Wagon Trail

by Bonnie Bryant

  Later, when the fire had burned to embers, Rascal Robbie said it was time for his cowboys to go put their dogies to sleep, and the party broke up. The cowboys and the pioneers shook hands and wished each other good luck as they walked slowly back to their camps.

  “Wasn’t that the best time ever?” Lisa said as the girls pulled their sleeping bags out into the open air.

  “It was great,” said Carole. “And who was that boy you were dancing with? He was cute.”

  “He said his name was Ken,” Lisa replied. “And he was cute, wasn’t he? Too bad he’s a cowboy and not a pioneer.” She nestled down into her sleeping bag. “Are you writing again tonight, Stevie?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Just a little.” Stevie lit the oil lamp and wrote quickly.

  Day Four

  What a perfect day! We crossed the river, rescued some cargo, had a campfire and a hoedown. I wish Phil had been here—he would really have enjoyed it.

  She read over her words once, blew out the lamp, and shoved the journal under her pillow. She was too tired to write anymore. She could fill in the details later.

  Just as she closed her eyes to go to sleep, she heard an ugly howling sound. She lifted her head off the pillow and listened more closely, then shook her head and relaxed again. Just the wind blowing through the scrub brush. Or maybe it’s Gabriel, she thought with a chuckle as she drifted off to sleep. Trying to play some trick to prove he’s scarier than me.

  CAROLE WOKE UP with a start. She’d been dreaming that a swarm of bees was chasing her and Starlight. They were getting closer and closer, and as fast as Starlight galloped, he couldn’t outrun them.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten so much cobbler, she thought as she rolled over in her sleeping bag. She fluffed her pillow and laid her head down. Oddly, she heard the same buzzing noise she’d just dreamed about. She lifted her head. The noise was gone. She laid her head back down. The noise was back.

  “That’s weird,” she said aloud, sitting up. She put the palm of her hand down on the ground between her sleeping bag and Stevie’s. The buzzing noise became more of a pounding. She felt the ground next to Lisa. It pounded even harder there. She blinked for a moment, and her heart skipped a beat. Suddenly she knew exactly what the noise was. The cattle were stampeding!

  In a flash she was out of her sleeping bag. “Stevie! Lisa! Wake up! It’s a stampede!”

  “Uh?” said Stevie, blinking.

  “The cattle are stampeding. And since they’re down by the river, the only direction they can run is straight for our camp. We’ve got to stop them!”

  Without another word, the girls scrambled into their jeans and boots. “What shall we do?” asked Lisa.

  “We need to get to the corral and get on some horses, and wake up as many people as we can along the way.”

  “What if everyone panics?” Stevie’s eyes were wide with alarm.

  “We’ll have to let Jeremy worry about that. If they get trampled by a herd of cattle, they’ll be dead!”

  The girls leaped out of their wagon and raced toward the corral. Carole and Stevie yelled, “Stampede! Everybody up!” while Lisa desperately looked for Jeremy. Most people just blinked at them sleepily, but a few understood what was going on. Karen Nicely wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and ran to warn the next wagon, while Mr. Cate hurried over to Shelly’s chuck wagon to ring the triangle. Several cowboys from the dude ranch hurried to put their boots on as well.

  The girls ran to the corral, where the dude ranch ponies were mixed in with the wagon train horses. “Shall we just grab anybody?” asked Lisa as the girls threaded their way through the nervous herd.

  “Get a cow pony,” said Carole. “They’ll be easier to mount and they’ll know what to do with the cattle.”

  The girls found three of the ponies in one corner of the corral, their noses pointed toward the cows, as if they sensed what was going on. They calmly allowed Stevie, Carole, and Lisa to hop on their backs, and they did not seem confused by the lack of a saddle and bridle.

  “Okay,” said Carole. “I’ll let you two out of the corral, then we’ll ride to the cattle together.”

  Carole unlatched the makeshift gate and soon all three girls were headed for the runaway herd.

  “Hey, wait up!” someone called.

  They looked back at the corral. Gabriel was waving at them. He’d hopped on a larger horse, but no one was there to open the gate for him. He looked around once, then dug his heels into the horse’s side. The big bay bounded into a gallop and leaped over the corral fence.

