No Defense by Rangeley Wallace Page B

I
said.
    “I thought she just did astrology,” he
said.
    “Same kind of thing. But no, I don’t. All I
feel is incredibly lucky that we have this house, great jobs,
wonderful, healthy children, and Jolene.”
    “They’re here, LuAnn,” he said.
    “Who?”
    “The ghosts,” he said. “You just won’t allow
yourself to see them.”
    I laughed. “Don’t be silly, Eddie. You can’t
have ghosts without dead people. Here, help me with these books and
stop looking at me like that.”
    He shrugged and sat down next to me.
    I handed him a dust rag.
    Once the unpacking was finished, I had more
free time than I’d had in years, and more than I’d have after I
took over the Steak House. Jessie was in nursery school each
morning, and Jolene watched the twins whenever I was out. Will and
Hank could survive without me for increasingly longer periods of
time as they began to get more of their daily nourishment from
bottles. I took advantage of my freedom, taking long walks, riding
my horse, and hanging out at the Steak House, reviewing with the
Bledsoes the many details involved in running a restaurant.
    My horse, Glorious Gloria-or Glory, for
short-had been a gift from my father not long after Glory was born
to a champion show mare at a Tennessee horse farm. She was an early
college graduation present, according to Daddy. A bribe to keep me
in Tallagumsa, according to Eddie.
    I’d trained Glory weekends before Jessie was
born. After that I’d tried to ride and jump her at least once a
month. Between my visits, a trainer worked with her, and a local
teenage boy who lived nearby exercised her almost every day.
    We kept Glory and my father’s horse, Balzac,
outside of town close to Clark Lake in one of Edwina Frickey’s
barns. Miss Edwina had lived outside Tallagumsa since the day she
was born there, in 1885. Her grandchildren maintained her property
and her horses. Because Daddy had done her some favor or other
years before, her family took care of our horses for free. One of
her two barns housed ten horses; in the other barn were her
parakeets.
    A light drizzle began to fall during my
first trip out to Miss Edwina’s after the move. There was just
enough rain to warrant windshield wipers, but I didn’t turn back.
I’d been looking forward to riding Glory for too long.
    I parked next to the horse barn. I could see
the horses grazing in the east field at the top of a small rise a
few hundred yards away. As I entered the barn to get a halter, I
was overwhelmed by the smells of my childhood: an unforgettable
mixture of hay, horse shit, and horse sweat. It was wonderful.
    I grabbed the worn green halter from the
stall marked “Glory” and walked across the soft ground toward the
field. The rain had stopped.
    Glory, a golden palomino with four white
feet and a white mane and tail, stood out even from a distance. I
fingered the sugar cubes in my jeans pocket and started to walk a
little faster, anxious to touch her.
    “Glory,” I called when I was a few yards
away from her. She and the two horses next to her turned and
stared. One of them was Balzac, a black thoroughbred. He turned
back to his eating, while Glory’s dark hazel eyes looked me over.
Then Glory walked up and pushed her nose against my pocket. Her
nostrils flared a little.
    “You’re the smartest horse I ever knew,” I
said. I gave her the sugar and gently hooked the halter over her
head. “Come on, Glory. Let’s go.”
    In the barn, I put her in crossties and
retrieved a tack box. Equipped with a hoof pick, I faced her and
gently ran my right hand down the front of her right leg; she
shifted her weight to her other three legs and lifted her front
right leg. I bent over and dug in.
    I was never one for mindless labor, unless
it involved horses. Then, bring it on. As a girl I’d been happy to
muck out stalls all day, as long as I got to ride when I was done.
I figured it was only fair that I had to do a lot of dirty, boring
work before I was able to do