Horse Tale (10 page)

Berry let out a nicker and chased after Stewball. But Stewball was too fast for him—he darted from side to side, changing directions so quickly Stevie could hardly believe it. Then he doubled back and dodged behind Spot, who was watching the action with his head held high. Spot tossed his head, snorted, and set out after Berry, who whirled and raced away. Chocolate joined in too, and soon all five horses were involved in the game. Stevie watched breathlessly, feeling she was witnessing something few people ever got the chance to see.

Finally it all seemed to be over. Stewball raised his head and neighed, stomping his feet as if in triumph. Stevie grinned proudly. She wasn’t positive, but she had a hunch that whatever the game had been, Stewball had won. He led the other horses on a slow lope around the field, stopping at the far end, where he paused on a small hillock to shake his head and neigh again. The sound drifted back to Stevie through the still night air, and she shivered. For a second
the horse poised there, framed against the dark, wild backdrop of the mountains, seemed alien from the Stewball she knew. At that moment he seemed only one small step removed from the wild herds she had seen out here—the bands of horses that roamed the rugged Western land, never knowing the feel of a saddle on their backs or the touch of a human hand. She shivered again and blinked, and then he was just Stewball again as he lowered his head and ambled off in search of a tasty patch of grass.

As the horses settled down, Stevie got up and headed back to her tent. She wrapped her arms around herself, realizing for the first time how chilly it was. After patting Dude good night she crawled inside. Carole hadn’t moved, although Stevie was happy to notice that she had stopped snoring.

Snuggled back inside her warm sleeping bag, Stevie closed her eyes and waited for sleep to come. But her mind was still wide awake, filled with images of the beautiful scene she had just witnessed. As if she were still there, she saw the horses frolicking in the moonlight, absorbed in a game only they could understand. They had looked so free and happy under the huge canopy of stars. And Stewball had seemed the happiest of them all as he led them in the game, obviously in his element and having the time of his life.

It took Stevie a long time to fall back to sleep.

* * *

“C
OME ON, YOU
lazy dudes! Rise and shine!”

Carole opened one eye and groaned. “Is it morning already?” she muttered sleepily.

“I guess so,” Stevie said with a yawn. She sat up and stretched, then flopped back down again. “I say we go on strike.”

Christine’s head poked through the tent flap. “Come on, you two, up and at ’em,” she said cheerfully. “I’ve been up for hours already—the day’s half-wasted!”

Carole glanced at her watch. “Only you would say that at six in the morning,” she commented. It was true. Christine was known for her predawn rides through the desert.

“Up, up, up,” Christine replied with a grin. “I already took care of the horses, and our breakfast is almost ready.”

Reluctantly Carole and Stevie left their cozy sleeping bags and pulled on some clothes. When they got outside, they discovered that Christine had the campfire going, and slabs of bacon were sizzling in a cast-iron pan.

“Where did you get that pan?” Lisa asked as she and Kate came crawling out of their tent, yawning and stretching and looking as sleepy as Carole and Stevie felt. “I didn’t know you brought it.”

“I didn’t,” Christine said. “I got it from my family’s secret hiding place.” She led the others to a small opening in the rocks at the edge of the arroyo, too small to be called a cave. Inside was a large, sturdy wooden trunk bound in metal. Christine opened the lid and showed her friends the contents: cooking and serving utensils, extra drop cloths and
blankets, a spare halter and lead rope, clothes, and packets of dried food.

“Wow,” Stevie said, impressed. “Nobody would ever know this stuff was here if they didn’t know where to look.”

“My family has been coming to this spot for a long time,” Christine said. “This way we don’t have to carry absolutely everything with us every time, and we’re prepared in case of emergencies.”

She grabbed some plates and forks out of the trunk. Then the girls returned to the campfire and helped themselves to bacon and slices of Phyllis Devine’s homemade bread, which Christine had toasted over the fire. Of course, Christine gave Dude his share of everything.

“This is delicious,” Carole murmured, her mouth full.

“Somehow I always think food tastes better when it’s prepared outside,” Christine commented.

Lisa nodded. “I know what you mean, especially when it’s eaten outside as well.” By this time the girls were all wide awake, and within a few minutes they had finished every last bit of the delicious breakfast.

“I guess we’d better think about cleaning up and heading back soon,” Kate said reluctantly. “There’s a lot of work to be done before the auction tomorrow.”

“Before we do, I have one last surprise for you,” Christine said mysteriously. “Come this way.” She stood up. “Oh, but first you’ll need to change into your swimsuits. I hope you brought them like I told you to.”

“I have a feeling I’m going to like this surprise,” Stevie
remarked to Carole as they returned to their tent and hurriedly changed into their suits.

When everyone was ready, Christine led them up the far bank of the arroyo and through the woods beyond the corral. There they joined a creek—the same one that meandered past their campsite, Christine told them. They followed the creek through the woods until it flowed over a small drop-off and emptied into a peaceful, shady pond nestled among the trees.

“Oh, it’s beautiful!” Lisa exclaimed. Just enough sunlight filtered through the treetops to set the calm surface of the water sparkling.

“The shade keeps the water cool even during the heat of the day,” Christine explained as she stepped down past the small waterfall onto some large, smooth rocks along the edge of the water below. She shed her T-shirt, boots, and socks, then slid into the water. “Come on in!” she urged the others.

They didn’t have to be asked twice. Soon all five of them were happily splashing around in the pond. The water came up only to their shoulders, so it was too shallow for diving, but plenty deep enough to have fun swimming and dunking each other. “I thought there was supposed to be hardly any water in the desert,” Stevie said after a few minutes. She kicked her feet up and floated on her back, gazing up into the treetops above.

“That creek is fed by a natural spring in the mountains,” Christine explained. “Even during the driest times this pond
is always at least partially full. That’s one reason my parents chose this particular campsite.”

