Crazy Horse (6 page)

“How much snow has fallen since last night?” Lisa asked Charlie, her voice uneasy.

“Not much. Couple of inches.” He brushed against a branch. A heavy fall of frozen snow slid onto his yellow waterproof slicker, then hit the ground.

“But enough to hide hoofprints,” Lisa pointed out. She was looking in vain for the trail left by the rustlers the night before.

Up ahead on Lucky, Kirstie ignored them. Though the air was freezing, she felt hot and uncomfortable under her own plastic slicker, which Sandy had made her wear. It was probably anxiety that had raised her body temperature, she realized, because if she was honest with herself, the confidence she’d expressed before they set out had soon vanished, and now she shared Lisa’s doubts about picking up clues.

“Yeah, you can forget hoofprints,” Charlie agreed, examining the smooth, white covering of snow on the trail. They were approaching the level ledge of Hummingbird Rock in single file—Kirstie, then Lisa, then Charlie. “Look for other signs,” he warned.

“Like what?” Kirstie reached the ledge and stopped. From here, she had a clear view of the sweep of hills and valleys that surrounded their ranch.

“Like this broken branch.” Charlie pointed out the damage to a nearby pine. “That happened since we rode this way to Lazy B.”

Kirstie nodded eagerly. “I remember, this was the place where Crazy Horse put up a fight. I could see him kicking and fighting as they dragged him along the ledge. Hey, and here’s a flattened bush!”

Glad to see the obvious signs, she slipped from the saddle to examine the ground.

“Anything?” Lisa leaned sideways out of Jitterbug’s saddle. The sorrel mare stood quite still, listening intently to the unfamiliar, muffled sounds around.

“Nope. The ground’s frozen solid beneath the snow. There’s a hoofprint or two, but nothing much to go on…Hey, look at this!” Stooping under the bush, Kirstie reached until her fingertips made contact with a coil of rope which she’d spotted. She brushed off the snow, then held it up for the others to see.

“The guys last night must have dropped it,” Charlie said, taking it from her. “Leastways, it sure don’t belong to Half Moon Ranch.”

The rope was new and expensive looking, the natural fibers intertwined with distinctive threads of red and white. Kirstie realized that it matched the fancy bridle on one of the rustlers’ horses.

“We can take it to Sheriff Francini as evidence,” Lisa suggested.

Rodeo Rocky shifted and snorted. Like Jitterbug, he was on edge, swishing his black tail and flicking his ears. “OK, tie the rope to your saddle,” Charlie ordered Kirstie. “Let’s get the horses moving, see what we can spot from the ridge.”

So Kirstie remounted, and they moved on, from Hummingbird Rock along Meltwater Trail to Miners’ Ridge, looking all the time for more evidence of the rustlers’ track. At the ridge, they stopped again.

“Decision time,” Charlie insisted. “Do we follow the trail to Lazy B, or do we turn back and head for home?”

Kirstie glanced back the way they’d come, then down the steep, wooded slopes of Jim Mullins’s property. At the bottom of the valley, there were glimpses of the winding course of Horseshoe Creek running silver between dark rocks where the snow had melted. Down there, beside the stream, was the dirt road that led to Lazy B; possibly the route the thieves had taken during their escape with Cadillac and Crazy Horse. “Let’s find out what Jim knows,” she decided.

So they went gingerly on, taking their time on the icy surface, leaning back in the saddle as the horses picked their way. Even so, Jitterbug slipped and skidded into Lucky, who stood fast to save horse and rider from losing control on the steep descent.

“Close!” Lisa breathed as she pulled herself upright in the saddle, looking back at the scuffed, dirty snow where her horse had lost her footing.

“We’re almost at the road,” Charlie reassured them. This time, he and Rocky led the way until they reached the creek at the spot where they’d brought the four cows down from Wigwam Meadow the day before.

Without speaking, head down and collar up against the light, whirling snowflakes, Kirstie joined him and reined Lucky to the right, pressing on along the level road toward the cattle ranch.

