Horse Whispers (6 page)

“He’s right,” said Kate. “If Carole doesn’t get her back right away, Dad’s got to know.”

“Maybe I should go help her—” Lisa started to say.

“No! Nobody else is wandering off,” John declared. “Carole shouldn’t have gone by herself. Where did she head?”

“We don’t know,” Kate said. The five of them stared outside, but visibility was bad. They couldn’t see more than twenty feet. Carole had literally disappeared.

“Darn! I hope she remembers how huge the property is,” John said worriedly.

The group walked to the tack room, where they passed an anxious quarter of an hour. Mick and John had chores to do, but they didn’t want to leave until Carole was back safely. When she burst in, everyone jumped up in relief.

“You got her, right?” Stevie asked with confidence.

“I need a saddle and bridle,” Carole said breathlessly. “I got halfway to the end of the pasture before I lost the tracks. It’s coming down hard and I’ll make better time on horseback. Will you hand me that bridle?”

Slowly John started shaking his head. “No,” he said quietly.

“I thought I could take Stewball. He’s good at—” Carole stopped and looked at John. “No?” she repeated. “Is that what you said?”

“Yes. I mean, yes, I said no. You’re not going back out there, Carole.”

“But I have to!” Carole protested, her voice bordering on hysterical. “It’s my fault that she escaped, and I have to get her back or—”

John put a steadying hand on her shoulder. “First of all, it’s not your fault. You bolted the door, didn’t you?”

Carole nodded. “I’m sure I did.”

“Well, then—”

“But, you see, I should have stayed with her instead of going and riding those other horses because I knew she was scared and—”

“Carole,” John interrupted, “it’s not your fault. Anyway, it wouldn’t matter if it
was
. It will be dark in an hour. It’s snowing like crazy. Going to look for the mare now would be the most idiotic thing you could do.”

“But—”

“No buts,” John said firmly.

Stevie, Kate, and Lisa looked from John to Carole and back. They knew John was right, but they felt awful for Carole. They knew she had formed an instant attachment to the mare. When Mick left to tell Frank, Lisa put a consoling arm around Carole. “They’ll find her in the morning. She won’t go far.”

“The
morning
?” Carole whispered, dismayed. She could have kicked herself for not staying with the mare. Why had she gone and ridden the other horses? She had let down one beautiful black horse already, and look what
had happened to him. Her eyes filling with tears, Carole looked out the window. The few flakes had escalated into a real storm. “If anything happens to her out there, I’ll never forgive myself!” she vowed.

T
HAT EVENING THE
mood in the bunkhouse was glum. Carole headed for bed right after dinner. Not wanting to disturb her, Stevie and Lisa followed suit. Now they couldn’t sleep. They could hear Carole sniffling every few minutes. It was torture! Finally Lisa had to say something. “Carole, are you okay?” she whispered across the room.

Carole gulped, trying to make her voice sound calm. “Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” she said. Normally she would have talked things over with The Saddle Club, but this time she didn’t know what to say. Everyone would think she was getting too involved, making too much of it. She sighed aloud. That was the problem with The Saddle Club: Sometimes they cared too much.

Carole tried to look on the bright side. Frank had been very understanding. Several times he had told her that it wasn’t her fault, that they ought to have replaced that bolt months ago. And he had organized a search party for the morning. She had to believe they would find the mare and bring her back. And yet, Carole wondered, why didn’t that thought make her happier?

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, Carole was awake at dawn. She had tossed and turned all night. She wasn’t sure she had slept
even one wink. A glance out the window told her that it had stopped snowing, at least for now. As fast as she could, she yanked on long underwear, jeans, two shirts, a big bulky sweater, boots, gloves, a scarf, and a hat. She raced through the fresh snow to the main barn. Maybe there would be news about the mare. Maybe she had come home in the night of her own accord.

The first person Carole saw was Walter Brightstar, John’s father and the ranch’s head wrangler. He greeted her warmly.

“I was down mending fence in the big pasture all day, so I didn’t get to say hello yesterday,” he explained.

But Carole heard only three words. “The big pasture?” she said. “Did you see a black mare go by—loose—in the afternoon?”

Walter shook his head regretfully. “John already asked me. Can’t say that I did. But that pasture is huge. She might have walked right by me, ten yards away. With the snow, I wouldn’t have noticed. If I were her, though, I would have headed north.”