  “Wow,” said Stevie in spite of herself as he galloped up.

  “About six ranch hands are right behind me,” he called breathlessly. “They said to ride down to the top of the herd and try to head the cattle off from this direction.”

  “Okay,” said Carole. “Let’s go!”

  Clutching their horses’ manes, all four riders galloped into the night. They held on tightly with their legs as the wind whipped their faces. A quarter of a mile away, they could see huge numbers of cattle thundering toward them.

  “Rascal Robbie said to fan out and make a lot of noise,” Gabriel yelled. “That should confuse them and make them stop.”

  “Okay,” yelled Carole back. She pointed to the left. “You and Stevie go that way. Lisa and I will go over here.”

  “What sort of noise are we supposed to make?” called Lisa.

  “Cowboy noises, I guess.” For once Gabriel seemed at a loss. “Something like this.” He guided his horse to the left, threw back his head, and shrieked a loud “Yeeeee-hiiiiiii!” that echoed against the distant hills.

  “Let’s go, then!” said Carole.

  Stevie veered off and rode along beside Gabriel, screaming like a banshee. Carole and Lisa galloped to the right, doing their own versions of cowboy yells. They rode straight at the oncoming herd. At first the herd kept thundering along, but then the cattle slowed as they became aware of the four screaming riders rushing toward them.

  “They’re slowing down a little!” called Stevie, yelling over all the hoofbeats. “But they’re sure not stopping!”

  “Ride closer to me,” answered Gabriel. “Maybe we can divide them up and push some of them in another direction.”

  Stevie moved closer to Gabriel, and together they rode at the left third of the herd. Carole looked over, realized what their strategy was, and did the same thing with Lisa. The two pairs of riders would split the herd into three parts, leaving the middle part for the cowboys to take care of. They all realized it was a long shot, but it was the best chance they had.

  “Yeee-hiiiii!” shouted Gabriel again, urging his horse to go faster. Stevie did the same thing. So did Lisa and Carole. For a moment the herd kept roaring at them as one huge mass; then a few lead steer on Stevie and Gabriel’s side began to turn off. As they turned, all the cattle behind them followed. The herd was dividing!

  “Oh, wow!” Stevie yelled, watching as the cattle turned and galloped away from the camp. “It actually worked!”

  “Yeah, it did!” whooped Gabriel.

  They looked over at Carole and Lisa. The strategy had worked for them, too. The right-hand part of the herd had also turned and was now running east. Stevie could see Carole and Lisa waving at them in triumph. She waved back, but then looked at the smaller part of the herd that was still thundering toward the camp.

  “What shall we do about them?” she asked Gabriel.

  “I don’t think we’ll need to worry about them,” he said. “Look!”

  Stevie looked behind her. Bearing down on the cattle were six cowboys, waving their hats and swinging lassoes. Again the cattle slowed down and then swerved, some following Stevie’s herd, others Carole’s. Five of the cowboys followed them. The other rode up to Stevie and Gabriel. It was Rascal Robbie.

  “I reckon my boys can take care of things now,” he said. “These cattle probably won’t run much farther.”

  Carole and Lisa rode up, out of breath. “Is everything o
kay?” Lisa asked.

  “Everything’s fine, now,” said Rascal Robbie. “I was just about to say your teamwork really saved the day. Those cattle would have mashed flat everything in the camp if it hadn’t been for you four. That was some fancy riding you were doing there.”

  Stevie reached down and gave her pony a pat.

  Rascal Robbie tipped his cowboy hat. “Well, I guess I’d better run along and see what’s going on. Thanks again. You’re mighty brave folks.” He turned his horse and rode toward the bulk of the herd. Lisa, Carole, Stevie, and Gabriel sat on their horses and watched as he faded into the night.

  “Is everybody okay?” asked Carole.

  “We are,” said Stevie, glancing at Gabriel. “Although my throat’s awfully sore from all that cowboy yelling.”

  “I feel like I’m covered in dust.” Lisa rubbed her eyes.

  “Why don’t we ride over to the river?” suggested Carole. “We can give the horses a drink and go for a midnight swim.”

