Blaze and the Dark Rider (12 page)

“Rewards were offered, of course. I would have done anything to get her back. At first, we thought that maybe she had been smuggled overseas. In the right hands, Salome was worth a great deal of money. But these horse thieves did not realise how valuable their prize was. And they did not know what to do with her.

“I wanted to stay and search for her but the El Caballo Danza Magnifico must always keep moving. Our show travels all the time, month after month, year after year. It was impossible for us to remain in one place any longer. Besides, even if we could stay and look for Salome, we did not know where to begin. The thieves could have taken her anywhere. It was futile. I had given up all hope of seeing her again until…until we came back here again, this time to Chevalier Point, and I met you and heard your story. You told me that you had a mare that looked just like mine, and although I didn’t dare hope
that it might be Salome, I knew I had to meet her. It turned out that it was very lucky that I did.”

Issie wiped a tear away roughly with the back of her hand.

“I am sorry” Francoise sighed. “Perhaps not so lucky for you. I did not mean to be cruel. I can see how much Salome means to you.”

Francoise gestured at the piece of paper that she had put on the kitchen table. “This is why I had to have proof before I could speak to you about this, Isadora. I know how much you love this mare, and how much Salome also adores you too. You have saved Salome’s life. If it were not for you I am sure she would have died. The horse thieves had treated her so badly and she was so very unwell when she came to you that only someone who truly loved her and could win her trust could have saved her life.”

Issie smiled.

“However,” Francoise’s face was stern now, “Salome is not your horse and she is too valuable to the riding school for me to give her up to you. Besides, even if I wanted to give her to you, I could not. Salome does not belong to me, she belongs to the El
Caballo Danza Magnifico, and I work for them. They own her and, as you can imagine, they are looking forward to her return. Salome will once again become part of the Dance of the Seven Veils and our troupe will return to normal once more.”

“But you can’t! You can’t take her!” Issie felt her face flush with anger and pain. “You don’t need her. I saw the show. You can do it without her. Blaze is mine. I love her and she loves me. She’s my horse and you can’t take her from me!”

“Francoise, really, this doesn’t seem very fair,” Mrs Brown said. “Isadora was asked to be the guardian of this horse and as far as I can see, she has been much more than that. Blaze would not be alive if it weren’t for Issie, you’ve said as much yourself. Isn’t there something you can do about this?”

Francoise hung her head. For a moment, she was silent and Issie thought that perhaps, just perhaps, she was reconsidering.

Her hopes were dashed however when Francoise looked up at her again, her eyes filled with steely determination. “I am sorry, Mrs Brown. As I have explained, it is not my choice to make. Salome does
not belong to me either, but to El Caballo Danza Magnifico. And she must be returned to the school.”

She stood up now and walked towards the door, then she turned and spoke with a voice that was weary with sorrow. “Thank you for the cup of tea, Mrs Brown. It was most kind. I will be back tomorrow with a horse truck at nine a.m. to pick up Salome. I would appreciate it, Isadora, if you could have her ready for me by then? I am so sorry, but it is what I must do.
Au revoir
.”

As Francoise pulled the door closed behind her, Mrs Brown walked across the kitchen and picked up the phone.

“What are you doing, Mum?” Issie asked.

“Calling Tom Avery. I want to get to the bottom of this. If anyone can help us it’s Tom,” Mrs Brown said.

Half an hour later the doorbell rang again and there was Avery, his face just as grave as Francoise D’arth’s had been when she had stood there not long before. “I’ve contacted the International League for the
Protection of Horses and unfortunately it looks like everything she says is true,” Avery told them. “Francoise’s paperwork all checks out and Blaze’s DNA exactly matches the samples to prove that she is Salome.”

He turned to Issie. “I’m sorry Isadora. I don’t think there is anything we can do. It looks as if Blaze is indeed her horse—or at least the property of El Caballo Danza Magnifico. Legally they have every right to take her.”

“But, Tom, there must be something we can do! I’m her guardian. She was given to me and she needs me!” Issie begged him.

“I know, Isadora, I know,” Avery said. “If she is truly anyone’s horse then she is yours. And if I had ever known this was going to happen, I would never have asked you to be her guardian. I never suspected for a moment that Blaze’s real owners would turn up one day.”

Avery looked at Issie. “I’m sorry, Isadora, but I cannot see any way around this. When Francoise turns up tomorrow morning you have no choice. You will have to let her take Blaze.”

Issie hardly slept that night. Mrs Brown made her hot cocoa and brought it to her room, but it didn’t help. She lay quietly in her bed, running through it all in her head, wondering what could be done. As the night shadows flicked across her bedroom walls Issie held her breath and listened. Perhaps Mystic would come to her now and they could save Blaze together. After all, hadn’t they always saved her before? Yet Issie knew in her heart that this time it was different. There would be no midnight rescue this time. Mystic would not come. In the morning, Issie and Blaze would have to say goodbye.

It was well after midnight when she finally fell into a restless sleep.

