Trail Mates (3 page)

Patch took off!

Carole knew there was a big difference between the controlled gait of a properly behaved horse and the frantic gallop of one that was terrified. Patch raced into the woods without any thought to his own safety or that of his riders. Branches whipped at Carole and Scott from both sides. They were off the trail and their legs were battered by the bushes. One of Scott’s feet was torn from its stirrup by the bushes as they passed.

Carole wrested the reins from Scott’s frozen grasp and tried to maintain enough balance from where she sat on Patch’s rump to control the terrified animal. She leaned to the right so she could see where they were
headed, but when she saw it she didn’t like it at all. They were aimed directly at a low-slung branch.

“Duck!” she cried, pushing Scott forward next to Patch’s mane on the left side. She could see the boy’s white knuckles grasping the thick hair of the horse’s mane. The horse was totally out of control as they raced under the low-slung branch that scraped Carole’s back. At least she was still on the horse.

Finally Carole managed to grip the reins properly in her hands. Then she began to tighten up on them slowly. She knew that eventually Patch would tire and stop running, but until then she was responsible for Scott’s safety as well as her own. She needed to minimize the damage. And the damage could be considerable. Patch began plunging down a hill so fast that his front feet had trouble keeping up with his rear feet. If that continued for long, he’d be in danger of falling down.

“Grip tight with your legs,” Carole gasped.

“I can’t,” Scott said, fear evident in his voice. “I lost one stirrup and my foot slipped through the other one. It’s around my ankle!”

That was worse than losing the stirrup, Carole knew. It meant that if Scott
did
lose his balance, he’d be dragged by the horse!

Patch zigzagged downhill, along an old trail. Carole realized, with a sick feeling, that the trail had been
abandoned after a hurricane had knocked down some very big trees across it. And there was one of them, right up ahead!

Carole shortened the reins even more but Patch didn’t break stride. He galloped up to the decaying pine tree and then rose into the air, high above it. Carole felt Scott begin to lose his grip, sliding to the left. With every ounce of strength she had, she held him tight, counterbalancing him. She knew that if they weren’t balanced when Patch landed, it would be all over.

When the horse’s feet struck the ground, Carole and Scott managed to stay on. Carole gripped the horse tightly with her legs. Then, as suddenly as he had started, Patch stopped. He pulled to a halt, sniffed the air, blew out briskly, and began nibbling on some weeds that grew by the side of the path.

“Have we landed?” Scott asked, his voice shaking.

“Looks that way,” Carole told him, slipping down off Patch’s back. “You want to get down?”

Scott nodded numbly. Carole helped him remove his foot from the stirrup and explained how to dismount. Following her instructions, he slid down the side of Patch’s saddle. When he was safely on the ground, he reached for the trunk of a nearby tree for support. He was shaking all over.

Carole turned her attention to Patch. Other than
being sweaty from his gallop on a muggy day, he was unharmed and now seemed uninterested in the gentle rumble of thunder they could hear in the distance. She took the horse’s reins and tugged at them gently to get his attention.

“Come on, Scott, we’d better get back to the group. They’ll be worried about us, you know.” She turned Patch to face the slope where she knew they would find Red and the other riders.

Scott stood up straight, wiped his hand across his forehead, and joined Carole.

“You saved my life, you know,” he said as they walked along.

“Oh, I don’t think there was
that
much danger,” she said, shrugging, not wanting to think about the stinging she felt from the branches that had just grazed her arms, legs, and back.

“No, I mean it, Carole. You saved my life,” Scott said again. “You’re
something
!”

Carole sighed to herself. After all, she hadn’t done anything that any other experienced rider wouldn’t have done, and that was why she’d been on the trail ride in the first place.

“That’s what trail mates are for,” she said.

“N
OW, TROT
!” M
AX
called out to his students, who were cantering in a large circle around the outdoor ring.

