Secret of the Stallion (16 page)

“Well, not exactly,” Lisa said.

Enrico stopped dancing for a moment and held Lisa at arm’s length as if to get a good look at her while he spoke. “What are you talking about?” he asked.

“Can you keep a secret?” she asked.

“With you? Certainly,” he promised.

“Then let’s start dancing again and I’ll whisper in your ear.”

Enrico took her back into his arms and once again they began dancing. As Lisa had promised, she whispered the entire conspiracy into his ear. He began laughing as he came to understand what Veronica’s teammates were doing to her.

“The rhinestone from the button you picked up?” he asked in surprise.

“She believes it,” Lisa said. “I mean it’s only logical that a stone that had been buried for three hundred and fifty years might be a little damaged.”

“Now that I think of it, when I told Veronica I was going to ask you to dance, she seemed very irritated. I thought she was angry with me, but then she said she had something important to do and she left the ballroom. Do you think she was going to go treasure-hunting by moonlight?”

“But of course!” Lisa said. “Moreover, if we’ve played our cards right, she’s going to have a successful hunt.” Then Lisa told him about the pyrite. “Want to go watch?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t miss it for anything,” he said, taking her hand and leading her out of the ballroom, through the courtyard, and into the open fields.

They stayed close to the castle walls, moving toward the oak tree. When they neared the tree, they could see Veronica scrambling in the dirt, holding her evening dress so that it wouldn’t get too dirty.

“She’s being so careful of her dress that I think she’s hoping to find jewels she can wear back into the dance!”

“Shh,” Enrico warned her, putting his finger gently on her lips.

They sneaked past Veronica and darted over to the stable tent, where they could hide behind the flaps of canvas. Behind them, they could hear the gentle snoring of ’Ank. It made Lisa and Enrico smile to know he was there, ever on the job. The horses seemed a little restless, perhaps from the long hard day they’d had. They were whinnying, snorting, stomping.

Under the tree, there was a flash of light. Veronica had apparently brought a penlight in her evening bag. The beam of light darted around the ground. Veronica reached out with her other hand. There was a tool in it, but it was too small to be the garden spade she’d used earlier.

“It’s a spoon,” Enrico told her.

“Sterling silver, I presume,” Lisa said, giggling to herself. “She has to move a little more to the left—there she goes.…”

Veronica shifted to the left. Lisa held her breath. Veronica
scratched at the earth with the spoon. The light held steadily. Then Veronica dropped the spoon and stood up, holding something in her hand.

“I think she’s got it!” Lisa said.

Veronica opened her evening bag, dropped something into it, snapped off the penlight, and departed in such a terrible hurry that she left the spoon on the ground.

“Congratulations!” Enrico said, giving Lisa’s shoulders a squeeze.

“What a team we are!” she declared. She offered her hand to Enrico in a high five. Instead of slapping her palm, he enfolded her upraised hand in his and then put his other hand around her back, holding her closely, warmly.

“Oh, Lisa,” he said, almost sighing as he spoke. “You have so many sides to you that I keep discovering, and I find I like each better than the last.”

Lisa felt just the same way. Enrico was warm, funny, talented, kind, a good friend, and a good rider. Moreover, he was about to kiss her.

“Four thousand miles,” she said, uttering the thing both of them knew was true. They lived very far apart.

“Yes, but when we are together, the miles melt away. They do not matter.”

And that was true, too. There, in the star-studded, moonlit darkness, Enrico looked deep into Lisa’s eyes, and he began to reach for her with his lips and his heart.

Lisa’s heart pounded with anticipation. It was as if all
her senses were turned on high. She could feel Enrico holding her, but she could also feel an encroaching warmth. She could hear his breathing, but she could also hear the horses on the other side of the canvas, now more awake than they had been before, neighing and whinnying with excitement.

She could smell the cool night and the pleasant clean scent of Enrico’s aftershave, but she could also smell the presence of the horses, and there was something else, sharper, more acrid. Lisa couldn’t identify it right then, but it would come to her. For now, there was Enrico.

She could see him, no longer dimly, in the darkness of the evening. It was as if there were another light, one behind her, a rich, warm, yellow glow, reflecting brightly in his eyes as they neared her own.

But it wasn’t just a yellow glow. It was something else entirely. Lisa knew now what the smell was and why the horses were so agitated. She opened her mouth to say something—to tell Enrico. It took a moment for the sound to reach her throat.

“Fire!” she screamed as loudly as she could.

At just that instant, a bale of hay behind her burst into flames.

“W
HAT WAS THAT
?” Carole asked Stevie.

“What was what?” Stevie asked. “All I heard was the music. And it’s not very good music, either, if you want my opinion. I think they should have gotten a band that could play something someone could
really
dance to, like—”

“I heard something. I know I did, and it sounded like Lisa.”

“She and Enrico went out the door a few minutes ago. They had ‘moonlight walk’ written all over them. I doubt very much there’s any screaming going on,” Stevie said.

“Well, there is,” said Carole with utter certainty. “Let’s go.”

The two girls hurried through the door of the ballroom
and out into the courtyard. It was deserted. Everybody was inside, dancing and having fun. Music, talk, and laughter came clearly through the doorway. But from the courtyard entrance, Stevie and Carole could hear another sound. It
was
Lisa and she
was
yelling for help.

“Fire!” Stevie repeated, deciphering the sound.

“Oh, no!” said Carole. “I’m going to the stable. You get help!” she said. Stevie spun around to go back to a telephone. Carole hurried to the stable.

The two of them ran as fast as they could, blessing the fact that they were sensibly dressed as Roundheads. Hoopskirts were no good in an emergency.

