Saddlebags (9 page)

They all watched as Walter and John guided the last of the cows up the far bank.

“Sure took a while, didn’t it?” said Lisa.

“Yeah. It’s getting dark already,” said Kate.

Stevie looked at her watch. “It’s only three-thirty.”

“That’s weird,” said Carole.

All four looked up at the sky. Above them was a low ceiling of sinister-looking clouds.

“Wow,” Carole gasped. “I didn’t see
those
coming.”

“Uh-oh. I feel a drop,” Stevie said.

Quickly, everyone reached for their ponchos.

Just as the last girl pulled her poncho over her head, the drops started coming down faster. A moment later the heavens opened and the rain clattered down in sheets. Soon it was as if they were standing in a wall of water. The land, which had been dry and parched, was instantly flooded. The rain kept coming down, pelting the girls’ ponchos and horses. The horses just stood there, blinking under the barrage of raindrops.

“Woohoo!” cried Carole. It was as if she were standing in a waterfall. Berry started prancing nervously around. Carole adjusted her poncho to make sure it covered her saddle as well, and fixed her hood so the water
would drain the right way off her visor. “I need a drainpipe,” she called to Lisa.

Lisa was pulling her pant legs out of her boots. “Me too,” she hollered.

“Whaaaaaat?” cried Stevie. With the rain pounding down, they could hardly hear each other.

“I can’t even see Berry’s feet anymore!” Carole shouted.

Lisa adjusted her poncho so that it covered as much of Chocolate as possible. It was pouring, and she knew if the rain didn’t let up, it would make the rest of the drive treacherous and painstaking.

The girls rode over to the top of the steepest rise and looked down.

“Wow!” cried Stevie in awe. “This is incredible!”

The tiny winding creek where they had watered the cattle was rapidly swelling upward.

“It’s coming down by the bucketful!” Kate shouted.

Stevie held cupped hands out over Stewball’s neck. They were instantly filled. “Hey, look at this!” she called. “Too bad we don’t have shampoo!” She made lathering motions in Stewball’s soaked mane.

Suddenly Lisa’s horse slipped a bit as the earth underneath her gave way. Lisa and Chocolate scrambled up to
the flat part of the bank. The other riders moved up too. The stream was rapidly becoming a river, eating away what was left of the steep bank.

“It’s good we got the cattle out of there before the storm,” called Carole.

“I hope the Saddlebags get to see this!” Stevie shouted.

“Where are our parents anyway?” Carole cried, looking around. Walter had told them to ride for about thirty minutes, and it had been nearly an hour since they rode off. Suddenly Carole’s stomach turned over.

The current below had torn a small tree out of the bank by its roots and sent it floating downstream. Behind it, rushing toward them, was a big black cowboy hat with silver buckles and a leather strap.

“It’s my father’s hat!” Carole gasped. The hat snagged on the sapling, and white water bubbled and splashed around it.

“Oh, no,” Stevie cried as she gazed at the colonel’s bobbing hat. “Our parents must be in terrible trouble!”

I
N A PANIC
, Stevie looked all around. She had to get to Walter and John. Where were they? There was the herd—upland from the stream. To her relief, a second later, she spotted John heading back in the girls’ direction.

“We need help!” she shouted as soon as he was within earshot. “Our parents are missing!”

“Look!” Lisa pointed to the river and Colonel Hanson’s hat.

John’s face paled. “They haven’t come back yet?”

“No!” cried Carole.

“Let’s go,” John stated grimly. He turned and started riding upstream, along the bank.

Lisa gave Chocolate the signal to trot. He wouldn’t. She squeezed hard with her legs. He kept walking. “Go! Go!” she cried. She signaled him again, but he refused to speed up.

“Come on!” Stevie was saying to Stewball, but he wasn’t going any faster either.

“Footing’s too bad,” John called to them. “They can’t go faster.”

Even walking felt treacherous. With the rain pelting down on them, the riders pressed forward, looking upstream for any signs of the missing parents. Nothing met their eyes but the rushing water and rain.

