Nickel-Bred (5 page)

“I’ll show you how to do this. It’s
easy.”

With me directing, we got Dotty’s saddle
cinched up, the bit in her mouth and the bridle in place. I showed
Addie how to lead her out into the corral and stand on Dotty’s left
side.

“See, you always mount on the horse’s left.
That’s how they are trained.”

“What would happen if I forgot?”

“I don’t know, the horse might think you were
nuts and get scared or something. Left foot in the stirrup, that’s
right. Now bounce once or twice and swing your right leg over.”

She had done this before, so this part went
pretty well. I was hopeful. I reminded Addie about neck-reining--
how you lay the reins against the horse’s neck to get it to turn.
She went in a slow circle around the corral, clicking her tongue
softly to Dotty. I had the lead rope attached to Dotty’s bridle so
I could help control her head.

“This is okay,” said Addie. “You can take the
lead off now.” She walked around the corral again, once, then
twice.

“This is fun!” said Addie. “I’m going to try
going faster.” She kicked her feet against Dotty’s sides and the
horse took off. She wasn’t going fast, but she was definitely
trotting. When she began to lope, I called “Pull back on the
reins!”

“I dropped them!” Addie yelled back, as Dotty
headed straight toward some thorny-looking bushes that grew in the
corner of the corral. “What do I do?”

I didn’t know what to tell her, but I didn’t
have to. Two things happened at the same time: Dotty planted her
front feet to stop and Addie kept going, right into the bushes.

Chapter Ten

~ Scrapes and Bruises ~

Sending up
a silent prayer that Addie was all right, I ran across the corral
to where she lay on her side in the scratchy, thorny bushes. A
horseman’s first priority after they fell off was to catch the
horse, but we were inside a fenced area, so I didn’t worry about
catching Dotty yet.

“Addie! Are you all right?” A groan came from
the form lying at my feet. “Addie?”

“Whose idea was this? Oh, yeah, yours!” She
rolled over and sat up. Scratches covered her arms and legs, but at
least the thorns didn’t get her eyes. She looked around and took a
deep breath.

“Whoa, things are spinning,” she said.

“Did you hit your head?”

“Yeah, I landed on a rock. Help me stand
up.”

“Adds, maybe you should wait a minute.” My
best friend tried to get up, but sat back down, holding her
ankle.

“Ow! My ankle hurts. Maybe it’s broken.”

“Listen,” I said. “You sit still and I’ll
call my dad. I think he was going to be close.”

So I pulled out my phone and called my dad,
mentally crossing my fingers that it would go through. Sometimes at
Miss Julie’s, we couldn’t get cell phone signals. When he picked
up, I sighed with relief and explained the problem.

“Dad, Addie fell off Dotty. Yes, she’s
sitting up, but she’s dizzy and her ankle hurts too much to stand
up. Okay, I’ll tell her. Thanks, see you.” I hung up and turned to
Addie.

“Adds, he’s on his way over here. He just got
done with a call and is only a couple of miles away. He says you
should sit still till he gets here.”

“My ankle hurts and I have weeds in my
hair.”

“I know, but sit still anyway. You are a
pitiful mess and we’ll get you cleaned up after Dad checks your
ankle. Look, I’m going to go unsaddle Dotty, so hang tight.”

I went to Dotty, who ducked away from me and
trotted to the other side of the corral. She was spooked by all the
strange happenings, and wouldn’t let me catch her. A typical horse
trick. I followed her around for five minutes before I finally got
hold of her dragging reins. Leading her into the barn, I removed
her saddle and bridle and let her back out into her grassy little
paddock.

As I walked back over to Addie, Dad drove up
in a cloud of dust. He jumped out of his truck and walked over to
where she sat. Crouching beside her, he looked in her eyes, checked
her ankle and sat back on his feet.

“Well, aside from some scratches and a banged
up ankle, I don’t think you are seriously injured. But let’s call
your mom and see if she wants to take you to your own doctor, to be
sure.”

“My ankle’s not broken?” said Addie, sitting
up straighter.

“Don’t believe so. I think it’s just a
sprain. You should probably get it checked out, though.”

