Trail Mates (2 page)

From Max, those could be very significant words. Stevie knew that if she didn’t come up with something quickly, she was likely to find herself pitchforking straw. She’d rather go on a trail ride with
fifty
tourists than that. Lisa came to her rescue.

“We were right in the middle of soaping the dressage saddles, Max,” she said.

“Right in the middle?” he asked suspiciously.

Stevie and Lisa nodded in unison.

“Then I guess you’d better finish before class,” he said, smiling at them. “I’ll get somebody else to keep an eye on Samson when we let him out in the paddock by himself.”

“Oh, no,” Lisa groaned, giving herself away.

“But I know how eager you must be to finish the dressage saddles, so off with you. And if you want to cut class to finish the job …”

His voice trailed off. Stevie and Lisa definitely did
not
want to take him up on that suggestion!

Lisa and Stevie returned to the tack room. Each removed a dressage saddle from storage and placed it on a rack for cleaning. They talked as they worked, Stevie trying to give Lisa pointers on changing gaits.

“… So, when you want to slow down, say from trot to walk, you really kind of sit
into
the saddle, leaning back a little.”

“And pull on the reins?” Lisa asked.

“Sure, a bit, but you do more of the work with your
seat
than with your hands. And you never yank on the reins.”

“I know that,” Lisa said. “Everybody knows that.”

“Not everybody,” Stevie said significantly. She tilted
her head over toward the locker area of the tack room. There, primping in front of the dingy mirror, was Veronica diAngelo.

Veronica was the only daughter of a very wealthy and influential family and she never let anybody forget it. She always dressed perfectly in the most expensive clothes. Her mother drove a Mercedes. So did her father. They had even bought Veronica an extremely valuable Thoroughbred stallion named Cobalt. But money couldn’t buy everything, and one of the things it hadn’t bought Veronica was responsibility. Because of Veronica’s ignorance and carelessness, Cobalt had had a fatal accident.

Now, while Stevie and Lisa watched, Veronica combed her hair so that every inch of it shone. She carefully applied lip gloss and pinched her cheeks to make them pink. She straightened her collar and smoothed her riding jacket, checking to be sure the pocket flaps lay flat along the perfectly matched pattern of the expensive fabric.

“Are you going to a movie set or a riding ring?” Stevie asked. Stevie was not very good at keeping her opinions to herself. Lisa stifled a laugh. Veronica arched her eyebrows.

“It may interest you to know that I’ll probably be doing some of both today, in a manner of speaking.”

“In a manner of speaking?” Stevie echoed.
Nobody
talked that way.

“In case you didn’t know, there is a photographer here at the stable today. She’s a local woman, but she’s trying to make it into the high-fashion photography world. She’s looking for promising young riders to model for her. She’s currently doing work for a catalog. Naturally, she’ll want the best-dressed and best-looking girls to use for the catalog. Although it’s not much of a start, it
is
a start. I think I’ll enjoy it. And then, of course, there’s the money …”

Finally satisfied with her own reflection, Veronica nodded farewell to Stevie and Lisa and drifted out of the tack room. She was carrying her hard hat. She always put it on at the last possible moment so it wouldn’t ruin her hairdo.

“Grrr,” Stevie remarked when Veronica had left the tack room. “That girl is the most annoying, obnoxious, yucky person I have ever known.”

“I didn’t know you liked her that much,” Lisa joked.

“I don’t,” Stevie said, laughing at Lisa’s joke. “I was just being nice. But you know who I feel sorry for? I feel sorry for the poor photographer who ends up with her as a model. I bet she’ll be even worse to work with as a model than she is as a rider.”

Lisa nodded. Anything that would inflate Veronica’s
oversize ego would make her worse. Modeling would certainly do that.

Just then, the P.A. scratched to life. “Flat class will begin in three minutes,” Max announced.

“And we still have to tack up our horses!” Lisa yowled. “Let’s go!”

