Ghost Rider (10 page)

Who was that? Stevie’s heart jumped.

“Hello!”

Hello?

Her voice bounced back at her off the mountainside.

“Oh, swell,” Stevie said, disgusted with herself. “I’ve gotten so spooked that I’m fighting off branches and getting scared of a dumb old echo. Come on, Stewball. Let’s get back to work.” She took a deep breath and began singing again.

It wasn’t working. The singing didn’t make her feel any better, and she knew that Stewball could feel her tension right through the saddle. If Stevie had learned one thing about horses, it was that you couldn’t fool them. They knew when their riders knew what they
were doing. If they sensed uncertainty, they were likely to decide to take charge. Stewball began to prance restlessly. Stevie had to do something about that. She brought him up to a trot, and then, when they were on open and smooth land, she decided to let him lope. That would have the advantage of covering the distance faster and would let Stewball work out some knots.

At first Stewball seemed as glad as Stevie was to be going faster. Then something happened. A coyote howled. Two more joined it, and one of those was very close. No matter how well trained a horse was, he was still a creature of the wild, and in the wild a threatened horse had two choices: He could fight or he could flee. Most would flee. At night, unprotected by the presence of a herd, Stewball’s innate senses took over his domesticated side. He felt the immediate threat of the presence of a predator. His instinct left him no choice. He took off.

Stevie was totally unprepared for it. Suddenly the horse who had been loping along pleasantly was racing. The three-beat gait turned to a four-beat gait, and at that it was so fast it was almost indistinguishable from a one-beat gait. Stewball was really covering ground.

He veered off the trail, frantically seeking safety. He leapt over a small cactus, turned sharply around a rock, and fled. Through all this Stevie held on, trying
desperately to regain control of her horse. She lost a foothold in one of her stirrups and couldn’t tighten up on the reins. With every step she came closer and closer to falling off. When Stewball took another turn to the right and shifted immediately to the left, further spooked by some unseen danger, that was it for Stevie. She flew up and out of the saddle and landed smack on her bottom. It hurt like crazy, but she was too angry to cry. All she could do was watch the retreating rear of her very frightened horse.

When the dust settled, she stood up, wiped her seat tentatively, decided it was going to be a good thing she wouldn’t have to look at the bruise she was sure to have, and began walking. She didn’t sing this time. She just grumbled.

“Here I am, in the middle of nowhere, walking when I should be riding, heading for Christine’s house, so I can see if I can find somebody who will drive me back to the fair. All because I forgot to call earlier and because the phones weren’t working right and there is a little child back at the high school who is going to be the happiest kid in town if and when I get back with the dollhouse, but I don’t know if I can, except that just knowing some child is going to own that makes me want to keep on walking in spite of the fact that my stupid horse …”

She went on like that. It kept her focused on what
she was really doing, but it didn’t change the fact that she wasn’t exactly thrilled with the circumstances. It also kept her mind off the spooky things that had bothered her before—the owl and the branch and her own Halloween-y thoughts.

“… and I don’t know what I’ll do if Mr. Lonetree isn’t there, but somehow I’ll find a way because, after all, my friends and I have traveled a couple thousand miles to be able to do this, so how could I possibly give up when I’m within about a half …”

A noise.

“Oh, come on, Stevie. The night is full of noises. Is this another echo scaring you?”

There it was again. She stopped.

It wasn’t an echo, but when she listened to it, she wished it were. She wished it were an owl screeching or a witch or a vampire or any of a dozen imaginary things that had frightened her before, because this wasn’t imaginary. This was real. This was dangerous. It was a rattlesnake.

Stevie had heard them before. She’d even seen them. She’d seen one kill. She froze, aware that the slightest movement could attract the snake’s attention. She waited.

The sound came again. But where was it coming from?

There were several rocky places right around her as
well as a bush, any one of which could be hiding the viper.

Again, she heard it. Was it to the right? Or was it from straight ahead? Or was it that it came from the left, but the sound bounced off the rocks to the right? Nearby? Far? Would it strike? Would it hurt? Would it kill?

Terror took over. Stevie had never felt anything like it. She had nowhere to turn and no hope for escape. The terror filled her heart and her lungs. She gasped for breath, and when she got it, she screamed, long, loud, and hard. When she was done, she screamed some more, hearing only the echo of her own voice—and the rattle, constant, now drumming in her ears. Where? When?

Then there was another sound. It was the sound of hoofbeats. Stewball?

Stevie’s eyes flicked upward. It wasn’t Stewball. It was the stallion with the nick in his ear. There was a rider on his back, cloaked in white. A long and strong arm reached out to her. She reached up. In a smooth motion she was drawn up behind the rider and they flew across the desert, away from the snake, away from all danger.

Stevie clung to the rider with all her strength, not speaking a word. She couldn’t have, anyway. She couldn’t even utter a thank-you. She was shaking too
hard. She could still hear the rattles. She could still hear the tones of her own screams echoing off the hills.