Dad got on his phone to call Sandy Davis. He
explained the whole thing to her and said, “No, it wasn’t the
horse’s fault. Or Addie’s. It wasn’t anybody’s fault, Sandy, those
things happen when you ride horses. Everybody I know that rides has
a scar or a story to tell. Okay, I’ll take her home and you can
meet us and drive her to the doctor. ‘Bye.”

He looked at us. “You heard? Sandy wants to
get her checked out at her own doctor and I think that’s the right
thing to do. Piper, you open the door on the truck and Addie, you
hold on to me. I’ll carry you over.”

So with some heaving and groaning, Addie got
situated in the cab of the truck. She scootched over so I could sit
beside her, and we took off for town. I felt badly about how it had
all happened and needed to say something.

“Hey, Addie, I’m sorry. I think I bullied you
into riding Dotty when you didn’t want to.”

“It’s okay, Pipe. I had fun for about...five
minutes? Dotty wasn’t trying to buck me off. I just thought I
should jump off before we got to the bushes.”

“Let me know what your doc says, okay?”

“Yeah, I will,” said Addie.

Addie’s mom met us at her house and with
another bout of heaving and groaning, Addie got deposited into
Sandy’s little red Honda and they drove off to the clinic.

Dad looked at me. “Piper, I’m proud of you
for apologizing to Addie. You do sometimes push her around, but it
doesn’t seem like she is mad at you.”

“I don’t mean to do that,” I said, not
wanting his criticism. “We work things out.”

Dad let it go and drove me home. I told him
about Angel’s phone call to me.

“It worries me that she has your number, and
that she’s bugging you now. She’s trouble,” Dad said. “I don’t want
you to have anything more to do with those people.”

“But, Dad, what about Nickel? We want
Nickel.”

“There are lots of horses in the world. He’s
not the only horse that anyone ever wanted to give away.”

“No! Dad! We love that horse! This is our
perfect chance to get a nice, calm horse for Addie to ride. She is
so comfortable on him and...and she’ll need that even more now that
she fell off Dotty! Nickel is perfect for her. And Chickie is all
right. He wants Nickel to go to a good home. He’s not a bad guy.
”

“Look, Piper, we need to re-think this. I
don’t want you around those people out there. They’re at least
trash and they might be criminals. Your mother will agree with
me.”

“Now you’re going to gang up on me? That’s
just great!” Since we had arrived at my house, I jumped out of
Dad’s truck, slammed the door, and stalked up the sidewalk.
Immediately, as I unlocked the door and went inside, my phone rang.
It was Dad.

“What?” I said.

“I mean it. You need to think this over.” I
hung up, but the phone rang again, immediately.

“What?” I said.

“Do
not
hang up on me, ever,” said my
dad. “Will you promise me you’ll think about it?”

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll think about it.”

“Fine,” he said. “Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.” And we both hung up. I sighed. Now
what to do?

Chapter Eleven

~ Visiting ~

As soon as
Mom walked in the door and started puttering in the kitchen, fixing
dinner, I eased in to start giving my side of the horse
argument.

“Piper, I know what you’re going to say. Your
dad called me on the way home. And I agree with him. That’s not the
right horse if you have to deal with those awful people.”

“But Mom...”

“You know we’re right. And they are trash.
Chickie Hyde has a reputation as a ...a supplier of drugs in this
county. Sheriff Martin told me that. And Angel has a reputation for
being cheap.”

“When were you talking to Harvey Martin?”

“Oh, I stopped by Sam’s office this afternoon
and he was there. They were talking about how Chickie and his
brother Earl are looking like possible suspects in the recent
break-ins.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes,” said Mom. “You know they think Earl
was the one who was working with Jake when they caught him for drug
trafficking.”

“Is Earl real skinny with long-ish hair?” So
they were brothers!

“Have you seen him out there?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Addie and I saw a guy drive
up that looked like the same guy we saw with Jake when we were
saving Dotty.”

“Another reason not to go out there again.
Piper, find another horse. Please.”

I had lied a lot in order to save Dotty, but
I didn’t want to lie any more. “I promised Dad I would think about
it, but I can’t believe Chickie is a bad guy,” I said.

“Well, good, think about it,” she said,
apparently content to leave it at that. Mom went ahead and cooked
some spaghetti, while I set the table and made a salad.

We ate our dinner while I told Mom how Addie
got hurt. I avoided any more mention of Nickel. I didn’t want to
hear more resistance to getting him.