She woke again when the light began to creep over her windowsill. It was a little after seven a.m. and Francoise was due at the pony club at nine. She would
have to hurry and get dressed if she was going to cycle to the club grounds to meet her there.

Issie had a shower and dressed quickly in jodhpurs and a sky blue T-shirt, then raced downstairs. Her mum was already there with breakfast on the table—scrambled eggs and toast.

“No, Mum, I can’t eat. I’ll be late. I need to see Blaze,” Issie insisted.

“I know,” her mother said. “I’m going to take you to the paddock. Tom is coming too. But please, sweetie, just try and eat a little bit of breakfast before we go. You look exhausted and you need to keep your strength up.”

By the time Issie had reluctantly eaten her eggs and Avery had arrived at the house it was nearly 8 a.m. “Time to go, then?” Mrs Brown asked. Issie nodded.

The three of them made the trip in the car to the pony club in silence. There was nothing left to say. Issie was regretting the scrambled eggs, which now seemed to be sitting in her stomach like a rock.

Issie was relieved to see that Francoise hadn’t yet arrived when they reached the club grounds. In the far paddock Blaze was grazing peacefully, her long flaxen
tail occasionally swishing lazily across her body to whisk away a pesky fly.

Issie was about to call out to the mare when, from behind her, she heard a whistle. Blaze raised her head. Francoise whistled again and this time Blaze returned her call with a shrill whinny, trotting up happily to the fence.

Francoise saw the broken-hearted expression on Issie’s face and realised what she had just done.
“Bonjour
, Isadora.” Francoise smiled. “We are here too early, I think. Perhaps you might like to catch Salome first and spend some time alone with her before we take her?”

Issie nodded, afraid to speak in case her voice might break and then the tears would start. She left Francoise’s side and walked into the tack room. With a shaking hand she reached out and grasped Blaze’s halter off the tack-room peg, slung it across her shoulder and set out towards the far paddock. Beneath her, her legs felt as wobbly as rubber, and butterflies churned in her stomach.

Blaze, on the other hand, seemed to have no idea that anything was wrong. To her, it was just another
day at the pony club. As Issie approached she nickered a friendly greeting and stuck her head over the gate.

“Hey girl.” Issie tried desperately to smile. “It’s OK. You’re going on a little trip today.”

Blaze nickered again and gave Issie a nudge, using her as a scratching post to reach an itchy spot on her forehead.

“Hey quit it!” Issie smiled at her. And then her smile dissolved and she was crying, big hot angry tears as she slipped her arm under the pony’s neck and slipped the halter up over her nose.

“The thing is, girl,” Issie continued, “you have to go with Francoise and I can’t come with you. You’re going to be her horse now. You don’t belong to me—not any more.”

The tears were streaming down Issie’s cheeks now and she had given up trying to make them stop. Instead, she buried her face deep into the mare’s flaxen mane. She breathed in, trying to inhale deeply on her sweet horsy smell, but her nose was so runny from crying she couldn’t smell anything. Her hands were clasped tightly around Blaze’s neck now as if she never wanted to let go—which she didn’t. She could
feel the sleek smoothness of Blaze’s glossy chestnut coat, and the silky strands of her mane which were tangled through her fingers.

If I just hold on a bit longer, maybe when I look up again they will all be gone and this will all have been a bad dream
, Issie wished. She stayed there, with her head buried in Blaze’s mane for what seemed like an eternity. But when she looked up again, wiping yet more tears from her red eyes, she could see that the world had not changed. Francoise, Avery and her mother were still waiting for her by the clubroom gates. The ramp to Francoise’s horse truck had now been lowered ready to load Blaze.

Issie sniffed and took a deep breath. She wiped her face roughly on her T-shirt. She had made a vow to herself that they would not see her crying. “Come on, Blaze, time to go,” she murmured, and she led the chestnut mare up to the waiting horse truck.

Issie watched as Francoise prepared Blaze for her journey, fastening on the padded floating boots and strapping on her dust cover, before putting a hay net inside the truck for the trip. As she worked, she spoke to Blaze gently in French and the mare seemed responsive
and calm in her hands.

Finally, Francoise called out an order to her assistant, a young woman who was clearly one of the riders from the school, and the woman stood on the far side of the ramp as Francoise walked Blaze up and into the truck. Ropes were secured and partitions were bolted into place, and then the girl lifted up the ramp and bolted it shut. Blaze was now locked inside the truck ready to go.

Issie looked pleadingly at her mum and Tom Avery. They had been standing quietly watching as Francoise worked. Surely one of them would say something, do something to stop this? Avery walked over to Francoise and spoke to her. Issie couldn’t hear what they were saying, but in the end Avery nodded and walked back to where he had been standing, next to her mother under the magnolia trees.

Francoise beckoned Isadora over to her. “We will be here for one more week before we pack up and travel again,” Francoise said. “If you want to come and see Blaze once more before we go you would be most welcome. Just give me a call. Until then,
au revoir
.”