Horse Shy (2 page)

Suddenly, Carole was alert. Delilah shied, nearly rearing, as a rabbit scooted across the trail. Carole leaned forward for balance, tightening the reins automatically. As soon as Delilah felt Carole’s sure grip, she seemed to relax. The rabbit was safely in the underbrush by the time Delilah was calmed down.

Just then, a second rabbit dashed out onto the trail just in front of Pepper and Lisa. To Carole’s horror, Pepper practically jumped backwards. Lisa grabbed the front of the saddle for balance, dropping Pepper’s reins. Pepper reared a moment later, but without the reins, there was no way Lisa could control him or calm him. The rabbit darted back and forth under the horse’s feet, completely terrorized. Pepper reared a second time, and when he landed, he took off—without Lisa. She flew into the air and landed on her right side.

Carole knew that Lisa needed help, but Pepper had
to be stopped. She called ahead to Stevie to help Lisa. When Stevie turned around and saw what had happened, she rushed to Lisa’s aid.

Carole urged Delilah into action. Pepper had sprinted into the woods, but Carole knew there was a hilly field just beyond the stand of trees that bordered the trail. When she broke through the trees, she could see Pepper galloping up a hill. She had to cut him off before he could gallop down the hill—that could be really dangerous!

Skillfully, Carole directed Delilah. They took a shortcut across the pasture to meet Pepper at the hill’s crest. Carole could almost feel Delilah shifting gears, thrilled with the race. They arrived at the hilltop just seconds before Pepper. Carole was afraid he might dart down the other side of the hill when he saw them in front of him, but he’d had enough of his run. Almost as if he knew he’d been naughty, he hung his head and coyly began nibbling at the sweet young grass in the pasture.

Carole clucked to him soothingly. He lifted his head and looked at her with his liquid brown eyes.

“It’s okay, boy,” she said. “Nobody’s angry with you. We’d better see how Lisa feels, though. Come on.”

He wouldn’t come to her, but he stood patiently while she reached down from Delilah and took his reins. He followed obediently as they returned to the trail.

* * *

“Y
OU OKAY
?” S
TEVIE
asked. Lisa was still lying awkwardly on the ground.

“Well, I’m alive, if that’s what you mean,” Lisa said.

“No, I mean is anything broken or permanently damaged?”

“Yeah,” Lisa said.

Stevie’s heart fell. “What?” she asked.

“My dignity,” Lisa told her grumpily.

Stevie laughed. “Boy, you had me scared! Come on, get up. Carole went after Pepper. There’s a place by a brook about a half hour’s ride ahead where we can stop and have our lunch. You’ll feel better after you eat something.”

“You ride; I’ll walk,” Lisa said.

“You
are
hurt!” Stevie said, offering Lisa a hand to stand up.

“No, I’m okay, but that’s it for me for riding. I obviously can’t do it. I’m quitting.”

“Of course you can do it,” Stevie said. “I mean, you could do it ten minutes ago—two minutes ago, actually.”

“No, I couldn’t,” Lisa protested. “Look at what just happened.”

“Just because your horse shies and you fall off, you think you can’t ride?” Stevie asked her.

“You didn’t fall off, did you?” Lisa answered her.

“Not then, maybe, but I have, plenty of times before. And I will again, too, believe me!”

Standing now, Lisa just glared at Stevie. Stevie returned the glare, looking carefully at Lisa. For one thing, she wanted to make sure she
was
okay, but for another, she was looking to see how scared she was. Lisa had taken a bad tumble and she was afraid she’d do it again. It was a feeling Stevie knew well; everybody who rode felt that way sometimes. But Stevie knew you couldn’t let that get you down, and she certainly couldn’t let it get one of her best friends down.

“Here’s Pepper,” Carole said cheerfully, leading him back through the stand of trees. “And I think he’s ready to ride now.”

“Well, his rider isn’t,” Lisa said.

Carole brought the horses to an abrupt halt.

“Lisa figures she’s no good at riding,” Stevie explained. “She’s giving it up. Here and now.” Stevie winked at Carole, certain she could rely on Carole to say just the right thing.