After I helped clean up the kitchen, I called
Addie to see how her ankle was.

“It’s sore,” she said, “but it isn’t broken,
just a little sprain like your dad said. And I don’t have a
concussion.”

“How long till your ankle’s better?”

“Dr. Williams said a few weeks. I’m supposed
to stay off it for a day or two. It’s only a month till school
starts and it has to be better then. It would suck to have to
hobble to class with a crutch. Especially my first day in high
school. How would I carry my books?”

“You would have to find a big, strong guy to
carry them,” I said.

“Now that’s the best idea you’ve had.”

“Kidding!” I said. Geez, what if she decided
to do that?

“I know you were, but I wasn’t,” Addie said,
with a giggle.

“Yeah, right. Anyway, how are you feeling
about the whole horse thing now?”

“Well, I hated falling off. She didn’t really
buck me, did she?”

“No, it was more you jumped off and fell at
the same time Dotty stopped.”

“So, I can’t blame her. I think I’m still
good with riding Nickel. I felt safe on him, like he would watch
out for me. It sounds dumb, but I think he knew I was scared and
tried to be good.”

“It doesn’t sound dumb. That’s exactly what I
thought, too. He’s a smart horse and the perfect ride for you.
That’s why we need him. It doesn’t matter who his owners are now.
He’s better than they are. We have to get him away from them.”

“Angel is crazy and she might try to sell him
so we can’t have him,” Addie said.

“We can’t let that happen, but now my dad and
mom don’t want me to go out there at all. They think we should find
another horse. They’ll convince your mom, too.”

“But I wouldn’t be comfortable on another
horse! Nickel is the one I want.”

“That’s what I think. We have to work on our
parents. Maybe Miss Julie will help. I’ll talk to her tomorrow when
I go out there.”

“Okay, ‘bye”

The next morning, Mom had me spend a couple
of hours helping her clean the house. She was expecting Sam
Applegate for dinner and wanted everything to look as if it was
always perfect. That seemed silly and I hoped I wasn’t like that
when I got older. It was late when I got out to the barn to see my
pony.

Dotty was her usual, sweet self after the
exciting events of the previous day. I puttered around, organizing
the tack. The saddle went on its board, the bridle and halter hung
from pegs. I had two lead ropes that I draped over the halter.
After filling Dotty’s water tank, I gave her a back scratch,
raising dust and making horsehair fly all over.

I found a nice sunny patch of grass to sit
in, lowered myself and tried to calm down and think. Dozens of
dragonflies dipped and swirled around over the daisies and clover
in the paddock and I wondered what I should do about my parents.
Calmly discuss the situation until we all agreed? I didn’t feel
calm. Rationally explain why we needed Nickel? I didn’t feel
rational. Kick and scream and pout? That’s what I wanted to do.

“Piper, hello!” Miss Julie was calling to me.
I had been so far up in my head I hadn’t heard her.

“Oh! Hi, Miss Julie!”

“You looked like you were a million miles
away. I called to you three times.”

“Sorry. I was thinking hard.”

“About what, honey?”

“About Nickel and how we’re going to manage
to bring him here, even though Addie’s and my parents don’t want us
anywhere near the owner.” I explained all the difficulties to do
with Chickie, his brother, and Angel.

“Those people are no good,” said Miss Julie.
“I’ve been hearing a lot about them. You know they might be the
ones who are breaking into houses around here?”

“I know that. I don’t want to be their
friends, Miss Julie. I just want their horse. He’s the perfect
horse for Addie. She’s comfortable on him and doesn’t want any
other horse to ride. Nickel is not involved in any thefts. He’s a
horse.”

“You don’t want to be any more involved with
those people than you have to be, Piper.”

“I know, I know. But Addie needs that horse.
I have to get it for her.” How could I be any clearer?

Miss Julie walked slowly over to Dotty and
began petting her on the neck. Dotty nosed her previous owner and
nibbled at her pockets, making little snorty noises.

“Did you smell the carrot I have for you?”
Miss Julie pulled it out and fed it to Dotty, getting her hand well
slobbered in the process. “You’re a greedy girl, aren’t you?” The
carrot gone, Dotty lost interest and wandered over to a patch of
grass that grew thick and tall.