Saddlebags (10 page)

“And Stewball.” Stevie fought back the tears. “Think you can climb on him?” she said. “We have to get you farther up this bank, and it’ll be easier on Stewball than trying to hike it on foot.”

“Okay.” Mr. Lake got up and Stevie helped him into the saddle. “Now lean forward, and crisscross your way up. You should stay on—this time.”

Mr. Lake and Stewball started up. Stevie turned and looked back upstream. Kate was leading Mrs. Lake through the water. Stevie sighed with relief to see her mother still on her horse. Her mother looked at her and gave her a grim thumbs-up. After them came Mr. Atwood, led by John. Carole had come back down to
wait in the shallow water at the edge in case anyone needed help.

Stevie’s mother leaned forward as her horse followed Moonglow and Kate up the steep bank. Mrs. Lake clutched the horse’s soaked mane.

Just then Stevie noticed another commotion in the water. Mr. Atwood’s horse, Tripper, had slipped going up the bank, and Mr. Atwood was starting to come out of his saddle.

Carole pivoted Berry so that he came up alongside Tripper. She wedged herself up against the horse so there was nowhere for Mr. Atwood to fall.

“Drop the reins. Grab your saddle,” Carole commanded. “Pull yourself back on.”

Mr. Atwood did what she said, but the saddle started to slip with his weight.

The girth must be loose from all this water, Carole realized. Quickly, she leaned out of her saddle and said, “Ready, one, two, three!” and gave Mr. Atwood a huge push. Berry moved sideways with the impact, but he kept his balance in the foamy water. Mr. Atwood was back in the saddle. Carole couldn’t believe she’d found the strength to do it.

Carole glanced upstream, where Stevie was trying to
climb up the muddy bank. She clung to a root and was grabbing for another.

“Can you make it?” Carole yelled.

“I think so!” Stevie hollered back. As the rain continued to pelt her, she pulled her way up the muddy hill.

When she reached the top, Stevie saw her father leading Stewball over to her. He looked at Stevie, who was completely drenched.

“I think it’s a little late for this,” he said, holding out Stevie’s wrinkled, twisted, wet poncho.

She laughed. It felt good to laugh.

She took the reins from her father and mounted her horse. Her jeans made a squishing sound as she sat in the saddle. Water oozed over the tops of her boots. Every inch of her was soaked. Her hair dripped down the back of her shirt, but she couldn’t really tell, because her shirt was so wet. Stevie looked at her father. She didn’t know how this was possible, but he looked as if he was even wetter than she was. Then she remembered, he’d gone for a swim—with all his clothes on.

The rain had slackened some, but it was still falling hard. Stevie pushed the hair out of her eyes and looked up the bank to see the others riding toward them.

“What a wet group!” she called out. Everyone was
dripping. Water ran off people’s eyelashes, down their noses, down their boots, and off their stirrups. The horses’ tails were waterlogged and hung like snakes on their flanks.

“Look!” cried Lisa. Everyone looked toward the island. Only now nothing was left. The flooding waters had completely engulfed the patch of land.

“Talk about the nick of time,” Colonel Hanson said soberly.

The riders watched the raging river for another minute, each one realizing how close they’d come to disaster. Finally John turned Tex in the direction of the herd, and the wet, weary riders headed off to find Walter.

When Carole glanced back one last time at the flooded arroyo, her eyes streamed with tears. The memory of her father’s silly cowboy hat floating downstream was almost too much to bear. She looked over at him now, and a sob caught in her throat. With her mother gone, he was everything—all the family—she had. What if she had lost him?

Ahead of Carole, Lisa was thinking similar thoughts. Just this afternoon she’d been furious at her mother. Now, after seeing her mother sliding into the white water,
totally helpless and panicked, Lisa felt grateful and lucky to be riding beside her.

She may be a pain sometimes, Lisa thought, but she’s still my mother.

Suddenly Mrs. Atwood reached over and grabbed Lisa’s hand. The rain had stopped and off in the distance a rainbow glittered over the majestic Rockies.

