stride. "Bess is worried about you, dear heart. People do, you know, besides me. And the Eldicotts really like you, or they'd have stayed away from us today. They tend to keep to themselves."
"Why? Because of this Jeff?"
Rafe's glance was warmly approving. "Jeff's their only child. We used to go to the same school till I got 'asked to leave.' He's a paraplegic from Korea. I drop in now and again."
And that was all he wanted to say on that subject.
He stepped up to the counter of the mobile snack truck, greeting the older of the men working there, chatting as he waited for the Cokes to be found in the cooler. Rafe couldn't be as unconcerned over the rampant gossip about us as he appeared. I mean, it might not matter to the Eldicotts, who had problems of their own, or Bess Tomlinson that his wife was obviously connected to some fatal incidents. But this business-as-usual might be misconstrued as indifference. And last night's episode, while scarcely any fault of mine, made me feel a real Jonah.
"There's a time, Nialla, when you don't look for more problems," Rafe said, handing me the Coke with a flourish at variance with his serious advice. He tipped his bottle back for a long swallow. "Boy, that hits the spot. Hotter'n the hinges of hell here." We moved to the shadow cast by a big horse van. It wasn't any cooler, but the sun didn't bite my shoulders and arms.
"I should have known Bess would be here, and her usual games-mistress self. But nothing will affect her opinion of you." He chuckled, because he knew he'd read my mind a-right. "Dear heart, I know you, inside-out-side-hindside-nearside. And that’s why we're at a show today. It's the only thing will take your mind off what's bothering us both. Also"-and he glanced around us- "we're in a big, safe crowd. And if you think I'm going to leave your side for a moment, you're wrong."