Crazy Horse

by Jenny Oldfield

  As the sheriff’s car drew near and eased into the curb, Lisa nodded. “So we’re OK, you and me?”

  Kirstie nodded back. Sheriff Francini had gotten out of the car, was zipping up his jacket and heading toward her. “Hey, Lisa,” she murmured before her friend could slip away. “Don’t feel bad.”

  “No?” Lisa hesitated. “How come?”

  For the first time since the incident, Kirstie smiled. “You were right. Crazy Horse doesn’t score high marks in the looks department. I’m not saying he’s ugly, mind; just unusual. And you know something? He kinda makes up for it.”

  “Great personality,” Lisa confirmed.

  “Smart,” Kirstie added. “Real clever.”

  “A kidder.”

  “Yeah, a joker,” Kirstie agreed. “And I guess I have to admit, just a little bit nutty.”

  Sheriff Larry Francini looked and sounded more like the man who ran the local pizza restaurant than the upholder of law and order in San Luis County, Colorado. He was short—stocky if you were kind, fat if you were honest—and had a fringe of dark hair below a shiny bald head. He wore a dark mustache and a permanent, easygoing smile.

  “Don’t be too hard on yourself,” he told Kirstie after she’d tried to describe the three horse thieves from the night before. “Your mom tells me it was pretty dark out there. Ain’t no surprise to me that you don’t remember too much about them.”

  “You seen my mom?” Kirstie sat in the principal’s office with the sheriff. She’d been excused from the first class of the afternoon to talk to him.

  “Sure. I was out there this morning. Helped Charlie and her fix the fence. According to her, it was you who raised the alarm.”

  “Yes, but I wish I’d concentrated more on how they looked. All I know is there were three of them, wearing Stetsons, collars up.”

  “How about their horses?”

  “One was a sorrel, two were paints.” Kirstie remembered this much, at least. “Oh, and one was wearing a fancy bridle; one of those plaited kinds, red and white leather, I guess. It looked new to me.”

  “Hmm.” The sheriff made a mental note. “Maybe I could check that with the local saddlery store, see if an item like that has been sold lately.”

  Kirstie nodded quickly. It was the only detail so far that might provide a lead. “What else are you gonna do?” she urged.

  “Well, now, first I file my report…”

  “No, I mean, where are you gonna start looking for Cadillac and Crazy Horse?”

  Larry Francini stood and picked up his white felt hat from the principal’s desk. “It ain’t that easy. For a start, we don’t have too many clues to go on.”

  Kirstie broke in. “They were headed up by Hummingbird Rock. We saw them there, heading for Miners’ Ridge. Isn’t that a start?”

  Francini went on steadily. “Second, I’m a little short of men right now. My deputy is on vacation, and I have a whole stack of traffic violations piling up on my desk, plus a break-in at the gas station last Friday night…”

  This was bad news for Kirstie. “You mean, you won’t be going after the rustlers?”

  Hat on head, the sheriff shrugged. “I mean to keep my eyes and ears open,” he promised on his way out of the door. “Once I’ve filed the report, I reckon that’s about the best I can do.”

  “That’s the real world.” Later that afternoon, Sandy Scott sat Kirstie down at the kitchen table. “You can’t expect all the cops in Colorado to drop everything and go out onto Miners’ Ridge looking for Cadillac and Crazy Horse!”

  “I don’t want all the cops in the whole state, just a couple!” Frustrated and angry, Kirstie flopped into a chair and fought back the tears. “When did the sheriff’s office in San Luis last arrest a criminal? That’s what I want to know!”

  Sandy frowned and glanced at Lisa, who had ridden out with Kirstie to Half Moon Ranch on the school bus. Kirstie’s mother looked pale and tired, resigned to what had happened.

  “I agree.” Lisa defended her friend. “If they were my horses, I’d want Sheriff Francini to visit Jim Mullins at the Lazy B for a start. That’s the next ranch to here, so there’s a good chance the rustlers had to pass through Horseshoe Valley around about dawn.”

  “Maybe.” Sandy Scott nodded. “And I’m sure the sheriff will do that when he finds the time.”

  “Yeah!” Kirstie had paid attention to Lisa’s theory. “Once you come down the far side of Miners’ Ridge, the dirt track running along Horseshoe Creek is the only road for miles. That’s where the rustlers must have parked their truck!”

