Rick seemed happy enough to go along with it. He patted her shoulder and she tipped her head, pinned his fingers against her cheek. “We can help. Good call, Carl.”
“It’s up here,” she said. She pointed to a pub on the right. “Turn off here, over the common, then swing up to the left, you’ll see it.” I followed her directions and she became visibly animated, restless in her seat despite the boot-kicked cervix. “Here,” she said. “It’s up here.”
I turned down a long bumpy driveway. Weston’s Maintenance Services. It looked like an agricultural yard, a little worse for wear. Some rusty old machinery out the front of a farmhouse, a few chickens dashing about the place. She pointed to a space in front of an old rickety barn, and I parked up. She was out of the car before I’d even turned the engine off, and her expression was a wonder.
Rick jumped out after her and she took his hand, started pointing things out. She made him poke his head in the barn as I locked the Range, and then pointed down a concrete path, her eyes locked on me.
“He’s down here,” she said. “Do you want to meet him?”
I felt like I was meeting the parents. That’s how serious she was.
I nodded. “Lead the way.”
She ambled along in spite of the soreness and Rick flashed me the biggest smile over his shoulder. His smile said I love you. It also said win. Seems he wanted to meet the horse as much as she wanted to introduce him.
We trudged past a stable block and I can’t say I was all that impressed. Rough around the edges was putting it kindly. It was the kind of dirty you get from age, mud and lack of funds, not from lack of care. The roof looked as though it was a bodge job, and some of the doors looked about to fall off. Then there was mud, a lot of mud, and there’d been rain here, enough that I feared for my shoes. She trooped on regardless of care for her pumps, and led us through a wood-chipped dressage ring that was missing a couple of sections of fencing, until she stopped, at a gate, and there were open fields beyond.
I scanned the pasture and there were a couple of horse-shaped dots in the distance. I was trying to guess which one was hers when she surprised me.
Sweet little Katie put her hands around her mouth and she bellowed.
“Samsonnnnnnnnnn.”
It was quite a volume.
She stepped up onto the bottom bar of the gate and did it again, and I was about to suggest we just walk on down the field and catch the beast as I presumed most horse owners needed to do when there was a rumble of hooves, thumping up the grass at some pace. I stepped away from the gate on instinct, and so did Rick, and the horse came into view, charging up the bank at reckless speed. Katie leaned over regardless, holding out her arms and calling his name, and I nearly grabbed her, nearly pulled her back and out of harm’s way before the hairy brute ploughed into her, but he didn’t. He pulled to an instant halt, and he was all snorts, and nudging. His big furry head was over the fence, butting her in a way that I can only assume was affectionate, and she was giggling, happy.
“This is Samson,” she said, like an introduction was necessary. “This is my big baby boy.”
He was a big fucking boy. A huge black beast with a white stripe down his face. She kissed his nose, and reached up to scratch his ears, and Rick scratched his ears, too.
“Come see him, Carl,” she said. “He’s friendly.”
But the beast didn’t like me. Not all that much. I stepped forward and I was tense, and wary of him, and he was wary of me. He eyeballed me, then flinched, taking a step back and snorting like a fucking dragon.
“Steady,” she said to him. “Hey, boy, steady.”
“He doesn’t like me,” I said.
“He will,” she laughed. “He’s just nervous of you. You must be… tense.”
“Tense?”
“They pick up on body language,” she said. “Energy, emotion, fear, anger. Whatever. They pick up on everything.”
“You’re too fucking stiff,” Rick laughed. “You’re not at the office now, you know. You need to loosen up, chillax. Let it all hang out.”