“I know how you feel, Lisa,” Carole said. “It’s rough when you decide to quit. But look at your poor horse.” She pointed to Pepper. The horse’s head still hung low. He glanced at Lisa quickly and then looked at the ground again. “He feels even worse than you do. Why don’t you get back on him so he’ll have the confidence to take riders again? If you abandon him now, who knows what will happen to him as a stable horse?”

Lisa looked Carole straight in the eye until she saw a twinkle there. “You’re telling me to get right back up on the horse to make
him
feel better?” she asked.
When Carole shrugged in answer, Lisa giggled. “Maybe I’m being silly,” she said, “but I can’t help being scared.”

“Don’t worry,” Carole said. “We understand. We’ve both felt the same way before. Now, forget how scary that fall was and climb up on this poor animal!”

Lisa brushed the dirt off her pants and removed some dry leaves from Pepper’s saddle. She straightened out his bridle, which had gone askew, and she patted him on the neck.

“We’re some pair, huh?” she said. “Come on now, boy, how can you be afraid of a little rabbit when I’m not allowed to be afraid of a great big horse?” She slid her left foot into the stirrup and lifted herself up into the saddle. “Oooh,” she said. “Nothing’s broken, but something’s sure bruised. I may have to stand up to eat! How far is this picnic area?” she asked Stevie.

“Oh, not far,” Stevie said vaguely as she urged Comanche on.

A
N HOUR LATER
, the three girls were finished with their picnic, and the horses were rested and refreshed from the cool brook water.

“We’d better get back to Pine Hollow,” Stevie said. “Max isn’t going to believe we spent three hours just looking at the cross-country course.”

“Personally, I don’t think Max is going to believe we even went to the cross-country course,” Carole said. “He’s smarter than that, you know.”

Stevie already suspected Max knew what they were up to and approved. He trusted her as a rider, and he trusted Carole even more; he knew they’d take good care of Lisa.

“Listen, I’ve got a different way to go back,” Stevie said. “It’s through pastures. The horses will love it, too, because they can canter a lot. And when horses canter together outside, they usually end up galloping. Wait’ll you try that, Lisa!”

“I think I’ve tried enough for today,” Lisa said.

“Trust me,” Stevie said with a grin. Somehow, the way she said it, Lisa trusted her, even though at the very same time, she suspected it was a mistake.

The girls took off on their horses through a series of pastures to return to Pine Hollow. Stevie seemed to know her way, and she was right about the horses enjoying the freedom of the pastures. They alternately walked, trotted, and cantered across the rolling hills. The only problem was that they had to stop all the time to open and close gates.

“It’s an unbreakable rule of horseback riding that you leave gates exactly as you found them,” Carole explained to Lisa.

“Hey, we can take a shortcut!” Stevie shouted.

“What shortcut?” Carole asked dubiously.

“Look over to the left.” Stevie pointed downhill. “I’m sure that red building at the foot of the hill is next to Pine Hollow. If we go straight, we’ll avoid about ten gates!”

“But we don’t know whose farm that is!” Carole said. Another firm rule of riding was that riders only went where they had permission.

“Oh, who’s going to care about three girls on horseback?” Stevie asked.

“A lot of people,” Carole began to tell her, but it was too late. Stevie was already racing across the strange field, Lisa right behind. Carole sighed and followed them.

Lisa was enjoying the countryside, glad of her decision to ride Pepper again, and glad for the friends who made her do it.

The girls were about three quarters of the way across the field when they heard a strange sound.

At first, Lisa didn’t know what it was. It sounded a little bit like a cow. But there weren’t any cows in this small pasture. Herds of cows usually grazed together.

When she saw it, she knew it wasn’t a cow, but she wished it were! A very large bull emerged from behind a stand of aspens. He snorted and bellowed, stomping at the ground with one front foot. His nostrils flared in anger. Lisa drew in her reins. All three girls began walking their horses slowly, hoping the bull would let them pass.

All at once, though, he began charging. He was perhaps fifty yards from the horses, and although his legs were short and he was stocky, he was fast. Very fast.

