Blaze and the Dark Rider

by Stacy Gregg

  “I usually graze her at the River Paddock,” Issie explained, “but we had a pony-club rally yesterday and I kept her here. Avery says we can graze them at the pony club for as long as we like now that we’re in the team.”

  The pony club was divided into three fields. You came off the main road down a long gravel driveway lined with giant magnolia trees. The first gate opened into the paddock where the cars and horse floats usually parked on rally days. There were large plane trees running like a leafy spine through the paddocks, providing extra shade for the horses and riders on hot days, and the clubroom which straddled the fence line between paddocks one and two. Paddock three was the furthest away. The jumping arena had been erected there, and the perimeter of this paddock was bordered by a thick privet hedge. Issie looked out to the far paddock where she could see the outline of three horses grazing—Blaze, Coco and Toby.

  “There she is,” Issie pointed. “She’s the one standing by the stack of cavaletti.”

  Issie and Francoise climbed over the turnstile in the fence and began to walk through the lush, spring grass towards the far paddock.

  As they got closer, Issie made a clucking noise with her tongue and Blaze raised her head from the rich, green spring grass to look up at her. She gave a soft nicker.

  “She usually comes if I call her,” Issie said proudly. She made the clucking noise again and Blaze gave another little whinny now and broke into a high-stepping trot. When she reached the fence line that separated her from Issie she looked for a moment as if she were considering jumping the fence, but instead she came reluctantly to a stop. Snorting and shaking out her mane with frustration, Blaze trotted up and down along the fence line impatiently.

  Issie watched her horse in motion, her flaxen mane and tail flowing freely and her dark liver chestnut coat glinting in the morning sun. Blaze’s paces were so light she seemed to be floating above the ground. Her neck was arched and her ears were pricked forward. Issie smiled at how beautiful her horse was when she moved—surely Francoise would be impressed by how gorgeous the chestnut mare looked.

  She turned expectantly to look at the dark-haired Frenchwoman next to her. But Francoise was not smiling. Far from it. She was standing perfectly still, and the look on her face was one of shock. It was almost as if she had seen a ghost.

  Issie noticed that her hands were trembling. Francoise seemed to realise this too because she now entwined her hands together to steady herself, clasping them under her chin as if she were praying.

  Francoise stood perfectly still in this way for a long time. Issie heard her muttering something under her breath in French. Then Francoise raised her hands to her face, cupping them around her mouth. She pouted her lips and blew a shrill high whistle.

  Blaze, who had been trotting back and forth anxiously along the fence line in front of them, came to a sudden halt.

  Francoise whistled again. It was a different whistle this time: sharper and shriller than the first, in three repeated short bursts, like a bird call.

  The mare’s ears pricked forward and her nostrils flared wide. She let out a low, deep snort. Then, with a defiant shake of her head, she threw herself back and reared up on her hind legs so that her hooves thrashed wildly at the air in front of her.

  “Blaze!” Issie cried, rushing forward.

  Too late. Blaze spun around on her hind legs and hit the ground at a gallop. With a rush of speed she charged around the paddock at full speed, her head held high, her legs flashing over the ground beneath her.

  “Blaze, stop! You’ll hurt yourself!” Issie felt her chest tighten in fear. What was wrong with her? Why was Blaze behaving like this? She looked back at Francoise, whose face was aghast as she watched the mare.

  “Come on,” Francoise said to Issie, breaking into a run, “she will stick a hoof in a rabbit hole and hurt herself if we do not calm her down.”

  The two of them both broke into a run, heading for the paddock gate. When they reached it, Issie climbed the turnstile, but Francoise simply vaulted lightly over the gate like a gymnast, hitting the ground running on the other side. By the time Issie was on her feet again and running after her, Francoise already had her hands held wide to stop Blaze as she circled around again at a frantic gallop.

  This time, when Blaze rounded the perimeter of the paddock, Francoise stood in her path. As Blaze charged down at her, Francoise, still with her arms outstretched, let out a long, low whistle, a single note. Blaze’s pace abruptly slowed to a canter and then a trot, and finally, she calmed right down to a walk.