“Look, honey,” Mrs. Atwood said softly. “A rainbow. Isn’t it beautiful?” Lisa just nodded, still too filled with feelings to speak.

For a moment all the riders watched the rainbow together. Then they continued on to where Walter and the herd were waiting. As they rode, the sun burst out from behind the clouds and slowly began to warm their dripping clothes and bodies.

B
ACK AT THE
Bar None, the girls first took care of their exhausted horses, then headed to their bunkhouse to take care of themselves.

They all showered and changed into dry clothes.

Carole was combing out her thick black hair, when a knock came on the bunkhouse door.

“Anybody home?” It was a girl’s voice.

“Christine!” Stevie cried.

Christine Lonetree, Kate’s neighbor and the other member of The Saddle Club’s Colorado branch, stepped
inside. “I didn’t think you’d still be in here this close to suppertime!”

“Well,” answered Carole, pulling her hair into a barrette, “we had a long afternoon. But that’s another story.”

“What happened?” Christine asked.

Carole gave a shudder.

Lisa sniffed the air. “We’ll tell you at dinner and later, when you sleep over,” she said. “Right now I can’t wait another minute for some of the Devines’ barbecue!”

And as they stepped off the porch of their bunkhouse, the big triangle at the main house rang loud and long.

“W
ELCOME BACK TO
all our drenched, exhausted cowpokes. Drive was more than you bargained for, I heard.” Frank Devine placed the final platter, piled high with chicken, steak, and ribs, in the middle of the big table. “We loved having all of you with us this week. Here’s to a safe trip home tomorrow—under sunny skies—and a speedy return to the Bar None sometime real soon!”

He took off his chef’s apron. “Dig in!” he said, and they all did.

“So what happened this afternoon?” Christine asked.

Carole put down her corn on the cob and wiped her
hands on her napkin. She took a deep breath. “We all got caught in a flash flood.”

“You did?” Christine said. “You were out in
that
rainstorm?”

Carole nodded. “And we weren’t exactly expecting it.”

“What do you mean?” asked Christine. “Didn’t you pack your ponchos?”

“Yup,” said Stevie, “and it’s a good thing we did.”

“Stevie used hers as a lifeline,” explained Kate.

“A what?” Christine asked. She looked from Stevie to Carole to Kate to Lisa. “Okay. So what exactly happened?”

“Some of us got a little stuck in a creek bed,” said Carole, “that kind of filled up with water. So some others of us helped out—”

“Don’t underestimate yourselves!” boomed a voice from down the table. It was Colonel Hanson. Everyone else stopped talking.

“That’s right, don’t underestimate yourselves
or
the flood.” Colonel Hanson put both his hands on the table, paused, and looked around at everyone. “There
was
a flash flood. And
some of us
didn’t exactly get stuck, we goofed. It wasn’t you girls. It was us dudes. We tried to
ride where we had no business riding. They don’t call us Saddlebags for nothing!”

There was a small titter from the girls’ end of the table.

Colonel Hanson continued. “You see, we made an error of judgment that on any ordinary day might not have been so foolish. But in a flash flood, it was incredibly dangerous. We decided to see if we could all fit on top of this tiny hill in the middle of the arroyo. Then it started raining. The hill became an island. We panicked.

“And that’s when The Saddle Club, and John, found us.
They
stayed calm, used good judgment and tremendous riding skills, and got us all out of danger, and up to the dry ground. If they hadn’t found us …”

Colonel Hanson paused and swallowed hard. His eyes met Carole’s, and he quickly looked down.

Carole looked around. All the other parents’ eyes were glistening. Mr. Lake cleared his throat, and Mrs. Atwood put down her fork.

Colonel Hanson took a deep breath. “Matter of fact,” he said quietly, “I’m not sure any of us Saddlebags would
be
here tonight if it weren’t for our daughters and John Brightstar.” He looked up, smiled, and raised his glass.
“So I propose a toast to our wonderful daughters—the smartest young women on horseback!”

“Hear, hear!” said Mr. Lake. Everyone raised a glass.