  “You guys go ahead,” said Gabriel. “I’m going back to camp to report to Jeremy.” He turned his horse and loped off.

  “And thanks to you, too, Mr. Assistant Trail Boss,” muttered Stevie.

  The girls rode over to the river. The tired, sweaty ponies took long swallows of the cool water while the girls took off their jeans and waded into the river, washing away the dirt and dust from the stampeding cattle. They were floating leisurely in the deeper water when Stevie heard a strangely familiar sobbing.

  “Hey!” She raised her head. “Listen! That’s the same weird sound I heard just before I went to sleep!”

  The girls listened. Drifting over the gurgle of the river came an ugly, gasping wail.

  Lisa looked around nervously. “What kind of animal makes a noise like that?”

  “Look!” said Carole. “Downstream on that rock! It’s Eileen!”

  The girls looked where Carole pointed. Huddled on a rock overhanging the river sat Eileen, yowling like a wounded cat. “Teddy!” Her heartrending sobs echoed across the water. “Oh, my poor, lost Teddy!”

  “Can you believe that?” whispered Lisa. “She’s probably been there all night looking for her teddy bear!”

  “I can believe it,” Stevie replied. “You know what else I can believe? I can believe that awful yowling is what started the stampede in the first place. That little girl and her stupid teddy bear almost got everyone killed!”

  Suddenly Eileen’s parents appeared. “Eileen!” her father’s voice rang out sternly. “Where have you been? Everyone’s been searching for you!”

  “I’ve been down here looking for Teddy,” Eileen sobbed.

  “Well, you climb back up here right now! We thought you’d been killed in the stampede!”

  The girls watched as Eileen climbed up the riverbank to rejoin her parents. “Thank goodness they found her,” said Lisa. “Otherwise she might have stayed out here yowling and started the stampede all over again.”

  “Oh, I’m going to take a good swim,” said Stevie, “and just wash that little creep out of my system.”

  With long, smooth strokes, Stevie swam upstream, then flipped over and began floating back to Carole and Lisa. She was lazily dangling her hands and arms in the water when she felt something squishy brush against her fingertips.

  “Hey!” she called to her friends. “I just felt something weird. I’m going down to investigate.” She dived and ran her hands along the river bottom. Tangled in some underwater branches was the distinct form of a small stuffed animal. Stevie gave the thing a yank and surfaced with it in her hand. She opened her eyes. Sure enough, it was a dripping, dirty teddy bear.

  “Hey!” she cried again. “Look what I found!”

  “Eileen’s teddy bear!” Carole and Lisa said together.

  Stevie looked at the mangy thing in disgust. “You know, it would serve her right if I just dropped this back in the river and let it float all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.”

  “It would,” Carole agreed.

  Stevie dangled the bear over the water, considering her options. She looked at it for a long moment. Then she threw it back onshore.

  “I thought you were going to send Teddy down the river,” Lisa said, surprised.

  “Oh, I probably should,” grumbled Stevie. “But after everything else we’ve done tonight, it just doesn’t seem right.”

  They climbed out of the river and let themselves air-dry in the grass. When they were only slightly damp, they got up, took the now cool ponies back to their corral, then walked back to camp. “Let’s go make our special delivery,” said Stevie, turning toward Eileen’s wagon. “Then let’s go to bed.”

  The girls knocked on the back of the wagon. Eileen’s father stuck his head out around the canvas flap. “Well, hello, girls,” he said, sounding surprised to see them. “Can I help you?”

  “Well, we were swimming in the river and found this.” Stevie held up the bedraggled bear. “I think it must belong to Eileen.”

  “Oh, my goodness!” cried Eileen’s father. “Helen! Come here! Look what these girls have found!”

  Eileen’s mother stuck her head out of the wagon. “Oh,” she cried, tears welling up in her eyes. “Eileen’s Teddy! She’ll be so thrilled. Let me wake her up right now so she can thank you herself!”

  “Oh, no, that’s okay,” Stevie said, quickly backing away from the wagon. “Eileen doesn’t need to thank us. Let her keep on sleeping. Seeing her sweet smile again tomorrow will be thanks enough!”

