The Winners' Circle

Chapter 1

It’s a farmhouse kitchen in Indiana in 1960. An attractive blonde woman in her early thirties is standing at the stove fixing breakfast for her husband. He is sitting at the old-fashioned round oak table drinking coffee.

The kitchen is small for a farmhouse because behind it is a 6’ x 8’ screened summer kitchen. The table is a hand-me-down from somebody in their extended families. A stove, a sink, a floor-to-ceiling cupboard painted white to match the white woodwork, and a Sears Roebuck automatic washer fill the small space. There is brown and beige linoleum on the floor. The farmer and his wife that had rented the farm before them said they picked out that design so they couldn’t tell the difference between the mud and the manure.

Dave Schopmeyer glanced over his coffee cup at his wife. “Bill Bueller came home from California last night.”

“He did.”

Ducky turned around from her eggs in the skillet and looked at her husband. She knew there was more meaning to that statement than just casual breakfast conversation.

“He brought all his horses with him. They took them to the fairgrounds at Cloverville.”

“Is he going to move on to Hazel Park?”

“No, he says he can’t afford to.”

Ducky turned the eggs over and looked back at Dave.

“What’s he going to do with them?”

“He’s goin’ stay down there and train them.”

Ducky set the plate of eggs on the table and sat down.

“There’s a big difference between training harness horses in California in January than training horses in Indiana in January. A big difference.”

“He wants me to help him, and he’ll pay me. What do you think?”

“That’s what you always wanted to do, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ever since Dick and I were in California. I can’t get it out of my mind.”

“What about this farm and the rent contract we signed with E.C.?”

“I thought we could quit farming, buy a house trailer and follow the horses.”

“Sell everything we’ve worked for? All the farm equipment, all the cows and pigs?”

“And the corn and the hay and the straw. That should make a good start for us in the harness horse business.”

Ducky and Dave had talked about following the harness horses even before they were married, but with two young children and all their money invested in farming, she had thought that was something they would do in their retirement years. She wasn’t dead-set against the idea, but finally after the Army years and the farm school years, their marriage had settled into a contented, not always just right relationship, but their teenage happy years following saddle horse shows and rodeos formed a strong background for them. They both loved horses.