Danger, Sweetheart Part 9

"Would you even know how to put Six Two Six Nine Nine Three down?" she asked, honestly curious.

"Not remotely," came the reply. "I have no idea how to murder a pony; what a failure of a human being I've become." Pause while his brow furrowed in thought, and she swallowed a chuckle. "Just for curiosity's sake, what would be the traditional method? Firearms? Poison? Making her listen to hours of Strauss waltzes until she commits suicide in despair? What is the etiquette here?"

"You've got an inventive and disturbing mind," Natalie said, not without admiration. "You're not gonna kill her; you're going to take care of her and break her. Well, not break-she's saddle broken, but stubborn. Your job will be to remind Six Two Six Nine Nine Three that she's supposed to take riders now and again."

"Ah." Blake's dark blond brows arched like alarmed caterpillars. "So you want to kill me. Surely there are ways you could do that without a coroner putting 'deservedly stomped to death' on my death certificate."

Dammit! Now she liked him again. "Nothing's coming to mind," she replied cheerfully. "Once you break her by reminding-"

"I object to everything in that sentence fragment."

"-we can sell her and use the money in any number of ways. See, it's all interconnected." She made her fingers do the here's the church, here's the steeple, open the doors, look at all the people wiggle, emphasizing the people part of the wiggle.

"What in the world are you doing with your hands? That's not American Sign Language."

"Hush up, ya idjit. Pay attention. One part of the farm finances another part, which finances another. That's bad in times of economic downturn, but it also means that when things start improving, they improve across the board. See?"

"Hanging the financial hope of Heartbreak Farm on my ability to tame a feral equine will only end in disappointment for you and death by stomping for me."

"Could be." She hadn't been this happy in ages; his transparent horror was cheering her up. And she knew without understanding how she knew that he wouldn't quit. At least not anytime soon. "I'm willing to risk it."

"I feel safer already." They watched 626993 amble back and forth. "I'll need to do some online research."

"Oh, sure. The Internet is a big help when it comes to jobs you just need to jump in and start. Google 'how to ride a bike' while you're at it."

He held up his hands like she'd pulled a gun on him. Which she hadn't ruled out. "All right, fair point. I'll again admit I don't know what I'm doing. You're the expert; where do you advise I start?"

"Why d'you just a.s.sume I'm an expert?" Suspicion bloomed in her chest like nightshade. "Are you a.s.suming that because I'm part Native American I have some kind of secret ancient mystical Indian way with horses?"

"Are you?" He tore his gaze from 626993 and looked at Natalie. "Do you?"

"Uh, no." Easy, girl. He a.s.sumed you were an expert because he thinks you're the foreman because that's the lie you told him. He didn't a.s.sume you were an expert because you've got your mother's cheekbones, who got them from her mother, and her from hers, and so on back a few centuries. "You didn't- I a.s.sumed you a.s.sumed." She tried a smile. "Probably says something about a.s.suming."

"I had no idea what your lineage was," came the mild reply. "None of my business, really."

Natalie waited, expecting the usual white plat.i.tude, It's okay; I'm one-sixteenth Cherokee myself, or perhaps a dose of American Indian Princess Syndrome, or an acknowledgment of the glut of Pretendians of late. Or her personal favorite: Hey, I'm cool with your heritage; you can tell me your real name.

She decided to antic.i.p.ate, not a.s.sume. There was a difference! Wasn't there? "My name really is Natalie Lane, y'know. It's not She-Who-Pees-in-Woods or anything like that."

"People ask you that?"

His horror-for once, not aimed at himself or his situation-cheered her. "Oh, sure. It's always people from-" Las Vegas. New York. Boston. And, weirdly, Pierre, South Dakota. "Um, it's out-of-towners, usually."

"City folk," he mock-drawled.

"Yep. They fall all over themselves trying to show me how totally not racist they are, then they want to know which of my ancestors was raped by the white man. They also apologize. A lot. 'It's terrible what my people did to yours; I'm so sorry.'"

His eyes narrowed, which she didn't find thrilling at all. "That's appalling. Do you shoot the well-meaning idiots with the bow and arrows handed down from your ancestors while they baste themselves in a sweat lodge?"

It took a second for her to get he was joking and then she started laughing so hard she had to steady herself against his shoulder so she wouldn't fall. It wasn't especially funny, but it was from an unexpected source. And the deadpan delivery had been perfect. "I'm saving it for Smack a Pretendian Day," she wheezed at last. "The tribe looks forward to that all year."

