Western Star (13 page)

“Westerly,” she whispered to herself.

She knew what she was looking at. She was looking at horse thievery.

But where were the men? She scanned the property. She could see tire tracks leading from the shack to a road that wound out of the valley. Next to the shed was a bare patch on the ground. A pickup must have been parked there during the snowstorm.

It was time to report. Stevie scrambled down the hill as fast as she could.

“They’re there!” she said.

“The thieves?” Gary asked.

“No, the horses. All of them. There are about fifty of them crammed into one little corral. The horses those two guys were riding on Sunday are there, too, outside the corral. But the guys aren’t there. I think they had a car and they’ve gone into town or something. I’ll tell you one thing. That corral is as full as it could possibly be. Whatever those men are up to, they’ve got all the horses they can steal. Sure as anything, they’re going to move
them out of here soon. We don’t have a second to waste.”

“To do what?” asked Gary, who had paled visibly during Stevie’s breathless report.

Stevie blinked at him. “Why, to steal them back!”

S
TEVIE TOOK
S
TEWBALL
’
S
reins from Kate and climbed into her saddle.

“Let’s go!” she declared.

“Whoa, whoa,” said Kate. “Shouldn’t we have a plan or something?”

“But we do,” Stevie said. Only Stevie Lake could have made such a declaration. It was typical for her to have a plan in mind and just assume that everybody else had thought of exactly the same one.

“Why don’t you tell us what it is?” Kate asked patiently.

“Sure,” said Stevie. “First we ride down to the corral. Next we open up the gate. Then I go in on Stewball, the
best cutting and herding horse west of the Hudson River. We’ll shoo all the horses out into the open, and the rest of you guys herd them up this hill and back to Bar None land.”

Lisa always got nervous when Stevie’s plans were this simple and straightforward. “What about the thieves?” she asked.

“How could I forget?” Stevie responded. “Naturally, we have to take their horses, too. They’ve gone somewhere in a pickup truck or a Jeep or something, but the only way they’ll be able to follow us is by horse because the terrain is so rough. All we have to do is be sure they don’t have horses to do that with.”

It
was
simple. The Saddle Club girls looked at one another. Nobody looked at Gary.

“Why not?” Christine asked, shrugging. They all nodded in agreement.

“Yiii-haaaaa!” Stevie called out, spurring Stewball to action.

The riders began the trek up the side of the hill as fast as they could safely go.

Lisa felt exhilarated. They were actually doing battle against horse thieves. Stevie’s enthusiasm was contagious. Even Chocolate seemed to feel it. His head bobbed up and down as he clambered up the hillside. He took a deep breath at the top of the hill and began trotting down into the valley, lifting his legs high as he kicked up
snow. It was as if the horses knew that they were on a rescue mission.

Carole’s jaw dropped when she saw the fifty horses crammed into the little corral.
How could they
do
that?
she thought. She despised any cruelty to animals, but most especially horses, and this definitely qualified as cruelty. She wouldn’t even let herself think about what the thieves had planned for the horses in the near future.

Berry snorted and shook his head. His gait became surer and faster and he whinnied to the horses in the corral.

The riders didn’t need speak to one another. It was clear exactly what had to be done. Kate and Lisa stationed themselves by the gate of the corral. Carole and Christine waited farther away, creating a sort of chute for the horses once they were released. Gary, for once, did the right thing. He went to the far side of the corral so that he could help Stevie shoo out the horses from the outside.

Stevie opened the gate. It turned out that the horses didn’t have to be told to escape. They were eager to get out of their cramped quarters. The minute the gate opened, a flood of horses burst out of the corral. Kate, Lisa, Carole, and Christine were ready for them.

The girls all had some experience at herding cattle. Horses, they found, were something else. The horses
were frightened from being cooped up. They fled, and they didn’t all flee in the same direction.

Stevie watched the horses racing out of the corral in front of her. She chased the last of them out of their prison and then paused long enough to unhitch the gray and the bay with white feet. She gave each a tap on the flank, and they took off with the rest of the horses.

Most of them did just what they were supposed to do. They went up the bank of the hill, headed toward home and safety. Six, however, didn’t get the idea. They took off down the valley. Deep snow sprayed up in front of them as they galloped. It was a magnificent sight, but it was a route that was going to get them, and everybody else, into a lot of trouble.

As she watched the horses, something else caught Stevie’s eye. She stood up on her stirrups to be sure she was seeing correctly. Unfortunately, she was. Coming along the valley by the road parallel to the creek, was a pickup—just the same size as the bare patch next to the cabin. Stevie didn’t stop to figure the odds. She just knew: It was the horse thieves. They were still far away—too far to see what was going on, but they were moving fast. Stevie figured she had less than three minutes to get the strays up over the crest of the hill before the day turned nasty.

“Come on, Gary!” she said. “Help me! We’ve got to get the strays!”

Stevie didn’t even bother to look over her shoulder to see if Gary was following her. She knew what she had to do, and she was riding the best cutting and herding horse in the world.

Stevie never understood the instincts that drove Stewball, but she knew she could rely on him absolutely. She gave him a kick and aimed him toward the fleeing strays. It was all the explanation the horse needed.