Lisa kept her thoughts focused on Chocolate and managing the slippery terrain. She didn’t dare think about what might have happened to her mother and father. Together The Saddle Club and John would find the parents—they just had to.

Suddenly John stopped Tex and turned to the girls. “Look up there!” he shouted, pointing upstream.

Just around a curve in the river stood a small island. It was a tiny patch of land jutting out of the rushing water. It held two scraggly trees.

Also perched on the island, huddled together on their horses, were five terrified adults. And the water surrounding them was rising by the minute.

“Mom! Dad!” Lisa shouted.

But the grown-ups didn’t hear Lisa’s call. Mrs. Atwood was struggling to control a frantic Spot. Her hair was plastered to her face by the pouring rain. Yellowbird was backing and bucking under Colonel Hanson, and Mr. Lake’s horse, Melody, was nervously pawing the ground.

The other horses stood with their heads down, ears back, and the whites of their eyes showing. They were as frightened as their riders. Water streamed over their matted forelocks.

“Mom! Dad!” Lisa hollered again, waving. “Colonel Hanson!”

Mrs. Atwood finally spotted them and waved her arms frantically. “Help!” she shrieked. Spot was pulling on the reins, trying desperately to get off the tiny patch of land. Mrs. Atwood pulled back, but Spot kept stepping down the bank, slipping, then backing up again.

“Hold on to the pommel on the saddle, Mom!” Lisa shouted even louder. “Don’t worry! We’re coming to get you!”

John pulled his lariat out from under his poncho. It was still dry. Instantly he swung the rope over a boulder on a high ledge of the bank, farther upstream.

“Kate, make sure that end of the rope’s secure,” he called. “I’ll try to get the other end around that tree.” He pointed to one of the trees on the island.

“Lisa, come with me,” he continued. “We don’t know how deep this water is. The horses may have to swim. We need to start out upstream. Carole and Stevie, wait at the bottom of the bank here in case some of them get pulled by the current. You may have to ride out to catch them.”

Stevie nodded grimly. Then she and Carole picked their way down the bank of the river.

John launched the other end of the rope high into the air. It arced up through the rain and came down on the branch of a tree near Mr. Lake.

Mr. Lake reached up, grabbed the rope, and secured it tightly to the tree.

“Help!” Mrs. Atwood screamed. Spot’s eyes were wide, and his nostrils flared. His ears lay flat on his head.

Lisa watched in horror as the frightened horse plunged toward the raging water. “Hang on, Mom,” she cried. “John’s coming!” She didn’t know if her mother
heard her words. She only prayed her mother would know what to do.

In an instant John and Tex slid down the bank. Lisa watched in frozen terror. John leaned back in the saddle, and Tex slid straight down on his haunches. It was like the sliding stops she’d seen them do, only this time it wasn’t for show. It was to save her mother’s life. She tightened her grip on Chocolate’s reins.

When John and Tex reached the river, the water was up to Tex’s knees. Carefully John guided Tex into the currents, toward the downstream part of the island. Lisa could see him talking to the horse with every step, encouraging him, calming him, assuring him. Even so, they moved fast.

Lisa’s mother was trying to stay in her saddle and keep Spot from heading into the white water.

Lisa called again to her mother. “Don’t lean forward! Sit back, or you’ll fall off!”

Mrs. Atwood leaned forward more, straining to hear Lisa in the din of the pouring rain. Spot lurched forward. Lisa waved her arms. Then, realizing her mother couldn’t hear, she did the only thing possible. She leaned back in her saddle, trying to demonstrate her point.

Mrs. Atwood got it. She sat back in the saddle. Lisa sighed with relief Her mother stayed on.

John and Tex moved into the deeper water, which swirled around Tex’s shoulders. Then Tex began to swim. His head and neck stretched out and his body moved against the furious current. John guided him toward the island.

Lisa held her breath as Spot lunged forward and entered the swirling white water.

