Horse Whispers (2 page)

“Hardly. In fact, cooking is the one thing she doesn’t make me do—or even
let
me do. My mom’s so perfect in
the kitchen that she doesn’t let me near the stove. No, this is for school. I have to cook the meal, take pictures of it, and write a report including all my recipes,” Lisa explained with a sigh.

“Gosh, by the sound of your voice, I’d guess you had to catalog your stamp collection. But cooking’s fun!” Phyllis said encouragingly.

“Maybe when it’s
for
fun. But half of my home ec final grade is going to be based on this one meal,” Lisa said, “and I can’t even boil an egg!”

“Fiddlesticks,” replied Phyllis.

“No, it’s true! I tried and almost torched my teacher’s hair!” Lisa wailed.

“Now, that sounds like a good idea,” Stevie put in.

“Don’t laugh! I’m getting a B-minus!” Lisa said. But then she started laughing, too. Another major difference between Lisa and Stevie was that while Stevie scraped by in school and prayed every day for a natural disaster to close the place for good, Lisa loved her classes and got straight As—at least, she usually did.

“Excuse me,” said one of the female guests from the end of the table. “I couldn’t help overhearing the conversation. I didn’t know they even
offered
home economics at school anymore.”

Lisa nodded unhappily. “In Willow Creek, Virginia, they
require
it,” she said. “We have to take a semester each of home ec and shop. Only now home ec is called Nutrition and Household Management, and shop is called Advanced
Woodworking. Boy, do I wish I were back sawing boards!”

“It’s not fair,” Stevie declared. “Public schools have all the fun! I would kill to take shop and home ec! But no, Fenton thinks every last class has to be an ‘enriching academic experience.’ ”

At home in Willow Creek, Carole and Lisa attended the local public school, and Stevie went to a private day school, Fenton Hall.

“So you’re saying you’d
like
to learn how to cook, Stevie?” Phyllis inquired.

“And how!” said Stevie. “I can make spaghetti and cookies and pancakes and stuff, but real food is over my head. Gosh, if I could make pies like these, I could feed myself all day long.” She sighed blissfully at the thought.

“All right, that’s a good enough reason. And Lisa, you
have
to learn,” said Phyllis. “So why don’t I teach both of you this week? There’s no better place to learn than the Bar None kitchen. Heck, I’ve even taught cowboys how to cook!”

“Say, Mom,” Kate piped up. “Couldn’t Lisa make her big meal for the Bar None family? It doesn’t have to be
your
family, does it, Lisa?”

Lisa shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. The only rule is that I have to cook for at least four people.” She laughed. “And I don’t think that would be a problem here.” The Bar None was known for its massive gatherings
at mealtimes. The Devines often invited neighbors and employees to join in the festivities with their guests.

“Do you mean it?” Stevie asked. “You’d really teach us how to cook?”

“Of course I mean it! We’ll start this afternoon.”

“That would be great. I don’t want to ask my mom because I know we’ll get into a huge fight,” Lisa said. This had already happened once. There was no way Lisa was going to deal with it again.

“And I don’t want to ask
my
mom because my stupid brothers will make fun of everything I make and then they’ll eat it all!” said Stevie.

At the other end of the table, the guests laughed. “Typical boys!” said a gray-haired woman, standing up to leave. “My brothers were exactly the same.”

“Are you off for the day, Brenda?” Phyllis asked.

“Yes, we’re going to head out,” said the woman. All four of the guests thanked their hostess for the breakfast and excused themselves.

“Let me know if you need anything,” Phyllis urged.

“I can’t think of a thing,” one of the husbands replied. “We’re off to snowshoe right now, and we’re going to eat lunch in town, so we probably won’t see you till dinner.” With a nod to the girls, the foursome left the dining room.

When they had gone, Phyllis poured herself another cup of coffee and sat back in her chair. “Gosh, I love old guests. The McHughs and the Martins have been coming here since we bought the place. I feel like they’re almost
family. They’ve been with us through thick and thin. And now they’ll get to share a real
family
dinner with us.” Then she added, looking at Lisa, “As long as you’re game.”