"Of course they do." He returned his attention to 626993. "Perhaps I could start by trying to stroke her." As if she understood his intent, 626993 stopped in mid-amble, glared, and her ears went flat. "Would you recommend that?"

"Nope."

"Right."

At his sigh, Natalie gave him a pseudo-manly clap on the back. "I'm sure you two will be very happy together."

Another sigh, and then he came out with something that made no sense. "Did you know trains crash so infrequently, you're more likely to be injured during the car ride to the station? It's true. My train probably didn't crash."

"Okay." Cracking up already, poor idiot. "I'm sorry? I guess?"

"Thank you." Then he straightened his shoulders and headed back to Main One, and she definitely didn't watch his a.s.s as he walked away.

Fifteen.

Up at dawn. Four slices of toast, courtesy of his new toaster, made from the bag of dry goods he kept stashed in the attic to delay death by starvation. He refilled his old plastic bottle with water from the bathroom tap, which got agreeably cold or agreeably hot, depending on his needs.

Pulled on his Thursday clothes: jeans reinforced at the knees (I can add handling a needle and thread to skills I never knew I would need and now regret the necessity of knowing), a gray twill s.h.i.+rt, clean but fading with all the was.h.i.+ngs and turning lighter gray, so that was all right. Hiking boots, slooowly bending to his body's will and growing more comfortable by the day. Thick white socks, also turning gray with repeated was.h.i.+ng.

A hat was vital. Not just to avoid the discomfort of the sun in his eyes but also to protect him against melanoma by keeping the murderous rays off his head, face, neck.

(Natalie said I'm getting a farmer's suntan she said it like it was a compliment it likely was not a compliment I will pretend it was a compliment.) Gloves were just as vital, and he was amazed to see how quickly they wore out. On his third trip to town he'd bought a dozen pairs, and he had gone through four. He grabbed a new pair and stuffed them into the back pocket of his jeans, grabbing his phone and Supertruck keys off the nearest bookshelf.

He checked his phone to see if Rake had replied to his latest hate-fueled text, which his brother refused to take seriously by referring to them as hexts, even nagging him when he was too tired to send one, because Rake was terrible.

No, nothing since Blake's last outgoing hext-text, dammit: My vengeance will be epic and permanent, little brother. Not so much as a bring it, d.i.c.kwad or I can't believe your robot overlords let you stay up this late. He let out a small sigh and tucked his phone away, then realized the extent of his P.O.W. conditioning: He missed his brother. Too much to bear. Don't think about it now.

He took a last glance at himself in the mirror, hardly recognizing the lanky sn.o.b with tired eyes and blistered hands. The blisters would heal, would protect themselves by hardening into calluses over time. Possibly a metaphor there. He was too tired to think of one. Don't think about it now.

Appropriate clothing, he had learned by the end of the first week, was vital, and everything he bought in Heartbreak had to pa.s.s the Lane Decree: tough, but comfortable. (O Natalie Lane I dream of the day I do everything right and you're generous with those gorgeous smiles and your bright eyes gleam with mirth.) Child of the most populated city in a desert state, citizen of a considerable financial center, he'd had no idea how rough the mere surface of the planet could be on everything at Heartbreak: equipment, people, clothing, animals, people, buildings, people. His clothes, new just days earlier, looked like he lived and slept in them (which, if it had been an especially grueling day, he did). He'd never showered so often in his life, and showers had never felt so luxuriously satisfying. At least he didn't have to deal with constant reapplication of N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide as the others did. Odd thing to be proud of, but then, he had so little to be proud of these days, and so he grinned as he remembered yesterday's encounter.

"I love everything about this time of year-" Slap! "Except the bugs." Smack! Natalie had scowled at the squashed mosquito and blood blotch on the underside of her arm. Her forearms were tough and tanned, but the undersides were pale and chubby and he wanted to kiss the bug bite and make it better and she would likely execute him on the spot and it would be worth it.

"I feel like I spend every hour of daylight putting on more bug spray. G.o.d knows what all that DEET is doing to me, or the environment. Blech. Never get used to it."

"Of course you do."

That had earned him twin raised eyebrows. He loved it when she did that; it made her eyes seem to sparkle at him. For him. Which they of course were not. But more fodder for his mental folder (filed under Natalie Lane: Things That Will Never Happen in his subcortical network or, as Rake would call it, Blake's Spank Bank) was always welcome.

