Stevie gave her friend a disgusted look. “Have you been watching too many B Westerns, Lisa? Leaving isn’t romantic. What’s romantic about not seeing a person? Arriving, on the other hand …”
IT WAS THE perfect day to make pies: freezing cold! The girls wished Carole, Frank, and John could have been at home with them. But the three were expert riders. They would never do anything unsafe. “Just think of it as a long winter trail ride,” Kate suggested when they were gathered in the warm, brightly lit kitchen.
“Yeah. With most people I’d laugh, but Carole’s crazy enough to want to go riding on a day like this,” Stevie said.
Lisa agreed. “If she didn’t have to go find the black mare, she’d be on our cases all day to go for a pleasure ride!”
As the girls watched, Phyllis set out flour and sugar. She preheated the oven to 350 degrees. “We’ll try apple pie today,” she announced. “As I said before, a good crust is the secret of a good pie. The filling is easy: You just mix up fruit, sugar, and spices—whatever’s in season—”
“Except for mincemeat pie,” Stevie interrupted. “That’s got real beef in it, doesn’t it?”
Phyllis laughed. “In the old days it did. And you can probably still find recipes lying around for real mincemeat. But when people serve mincemeat at Thanksgiving or Christmas, it’s just nuts, raisins, sugar, and spices. It has a meaty flavor, but there’s no meat in there.”
Lisa stared at her. “You mean all these years I’ve been refusing my grandmother’s mincemeat for no reason? I always thought it sounded disgusting, so I stuck to my mother’s pumpkin and pecan.”
“You’ll have to try it next year,” Phyllis said. “It’s one of my favorites.” While they were chatting, Kate’s mother scooped cups of flour from a large canister. She showed the girls how to level the top with a knife to get an exact measurement. Then she gestured for them to do the same. “It’s no good if I cook and you watch, because you won’t really learn till you try it yourselves—and try it again and again. So each of us is going to make two or three pies,” she explained. “We’re lucky: The ranch kitchen is semi-industrial, meaning that it’s set up to produce dinner for fifty. Everyone can have her own measuring cups, mixing bowls, pie plates, et cetera. How’s that filling coming, Kate?”
Kate groaned. “I always forget how long it takes to peel enough apples for even one pie. My hands are killing me.”
“It’s good exercise,” Phyllis said briskly.
Stevie and Lisa smiled at one another. The older Devines were no-nonsense parents. They believed that children should work hard and play hard. It was one of the reasons the ranch was so much fun: Everyone was expected to take part in the chores, whether it was mucking stalls or peeling apples. But then everyone joined in the celebrations, too. Kate rolled her eyes good-naturedly and picked up another apple.
“Don’t you want to have the butter out getting soft?” Lisa inquired. She remembered that rule from making chocolate-chip cookies. It was easier to cream the butter and sugar if the butter had softened somewhat.
Phyllis shook her head. “No. Butter for a crust should be hard and chilled. Otherwise you’ll have trouble cutting it into the flour. If it’s warm and soft, it mushes into the flour, and it doesn’t create the texture you want.”
“What is cutting, anyway?” Stevie inquired. “It sounds like you take a knife and hack up the butter.”
“You do, sort of,” Phyllis said. “Although nowadays we can be a bit more sophisticated.” She first demonstrated the most basic cutting technique: slicing pieces of cold butter into the flour with two knives. “But there’s also a tool specifically intended for this task.” Phyllis reached into a drawer and held up a wooden-handled pastry blender. She demonstrated how to use the implement. “You see? It’s almost like having six knives cutting at the same time.”
“So that’s what that is!” Stevie exclaimed. “My mom let my brothers and me use it with modeling dough, so I thought it was a—a modeling dough blender!”
Kate flicked an apple peel at Stevie. “Ha-ha.”
“Ha-ha yourself!” Stevie shot back.
One thing is sure, Lisa thought, eyeing her two friends, with Stevie in the kitchen, we won’t lack for entertainment.
“Here, I’ll give it a try,” Lisa volunteered.
“Great,” said Phyllis.
