Chasing Gold (6 page)

Haley blinked. She'd totally forgotten! That morning at breakfast, her aunt had mentioned wanting to plant the
flower bulbs she'd brought home from her garden club plant exchange to spruce up the yard. She'd offered Haley some cash if she helped. It wasn't enough to make up for the missed babysitting job, but it was a start.

“No, it's fine,” Haley said. “I still want to do it. I can ride afterward.”

Two hours later, the job was finally done. Haley had dirt under her fingernails, and her shoulders ached from shoving the ancient steel bulb planter into the hard, dry ground over and over again. Kicking off the garden clogs she'd borrowed from her aunt, Haley quickly pulled on her paddock boots and hurried outside.

When she entered the barn, she was surprised to find all three of the family's quarter horses standing in the aisle. Rusty and Jet were in the crossties, while Chico stood ground-tied nearby, his sleepy, blocky head hanging low and his tail swishing lazily at flies. Wings was in his stall, peering out over the half door. Jake and Danny were there too. Jake was running a brush over Rusty's broad back, while Danny was with Chico, tightening the cinch on Uncle Mike's big old hand-tooled Western saddle.

“Are you going riding today?” Haley asked, bending to pet Bandit as the dog raced over to greet her.

Danny rolled his eyes at her. While everyone said Jake was the spitting image of Uncle Mike, Danny took after his mother. Like Aunt Veronica, he was small and quick and always moving.

“Duh,” he said, giving Chico's cinch another tug. “You really are lost in your own little English riding world these days, aren't you?”

Jake grinned at Haley over his horse's back. “Yeah. She's walking around with dreams of prancing and jumping taking up her entire brain,” he drawled. “She doesn't have time for boring stuff like helping us clear around the sugar maples.”

“Oh right, that's today, isn't it?” Haley felt a pang of wistfulness. She'd always loved everything about the family tradition of maple syruping. There were numerous mature sugar maples on their property and those of several neighboring farms, and every fall Haley, her cousins, and her uncle went out to clear the brush and vines that had grown up around them over the summer. That would
make it easier in the winter, when they returned to tap the trees. Clearing the brush was hard, hot, scratchy work, but it was fun, too. The four of them always saddled up and rode out, winding their way through the woods and singing old songs that Uncle Mike had learned from his father and grandfather.

“I can't believe Pop's letting you get away with skipping out on us,” Danny grumbled, hurrying over and grabbing his saddle off the rack in the tack room. “That'll be more work for the rest of us.”

“She probably doesn't want to get her hands dirty,” Jake told him with a smirk. “You know how those English riders are, with their white gloves and their spotless boots and stuff.”

Danny snorted with laughter as he swung the saddle onto Jet's back. “Yeah. Still, if she doesn't help us make the syrup, I say she doesn't get to eat it either. Mom and Pop should make her eat her pancakes plain until she starts helping again.”

“Whatever,” Haley muttered, heading over to Wings's stall. She wasn't in the mood for the boys' teasing today.
For one thing, she really did wish she could go with them to clear brush. It didn't seem fair that it just happened to be time for that particular task right now, right when she was too busy to go.

But it was what it was. Haley was sure that Zina Charles had probably missed a fun outing or two on her way to the top. And if she could do it, Haley could too. She wanted to be the best, just like Zina. And being the best meant making sacrifices. Besides, the boys were just goofing around—they didn't really need her help today, and they knew it.

“Are you guys almost done with the crossties?” she asked as she led Wings out of the stall.

The pony was on his toes, ears pricked at his herd mates as he jostled into Haley. She stuck an elbow into his chest to back him off. It was no surprise that he was full of energy today. Haley always gave him Mondays off. She'd read online that a lot of the big, professional barns did that, and it seemed like a good idea to her. It gave Wings a chance to rest, hang out, and just be a horse
one day a week—no riding, no grooming, just eating and napping and doing his own thing out in the pasture.

Too bad nobody gives me a day off like that,
Haley thought ruefully, flashing from the bulb planting she'd just finished to the barn chores waiting for her after her ride to the homework she'd have to fit in sometime between dinner, house chores, and sleep.

“I'm done.” Jake slipped the bit into Rusty's mouth and led him forward, leaving him standing beside Chico with the reins draped over his neck. “All yours.”

“Thanks.” Haley clipped Wings into the ties. He immediately took a step backward, putting pressure on his halter and almost stepping on Haley's foot in the process. “Watch it, Wings!” she said, giving him a sharp poke on the shoulder. He swung away so fast his rump bumped into the wall with a thump that made even Chico lift his head slightly in surprise.

“Wings is such a dork,” Danny commented. “When are you going to sell him and get a real horse?” He gave Jet a pat on the shoulder.

“Sell him?” Jake let out a snort. “Who'd pay good money for that funny-looking little spotted thing? She'd be lucky to give him away.”

It was far from the first time the boys had made that sort of joke. But today Haley wasn't finding their stand-up routine particularly funny.

“Wings is worth all three of your horses put together,” she snapped. “If you tried to get Rusty or Jet to jump a crossrail, they'd probably trip over it. Or if you made them do a dressage test, they'd faint halfway through.”

“Whatever, Haley.” Danny whistled to Bandit, who was sniffing at something on the floor behind Wings. “Yo, mutt, watch yourself. You barely have a brain as it is; you don't want Haley's nutty pony to kick the rest of it out of your head.”

Gritting her teeth, Haley willed herself not to respond. She knew she was cranky from rushing around with too much to do on too little sleep, and she also knew she had to get over it. Wings could feel her mood and was likely to take offense if Haley was lacking in her usual sense of humor. And they couldn't afford a bad ride today. Not
with the Zina Charles clinic only a week and a half away.

