Horse Whispers (5 page)

At that moment Stevie spun around, waving the apron. “Hey, Lis’! Here’s your red flag!” she shouted. Then she stopped dead in her tracks. Kate’s mother was standing in the doorway with Carole behind her. Carole was trying very hard to keep a straight face but was only partly succeeding. Stevie felt flour cascading down her back.

Lisa looked up at her imploringly.

“Oh, hello,” Stevie said nonchalantly. “We were just, you know, making a nice, simple, one-crust pie.”

P
HYLLIS STARTED LAUGHING
so hard, tears ran down her face. “I wish I had my camera!” she cried. “This is one for the ranch scrapbook!”

As she went on cracking up, Lisa sniffed. “All we were trying to do was make a pie!”

“Yeah—we were going to surprise you,” Stevie mumbled. The two of them were embarrassed beyond belief.

“I have to say, I admire your spunk,” Phyllis said when she had managed to stop guffawing. “But next time, wait for me, okay?”

Stevie and Lisa nodded shamefacedly.

“Hey!” Phyllis said. “Why the hangdog expressions?
Come on, let’s get this place whipped into shape. Do you mind?” She pointed to her apron.

“Oh, ah, no, not at all,” Stevie said, relinquishing the “red flag.”

Phyllis swiftly tied it on. “We’ve got dinner to prepare. I’m serving vegetable soup and I need two choppers.”

“I’ll help you guys clean up,” Carole volunteered. Crossing in front of her friends, she couldn’t hold back a giggle.

“Watch it, Hanson,” Stevie growled. “This pie-making isn’t as easy as it sounds.”

“Yeah,” Lisa added. “Have you ever tried making a crust?”

“Once,” Carole said. “Dad and I ended up looking just like you. Now we always buy ready-made crusts.”

“Say, Carole,” Phyllis said, “I’ll bet you’re hungry. I saved some lunch for you. It’s right here in the oven.” She reached for the oven door.

Too late Stevie realized what they had done. “Oh, no!” she cried. “We forgot—!” A huge cloud of black smoke poured out. Warily Phyllis held up a plate of charred food. Carole’s leftovers were burned to a crisp.

Knowing they couldn’t sink any lower, Lisa mumbled, “We turned the oven up to preheat it for the crust.”

“Yeah,” Stevie added. “Unfortunately, the crust never reached the oven stage. So we, uh, cooked your grilled cheese for about an hour and twenty minutes.”

Phyllis put the plate down on the stove. She reached up to turn on the oven fan. “I think maybe tomorrow we’ll learn how to boil water,” she said dryly.

C
AROLE MADE HERSELF
another sandwich while Stevie and Lisa chopped vegetables. Then Phyllis banished them all to the barn. Kate had finished her reading and came down to join them. She laughed when she heard about the pie fiasco. “Now, if you had only started a fire, then you would have lived up to
my
kitchen diaster. As it is, I think yours is only about second or third best,” she joked.

The plan for the afternoon was to saddle up the new horses and try them out. They would have to be ridden a few times by different people before Frank considered them safe for guests. It would be the girls’ job to say whether a particular horse should be assigned to a beginner, to an intermediate, or only to an advanced rider. Even then the Devines were very careful. Many a time they had heard a guest brag about his riding abilities only to find him trying to get on from the right side of the horse!

Walking out to the stables, the girls noticed that the sky was beginning to cloud over. The Rocky Mountains, which were majestic in the sun, were barely visible now. “Is it going to snow later?” Lisa asked, hoping it wouldn’t ruin their plans.

“Yes, we’re supposed to get six to eight inches tonight,” Kate replied. She paused and squinted up. “But I’m betting
it will hold off for a couple of hours. I’ve gotten pretty good at predicting the weather out here, and that sky isn’t ready to start dumping white stuff yet.”

“Good, then let’s hustle,” said Lisa.

In the barn the girls had a quick discussion. They decided to groom and saddle up four of the horses and take them for a brief ride. They would leave the black mare for last in case she was still spooked.

“I’ll just check on her and then I’ll join you guys,” Carole said.

Stevie and Lisa watched her walk off in the direction of the mare’s stall. Neither of them said what they were both thinking:
Carole’s already getting attached
.

“If no one else cares, I’ll take the gray, okay?” said Lisa.

“Great,” Kate replied. “I want the chestnut gelding. He and I are already becoming friends.”

“Okay, so I’ll take Mrs. Fat Appaloosa, which leaves Carole with the bay,” said Stevie.

In no time at all the three girls were hard at work. They curried, brushed, and picked hooves. They wiped out the horses’ nostrils and checked their ears. It was cold in the barn, so they were all glad of the physical exertion.

After a visit to the black mare, Carole joined them. She was distracted, but she tried not to let it show. The mare hadn’t touched the hay or water in her stall—a typical sign of being ill at ease.

“Hey, we’ve been calling these horses ‘the bay’ and ‘the
chestnut.’ But what are their real names?” Lisa inquired, giving the gray a final rub with her rag.

“Yeah,” said Stevie. “I’m beginning to feel impolite.”

Kate grinned. “Sorry—bad habit. I’m so used to having to point out the horses to the guests by color that sometimes I forget they actually have names. The gray is Merry, Lisa; the bay is Cardinal, the Appy’s called Chocolate Chips, and this guy is Be a Gentleman, Gent for short.”

“How do you do, Gent?” Stevie said. She picked up his near foreleg at the ankle and pretended to shake it. “Gee, some manners,” she said. “He didn’t even answer!”

When the horses had been saddled, the girls brought them back out to the corral. There was snow on the ground, but it had been packed down enough to make riding possible. And none of these horses was shod, so the snow wouldn’t ball up in their hooves.

