Million-Dollar Horse

by Bonnie Bryant

  He talked about Veronica’s attitude problems and her inability to get along with the staff—including his mother—and with the other riders. By the time he was finished, there was almost nothing even Stevie would have added about Veronica’s shortcomings, except that she wouldn’t have said any of it nearly as nicely as Max had done.

  “And now we have to consider what’s going on with Danny,” Max went on. “The horse ran away yesterday. He’s been in the woods almost twenty-four hours and there’s no sign of him. There isn’t another rider in the stable who wouldn’t have set out on a personal search for her horse if he’d run away. Veronica, on the other hand, is right here. Those woods are not a safe place for a horse accustomed to the security of a stable. What do you intend to do about it?” Stevie knew he was glaring straight at Veronica.

  “Th-There’s the reward …,” Veronica stammered.

  “We need to talk about that,” said her father. An iciness came into his voice as he spoke to his daughter.

  “It’s been posted,” said Max. “Right there on my bulletin board. You can’t withdraw it.”

  “I realize that,” said Mr. diAngelo. “What I hadn’t realized was Veronica’s part in the carelessness that allowed Danny to run away. The reward stands. The only change is that I won’t be paying it. Veronica will.”

  “Daddy!”

  “It’ll come out of your allowance. Of course, if you find the horse yourself …”

  “Daddy!”

  “It’s up to you, Veronica. I think it’s time for us to go now.”

  Aware that the office door was about to open, Stevie gave her friends a hasty shove. By the time the door swung wide, they were in Nickel’s stall, crouched down behind the half wall. It took the diAngelos only a few seconds to leave the stable, and that was a good thing, because a few seconds was as long as Stevie could contain her joy at the scene she and her friends had just overheard.

  The three of them hugged one another to stifle their giggles and shrieks.

  They still wanted to talk with Max but realized that now might not be the very best time. He would still be steaming mad at Veronica, and it was just possible that that anger might extend to anyone in Veronica’s age bracket.

  “I think we can talk to him later. In the meantime, let’s go on a trail ride,” Stevie suggested.

  They agreed that putting a little distance between themselves and Max was probably a wise idea. They fetched their grooming buckets and tack and headed to their horses’ stalls.

  Lisa clipped a lead rope on Prancer and brought her out into the hallway to cross-tie her for a quick brush-down. It took just a second to see that something was wrong, and Lisa called Carole and Stevie over to take a look.

  Carole ran her hand down the mare’s right foreleg and then, for comparison, down the left one. There was no doubt that Prancer had a problem.

  “Here, feel this,” Carole said, offering Prancer’s lower leg to Lisa. Lisa gently took hold of the horse’s right leg. Prancer flinched a bit as she did so. Then Lisa felt the left leg.

  “It’s warmer and it’s swollen,” she said.

  “Right,” Carole said.

  “Sure signs of some kind of hurt,” Lisa said.

  “Probably a strain or something. Usually these things aren’t serious and will clear up pretty much on their own, but let’s wrap it for now and ask Judy to take a look at it when she comes by. In the meantime, of course, you can’t ride Prancer.”

  Those were words any rider dreaded hearing. It wasn’t as if Prancer belonged to Lisa, but she felt as if the mare did. She always rode Prancer. She’d loved Prancer from the first moment she’d set eyes on her. She didn’t want to ride any other horse, but this time she didn’t have a choice.

  “So, now what do I do? Which horse should I ride?” Lisa asked.

  Normally Mrs. Reg assigned horses, but she was sick with a cold. When Mrs. Reg wasn’t available, Max performed that particular job, but The Saddle Club had already decided they didn’t want to talk to Max about anything. Red was giving a class, so that left no one free to help them.

  “I’m afraid that any schooling horse we choose for you will already be reserved by someone else,” Carole said. “I’m not sure what we should do.”

  “I’ve got an idea,” Stevie said. The mischievous look on her face indicated to her friends that this might be one of her wild schemes.

  “And that is?” Carole asked.