“North?” said Carole, paying careful attention. “Why north?”

“That’s where she came from. If she’s trying to get back home, that’s the direction.”

Carole nodded. She had several more questions. “Are you going out with the search party? When do they leave? Can I take Stewball? Stevie reminded me how good he is on the trail.”

Walter began doubtfully, “No, I’m not going. I’ve got work here. And sure, sure, you can take Stewball. But you’d better hurry. They’re leaving in two minutes!”

Carole was down the aisle and into the tack room before the words were out of Walter’s mouth. Frank was inside, dressed for riding. Begging him to wait, Carole reached for a set of tack.

“Carole, I—”

“Please, please, I’ll only be two minutes, I promise!”

Frank frowned. “It’s not that. I don’t mind waiting. It’s just … well, I’m not sure you should go. John and I are all set and we both know this country well. It could be a very long day—cold, exhausting. I don’t know
how
long because I don’t know how far this silly mare has gotten herself.”

Carole waited in silence, trying not to cry. She
had
to go. It had never entered her mind that she couldn’t. She felt Frank studying her face. A moment later he relented.

“Well, okay, if it means that much to you—”

Carole didn’t wait for him to change his mind. She saddled Stewball in seconds flat. “I know, boy, you’re expecting Stevie, but I need your herding and roundup skills out there today. We’ve got to find one of your stablemates who’s lost out there.” Carole took a quick glance out the window. It was partly sunny, but more snow was expected that night. She shivered a little as she tightened Stewball’s cinch and led the pinto outside.

Lisa, Stevie, Kate, and Phyllis all came out to see them
off. Stevie gave Stewball a pat and told him to take care of Carole. Phyllis gave Frank bottled water, a Thermos of hot coffee, and a backpack of sandwiches, which he tied into his saddlebag.

“We expect you back by noon,” she said brightly.

Frank leaned down to kiss his wife. “At the latest,” he promised.

As the three of them set off, John turned around in his saddle. He smiled and waved good-bye to Lisa. Lisa caught his eye. She blushed. She had been imagining what it would have been like if John had kissed her good-bye—

“Yee-haw, it’s pie time!” Stevie hollered.

Lisa gave her a withering glance. “Thanks,” she said. “You really know how to wreck a moment.”

“A moment? What moment?” Stevie followed Lisa inside, frowning in confusion.

“Oh, you know,” Lisa murmured, her eyes far away. “It’s so romantic when someone leaves, saying good-bye and everything …” She sighed. They were in the foyer hanging up their coats and trading wet boots for moccasins and slippers.

Stevie gave her friend a disgusted look. “Have you been watching too many B Westerns, Lisa? Leaving isn’t romantic. What’s romantic about not seeing a person?
Arriving
, on the other hand …”

I
T WAS THE
perfect day to make pies: freezing cold! The girls wished Carole, Frank, and John could have been at
home with them. But the three were expert riders. They would never do anything unsafe. “Just think of it as a long winter trail ride,” Kate suggested when they were gathered in the warm, brightly lit kitchen.

“Yeah. With most people I’d laugh, but Carole’s crazy enough to want to go riding on a day like this,” Stevie said.

Lisa agreed. “If she didn’t have to go find the black mare, she’d be on our cases all day to go for a pleasure ride!”

As the girls watched, Phyllis set out flour and sugar. She preheated the oven to 350 degrees. “We’ll try apple pie today,” she announced. “As I said before, a good crust is the secret of a good pie. The filling is easy: You just mix up fruit, sugar, and spices—whatever’s in season—”

“Except for mincemeat pie,” Stevie interrupted. “That’s got real beef in it, doesn’t it?”

Phyllis laughed. “In the old days it did. And you can probably still find recipes lying around for
real
mincemeat. But when people serve mincemeat at Thanksgiving or Christmas, it’s just nuts, raisins, sugar, and spices. It has a meaty flavor, but there’s no meat in there.”

Lisa stared at her. “You mean all these years I’ve been refusing my grandmother’s mincemeat for no reason? I always thought it sounded
disgusting
, so I stuck to my mother’s pumpkin and pecan.”