  “Maybe!” her mom repeated, more loudly this time, and with a note of warning not to rush ahead without thinking.

  But Kirstie jumped up from the table. “Is Hadley still over there?” she demanded. “Why don’t we give him a call and ask him what he saw?”

  “Cool it.” Running a hand through her hair, Sandy motioned into the living room for Charlie to begin loading bales of hay onto the pickup truck to drive out to Red Fox Meadow. The young wrangler got off the phone, stepped outside, and got to work. “I already thought of Hadley and called the Lazy B,” Sandy went on. “He says they slept through the night. No one at the ranch saw anything suspicious.”

  The news seemed to put to rest the only good theory the girls had had so far. “Back to square one,” Lisa muttered.

  “Farther back than that,” Kirstie said bleakly, slumping down at the table once more. “Square one minus one!”

  “And you know what?” Sandy hovered by the living-room door. She picked up a cup of coffee which she’d allowed to go cold, took a sip, then threw out the dregs. “There’s one phone call I didn’t make, and that was to Denver to tell Matt what happened.”

  Kirstie listed the reasons why not. She’d sprung into life at the mention of her brother’s name, crossed the room, and told her mom not to pick up the phone.

  “Number one, he’s in an exam room right this minute, so no one gets to speak to him. Two, you can’t just leave a message; you have to give him the bad news person to person. Three, he has more tests later this week. If you tell him about Crazy Horse and Cadillac now, he’ll want to skip his exams and come right home!”

  What she still didn’t tell Sandy was that Matt was already on the brink of quitting his course. The news about his beloved horses would definitely be the final straw.

  “I know!” Her mom began to pace up and down the hallway. “Why do you think I’ve been putting it off?”

  “You have to tell him sooner or later,” Lisa pointed out quietly. She glanced apologetically at Kirstie. “If it was me, I guess I’d really want to know.”

  “But we should wait!” To Kirstie, it seemed vital.

  “For what?” Lisa held steadily to her opinion. She raised her eyebrows. “For Sheriff Francini to make an arrest?”

  “No. For…for Matt to finish his exams,” Kirstie faltered.

  “And?” Sandy Scott was caught between a rock and a hard place. She genuinely wanted to know what else Kirstie had in mind.

  The idea, when it came, was the obvious one that they should all have thought of much sooner.

  “For a few of us to ride out onto Hummingbird Rock,” Kirstie suggested. “That was the last place we saw the horses. Surely, someone should go take a look!”

  Because it could do no harm, Sandy agreed to let Charlie ride out to the rock with Kirstie and Lisa.

  “After he’s finished feeding the horses in the remuda,” she insisted. “That will still give you a few hours of daylight: enough time to find out if the rustlers left any clues.”

  “And you promise not to call Matt while we’re gone?” Filled with sudden energy, Kirstie quickly lent Lisa some jeans and a sweatshirt, and the girls changed out of their school clothes, ready to saddle Lucky, Jitterbug, and Rodeo Rocky.

  “I promise,” Sandy agreed with a troubled frown. “If you promise me not to do anything crazy.”

  “Me?” Kirstie joked, pulling on her boots, reaching for her
cap.

  “Yes, you.” Sandy followed them to the door. “Remember, the trail gets steep and narrow up there. It’s below freezing, so there’ll be ice on the ground. You just take it easy.”

  Exchanging promises, tightening cinch buckles, checking stirrups, they tacked up, ready to ride.

  Sandy held Lucky’s reins as Kirstie sprang into the saddle.

  “We’ll be back before dark, no problem,” Kirstie assured her. It felt good to be doing something positive at last. “And Mom, there’s bound to be clues: footprints, a trail of some kind.”

  “You hope!” Her mother smiled and let go of the reins.

  “I know!” Kirstie said as she pointed Lucky out of the corral and over the footbridge. “It’ll all slide into place once we’re up on the rock. I get this weird feeling we’re gonna find out exactly what happened to those two horses out there on Hummingbird Rock!”

  5

  Snow weighed down the branches of the lodge-pole pines. It slipped and thudded gently to the ground as Kirstie, Lisa, and Charlie guided their horses up the mountain. Small flakes floated in the air, settling and melting on their faces. Their gazes were fixed on the narrow trail. Far ahead, at 13,000 feet, the jagged outline of Eagle’s Peak appeared, then disappeared behind a blanket of heavy gray clouds.

