Jungle Horses Read online

  A Broken River Books Online original

  Broken River Books

  10765 SW Murdock Ln

  Apt. G6

  Tigard, OR 97224

  Copyright © 2014 by Scott Adlerberg

  Cover art and design copyright © 2014 by Matthew Revert

  www.matthewrevert.com

  Interior design by J David Osborne

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written consent of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Where the names of actual celebrities or corporate entities appear, they are used for fictional purposes and do not constitute assertions of fact. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Made in the USA.

  JUNGLE HORSES

  by

  Scott

  Adlerberg

  BROKEN RIVER BOOKS

  PORTLAND, OR

  PART

  ONE

  Chapter 1

  The horses that Arthur saw in his dreams were always running through tropical terrain. The land was green and the sky deep blue, but this was not the African farm where he’d once bred racing horses. These were not those sleek thoroughbreds nor were they tame farm horses burdened by saddle, stirrup, and bit. The horses ran through a lush place, and despite the denseness of the terrain they seemed to run with complete abandon, never stumbling as they tore through bush. They were jungle horses, immense yet graceful, and somehow he knew as one knows in dreams that none of these majestic creatures had ever been mounted by a man. How different they were from the horses he’d ridden in his life, and how different too from the London ponies he would bet day after day. They were unique, he would think in his dreams, and the vision of their bright green jungle would fade, the beautiful horses would disappear, and he would awaken in the hard double bed with the grayness of the ceiling above him.

  Then would come the obsessive thoughts. Would he win today? Would he make the smart picks? Often he felt like avoiding the track, doing something else with his afternoon, but he had racing in his blood by now and would find that the days were long when his wife or the needs of the store kept him away from the bookies and the turf.

  This morning it was drizzling. He could hear the rain as he lay in bed waiting for Jenny to finish her shower, and he smiled to himself because Chalk Cliff ran his best on a moist track. Just don’t rain too long, he thought, and make the track a swampy mess; but the radio forecast reassured him that there would be sun by noon.

  Dressed in her robe, Jenny put on the water for tea. She turned on the oven to heat the bran muffins. Even for something as simple as breakfast his wife conducted herself with style, setting out plates and the things for the tea in an attractive arrangement. A collector of china and silver and tea sets, she liked to use the stuff she collected, and to use it not only when company came. Besides, they rarely had guests. Their one close friend was Vaughn, and more often than not, they got together with him at his house. Vaughn enjoyed cooking for them, and in this respect, Arthur knew they were lucky; you could do a lot worse than to have a great chef living across the street from you.

  The water in the kettle began to whistle, sending off steam. Jenny lifted the pot, and as she began to strain the tea, Arthur walked down the hall to bring the papers in from the stoop. He opened the door, feeling the mist in the cool morning air. He gazed up at the sky to see if indeed he could discern any thinning in the clouds. Not yet; everything was still gray and foreboding, and the city had a strange hushed quality as if the air was absorbing sound. It so happened that Vaughn, wearing a suit and tie already, had just come out to get his papers and as a car went by in the street, Arthur waved good morning to him, saying that yes, he had slept well.

  “Tell Jenny we’re set,” Vaughn said. “I got the tickets.”

  “Madame Butterfly?”

  “Starting at eight. You can pop round for drinks first if you like.”

  Arthur nodded and stepped back inside. He’d never met a bachelor who seemed more pleased to live by himself, and yet Vaughn’s affection for Jenny held true year after year. An ideal companion, a perfect lover for Jenny, Vaughn had money and the same cultivated tastes as her, and Jenny said she always felt proud when she and Vaughn went somewhere and he turned the heads of other women. Girls half his age would make passes at him, hoping that Vaughn would dump Jenny, the older woman, but he would merely string them along until he tired of the little game.

  “Covent Garden tonight,” Arthur said, returning to the kitchen and putting the papers on the table. “Vaughn expects us around six.”

  He stirred two sugar lumps into his tea and opened a paper to read the sports section. Jenny, meanwhile, skimmed through The Times, her head bent over the table edge and one hand free to grab her tea cup or a muffin. Outside the window it was quiet, and neither of them uttered a word until she mentioned the political crisis in Kenya. Any article on Kenya prompted a discussion because they had met in that country, but she would avoid as much as he did the nostalgic tone they’d hear among others who had lived in the colonies. Nothing you could find in cool, damp England compared to the beauty of the Kenyan plains or the way the green hills looked when the sun burned red above them, but one had to do one’s absolute best to live in the present. To be honest, Jenny did that better than he did, flitting all over London with Vaughn, going with Vaughn to concerts or the theater, and perhaps this was the reason why she had aged less than him. Tennis with Vaughn kept her trim, a spot of dye now and then kept her stylish bob black, and whatever wrinkles she had acquired only gave her face more character.

  “You think we should ever go back?” he said. “Go for a month and take a safari?”

  “I’d love to,” she said. “But would you be up to it?”