“Well, I for one am glad they did,” Carole announced. She ducked her head under the water and smoothed back her hair, then hauled herself out of the water onto one of the flat rocks and settled back contentedly to let herself dry off.

“Me, too,” Stevie, Lisa, and Kate agreed in one voice.

After a few more minutes the girls put their boots back on and returned to the campsite. They all wished they could stay longer, but there was work to be done for the auction, and they knew that would be fun, too. Besides, Carole told herself, as long as the Devines owned The Bar None—and she was sure they would for a long time to come—The Saddle Club would always be welcome at the ranch. There were sure to be more trips West, and more camp-outs like this one. And that was a very nice thing to think about indeed.

C
AROLE
, S
TEVIE
, L
ISA
, and Kate arrived back at the ranch a couple of hours before lunchtime. They had ridden straight home from the campsite, dropping Christine off at her own house, though she promised to come over to The Bar None later in the day to help out. Walter came out of the barn as the girls rode up to the corral.

“Whoa, there,” he called to them with the hint of a smile. “Y’all are looking kinda trail weary.”

“Us? No way,” Stevie replied tartly. “What do you think we are, a bunch of dudes?” Still, she didn’t object when Walter offered to take care of the horses while the girls got cleaned up.

After a shower and a quick snack, the girls were completely refreshed and ready to get to work. And there was plenty of work to do, just as Kate had promised. Frank put
Stevie and Kate on whitewash duty. Their task was to make sure the fence around the corral looked its very best for the auction. Meanwhile Phyllis had asked Carole to help her in the kitchen, where she was busy making huge vats of lemonade and piles of homemade cookies. Carole was happy to join right in, especially after tasting a few of the cookies.

Lisa decided this would be a good time to find John and apologize. She had managed to put him out of her mind during the camp-out, but now she found herself thinking about him again. She told Phyllis and Carole she wanted to ride out and see if John needed any help—leaving out the part about the apology—and accepted the brown-bag lunch Phyllis quickly put together for her. Then Lisa checked with Walter and found out that, as she had expected, John was out on the range working with the herd.

A few minutes later Lisa had Chocolate saddled up and was on her way to find him. It didn’t take long; the herd was grazing not far from the ranch, near a stand of trees that Lisa knew from previous visits hid a small water hole. As always Lisa was impressed by the size of the herd. It wasn’t often that she had an opportunity to observe seventy or eighty horses together on the open range.

Today, however, she had other things on her mind. She looked around and soon spotted John nearby, astride a buckskin horse named Peanuts. He was sitting still, watching the herd with a thoughtful look on his face. As Lisa rode up to him, he turned and smiled at her.

“Hi, there,” he said. “I was just thinking I could use a hand, and here you are.”

“Hi, John,” Lisa replied, shyly returning his smile. “I wanted to find you and apologize about the other night.”

“Accepted,” John said with a wave of his hand. “Now, will you help me? I want to make sure exactly which horses we’ll need to cut out tomorrow morning.”

“Okay,” Lisa said uncertainly. “But I really wanted to explain about the things I said.…”

“Later, okay?” John smiled at her again and then went back to scanning the herd.

Lisa had the feeling he wasn’t really listening to her, but she thought she knew why. He was anxious about the auction and wanted to make sure everything went smoothly. She could understand that, so she decided a more detailed apology could wait awhile. “Sure. What do you want me to do?”

“We don’t need to actually cut the horses out yet,” John explained. “We’ll do that first thing tomorrow morning. Right now, though, I want a chance to watch each horse in motion so we’ll know what we’ve got. That’ll make things easier tomorrow.”

“Sounds good,” Lisa said. “What’s my job?”

“You’re going to get your first cutting lesson,” John said. “I’ll tell you which horse I want to see, and you and Chocolate will go get it and put it through its paces.”

“All right,” Lisa said doubtfully. “But I just have one question.”

“What?”

“How do I do that?”

John laughed. “Don’t worry, it’s really not hard, especially with this herd. Most of the horses are pretty well trained and aren’t likely to give you much trouble. And Chocolate there is a pro—she’ll do most of the work. All you really have to do is tell her which horse to go after, and what she should do with it once it’s out.”

Lisa shrugged. “Well, okay,” she said, still sounding dubious. “Let’s give it a try.”

John pointed out a bay mare grazing at the near edge of the herd. “Why don’t you start with Ellie there?”

“Okay, here goes nothing.” Lisa signaled Chocolate into a walk and aimed her at the mare. Chocolate’s ears pricked forward eagerly and she set to work. John had been right. Chocolate knew exactly what she was doing. Within minutes she had managed to get the mare, who seemed reluctant to leave the patch of grass she had been munching on, out and away from the rest of the herd. The other horses hardly seemed to notice.

“Great!” John called, trotting toward them. “Now put her through her paces.”

Lisa assumed she wasn’t going to get much instruction on how to do that, either, so she decided to figure it out herself. Both Chocolate and Ellie had come to a stop. Lisa nudged Chocolate with her heel, and again the mare seemed to know exactly what her rider wanted. She in turn nudged the other mare until Ellie was walking.

“Now, how do I get her to trot?” Lisa muttered to herself. She signaled Chocolate to trot; then, when she was close enough, she leaned over and gave Ellie a healthy smack on the rump. Startled, the mare broke into a trot. Chocolate followed. When she drew abreast of the other horse, Lisa signaled for a canter—or a lope, as it was called out West. Ellie broke into a lope as well, although after a minute she seemed to wonder what she was doing and quickly slowed to a walk. Lisa turned Chocolate aside and let Ellie amble back to the herd.

“Good work,” John told Lisa as she trotted over. “We’ll make a wrangler out of you yet.”