  “How much snow has fallen since last night?” Lisa asked Charlie, her voice uneasy.

  “Not much. Couple of inches.” He brushed against a branch. A heavy fall of frozen snow slid onto his yellow waterproof slicker, then hit the ground.

  “But enough to hide hoofprints,” Lisa pointed out. She was looking in vain for the trail left by the rustlers the night before.

  Up ahead on Lucky, Kirstie ignored them. Though the air was freezing, she felt hot and uncomfortable under her own plastic slicker, which Sandy had made her wear. It was probably anxiety that had raised her body temperature, she realized, because if she was honest with herself, the confidence she’d expressed before they set out had soon vanished, and now she shared Lisa’s doubts about picking up clues.

  “Yeah, you can forget hoofprints,” Charlie agreed, examining the smooth, white covering of snow on the trail. They were approaching the level ledge of Hummingbird Rock in single file—Kirstie, then Lisa, then Charlie. “Look for other signs,” he warned.

  “Like what?” Kirstie reached the ledge and stopped. From here, she had a clear view of the sweep of hills and valleys that surrounded their ranch.

  “Like this broken branch.” Charlie pointed out the damage to a nearby pine. “That happened since we rode this way to Lazy B.”

  Kirstie nodded eagerly. “I remember, this was the place where Crazy Horse put up a fight. I could see him kicking and fighting as they dragged him along the ledge. Hey, and here’s a flattened bush!”

  Glad to see the obvious signs, she slipped from the saddle to examine the ground.

  “Anything?” Lisa leaned sideways out of Jitterbug’s saddle. The sorrel mare stood quite still, listening intently to the unfamiliar, muffled sounds around.

  “Nope. The ground’s frozen solid beneath the snow. There’s a hoofprint or two, but nothing much to go on…Hey, look at this!” Stooping under the bush, Kirstie reached until her fingertips made contact with a coil of rope which she’d spotted. She brushed off the snow, then held it up for the others to see.

  “The guys last night must have dropped it,” Charlie said, taking it from her. “Leastways, it sure don’t belong to Half Moon Ranch.”

  The rope was new and expensive looking, the natural fibers intertwined with distinctive threads of red and white. Kirstie realized that it matched the fancy bridle on one of the rustlers’ horses.

  “We can take it to Sheriff Francini as evidence,” Lisa suggested.

  Rodeo Rocky shifted and snorted. Like Jitterbug, he was on edge, swishing his black tail and flicking his ears. “OK, tie the rope to your saddle,” Charlie ordered Kirstie. “Let’s get the horses moving, see what we can spot from the ridge.”

  So Kirstie remounted, and they moved on, from Hummingbird Rock along Meltwater Trail to Miners’ Ridge, looking all the time for more evidence of the rustlers’ track. At the ridge, they stopped again.

  “Decision time,” Charlie insisted. “Do we follow the trail to Lazy B, or do we turn back and head for home?”

  Kirstie glanced back the way they’d come, then down the steep, wooded slopes of Jim Mullins’s property. At the bottom of the valley, there were glimpses of the winding course of Horseshoe Creek running silver between dark rocks where the snow had melted. Down there, beside the stream, was the dirt road that led to Lazy B; possibly the route the thieves had taken during their escape with Cadillac and Crazy Horse. “Let’s find out what Jim knows,” she decided.

  So they went gingerly on, taking their time on the icy surface, leaning back in the saddle as the horses picked their way. Even so, Jitterbug slipped and skidded into Lucky, who stood fast to save horse and rider from losing control on the steep descent.

  “Close!” Lisa breathed as she pulled herself upright in the saddle, looking back at the scuffed, dirty snow where her horse had lost her footing.

  “We’re almost at the road,” Charlie reassured them. This time, he and Rocky led the way until they reached the creek at the spot where they’d brought the four cows down from Wigwam Meadow the day before.

  Without speaking, head down and collar up against the light, whirling snowflakes, Kirstie joined him and reined Lucky to the right, pressing on along the level road toward the cattle ranch.

  But before she’d covered many feet, she heard Lisa’s voice calling from behind.

  “Hey, what’s this bridge?”

  Kirstie swung around to look over her shoulder. “What bridge?”