  By the time Issie reached them, Francoise had grasped Blaze around the neck and was holding on to her mane, waiting for Issie to arrive with her halter.

  Isadora slipped the halter quickly over Blaze’s head and did up the buckle. She let out a sigh of relief, and ran her hand down her horse’s neck. Blaze was damp with sweat and her flanks were heaving after her mad gallop.

  “Here!” Francoise offered Issie. “I will hold her while you check her legs to make sure that she is OK.” She put out a hand to take the lead rope which Issie reluctantly handed over to her. She was confused. It seemed like Francoise had deliberately frightened Blaze when she whistled at her, but now she seemed so helpful and so genuinely concerned.

  “Shhhh,” Francoise soothed as she ran her hand down the mare’s crest, stroking her gently. She murmured to Blaze, French words that Issie did not understand, although she noticed that the mare was calmed by her voice.

  Issie ran her hands down Blaze’s legs. They seemed fine; there were no scratches or marks on her.

  “Watch her as I lead her forward and we will check if she is lame,” Francoise said. She clucked gently to Blaze and the mare stepped forward in an easy walk and then a fluid, high trot as Francoise jogged her down the paddock and back to Issie again.

  “No, she’s fine. I don’t think she’s sore at all,” Issie said. Francoise looked relieved.

  “I am sorry, Isadora, for startling her,” Francoise said. Her eyes were still glued to Blaze, taking in the scoop of her beautiful dished nose with the white blaze tapering down to her muzzle.

  “Do you think she looks like your dancing mares, Francoise?” Issie asked.

  Francoise turned, her face serious once more. “Oui, Isadora. Very much so. She is a mare of great beauty. How did you say you came to own her again?”

  And so Issie told Francoise the whole story. How Tom Avery had found Blaze half-starved and terrified and had rescued her.

  Avery had appointed Issie as Blaze’s guardian, but at first things hadn’t been easy. Blaze had been treated so badly that she didn’t trust anyone. Issie, who had sworn she would never ride again after that awful day when Mystic had been killed, was scared too. How could she ever love another horse as much as she had loved Mystic? It took Issie a long time to win the trust of the beautiful chestnut and nurse her back to health.

  “And then,” Issie told Francoise, “there were the horse thieves who came to steal her!”

  “Horse thieves?” Francoise was shocked.

  “Yes! They tried to steal her from the River Paddock but Tom and I stopped them and the police came just in time.”

  “And you never found Blaze’s real owners?” Francoise asked.

  Issie shook her head. “We don’t know where she came from.”

  “But does that mean that you have no papers for her? You do not know the origins of her bloodlines?”

  Issie shook her head again.

  Francoise looked at Blaze. “Such a pity” she said quietly.

  She ran her hands down the fine cannon bones of the mare’s legs, stroked the outline of her withers through to her hind quarters and then stood back to admire her once more.

  “The Anglo-Arab is not only the most beautiful of all horses,” Francoise said, “she is also the smartest, the most trainable. In our school the stallions are all full-blooded Lipizzaners, bred for the haute école. But our mares are Anglo-Arabs, delicate, graceful and clever. They are so divine
, they seem to almost dance underneath their riders. In Arabia their bloodlines are valued above all else and they are the most cherished and valuable possessions, worth more than rubies or gold…”

  Francoise hesitated. She looked as if she were about to say something more, and then suddenly she changed her mind and was silent for a moment.

  “Come on!” She smiled at Issie. “She must be nicely warmed up from that gallop. Shall we get her saddled up? I want to see you ride!”

  Chapter 5

  It took Issie for ever to get to sleep that night. She spent ages lying there and thinking about Blaze. What had made her act so strangely?

  Issie had been so deep in thought about her mare that at first when the shrill neigh pierced the stillness of the night air, it was hard to tell if she was asleep or awake. Was she dreaming or did she really hear a horse? And then—there it was again! Unmistakeable this time, the sharp whinny that a pony makes when it is calling for its paddock-mate. Issie’s heart raced. Mystic?