Starting tentatively, Lisa began to cut her flour and butter. Soon she was mimicking Phyllis’s deft movements. The recipe said the flour and butter should “resemble coarse meal.” Lisa had no idea what coarse meal looked like, but pretty soon Phyllis stopped her. “Perfect. You see how the ingredients are mixed? They’re not pastelike or gluey, which happens if you overmix them. Excellent job, Lisa.”
Lisa glowed. It was such a little thing, but with Kate’s mother as her teacher, she already felt more confident in the kitchen. Phyllis had a relaxed style that made her a natural teacher. Lisa’s own mother was, like her daughter, a perfectionist. Mrs. Atwood kept the kitchen spotless, even while she was baking or making dinner. If she spilled anything—water, sugar, coffee grounds—she wiped it up that instant. And the Atwoods’ kitchen was so organized that it got on Lisa’s nerves. Yes, it was true that staples like flour and sugar were kept in labeled glass jars. But Lisa didn’t like to disturb them. She was always afraid she would spill something or make a mistake, like getting brown sugar mixed with white. That kind of thing drove her mother crazy. Lisa said as much to the group in the kitchen.
Phyllis nodded sympathetically. “Kate’s grandmother, my mother, was like that. She was a marvelous cook—still is, in fact. But I never felt free to experiment in the kitchen at home. I didn’t really learn to cook until I got to college. I’ve never worried about cooking for the guests, not even when we had the crew from Hollywood staying with us.” Phyllis laughed. “But when Mom comes for Thanksgiving or Christmas, I stay up half the night getting ready!”
“It’s true,” Kate said, grinning. “You’ve never seen a woman go from calm to panic so fast.”
Stevie and Lisa chuckled. Neither of them could imagine Kate’s mother worrying about her cooking. “How’s this?” Stevie asked, holding up her mixing bowl. “I did mine by the old method of two knives.”
Phyllis examined the mixture. “Not quite done.”
Stevie’s face fell. In spite of herself, she was feeling competitive with Lisa.
“But don’t worry,” Phyllis hurried on, “because I haven’t even showed you the best method.”
“You haven’t?” Stevie and Lisa said in unison.
Phyllis shook her head. “Nope. It’s right over there.” They looked to see where she was pointing.
“A food processor!” Lisa exclaimed, scandalized. “But I thought with cooking and baking you had to do everything from scratch, and by hand, or else you were cheating!”
Phyllis raised her eyebrows. “A nice idea. Actually, the more you can cheat, the better. And now I’ll show you how to make perfect, instant crust with a flick of the On-Off button.”
In a matter of seconds, Phyllis had used the electric food processor to mix the flour and butter. Then she moved on to the next step: adding tablespoonfuls of ice water so that the crust would stick together. A quick pulse of the machine and the dough was ready to be gathered into a ball. “Now we’ll let it chill for an hour. Meanwhile, you can both try the ‘cheating’ method. I’ll help my poor, overworked daughter peel apples.”
Before the girls could trade places with Phyllis, there was a loud knock on the front door. “I’ll get it!” Kate cried, tossing the peeler aside. She ran out of the kitchen. A moment later she was back. “Company!” she announced.
The girls turned to see their old friend Christine Lonetree in the doorway.
“Christine!” cried Stevie and Lisa. They ran to embrace her. Christine was a close friend of the Devines and, like Kate, was an out-of-town member of The Saddle Club. She lived close enough to the Bar None to ride over, and often did, on her horse, Arrow.<
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“I was out on Arrow when I remembered you guys were here on a visit. So I stuck him in an empty stall and stopped in.”
“We’re so glad you did, Christine,” said Phyllis.
“How is it out there?” Lisa asked anxiously.
Christine shivered. “It’s cold—and I mean cold,” she said. “It’s a good thing I ride bareback. Arrow has better circulation than I do and he keeps me warm.”
That was not the weather report Lisa had hoped for. Quickly the girls explained the situation with the black mare to Christine. “Gosh, I didn’t see any sign of a loose horse.”
Phyllis looked at the clock. “They’ve been out a couple of hours already,” she noted. Then her face brightened. “Listen, Christine, why don’t you help us make pies and stay for dinner tonight? We’d love your company.”