Lisa shifted her weight, sitting down into the saddle and straightening her back. Pepper, her black-speckled gray horse, kept on cantering. She made a determined face and gripped harder with her calves, shortening the reins. She needed to show Pepper who was in charge. He slowed down to a trot.

“Lisa, you must have better control,” Max reminded her. “You should be able to change gaits within two paces. Three at the most. Now watch his trot. Pepper wants to walk—see how he’s slowing down. Keep your leg on him! Use the whip!”

Lisa tried to follow all of Max’s instructions. It wasn’t easy, but with some effort she found that Pepper had a nice even trot and she was rising and sitting with it in a proper post.

“Better,” Max said. From Max, that was high praise.

Lisa continued to concentrate very hard on her gaits and changing them. She was only vaguely aware of the click-whir of a camera nearby. She realized that those sounds must be coming from the photographer Veronica had mentioned. Lisa glanced across the ring for a second. What she saw made her giggle.

The photographer was perched on top of the wooden fence that surrounded the ring. And in front of her was Veronica, prancing back and forth on her horse. The girl was trying to look casual, but the effect was anything but casual. She flipped her long black hair back over her shoulder and tossed her head. Then she removed her riding hat to show off her hair. Veronica was letting her horse get in everybody else’s way so she could do most of her work right in front of the photographer. But the woman seemed oblivious to Veronica’s obvious moves. The camera kept clicking.

“Five minutes remaining,” Max announced. “That means you too, Veronica,” he said pointedly. “We will walk our horses to cool them down, starting … now!”

Quickly, Lisa got Pepper to switch from a trot to a
walk. She was pretty sure she’d even managed it within two paces and was about to congratulate herself when she noticed it had begun to rain.

“Okay, so we’ll walk them around the indoor ring,” Max told his students. They dismounted and led their horses through the stable area to the indoor ring.

Stevie led her horse, Comanche, next to Lisa and Pepper.

“Did you notice the high-fashion model?” Stevie asked, making a gagging motion.

“Who could miss her?” Lisa agreed, giggling. “My favorite part was when she took off her hat and shook her hair loose. Who does she think she is, anyway?”

“She thinks she’s Veronica diAngelo—and that’s good enough for
her
,” Stevie said. “The only trouble is that she thinks it ought to be good enough for everybody else, too!”

Stevie heard the now-familiar click of the photographer’s camera and felt Comanche tense up. His ears went flat against his head. Stevie knew he was upset. Quickly, she shortened her grip on the reins, and then patted him reassuringly on his neck.

“There, there, boy,” she said. “Don’t be afraid. It’s just a camera, and you can be sure that Veronica is somewhere between you and it!”

Comanche relaxed.

“Veronica?” a woman’s voice said. Stevie and Lisa
turned to see the photographer standing behind them. “Is she the black-haired girl who kept getting in my way during class?” she asked.

Lisa nodded. Stevie started laughing. “I don’t think that’s what
she’d
call it, though,” she said.

“There’s always one,” the woman said. Then she extended her hand. “My name’s Jacqueline Small. Call me Jackie.”

The girls introduced themselves and shook hands.

“Did you enjoy the class?” Stevie asked her.

“I learned a lot,” Jackie said. “A lot. Thanks for letting me sit in.”

“No problem,” Stevie told her. “Come back anytime.”

“Oh, I will,” Jackie said. “See you!” With that, she closed her camera case and left the stable.

Lisa watched Jackie as she walked quickly toward the stable door. “Nice lady,” she said, thinking out loud. Then Pepper tugged at the reins. He was eager to return to his stall and have a drink of water. “I know, I know,” she said. “Come on, it’s lunchtime.”

“Yeah, it
is
,” Stevie said, leading Comanche into his stall. “And where’s our trail boss, Carole? Think she got lost?”

“N
OW
,
DON’T LET
your horses start going too fast just because we’re close to home,” Carole warned the riders
near her. “It’s not good for them to run at the end of a ride, and it’s a bad habit to let them get into,” she explained.

