At the Palm Beach Polo Club, it was just another day in paradise for the rich, the filthy rich, and the ridiculously rich. Leslye Larrimore and a helmeted polo player walked across the perfectly green, perfectly groomed polo field -- which was a neat trick for Leslye since she was dressed in haute couture as usual, right down to her six-inch heels. The polo player was Daniel Stern, wearing knee-high black riding boots, carrying in his hand the Ostrich skin dress boots out of which he had changed.
"So, Silvie's Ferrari is a total loss, and the insurance company swears the policy was canceled at the customer's request." said Dan. "Sounds like we've got a poltergeist."
"Just like the one that wire transferred half the money out of our Kings Cay account in the Bahamas yesterday," Leslye responded.
"Right."
They arrived at a bus-long horse trailer surrounded by a string of eight grazing polo ponies. Dan stashed his Ostrich boots in the trailer. He inspected his mounts and gear as they talked. "Maybe Harry's ghost is making l-o-o-o-o-ng distance phone calls. 'H. P. phone home,' eh?"
"It's not funny," said Leslye.
"It's a computer glitch with the insurance company. And with the bank. You'll get them both corrected. Relax. Take another pill."
Leslye subsided a little. She withdrew an envelope from her purse and offered it to him. "You're right," she said. "Mistakes happen. We'll get it corrected. I don't know why I'm overreacting. Too much caffeine, probably. Here's what I really came to show you."
Dan retrieved his riding helmet from the trailer and wedged it under an elbow while he opened the document. It was an attractive brochure featuring colorful drawings of a high-rise building called Pace Tower. "Very nice," he said. "Good work, Les. Looks like a million dollars -- or maybe a hundred million."
Leslye smiled. "I've got a Japanese conglomerate interested. Ichi-Nobuko. They want to sign preliminary acquisition agreements next week. We're talking a ten million cash deposit to hold in our escrow account."
"Ten mil. Nice," said Dan. "Just about pay off the rest of the crooked bureaucrats."
Leslye snatched the brochure and stuffed it back into her purse. "Watch your mouth! Everything's a joke to you, isn't it!"
"Calm down. There's nobody here but us ponies." He put one arm on her shoulder to soothe and direct her, and he led a saddled pony with the other hand as they walked across the field toward the grandstands.
A little over an hour west of the Palm Beach Polo Club was a different world, a world of wildlife and wild country, of farms and ranches and small towns, and horses that would mostly not play polo.
Outside his barn, Walt McGurk had saddled two horses while the mismatched dogs, Butch and Maude, played nearby. Silvie approached from the house. She wore high, flat-heeled, glossy black riding boots, silk shirt, and jodhpurs. Under her arm were a riding helmet and leather crop.
"How long will this take?" she asked.
"What do you care? You're unemployed."
"I am not unemployed. I am at leisure. There is a vast difference."
Walt looked her up and down, unimpressed. "Honey, with Harry's money you were at leisure. Without it, you're unemployed. Either way, we'll be back by supper. Course, if it's an imposition, you don't have to go at all."
Silvie plopped her helmet atop her head. "I think one should be familiar with one's assets. I did not ask to be a partner in this ... this enterprise, but partner I am, and I intend to take an active role in making it profitable. Leg up, please."
Walt boosted her into the saddle. He gestured to her helmet. "What's that for?" He swung into his saddle and brought his horse close alongside hers.
"So I won't crack my skull if I fall," she said.
"You fall a lot?"
"Never!"
Walt removed Silvie's helmet over her squeal of protest and tossed it into the tack shed a few feet away. He sidled his horse close to the shed door, took an old straw cowboy hat from a nail on the shed wall, then leaned over and squashed it onto her head.
"Reckon you're more likely to get sunstroke than a concussion. And when it rains, this'll keep the water outta yer collar, too." He led the way. They walked their horses out of the ranch yard and onto a narrow trail through trees and brush.
Walt turned in his saddle. "Next time we get to town, we'll do somethin' about them boots, too. Hold your reins in one hand."
"I'm used to riding English," Silvie protested.