Christine had barely said yes when Kate thrust a paring knife into her hand. “Peel,” she ordered. “Peel, peel, peel, peel, peel.”
CAROLE WILLED HERSELF to ride on in silence. She had begged to come, despite Frank’s warnings. She couldn’t start complaining now. It seemed colder than when they had started six hours earlier. The sun had come out briefly, then vanished behind clouds. Carole wriggled her toes in her boots to make sure they were still there. She held the reins loosely, giving Stewball his head to follow the other two horses. The cold seemed to press in on them. There was still no sign of the black mare.
Up ahead, Frank suddenly reined in his bay. “We’re coming to a split in the trail,” he announced. “We’ve got to make a decision.”
Beside him John shook his head. “I just don’t understand it,” he said. “I was sure my dad would be right.”
“So did I, John,” Frank answered.
“Why would the mare run away if not to go back home—where she came from?” John mused aloud. “And yet we’ve ridden north, northeast, and northwest without seeing a single hoofprint.”
“It sure beats me how any horse …”
Carole half listened to the conversation. If only I knew where you were! she thought. Beneath her, Stewball shifted uneasily. The pinto seemed impatient to turn around. He had been trying to go in the opposite direction for a couple of hours at least. “There’s nothing over there, boy,” Carole murmured. “Nothing but desert and wide-open stretches and a handful of wild horses. You’re not going to find—” Midthought, Carole stopped. A lightbulb turned on in her brain. She clapped a hand to her mouth.
“I just thought of something!” she exclaimed, bursting into Frank and John’s discussion. “The wild horses! That’s it! I’ll bet the black mare went to join the wild herd!”
John’s eyes lit up. “Carole, I think you’ve got it!”
As everyone at the Bar None knew, herds of wild horses ran free on the federal property that surrounded the ranch, and sometimes on the ranch itself. Kate’s horse, Moonglow, had come from one of those herds. Kate had adopted the mare as part of a government program that kept the herds small enough so that they could survive. Most of the time the horses were left alone to graze and forage on the range. It was easy to forget they even existed.
Frank frowned. “You could be right. But why would a tame horse go wild?”
Carole opened her mouth to reply. Then she shut it just as fast. There was no way of explaining it. How could she say, “I just know she’s there. I know it the way I know two plus two is four,” and expect anyone to believe her? She felt John’s eyes on her.
“It’s—It’s just a thought,” she said. “But Stewball seems to want to head in that direction. That is, if the horses still stick to the area around the base of the mountain.”
John spoke up. “They do, Carole. I saw them there last month.”
“Could we at least check?” Carole asked, her fingers crossed. “It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”
Frank looked off into the distance. “That’s a long trek through the snow,” he said doubtfully. He sighed. “I like the looks of that mare, and I’d hate to lose her right after we bought her, but three people are a lot more important than one horse.”
Carole knew Frank was right, and that he had to take responsibility for them. But if it were up to her, she’d risk anything to get the mare back …
“I think we ought to give it a shot, boss,” said John. “We’re not starving out here—or freezing.” He chuckled. “At least, not yet, we’re not. I, for one, can put up with a little more discomfort if it means bringing the mare home.” Something in the way he spoke made Carole feel that John understood she was going on intuition, and that he trusted her intuition.
Frank squinted up at the sky. He checked the sandwich supply in his saddlebag. He studied John’s and Carole’s faces. Finally he said, “We’ll give it three more hours total, including the hour it’s going to take us to get home. If we wrap around the mountain from here, we may catch the herd on the way back. If we don’t, the black mare is going to have to come in out of the cold of her own accord.”
Carole shivered again, and this time not from the cold. As they started off in the opposite direction, she caught John Brightstar’s eye. “Thank you,” she mouthed.
“No problem,” he mouthed back, giving her a thumbs-up.
Stewball was pleased. Without waiting for a cue, he picked up his pace, from a lagging shuffle to a swinging walk. It was as if he wanted to tell them they had made the right decision. Carole felt her spirits rising. She had been in a daze all morning. She’d almost known that their search was going to be fruitless. Now she felt optimistic.
