Chapter 16: Corsair

The latch on stall twelve had been lifted, not broken.

Whoever took him had known which horse to walk out quietly, and which door the night groom never watched.

"Hoofprints," Jude said, crouching in the aisle.

"One horse, and a second set beside him, shod.

"They went out the back, toward the service road."

"And a truck," Abel said.

He pointed with his chin at the oil stain on the gravel.

"Somebody parked a trailer here after midnight and drove it off before the dogs woke."

My hands had gone cold.

Corsair would fight a stranger for an hour, and he would kill himself fighting in a strange trailer.

"Where would she hide a stallion on this farm?" Jude asked.

I did not answer.

I was looking at the thin gray line of the hills, where the ridge dropped toward the old stone workings.

"The quarry paddock," I said.

"It's been shut for twenty years.

"Mom used to take me up there to sit on the wall."

"The road's chained," Abel said.

"The chain was cut last night," I said.

"I'd bet my crown."

We went up in Jude's truck with three of his grooms in the bed.

By the time we reached the cut chain, a second truck had pulled in behind us.

The white-haired owner in the Stetson climbed down, and two others with him, still in last night's jackets.

"Heard a Redmond stall was empty at dawn," he said.

"Thought you might want witnesses."

"Thank you," I said, and meant it.

The quarry paddock was a bowl of gray rock and rough grass.

An old stone wall ran along one side, and a tin tack hut stood in the corner.

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