Page 98 of Better the Devil

‘As you already picked up, Mr Maximuke, my accent ain’t exactly local. See, I was brought up by my daddy in Tennessee. Place called Lewis County. Beautiful community. Real nice folks.’

He smiled fondly at the memory, then gave himself a shake.

‘Anyhow, we had this mare. In the horse sense, I mean, not the political. Mean thing. Pretty as a picture, mind you. Coat like poured molasses, eyes bright and clever. But she did not trust a soul. First time I stepped into the pen, she pinned her ears backand came at me like some creature from the fires of hell. Scared me half to death.’

Reeve chuckled. Across the table, Bosco sat in silence.

‘Now, some folks, they see a horse like that, they figure you gotta show it who’s boss. You know? Break its spirit. They’ll shout, crack a whip, force the thing into submission.’ Reeve shrugged. ‘And you can do that. It’ll work. Least for a while. Horse’ll carry you, sure enough.’

He looked away for a second, gave a quick shake of his head.

‘But it’ll hate you every second of it. And the first chance it gets—first loose nail in a fence, first moment your back’s turned—it’ll bolt. Or it’ll throw you. Maybe stomp you while you’re down, if it’s that kind of horse. One of the mean ones, like she was.’

He paused, letting that thought settle.

‘But I never held with that approach myself. Me, I’d go in quiet. Sit on the fence rail. Let her watch me for a while. Let her get used to the idea I wasn’t there to hurt her. Might take hours. Days, sometimes. Just being there. Letting her figure out for herself that she had a choice.

‘See, thing about horses—thing about people, too, I find—is they’re always making a calculation. They’re weighing the odds on how this ends. Easy way, or hard way.’

He leaned forward, like he was letting the Russian in on a secret.

‘That mare, well, she fought me every inch at first. Tried to bite. Tried to kick. Tried to scare me off. But I never raised my voice. Never laid a hand on her in anger. Not once. Just kept showing up. Kept being patient.’

Reeve’s eyes sparkled, like he was reliving his whole youth right there in that moment.

‘Eventually, she let me close enough to touch her neck. You could feel her heart hammering under the skin. Baboom.Baboom. Baboom. She was scared. Not mean, like I’d thought. Just afraid of me and of what came next.’

He held his hands open, palms up, a mirror of Bosco’s gesture from a moment before.

‘Once she figured out I wasn’t there to hurt her, well… everything got easier after that. Saddle went on fine. Bridle too. She turned out to be the best horse I ever owned. Smart. Loyal. Never threw me once.’

He leaned closer still. The sparkle in his eyes gave way to something darker.

‘But I’ll tell you this. If I’d needed to, if she’d made a different choice, I could’ve broken her the other way. Wouldn’t have enjoyed it. Not one bit. Wouldn’t have been my preference.’

He gave Maximuke a nod. It wasn’t a particularly friendly gesture.

‘But I would’ve done what was necessary to get what I wanted.’

Bosco considered the detective’s words for a while, his expression remaining carefully neutral.

‘Fun story.’

‘That horse was not my enemy, Mr Maximuke, just like I am not yours. I want to help you here. While I’m not fully versed on all the facts of this case, seems to me like someone wants to see you in a mess of trouble,’ Reeve told him. ‘And, if you keep stonewalling me the way you have been, I guarantee you’ll wind up there.’

His smile returned, as big, bright, and as bold as ever before.

‘So, you going to let someone frame you for a double homicide, Mr Maximuke? Or are you going to accept the hand I’m offering?’

Ben Forde’spopcorn packet rustled as Logan slipped into the observation room. There was silence from the wall-mounted speakers, both men on the other side of the one-way mirror now just sitting there, like they were each waiting for the other to speak.

‘How’s the Ginger Cowboy getting on?’ Logan asked, easing the door closed.

Ben fished out another fistful of popcorn and turned back to the window. ‘He’s been talking about a horse.’

‘A horse?’ Jack asked, then he lowered his voice so as not to be heard through the glass. ‘The fuck do you mean?’

‘Just talking about a big horse,’ Ben said. He brought the bundle of buttery kernels to his mouth and munched on them like a grazing animal. ‘Sounds like it was a right handful.’