  “Honey-Pie,” said Stevie.

  “We’re not supposed to ride her,” Lisa said.

  “Says who?” Stevie countered.

  “Paul and Mr. Stookey,” said Lisa.

  “And what do they know? We all heard Max saying that Honey-Pie should be ridden.”

  “And we all heard him agree that he’d follow Mr. Stookey’s orders, too.”

  “Maybe we heard that part wrong,” Stevie suggested. “There was a lot of noise in the barn then. I’m sure I heard Starlight snorting.”

  “Isn’t that when the big truck was backing in to deliver some grain?” Lisa asked. “That made a lot of noise.”

  Carole looked at her two friends. She knew what they were up to and she was reluctant to get drawn into trouble with them. On the other hand, the important thing here was what was good for Honey-Pie, and there was no question whatsoever in Carole’s mind that Honey-Pie would love a nice trail ride.

  It took only a second. “Wasn’t Red yelling at a student to keep her heels down?” she asked. “You’re right. There was a lot of other noise going on at exactly that moment. We couldn’t possibly have heard what Max said, now, could we?”

  The pact was sealed. Ten minutes later, the girls were on their way across the field to the woods.

  LISA SETTLED INTO the saddle on Honey-Pie’s back with total contentment.

  “How is she?” Carole asked.

  “Every bit as good as we thought she’d be,” Lisa said.

  “No, I didn’t mean how is she to ride, I meant how is she doing?”

  “Fine, I think,” Lisa said. “She’s done everything I’ve asked of her so far and seems alert and happy. She’s stretching her legs, walking smoothly, perking her ears all around and sniffing the air curiously—all signs of a happy horse.”

  Lisa was amused but not surprised that Carole’s question wasn’t whether Lisa was enjoying the ride, but whether Honey-Pie was. Typical Carole! she thought. In any case, it didn’t matter, because both she and the horse were enjoying it.

  Honey-Pie didn’t have the grace and elegance that Prancer’s breeding brought to her gaits, but Honey-Pie’s sweet personality came through in her ride. She was completely obedient and obviously making an effort to please.

  “I definitely understand why Aunt Emma left all her money to Honey-Pie.”

  “Sure,” Stevie said. “So she wouldn’t have to give it all to Paul. Now, let’s trot.”

  It felt good to give way to the pure experience of riding, trotting, enjoying the trail, breathing the fresh air, smelling the wonderful pungent, healthy scent of horse and leather. Lisa put behind her all thoughts of wills and trusts, fiduciary responsibilities, and worthless nephews and surrendered to the moment.

  Behind her, Stevie was watching Honey-Pie trot and could sense the horse’s pleasure in the simple act of responding to her rider. Unlike Lisa, Stevie wasn’t able to focus totally on the moment, however. She was still getting too much pleasure from replaying in her mind the dressing-down that Veronica had received first from Max and then from her father. Stevie wondered how Danny was doing and what he was up to.

  Max was right that being alone was a dangerous thing for a pampered horse like Danny, but the fact was that most horses who wandered off usually wandered back when they got hungry and cold. It wasn’t likely Danny was lost. It was more likely he was as irritated by Veronica’s attitude as everybody else. The problem was that there were dangers in the woods and fields, beyond the reach of human protection. Would Danny be able to look after himself until he decided
to return or until someone found him? Or if someone found him, would they perhaps recognize that he was a valuable horse and decide that keeping him was a better idea than returning him?

  If that was the case, then the thousand-dollar reward was probably a good idea.

  In the lead, Carole brought Starlight down to a walk as the path through the woods narrowed. Honey-Pie slowed down as well, and Belle followed suit. Belle and Starlight had ridden this way often enough to know that this meant they were approaching the creek and they’d have an opportunity for a rest.

  Carole turned into the clearing where they always stopped. She halted Starlight and dismounted. Honey-Pie looked around curiously. She sniffed the air. Lisa dismounted and began to lead her to the bush where the girls usually secured their horses, but Honey-Pie, in her own inimitable way, was having none of it. She began nudging Lisa, as she had Carole that first day in the stall when she wanted to go out to the paddock herself. This time it was water she wanted. She gently nudged Lisa all the way to the bank of Willow Creek.