  She meant no cruelty, yet her question stung. Jenny really looked at him as one who had little energy left. Not that he ever did very much to make her change her view of him; to her he lived a torpid life shuttling between this flat and the pubs. And though he’d admit that he drank too much, that ever since his discharge from the army he had become rather sluggish, nonetheless he had the feeling that out of England and in a different climate he would recover the vigor of his youth. Whether breeding thoroughbreds in Kenya or fighting the Germans in Egypt, he had thrived in the heat and sun, and it was only now, in dusky London, in this domestic life he led, that he was struggling with the weight of lethargy.

  Jenny went to dress; Arthur cleared the table and washed the dishes. The rain had stopped, he saw through the window, but the overcast sky threatened more. If no more fell, he’d be all right--Chalk Cliff would be running in what for him were prime conditions. Twenty on Chalk Cliff. No, make it fifty. Or maybe today he’d let himself risk it and plunk down all of his gambling money, and then tonight he might come home and spread his winnings in front of Jenny. He would tell his wife that if she wanted she could put the store up for sale and live retired for the rest of her days. And you thought I spent all day in the pubs? Only sometimes, my dear, and rarely at that because I’ve been working at a job of my own. These are the dividends.

  He met her in the hall and she put on her coat. Her black umbrella matched the color of her coat and these both went with her elegant shoes. As usual, she had applied cherry-red lipstick, but the rest of her make-up was discreet. His wife never overpainted herself, never overdid the perfume or powder. She had (once again he thought it) style, and even if they did sleep in separate beds, he was thankful to have her w
ith him.

  “Toodle-oo, love,” she said, opening the door, and Arthur leaned forward and kissed her cheek. Fog had come in off the river again, and Arthur watched her go down the stoop, along the lane, and out through the enveloping whiteness. A half-hour later, carrying his own umbrella, Arthur left the flat himself. He made for the stand where each day he would buy the racing schedule, and after that he walked to the hotel where among foreign guests he would sit in the restaurant sipping tea and eating toast. This was a part of his day Jenny knew nothing about, just as she had no idea that he ever went to the track. As far as she knew, he hit the pubs early and would spend his day sitting on a stool.

  But why the hotel in the morning? Why not go to a regular teahouse and study the racing schedule there? A hotel reminded him of travel, that’s why, and he liked the atmosphere of flux. It energized him. Every day new faces, different voices, a mingling of languages and accents, and somehow in all of this he could concentrate well, could focus his mind on the schedule. At heart, he realized, he was still in exile, and he felt at home in a good hotel because of its international flavor.

  His handicapping done, Arthur paid his check. He hailed a cab to take him to the station. The sky, as predicted, was clearing, and during the ride on the 12:06 he stared out at suburban homes frightening in their sameness. Brick fronts, squat chimneys, tidy lawns--they might have been constructions in a model town built on the edges of a toy railroad, but at the track, thank goodness, things were less orderly, and he moved through the bettors toward the frantic bookies yelling out odds near the top of the stretch.

  A race had been run already, a race that held no interest for Arthur. The one to follow had a horse he liked, but unsure whether to back it with money, he listened to all the hollering bookies to see who was giving the longest odds. Track veteran though he was, he never got tired of the clamor and chaos generated by the bookies and gamblers. Even when he had no bet on a race he loved to watch other people betting and the bookies competing for their money, the way each bookie named the horses, shouted the odds, notated bets on his little pad--and all this while each assistant took the money bet with them and gave as proof of the wagers made the numbered cards with the bookie’s name. The guy he went to most was Smits--pallid, disheveled, wrinkled Smits, a man who had a commanding voice despite the gauntness in his frame--and as the time for the race neared, Arthur edged toward his table.

  “Five bob on Star....I’m giving three to one....Projectile first, Mudhawk to show....Yes, both.....No, not that...I said twenty five to one.”

  Everybody speaking at once, everybody yelling and jostling or writing down numbers on scraps of paper, and with less than a minute to go for betting the hectic crowd got even more hectic, converging on the bookies and their tables. What the hell, Arthur thought, he had a strong horse picked for the race, and so he threw caution to the wind and thrust five quid into Willie Smits’ fingers.

  “Bobby’s Attraction....to win.”

  “Bobby to win. How’re you, Arthur? Here’s your slip.”

  And as soon as Arthur had his slip the man at his shoulder pushed him forward, and he found himself approaching the rail.

  The bell clanged and the horses were off. The announcer’s voice came through the speakers and the commotion of just a moment ago died down into a nervous hush. Because of his height, Arthur could see over the throng of heads around him, and though his horse, gray and broad, started out running near the back of the pack, Arthur knew from past performance that Bobby was a closer who’d begin his charge when they reached the turn for home.

  True enough this time, to the consternation of many, and Arthur stood roaring with approval as Bobby’s mount took the outside route and led his horse past the fading pacesetters. The final sixteenth, a splash through water, and Bobby’s Attraction caught the leader just before they crossed the finish line.

  One race, one win. A loss, to be sure, would not have killed him, but he usually had an excellent day when he got off to a winning start. And today, as it turned out, was no exception; he bet seven races and won on five, and one of these wins included his long shot, Chalk Cliff. In sum, he had come to the track with two hundred pounds and was going home with ten times that. Not enough money for Jenny to retire (if only he’d taken the great risk and bet his whole savings on Chalk Cliff), but enough to make him pleased with himself.

