Secret Horse (6 page)

Carole really hoped Red would write back and give her some advice. For some reason she felt as if Samson’s training rested on her shoulders. Stevie and Lisa would be a huge help, but they would defer to her. If they somehow messed up, if anything happened to Samson, it
would be her fault. She would have to explain to Max. She felt slightly sick. She had called the idea crazy in her letter to Red. Was it stupid and reckless as well?

S
IX-FORTY-FIVE
came before Carole could have believed it possible. Her only comfort came in knowing that two other alarms were going off in Willow Creek. Lisa would be hopping out of bed, too. Stevie, Carole thought with a chuckle, would probably hit the Snooze button a couple of times.

Carole washed and dressed in a fog. She gulped down some orange juice and grabbed a bagel on her way out the door. Carole was lucky in that her father had to be up early and could drive her to Pine Hollow even at this time of day. But in Carole’s opinion, Stevie and Lisa were even luckier. They lived close enough to the barn to walk there. It often happened that Carole would meet one of them on the drive over. This morning, spotting a sleepy form trudging along, Colonel Hanson called, “Hop in, Stevie, and save your energy!”

Stevie was glad to obey, even though she had only a hundred yards to go. “Are we really going to do this every day?” she asked Carole. “I might have to start drinking coffee! I haven’t felt like this much of a zombie since Halloween!”

Colonel Hanson chuckled and traded bad zombie jokes with Stevie.

As she listened absently, Carole made her mouth form a smile, but her eyes stayed serious. Stevie could guess why. The Saddle Club was about to embark on an incredibly ambitious project. A thousand and one things could go wrong. To comfort her friend, Stevie said, “We’ll get him tacked up and out there in no time, huh, Carole?”

Carole let out the breath she’d been holding. “You bet,” she said. Focusing on the matter at hand enabled her to relax a little. “We’ll take it one day at a time.” She gave her father a hug good-bye and followed Stevie into the barn.

As it turned out, they didn’t even have to tack up Samson. Lisa had beaten them to it. She was easing the horse’s bridle on as Carole and Stevie walked in.

“Wow, you
really
got here early,” said Stevie, impressed.

Lisa murmured something about setting her alarm for 5:45 by accident. “I got the right bridle this time. See, Carole?”

Carole nodded. “Yup. Looks good. So far I think we can keep him in the snaffle for jumping,” she said, referring to the mild type of bit Samson wore.

“I agree,” Lisa said. She wanted to make sure she had just as big a say in the decisions as anyone. She knew as well as Carole that there were many different kinds of bit—the mouthpiece of a bridle—for the many different
kinds of horses. Some bits were jointed in the middle, some were straight bars, some had a copper or rubber coating. But any bit was only as good as the hands that held it. A rider with “heavy” hands could ruin a horse’s mouth by pulling too roughly or leaning on the reins for balance. Then a horse could get a tough mouth and need a stronger bit. Samson had a nice soft mouth because he had been trained by skilled riders and had not been mishandled. “I agree,” Lisa said again. “Unless he gets strong over fences, the snaffle should work well.”

“Great,” said Stevie. “We all agree. Then let’s get out there.”

Before mounting up, Lisa stopped for a moment in the driveway to touch the good-luck horseshoe. Carole and Stevie followed suit. Putting her left foot in the stirrup, Lisa suddenly felt self-conscious. “Hey, I never asked. Do you guys mind if I ride today?”

“Are you kidding?” Stevie said. “I’m so tired I’d probably fall off.”

“Go ahead, Lisa,” Carole added. “I’d rather watch from the ground today.”

Lisa smiled with relief. The truth was, she felt a little sheepish. She had purposefully come to Pine Hollow early so that she could be the one to tack Samson up. And she’d been hoping that would naturally lead to her riding him. Her plan had worked, but it would
have worked in any case. All she’d had to do was ask.

C
AROLE STOOD IN
the middle of the ring calling out instructions. “Remember, you’re not riding Prancer,” she advised. “Samson’s going to need all the encouragement you can give him. Really sit down and settle him before each fence.”

“Sure thing!” Lisa called happily from on top of the black horse. Her heart felt as light as a feather. She concentrated on making the approach to a small upright jump about two feet off the ground. Samson hopped over it in stride, almost as if it weren’t there at all.

“Great!” Carole cried.

Lisa giggled. “After the brush, this must look like twigs to you,” she whispered. It looked like twigs to Lisa, too! She was so confident on Samson, she felt she could jump anything. She felt almost incapable of making a mistake.

“Okay!” Stevie yelled. “I raised the top pole three inches!”

Carole called Lisa into the center. “Don’t let the height bother you,” she instructed. “It won’t feel any different. Just think about the same basic points in your approach.”

Lisa tried to keep a straight face. But she couldn’t suppress a small laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Stevie asked, joining them.

“It’s just—on Samson, these little jumps feel like pick-up sticks,” Lisa admitted.

“That’s a great feeling,” Carole said. “But no matter how talented a horse is, you don’t want to rush him.”

Lisa nodded gravely. She could hardly admit to Carole that after the brush she was … well, a little bored with the two-footers.

Carole watched Lisa trot off. She knew exactly how Lisa felt. When a rider got on a great horse, it was human instinct to want to test the limits. But a horse wasn’t a car. Taken too fast, a green horse could sour, break down, go lame. The Macrae goal was going to be tough enough.

“How was that?” Lisa called.

“Good,” Carole said. She could have given one or two pointers to Lisa, but she didn’t want to be too bossy at this stage in the game. She knew Lisa would be sensitive to criticism. “I think by the end of this week we’ll be able to take him around a little course.”

Stevie stood up from the fence she was leaning against. “A course, huh? I hope I’m not on jump crew that day!” She wiped her face with the back of her hand. “I’m exhausted from fixing one jump!”

