“What’s the matter?” Scott asked anxiously.
Lisa relaxed against him and shook her head. “Nothing,” she said, even though it was a lie. Something was very wrong. Pine Hollow was gone, along with several of its cherished residents. Even if Max replaced the building, there were certain things he couldn’t replace.
Not wanting to think about that anymore, Lisa allowed her mind to wander again. This time she found herself thinking back over a whole series of special events—the Christmas Eve when Carole got Starlight … a horseback wedding that Lisa and her friends had helped plan years earlier … Lisa’s very first horse show … the first time Alex had kissed her, in Prancer’s stall after the trail ride that was their second date … a hayride they’d all gone on for Carole’s thirteenth birthday. Those were all happy times, but there had been sad ones, too. Like the previous year when Max’s mother, Mrs. Reg, had announced that she was moving to Florida. The sad and confusing weeks several years before that when Stevie thought she might lose Belle forever after learning she’d been stolen from her former owner. The day just a couple of months earlier when Prancer had died.
But it wasn’t just the big, dramatic events that always made Pine Hollow so special, Lisa thought, feeling a tear trickle out of the corner of her eye, moist and warm against her cold cheek. It was the everyday stuff, too. Like lessons. Pony Club meetings. Trying to keep Stevie from getting in trouble for playing too many pranks on Veronica. Telling secrets in the hayloft. Even making endless trips to the manure pile after mucking out stalls. This is where we grew up—me, Stevie, Carole. It’s the place where we became best friends, where we learned about life and each other and ourselves. When will I—we—any of us ever have a place like this again?
She shook her head. There was no answer to that question, so she stopped thinking about it. She stopped thinking about everything, too weary to continue the stream of memories. Instead she merely huddled against Scott, staring at the destruction in front of her.
Just as Carole reached the gate of the front pasture, she saw Ben walking toward her from the nearest cluster of horses. “Did you get the blanket on Talisman?” she called anxiously.
Ben waited until he reached her to answer. “Yeah,” he said as he let himself out the gate. He rubbed one hand over his face, further smudging the blotch of soot on one cheek. “It’s a little big for him, but it should do until morning.”
Carole nodded. The two of them had found a few old blankets, most of them awaiting repair, in the equipment shed. They had spent the past half hour doling them out to the horses that needed them most—the old ones, and the ones with the freshest full clips.
Glancing at Ben hesitantly, Carole cleared her throat. “Did you—um, did you count them?” she asked, knowing that Ben had been in both pastures.
Ben chewed his lower lip and nodded, not meeting her eyes. “Thirty-four.”
Carole felt tears spring to her eyes. Though she’d known it was coming, it was still a shock to hear the number. Thirty-four. That was five fewer horses than there had been at the beginning of that horrible night.
“Peso?” she asked in a choked voice, already knowing the answer. She had kicked Peso’s door all the way open herself as she passed by with Nickel in those last terrible seconds. But the little chestnut pony had been huddled in the back corner of the stall, clearly too frightened to move.
Ben flinched. “Didn’t see her,” he muttered. “Or Geronimo, of course. Or Diablo. Or Mrs. Tyler’s gray. And Firefly’s latch was jammed; she didn’t have a chance.…”
Carole couldn’t bear to hear any more. She couldn’t stand to think about what those horses’ last moments must have been like, trapped in a fury of heat and noise and smoke, not knowing what was happening to them. It’s not fair, she thought, feeling tears trickling down her face. If this had happened in the summertime, when most of the horses were turned out at night…
She couldn’t go on with the thought. It was too hard. The fact was, it hadn’t happened in the summertime. It had happened that night, and there was no getting around it. No amount of wishing, no what-ifs or might-have-beens, would change what had happened. She and her friends had done all they could, but they hadn’t been able to save them all.
Poor Diablo, she thought. He didn’t deserve this, after all his years as a wonderful school horse. She gulped back more tears, remembering the days before Starlight had come into her life, when Diablo had been one of her regular lesson mounts. She had always loved riding the lively bay gelding, who had a mischievous streak in him and loved carrots more than anything else in life. Diablo was the one who taught me what a flying change was really supposed to feel like, Carole recalled. And I was riding him when I learned how to ride a bending line, and when I figured out how to ask for a half-pass, and when Stevie and Lisa and I found that little waterfall way back in the woods that day during one of our trail rides.…
Her thoughts turned to Firefly. The dapple-gray mare had been in the prime of life, ready to begin her career. Now she would never have the chance to show off her flashy trot in the show ring, or practice the leg yields Ben had just taught her, or learn to jump.
How could this have happened? she wondered, her mind flashing on to the other horses they had lost, one by one. How am I going to stand it? This place was my life. So now what happens?
She glanced up toward what had once been the stable. “Okay, with the blankets and stuff, the horses should be all right until tomorrow,” she said aloud, hoping it was true. Most of the horses had inhaled a lot of smoke, and a few had burns on their legs or bodies, but she wasn’t going to think about that at the moment. That, too, would have to wait for morning, when Judy Barker, Pine Hollow’s vet, would arrive to examine all the horses. “But then what? Where are they all going to go?”
Ben shrugged, looking uncertain. “Most could probably live out,” he said. “They have the run-in sheds, and it’s almost the end of January.…” His voice trailed off, and he shrugged again. “I don’t know,” he added quietly.