  Stevie and Carole laughed as they watched the old mare get the best of their friend. It was fine if Honey-Pie wanted water; what amused them was how she made her wish known.

  “One of a kind,” said Lisa, holding the reins while Honey-Pie drank her fill of the clear mountain stream.

  “One in a million,” Stevie corrected her friend.

  Once Honey-Pie and her trail mates had had a drink, the girls sat on their favorite rock and simply luxuriated in the chance to do nothing for a few minutes. They didn’t feel comfortable being away from the stable for any length of time when they were breaking a rule they all knew they’d heard issued very firmly, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t take a moment to refresh themselves.

  The woods were quiet and peaceful. The only sounds were the usual forest noises. A squirrel rustled in the underbrush. A bird chirped overhead. The creek water burbled past them.

  Suddenly there was another sound. It was loud and it was terrifying. It was the howl of an animal in terrible distress. Belle and Starlight started at the noise, tugging on their reins. The lines were loosely tied to a bush near where the girls sat. Honey-Pie, unaccustomed to the woods, the trail, the creek, and, most especially, the noise, jumped backward. Her ears flattened. Her eyes opened wide so that Lisa could see the whites all around them. The mare stepped back again, tugging at the reins, which slipped right out of the branches where it had been secured.

  Before Lisa could even stand up, Honey-Pie, sensing her sudden freedom, fled. She headed straight into the woods, behind a rock, down a hill, and was gone. In a matter of seconds, it seemed, even her hoofbeats were just an echo in Lisa’s memory.

  SOMETIMES THE SADDLE CLUB could spend hours planning how to solve a problem, devising schemes and backups. Sometimes they acted on instinct. When Honey-Pie fled, there was no planning—it was all instinct.

  In a matter of seconds, Carole and Stevie ran to their horses. They knew which direction Honey-Pie had started out in, but they had no idea where she might have turned once she’d rounded the rock and gone down the hill.

  “I’ll take the left,” Carole said. “Stevie, you go that way.” She pointed downhill to the right. “And Lisa, you go on foot and follow any signs you can see of Honey-Pie’s trail—you know, broken branches, leaves churned up, stuff like that.”

  “We’d better keep calling to one another,” said Lisa. “Otherwise, next thing you know we’ll all be lost.”

  “Bye,” said Stevie, not wanting to lose another second.

  The path where Honey-Pie had started out wasn’t a path at all. It seemed to Lisa that the horse had simply disappeared into the underbrush, and once she began walking into it herself, it was hard to understand how the mare had fit through there at all. The bushes were thick and dense. Honey-Pie must have been powered by a fierce terror to have made it through them so quickly.

  Lisa heard the disappearing hoofbeats of her friends’ horses and realized that she was now very much alone. She wasn’t frightened—not for herself, at least. She wasn’t even particularly worried about the trouble she’d be in if something happened to Honey-Pie. What really worried her was the possibility that Honey-Pie could get hurt.

  She knew she had to focus if she was going to help the mare. Fretting about what might happen wasn’t going to do any good. She had to concentrate on the job at hand.

  She grabbed a branch of a bush in front of her and tugged it aside, making a path for herself in the direction where she knew Honey-Pie had gone.

  There wasn’t a path here. It was pure woods and very overgrown. Lisa and her friends rarely left the wide horse trails in the woods, so this was unfamiliar territory. She knew they were in the foothills of Virginia’s mountainous area, but the horse paths were so carefully planned that the riders were rarely aware of any more than a gentle slope. There was nothing gentle about the slope where she found herself now.

  Lisa grabbed another branch and held on to it while she let herself down the hillside. Then she was at the big boulder where Honey-Pie had disappeared. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that it had all happened very fast. Honey-Pie had been standing calmly between Belle and Starlight, and then there was that awful sound—what was it?—and then Honey-Pie was racing away. Then she was gone. So very fast.

