Storm and the Silver Bridle (17 page)

The next morning, when Issie sat down to breakfast with Avery, he told her that the training session was cancelled for the day.

“He’s already race-fit and you’ve learnt every trick I have to show you,” Avery said. “Why don’t you just saddle him up and go off for a ride, just the two of you? Don’t gallop him, just take him for a bit of a hack. Relax, get your head together.”

Issie was happy to be left to her own devices. Last night’s discussion of tactics at the dinner table had left her a bundle of nerves. Going for a ride by herself was the perfect way to calm down and mentally prepare herself for tomorrow’s race.

At the stables, the grey stallion gave a nicker as she
walked into his stall, greeting Issie as if she were an old friend. The training over the past few days had made Issie even more aware of how special Angel really was. She loved his softness, how he could be so strong and focused when he raced, and yet so gentle here in the stables. In the afternoons, while El Caballo
vaqueros
were having their siestas, Issie would often come by to visit Angel. She would sit down in the straw at the side of his stall and chat away to the stallion as if he were Stella or Kate, talking to him about everything she was thinking, about how much she missed Storm, and about her life back in Chevalier Point with Blaze and Comet.

Sitting there next to the majestic stallion she felt completely safe, despite the fact that with a single sweep of his mighty hooves he could have struck her a mortal blow. She wasn’t afraid. Angel was the gentlest horse she had ever met, unlike any other stallion she had ever encountered. The horse, for his part, seemed glad of her company. He would cock one ear as he listened to her idle chatter and then, if he got bored with Issie’s endless stories, he would lower his neck, nudging the girl with his muzzle, which was his signal that he wanted her to scratch him in the sweet spot just behind his ears.

“No training today, Angel,” Issie told the grey stallion
as she saddled him up. “We’ve got the day off. We’re going to take a ride, just you and me.”

The sky was clear and blue, and the early-morning sun was already warm on her bare skin as Issie rode into the cobbled courtyard. Beneath her, Angel was keyed up and ready to gallop, and she had to steady him back with her legs and her hands.

“Not today, boy,” she cooed to the horse. “Save it for tomorrow, today we’re just going to take it easy.”

They cantered out through the gates of El Caballo Danza Magnifico and Issie was about to turn left towards the olive-tree hills and the race track, but something made her change her mind. Instead, she turned right, back around the white walls of the hacienda, through the fields where the mares and their foals were grazing, heading towards the gorge.

“We’re not going all the way to Vega’s,” she reassured Angel, “I just want to go to the end of the gorge.”

Once they had entered the gorge Issie held Angel to a trot, careful not to let him injure himself on the rocky terrain. She looked at the chalky cliffs rising up on either side of her, the slit of blue sky above her head.

It had been less than a week ago that Vega’s men had chased Issie and Angel from his hacienda to this gorge when she had tried to steal her colt back. So much had happened in that short time! Throughout it all, though, Issie had never forgotten why she had come here. She was here to get her colt back. Now, as she rode on through the gorge, she realised she was riding towards Vega’s hacienda, drawn towards the colt once more. She knew she couldn’t get close enough to see him without getting caught, but she wished she could, just for a moment. She wanted to let him know that she hadn’t forgotten him, that she was doing her best to get him back.

“Just one more day, Storm,” she said under her breath, “one more day and you’ll be with me again, I promise.”

She was lost in her own thoughts as she trotted Angel on, heading into the narrow part of the gorge, a skinny path cut between the rocks, and it took her a moment to realise that there was a shadow in front of them, and it was moving towards them at speed.

She could see that it was a rider on horseback, but the sunlight was behind whoever it was, and the light was so strong it blinded her. It wasn’t until they were much closer that she could make out who it was. The horse was an enormous black stallion — and the rider was none other than Miguel Vega.

Seized with panic, Issie tried to turn Angel round, but they were in the narrowest part of the gorge and turning here was impossible. She was in a frenzy now, trying to rein-back to get away, when she heard Vega’s voice calling out to her.

“Wait! Do not run, little girl. I want to talk to you.”

And then she was face to face with Vega, the man grinning stupidly at her, his bushy moustache twitching with pleasure at her obvious discomfort.

“The young
señorita!”
Vega said. “You came looking for me? What a lovely surprise!”

Issie felt her heart racing. “I wasn’t looking for you.” She tried to keep the fear out of her voice but she knew that Vega would be able to see that she was shaking. “Let me leave — I want to go home.”

“Ah,” Vega said. “You are afraid of Miguel Vega? Do not be scared. I only want to talk! It is fortunate that we have met here today. Why not take advantage of this wonderful opportunity that now presents itself to both of us?” His voice was as oily as his slicked-back hair. “I hear that Marius is injured and that you are the one who will now be riding against my hacienda in the Silver Bridle.”

Issie nodded.

Vega smiled. “Excellent! Then luck is truly on your side, because this meeting may be most beneficial to you.”