  “Across the creek.” Lisa faced the other way, pointing to some rough wooden planks that spanned the banks. “I never knew this was here! Where does it lead to?”

  “It’s new, I guess.” Never having noticed it herself, Kirstie turned to Charlie for an answer.

  The wrangler nodded. “Wes Logan’s men put it up a couple of weeks back. That’s Ponderosa Pines land on the far bank. Logan wanted a bridge to bring cattle across and truck them out through Jim Mullins’s territory to join up with the San Luis highway. It’s a kind of shortcut for him.”

  Kirstie frowned. She knew, as a rule, how jealously the ranchers guarded the boundaries of their own land. “How come Jim said it was OK?”

  Charlie shrugged. “I reckon Logan had to pay for the privilege. And Jim would charge him plenty.”

  “Never mind that now,” Lisa broke in. “The bridge is there, and it means there’s a chance that the horse thieves didn’t head down past Jim’s ranch house after all…”

  “…Which is why Hadley says they all slept through the night without any disturbances!” Kirstie said.

  “…Because they crossed the creek and took a way out to the road through Wes Logan’s place!” Lisa made her theory sound convincing. She was all for reining the horses to the left and taking up the new trail.

  “Through Ponderosa Pines?” Kirstie trotted Lucky alongside Jitterbug. A suspicion began to gnaw away at her. “Or to it? Listen, what if the rustlers came this way, over the bridge, up onto the ridge, and down onto our land to steal Cadillac?”

  “From Ponderosa Pines?” Charlie sounded uncomfortable. “That means Wes Logan was in on it. Is that what you’re saying?”

  Kirstie nodded hard. “And I’ll tell you why. A couple of days back, Mr. Logan called my mom. He wanted to buy Cadillac for his wife to ride.”

  “She said no?” Lisa picked it up fast. “So he gets mad. He decides he wants the horse anyway, sends his men out in the middle of the night…”

  “No way!” Charlie wouldn’t listen to it. “Too risky. The guy would have to be crazy!”

  Kirstie and Lisa sat side by side. “So?”

  “So, Wes Logan is a straight-down-the-line, regular guy. He has a whole stack of horses, including a real beaut
iful white mare, San Luis Dawn, and enough dough to buy the whole remuda at Half Moon Ranch. Why would he back a crazy plan like that?”

  The girls stared back at him with determined faces. They didn’t know the answers. They just had a gut feeling.

  “Besides,” Charlie went on, “he wouldn’t make it so obvious. Why would he call your mom and bring up the fact that he badly wanted this horse?”

  Lisa and Kirstie didn’t shift.

  “It’s just too darn…obvious!” the wrangler insisted. He rode Rocky up and down the track, thinking, reluctant to believe it.

  “You got a better idea?” Kirstie said at last.

  Ponderosa Pines spread out before them. The ranch house was huge. It was surrounded by lawns, a tennis court, an open-air pool. The stables stood back from the house across an immaculate yard where several pickups and one big horse box were parked in a neat row.

  “Wow!” Lisa took in the whole spread. “How much did this cost?”

  “Millions,” Charlie replied. “Wes Logan built the pool before he moved in. He put in walkers and a round pen for the horses. The money he spent was the talk of San Luis County.”

  “And we’re gonna ride in there with: ‘Say, Mr. Logan, did you by any chance steal our horses?’” Even Lisa’s nerve began to fail.

  “Like, yeah,” Charlie grumbled through gritted teeth as they walked Rocky, Jitterbug, and Lucky toward the house.

  “No, stupid!” Kirstie led the way. “We’re gonna ask him if they saw anything suspicious around here last night. We can watch how he reacts. If he looks guilty, we know we’re onto something.”

  “Great,” Charlie mumbled. “Smart thinking, Kirstie!”

  She turned her wide gray gaze on him, challenging him not to back out. “You ask, we’ll stay in the background.”

  “Me? ” The young wrangler was still arguing when a tall figure dressed in jeans and a light tan suede jacket came out of the house onto the porch. He waited there for the three riders to approach.

  “Is that him?” Lisa hissed.

  “Yep.” Kirstie had seen the rich rancher only once before, at a rodeo event in town. But she immediately recognized the thickset, broad-shouldered man with his light brown, wavy hair and clean-shaven, square features. Despite his good looks, he had the kind of face that didn’t seem attractive. It never gave anything away—was too set, expressionless, guarded.