Summer Rider (5 page)

“Building what?” Stevie asked. “Who authorized this?”

Bill shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I’m not the foreman. I just follow orders.”

“Is the foreman here?” Stevie asked.

“Nope,” Bill said. “You just missed him—he was in the car that just left. Now if you’ll excuse me, we’ve got to push on.”

Stevie stepped out of the road as Bill climbed back into
the bulldozer’s cab and put the machine into gear. A moment later the whole line of construction equipment was on the move again.

Stevie found her friends waiting for her a short distance down the trail. “What’s going on?” Carole asked as Stevie mounted.

“I don’t know,” Stevie said. She reported what Bill had said.

Lisa glanced at her watch. “We’d better head back,” she said. “We don’t want to be late.”

The girls started riding back toward camp. “Do you think this is more of Moose Hill’s improvements?” Carole asked. The camp had had some additions made to its grounds that year, including new cabins and tennis courts.

Stevie shook her head. “The field he was talking about must be a good three or four miles from the main part of camp,” she said. “That’s too far away to be building anything.”

“Then what are they doing here?” Lisa asked.

“That’s what I intend to find out,” Stevie replied grimly.

A
FEW MINUTES
later the girls were knocking on the door of Barry’s office. It opened and Barry peered out. “Girls?” he said. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be in your riding classes?”

“We have a few minutes before they start,” Stevie replied.
“Right now we need to ask you a question. What are those bulldozers doing out in the woods?”

Barry frowned. “Bulldozers? You saw bulldozers?”

Carole nodded. “They were driving down the fire road that crosses the west trails.”

Barry was beginning to look angry. “I can’t believe it,” he muttered. “They shouldn’t be there yet.”

Yet?
The three girls exchanged glances. What did he mean?

Barry stomped over to his desk and picked up the phone. He dialed a number, then waited, tapping his foot impatiently. He seemed to have forgotten about the girls. Stevie took that as an invitation and led the way into the office.

Finally someone on the other end of the line picked up the phone. “Hi, this is Barry from Moose Hill,” Barry said. “I just heard the equipment is in the woods here already. I can’t have my campers out there running into—” He stopped and listened to what the other person was saying. “I see. Well, I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit. And I don’t understand how a few days is going to make that much difference. The session is over in a week and a half, and then—” He paused again. “Well, all right. But they’d better not start working until the session ends and the deal is signed.” With that, he slammed down the phone without saying good-bye.

Stevie waited for what she felt was a respectful amount of time. But when Barry still didn’t seem to notice The
Saddle Club standing there, she cleared her throat. “Ahem. Is there something you’d like to share with us?”

Barry looked up, startled. “Oh! I forgot you were here,” he said. “I guess there’s no point in lying to you.” He took a deep breath. “Moose Hill is being sold.”

The three girls gasped. “What?” Carole cried. “What do you mean, sold? Who bought it? What are the bulldozers for?”

Barry rubbed his temples as if his head hurt. “It’s kind of a long story.”

Stevie sat down in one of the chairs by Barry’s desk. “We have time,” she said. Actually, their riding classes were starting in five minutes, but Stevie had the feeling that this story was worth being late for.

“All right.” Barry waved a hand at the other chairs. “Have a seat, girls.”

Carole and Lisa sat down. As she waited for Barry to begin, Carole found herself clutching the arms of the chair so hard that her fingers hurt. She forced herself to relax.

“I’ll give you the worst news first,” Barry said, sitting down behind his desk. “The camp—or, rather, the land it’s on—is about to be sold to a development group. They’re planning to knock down the camp and build a community of luxury recreational time-shares.”

Even Stevie was speechless. This was a million times worse than the most outrageous of her theories had been.

Barry nodded at the horrified looks on the girls’ faces. “Believe me, I know exactly how you feel,” he said softly.
“I’ve been working here for ten years, you know. This place is my second home.” He sighed. “Unfortunately, the owners aren’t quite as attached to it.”

“The owners?” Lisa repeated. Somehow, none of them had ever thought about who owned Moose Hill. It hadn’t really seemed important—until now. “Who are they?”

“A pair of brothers, Joe and Fred Winter,” Barry said. “They’re getting on in years now, and they’re starting to think about retiring. The camp hasn’t made much of a profit lately, so it made sense for them to sell it. The trouble is, the first buyer to turn up was these developers.” He sighed again. “They offered the Winters enough money to let them retire in style.”

Stevie was trying to figure out what all this meant, but her brain seemed to be working in slow motion. “Couldn’t they find any buyers who wanted to keep it as a camp?” she asked.

Barry shook his head. “Not for the kind of money the developers are offering. As I said, Moose Hill hasn’t been a big moneymaker lately.”

“But how is that possible!” Carole cried. Her knuckles were hurting again, but she hardly noticed. “It’s such a wonderful place! How could it not make money?”

For the first time, Barry smiled. “I’m glad you feel that way,” he said, and the girls could tell he really meant it. “Actually, there’s no reason it couldn’t turn a nice profit, but the brothers are really only interested in a quick fix.
It’s not their only investment, and I guess they’ve been more involved with some of their other businesses. They forgot that this one also needed some attention. For instance, until this year they hadn’t raised prices since before I got here. And the staff was getting so big there for a while that the payroll was eating up what money did come in.”

“And you had to build the new stable when the barn burned down,” Carole said, remembering the fire that had destroyed the old-fashioned barn that had been there on The Saddle Club’s first visit to Moose Hill.

“Keeping horses here year-round for a summer-only business must be kind of expensive, too,” Lisa put in.

