"Not Sunday?"

"No use putting it off. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to go take a look at that race course first though."

Anne bit back the protest that came immediately to her lips. She didn't want him to have anything to do with the race. Trust him she thought. "Maybe it wouldn't hurt."

They were in town before ten the next morning, Anne riding Red, Cord leading a four-year-old he would let see a little of the town before going home. First, they picked up a copy of the race entry form and rules at the feed store.

I should have known Anne thought hours later. Cord had pulled all sorts of strings and measuring devices out of his saddle bags. He equipped her with a pencil and paper, and she wrote down measurement after measurement. They had just completed two tours of the five-mile race course. He never did anything by halves.

Many people in Mason considered the race the town's greatest a.s.set. There was no denying that every year the town's economy was given a great boost as contestants and spectators flooded the town for days before race day, some coming from great distances.

The businessmen of Mason contributed fifteen hundred dollars each year, which was awarded one thousand dollars to the winner, three hundred to the second place horse, and two hundred to the third place horse, a considerable draw. Large sums changed hands in wagers.

The whole town took on an excited fair-like atmosphere for the event, but Anne wasn't the only one who avoided everything to do with the race, for there was no question Cord was right. The course was over such severe terrain and for such a great distance that more than a few horses had been crippled by it. Most years of the ten to twenty horses that started the race one or two were never of any use again. In the fifteen years of the race there had been one rider killed and several who been hurt badly.

The race was roughly a five-mile circle, starting and finishing at a point that had once been outside the town but which now was a roadway with a few houses scattered along it.

The unique features of the race were provided by a sandy wash, cut through with a stream. In July, the wash was usually almost dry, but in the spring the runoff flooded the whole area and had cut a deep, winding gully.

The course was marked with permanently set four-foot posts which were given a new coat of bright red paint each year. After a straight mile and a half run into the wash, the course first led through an area strewn with downed trees, broken limbs, and other hazards that cut and tore at the thin skin over fine equine legs. Then the horses had to negotiate the creek bed itself for more than a quarter of a mile. Walking a horse through the debris-filled water was tricky. Taking the creek bed at a dead run was dangerous.

The course then looped away from the creek, returning to it in an area of less sand, firmer ground, and more trees. Here the water had cut deeper. The racers had to cross the creek at a point where the banks dropped almost vertically twelve and fifteen feet on each side. From bank to bank was only about ten feet, which might have tempted some to try to jump the distance, but both banks of the creek were hemmed by trees with low-hanging branches. Riders wove and ducked among the trees, raced headlong down one bank, again risked slim legs in the creek bed, and plunged up the far bank.

After that, marker posts were set just before the opening to a narrow gully that wound treacherously for almost a mile. Steep banks on either side forced the horses to stay in the order in which they had entered the ravine. The floor of the gully was littered with enough flood debris to make the going dangerous, and gnarled tree roots were exposed in each bank, seeming to reach for the horses and riders to rip at the flesh of the unwary or careless.

Emerging from what those familiar with the race called "the Narrows," there was still a brutal mile and a half straight, slightly uphill run to the finish line.

Anne had watched the race once as a girl. Ever since, she had found somewhere else to be on race day. Now here she was, studying every inch of the dreadful course.

After the second time around, they rode to the cafe. Dora had long since decided they were acceptable customers, and over lunch Anne watched Cord draw a map of the route, filling in their measurements here and there. When he was done, he explained to her what he had in mind.

She stared at the paper and thought of what they had seen and measured this morning and looked at Cord with disbelief. "Can that be done?"

"They hunted that horse back East. It's what he was bred for. That means jumping stone walls, hedges, gates, chicken coops, things like that. It's no sure thing, but it's possible."

"If Stones knew, it would be all over town. They'd fix it so you couldn't."

"Can't tell Stones. Just that we'd try the race."

She thought of injuries she'd heard of riders getting in that race. Stones would say no and keep him safe. "Let's go do it then."

It was as Anne hoped. Cord told Stones he would ride the horse in the race if they would accept that he would do it with keeping the horse safe as his primary concern and with doing well secondary. They would not accept that. They wanted a commitment to ride the horse all out to win, and Cord would not give it.

In the end, Cord and Anne left the red stallion in the stall they had taken him from only a few weeks before and headed for home, Cord riding the four-year-old, and Anne on Keeper.

Anne was trying hard to conceal her unhappiness but knew she had failed abysmally when Cord murmured, "Sorry, babe."

"It's not our fault they're fools. It's just too bad Red's going to pay for their foolishness."

"Maybe not. They still have to find somebody who can ride him."

" I can ride him. Anybody can ride him now you've fixed him."