Scott was once again riding on Patch. It had taken all of Carole’s persuasive powers to get him to mount Patch again, but, in the end, he’d done it.

“Is there anything about riding you don’t know?” Scott asked.

The questioned annoyed Carole. Of course there were things she didn’t know about riding and about horses—lots of them. It was just that
he
knew so little.

“Yes,” she told him. “I don’t know how to stand on a horse’s bare back and skip rope.”

“I saw somebody do that in a circus once,” Scott said. Her sarcasm had been lost on him and she was a little ashamed of herself for having said what she did.

“I was just teasing,” she explained. “But there
are
a lot of things I don’t know about horses. These animals are a lifetime of work and learning. You can learn enough to be comfortable with them in just a few years, but to learn everything? Well, nobody knows everything.”

Scott looked like he wanted to say something, but he sighed instead. Carole was relieved. The situation made her uncomfortable. She was glad when the line of riders finally entered the yard next to the stable and
it was time to dismount. She would be too busy with the other riders to talk with Scott.

One of the stablehands took Diablo’s reins from Carole and led the horse into the stable. Carole stood by as each rider dismounted, and then she and the stablehand took turns leading the horses back into their stalls. It was a fairly slow process. The last rider to dismount was Scott. She took Patch and led him to his stall. Scott followed her like a puppy. She was latching the stall door when Stevie and Lisa ran over to her.

“How was it?” Lisa asked. “Do you like being a trail leader?”

“I wasn’t exactly a leader,” Carole said, “and there was one little problem.”

“What was the problem?” asked Lisa.

“Me,” Scott said. Stevie and Lisa saw him for the first time. What they saw was a nice-looking guy with an embarrassed grin on his face who couldn’t keep his eyes off their friend Carole.

“Oh, it wasn’t you,” Carole said. “It was Patch. Did you hear the thunder here?” she asked her friends.

“Oh, no!” Lisa said. Lisa knew firsthand what could happen to Patch when he heard a sudden loud noise. Her first day at Pine Hollow, she’d been riding Patch when somebody slammed the door. Patch didn’t know
the difference between a slammed door and thunder. He’d taken off like a bullet. “Did you get hurt?” she asked Scott sympathetically.

“I’m okay,” he said. “Thanks to Carole. She saved my life.” He made the statement so dramatically that both Stevie and Lisa had to hold back their laughter.

“That’s Carole, our heroine!” Stevie said. “Tell us what happened.”

Scott described the events on the trail. The girls noticed the glowing terms he used to describe Carole’s rescue. He used words like “daring,” “bold,” “heroic,” “fearless,” and “tremendous.”

“You forgot the part about the shining armor,” Stevie teased.

Scott took the ribbing good-naturedly. “I think if she’d had her armor on, she might not have moved so fast,” he concluded.

“Give me a break,” Carole said, more than a little embarrassed. “I really didn’t do anything that wasn’t expected of me—that any trained rider wouldn’t have at least attempted. And it was my job to see that you came back safe and sound.”

“Well, I’d like to try to make it up to you a little bit by giving you a hand around here. I mean, can I help you in some way? After all, you sure helped me.”

Stevie glanced over at Carole to see what her reaction would be. Normally, Carole wouldn’t want to
have somebody who didn’t know anything about horses help her around the barn, but Scott’s offer seemed so genuine and he seemed so nice.

“Oh, no thank you,” Carole said. “I’ve just got a few little things to do, then it’s time for lunch and class. Thanks for the offer anyway.”

Scott looked very disappointed. “Well, I’ll tell you what,” he said. “My parents are taking a bus tour of the Virginia countryside tomorrow and I can’t stand those things. I’m usually the youngest by at
least
forty years. I’ll skip that and come back here early so I can help you with your morning chores, okay? Then you can tell me more about riding. I like to hear you talk about it.”