  She threw back the duvet and flung herself at the window in one swift, fluid movement. It took a moment to get the window open and then she was craning her neck to see out into the back garden, blinking and squinting as she tried to make her eyes adjust. She was desperately looking for a horse-sized shape, but it was no use, she couldn’t see a thing. The only thing to do was go outside. If Mystic was there, she figured, he would be where she had found him last time he came to her, underneath the big tree at the far end of the lawn near the gate that led to the street.

  As she pulled on her jeans and boots and shoved a thick jumper over her pyjama top, Issie prepared herself for disappointment. She had been so desperate for Mystic to come to her, she was sure she was dreaming all of this. “You are probably asleep right now,” she told herself firmly.

  Still, despite her efforts to be sensible, she could feel her heart soaring. Mystic was back! She knew he hadn’t really left her.

  Then a grim thought struck her. If Mystic was here, then that must mean that something was terribly wrong. The grey gelding had only turned up last time because there was trouble brewing.

  She looked at the clock by her bedside table. It was three a.m. If her mum woke up and caught her sneaking around outside now, she’d be in big trouble. She had to be quiet. She had been about to pull on her clompy jodhpur boots, but now she stopped and changed her mind, carrying them instead as she tiptoed down the carpeted stairs in her sock feet and ducked out the back door and into the garden.

  Across the cool concrete paving stones she scuttled in her socks, stopping on the edge of the damp lawn briefly to pull her boots on before she stepped on to the grass.

  It was dark in the garden tonight. The moon was not much bigger than a fingernail in the sky. The last time she had taken a midnight ride on her ghost pony there had been almost a full moon and Issie had been able to see quite clearly. Tonight, she could only just make out the shadows and the shapes of trees.

  At the far end of the garden, though, there was a golden halo cast by the street light that stood on the other side of the garden gate and it was towards this light that Issie now found herself moving.

  Still aware that she mustn’t wake her mum, but unable to resist calling for her horse, she whispered softly, “Mystic?” Issie called the gelding’s name then clucked her tongue gently encouraging the pony to come to her.

  In the still night air, Issie held her breath and listened for her horse. At first she couldn’t hear a sound, and there was a sickening moment when she realised that maybe she really had been imagining the whole thing.

  She was halfway across the lawn before she heard it again. From the inky darkness underneath the boughs of the big beech tree came the unmistakeable sound of a horse, his soft nicker returning her calls.

  Issie began to run. Her heart was racing and she could feel a tight knot in her throat. “Mystic!” she hissed, trying hard to keep her voice at a whisper.

  As she reached the trees, the horse nickered again and stepped out of the shadows and on to the lawn in front of her.

  And there he was. Just as she remembered him. A soft, faded dapple-grey pony, not much more than fourteen hands high, stocky and swaybacked, his black eyes surrounded by dark coal smudges poking out from beneath a thick forelock of silvery hair.

  Now, here in the still of the night, those dark eyes focused intently on Isadora. The gelding took a step forward towards his owner and nickered softly once more, as if to say “Yes, it’s really me. I’m home.”

  Issie raised a hand carefully, afraid that if she moved too quickly, Mystic might simply fade like a wisp of grey smoke, and her hand would be left clutching at thin air. But no, there he was. She felt her fingers wrap around the coarse, ropey strands of his silver-grey mane, and before she could stop to think about it she was hugging him, her face buried deep into Mystic’s neck, choking back her tears and inhaling deeply, breathing in his wonderful horsy smell.

  Everything about Mystic felt real and warm. It was as if the accident had never happened and her pony was still alive after all.

  Issie knew now that she wasn’t dreaming. And she also knew that if Mystic was here then it meant just one thing—Blaze was in danger. This time, she needed no encouragement from Mystic—she knew exactly what she had to do.

  “Come on, boy,” she said, “you want to go for a ride again, don’t you?” And she walked with the grey gelding by her side towards the backyard gate, where she climbed up the rails and vaulted lightly on to Mystic’s bare back.

