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“Ah,” Annie said. “That’s why Tulsie was wrestling with the hay bales.”
Izzy Guidry gave her an odd look. “We do that every day. You think girls can’t lift a bale of hay?”
“Seems those bales are almost as big as you are,” Annie said, looking at one sitting on the floor just down from the stall.
“So?” Izzy said, clearly getting frustrated with Annie’s lack of understanding of what it took to run a place like this.
“You were here when Tulsie got hurt, then?”
“I drove her up to Our Lady.”
“And what day did she get hurt again?” Annie asked, working out the timeline in her head and trying to reconcile it with the stage of color of Tulsie Parcelle’s bruises.
“Yesterday,” Izzy said, narrowing her eyes. “I thought you said you saw her.”
“Yeah,” Annie said. “I lose track of time. I’ll go down to the arena and say hey. Nice to meet you, Izzy.”
“Sure,” the girl said, and went back to picking shit.
Cody being gone was both a disappointment and a relief, she had to admit. She had wanted to send him a message, but if he wasn’t there, then he wasn’t an immediate threat, either. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and texted Nick:
Cody P out of town.
She glanced around the yard as she walked, taking in everything involved with running a horse farm, wondering at the expense of it all. A tractor with a front-end bucket loader, a manure spreader, a four-wheel ATV. Two horse trailers were parked alongside the barn, a long gooseneck trailer that looked like it must be able to hold half a dozen horses, and a smaller trailer that could hold two next to it. Parked beside the trailers was an older blue Ford Escape SUV with a decal on the back window that read:Cowgirl Up!
Annie wondered if that was part of the reason Tulsie stayed with a man who abused her—because she thought she had to be cowgirl tough and take what her man dished out? Just like she thought she had to ride with a wrecked shoulder or wrestle with hay bales as big as she was. This was her lot in life and what she’d signed up for, and she would stick it out come hell or high water because that was what a cowgirl did. Stand by your man, no matter what. Such a bill of goods, Annie thought, sad for her.
Tulsie was making the rounds of the shaded arena on a little palomino with a flowing white mane and tail, trotting for a stretch, then cantering for a stretch, then back to the trot and back to the canter. She held her reins in her left hand, her right arm still in the sling from the ER. She spotted Annie along the rail and slowed to a walk, leaning down and hastily swiping away tears on the sleeve of her western-style shirt.
Annie wished Cody had been standing nearby so she could have turned and kneed him in the balls, just for the satisfaction of hearing the breath leave his lungs.
“Hey, Tulsie!” she said brightly.
“Hey, Annie.”
“I didn’t think I’d see you on a horse today,” she said as the girl rode up on long reins and came to a halt.
“They don’t work themselves.”
“Would he forget how to be a horse if you took a day or two off?”
“She’s coming back from an injury,” Tulsie said. “We have to do her rehab every day. It’s a strict schedule from the vet. There’s nosuch thing as taking days off from that. Anyway, I only need one hand to ride her.”
“Still,” Annie said. “Couldn’t your hired girl do it?”
“Better me ride and Izzy clean the stalls. I can’t use a pitchfork with one arm.”
Annie shook her head. “You horse girls are something else. Cody is looking obsolete here,” she teased. “Does he realize y’all don’t actually need him?”
“I’m sure he doesn’t think that.”
“Have you told him you got hurt?” Annie asked.
“He’s gone to Houston,” Tulsie said, “helping his uncle with the auction.”
“Have you spoken to him since this happened?”
“I tried to call him last night, but he didn’t answer,” she said. “He’s busy. They’ve got horses shipping in all day and half the night. He doesn’t have time to hear bad news from me.”
