Secondhand Horses (12 page)

“So?” Esther said.

“So, then, what if
we
started hunting for the guy
there
?”

“You mean, you think he’s hanging around somewhere out in the woods?” Vee looked skeptical, but at least she leaned forward, an intent look on her tanned face.

This time it was Esther who shivered. “That is even more creepy.”

“Have we ever heard a car driving away?” Sunny prodded. For pizza sake, they were hard to convince.

“Well, no.” A shake of Aneta’s head.

“Exactly!” Sunny loved playing detective.

Vee sighed and looked at the clock. “Exactly
what
, Sunny?”

“Then, wouldn’t that mean he is somewhere
close
?”

“Oh,” the girls said, each expression showing they finally got it. Aneta looked horrified, Vee slitted her eyes in the Vee Stare, and Esther chewed the inside of her cheek. Yup! The S.A.V.E. Squad girls were in the game.

“How are we going to find him in all the trees?”

“On horseback.”

A chorus of three voices said, “Horseback?”

Then, “We haven’t been out of the
corral
yet!”

A
s the girls had agreed, Sunny took lots of breaks the next day from reading her schoolwork to the animals and from unpacking final boxes in Uncle Dave’s room. She talked loudly to herself and asked herself questions, as though someone was just out of sight.

They wanted The Shirt to stay away until … the hunt, which would begin after the girls arrived that afternoon and the Squad was at full power.

After the girls were dropped off, Sunny inspected the Squad. Esther wore her dad’s camouflage sweatshirt, Aneta was in head-to-toe black with a straw cowboy hat, and Vee … Vee was wearing a
bright red jacket
. What was she thinking?

When Aneta’s mom came for their riding lesson, the girls would show they were ready for a walk—Vee said to stress that they wanted to
walk
—in the meadow on horseback. Vee and Aneta would double ride Shirley, Esther would ride Mystery, and Sunny would ride Mondo.

Aneta’s mother rubbed Shirley’s big nose. “I heard from my mother that the library is delighted the zoo and the mini were such a hit. A reading mini. These big guys”—she slid the bit into the horse’s mouth and looped the reins over the rail—“could no way go into the library or a school. Kind of makes him unique, doesn’t it?”

Sunny’s heart thumped happily.
Like me
.

“We were thinking …” Aneta spoke quietly as she saddled the patient Shirley. “Could we take the horses out of the corral today?”

“Ride them at a walk, of course,” Vee said.

“Wearing helmets as usual,” Esther added, tightening the cinch on Mystery.

The S.A.V.E. Squad was the rocko-socko,
no-doubt-about-it
best friends any girl on the planet could have. Sunny smiled hopefully at Ms. Jasper. What else was there to do? The girls had done it all!

Ms. Jasper cocked her head. “You four have done a great job with the horses. I like your seats—”

A snicker escaped Sunny. She knew Ms. Jasper was talking about how they sat on the horse, sitting up tall and holding in their stomachs, but still.
I mean, “seats” is just funny
.

Please, please, please
.

Slowly, Ms. Jasper nodded. “I do think it’s time for the next step.”

“Yayness!” Sunny spun for joy.

“This is not exactly what I had in mind.” Sunny stumbled over yet another rock in the meadow. Her sneakers were not made for this stuff. As she switched the reins to her left hand and patted Mondo with her right, she tossed back, “Thanks, Vee.
Walk
the horses?”

“Yeah, not what we thought at all,” Esther agreed, puffing a little as she led Mystery.

“Hey, don’t blame me. At least we’re still getting to check the meadow and the woods near it.” Vee nimbly leaped to the side as Shirley nearly tromped on her shoe.

Only Aneta remained unruffled, judging from the hilarity coming from the end of the line. Yes, Ms. Jasper said they could
walk
the horses. As in
not on
the horses. Sheesh. Sunny turned to see why Aneta wasn’t minding that they weren’t riding. She, of all of them, had taken to riding with great passion.

Behind Aneta trotted and waddled the zoo in their customary zigzag fashion. First Major with his head nodding, then Bob chewing a stick, Which Way alternately flapping his wings and waddling, and then—way back, Piggles. Who, Sunny noted, had just found a dirt hole and was sending up clouds of dust.

At first glance, she began to laugh, then her face turned serious. No sneaking up on the bad guy now. She brightened. But they
might
find more evidence that he was around and then tell Sheriff Bucholtz.

Esther and Vee had seen the parade behind them.

“Only we would do it this way!” Vee said.

Esther was shaking her head. “I don’t think the cowboys in the movies did it this way, did they, Sunny?”

They continued leading their parade along the edge of the woods with this pattern: One Squader would hold the other’s horse. That girl would plunge into the woods to see what she could see. So far, no one saw anything. The light was fading. Soon Aneta’s mother would be looking for them. There had to be
something
from The Shirt somewhere nearby.

Esther had remembered to bring water bottles, and after a while they stopped, drank the water, and discussed what to do.

“I know my mom would not want us out much later.” Aneta looked at each girl through the dimming twilight.