Carole assessed the situation quickly. Something was on fire in the tent. The tent itself must be made of fire-retardant material, but the straw and wood inside would burn furiously, endangering every horse inside. And, she knew, in a hot enough fire, anything would burn. There was no time to spare—soon the canvas would catch fire and collapse, trapping every living thing under a deadly blanket.

“Lisa! Enrico!” Carole shrieked.

“In here!” Lisa called back.

Carole found her friends frantically running from stall to stall, opening each one and trying to herd the horses out into the paddocks beyond. The noise, confusion, heat, and flames had awakened old ’Ank, and he was directing them.

“As long as the horses just leave, they’ll be fine,” Carole told Lisa. “Our job is to keep them from panicking.”

That was easy to say and hard to do. Horses were prone to panic in unfamiliar situations, and they seemed to have a primal fear of fire. They knew it was dangerous and they wanted to run, no matter what obstacles—like other horses—might be in their way.

When Carole reached the tent, the fire was still relatively contained. But it was burning intensely and was about to spread. When it did, it would go from dangerous to deadly. There were only seconds.

’Ank pointed, telling Carole where to begin. She set to work.

She began opening stall doors and shooing horses out as quickly as she could, working toward the center of the fire so that she could help Lisa and Enrico where they most needed her, while moving the horses away from it.

Closer to the flames than Carole, Lisa pulled another stall door open. The bay gelding inside was terrified and didn’t want to budge. Lisa’s job was to make him want to move. She stepped in quickly, but not running. She didn’t want to scare him more than he was scared already. She took him firmly by the halter and tugged gently, as if she were telling him it was time to go saddle up and compete. He reacted just as naturally, following her lead the same way he’d followed humans’ leads from the first time a halter was ever put on him. As soon as he was out of the stall, Lisa gave him a gentle, encouraging slap on his flank. He knew what to do. He ran for safety.

“Next,” she said out loud, trying to encourage herself.
Nearby Enrico was working silently, diligently, and efficiently. Open door, reach in for horse, lead horse out, move horse along. Next. With each horse, they came closer to the intensifying fire.

Lisa freed two more horses and then realized she was at the hottest part of the fire—near Sterling’s stall.

The hay next to Sterling’s stall was crackling in flames, and the blaze was spreading quickly. Right then, the fire was moving in the other direction, but Lisa knew that the slightest breeze would bring it right to Sterling’s stall.

When Lisa saw the stallion, he was cowering in the back of his stall, as frightened as the bay she’d just freed. But he snorted and sniffed, and, smelling the sharp acrid bite of smoke, he was terrified into action. He whinnied loudly in protest.

“It’s okay, Sterling. You’re going to be okay, boy,” Lisa said, pulling his stall door open.

She wished she believed her own words. Stallions were notoriously unpredictable and dangerous. A frightened stallion was treacherous. Lisa wouldn’t be helping anybody if Sterling hurt her.

The smart thing to do would be to free another horse. There were many that only needed their stall doors opened and a little encouragement. She couldn’t afford to waste time trying to save an unsavable horse.

Then Sterling rose on his hind feet, flailed his front feet in the air, and seemed to scream with terror. One look at the terrified stallion and Lisa knew she couldn’t abandon
him. She had to save him. She also knew she couldn’t just walk into the stall. He could bludgeon her in an instant with one flailing foot. But, like the other horses, he was just waiting to be told what to do. The question was how to tell him so that he would understand.

“Lisa, you have to leave him!” Enrico said. “You can’t save him if he won’t save himself.”

“I have to try,” she said. “I just have to!”

A small flame sputtered to life in the straw near the open door of Sterling’s stall. Lisa snuffed it out with her boot.

“Lisa!” Enrico said, now frightened for her safety.

She ignored Enrico’s entreaty and turned around, trying to think what she could do. Then she saw a rope hanging on a hook and she knew the answer, but she couldn’t do it on foot. She needed a horse.

Sterling’s stall was at a place where two aisles came together. The Dickens horses were just two aisles over.

“Keep the flames out of here,” she told Enrico. “I’ll be back with help.”

Enrico took off his jacket and used it to flail at the next outburst of fire.

Lisa ran to the Dickens stalls, grabbing the big circle of rope on her way. She threw open the doors of three of the stalls, freeing Miss Havisham, Copperfield, and Nickleby. She needed Pip for herself. The horse seemed to be waiting for her, ready to do as he was told. Lisa knew what she was going to tell him.

She opened his stall, hurried in, and pulled herself up onto his back. Then, without a bridle or a saddle, she rode Pip back to Sterling’s stall. At first, Pip resisted, but he was well behaved and well trained. He was also a horse with an enormous amount of heart. Lisa knew that about him. If he could help, he would.

With only her legs on his belly and gentle signals on his neck, using his mane as a rein, Lisa got Pip to return to Sterling’s stall.

Enrico was there, beating out the tongues of flame as they licked upward from the stall floor.

“Lisa, what are you doing?” he cried out to her when he saw her on Pip.

“I’m just a wild American cowboy,” she told him. And with one swift motion of her right arm, she let out the lasso and began swinging the noose—just the way she’d learned to do it at Kate Devine’s dude ranch. Enrico couldn’t put out the flames anymore. Lisa knew that time had run out. She had one chance and one chance only to snare Sterling and run him to safety.

Enrico backed away from the stall. The lasso circled above Lisa’s head, making a wide, easy arc.

“Now!” she said, and at that instant she freed the noose, sent it flying toward the startled stallion, and watched it settle over his head onto his neck.

“Yahoo!” she cried, tugging at her end of the rope to tighten the noose before Sterling found a way to shake it off. As soon as he felt the rope collar, he settled down. It
was just the same way the bay had relaxed when Lisa had tugged at his halter. The desire to please, to follow a human’s instructions, was the foundation of a horse’s training. Now it was saving Sterling’s life.