The girls mounted and put the horses through their (Western) paces: walk, jog, and lope. They stopped and turned them, neck-reining and using vocal commands. They even made some “bad rider” mistakes on purpose to see how the horses would react. Then they switched horses. At this point, something became clear: Each of the girls had developed a loyalty to her first horse.

“This Appy is
slow
,” Lisa complained. She was using all her energy to urge the poky, overweight horse into a jog.

“She’s not slow, she’s just quiet!” Stevie cried indignantly. “Use your legs more!” She sat back in her own saddle to ask the gray to walk. The horse promptly
speeded up. “Boy, this gray is no beginner horse!” Stevie remarked scornfully.

“Excuse me? Merry is fine for beginners! Even a beginner can’t just sit there and let the horse do whatever he wants!” Lisa retorted.

Across the corral, Kate was struggling to turn the splashy bay. The horse was resisting and walking straight ahead. “This guy needs some brushing up, doesn’t he? He’s like a kid who’s been out of school too long!”

Passing, aboard the chestnut Gent, Carole scoffed loudly. “That’s what I was going to say about this horse. He’s—He’s—” but Carole couldn’t think of a complaint.

Lisa had to laugh. Even her own comments had sounded funny. She called everyone to the middle of the ring. “I think we’ve got to switch one more time to make a fair assessment of these horses,” she said.

Everyone agreed. After fifteen minutes aboard their next mounts, the girls hopped down and led the horses back to the stable for untacking—and judgment. They decided that the Appaloosa, Chips, was lazy but safe, a perfect beginner horse. Merry, the gray that Lisa liked, was high-strung but not dangerous. He didn’t shy, buck, rear, or do anything but try to go faster than the rider wanted: a good intermediate mount. The bay was stubborn but quiet: advanced beginner. The chestnut got three thumbs up. He was a wonderful horse—attractive, obedient, energetic, even comfortable: an ideal mount for many levels of rider.

“I think Dad’s going to be really pleased with his purchases,” Kate commented. “He’s always trusted this dealer, and I can see why. These four are going to be a great addition to the Bar None fleet.”

“Four? You mean five,” Carole reminded her, amazed that Kate could forget the most eye-catching horse of the bunch. “There’s the black mare.”

“How could I forget?” Kate said. “And we haven’t even tried her!”

“Let’s all go groom her,” Lisa suggested.

“Yeah, we can give her the deluxe treatment,” Stevie joked. “Full facial, manicure, pedicure …”

Carole pursed her lips. Her friends were so enthusiastic that she didn’t want to say anything. But she was afraid of how the mare would react to getting attention from four people at once.

“Carole?” said Kate, seeing Carole’s brow wrinkle. “A penny for your thoughts?”

Carole thought quickly. “Oh! I was just, um, wondering … what the real name of the mare is,” she said.

“Hey, that’s right. You never told us
her
name,” said Lisa.

Kate screwed up her face in concentration. “You know, I’m not sure I know. We’ll have to ask Dad.”

The girls trooped down the aisle to the mare’s stall. In the East, most horses lived inside and spent the nights in large box stalls. But out West, the horses weren’t babied as much. At the Bar None the majority lived outside in a big
pasture. There was a shed in the pasture that the horses could wander into for protection from the elements. It was a lot less work for the wranglers (who had far fewer stalls to muck), and it was a more natural way for horses to live—closer to their original habitat. Carole was glad of that. She sensed that the black mare would be happy to get out of her stall as soon as possible. Now if only she wouldn’t freak when she saw the group of them.

“What on earth—” Stevie stopped and stared. The mare’s stall door was open. She peered inside. Sure enough, the stall was empty.

Lisa was right behind her. “She’s gone!”

“T
HIS
IS
THE
stall you put her in, isn’t it?” Kate asked.

Carole nodded, her heart pounding. “Yes. Last stall on the left. I’m positive.”

Automatically the girls turned and looked down the aisle. The main door at the end of the stable was wide open. “Oh no,” Carole murmured, her fears mounting.

In summer the big sliding door was open all the time. In winter it was open a couple of times a day, when the stable boys went back and forth to the manure pile with wheelbarrows. Clearly, the mare had escaped from her stall and walked right out of the barn.

Carole sprinted to the open door. If she hurried …! Snow was beginning to fall, a few flakes at a time. On the
muddy ground, hoofprints led off in the direction of the pasture. Carole didn’t wait to explain. That would take valuable minutes. She started off in hot pursuit.

At the stall Kate was leaning in, examining the door. “She must have worked the bolt with her mouth, huh, Carole? I should have thought! We’ve had horses do that before.” She stood up. “Carole?”

“She took off toward the big pasture!” said Lisa, hurrying outside.

Just then Mick and John appeared around the corner of the barn. They were pushing empty wheelbarrows. “I thought you girls were going riding,” said John. He paused, letting the snow land on his head and shoulders.

“We were—I mean, we did,” Lisa replied hurriedly. “And we were about to try the black mare.”

“And?” said Mick. “She looked like she was calming down a little when we passed by, didn’t she, John?”

John nodded. “Definitely. It may take a while, but she’ll adjust.”

Lisa rushed to make herself clear. “No—but she took off. She escaped!”

“And Carole took off to look for her,” Stevie added.

Mick and John exchanged worried looks. “Does the boss know?” Mick asked.

The girls shook their heads. “I’ll go ring him on the intercom,” Mick volunteered.

“Do you have to tell Frank right this second?” Stevie asked. “Carole will probably have her back in no time.”

Mick wavered. “Well, I guess we could wait a couple of minutes. But that’s it. A loose horse is a loose horse. And with this storm coming …”