“What do you mean?” Issie was getting nervous. She had her hands and legs poised, ready to manoeuvre Angel quickly back in a half-circle to gallop off if she needed to, if Vega got any closer. Angel was ready to run too. He hated being this close to Vega, and Issie could feel the stallion’s muscles twitching with barely controlled desperation to get away from the bully who had inflicted the pain of the
serreta
upon him so long ago.

The mustachioed man laughed and the fat on his belly wobbled beneath his cummerbund. “Look at you! As tense as a cat! Do not fear. I have no plans to hurt you…” A malevolent grin played across his face. “Why would I? I do not need to. Not when I still have your colt.”

Issie’s eyes widened in horror. “What do you mean? Is that a threat? What have you done to him?”

“I have not done anything to him… yet,” Vega said. “What happens to him next is up to you.”

Vega rode the black stallion a few steps closer, and Issie fought to control Angel as the grey stallion became more desperate than ever to get away from the man he hated so deeply. “Hold your horse still and listen,” Vega snapped, “because I am making you an offer that you
have no choice but to accept. I do not want to take any chances with the contest tomorrow. If you agree to hold Angel back, and make sure that you lose the race, then I will be generous. I will give you back your colt and you will be free to take him home. You have my word.”

“You want me to lose?” Issie said.

“Oh, I am sure I will beat you anyway,” Vega said boastfully. “Miguel Vega is a great rider. My horse Victorioso is magnificent. A little girl like you, a
chica
, you will never beat us. But then I figure, why take chances? I want your word that you will lose. I look forward to seeing the face of Roberto Nunez when you come in last.”

“So if I lose the race, you’ll give me back my colt.”

“
Si, si
, of course,” Vega said dismissively, “but you must not try to pass me in the race. If you try to take the lead at any stage I will know that you have betrayed me. My men will be watching you too and they will know that this is the signal to return to my stables and fix the
serreta
bridle on to your beloved colt. If you cross the line first, your colt will suffer for it. You must bow to my demands. It is the only way to save your beloved Nightstorm.”

“How do I know you’ll really give him back to me?” Issie asked.

“You have Miguel Vega’s word as a gentleman,” Vega
said. As he said this, he rode a step closer towards her and suddenly reached out a hand to grasp at Angel’s reins. The stallion was too quick for him, though, rearing back and pirouetting on his hocks. All the time they had been talking, Issie had been inching the stallion backwards slowly. They had now reached a small gap in the rocks that was wide enough to turn and she did so now.

“Run then!” Vega laughed after her as Angel broke into a gallop. “But do not forget my kind offer. If you do not take it you are nothing but a fool, and your precious Storm, your colt, will suffer.”

Vega made no attempt to chase after them. As he had already told Issie, he didn’t need to hurt her. Not when he could cause her so much more pain by hurting the thing she loved most — her colt.

Issie spoke to no one about her encounter with Vega when she got back to El Caballo. She knew what Avery and Roberto would both say if she told them. They would tell her that Vega was not a man to be trusted, that even if she lost the race on purpose as he asked, he would not honour the deal. Her best hope still, they would say, was to win the race and get Storm back.

Issie knew this was probably true. But Storm was her baby, and if she won the race now it would be as if she were the one putting the
serreta
on him herself. It would be her fault when Vega’s men strapped the spiked metal noseband to the colt’s face and scarred him forever.

It was easy for Issie to excuse herself from dinner that night. Everyone expected her to have nerves the night before the race. She had stayed upstairs in her room, fretting about the decision that she was about to make. She realised now that even if she threw the race Vega would not give Storm back, and yet she could no more abandon her colt than she could betray El Caballo Danza Magnifico. It was the hardest choice she had ever had to make.

It was almost midnight. Dinner had been eaten and Francoise, Avery and Roberto were still gathered in the library talking tactics when Issie turned up with her pillow and her duvet.

“I thought I’d sleep in the stables tonight,” she explained. “I want to keep an eye on Angel.”

Francoise nodded at this. “I understand. My cot bed that I use when the mares are foaling is folded away in the tack room. It is easy to set up, you can put it in Angel’s stall. Why don’t you go and make yourself comfortable out there and let me bring you some dinner? I got the chef
to keep a platter for you in case you were hungry after all.”

Issie shook her head. “I don’t want anything to eat, thanks, Francoise. I’ll be fine.”

“Then we’ll see you in the morning. We leave for the village at seven.” Francoise smiled gently at her.

“OK, see you then,” Issie said.

“Goodnight Issie. Try and get some sleep out there, OK?” Avery said.

“I will,” Issie said.

She wasn’t certain that she would get any sleep, though. After the meeting with Vega today she was now worried that his men might try to sneak into the stables and hurt Angel during the night. She would put nothing past Vega — no dirty tactics were beneath this man. She would be sleeping with one eye open, looking out for trouble.