"Fine for you, but this ain't an English horse. This here's a Florida Cracker horse, and he knows his bidniss. He don't need you to confuse him."
Silvie complied, moving her reins to one hand with elaborate gestures.
Walt increased their pace from a walk to a trot. Recalling a steep dip in the trail ahead, he though it chivalrous to warn Silvie. If she kept bouncing loosely in her saddle, she'd part company with her horse when he did a quick-step into the six-foot ditch and back up again. Walt shouted over his shoulder, "Ride yer stirrups!"
"What?" she said.
The earth dropped away, Silvie's horse bounced down into the ditch, and Silvie tumbled arse-over-teakettle into the grass.
She was standing up, rubbing her backside, when Walt rode back to her, leading her horse.
"Thought you said you never fall off," he deadpanned.
"And I thought if you didn't want to ride English, you'd at least try to speak it," she said.
Walt dismounted and gave her a leg up onto her horse. "All I said was, 'ride yer stirrups.' You apparently took that to mean somethin' acrobatic."
Silvie looked daggers at him as he mounted his own horse. "Why don't I go first for a while?" she suggested.
"Suit yerself. Just stay on the trail, right on through there."
Silvie started off. The trail wound through pines, vines, spiky palmetto, and moss-draped live oaks. She pushed a low-hanging, limber branch forward and let it go as she passed it. She smiled at the resulting thump and "Oof!" behind her.
Half a day later, Silvie, the horses, and the dogs rested beside a lazy creek while Walt prepared lunch with his all-purpose knife.
"So, how do you like your ranch so far, City Mouse?" he asked.
"It's bigger than I thought," she said. "And smaller, in a way. I expected more ... I don't know ... corn as high as an elephant's eye, amber waves of grain, I don't know."
"This ain't Kansas, Dorothy."
Silvie gave him a look. He concentrated on his lunch preparations.
Silvie said, "I haven't seen many cows."
Walt chuckled. "Beef ain't the money maker it once was. All your friends in the hoi polloi are eatin' raw fish instead of steak nowadays. We got a few head in partnership at a dairy up at Okeechobee, but I'm doing better with horses. Been marketin' to rodeos, polo clubs, Ocala breeders--"
"Polo clubs!" Silvie interrupted. "How far is it from here to Palm Beach? Wouldn't it boost our profits if I could get us some buyers?"
Walt tossed her an old coffee can from his saddle bags. "Boost lunch if you could get us some water from the creek. To answer your first question, it's 'bout 80 miles from here to Palm Beach. Take you a good hour to get there if you had a fast car, which you don't." He continued with his lunch chores.
Silvie rose, holding the disgusting coffee can at arm's length, and walked toward the creek. "We'd split the profits fifty-fifty if I sold some horses, right?" she asked.
Walt stood as Silvie neared the creek bank, and as he came up from the ground he palmed his pistol from his boot. He leveled it in Silvie's direction as she leaned over the water. "I'll regret this," he muttered, "but I did promise Harry I'd take care of you."
"What?" said Silvie.
Ka-boom! Walt fired.
Silvie jerked around, stunned, deafened, and terrified. She stared at him as he walked toward her, still holding the smoking pistol. Two feet away, Walt stooped and lifted from the grass the headless, writhing body of a deadly copperhead. Silvie gaped at the snake. Then she fainted.
Walt was cooking over a campfire when Silvie awoke and found herself laid out on saddle blankets. Maude licked Silvie's face. Silvie looked around, orienting herself, then spoke to Walt. "You killed it?"
"Deader'n dirt. He would've done the same for you, I reckon," he said, stirring his culinary creation.
Vaguely, Silvie murmured, "I don't approve of killing."
"Maybe I shoulda hung back and let y'all discuss it." He dished up a bowl of chili from the pot over the fire. He brought it to her. "Here. Help ya get yer feet back under ya."
He went back to the fireside, served himself, and dug into his chili. Silvie stared at him, food untouched in her hand. She said, "Did you ever ... have you ever killed a person ... a human being?"
He looked at her and at the chili in her bowl. "Not with my cookin'," he said.
He went back to eating.
Silvie collected herself and took a bite. She survived. She took another.