“Get out of here!” Stevie hollered, turning Comanche
around and heading for the fence. Delilah and Pepper took off as well. Then, in horror, Lisa realized that there was no gate there! They’d be cornered! A rabbit was one thing for Pepper to contend with, but a bull? Before Lisa could figure out what the answer was, Stevie showed her. As soon as Comanche got close to the fence, Stevie leaned forward, rising in the seat. Then Comanche was airborne, lifting himself gracefully over the fence, landing smoothly on the other side. Stevie cantered on a few steps and then drew her horse to a halt, waiting for her friends.

Carole, on board Delilah, cleared the fence with a foot to spare. It looked so easy!

Terrified, Lisa rose in the saddle as she’d seen her friends do. She leaned forward, grabbing some of Pepper’s mane in her sweaty hands. Just when she was afraid they would crash headfirst into the wooden fence, her friends cried “Now!” Maybe Pepper heard them. Maybe he just knew what he was supposed to do. It didn’t matter to Lisa how it happened, because it happened. While she clutched the saddle and mane with all her strength, she felt Pepper lift off the ground and sail to safety on the other side of the fence.

Lisa had never been more thrilled—or more scared—in her life. Stevie and Carole cheered wildly, clapping for Pepper and for Lisa.

“Gee, I didn’t know you could jump!” Stevie said.

“Neither did I,” Lisa said. “Neither did I.”

“I
F ONE MORE
person asks me where the extra stirrup leathers are, I’m going to scream!” Carole announced. But nobody was listening to her.

Everything around the stable and front driveway of Pine Hollow Stables was in an advanced state of confusion. It seemed to Carole that she was the only organized part of it.

The eleven people and eleven horses who were going on the Mountain Trail Overnight—or the MTO, as the girls called it—were swarming around the bus and horse vans. All the riders were trying to make sure their own things were packed. Carole clutched a clipboard tightly in her hand. She checked it one more time—a
final
time, she hoped—but she knew better.

“Need any help?” Stevie asked, hauling her own bedroll and knapsack over to the bus.

“Hey, thanks,” Carole said. “Everybody else wants to know how I can help
them
.” Carole looked at the clipboard again. “Oh, here’s what you can do. We’re going to need hoof-picks. Joe Novick said he’d get them, but right after he promised, I saw him go in the opposite direction and I haven’t seen him since. Grab a couple from the tack room, will you? And put them in with the grooming gear?”

Stevie saluted with a grin and headed for the stable’s tack room. Carole put a second check mark next to “hoof-picks.”

Veronica diAngelo was standing near the bus. Three of her friends—more like ladies-in-waiting, Carole thought—were gathered around her. Carole stifled a giggle when she noticed that each of them—Meg Durham, Lorraine Olsen, and Betsy Cavanaugh—was wearing the identical riding pants that Veronica had worn. Last week. They’d probably driven their mothers crazy trying to imitate Veronica’s fashion-show riding habit.

As far as Carole was concerned, there was nothing about Veronica that she wanted to imitate—but Veronica did have one thing Carole longed for. Veronica’s father had bought her a beautiful Thoroughbred stallion named Cobalt. Carole would have given anything to own Cobalt, and sometimes it almost seemed like she did. Veronica liked owning a prize Thoroughbred.
She didn’t like taking care of him and exercising him regularly, though. She often asked Carole to help and Carole never said no. She loved that horse.

“Did we remember to bring horse blankets?” Red O’Malley, one of Pine Hollow’s stableboys, asked Carole.

She checked her list and told him they were packed.

When Carole was certain everything on her clipboard had been checked twice, she helped load the horses onto the vans. Most horses learned to accept occasional van trips. Some even liked them. But a few, like Barq, whom Lorraine would ride, were van haters. He was an Arabian—named after the Arabic word for lightning—and when he got near a van, he tried to streak the other way! To avoid trouble this time, they led him up the ramp with a bucket of oats. With his nose in the feed bag, he was in the van before he knew it, and it was too late for protests.