The stallion drew to a halt in front of the Lonetrees’ house. Stevie dismounted, took a deep breath, and tried to think how she could thank John for being there just when she needed him the most. But the horse and rider turned and rode off, as quickly as they had come, without saying a word. Stevie shook her head and promised herself she would thank him the next time she saw him. For now, though, all she could do was look at that shiny white cloak he wore with the beautifully embroidered eagle on the back. John really did love practical jokes—he must have borrowed the cape Mrs. Lonetree had made for Christine so his outfit would be perfect for the part.

A night breeze cut across the land then. Stevie shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. That was when she remembered that
she
was wearing Christine’s white cloak—and the eagle on Christine’s cloak was painted, not embroidered with feathers. If the rider was John, this wasn’t just a hoax, it was a very elaborate hoax. And if it wasn’t John, just who—or what—was it?

“S
TEVIE
? I
S THAT
you?”

The words gave Stevie a start. Then she realized it was Mr. Lonetree.

“Yes,” she said, still confused by what had happened.

“I was looking for you. Your horse showed up here a few minutes ago, and then Christine called. She said something about the phones being broken for a while. Anyway, I’m glad you’re safe. What happened?”

Now
there
was a question.

It took Stevie a while to pull all of the pieces together and to tell the story of her ride across the countryside without making herself sound like a fool or a fraidy cat. When Mr. Lonetree asked her how she’d
gotten away from the rattlesnake, and assured her that she wasn’t a fool or a fraidy cat to have been frightened by that snake, she found herself telling him about the silvery stallion Kate wanted to adopt and its connection to the story John had told the girls in the bunk-house that night.

“Yes, the tale of White Eagle,” Mr. Lonetree said. “I know it well. It’s a story our people have told for generations. Nobody quite believes it’s true, but everybody loves the tale.”

“It’s so romantic!” Stevie said. “I guess John was just trying to tell us a romantic eerie story for Halloween.”

Mr. Lonetree looked confused. “Never would have thought of that story as eerie,” he said.

“You might if you were thinking of owning the horse,” Stevie told him. “We thought he made it up just to keep Kate from owning the stallion.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Lonetree. “I wouldn’t have thought of it that way. See, to our people the traditional idea of ownership is very different from the way the Europeans who settled the land of America saw it. To us, all animals and land are something we have the honor to use for a while, but never own. Oh, sure, in America of the twentieth century, I have a deed for my property and a title to my car, but it’s contrary to our tradition. I’m sure John Brightstar feels the same way. Even if one does ‘own’ a wild animal, it’s not ownership in the
sense you mean. I doubt he was trying to keep Kate from owning the stallion. I suspect he was rather saying that no matter what, she couldn’t. Besides, Stevie, you and I are forgetting for a moment that it’s just a story.”

“Maybe,” Stevie agreed reluctantly.

“Hey, we’ve got to get you back to the high school along with the dollhouse. Let’s put your horse in the back of the van so you’ll have transportation home—by the roadway, if you please.”

“I promise,” she said without hesitation.

T
HE MINUTE
S
TEVIE
walked into the party with the dollhouse, there was a hush. And then there was a rush. Everybody in the place wanted to make more guesses about the number of candies in the jar. She had a line of children following her before she could even get to the table. She wanted to tell her friends about what had happened out on the desert, but it would have to wait. Right now they couldn’t take the twenty-five-cent tickets and hand out the guess slips fast enough. It was wonderful!

They even ended up agreeing to let the children put in guesses half an hour longer than they’d originally intended, just to make sure everybody who wanted to could enter the contest. Finally, when the last child had filled out the last slip, she took the jar of candies
and the box of guesses out of the main room and went in search of a quiet place where she could sort all the entries and find the one or more that had the right number. The correct answer was known only to Phyllis Devine, who had written it on a piece of paper, put it in an envelope, and placed it at the bottom of the jar. Stevie thought that maybe she’d have to eat a lot of the candies in order to get to it, too.

The most quiet and private spot around was the horror house, which had been shut down. She entered, turned on some lights, and pulled up a chair to the table where the peeled grapes and cold pasta had been so terrifying to little visitors so recently. They didn’t look particularly frightening in the light. Nor did they look appetizing. Stevie emptied the bowls in a nearby garbage can and went to work.

“H
OLD THE LADDER
steady now,” John said from above.

“Don’t worry,” Lisa assured him. “I got plenty of practice at it when you were putting the crepe paper
up
. I don’t think I’ve lost all my skills now that you’re taking it down.”

“Thanks,” he said, dropping a large handful of crepe paper on the floor. Lisa scooped it up and put it in the garbage, all without letting go of the ladder.

Although other parts of the fair were continuing, the horror house was closed for the season, and the two of them had appointed themselves the committee to take it apart. It was a lot easier than putting it all together, and it seemed like a nice way to finish the
day. At last it was relatively quiet, and there, in the small rooms they’d made for the horror house, it was even a little cozy—if you didn’t mind crepe paper drifting down from above every once in a while.