“Hey, let’s sing a little to keep our spirits up,” John suggested.
“Great idea,” said Carole.
John started with “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.” Carole chimed in, then went on with “Erie Canal.”
“Hey, you’re not going to forget ‘Home on the Range,’ are you?” Frank demanded.
Carole sat up straighter in the saddle. She lifted her hand off the saddle horn where it had been resting and reined Stewball properly. Singing “Home on the Range” when you were on the range was a thrill and a privilege—and it was a moment Carole would never forget. She didn’t want to spoil it by slouching!
The singing was fun, and what was more, Carole thought, it got them breathing deeply, which helped their circulation. Before she knew it, close to an hour had passed. They were approaching the valley sandwiched between the mountain and Two-Mile Creek. The creek was completely frozen. Luckily they didn’t have to cross it. Instead they wandered alongside it. They automatically fell silent so as not to scare the horses if they were nearby.
They didn’t have to wait long to find out. Rounding a large patch of shrub bush, Carole caught her breath. The black mare was standing about fifty yards away. Carole felt her heart soar as she caught sight of Cobalt’s twin. She was struck for a second time by the uncanny similarities. She didn’t trust herself to speak. And it wasn’t just the mare’s resemblance to the stallion that took Carole’s breath away. It was her solitude in the wilderness, and her beauty—night black against white, unspoiled snow.
“She almost looks as if she’s been waiting for us,” John murmured.
Carole frowned. “But where’s the rest of the herd?” It seemed strange that the mare would have separated from them.
Frank gestured toward the mountain trail. “They probably caught our scent and took off,” he said. “I’d put money on it.”
Just then a high, distant whinny pierced the air.
“It’s the stallion!” John whispered, pointing. “He’s telling her to come with them.” The three riders craned their necks to catch a glimpse of the herd, but they were too late. The horses had vanished into the gray afternoon, leaving only a trail of hoofprints.
The mare pricked her ears. She turned her elegant head toward the mountain. A moment later she answered the stallion’s whinny. But she didn’t move. She seemed to be hesitating, wondering which way to go.
“You two cut left and right in case she runs,” Frank said quie
tly. “I’ve got my lasso ready.”
Carole started in the saddle. She had been so caught up in the scene, she hadn’t been at all prepared for Frank’s order. Obviously, though, that was what they had come for. Fortunately Stewball seemed to know what to do without being told. He jogged left, flanking the mare, as John guided Tex to the right. In a matter of seconds, Frank was close enough to swing his rope. It whistled through the air. Carole fought an instinct to yell, to scare the mare off. The lasso landed neatly around the black neck.
Carole felt herself cringe. The mare had looked so beautiful standing alone in the wilderness. Now she was just another horse in captivity.
Don’t be silly, Carole told herself angrily. You didn’t ride seven hours not to catch her!
“Carole, why don’t you hop down and halter her?” Frank suggested. “She must have lost hers out here somewhere.”
Carole jumped off Stewball and took the halter Frank handed her. She could tell the mare was ready to run. Her ears swiveled back and forth. She seemed to be waiting for a sign. For a moment Carole stood stock-still. The mare raised her head warily. She’s poised between captivity and the wild, Carole thought, and it’s up to me to help her choose captivity.
“Here, girl,” John said from aboard Tex. “Come on, we just want to take you home.”
Turning his horse to face the mare directly, Frank clucked encouragingly through his teeth.
The mare paid them no heed. She stayed focused on Carole, who began to approach her at a snail’s pace. The closer Carole got, the more undecided the mare seemed. Carole spoke soothingly to her. She kept the halter behind her back so that it wouldn’t scare the mare. When Carole was close enough to touch her, the mare looked over her shoulder a final time. Then she blew through her nostrils and lowered her head. She almost seemed to be sighing. Carole encircled her neck with an arm and slipped the halter on. “Good girl,” she breathed. “What a good girl.” She took a lead shank from her pocket and clipped it to the halter. Now the mare was ready to be ponied home behind Stewball. Carole remounted, keeping the lead in her free hand.
Horse Whispers Page 5