Page 37 of Brother In Arms

Dray had to put his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing, still, he snorted and Bailey scowled at us both, getting up and walking to the opposite end of the porch.

“No, sir, Mr. Fairchild, sir… just a couple of my farm hands talking about a topic unrelated to this one. No one is laughing at the severity of the situation, I assure you.”

She paused and listened to whatever the rich SOB on the other end of the line was saying and was nodding along, “As soon as I have the results of the necropsy, I will let everyone know, but I believe that it is far too early to assume that any one of your horses are in any danger. We simply don’t know what happened to Boaz and we won’t for a while, yet.”

Anger flashed across her face and she said, “My brother only holds one-third of this farm and isn’t here on a day to day basis, like I am. I’m not sure why you would get any of your information from him seeing as we only spoke briefly this morning about the situation. I assure you, everyone’s animal is fine and that this was an isolated incident.”

Another long pause and her shoulders dropped, “I understand, and that is your right, however, I must remind you that the stud fee has been paid and you are contractually obligated to see the pairing of Two Drops in a Bucket and A Midnight Dreary through.”

“I do believe that would be best. Yes, sir. I agree completely. I have men here who will be upgrading our security cameras in the stables. Yes, they’re here as we speak. Yes, sir. We already have twenty-four hour monitoring. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I absolutely understand. Yes, I do know how much Two Drops in a Bucket is worth, if you recall, he was bred and born here.”

A burst of noise out of the phone loud enough for Bailey to hold the phone away from her ear for a moment, she returned it and said, “Absolutely sir, I am one hundred percent on board with what you are saying and I don’t disagree in the slightest.”

A few more words on his end and Bailey turned to us and rolled her eyes, “Alright, now. Bye-bye.”

She hung her head and pinched the bridge of her nose, “That man is just like his horse, a royal pain in the ass,” she breathed and I shook my head.

“Does he not realize you have security in the client stables and that’s likely why Boaz was targeted?”

“What, you sayin’, the farm’s stables don’t?” Dragon asked.

Bailey shook her head, “I’d been trying to get father to put in security cameras on the rest of the farm for years; we’ve had the odd vandalized fence but nothing beyond that until now.”

“Shit, and your brother’s the one that did it. Don’t he know how the family thing is supposed to work?” Dragon growled the last and Bailey frowned.

“What do you mean?” she asked and Dray sighed.

“That you have to ask means that you never learned either,” he said unhappily.

“So give her a lesson,” I said and both of them looked at me. Dragon nodded and picked up his phone, a few taps and clicks and he put it to his ear.

“Yeah, Data, you busy?” He paused. “Good, come on out to Blue Hills. Bring your truck and all the fixin’s. We’re gonna see if we can get this trustee to give Bales a little trust to pay for it. If he won’t, then I got it.” A few more things said on the other end of the line that we couldn’t hear then, “Yeah, see you when you get here.”

“Get on the horn, girl. See what you can wring out of that rich bastard,” Dray said.

Bailey sighed and nodded, she looked exhausted and I shook my head, “I think a nap might be in order first.”

“No, Dray’s right… I should call Caleb.”

“Fine, but you ain’t slept since what?”

“Um, I think it’s something like 39 hours now,” she said with a sigh, looking at the clock on her phone.

“Right, make your call and go try to get some sleep while we handle things ‘round here,” Dragon ordered and Bailey opened her mouth to argue. That was rich. “Sweetheart,” Dragon interrupted before she could even say anything. “Is there anything ‘round here that Rush don’t know how to do?”

“No, I mean, not that I’ve seen since he’s been here…”

“Okay, then. You think the rest of your staff is shit?”

“What, no! My staff is fantastic, well at least the ones I have left.” She dropped back into her seat and covered her face with her hands, scrubbing at her eyes which were rimmed red she was so tired.

Dragon perked up and called out in Spanish to one of the passing hands. Jorge stopped and looked up, answering Dragon back with one of his typical smart ass responses. Dragon put up his hands laughing and identified himself as Bailey’s uncle by marriage and Jorge nodded. He was much more willing to answer Dragon’s questions then. Bailey watched rapt and I could tell she was struggling with the rapid-fire Spanish going back and forth.

She knew it, but struggled with it as it wasn’t her first or, I think even second, language. I was a little more up on it as I’d lived with it more back in AZ. Still, even I was having a little trouble following along. The gist of it was Dragon asking, who was Renaldo’s right hand man. Jorge said that it was another guy who’d taken off because his wife and kids had been threatened with deportation.

He and Dragon went back and forth and finally Dragon asked him point blank, with Renaldo gone, who would be a suitable replacement for him. Who was the most qualified? Jorge took his time thinking about it and Dragon gave him a look, raising an eyebrow waiting him out. Finally Jorge nodded and committed.

“The Gringo would be a good choice but he doesn’t know these horses like I do. I can do it.” Jorge nodded and made eye contact with my president. “I will do it.”

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