Haley took a deep breath and closed her eyes, focusing on why she was doing this. The clinic. She pictured herself riding in front of Zina, soaking up the pro rider's knowledge, experience, and enthusiasm, and soon she felt calmer.
That
was why she was doing this. She had to remember that, and everything would be all right.

“Okay, boy.” She opened her eyes and gave Wings a pat. “Let's settle down and get to work, okay?”

By the time she finished grooming and saddling the pony, Uncle Mike had arrived. “Thanks for tacking up for me, boys,” he said, waking Chico up with a hearty pat on the neck. “Things were busy at the pharmacy today—I thought I'd never get out of there!”

Uncle Mike was first and foremost a farmer. He'd been born on this very farm, along with his younger brother, Haley's father. But over the years, bits of the property had been sold off to help pay the mortgage, as had the dairy herd and various equipment. These days the farm still made money, mostly in hay, organic vegetables, hunting leases, and the occasional sale of a side of grass-fed beef.
But Uncle Mike also worked part-time as a pharmacist at one of the drugstores in town to help make ends meet.

“No problem, Pop.” Jake patted the bulging saddlebags he'd attached to his horse. “Tools are ready too.”

Uncle Mike rubbed his horse's nose, then gave a tug on the reins to lead him outside. “Good, good. Come on, Chico, let's roll. Shake a leg, Haley—get that pony bridled and let's go!”

“She's not coming, remember?” Danny said. “She's got some important horse prancing to do today instead.”

“Oh, right.” Uncle Mike's mustache twitched as he glanced at Haley. “Almost forgot. Won't be the same without you there, Haley. But have fun.”

“Thanks.” Haley waited until they'd all gone, listening for the creak of the big gate leading into the main pasture. From there, the riders would cut across to the woods, winding their way down and across the brook. Haley had ridden that trail so many times she could see every rock and tree root in her mind's eye.

For a second she was tempted to call out for them to wait for her. Sure, they'd make fun of her riding along in
her English saddle. But teasing and goofing around was just part of the fun. . . .

“We can't,” she said aloud, causing Bandit to prick his ears and stare at her. She sighed. “We really can't. Anyway, we'll have fun too, won't we, Wingsie?”

She slipped on the bridle and led Wings out of the barn, turning in the opposite direction from the way the others had gone. Today was scheduled to be a conditioning ride, and Haley was planning to trot and canter up and down the hills of the neighbors' property, where she had standing permission to ride whenever she liked. Getting there meant walking along the highway for about four hundred yards until she was past the perimeter fence and could cut through another neighbor's fallow cornfield. There was a wide, grassy shoulder the whole way, but it still made Haley's aunt and uncle nervous to think of her riding beside such a busy road on her rather unpredictable pony. When she'd first proposed the route, they'd made her promise to walk Wings in hand until they got to the cornfield, and Haley knew better than to let them catch her doing otherwise.

Bandit and one of the other dogs, an amiable but lazy yellow Lab, were at her heels as she crossed the yard. “Stay back, you two,” Haley ordered as she reached the gate. “Sorry, you can't tag along today. You're not allowed out by the road.”

The Lab backed off, but Bandit let out an eager bark and crowded forward as Haley reached for the latch. His lean body pressed against the gate, making Wings prance and stare down at him with suspicion.

“Bandit, no!” Haley said, a bit of her earlier impatience creeping back as she nudged at the dog with her foot. He dodged her, trying to wedge himself into the inch-wide opening between gate and fence.

Haley blew out a sigh of frustration. Couldn't anything go smoothly today?

Chill,
she thought.
He's just a dog; he doesn't understand.

“Bandit, sit,” she ordered firmly.

The dog turned and stared at her. Then, slowly, his haunches sank to the ground.

“Good boy,” Haley said. Casting a glance around the area, she spotted a crooked twig lying in the dust.
Grabbing it, she hurled it back into the barnyard as far as she could. “Fetch!” she cried.

Bandit barked and leaped into action, chasing the stick. Haley quickly swung the gate open, glad that Wings wasn't the slow, lazy type like the quarter horses. By the time Bandit noticed what was going on, girl and pony were through and the gate safely latched once again.

“Sorry, boy,” Haley said as the dog raced over and whined at her from his side of the gate. “See you when we get back.”

Fifteen minutes later she was in the saddle, trotting across the barren cornfield. Wings was alert, his ears swiveling every which way as birds whirled in the blue sky overhead and a small herd of deer bounded out of their path, heading for the safety of the woods. Haley breathed in deeply. The air was warm and smelled of dirt and pine, the summer and winter scents mingling in a way that reminded her of everything good about both seasons. Wings let out a snort and she smiled, suddenly not wanting to be anywhere else except right here, right now.

All her worries suddenly seemed much less
important—the chores waiting for her back home, her boy-obsessed friends, even the missed ride with her family. This was why she did this—this feeling. Just her and her pony, feeling good, ready to take on the world.

“That was fun, huh?” Haley gave Wings a scratch on the withers. They were crossing the cornfield again, this time heading for home after a good ride. She hadn't thought about anything except enjoying her pony and making sure they did what they needed to do.

Just then Haley felt a weird little movement against her seat. For a second she thought it was Wings trying to shudder off a fly or something. But then she realized it was her phone vibrating in her back pocket. She almost ignored it but knew her aunt would worry if it was her calling and Haley didn't answer.

“Hello?” Haley said without checking to see who it was.

“Hales? Hi, it's me!” Tracey sounded excited. “Guess what?”

“What?” Haley nudged Wings with her left heel, steering him around a rut in the field.

“My dad said yes!” Tracey squealed. “Can you believe it? He actually said yes!”