"Mm. Better give yourself more credit. Back with Lennie, your lesson horse may start scaring them all spitless again. Half hope he does."

When Sunday rolled around again, Cord's words were proven prophetic. This time it was John Stone causing a fl.u.s.ter in the Bennett household, and Cord saw no reason to pretend a respect he didn't feel.

He said, "Took somebody through a fence again, did he?"

John Stone held himself stiffly, obviously hating having to ask anything of Cord.

"No, as a matter of fact he hasn't. That boy of Windon's a.s.sured us he could handle the horse. When he came to look at the animal, it charged him, and he lashed out with his quirt and caught the horse near the eye. No one has been able to do a thing with the animal since, not even doctor the wound, although it really is minor."

"So you want me to come doctor him."

"That's not the problem. The injury is minor. My wife and I have discussed this at some length. The idea is to convince potential buyers the horse has some worth. Incidents such as this will not accomplish that. We would like you to take the horse again, do the work originally agreed upon on the agreed terms, and race the horse on the terms you offered. As incentive, we will turn over to you any prize money the animal may win in the race."

Cord made a sound close to a contemptuous snort. "Generous. I told you he might be dead last if that's what it takes to keep him in one piece."

"Be that as it may, that is our offer," Stone said. "The whole town is talking about the fact that your wife rode the horse to town the day you returned him to us. Is that another example of your 'Indian magic?'"

Cord tipped the chair back slightly and examined the man closely. So that was it.

Seeing Anne on the horse had already started to quell some of the stallion's outlaw reputation. He said with deliberate offensiveness, "Yeah, sure, I sprinkle her with rattlesnake dust first then throw her up there."

An angry flush spread across Stone's face. Standing, he said, "When may I have your answer?" His tone negated the polite words.

Ready to tell him to go to h.e.l.l, Cord once more made the mistake of glancing at Anne. Her head was bowed and her hands were gripping each other so hard her knuckles were white.

"I'll come get him in a while," he told Stone, who gave a triumphant little smile and strutted out.

Anne raised her head, eyes moist and shining. "You don't have to...."

"Yeah, I know I don't." As he got to his feet, she started to rise too, but he shook his head. "You stay here and visit with your mother."

"But, I...."

"If the eye's a mess, I don't need to listen to you about it. Stay here."

He expected her to argue, but she smiled at him and sat back down.

Luke then surprised him by asking, "Can Pete and I come along?"

He shrugged, knowing his nephews would take it as permission, and walked out with them on his heels.

CHAPTER 28.

FRANK WAS THE BENNETT WHO aggravated Anne the very most, although there were days when Ephraim or the boys were in the running. And she hadn't even seen Judith in full hysteria mode yet. Anne was aware that something had been bothering Frank for some time, but didn't really expect him to ever come out with it.

Today, though, as she chatted with her mother, Frank made no move to retreat to the parlor for whatever men did when they left women with the dishes. He and Ephraim both stayed put, but it was Frank who kept glancing at her, obviously getting ready to say something.

When there was a pause in the conversation, she expected him to say something so obnoxious that she'd have to leave and wait for Cord outside, but he surprised her by p.u.s.s.yfooting around.

"Anne, would you answer a question that's been itching at me a while?"

She looked at him with suspicion. "Such as?"

"I don't want you to get your back up and take it wrong. I'd really like to know, if you know yourself, that is. Why aren't you afraid of him?"

She frowned and felt her mouth tightening already. "Why should I be? He's never done anything to make me afraid."

Ephraim said, "He hasn't done anything to any of the women in this town so far as I know, but any other one of them would have run off screaming if they woke up in that barn and saw him standing there. I'm curious myself, Anne. Were you afraid and you got over it nursing him like that? Or were you never afraid?"

Anne looked back and forth between the two brothers, her frown slowly disappearing.

Why not tell them? "We've been friends in a way ever since I first met him - when we were both ten."

Anne enjoyed the look on Frank's face. Hadn't it ever occurred to him that she and Cord would have crossed paths in a town the size of Mason long before last fall?

After a look around at all the curious faces, Anne gave in, folded her hands on the table and began to tell the story.

"It was when we first moved here, my first week in school here. That's when you sent Cord and Marie to the school in town."

"It didn't work," Frank said. "They only went for a few days."

"That's because the teacher we had that year was small minded and evil," Anne said angrily. "She didn't just ignore what happened, she encouraged it."

"We knew there'd be some teasing and testing," Frank said. "We thought it would work out and be better for them in the end."

"It would have if you'd picked a year when Miss Striker was gone," Anne said. "She was as bad as my father. You see it wasn't just teasing. The boys all got together and really tried to beat Cord to a pulp. The problem was they couldn't. He always managed to get one of them alone long enough to make him sorry he'd tried, so they gave up on him.