But before she’d covered many feet, she heard Lisa’s voice calling from behind.

“Hey, what’s this bridge?”

Kirstie swung around to look over her shoulder. “What bridge?”

“Across the creek.” Lisa faced the other way, pointing to some rough wooden planks that spanned the banks. “I never knew this was here! Where does it lead to?”

“It’s new, I guess.” Never having noticed it herself, Kirstie turned to Charlie for an answer.

The wrangler nodded. “Wes Logan’s men put it up a couple of weeks back. That’s Ponderosa Pines land on the far bank. Logan wanted a bridge to bring cattle across and truck them out through Jim Mullins’s territory to join up with the San Luis highway. It’s a kind of shortcut for him.”

Kirstie frowned. She knew, as a rule, how jealously the ranchers guarded the boundaries of their own land. “How come Jim said it was OK?”

Charlie shrugged. “I reckon Logan had to pay for the privilege. And Jim would charge him plenty.”

“Never mind that now,” Lisa broke in. “The bridge is there, and it means there’s a chance that the horse thieves didn’t head down past Jim’s ranch house after all…”

“…Which is why Hadley says they all slept through the night without any disturbances!” Kirstie said.

“…Because they crossed the creek and took a way out to the road through Wes Logan’s place!” Lisa made her theory sound convincing. She was all for reining the horses to the left and taking up the new trail.

“Through Ponderosa Pines?” Kirstie trotted Lucky alongside Jitterbug. A suspicion began to gnaw away at her. “Or
to
it? Listen, what if the rustlers came this way, over the bridge, up onto the ridge, and down onto our land to steal Cadillac?”

“From Ponderosa Pines?” Charlie sounded uncomfortable. “That means Wes Logan was in on it. Is that what you’re saying?”

Kirstie nodded hard. “And I’ll tell you why. A couple of days back, Mr. Logan called my mom. He wanted to buy Cadillac for his wife to ride.”

“She said no?” Lisa picked it up fast. “So he gets mad. He decides he wants the horse anyway, sends his men out in the middle of the night…”

“No way!” Charlie wouldn’t listen to it. “Too risky. The guy would have to be crazy!”

Kirstie and Lisa sat side by side. “So?”

“So, Wes Logan is a straight-down-the-line, regular guy. He has a whole stack of horses, including a real beautiful white mare, San Luis Dawn, and enough dough to buy the whole remuda at Half Moon Ranch. Why would he back a crazy plan like that?”

The girls stared back at him with determined faces. They didn’t know the answers. They just had a gut feeling.

“Besides,” Charlie went on, “he wouldn’t make it so obvious. Why would he call your mom and bring up the fact that he badly wanted this horse?”

Lisa and Kirstie didn’t shift.

“It’s just too darn…obvious!” the wrangler insisted. He rode Rocky up and down the track, thinking, reluctant to believe it.

“You got a better idea?” Kirstie said at last.

Ponderosa Pines spread out before them. The ranch house was huge. It was surrounded by lawns, a tennis court, an open-air pool. The stables stood back from the house across an immaculate yard where several pickups and one big horse box were parked in a neat row.

“Wow!” Lisa took in the whole spread. “How much did this cost?”

“Millions,” Charlie replied. “Wes Logan built the pool before he moved in. He put in walkers and a round pen for the horses. The money he spent was the talk of San Luis County.”

“And we’re gonna ride in there with: ‘Say, Mr. Logan, did you by any chance steal our horses?’” Even Lisa’s nerve began to fail.

“Like, yeah,” Charlie grumbled through gritted teeth as they walked Rocky, Jitterbug, and Lucky toward the house.

“No, stupid!” Kirstie led the way. “We’re gonna ask him if they saw anything suspicious around here last night. We can watch how he reacts. If he looks guilty, we know we’re onto something.”

“Great,” Charlie mumbled. “Smart thinking, Kirstie!”

She turned her wide gray gaze on him, challenging him not to back out. “You ask, we’ll stay in the background.”