Her eyes and eyebrows were still doing that thing Blake loved. "What'd you just say? You're agreeing that of course I have to keep gooping this stuff on?"

"It-it comes with the job. Right?" he added, hearing the note of uncertainty but unsure how to proceed. He'd almost blurted something ridiculous, like The bugs cannot resist you; they want to be on you and taste you; you can't blame them.

"Right! The job. My job." She had scratched furiously and looked anxious, for some reason. "Yeah, you'd think I'd be used to it by now, since this is my job and all. If I don't do it, these things eat me alive."

I empathize. I've occasionally considered doing that myself. Ohhh, boy, did he. He hadn't needed to take himself in hand so often since he was seventeen.

But that was yesterday and today was today. Today was today? Ugh. Need more sleep.

Munching toast, he took the stairs to the kitchen, nodded at Harry and Larry (Gary had been getting difficult to track down, problem #62 on Blake's list of things he did not know how to deal with but must), and headed outside. Another day, another dollar. Possibly less than a dollar; he had no idea what his salary was. He had $14,321.98 in his personal checking account the day Mom had frozen all the other accounts, the ones she controlled. His expenses were low; all he'd bought so far were clothes and periodicals, and he had changed paperwork with the car rental agency, opting for a long-term contract to get better rates for the Supertruck. He'd offered to pitch in for groceries, and had been politely turned down. He had no idea who paid the bills at Heartbreak-they might have been ready for foreclosure, but people still lived and worked there, and those people needed running water and electricity and food. But none of his, for which he should be grateful. At such a rate, his money would last for months.

Oh G.o.d. Last for months! It didn't bear considering, so he didn't. And speaking of money, at what point would his mom decide he had been sufficiently punished? Perhaps the problem is you still see it as punishment. You're here to learn empathy, to understand that not everything can be solved with multiple green pieces of paper. You're here to appreciate the hard work that goes into feeding the world, and why unceremoniously forking over perfectly good farms to the bank spit in the eye of all of it.

Or perhaps she's waiting for you to grow up.

Unfortunate. He had no plans to change his worldview, he did appreciate the hard work it took to feed the world, trying to help his mother was not a bad thing, and if not enjoying manual labor meant he hadn't grown up ... well ...

He hadn't.

And wouldn't.

So there.

Sixteen.

"I have studied your ways, Equus ferus caballus, and I am to be your master now," he told 626993 in a stern tone. He schooled his body language to project serene dominance. I know I'm in charge, so I need not flaunt it, and my not flaunting it will soothe you and you will accept me as the alpha pony. "It's an uneven relations.h.i.+p that I cannot help, and I a.s.sure you I am, if anything, less enamored of this than you are. The best way to endure this, and survive this, is if we cooperate."

Six Two Six Nine Nine Three c.o.c.ked her tail and let loose with what looked like a thousand brown crab apples. Her body language, Blake could not help but notice, projected, f.u.c.k you, puny pink monkey-human.

Blake told himself there were worse beginnings. The maiden voyage of the t.i.tanic. Filling the Hindenburg with hydrogen. Plessy v. Ferguson. The Donner Party's shortcut. His conception.

He fished out his phone, took a picture of 626993's retort, and sent it with a hext to Rake, because Rake was terrible.

"This isn't over," Blake warned 626993 in what he hoped was a suitably threatening tone, and then walked away, because for the morning it was over.

PLAN B.

"We must bond. It's a matter of survival, yours as well as mine. No, wait! Come back. I don't like it any more than you do, Six Two Six Nine Nine Three, but the quicker we endure and get this done, the quicker I can return home and you can do whatever it is you do when you're not pondering my demise by squas.h.i.+ng."

Six Two Six Nine Nine Three, as was her wont, let loose with dozens of p.o.o.p-shaped, p.o.o.p-scented golf b.a.l.l.s. He preferred to think of them that way. I know it's s.h.i.+t, he'd explained to a bemused Natalie. Let me have this illusion, dammit! It may be my only way to survive this.

p.o.o.p-scented golf b.a.l.l.s, it's perfect, she'd replied, which made no sense, and then she dashed back to Main One, giggling, and left him to 626993's reb.u.t.tal. He could actually hear Rake's voice in his head: Reb.u.t.tal, get it? See what I did there?

