Bloodless Day

Reappearing Stars

Bloodless Day was a statue.

The slowly rising sun gingerly brushed gold against him, gilding his dark coat. He stood stock-still, royally chiseled head lifted away from the barn, away from the sunrise, towards the darkness. His eyes surveyed the last dew-drop stars as they were plucked from the sky, dark and unreadable.

They were eyes for secrets, a horse for secrets, a girl for secrets.

"Don't tell anybody," I said, quietly. His ears didn't even flicker at my voice, but his neck shivered. "But we're doing this for Her. Let's put Her memory in history, even if it's only us that know. Win for Her, for history, so that we'll always be remembered."

And this was my greatest fear, that my life and Hers and BD's would pass quietly over and be unremembered for the rest of time. For if nobody remembered us, who was to say we ever existed? What a waste.

BD turned suddenly, so fast I flinched, but he just put his muzzle in my hand and held me with a solemn gaze.

Silently, under the disappearing stars, he promised.

*****

Even by horse-people standards, I'd been early to the barn. By the time half-asleep grooms began to stumble in, I'd already brushed BD into a burnished sheen, picked sawdust from his saddle pad, shined his saddle, and mucked several stalls, including that of Holiday Break, who was entering his four-year-old season.

"You do realize that you have to sleep to function, right?" Jack wheeled into the barn with a box of donuts on his lap and a crooked smirk on his face, still pinched pink from the unforgiving Kentucky winter. Not bothering to dignify this with a response, I exited Holiday's stall with a last pat to the bay.

Whickering, BD slung his head over his stall door and nodded eagerly towards the donuts. Jack's eyes narrowed. "Why does this horse know donuts?"

I busied myself in latching the door, no easy task as Holiday found it funny to nibble at my hands as they fiddled with the frozen metal lock. "No reason." Well, maybe possibly I'd gotten a stale donut yesterday. And maybe possibly it had ended up in BD's stall. But only maybe possibly.

BD further betrayed my lie by nosing Jack's hair affectionately; the stallion was never affectionate. "Unbelievable. You're such a liar!" Jack exclaimed, but he didn't sound mad, instead reaching up to scratch BD's dark jawline. Offended by the casual gesture, the Thoroughbred withdrew back into his stall.

Shaking his head and smiling reluctantly, the jockey maneuvered his wheelchair into an empty stall and started to stand, somewhat unsteadily. His arms turned white as they gripped the edge of the stall door and pulled himself back into the barn aisle.

"That's fine," I said, though nothing really was. "Go start your way to the dressing room. I've got BD here. Willifred's going to be up in five minutes anyhow to prep." I slid the bolt from BD's stall and met the exuberant Thoroughbred with a halter and a mint.

"You mean cross himself and curse out a cat?" Jack asked dryly, earning himself a withering glare. The trainer did have rather odd superstitions, but Jack was rather guilty of humming the Star Wars theme to himself on the way to posttime, everytime. So he wasn't entirely innocent himself. 

"Are you nervous?" I asked, leading BD from the stall and onto crossties. As brimming with energy as he was, his steps were still slow and careful on the concrete, his misted breath steady as it colored the air.

He fell silent as he lowered himself back into his wheelchair. "No, not really. This is the biggest race of my life, but it's going to be small change in relation to the races I want to run. That I'm going to run," he corrected himself. "Are you nervous?"