John grabbed Spot’s reins. “Here, give me those.” Then he looked Mrs. Atwood straight in the eye. “You’re going to be all right. Please stay calm. I’m going to lead you through the water, and your horse is going to start to swim. It might feel funny at first, but it’s the only way out of this alive. I’ll be leading you, and whatever happens, I won’t let go of the reins. But you have to stay on your horse. Do you understand? Hold the pommel of the saddle, and grip Spot with your legs.”

Lisa’s mother nodded silently. She looks exhausted, Lisa thought. I hope she can hang on.

Together John and Mrs. Atwood started moving toward the bank where Lisa was waiting. She could see that the water surrounding them was deep. Luckily, Spot
seemed to calm down the minute Tex started leading him, and he swam easily toward her.

“Oh!” Mrs. Atwood exclaimed. She and Spot glided along behind Tex and John, the horse’s head bobbing above the water.

As they approached, Lisa headed sideways down the slippery bank. Her mother seemed to be losing her balance. “Mom, lean forward now!” Lisa called. “John, she’s falling!” Mrs. Atwood sat forward and grabbed the saddle pommel.

The two horses finally reached the bank. John reached up and grabbed the rope he’d strung across the water. “Here,” he said, forcing it into Mrs. Atwood’s hand. “Use this to pull yourself up.”

Mrs. Atwood leaned forward and tried to pull herself along with the rope. But the saddle pommel gave her better leverage, so she went back to using it to stay on Spot’s back.

Finally, with tears and rain streaming down her face, Mrs. Atwood reached the spot where Lisa was waiting.

“Here.” John tossed Lisa the reins to her mother’s horse. “Take her up to the top, and then come back and give me a hand with the others.”

Lisa nodded. “It’s okay, Mom. You’re okay now,” she
said, choking back her own sobs. John pivoted around and slid back down into the water.

The island was being swallowed by water. The four parents remaining on the small plot of land were trying not to panic, but Carole could tell from her father’s face that he was very anxious. His expression grew even more frightened when Yellowbird whinnied and pawed at the mud, then started to buck.

When John reached the island again, he mounted the upstream banks and grabbed Yellowbird’s reins.

“Grab the pommel and sit back,” John yelled. “We’ve got no time to lose. Just follow me.”

Carole rode upstream, turned, and slid down into the water. She couldn’t just watch—she had to do something. She guided Berry against the current. When the horse’s feet left the ground and he started struggling against the current, she felt strangely suspended. But she had no time to think about it. John and her father were swimming toward her. John handed her Yellowbird’s reins, then turned Tex back around and headed toward the island.

“Come on, Dad,” said Carole, “we’re almost across.”

Their horses soon found footing on land again, and climbed up out of the water.

Back on the island, Mr. Lake seemed to have Melody under fairly good control. He headed next down the bank to meet John, sliding with rocks and mud and rain into the water.

But as he went, Melody slipped and tumbled on her knees. Mr. Lake let go of the reins and went right over her head, splashing into the water. He flailed his arms as the current spun him around and swept him downstream.

“Dad!” cried Stevie. She’d been waiting downstream. Now she pivoted Stewball and urged him down into the water.

Stewball plunged into the white foam. Water swirled around the tops of his legs and splashed into Stevie’s boots as the two of them moved into the deeper water. Mr. Lake was moving toward them.

Stevie whipped her poncho over her head and tossed one end to her father. He reached out to grab it, and Stevie held tight to her end with both hands.

Quickly she wrapped the poncho around the pommel of her saddle, then signaled Stewball with her legs. That was all he needed. The horse turned back to shore, carrying Stevie on his back and towing Mr. Lake behind them.

Without a poncho Stevie was drenched in a second. Rain streamed down her back. But she barely noticed. Every ounce of her concentration focused on clutching the poncho rope. Her father’s life depended on it.

Finally they reached the bank. Stewball started to climb up out of the river. Stevie stopped him and dismounted to pull her father up on shore.

Father and daughter collapsed in the wet rocks and mud.

“Dad, are you all right?” Stevie gasped.

“Yes,” he managed to say. “Thanks to you.”