Though it was a hot Virginia morning, Lisa suddenly felt a chill run down her spine. In the elation of riding Samson, she had totally forgotten that she wouldn’t be
riding him every day. She reluctantly took her feet out of the stirrups, preparing to dismount.

“Want to walk him in the indoor ring?” Carole suggested.

Lisa nodded. “Sure.” What she really wanted to do, at that very moment, was go cantering off to the woods, far, far away, where she wouldn’t have to share Samson with anyone—not even her two best friends.

“I
KNOW WE
’
RE
all horse-crazy,” Stevie announced one morning a couple of weeks later, “but this is the horse-
craziest
!”

Collapsed on trunks in the tack room, Lisa and Carole had to agree. Since Red had been away, they had lived and breathed horses from sunrise to sunset, sometimes staying till after dark to finish the day’s tack. Lisa had arranged a schedule that incorporated Samson’s training (in the early morning when Max was busy in his office), riding their own horses (in the afternoon), helping Max and Denise, who was Red’s girlfriend and a part-time Pine Hollow employee, to exercise school horses and boarders (whenever they could fit it in), and doing a multitude of barn chores (morning, noon, and night).
They were all so busy during the day, and exhausted at the end of the day, that none of them had time to think. Lisa was glad. By throwing herself into the work at Pine Hollow, she had managed to forget about the Macrae—or at least her individual role in it. Instead she concentrated on the team effort: Project Secret Horse!

“You know, I fell asleep at dinner last night,” said Carole, stifling a yawn.

“I fell asleep
before
dinner,” Lisa responded. “My mom had to wake me up and drag me to the table.”

Stevie grinned. “I ate my dinner in bed!”

Carole balled up a stable rag and threw it at her. “The important thing is, the plan is working.”

“You’d better knock wood when you say that, Carole Hanson,” Stevie insisted.

Carole rapped the table in front of them. “There. Anyway, I meant the plan is working
so far.
I don’t think Max has a clue. Yesterday he asked me if we had found any time to ride Samson.”

“What did you say?” Lisa asked, delighted.

“I told him he’d been out a couple of times.”

The three of them giggled. In fact, Samson had been out every morning. The girls had taken turns riding him. Whoever wasn’t riding served as jump crew, dragging the heavy standards and poles into place and raising or lowering them as needed. Carole had fallen into the role
of supervisor of the sessions. She was good at planning a productive hour, and Lisa and Stevie were happy to let her pace Samson’s training. But they had contributed plenty of input as well.

Secrets aside, the training itself was going better than they had dared hope. It was going so well that the girls avoided discussing the subject in detail, afraid they would jinx it if they said anything positive. A superstitious feeling had seized all of them. They knocked wood and crossed and uncrossed their fingers.

“So what did you think of today’s ride?” Stevie inquired. From her nonchalant tone of voice, she might have been asking what time it was.

Lisa gestured to Carole to go first. “Oh, I thought he did fine,” Carole said in a bored voice. “You know—a few bugs to work out, but overall he was good. How ’bout you, Lisa?”

“Yeah, me too—same, I mean,” Lisa answered listlessly.

But when the girls stood up to go saddle their next mounts, they were all grinning madly. The truth was, with Stevie aboard, Samson had jumped a difficult course flawlessly. It was the test they’d been waiting for. At the back of their minds the girls knew what they didn’t dare say aloud: The Macrae was within their grasp.

A few minutes later, as they groomed two boarders on neighboring cross-ties, Carole brought up an idea she’d had. “I was thinking I ought to start riding Starlight in the mornings, too. That way we can school Samson and Starlight together,” she suggested.

“Great idea,” Stevie said. “When Samson gets further along, we could even have mini jump-offs.”

“That would be fun. And we can also …”

Lisa stood frozen, dandy brush in hand, as her friends discussed the idea. All at once her hopes—and fears—had come flooding back to her. If Carole was still hoping to ride Starlight in the Macrae, then maybe she, Lisa, was going to get to ride Samson! This could be it! Her chance to vault into the big leagues. Lisa glanced sidelong at Carole and Stevie. Inside her a voice cried out, “Just tell them! Tell them you want to ride Samson in the show and see what they think! It’s not like talking to Max. They’re your best friends!” But before she could summon up the courage, Stevie had mentioned stepping up Part B of the Project.

“What’s Part B?” Carole asked curiously. “I don’t remember Lisa putting that in the schedule.”

Stevie looked dramatically to her left and right. “Part B is the key to all successful surprise attacks,” she said in a stage whisper. “Spying on the competition!”

W
HEN
C
AROLE GOT
home that evening, she was exhausted. But not so exhausted that she forgot to run out and check the mailbox. Carole always got the mail. It was one of her favorite chores—and the
only
one she never had to be reminded about. Unlike Lisa, who kept in touch with several pen pals, both overseas and in the United States, Carole hardly ever got personal letters. But there was always the chance that one of her horse magazines had come, or a program for a horse show, or a bulletin from Horse Wise, the Pine Hollow branch of the United States Pony Club. So Carole opened the box hopefully. Tonight’s stack didn’t look too promising, however. There was nothing big, which meant no magazines. Her expectations low, Carole sifted through a stack of bills for her dad, two identical entries for a publisher’s sweepstakes, and a postcard reminding her that she was due for a dental checkup. She was about to shove the pile into her backpack when a letter fluttered out from between the two contest entries. It was addressed to her, and the return address was Old Stone Farm, Vermont. “Old Stone Farm!” Carole exclaimed. “That’s Toby MacIntosh’s place.” She ran toward the house, holding the letter aloft. “Hey, Dad! I got a letter from Red!”