Lisa gulped. “I—I’m game. If you think I can do it.”

“I know you can. Especially with Stevie as your helper. How about you, Carole, do you want to lend a helping hand?” Phyllis asked.

Stevie and Lisa glanced at their friend. From the doubtful expression on Carole’s face, they knew she was thinking one thing and one thing only: Time spent in the kitchen was time away from the barn.

“You know what? I’d rather surprise Carole with our concoctions,” Stevie said hurriedly. “She can be the taste tester.”

Carole shot Stevie a thankful glance.

“That’s an even better idea. Besides,” Phyllis continued, her eyes twinkling to show she understood, “I wouldn’t want to rob my husband of
all
his help in the barn.”

“Speaking of Frank, where is he hiding this morning?” Carole asked. She was surprised that the head of the Bar None hadn’t turned up for breakfast with them. Frank was as big a fan of his wife’s cooking as The Saddle Club was, and with all the outdoor work he did, his appetite rivaled Stevie’s.

“Dad’s out at the barn,” Kate replied. “He got a new load of horses in this morning at dawn. He and John and the other guys have been settling them in since then.”

Carole’s eyes lit up at the words a
new load of horses
. Lisa’s eyes lit up at the name
John
. Both had to fight off an instinct to charge outside the way Stevie had at the mention of breakfast. The two of them started to talk at once.

“Where did the horses—”

“Did John say—”

They stopped, looked at each other, and burst out laughing.

Kate smiled knowingly. “Carole, the horses are from a dealer in Wyoming. He’s done business with Dad before. There are five new ones, mares and geldings, all broken to saddle. Lisa, John has asked me ten times when you guys were arriving. He can’t wait to see you.”

The Saddle Club laughed some more. Even without hearing their questions, Kate had known how to answer.

Carole was so excited by the news of the horses that she automatically stood up and began to clear the breakfast dishes. Meanwhile she talked a mile a minute. “Five? Wow. Do you know anything about their breeding? How old are they? What colors? Do they go English and Western or just Western?” Laughing, Kate and Stevie helped her clear.

Phyllis tried to protest. “Girls, there’ll be plenty of time to help out! Why don’t you relax? This is your first day. I can get these.”

But the girls insisted. Laden with plates, they trooped off to the kitchen.

Lisa sat for one last minute at the table. She stared out
the window at the snowbanks and gave a little sigh. John Brightstar was the son of the Devines’ head wrangler. His heritage was Native American and his looks, Lisa thought with a pang, were tall, dark, and handsome. During the course of The Saddle Club’s many visits to the ranch, Lisa had gotten to know him very well. They were friends, but they were something more than friends, too. Lisa was excited that John couldn’t wait to see her. She couldn’t wait to see him, either.

A
FTER HELPING
P
HYLLIS
load the oversize ranch dishwasher, The Saddle Club hurried back to the bunkhouse to change. It was very important to wear appropriate clothing in the barn. Looks didn’t matter, but safety did, and most important was a pair of hard-soled shoes. Stevie always wore her ancient cowboy boots. Carole wore lace-up paddock boots. And Lisa switched between the English jodhpur boots her mother had bought her and the rubbersoled, leather-topped duck boots she preferred.

Kate came along to talk with the girls while they threw off their sneakers and dug around in their suitcases for barn shoes and extra sweaters.

“Do you remember if there was a gray in the new herd?” Lisa inquired.

Kate scrunched her face up. “You know, I think there might have been. I was half-asleep, so I didn’t get the best look, but there’s definitely one light-colored horse. I can’t remember if it’s a gray or a roan.”

“I hope it’s a gray! That’s my favorite color,” Lisa said.

The other three girls groaned.

“But grays are so hard to keep clean!” Stevie said.

“Yeah, their hocks are permanently manure-stained,” Kate added. As the girls knew, the term
gray
included horses that ranged in color from true gray to white. But even a horse that looked white was referred to as gray.