  “Thank you so much, girls,” Eileen’s father said as they all backed away. “You don’t know what this means to us!”

  The girls turned toward their wagon. Most of the campers had gone back to bed, but a few were still up and talking about the events of the night.

  “Here come the heroes!” Mr. Cate called as the girls passed by his wagon. “How does it feel to have saved the camp from certain death?”

  “Actually, it feels pretty tired, Mr. Cate,” Carole yawned.

  Karen Nicely laughed. “Haven’t you heard? We all get a holiday tomorrow! Jeremy said we can all sleep in as late as we want. And anybody who wakes you three up will have to eat dust at the end of the train for the rest of the trip!”

  The girls looked at each other sleepily. “Hey,” Stevie said softly, holding her hand up for a high fifteen. “All right!”

  They found their camp in the same jumble they’d left it in hours before, when they’d first heard the stampede. Without bothering to straighten anything up, they collapsed into their sleeping bags and fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

  LISA WOKE UP first the next day. A scrub jay squawking in the brush near their wagon woke her, and when she opened her eyes she saw that the sun was higher in the sky than it had been any other morning they’d been on the trip. She yawned. It felt as if they’d slept forever. How nice it was of Jeremy to call a holiday after everything that had happened the night before. She wondered if Carole and Stevie had slept as soundly as she had.

  “Anybody else awake?” she asked without lifting her head from her pillow.

  “I am,” Carole said through a deep, relaxed yawn.

  “I am, too,” added Stevie. “Ever since that bird started singing.” She sat up and rubbed her eyes in the morning light. “Gosh. Look how bright it is. It must be close to noon.”

  “Actually, it’s only seven-thirty,” said Carole, checking her watch. “It just feels like noon.”

  “Wasn’t it great to sleep in?” Stevie sighed and stretched her arms.

  “It was,” Carole agreed. “But I think we earned it. We did an awful lot of important stuff yesterday.”

  “We did, didn’t we?” said Lisa. “We got our wagon across the river and we saved Eileen’s family’s supplies and we stopped a cattle stampede.”

  “And I returned that dear little brat’s precious teddy bear,” said Stevie. “We did do a lot yesterday. No wonder I’m starving now.” She unzipped her sleeping bag and stood up. “Let’s go see if
anything’s left for breakfast.”

  They dressed quickly and hurried to the chuck wagon. Instead of the usual pot of steaming mush, the girls found Shelly waiting to cook them a special breakfast of flapjacks and maple syrup.

  “Boss’s orders.” Shelly grinned as he heaped a tall stack of flapjacks on each of their plates. “Today we’re celebrating a special occasion, and we’re eating high on the hog, just like the pioneers would have.”

  “Do you know what happened to the rest of the cattle last night?” Stevie asked as Shelly ladled lots of warm maple syrup over her flapjacks.

  “That cowboy Rascal Robbie came by here this morning and said they raced for another quarter mile or so, then just ran out of steam. They herded ’em back by the river and gathered up the stragglers this morning, then went on their way.” Shelly chuckled. “Rascal Robbie also said to ‘thank those three brave girls who helped so much last night.’ ”

  “He thinks we’re brave.” Lisa looked surprised.

  The girls finished their flapjacks by Shelly’s campfire and hurried back to their wagon. Even though Jeremy had declared it a holiday, that didn’t mean they could goof off the entire day. They still had a lot of ground to cover, and it would take most of the day to do it.

  By nine o’clock everyone was ready to go. Jeremy gave a hearty “Wagons ho!” and the train began to roll west. Stevie called her customary “giddyap” to Yankee and Doodle while Lisa began to tug Veronica along behind her. Carole and Nikkia trotted easily beside them.

  “You know, it feels like we’ve being doing this all our lives,” Stevie said, watching Yankee and Doodle as they pulled smoothly against their horse collars.

  “I know,” said Lisa. “These clothes don’t feel strange anymore, and even Veronica seems like an old pal.” She turned and smiled at the slow-moving cow lumbering after her.

  “And Nikkia’s trot honestly feels smooth.” Carole laughed. “I guess Starlight will feel like silk when I ride him again.”