Carole didn’t know, either. She bit her lip, glancing around the field. The only thing she knew for sure was that things would never be the same.
Stevie kicked at a clump of ashes and hit something solid. As far as she could guess, it had probably once been a water bucket. The plastic was almost completely melted, but the metal handle was still intact. Moving on, she bent down to poke at a hunk of charred wood that appeared to be the remains of a stall door.
“It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?” Phil said from behind her.
She straightened up and glanced at him. “Yeah,” she agreed.
It was definitely hard to believe that Pine Hollow was gone. Almost impossible, really. Returning to her examination, Stevie waded over to the edge of the rubble. Measuring the distance to a charred apple tree with her eyes, she guessed she was standing approximately where the rear entrance had been. She turned and walked back through the ashes, counting her steps. After a moment she stopped and looked to her left. If she was figuring right, she was standing in front of what had once been Belle’s stall.
And that was Starlight’s stall right over there, she thought, turning in a circle. And down that way was where the aisle opened into the entryway.
She wandered slowly in that direction, still trying to estimate where she was. “What are you doing?” Phil asked, watching her with his hands in his coat pockets.
Stevie shrugged. She didn’t feel like explaining. “Come on,” she said instead. “We should go see what the others are doing.”
Phil nodded and fell into step as Stevie picked her way toward what had been the front of the building. One section of the front wall was still standing, and Stevie led the way around it. That was when she spotted Max. He was sitting on the singed mounting block between the wall and the schooling ring, partially hidden from view by a large pile of cinder blocks—the only part of the new addition that had survived the fire more or less intact. The stable owner didn’t see Stevie. He
was slumped over, his face in his hands.
Stevie quickly backed away, ducking back around the wall and dragging Phil with her. She couldn’t stand to see Max like that. Somehow, it drove the truth of the matter home even more than the unmistakable evidence all around her. Everything had changed, from that instant when she’d first caught the smell of smoke wafting through the car vents, and there was no way around it.
Catching a flash of motion out of the corner of her eye, she turned and saw her friends heading toward her. Scott and Lisa were in the lead, holding hands. Carole and Ben and Callie followed a little behind them.
Stevie and Phil waited. Soon they were all gathered together, near the edge of the charred piece of earth that had been the stable building. Glancing around, Stevie saw that every one of her friends looked as stunned, smoky, and singed as she and Phil did.
“How are the horses?” she asked Carole, knowing that she must have checked on them.
“Okay,” Carole replied softly. “I guess they’ll be okay.”
Lisa cleared her throat. “Do we—Did anyone figure out what happened?” she asked, her voice hoarse and raw. “How the fire started, I mean?”
Stevie hadn’t even thought about that. “I don’t know,” she said. “I guess the fire department will try to figure that out.” At the moment, it didn’t really seem that important.
“I know this all really sucks.” Scott gestured at the still-steaming ruin. “But it could have been worse. What if we hadn’t stopped by when we did? What if nobody had caught it until it was really too late?”
Stevie knew he was trying to help, but his words didn’t make her feel any better. What if we’d caught it earlier? she thought. What if we’d left the restaurant ten minutes earlier, before the fire got so far out of hand? What if the fire had never started at all? What if…?
Nobody had anything to say for a moment or two. They all just stood and stared at each other, stared around at the charred ruins. Finally Phil turned to ask Ben something and Scott and Callie drifted off together. Stevie, feeling restless, turned away from them and wandered farther into the ashes again. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that Carole and Lisa were following her.
She stopped and waited for them to catch up. “What now?” she asked, not really expecting an answer.
Lisa shrugged, and Carole merely stared at her feet. Stevie kicked at the blackened ground, pausing when she heard a muffled clink.
What was that? she wondered with dull curiosity. Bending over, she poked around with her gloved hand.
“Careful,” Lisa said when she saw what she was doing. “Stuff’s probably still hot.”
Just then Stevie’s hand met something solid. Grasping the item, she straightened up, and her eyes widened.
“Look at this,” she told Carole and Lisa, holding it up. Lisa was right—she could feel the heat remaining in the metal object even through her gloves.
Carole gasped. “Is that—?”
“The good-luck horseshoe,” Stevie said grimly, staring at the curved chunk of dull metal. “It’s the good-luck horseshoe. It’s got to be—we’re standing right where it used to hang.”
The three of them stood silent for a moment, staring at the horseshoe in Stevie’s hand. She had no idea what her friends were thinking, but only one thought was running through her mind.
This is it, she told herself, the horseshoe blurring as tears filled her eyes. This is all that’s left of Pine Hollow now.
About the Author
Bonnie Bryant is the author of over one hundred forty books about horses, including the Saddle Club series and its spinoffs, the Pony Tails series and the Pine Hollow series. Bryant did not know very much about horses before writing the first Saddle Club book in 1986, so she found herself learning right along with the characters she created. She has also written novels and movie novelizations under her married name, Bonnie Bryant Hiller. Bryant was born and raised in New York City, where she still lives today.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion there of in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or here in after invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2001 by Bonnie Bryant Hiller
Cover design by Connie Gabbert
ISBN: 978-1-4976-5415-0
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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