“I don’t care,” Lisa insisted. “It’s still my favorite color.”

“Why, Lisa? Is it because of Pepper?” Carole asked.

Lisa nodded, surprised that Carole had guessed so quickly. “That’s right. Pepper is one of the best horses I’ve ever ridden. He taught me so much when I was a beginner. Now that he’s gone, I guess I’m always looking for his replacement. Or not even his replacement—that would be impossible—but just another horse that would remind me of him. Since he was gray, I like grays the best.”

Pepper, a dappled gray, had been a tried-and-true school horse at Pine Hollow, the girls’ stable back home. As a beginner, Lisa had ridden Pepper often. The two had formed a special partnership. When Pepper was retired, Lisa had written a prizewinning essay about why he was
such a great horse. A few months later, Pepper had had to be put down. But his memory lived on in the hearts of all the riders he had helped to train.

“A gray’s fine for out West,” Stevie said, trying to tame her dark blond hair into a ponytail, “where you don’t have to scrub your horse spotless every other week for Pony Club competitions and shows. But back East, give me a nice dark bay or a liver chestnut any day. It’s like my mom’s theory on carpet: Never buy white or light pink, ’cause every stain shows. Get blue so you can relax.”

“Sorry, Stevie, but I don’t think there were any blue horses on the van this morning,” Kate joked.

“There is such a thing as a blue roan, you know,” Lisa pointed out, laughing.

“Right, but they only look blue because of black hairs running through the white. The other roans, bay roans and strawberry roans, like Berry, are more common,” Carole said. Berry was the horse Carole usually rode out West. Her own horse, Starlight, was a bay, as was Stevie’s horse, Belle.

The girls laughed.

“What?” Carole asked. Then she grinned sheepishly. “Oh. I’m sounding like a textbook again, aren’t I?”

“Yes, but that’s okay,” Stevie said. “As long as you sound like a horsemanship textbook, I won’t complain. But just
mention
algebra equations and I’m outta here!”

Carole giggled. “I’ll try to keep my lectures limited to the subject of the equine.”

Kate had been musing quietly as they talked. Now she spoke up tentatively. “It’s funny how that works, isn’t it?”

“How what works?” asked Lisa.

“Well, how for a lot of riders, there’s one horse that was really special to them. And even if you ride a ton of other horses—better horses, more talented horses—that one horse stays with you. He always has a special place in your heart.”

“Is yours one of your show horses?” Lisa asked. Once Kate had been a major junior rider on the top-level show circuit. She had owned and ridden several winners.

Kate shook her head. “Nope. I mean, I
loved
the hunters and equitation horses I had, every one of them. I still do, in fact. But I was thinking of the first pony I owned. She was a funny-looking buckskin named Black-Eyed Susan. I had her for eight months before I outgrew her. We sold her to a neighbor, and even after I got Butterscotch, my next horse, who was worth a lot more, I used to be jealous of the little girl next door because she got to ride Suzy. I don’t know, something about our personalities clicked. And it’s true, whenever I see a buckskin, I get kind of wistful.” Kate stopped and cleared her throat. “Luckily, you don’t see too many buckskins.”

“What is buckskin? I’m not sure I know,” said Lisa.

“It’s a funny color,” Kate answered. “Light chestnut with a black mane and tail. A lot of buckskins have a black stripe along their spine, too. Suzy did, anyway.”

“That sounds cool!” Lisa responded. One of the best
things about hanging out with The Saddle Club—and its extended family—was that she never stopped learning. Kate, Stevie, and Carole had all been riding practically since they were born. Lisa had come to the sport later. She had caught up fast and could hold her own in the saddle, but there were still things she didn’t know. That was why horses were so amazing. Even Carole agreed that you could never learn it all.

Dressed and ready, the girls headed out to the stable. On their way they saw a tall figure approaching them at a jog. Lisa recognized him at once.

“Hi, everyone!” John Brightstar called. His face was ruddy from exertion.