Barry nodded. “Right on both counts,” he said. “But keeping the horses year-round is one thing I wouldn’t want to change. If we just rented horses while camp is in session, we wouldn’t be able to guarantee their quality.” He shook his head. “Still, we had to sell some of them this winter. That was tough.”

“Like Basil, right?” Carole said, remembering the horse she had ridden during her first stay at camp.

Barry nodded. “Once the brothers realized we were signing up a lot of kids who were bringing their own horses this year, they decided to sell off some of our own animals.”

Carole and Lisa nodded sympathetically, but Stevie was thinking about something else. “You said keeping horses
year-round is one thing you wouldn’t change,” she said. “Does that mean there are other things you think
could
be changed—you know, to make this place more profitable?”

“Sure,” Barry said. “I have lots of ideas. For instance, I think when the brothers raised the prices this year, they went a little
too
far.”

“Definitely,” Carole murmured ruefully. The sky-high boarding fees had been the reason she hadn’t enrolled Starlight for the first two weeks.

“There are lots of things we could be doing,” Barry said. “I even talked to my brother about my ideas—he’s an accountant. He thinks this could be a moneymaking business.” He grimaced. “Unfortunately, the brothers haven’t let me implement any of the changes I suggested, even though profits have been sagging more and more every year.”

Carole shook her head in amazement. She knew as well as anyone that any venture involving horses was bound to be expensive. Still, she found it hard to believe that the camp they all loved was such a financial failure.

Barry went on. “Finally, last year, the Winters went through a phase where they thought they were going to fix this place up and make it work. I had hoped that meant they would listen to my ideas. But they didn’t—they just fired half the staff, then threw up a few new cabins and built some tennis courts and expected that to do the trick. I guess I was hoping it would, too. I even convinced them to run this monthlong session this year, figuring it might
make a difference in the profits.” He rubbed his temples again. “But when the Winters saw the numbers coming in, they decided it wasn’t worth it to them anymore. All they wanted to do after that was unload the whole place, and none of my great financial ideas could change their minds.”

“Maybe you should try talking to them again,” Stevie urged. “You know, explain what a gold mine Moose Hill really is …”

“Sorry, Stevie,” Barry said quietly. “It’s a little late for that. The deal is almost final.”

“Almost?” Stevie repeated.

Barry shrugged. “All but the final papers. Fred Winter told me they’re hoping to finalize everything in the next couple of weeks. And as you saw, the new owners are eager to begin construction right away.” He shook his head. “I still can’t believe this place will be gone by the end of the summer.”

Carole thought she saw tears in his eyes, though he managed to keep them under control. She wasn’t sure she was going to be able to do the same. It didn’t seem possible that Moose Hill could be closing. They had never really talked about it, but Carole had always assumed that The Saddle Club would continue to come here every summer until they went away to college—maybe even after that. Now those happy plans were ruined. It seemed so unfair.

Stevie was too upset even to think about crying. She
knew what her mystery was all about now, and she didn’t like it one bit. The men in the black car had obviously been with the developers who were buying the camp. One of them had been the mysterious figure she and Carole had seen in the woods, too. And Barry’s recent moodiness now made perfect sense.

Lisa was upset, too, but she felt as though she could hardly take in this new information. Her mind was already so filled with the things she had to do before the end of camp this year that she was afraid her head would explode if she started thinking about next year.

Barry stood up. “You girls had better get going,” he said. “I’m afraid I’ve made you late for your classes. Just tell your instructors you were with me.”

Stevie had almost forgotten that they were supposed to be in class. How could they even think about learning at a time like this?

Barry started to show them out of the office, then stopped them. “Listen, I’d really appreciate it if you could keep this information to yourselves,” he said. “I haven’t even broken the news to everybody on the staff yet, and I’d hate to ruin the campers’ good time.”

The Saddle Club nodded numbly. As Stevie hurried out of the rec hall with her friends, she was still having trouble thinking clearly about anything. One thought had seemingly taken over and was echoing through her mind: Could this really be the end of Moose Hill Riding Camp?

T
HE GIRLS MANAGED
to keep Barry’s secret until halfway through dinner that evening. It was easy at first—the news was so bad that for a while they hadn’t even felt like discussing it with each other. But by dinnertime the shock had worn off and it seemed almost impossible not to talk about it. Still, they kept quiet, since Phil and Todd were sitting with them.

Once again, the boys were discussing their plans to ride away with all the ribbons at the horse show. “Okay, so if you win the blue in dressage and I win the red, who’s going to take third place?” Todd asked Phil, giving Stevie a mischievous look out of the corner of his eye.

Phil shrugged and shoveled a huge bite of lasagna into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed quickly. “They’ll probably just decide to retire the other ribbons, since we’ll
be so clearly superior to everyone else,” he replied. “And I do mean
everyone.
”

Stevie knew that the boys were just joking around again, but she definitely wasn’t in the mood tonight. “For your information, that’s not all they’ll be retiring around here soon,” she snapped. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she realized what she had done. “Oops.”

“Oops?” Phil said. He put down his fork and gave her a sharp look. “What do you mean, ‘oops’? Spill it, Stevie.”

Stevie gave Carole and Lisa a panicky glance. But Carole just shrugged. “You might as well tell them,” she said. “We’ll go crazy if we try to keep it to ourselves. We can trust them.”

Stevie nodded, relieved. She had been dying to tell Phil the news all through the meal. After a glance around to make sure nobody else was close enough to hear, she told the two boys the whole story.

Phil and Todd were as horrified as the girls had been when they had heard the news. “We can’t just sit back and let this happen!” Phil declared, waving his arms and almost knocking over his water glass.