“We don’t want to kill our chances of maybe actually
riding
horses at a
walk
tomorrow,” Esther added.

“Five more minutes,” Sunny pleaded, picking up Mondo’s reins and moving forward. “Just five more minutes.”

“Not me,” Esther said, her free hand going to her hip. “My feet are dead tired. Go ahead. I’ll wait here.”

Aneta chose to wait with Esther and play with the zoo, so Vee and Sunny handed over their reins and started a slow jog.

“For pizza sake, if you wanted to burgle a place,” Sunny said, her hair flopping with each step, “wouldn’t you want to be close by?”

Vee, who wasn’t the slightest bit out of breath and seemed to know just where the dips and tripping points were, agreed. “I think we need to go deeper into the woods.”

Sunny grinned. “That is a Great Idea, Vee. See, it’s catching!”

The two eased into the shading trees at the edge of the meadow. The light dimmed dramatically. No more a pleasant meadow to run through and laugh in. Now? A Deep Dark Forest with all the fairytale scariness.

“Um,” Sunny said, stopping.

Vee, behind, ran into her. “Yeah, like a different planet.”

Looking back at the brighter light at the edge of the trees, Sunny said, “Okay, we have to go in a straight line or we’ll get lost. Some city slicker in my uncle’s movies didn’t do that and the whole posse had to find them. It was dumb.”

“Got it.” Vee took off the red jacket. She dashed back to the edge of the woods and tied it to a tree branch. While backing her way to Sunny, she made sure she was in a straight line with the jacket.

“Vee,” Sunny said as they resumed their foray into the woods. “If we die in here, I want you to know that you are the smartest girl I’ve ever known.”

Two short minutes later, Vee was in the lead. She halted, and Sunny—looking back over her shoulder to make sure (a) they were still walking in a straight line and (b) no woods monsters were stalking them—promptly banged into her. Vee hit the ground and rolled to a sitting position, rubbing her hip. “Ow.”

Sunny apologized and pulled her to her feet. “Why did you do that?”

Vee sniffed. “Smell.”

Sunny wrinkled her face to drag in a deep breath of cooling wood air. Pines, dirt, and—

“Old fire!”

“Like you say, ‘
Exactly
!’”

“Spy mode!” Sunny whispered.

They crouched and began to walk like monkeys, low to the ground, on all fours in the direction of what they thought was the strongest smoke smell. Sunny, who had camped a lot with her family and at Bible camp, knew the difference between the fresh
I’m-burning-now
kind of fire and the old stomped-out kind of smell. This was stomped-out smoke.

Right about when Sunny thought her legs would curl up in knots and drop her into the dirt, she smelled the strongest smell yet.

“There.” Vee sat down in the dirt and pointed. “There’s The Shirt’s camp.”

A
neta gave a little bounce. “Tell us again how you found this clue. It is very exciting.”

The girls had managed to keep their wild fluttering under control enough to unsaddle the horses under Ms. Jasper’s supervision, brush them down, turn them loose in the corral, and bring out hay.

After telling the girls they’d done well and that “you must have had a great time out there. You’re all smiling …,” she said, “Aneta, I’m going to talk to Sunny’s uncle for a bit. Then we’ll load the Squad, minus Sunny, and head home.”

Sunny watched Aneta’s mother walk toward the house from where the girls sat in the barn. “She seems to like talking to my uncle,” she observed.

Aneta smiled. “She said he was the smartest cowboy she’s ever met. I guess she has met some stupid ones. That is sad because I like cowboys.” She settled her straw cowboy hat more firmly on her head and pretended to pull two six-shooters from a belt.

“Hmm …” Vee’s and Sunny’s eyes met. They both glanced at Aneta, who had dropped the cowboy pose and hoisted herself up on two stacked bales of hay. She was ready for “all the deets” as Esther said. Vee shook her head just a tiny bit, and Sunny nodded in agreement. Not today. Aneta didn’t need any more “deets” about anything other than the second clue.

Major blew a gusty sigh, folding his legs under him next to Sunny, who sat on the floor next to Aneta. Her heart soared. How cool it would be to have Major at her house. She would teach him to go potty outside. He could sleep in her room. She would walk him to the library for the Adventure Readers. He might become famous. She might become famous.

“Okay, let’s have it one more time.” Esther settled herself on the floor. “I still can’t believe you touched the guy’s stuff. That is so …” She fished for the word. “So ewww. I can’t find a word for it.”

Vee found her spot on top of another bale of straw ready to be spread in the stalls tomorrow. “It’s not like there was an entire closet there and I touched his underwear—”

“EWW!” the girls shouted in unison.

Vee continued, but her rare smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “It was a burned-out fire pit that was our final clue to his hideout.”

Sunny threw back her head and flung her arms around Major. “You know that smell. The stomped-out fire smell. Not the
I’m-burning-now
fire smell.”

Esther nodded while Aneta looked perplexed.

“Never mind, Aneta.” Sunny grinned at her friend. “I just smelled the fire, and we started to follow the smell.”

Aneta shivered. “You two were so brave. I think I might have run away.”