“And to John Brightstar,” Colonel Hanson continued, “a terrific wrangler and horseman, and a fine young man! John, may you win
only
blue ribbons in your horse shows. You did more special riding today than anyone’ll ever see at a rodeo.”

All raised their glasses once again. John blushed a little.

Mrs. Atwood suddenly spoke up. “I also want to thank you, John, for thinking fast and keeping me and my horse from swimming all the way to Texas!”

Everyone laughed.

“I think I understand now,” Lisa’s mother continued, “that when my daughter says riding is serious fun, she means riding is
both
serious
and
fun.”

Stevie raised her mug of soda. “I’ll drink to that!” she said.

“Amen,” said Carole under her breath.

Lisa caught her mother’s eye and winked.

T
AP, TAP, TAP
.

In her sleep Stevie stirred.

Tap, tap, tap
.

This time the noise awakened her.

Christine was already up, looking around. “I think someone’s at the door,” she said quietly.

Stevie sat up and pulled on her robe. She slowly opened the door and peered around it.

“Good morning!” said a low voice.

“Colonel Hanson!” Stevie exclaimed.

Carole sat up in bed.

“Is something wrong?” asked Stevie.

“No, not at all,” replied the colonel with a smile. “Us ’Bags just wanted to know if you’d like to take us on a bareback sunrise ride. It’s our last chance before going home.”

“You bet!” cried Carole.

“Just give us two minutes to get dressed,” said Stevie.

“Meet you at the barn,” replied Carole’s father, and he left.

Lisa got up and scampered to the window. “It’s still dark. I can’t believe they all got up this early!”

The girls quickly pulled on their jeans and shirts and boots and headed out to the barn.

All the parents were standing at the barn door, waiting.

“Let me cut our horses,” said Kate as she went inside to get a bridle for Moonglow.

“I think you might want to use saddles,” Carole said to the parents. “Sometimes it’s hard to keep your balance when you’re riding bareback, so you’ll have more fun on this ride if you use saddles.”

Mrs. Atwood smiled. “This time I think I’ll take The Saddle Club’s advice. I’d much rather enjoy the ride than be worrying about whether or not I’m going to stay on.”

“I agree,” added her husband. “Bareback riding takes more skills than I’ve got, even after yesterday’s intensive lesson.”

Soon all horses were ready, the grown-ups’ horses with saddles and bridles, the girls’ horses with bridles only. The Saddlebags mounted up, and waited until the girls could join them.

Mounting with a stirrup was easy, but stirrups came attached to saddles, and bareback riding came with none. Mounting a horse bareback usually required a boost.

The girls were all experienced bareback riders by now, but Stevie remembered her first time riding bareback, and how hard it had been to keep her balance on the
horse without a saddle. She was glad the grown-ups were using saddles. It took only a few minutes until the girls were ready.

The group rode off toward the hills, under a sapphire predawn sky.

Christine and Stevie led the way out of the valley and up into the hills. It was the same ride Christine had taken them on when they first met her, on their very first stay at the Bar None.

They rode slowly, taking care on the rocky, twisting path. As they ascended, the sky turned paler and paler blue.

Finally Christine and Stevie reached the summit. They rode along the hill’s crest a bit to make room for the others. Stevie watched as her parents rounded the last turn and reached the top.

Over the edge of the eastern horizon was a wash of pink and purple clouds.

“Perfect timing!” Stevie exclaimed.

A thin orange crescent peeked over the horizon, and as they watched, it became bigger and bigger, until it was a half circle.

“If you look this way, you can see the ranch,” said Lisa.

Her mother rode up beside her and looked out over the valley. “Oh, yes,” she said, “there it is!”

Under the bright sky, now striped with pink and orange, they saw the ranch, the barn, and the outbuildings.

“They’re so tiny from here—” said Mrs. Atwood, “look at that dog.”

Lisa and her mother watched as a speck of a dog ran out from the Bar None barn toward the corral. Then a miniature rider came out into the corral, mounted on a tiny horse.