Cutter (Gail McCarthy Mystery series) Read Online Free PDF Page A

mare and patted her once more, saying regretfully, "I'd give a lot to have the time and money to train Gunner to do this."
    Casey flipped one shoulder in his characteristic shrug. "I'll train him half-price. For you. He's a good one."
    His eyes met mine in a brief glance that said he was serious and I nodded. "Okay. He should be sound enough in another six months. I'll save my money."
    Casey was already leading Shiloh away toward the barn and I followed him, wondering if I had just done something incredibly foolish or incredibly smart. I really couldn't afford even half-price training fees. But the feel of the horse moving underneath me, dancing with the cow ... only one thing I'd known had ever compared to that. Smiling to myself, I thought that was a comparison I wouldn't make to Casey.
    By the time I walked into the barn, he had Shiloh unsaddled and was saddling another horse, moving with the restless jerky motions that were typical of him on the ground; it was only on a horse that he acquired that still, poised quiet that was part of his skill. As he pulled the cinch tight on a leggy sorrel gelding he said over his shoulder, "Have a look at those horses will you, Gail? They look all right to me, but since you're here . . ." He was leading the horse away as he spoke. "I need to ride this pig before I quit."
    Walking up and down the barn aisle, I stepped into the stalls of the horses I'd treated this morning, taking their pulse and respiration, checking for any abnormal signs. There were none. The poison (if there was a poison, I added to myself) had apparently been something which had caused the horses to have a major digestive disturbance. In some cases their intestines had ruptured from the pressure, which had killed them. In the cases where they hadn't ruptured there seemed to be no further problems once the colic effect had passed. I made a mental note to tell the lab to check for atropine in the blood as well as the other poisons, as atropine was the only drug that struck me as likely to have just that effect.
    When I was done I stood in the aisle for a second, hearing the peaceful rustle and stamp of the horses in their stalls, smelling the warm, sweet familiar smell of a barn. This barn had been built by Ken Resavich, the owner of the ranch, a few years ago and was state of the art, in its way. It was a metal building (horses eat wood) with concrete floors, fully enclosed stalls, tack room, feedroom, bathroom, wash rack, office-all immaculate. There was not so much as a stray horsehair or a clod of dirt in the concrete-floored breezeway that ran between the stalls, let alone a pile of manure; two Mexican men were employed full time to keep it that way. The general effect, I thought, was unpleasing-a little too antiseptic-looking. The place smelled like a barn, but it didn't feel like one.
    I wandered back outside to lean on the fence and watch Casey.
    He had opened the arena gate and was turning the cattle back out into their pasture. The leggy sorrel colt he was riding was high-headed and wild-eyed and danced underneath him with barely contained energy. Casey held the horse with a firm hand while he watched the cattle file out the gate. I watched them too, checking automatically that none were lame, that all looked slick and healthy.
    Late afternoon sunshine lit up the round hills of the ranch with just that long slant to it that meant summer had turned into fall. The crossbred cattle fanned out across the holding pasture, their backs deep red and black against the washed-out yellow of the grass. Casey loped the frantic-looking sorrel colt in half circles around them, pushing them toward another gate. I could hear him yelling-the wild "hoo-aw" that was his trademark.
    Looking out to the west, where the hills rolled away open and empty toward the blue of the Monterey Bay, dark green oak trees in the ravines, I wished I could afford a ranch like this. Even a ranchette. Somewhere with some space, where I could keep my