Third-Time Lucky (12 page)

“Take no notice!” Kirstie jumped in. “He doesn’t mean anything.” She wanted to say sorry. Though Matt hadn’t exactly behaved badly over supper, he’d sure been acting as if Thunder Rock had never happened.

“It’s cool,” Zak shrugged and spoke without regret. “Your brother is a twenty-first-century man. He has different gods. I belong in the nineteenth century, or before. That’s why I live out here, minding my business. I’m a kind of throwback, a mistake.”

She nodded that she understood. It sounded a lonely life, yet somehow she knew that for Zak it wasn’t. “Today was special,” she confided quietly, one hand gently stroking Lucky’s face. She answered Zak’s widening smile with one of her own, there in the heart of the tiny piece of paradise where he’d built his life. “This morning you did something for the two of us that we’ll never ever forget!”

“Hey, Kirstie,” Matt muttered.

“Yeah?” She was half asleep in the passenger seat, a day and a half into the journey home to Half Moon Ranch. A white road ran between ripening corn as far as the eye could see. In the back of the trailer, Lucky was tucking into his hay, resting and building up his strength.

“About Zak …” he began, then hesitated.

Kirstie glanced sideways at her brother’s profile: dark hair falling forward over a flat forehead, straight nose, square chin. He was so like their dad in the photographs in the family album, taken when Dad had been a college student, too. “Yeah, what about Zak?”

“I’ve been thinking—maybe I was a little tough on him.”

“Did you give him a hard time? What did you say?” Kirstie took her feet down from the dashboard and swiveled around.

“Nothing.” Matt shrugged, then frowned. “Exactly that. Nothing, zilch! Like if I’m dealing with a person’s sick horse, the least I expect is a word of thanks, a handshake.”

“Too late now.” Kirstie thought of the hundreds of miles between them and Rainbow Mountain. “I guess this is why Zak likes to be alone up there. Maybe he grew tired of trying to explain the way he did things to guys like you!” For a few moments, Kirstie enjoyed making Matt feel guilty. Then she decided to let him off the hook. “Hey, he understood where you were coming from, OK.”

Matt glanced at her. “He did?”

“Yeah. He called you a twenty-first-century man.”

Kirstie remembered her own good-bye to Zak Stone in the small corral at Thunder Lodge. He’d been working with the little bay foal, doing join-up work while the sorrel mare looked on. When he’d realized that Kirstie, Lucky, and Matt were loaded up and ready to go, he’d come slowly to the fence.

“Look after that palomino when you get him home,” he’d told her, the rare smile creasing his broad features. “He’s a horse worth taking care of.”

She’d nodded, unable to reply.

“May the Spirit go with you,” Zak had murmured, turning back to his horses.

Broad shoulders in a denim jacket, gentle hands caressing the sorrel mare—that had been Kirstie’s last view of Zak Stone.

“… Hey, Matt,” she said now. They were clear of the fields of corn, heading into mountains, thinking of home.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

“For what?”

She smiled and looked ahead to Longs Peak. “Just thanks, that’s all!”

* * *

Lucky got two weeks of rest in Red Fox Meadow, and the best care Kirstie could give. Each day he put on weight; each day his coat when she brushed it grew softer, healthier, more shiny.

“Come up to the ranch for the Midsummer Barbecue,” Kirstie said to Lisa over the phone. “Afterward we can ride out on Five Mile Creek Trail.”

It would be the first time she’d put a saddle on Lucky since he’d fallen sick. She would take things easy, be sure not to ask too much of him by riding up the steeper trails. Riverside would be best.

“Nervous?” Sandy asked, coming away from a bunch of guests gathered around the barbecue when she saw the girls taking saddles and bridles out to the meadow.

Kirstie nodded, glad when her mom walked along with them. The sun had sunk low in the sky, but the summer air was still warm, the blue irises and other marsh flowers growing by the creek giving off a heavy scent.

“Well, Lucky sure looks fine to me,” Lisa said as they came to the fence. The palomino was easy to pick out from the herd with his glossy golden coat and blond mane. When he saw Kirstie, he lifted his head and came trotting smartly toward her.