  “Steady” she breathed to the pony as she eased him forward a couple of steps to unlatch the gate hook. And then they were trotting out together, Mystic’s hooves clack-clacking briefly as they crossed the tarmac of the street behind Issie’s house, down on to the grass verge by the side of the road and out into the blackness of the night.

  Once they reached the grass, Mystic broke into a canter, and Issie wound her hands tight into a hank of his mane and wrapped her legs firmly against the barrel of his belly to keep from sliding off.

  Riding bareback didn’t scare her. When she had first been given Blaze she didn’t have a saddle for the mare and so she had learnt to ride well without one. Besides, Mystic’s canter had always been so smooth to ride. Tom Avery had always laughed and said it was like riding a rocking horse instead of a real pony.

  Even now, with no bridle or anything else to grip on to, Issie felt secure on Mystic’s back. She buried her hands further into the thick mane and bent down low over the pony’s neck as his rocking-horse canter turned into a gallop. The road in front of her was barely lit by the moon and she couldn’t see where she was going, but Mystic knew where to go. Issie felt certain that he was taking her to the pony club to see Blaze.

  Road lights lit their way clearly now as they left the backstreets and struck out along the main road that led to the pony club. In broad daylight this road was nerve-wracking to ride alongside because of the traffic. But now, at three in the morning, there were hardly any cars at all. The rhythmic pounding of Mystic’s hooves striking against the soft grass of the verge was the only sound in the quiet of the night, and Issie found herself almost hypnotised by the steady stride of the horse beneath her.

  As they turned off into the side road that led to the pony club, Issie felt her heart pounding. She and Mystic hadn’t been here together since the accident. This time, though, it was Blaze that was in danger. Issie was sure of it now.

  But what kind of danger? The paddocks looked quiet and empty, and Issie’s eyes, which were well-adjusted to the dark now, couldn’t make out anything unusual.

  She clucked Mystic forward and leaned down to unlatch the gate to the first paddock. Her hands slid over the hard metal of a large padlock. Of course! The pony-club gates were always padlocked shut. She didn’t have the keys with her but she knew that there was a spare set in the tack room underneath the clubroom.

  “Wait here, boy” she said to Mystic, and she slid down lightly from the grey gelding’s sleek back,
landing like a cat on the ground beside him.

  Issie tried her best to be quiet but the gate creaked a little as she climbed the metal rungs and jumped down on the other side. Silhouetted against the paddock, she could clearly see the clubroom, and she headed quickly towards it now, her eyes scanning the far paddock horizon to see if she could make out the shape of Blaze grazing there. She wanted to run straight to her to see if she was OK, but first she needed to look for those keys so she could let Mystic in through the gates.

  Instead of going up the front steps to the clubroom door, Issie crept around the side of the building to the door underneath that led to the downstairs tack room. The tack room was bound to be locked too, but the riders kept a spare key on a hook hidden behind the hay bales. She was about to search for the key, but first Issie put her hand on the door handle and gave it a turn just in case. She was surprised when the door sprang open easily in her hand.

  If her eyes had adjusted to the night sky they were not prepared for the darkness of the tack room, which was pitch black. Issie stepped forward with her arms outstretched, as if she were blind. To the right-hand side of the doorway there should be a light switch, she thought, and she moved that way now with both hands still raised in front of her, feeling her way to the wall and the light switch.

  A shuffling noise made her instinctively look up, even though she couldn’t see anything in the pitch black. She was shocked by the sudden impact of a body ramming up against her, shouldering her down to the floor. For a moment she struggled against the weight pressing down on her. Terrified in the dark, she fought her way free. Then she felt someone pushing past her and out the door of the tack room, and she heard the sound of footsteps. Whoever had knocked her down had gone, making a run for it across the paddock.

  Breathing hard with shock, she leapt up, groping at the walls in the darkness, looking for the light switch. Her fingers found it and she was suddenly illuminated in the golden glow of the room. The bare bulb cast enough light for Issie to just make out a figure in the distance, a woman she was pretty sure, with long dark hair, running back towards the main road.