T
HE TRAIL RIDERS
were part of a group of tourists staying near Pine Hollow. None of them was an experienced rider.

“Now put your left foot in the stirrup and lift yourself up,” Carole instructed one of the trail riders, Dr. Babcock. “Be careful you don’t jump and land too hard on the horse’s …”

She stopped talking because the man wasn’t listening to her. He nearly flew into the air and plopped himself down in the saddle. His horse grunted. Carole patted the horse sympathetically and helped Dr. Babcock adjust his stirrups.

He was the second-to-last rider she had to help mount before they could begin the trail ride. His son, Scott, was her final task. When Dr. Babcock began
walking his horse over to the rest of the group, Carole turned her attention to Scott.

“Did you see what your father did?” she asked. Scott nodded. “Don’t do it that way,” she said. Scott grinned.

“Dad’s not very good at listening to directions,” he explained.

“How about you?” Carole asked.

“Try me,” he said.

Carole carefully told him the steps to follow in mounting a horse. She explained that landing hard on the horse’s back was a strain on the animal’s spine.

“I could tell the horse didn’t like it,” Scott said. “So I suppose all that stuff about the cowboy jumping down from the second-story window into his saddle to make a getaway is just Hollywood junk, right?”

“Right,” Carole said with a grin. Then, when Scott was in the saddle, she helped him with his stirrups and showed him how to hold the reins. When she was satisfied, she mounted her own horse, Diablo, and they joined the others for the trail ride.

It was a relaxed ride. The horses at Pine Hollow were usually used for classes, which could be quite strenuous for them. When Max had a group of inexperienced riders who wanted to ride on a trail, it meant that the horses would be walking slowly for an hour or more. Max would not let untested riders canter
or even trot. Not only could the riders get into trouble, but the horses would be at risk, and Max would never let that happen.

Carole rode Diablo at the rear of the group. The riders had been paired and her trail mate was Scott Babcock. She wasn’t paying too much attention to him, though. Carole’s job, as second rider, was to watch ahead and be sure that nobody was getting into any trouble. Most of the riders in this group seemed so unfamiliar with horses that they weren’t trying anything risky at all. She watched the riders keenly, but spared some of her attention for appreciating her surroundings.

It was a muggy, hot summer day. Threatening clouds masked the sunshine, but there was no relief from the humidity. As the group entered a forest path that led up a hillside, Carole sighed, expecting some relief. There was none. The mosquitoes and gnats were out in full force. The horses’ tails swished, flicking at insects. Carole swatted a mosquito on her arm. Then, when another one landed on Diablo’s neck, she swatted that as well. Diablo nodded his head ever so slightly after her hand struck. He seemed grateful, but too hot himself to react much.

“Doesn’t it bother him when you hit him like that?” Scott asked.

“Not when I’m doing him a favor and he knows it,”
Carole told him. “Horses are tough. You can hurt one, that’s for sure, but Diablo knows the difference between, say, a friendly swat like that and a punishing whack, which I might give him if he started to bite me or something.”

“Have you been riding a long time?” Scott asked.

“Since I could walk,” Carole said. “I was raised on Marine Corps bases, and there are usually stables on bases, so I got to spend a lot of time riding. I plan to own horses when I grow up. I may become a vet, too. I’m not sure about that yet.”

“You seem to know an awful lot about horses already,” Scott said, obviously impressed.

Carole thought about her friend Kate Devine, now living with her family on a dude ranch out west. Now
Kate
knew about horses and riding! Carole really missed the championship rider, and hoped to visit Kate soon. In fact, she’d already saved up a lot of the money she would need for airfare.

Still thinking about Kate, Carole shrugged off Scott’s compliment. “This is just basic stuff,” she said. “In classes, I’m working on harder things, like jumping and dressage.”

“Dressage? You mean like putting costumes on the horses?”