Blake stopped thinking about Natalie's lovely giggles and Rake's unlovely sense of humor and instead focused on the unlovely, unhumorous (that is not a word I am in so far over my head I am losing my grasp on my native tongue) specimen glaring at him. "As part of the bonding process, according to several online sources, it is vital that I give you a name. Naming you will bring us closer as a couple. Yes," he added hastily when she c.o.c.ked her tail in warning, "I know how that sounds, but consider the logic of it. It's hard to feel as if you belong, or are among people you can trust, if you're merely a number to them. Well, Six Two Six Nine Nine Three, henceforth, your name is Margaret of Anjou. I have named you for a woman who has gone down in history as the She-Wolf of France, remembered for being vengeful and blinded by her own importance. I trust I don't have to explain why."

A snort. Margaret of Anjou tossed her head, trotted toward him, and when he stretched out a hand (it'll be fine if she chomps, it's not my dominant hand) she promptly turned and scooted the other way.

He sighed at the feminine rejection, something as humbling as it was rare. "Very well. Margaret of Anjou earned her disrespectful moniker through several actions viewed unfeminine and disloyal for the times, 'the times' being the fifteenth century."

He checked Margaret of Anjou's water. Fine and fresh.

"Bad enough she was French," Blake continued. "Nothing inherently wrong in that, but England and France had a long, b.l.o.o.d.y history of loathing each other. Bad enough she was ent.i.tled and arrogant-but such things often come from a royal rearing. Bad enough her husband, Henry the sixth, suffered from then-undiagnosed schizophrenia and was frequently unresponsive to stimuli. He once went over a year without speaking, or moving under his own power. (Do not get me started on his religious delusions.) And bad enough that her husband shared her bed so infrequently, even when in his right mind, that most believed her son was a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, possibly by Edmund Beaufort or James Butler."

Blake checked Margaret's feed-too low. He trotted to Main One, helped himself to a scoop, trotted back. The corral didn't have a gate, but the bars were wide enough so he could bend at the waist, insert himself vertically, then straighten and be inside with Margaret of Anjou. Who, true to her namesake, ignored him as she would anyone not her better. She never ate unless he was several feet away.

"Any one of these could be overlooked, if not condoned," he continued, running his fingers through the feed to check for insect life or irregularities. "But she had the gall to want to rule for her husband, not meekly hand over the regency to the Duke of York. Essentially, her actions were a domino effect that sparked off a thirty-year civil war and cost tens of thousands of lives. She paid a heavy price for her pride: in the end, she died alone, penniless, widowed and childless and hated.

"Something to think about, eh, Margaret of Anjou?"

The pony switched up her reb.u.t.tal this time, presenting a mighty squirt of urine to express her disdain.

"Yes, well." Blake sighed and was glad, not for the first time, that she kept at least five feet between them at all times. He had wondered if she'd been abused, which amused Natalie to no end.

Sorry, there's no dilemma-causing backstory for you to rescue her from. This is not The Pony Whisperer. Sometimes ponies are jerks. You know you've got s.h.i.+t on your chin, right?

Odd how I always want to scratch my face while mucking out stalls, had been his chagrined reply. Now, back in the present, he returned his attention to Margaret of Anjou. "Pride was her undoing as well. You should take care." I am threatening a pony. This is how low I have sunk. "She never quit, though. You have to respect that if you can respect anything."

Come to think of it, Margaret of Anjou had something in common with several significant females in his life: the pony, Natalie Lane, his mother, the nuclear option.

His mother. Hmm. It had been several days; he was still here; Heartbreak remained unforeclosed upon. Perhaps it was time he acquainted her with new facts and sought her counsel. And perhaps her checkbook.

Seventeen.

PLAN C.

"'Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast, though most people a.s.sume 'beast,'" Blake explained, carefully setting up his phone on one of the posts, then activating the Margaret of Anjou playlist. "'To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.' Did you know that is one of the most misquoted sayings of all time? And that the people who misquote it think William Shakespeare wrote it? Insanity. Now then. Pay attention." He hummed a little and pressed play. The lilting strains of "Ode to Joy" filled the paddock, followed by the lilting thuds as Margaret of Anjou kicked the post so hard his phone flew thirteen feet.

Music Margaret of Anjou Does Not Like 1. "Ode to Joy"

2. Brahms' Double Concerto 3. Mozart's Clarinet Quintet 4. Everything by Rachmaninov 5. Tchaikovsky's Concert Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra 6. Strauss' "Festival Prelude"

7. Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World"

8. Bing Crosby's "Swinging on a Star"

9. The Angels' "My Boyfriend's Back"

10. Lesley Gore's "It's My Party"