“You’ll have to try it next year,” Phyllis said. “It’s one of my favorites.” While they were chatting, Kate’s mother
scooped cups of flour from a large canister. She showed the girls how to level the top with a knife to get an exact measurement. Then she gestured for them to do the same. “It’s no good if I cook and you watch, because you won’t really learn till you try it yourselves—and try it again and again. So each of us is going to make two or three pies,” she explained. “We’re lucky: The ranch kitchen is semi-industrial, meaning that it’s set up to produce dinner for fifty. Everyone can have her own measuring cups, mixing bowls, pie plates, et cetera. How’s that filling coming, Kate?”

Kate groaned. “I always forget how long it takes to peel enough apples for even one pie. My hands are killing me.”

“It’s good exercise,” Phyllis said briskly.

Stevie and Lisa smiled at one another. The older Devines were no-nonsense parents. They believed that children should work hard and play hard. It was one of the reasons the ranch was so much fun: Everyone was expected to take part in the chores, whether it was mucking stalls or peeling apples. But then everyone joined in the celebrations, too. Kate rolled her eyes good-naturedly and picked up another apple.

“Don’t you want to have the butter out getting soft?” Lisa inquired. She remembered that rule from making chocolate-chip cookies. It was easier to cream the butter and sugar if the butter had softened somewhat.

Phyllis shook her head. “No. Butter for a crust should be hard and chilled. Otherwise you’ll have trouble cutting
it into the flour. If it’s warm and soft, it mushes into the flour, and it doesn’t create the texture you want.”

“What is
cutting
, anyway?” Stevie inquired. “It sounds like you take a knife and hack up the butter.”

“You do, sort of,” Phyllis said. “Although nowadays we can be a bit more sophisticated.” She first demonstrated the most basic cutting technique: slicing pieces of cold butter into the flour with two knives. “But there’s also a tool specifically intended for this task.” Phyllis reached into a drawer and held up a wooden-handled pastry blender. She demonstrated how to use the implement. “You see? It’s almost like having six knives cutting at the same time.”

“So that’s what that is!” Stevie exclaimed. “My mom let my brothers and me use it with modeling dough, so I thought it was a—a modeling dough blender!”

Kate flicked an apple peel at Stevie. “Ha-ha.”

“Ha-ha yourself!” Stevie shot back.

One thing is sure
, Lisa thought, eyeing her two friends,
with Stevie in the kitchen, we won’t lack for entertainment
.

“Here, I’ll give it a try,” Lisa volunteered.

“Great,” said Phyllis.

Starting tentatively, Lisa began to cut her flour and butter. Soon she was mimicking Phyllis’s deft movements. The recipe said the flour and butter should “resemble coarse meal.” Lisa had no idea what coarse meal looked like, but pretty soon Phyllis stopped her. “Perfect. You see
how the ingredients are mixed? They’re not pastelike or gluey, which happens if you overmix them. Excellent job, Lisa.”

Lisa glowed. It was such a little thing, but with Kate’s mother as her teacher, she already felt more confident in the kitchen. Phyllis had a relaxed style that made her a natural teacher. Lisa’s own mother was, like her daughter, a perfectionist. Mrs. Atwood kept the kitchen spotless, even
while
she was baking or making dinner. If she spilled anything—water, sugar, coffee grounds—she wiped it up that instant. And the Atwoods’ kitchen was so organized that it got on Lisa’s nerves. Yes, it was true that staples like flour and sugar were kept in labeled glass jars. But Lisa didn’t like to disturb them. She was always afraid she would spill something or make a mistake, like getting brown sugar mixed with white. That kind of thing drove her mother crazy. Lisa said as much to the group in the kitchen.

Phyllis nodded sympathetically. “Kate’s grandmother, my mother, was like that. She was a marvelous cook—still is, in fact. But I never felt free to experiment in the kitchen at home. I didn’t really learn to cook until I got to college. I’ve never worried about cooking for the guests, not even when we had the crew from Hollywood staying with us.” Phyllis laughed. “But when Mom comes for Thanksgiving or Christmas, I stay up half the night getting ready!”

“It’s true,” Kate said, grinning. “You’ve never seen a woman go from calm to panic so fast.”

Stevie and Lisa chuckled. Neither of them could imagine Kate’s mother worrying about her cooking. “How’s this?” Stevie asked, holding up her mixing bowl. “I did mine by the old method of two knives.”

Phyllis examined the mixture. “Not quite done.”

Stevie’s face fell. In spite of herself, she was feeling competitive with Lisa.