Puss 'N Cahoots

break into his vault or authorities to sweep his records, but he thought ahead. His motto could well have been “Plan for the worst, hope for the best.”
    Ward intended to buy one young stallion and perhaps three exceptional broodmares when the sum reached four hundred thousand dollars. He wanted to play safe, so he was looking for just the right stallion from the Rex Denmark line. Since Supreme Sultan, foaled in 1966, led the list of sires of Hall of Fame broodmares, he wanted mares from that line. Whether or not he had the breeding gift would be apparent in a few years. One stallion would lead to more if he enjoyed any kind of success, and those stud fees would prove a nice augmentation to his training fees and board income.
    He’d figured out the cost to put up six-board fencing for the first stallion’s paddock, the cost of a clean but small breeding shed, and the costs for shipping semen.
    Ward left nothing to chance save for the Russian roulette of breeding. It wasn’t as easy as Mendel’s peas. He envied Joan Hamilton her extraordinary success. Some people had the gift, just as Donna Moore of Versailles had the gift of finding incredible prospects and making them better.
    He and Benny parked by the practice arena at ten-thirty in the morning to take home a gelding for an amateur owner in Barn Three and to take one of his clients’ horses back to his barn. He’d already driven back to his farm in his pickup after breakfast, checked on everything, turned everyone out, then hopped in the van with Benny, who regaled him with stories of a busted date last night. She had a bust, all right, but the rest of her screamed nonstop neurosis. Benny could make Ward laugh, and the two of them had laughed all the way to Ward’s rented stalls at Shelbyville. Ward had two horses going tonight. It should be an easy day, more or less.
             
    Harry and Fair pulled into the opposite lot near Route 60. Both were elated, since the gelding at Paula’s Rose Haven farm impressed them. Fair did a thorough check, asking Paula to call in her vet for X-rays when possible. Fair didn’t have his portable X-ray equipment with him.
    Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker strolled down to visit Spike. Cookie, still at Kalarama Farm, wouldn’t come in until the evening’s classes. This pleased Tucker, since she’d have gossip for the pretty little Jack Russell.
    “Hope Spike has some dirt.”
Tucker snapped at a monarch butterfly who flew low.
    “Wouldn’t you rather he had bones?”
Pewter, food never far from her mind, replied.
    “Wouldn’t mind, but I wouldn’t give you any.”
Tucker smiled devilishly.
    “Dog bones taste like cardboard.”
Pewter had gnawed a few Milk-Bones and overstated her case.
    “Good, I don’t have to share.”
    “But a knucklebone, a real true bone, that’s a different story.”
Pewter’s eyes half closed in remembered bliss.
    “You two ate a big breakfast. How can you think about food?”
Mrs. Murphy liked her tuna, chicken, and beef, but food wasn’t her obsession.
    “You need to surrender more to the rituals of pleasure,”
Pewter declared.
    Both Mrs. Murphy and Tucker stopped for a moment to stare at each other. Where did Pewter come up with that? The large gray kitty sashayed on, her tummy swinging from side to side. She certainly indulged in her rituals of pleasure. The two friends lifted their silken eyebrows, then followed Pewter, in as good a mood as anyone had ever seen her.
    Charly Trackwell was not yet in the barn. Carlos had watered the horses, checked everyone’s feed, double-checked them after they’d eaten, and was now going from stall to stall lifting hooves. The barn cats reposed on the tack trunks, a mid-morning nap being just the thing on a day that promised to get into the nineties with high humidity.
    Spike, on his side on an old saddle blanket in navy and red, snored. His paws twitched.
    “Let’s not wake him,”
Mrs. Murphy whispered.
    A startled horse caused the ginger cat to open one eye, and then a hellacious shriek sent him bolt upright along with the other barn cats.
    Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker craned their necks to view Miss Nasty, in an orange and white polka-dot dress, swinging from a barn rafter. The horse eyed her with the greatest suspicion.
    Carlos, hearing the horse shy, quickly looked into the stall but didn’t see Miss Nasty at first. The monkey swung down, grabbing his grimy baseball cap. She then scurried across the beams, cap in one