But then the girls started. Somehow I always thought Miss Striker gave them the idea.

They pinched, they hit, they spit, they insulted."

Frank shrugged. "And he ignored them."

"Yes," Anne said, "but Marie was only eight and not that strong, and they turned on her next."

"d.a.m.n it," Frank said. "Why didn't they tell us?"

"The same reason most of us don't tell our parents things at that age, I guess," Anne said. "Anyway, on Friday it really got out of hand. I don't know if they planned it or not, but the boys went for Cord again and got him away from Marie, and then the girls started pushing Marie back and forth until she fell. Priscilla Carson actually sat on Marie and slapped her and was spitting on her and calling her names. Cord got away from the boys but then he just stood there. He says he didn't know what to do. You'd always taught him he wasn't supposed to hit girls no matter what."

"Dear Lord," Martha said. "Did the teacher stop it then?"

"No," Anne said. "I did. I grabbed Prissy by her pigtails and pulled her off Marie and socked her right in the jaw and called her every bad name I knew and some I didn't really know, just had heard. That's when Miss Striker chose to notice what was going on. And guess who was in trouble?"

When school let out for the day, Cord approached Anne, Marie by the hand. His exact words always stuck in her mind.

"Thank you, Miss Wells, for helping my sister. I didn't know what to do."

Anne was at the age when all boys seemed to her dirty, mean creatures, and she walked home from school that day mulling it over in her mind. If they were all like that, she decided, boys wouldn't be so bad.

"I know Rob was too young to remember, but I'm surprised you didn't, Mother."

Leona had listened to Anne's tale as intently as the Bennetts. She said, "You were in that kind of trouble so much in those days, and we were so new in town we didn't really know anyone. I'm not sure I ever knew why you did it. The teacher said you attacked another little girl for no reason."

"No one would even let me tell my side of it," Anne said.

Martha said, "Well, at least Cord thanked you. It's a blessing you were there. Marie got hysterical that weekend and said she'd rather die than go back, and Cord said he'd go, but we shouldn't make Marie go. So we gave up and kept them home. I wish we'd known all this back then."

Anne was sad at the memory. "It wouldn't have made any difference. Miss Striker was there another two years."

Martha began to refill coffee cups, and it was she who said, "So you were friends after that. Was that all?"

Anne smiled mischievously up at Martha. "No, there were two other 'encounters.' The second time I got in just as much trouble. Rob should remember that one, but maybe Mother's right. I was in trouble so often, no one but me remembers each incident."

"I remember." Rob said suddenly. "I was still in school and I got in fights with some of the other boys over what they said about you."

"I didn't think you ever defended me." Anne said. "I thought no accusation was too heinous."

"You'd be surprised," Rob said sullenly.

She reached over and gave him a hug and kiss on the cheek. "Well, thank you, years too late."

Anne went back to the story then. "If Rob was still in school, we must have been nineteen that winter. There was snow on the ground. I had been shopping and was on my way home. My arms were full of parcels, and I cut through the alley behind Elm Street. I turned around the back of Miles' store to get back to Main Street, and Cord was coming the other way, and we crashed into each other. I slipped in the snow and went down on my back, the packages went every which way, my skirts were all rucked up, and Cord kind of just froze there staring at me."

"Thank G.o.d n.o.body knew about that part," Rob muttered.

"Maybe so," Anne admitted, "but I thought it was funny. I remember trying to tease him and asking him if he was going to stand there like a fence post or help me up."

Cord did help her up, acting as if he expected to be burned by the contact. Only now, years later, had she found out from him that he expected her to start screaming, accusing him of deliberate a.s.sault, if not worse. When she started to laugh, he recognized her and realized she wasn't going to make accusations, but he was still leery.

Oblivious of what Cord recognized as a sticky situation, she piled half the packages in his arms. "The least you can do for knocking me over is to help me home with all these."

Short of dropping her parcels back in the mud and snow, he had no choice, but he refused to walk through town beside her and followed a few steps behind. When they reached the Wells house, he deposited the packages on the edge of the porch, tipped his hat, and disappeared like smoke in the wind.

"My feelings were half hurt because I always thought of him as a friend since that business in school. I'd smile at him when I saw him in town, and he'd always tip his hat or nod at me or something, but the fuss everyone made about that walk through town made me realize he was just smarter than I was. I mean it was broad daylight, we were in the middle of town, and he just carried some packages for me, but the town busybodies couldn't tell Mother and Father about it fast enough."

Leona said, "My goodness, I do remember that. Your father was very upset, and he was already worried about Elroy Turrell.