  Lisa could hear Stevie circling to her right and was vaguely aware of Carole, farther away to her left. In her mind, though, she could still hear the awful sound that had frightened Honey-Pie. It had frightened all of them, really, but when it had stopped, nobody had paused to think about what it had been.

  Lisa followed her instincts down the hill, thinking that a horse that started running down a hill would keep running down a hill.

  “Honey-Pie!” she called out, wondering if the horse would respond to her name. She remembered then the silly image of Ben Stookey standing at the bottom of the ramp on the van, calling Honey-Pie as if she were a dog. Nobody had known at the time just how sweet this horse was. The thought of everything they’d learned about Honey-Pie since then overwhelmed Lisa as she carefully set down one foot, then the next, descending the steep hill. She couldn’t stop the tear that rolled down her cheek.

  “Honey-Pie!” she cried out, even more loudly this time. There was still no answer.

  STEVIE LEANED BACK in Belle’s saddle to accommodate the steep downward angle of the path. She stopped every few feet and listened. She knew her eyes were important in this search, but her ears might turn out to be even more important.

  “Come on, Belle, do you hear anything?” Stevie listened intently, but she also watched her horse’s ears. Belle’s hearing was much keener than her own, she knew. Belle was likely to hear the fleeing horse long before Stevie did.

  Belle’s ears flicked around. When Lisa called Honey-Pie’s name, Belle’s ears turned toward the sound. Stevie sat up eagerly. Did Lisa’s calling mean she had found the horse? She waited for a second, barely breathing. There was no other sound. Lisa was just calling for Honey-Pie. Stevie smiled, recalling how Mr. Stookey had tried to call the horse that way, too. It hadn’t worked then, but it had been funny. Now it was nice to have a little something to smile about.

  Stevie clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and Belle continued downhill, along the path.

  It seemed to Stevie that a frightened horse wasn’t going to pay much attention to its direction; it was just going to run. And, once running, chances were it would keep heading in pretty much the same direction, dodging trees, rocks, and other natural obstacles, until it could run no farther. Stevie had no idea what obstacles Honey-Pie might have encountered, but she did know the general direction the horse had started out in, and it made sense to her to keep going that way.

  She stopped again and looked around. This time there were no sounds. Belle’s ears stood straight up. Nothing.

  They went on.

  “OUCH!” LISA SAID involuntarily. She’d scraped her hand on a rock as she grabbed for a br
anch. “Why couldn’t you have run away in a field?” she said, now a little annoyed at the daunting task of searching the woods for a horse that seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth.

  And there was no sign of the horse. Nothing. There were no noises, no rustling, no whinnies. Perhaps Honey-Pie had disappeared, been picked up by aliens in a ship. No, no. Lisa shook her head. She was beginning to think like Stevie.

  The ground leveled then, making Lisa’s progress easier, but progress to where? She had no idea whether she was anywhere near the horse.

  She stopped and looked around to see if she could tell where she was. She hadn’t gone far and shouldn’t have trouble finding her way back to the clearing by the creek. What she didn’t know was whether she would have any success in looking for Honey-Pie.

  Overhead, a squirrel dashed along a branch, making an eager clucking sound. Was he trying to tell her something? Probably not. Squirrels were not noted for their intelligence.

  Lisa took a few steps, then paused to catch her breath. There was something horsey, familiar. What was it? She took in another lungful of fresh Virginia air. There was definitely something horsey about it. It had the distinct odor of manure.

  She looked at the ground. There, not far from her, were two balls of manure. Lisa didn’t think it would have been possible for her to be happy at the sight of manure, but she definitely was. Where there was manure, there was a horse, and these were decidedly fresh droppings. She was on the right trail. Now all she had to do was find the next bit of manure!

  She sniffed again; she scanned the ground. The two balls lay a few inches apart. The next one had to be straight ahead. She began to follow an imaginary line and crossed her fingers.