He stopped, turned, and saw Tyler Cullen, waving his champagne bottle in a mock toast. Directly above Cullen, on the pedestrian bridge, Daniel could see people streaming toward the parking lots. He wished he were with them.
Anywhere but here.
Cullen took a long swallow of champagne now, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then continued yelling.
“You know she was lucky to beat me.”
Daniel was moving toward him and before he realized it, he was climbing over the fence and into the ring.
“She had the better horse,” he said to Cullen. “And she was the better rider, whether you want to admit that to yourself or not.”
Cullen’s hair was shaved close on the side, with longer hair on top. Daniel always wondered about men who worried that much about their appearance. It was well known around the sport how hard the married Cullen chased after younger women.
“Yeah, go with that,” Cullen said.
He walked slowly toward Daniel.
Now it is the playground.
“You are just angry because you made an amateur mistake at the finish,” Daniel said. “You didn’t ride through the timer. That’s not Becky’s fault, or mine. It is yours. It is on you.”
“You’re going to explain riding to me, se?or?” Cullen said, and took another drink. “Why don’t you look up my record when you get home. You own a laptop, right?”
He laughed. It was not a pleasant sound.
“You got a little something going with her on the side?” Cullen said. “Everybody sees the way you look at her.”
“Is it finishing second the way you did that is eating at you?” Daniel said. “Or something else?”
They were about ten feet from each other. The people were still walking across the bridge behind them. Daniel could not believe that Cullen would do something as stupid as starting a real fight with him. He had already embarrassed himself enough tonight. If he wasn’t drunk, he was getting there.
“I’m the one who should be on that horse,” Cullen said. “I know it. You know it. She’s the amateur, whether she did get lucky or not tonight.”
“What really bothers you,” Daniel said, trying as hard as he could to keep his voice even, “is that she is half your age and her best days are ahead of her.”
“Veta a la mierda,” Cullen said.
Telling Daniel in Spanish he must have picked up at his barn what he could do to himself.
“Look at me,” Cullen said, “using your language.” He shrugged. “Who knows, maybe before too long you’ll be somewhere speaking your real language full time.”
Daniel felt himself clenching and unclenching his fists. Telling himself that though Cullen may treat life as a video game, he was still one of the top riders in the world. The last thing he needed was for the police to show up and break up a fight. And have reason to believe that Daniel had started it.
“Before I went into the ring, you looked like you had something to say to me,” Cullen said. “Nothing stopping you now. Just you and me.”
Now turn and walk away.
“You know nothing about me,” Daniel said.
“Maybe more than you think,” he said.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I’d hate to see anything happen to you or any of your friends, is all,” Cullen said. “Doesn’t seem all that safe for you people these days. Seems like every time I turn on the news, one of you is going away. Like, for good.”
You people.
There it was.
“The only place I am going right now is to a victory celebration,” Daniel said.
“Hope you have proper ID in case you get pulled over,” Cullen called after him. “You do have proper ID, right? I mean, I know you and your girl are thinking about Paris. But it’d be a shame if you ended up back in Guadalajara or someplace instead.”
FORTY-EIGHT
MOM AND GRANDMOTHER and I had just finished a big breakfast of pancakes and turkey bacon and even Mom’s homemade hash browns. Grandmother had gone off on her power walk. Mom said she was going to work out. Coronado was getting the week off. I was getting ready to ride Sky, let her know I hadn’t forgotten her.
I was at the sink, handwashing Grandmother’s china and silver. For a tough old horsewoman, she loved fine things, and decreed that none of those fine things would ever see the inside of a dishwasher. So the duty of washing and drying and storing the plates and cutlery usually fell to me.
But I nearly dropped one of the plates, one I knew had been a wedding gift, when I heard the familiar explosion of tires and gravel on the driveway, looked out the kitchen window, and saw Steve Gorton pulling up in an unfamiliar sleek blue car.