Carole couldn’t help it. She burst into giggles. “No. Dressage is an important aspect of riding, especially in
competition. It focuses on the horse’s training, but it’s the rider’s responsibility to see that the horse does what he’s supposed to do. It has to do with obedience and manners.”

“Really? How do you teach a horse manners?”

Almost before she knew what she was doing, Carole was off and talking. Carole’s good friends knew that she could talk about horses for hours. Stevie and Lisa teased her about it sometimes, reminding Carole that they already had one teacher, Max, and didn’t really need another. But Scott had never heard this before. When he appeared interested, it was all the encouragement she needed.

After about ten minutes of her lecture, Carole brought herself to an abrupt halt. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she told Scott. “I just start talking about horses, and there’s no stopping me. I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be sorry,” Scott protested, smiling at her. “It’s really interesting. I mean, as much as I can
understand
is really interesting. How did you learn all this?”

“Just by caring,” she said. “And speaking of caring, I’m going to have to pay a little more attention to the other riders. Excuse me.”

With that, Carole nudged Diablo into a faster pace so she could catch up with Dr. Babcock, who was having some trouble. He was a few riders in front of them, but his horse was lagging behind. Dr. Babcock was trying
to get the animal to go faster by kicking at him. The horse was ignoring the kicks.

“Chip is stubborn, Dr. Babcock,” she explained, drawing up to him. “He likes things just so and gets a kick out of ignoring riders. I think he’s been annoyed with you since you landed so hard on his back. You need to show him who’s the boss, though, or he’ll just get more and more stubborn.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?”

“No, because Chip’s idea of how to be stubborn is to walk slowly and that’s not dangerous. He needs to pick up his pace, but he doesn’t like to be kicked. When he gets so poky, you should use your calf to put pressure on his belly. First your right leg, then your left, alternating with each step. Now, try it.”

This time, Dr. Babcock tried to follow Carole’s instructions, and it worked. Soon Chip and Dr. Babcock were catching up with the other riders. Carole dropped back to the rear, behind Scott, who was riding Patch.

“Nice work,” Scott said, admiring Carole’s success with his father.

“It’s nothing,” Carole said. “That’s easy stuff.”

“Well, then, I guess I’d like to see you doing some of the hard stuff,” he told her.

Carole just nodded in acknowledgment. It felt a little odd to have Scott ask so many questions and admire her skills so frankly. He didn’t seem
that
interested in riding himself. He just wanted to know about her. Carole had just started to think about what that might mean when her thoughts were suddenly turned elsewhere.

The clouds, which had been blanketing the sun all morning, now darkened menacingly. She didn’t like the idea of having all these tourists out in the woods if it began raining, but that would be nothing compared to what might happen if there were thunder and lightning, especially thunder. When the sky suddenly brightened with a distant flash of lightning, Red O’Malley brought the group to a halt and turned toward the back of the line of riders. Carole knew that she and Red had the same thought at the same instant.

The problem was that Patch, normally a very docile horse, was frightened by thunder, or anything that sounded like it. His reaction was to bolt and there was no way a nonrider like Scott could manage it.

“Carole, get on Patch!” Red cried because he wouldn’t be able to reach Patch in time to calm him himself.

Without hesitating, Carole dismounted from Diablo and half-hitched him to a branch. “Hold the reins tight,” she called to Scott, running. “I’ll be right there!”

Scott looked at her quizzically. There was no time to explain to him. She just had to hope he would listen.

The whole world went into slow motion for the few
seconds it took Carole to dash over to Patch. As she neared the horse she could see that his ears were laid flat back on his head, and the whites of his eyes showed his terror. Patch had seen the lightning and knew what was coming.

There wouldn’t be time for Scott to dismount and Carole to mount before the rumble of thunder began. Without even thinking about it, Carole used a rock as a launchpad, and leapt up onto Patch, behind Scott. She reached around the astonished boy, but before she could grab the reins from his hand, the roll of thunder began. Then there was another brilliant streak of lightning nearer by and the roaring crack of thunder.