  He walked to the train station whistling. He observed the men who were mumbling to themselves, whose slumped heads and angry frowns told a story of lost wages. Over the years he’d had his share of rough days too, but now he felt a hot streak coming and put the bad memories behind him. Yes, fresh off his wins, he had that feeling of total confidence, and he wondered whether he should tell his wife, tell Jenny that he had a source of incoming money besides just his army pension. Nobody won at the track all the time, but he did better than most--surely. This year, for example, he was up quite a bit and how could Jenny object to success?

  In London, the rain had resumed. A cold, steady drizzle was falling and the crowds of people scuttling home looked utterly dependent on their umbrellas. The migration of the ants, Arthur thought, the evening migration through sooty streets and down the passages leading to the tubes, and as a perverse gesture of defiance he kept his own umbrella folded. No matter, soon he had come to a pub he liked, and he pulled a chair over to a corner and sat very close to the room’s heater. A hot draft blew over his body and somehow the heavy, dark wood in the place--in the floor, the ceiling, the bar--had the kind of old solidity that made him feel warm inside.

  “Bass ale, Maurice.”

  “Had a good day at the track, did ya?”

  “How can you tell?”

  “You ‘ave a glow all over your face.”

  So he had a glow. Nothing wrong with that, and nobody need disapprove. Nobody save Jenny. She would see it as a drunken flush and think he had spent the day right here. But Arthur was weary of this situation, the misunderstanding, and swore to himself he would tell her the truth, much as the news of his gambling might shock her. No, he did not watch football or flip darts or talk babble with the pubhounds all afternoon; he got on the train and went to work.

  Comfortable by the heater, Arthur felt like having a few more pints. He enjoyed sitting alone in the corner, letting the hum of pub conversation wash over him. It had the relaxing quality of background music and in his mind he kept replaying the race Chalk Cliff had won. White as a ghost and just as willowy, the gelding ran with a beautiful smoothness despite his relative old age, and as he pictured the underdog making his decisive move on the backstretch, surging past the favored horse by squeezing through the traffic on the rail, Arthur felt a prickling twinge that bore no relation to his usual self. He felt it as a warmth in his thigh region, a warmth that became a burning heat spreading up into his chest, and suddenly he lost all desire to drink. How bizarre, how unexpected. And he wanted only to see his wife. He needed some time alone with Jenny, wanted her alone for ten or twenty minutes. But Jenny would be closing the store about now and heading over to Vaughn’s for cocktails, and so he knew he would have to hurry if he hoped to have any chance.

  The cab ride through the misty streets seemed to him unbearably long. The figures walking in slicks and hats might have been wandering phantoms. London at night with the rain coming down made him feel so disconnected, an island among other human islands, and at this moment he saw his wife as his one anchor to the world. Communion with her, a molding of their bodies, would impress upon him that he did exist, though why this yearning had struck just now, after a big day at the track, he could not begin to fathom.

  The cab pulled up and he paid the driver. Jenny had locked the door to the shop, but through the film of vapor on the glass, he could see light inside. He rapped with his knuckles, hollered and banged again. From behind the door footsteps approached and after the latch was released with a click, the door swung open and Neal looked out, giving him his shy teenage grin.

  “ ‘Ow’re you,
Mr. ‘Udson. Didn’t expect to see you today.”

  “Fine, Neal. Just fine.”

  “That’s good, Mr. ‘Udson.”

  An industrious boy, Jenny’s helper, the kind of lad who’d left school early but would make something of himself. As Jenny said, he knew how to listen but had a lot of his own assertiveness and rare was the morning he phoned in sick. Still, Arthur had no inclination to chat. The heat in his blood demanded the act that alone would cool him down. Unaccustomed to this, to internal fire, he had to struggle to remain polite, and with a hand on Neal’s thin shoulder, he told the boy to go on home.

  “I’m not done cleaning up, Mr. ‘Udson.”

  “That’s all right. I’ll do it for you.”

  A shrug, a smile, the intelligent assumption that Mr. Hudson had to be joking, but Jenny had heard from across the room and knew his voice when he wanted something.

  “It’s okay, Neal. We’ll finish up in the morning.”

  Officially released, the boy allowed himself to yawn. He shuffled to the back room for his coat. They both wished him goodnight then and Arthur held the door open as he stepped out into the rain.

  “Here,” Arthur said. “Take a cab.”

  He slapped some money into Neal’s hand, saw the momentary gape of surprise, laughed with good humor as he shut the door and turned away from the evening’s greyness.

  “Arthur! You must be feeling generous.”

  “Not only that, dear, not only that.”

  She sold quality sweets in the store, a number of candies and imported chocolates, and Arthur found it a ravishing place in which to become frisky with his wife. Gumdrops, toffee, caramel, and licorice; mints, pralines, sucking sticks, and marchpane--the stuff in the jars arranged on the shelves promised a delicious melange of flavor. And the colors were lovely, the rainbow shades, as well as the smell of all that sugar. Just breathing in here could stir up a person, and as he stared at the French bon bons, displayed behind the long glass counter, Arthur remembered once having read of the aphrodisiac effects of chocolate.