“Hey, Kirstie, hey, Lisa!” Charlie called as he led Johnny Mohawk and Yukon into the meadow after a day’s work riding the trails. “Kirstie, you taking Lucky out?”

“Sure!” she called back. “First time!”

“Good luck!” the young wrangler said as he unfastened the two lead ropes and sent the black gelding and the brown and white paint on their way. “I’ll tell Matt and Hadley,” he promised, heading back to the corral.

“Hey, no!” Kirstie didn’t want any more onlookers. “Jeez!” she sighed when Charlie ignored her.

“Go ahead, saddle your horse,” Sandy told her. “I want to see you ride out of here into the sunset, like in the movies.” She turned with a quiet smile to help Lisa with Snowflake. “It’s gonna be fine,” she told them as she tightened the cinch strap and checked the bit. “No problem.”

“You hear?” Fastening Lucky’s cheek strap, Kirstie had a quiet word in his ear.

The horse twitched under the weight of the saddle and stamped his feet, eager to be off.

“This is your big day,” she whispered, noticing Charlie strolling back with Matt and Hadley plus a small group of guests. She double checked his cinch, ran her hands across the firm muscles of his shoulder and neck. “You look great, OK?”

He flicked his ears then dipped his head.

“The vet signed you off, you know that? When we got you back in one piece from Rainbow Mountain, Glen said it was a miracle, remember? That’s you, Lucky, a miracle of old-fashioned science!”

Up went the head with a tug of the reins.
C’mon, let’s go!

Lisa was already up in the saddle, chatting with Matt and Charlie. She laughed while she waited, her white T-shirt standing out in the lengthening shadows. “You first!” she called to Kirstie as Hadley held the gate open.

One foot in the broad stirrup, the other leg swinging across Lucky’s broad back, settling into the saddle with a creak of leather…A deep breath.

Hadley nodded up at her as she rode Lucky forward. “Good job!” he murmured.

Praise from Hadley. Wow!

Then they were out of Red Fox Meadow, heading for the creek, Lisa and Snowflake following slowly behind. Lucky’s footing was sound on the firm ground, his gait even as he broke into a trot along the bank. So far so good.

“See, he’s going great!” Lisa caught up. The low sun caught her face and lit up her tangle of red curls.

Strong and even as Kirstie sat the trot, Lucky ran alongside the clear, fast-running creek. She felt the wind tug at her hair, sensed her horse’s confidence grow. He swerved sideways to avoid a clump of willows, dipped his feet in the water, splashed clear again.

“Yeah!” Lisa called, making Snowflake pick up speed, taking a higher track away from the water’s edge. She urged her horse from a trot to a lope. He lengthened his stride and took off toward Hummingbird Rock.

For a second Kirstie held Lucky back. She glanced over her shoulder at the knot of onlookers watching from the white fence, still able to pick out the slight, blonde figure of her mom. Sandy waved both arms above her head. The others yelled.

“Yee-hah! Go, Kirstie!”

So she went. She sat deep in the saddle and gave Lucky his head. He dipped back onto his haunches and launched himself from the bank into the creek, thundering knee-deep along the riverbed, churning up spray.

“Go, Lucky!” Kirstie whispered.

His hooves smacked the water, kicked it up shoulder high, and soaked her to the skin. She crouched low over his back, laughing at the speed, yelling out at the cold, tingling spray as it drove into her face.

Lucky raced on in an ecstasy of freedom and power. This was what he remembered: he and Kirstie galloping through meadows, along river banks, plowing through water.

He stretched out his head and pounded on. The spray he raised was caught in the last rays of the sun. A million drops, a rainbow of multicolored light.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born and brought up in Harrogate, Yorkshire, Jenny Oldfield went on to study English at Birmingham University, where she did research on the Brontë novels and on children’s literature. She then worked as a teacher before deciding to concentrate on writing. She writes novels for both children and adults and, when she can escape from her desk, likes to spend time outdoors. She loves the countryside and enjoys walking, gardening, playing tennis, riding, and traveling with her two daughters, Kate and Eve.