For each elegant stride the strays took, Stewball took two. Stevie held on for dear life, wondering where this horse got his energy. Snow flew up around her in clouds, exploding upward each time Stewball took stride.

Without any signal from Stevie, Stewball figured that what he had to do was get to the right of the horses and force them off to the left. That would take them uphill and to safety, even if it meant they’d still have a long ride to join up with the others.

The horse in the lead of the strays was a stallion. That meant that the mares who were trailing him would go wherever he went.
Good news, bad news
, Stevie thought. Good news if the stallion could be convinced to go where Stewball was telling him. Bad news if he had an independent streak.

Stewball drew up to the stallion and pressed forward and to the left, trying to push him up the hill. The stallion did have a streak of independence.

In the distance, Stevie could see the pickup approaching.
Soon they’d know something was up. Stevie had to do something.

She grabbed the lariat off the horn of her saddle, loosened the noose, and began swinging it in the air. Soon it was making big, lazy circles.

Stevie had learned to lasso cattle on her first trip to the Bar None. She
could
do it—as long as her horse wasn’t moving and the steer was standing still. Trying to rope a galloping stallion from the saddle of a galloping gelding was another thing altogether.

She took aim, crossed her fingers, closed her eyes, and let the rope fly. It arced through the cold winter air. Almost as if in slow motion, the noose shimmered and wobbled across the expanse. Stevie opened her eyes, held her breath and watched. The lopsided noose tumbled awkwardly downward and landed in the snow. She’d missed the stallion by more than ten feet!

But the movement of the snaking, flying rope had startled the stallion, and he instinctively shied from it. He ran straight up the hill and over the crest into the meadow beyond. The mares followed him obediently.

It wasn’t exactly what Stevie had had in mind, but it worked. Stevie and Stewball chased them up the hill.

As soon as they were over the top the herd and their rescuers were out of immediate danger. The returning horse thieves might know where they’d gone, but without their own horses they were powerless to stop
them. To be on the safe side, The Saddle Club kept the stolen horses moving toward home at a fast clip for another fifteen minutes. By then Stevie and her group of six runaways had rejoined the rest of the herd. The horses were ready to stop galloping and cantering. They welcomed a comfortable walk.

“Nice work!” Kate said to the group.

“We’re wonderful!” Stevie announced unashamedly. She leaned down and gave Stewball a pat on the neck.

“Most of us, anyway,” said Christine. “And speaking of him, where’s Gary? I thought he was with you, Stevie.”

“I thought he was, too,” she said. She drew Stewball to a halt and then turned to look over her shoulder.

Someone was visible on the horizon behind her. She shaded her eyes. It was Gary. He was waving to them.

They all stopped and waited for him to catch up. He arrived breathless a few minutes later.

“I thought you’d want to know,” he said. “That truck. It wasn’t the guys.”

“Thanks for telling us,” Kate said.

“They just kept on driving right past the cabin. They didn’t even slow down,” Gary said.

“Then let’s get these horses out of here and hope that darkness—or another load of snow—will hide their trail before the men get back,” Carole said. She nudged Berry into action. The other riders followed and soon the herd
of horses was moving again—on its way to home and safety.

Now that they were on their way back to the ranch, the ride became pleasant. The hard parts were all done. They’d found the herd, they’d rescued it, and they had it all going in the same direction. They could relax a bit.

“What was with Gary back there?” Christine asked Stevie in a low voice. “I thought he was with you.”

“I think I’m going to give up trying to figure out Gary Finnegan,” Stevie said.

“A good thing, too,” said Carole. “When you really could have used a hand, he decided he was more useful sitting in the saddle at the top of the hill watching cars!”

“Actually, Carole, I think he
was
more useful watching cars than he would have been rounding up strays,” Stevie said wryly.

The truth of that statement overwhelmed Carole. She couldn’t help herself. She burst out laughing.

To cover Carole’s guffaws, Stevie began singing, “ ‘I’m a-headin’ for the last roundup!’ ”

As she had suspected, that made Gary begin to sing too. Stevie let him take over. Singing was the one thing he really did well.

B
Y THE TIME
they neared the Bar None, the young riders had figured out what they were going to do—eat. It was almost four-thirty, the sun was setting, and they hadn’t had a bite all day. They had also decided they would put the stolen herd into the large paddock by the Bar None and keep the horses there overnight. They could be sorted out the next day when there was enough light to identify the brands. For now the herd was safe, and that was all anybody needed to know.

The horses followed their rescuers into the paddock and eagerly accepted the grain and hay the girls brought out for them. By the time the girls were done tending the horses, many of them were beginning to
doze on their feet. The girls were ready for some of the same.

“Kate Devine! What’s going on here?” Phyllis asked, running out from the kitchen. “Where have you been? What are you doing with all these horses? These aren’t all ours! I’m sure I saw the Westerlys’ brand on one. And look, that’s the brand from the Double L! Why have we got their horses in our paddock?”

“It’s a long story, Mom,” Kate said. “And I think if you’ll find something to feed us, we’ll be able to tell you everything.”

“Between bites,” Stevie said. She didn’t want any misunderstanding about exactly what was going to come first. She also didn’t think anybody would be able to hear anything she had to say over her rumbling stomach.