“
Me?
” The young wrangler was still arguing when a tall figure dressed in jeans and a light tan suede jacket came out of the house onto the porch. He waited there for the three riders to approach.

“Is that him?” Lisa hissed.

“Yep.” Kirstie had seen the rich rancher only once before, at a rodeo event in town. But she immediately recognized the thickset, broad-shouldered man with his light brown, wavy hair and clean-shaven, square features. Despite his good looks, he had the kind of face that didn’t seem attractive. It never gave anything away—was too set, expressionless, guarded.

“Looks like you had a tough ride.” He noted their dripping slickers, the soaked coats of their three horses. “Where did you come from?”

“Half Moon Ranch.” Charlie dismounted and introduced himself.

Kirstie studied the man’s face. No reaction. Or maybe just a flicker of his eyelids, a glance up at her and Lisa as he shook Charlie’s hand.

“We’re looking for a couple of our horses,” Charlie explained, deliberately laid-back. He took off his sodden leather gloves and tipped the brim of his hat back.

“You lost them?” Keeping to the shelter of the porch, Wes Logan folded his arms.

“Stolen,” Charlie said. “Last night, around midnight.”

The rancher sniffed. “That’s tough. You sure about that?”

“We saw the rustlers,” Kirstie told him. She tried to read his reaction, saw him drop his gaze then look sideways toward the stables, where a man was standing in a doorway. “They headed up onto Hummingbird Rock.”

“Which is why we’re asking you if you spotted anything not right,” Charlie went on. He was tensing up, sounding less casual than before. “They could’ve ridden over the ridge and down in this direction.”

Wes Logan shrugged. He seemed perfectly relaxed. “Not a thing. Sorry.”

Kirstie glanced at Lisa and frowned.

“No one rode by?”

“I told you, no. What did you lose, a couple of quarter horses?” The rancher’s manner suggested it could be no big deal.

“A quarter horse and a Thoroughbred. Good-looking horse, pure gray. The best we had.”

Don’t pretend you don’t know who we’re talking about!
Kirstie said to herself. She saw the moment as a test for Logan.

“I know him.” The rancher nodded briefly. If anything, his face went blanker than ever. “Nice horse. Put in an offer for him myself.”

“You don’t say.” It was Charlie’s turn to put on a show.

“Yep. Reckoned he’d be a good match for a horse of mine. You wanna see?” Without waiting for an answer, and with an unexpected burst of hospitality, Wes Logan invited them all across the yard to the stables. “San Luis Dawn is her name.”

“I heard of her,” Charlie said. Behind Logan’s back, he shrugged at Lisa and Kirstie, then gestured for them to dismount and follow.

“What’s he up to?” Lisa whispered as she tethered Jitterbug to a post in the corral.

“I don’t know, but I don’t trust him,” Kirstie breathed. She took off her slicker and slung it across Lucky’s saddle to save it from getting wet. Then the two girls ran after the men.

Inside the spacious, airy stables, the rancher was walking Charlie down a central aisle, pointing out the good points of this horse, then that. There were two men at work filling hay nets and raking out stalls. They took no notice of the visitors, keeping their backs turned and heads down. Finally, at the far end of the aisle, Wes Logan stopped and stood to one side.

“San Luis Dawn,” he said, his voice altering for the first time to include a note of pride.

They were looking into a stall containing a tall, elegant creature the color of cream on top of milk. Her white mane was long and silky, her dark eyes fringed with gray, her nose long and straight, her muzzle soft. She had neat ears pricked forward and a long supple neck.

“Cadillac’s double!” Lisa whispered.

“Do you like her?” There was a satisfied smile on the rancher’s face as he studied their reactions.

The horse inside the stall raised her head and whinnied. She stamped on the floor with a well-polished hoof and tossed her mane, inviting them to admire her.

“Fabulous!” Kirstie murmured. A horse this beautiful struck at her heart. “Out of this world. Amazing!”