Saddlebags

by Bonnie Bryant

  When John and Tex reached the river, the water was up to Tex’s knees. Carefully John guided Tex into the currents, toward the downstream part of the island. Lisa could see him talking to the horse with every step, encouraging him, calming him, assuring him. Even so, they moved fast.

  Lisa’s mother was trying to stay in her saddle and keep Spot from heading into the white water.

  Lisa called again to her mother. “Don’t lean forward! Sit back, or you’ll fall off!”

  Mrs. Atwood leaned forward more, straining to hear Lisa in the din of the pouring rain. Spot lurched forward. Lisa waved her arms. Then, realizing her mother couldn’t hear, she did the only thing possible. She leaned back in her saddle, trying to demonstrate her point.

  Mrs. Atwood got it. She sat back in the saddle. Lisa sighed with relief Her mother stayed on.

  John and Tex moved into the deeper water, which swirled around Tex’s shoulders. Then Tex began to swim. His head and neck stretched out and his body moved against the furious current. John guided him toward the island.

  Lisa held her breath as Spot lunged forward and entered the swirling white water.

  John grabbed Spot’s reins. “Here, give me those.” Then he looked Mrs. Atwood straight in the eye. “You’re going to be all right. Please stay calm. I’m going to lead you through the water, and your horse is going to start to swim. It might feel funny at first, but it’s the only way out of this alive. I’ll be leading you, and whatever happens, I won’t let go of the reins. But you have to stay on your horse. Do you understand? Hold the pommel of the saddle, and grip Spot with your legs.”

  Lisa’s mother nodded silently. She looks exhausted, Lisa thought. I hope she can hang on.

  Together John and Mrs. Atwood started moving toward the bank where Lisa was waiting. She could see that the water surrounding them was deep. Luckily, Spot seemed to calm down the minute Tex started leading him, and he swam easily toward her.

  “Oh!” Mrs. Atwood exclaimed. She and Spot glided along behind Tex and John, the horse’s head bobbing above the water.

  As they approached, Lisa headed sideways down the slippery bank. Her mother seemed to be losing her balance. “Mom, lean forward now!” Lisa called. “John, she’s falling!” Mrs. Atwood sat forward and grabbed the saddle pommel.

  The two horses finally reached the bank. John reached up and grabbed the rope he’d strung across the water. “Here,” he said, forcing it into Mrs. Atwood’s hand. “Use this to pull yourself up.”

  Mrs. Atwood leaned forward and tried to pull herself along with the rope. But the saddle pommel gave her better leverage, so she went back to using it to stay on Spot’s back.

  Finally, with tears and rain streaming down her face, Mrs. Atwood reached the spot where Lisa was waiting.

  “Here.” John tossed Lisa the reins to her mother’s horse. “Take her up to the top, and then come back and give me a hand with the others.”

  Lisa nodded. “It’s okay, Mom. You’re okay now,” she said, choking back her own sobs. John pivoted around and slid back down into the water.

  The island was being swallowed by water. The four parents remaining on the small plot of land were trying not to panic, but Carole could tell from her father’s face that he was very anxious. His expression grew even more frightened when Yellowbird whinnied and pawed at the mud, then started to buck.

  When John reached the island again, he mounted the upstream banks and grabbed Yellowbird’s reins.

  “Grab the pommel and sit back,” John yelled. “We’ve got no time to lose. Just follow me.”

  Carole rode upstream, turned, and slid down into the water. She couldn’t just watch—she had to do something. She guided Berry against the current. When the horse’s feet left the ground and he started struggling against the current, she felt strangely suspended. But she had no time to think about it. John and her father were swimming toward her. John handed her Yellowbird’s reins, then turned Tex back around and headed toward the island.

  “Come on, Dad,” said Carole, “we’re almost across.”

  Their horses soon found footing on land again, and climbed up out of the water.

  Back on the island, Mr. Lake seemed to have Melody under fairly good control. He headed next down the bank to meet John, sliding with rocks and mud and rain into the water.

  But as he went, Melody slipped and tumbled on her knees. Mr. Lake let go of the reins and went right over her head, splashing into the water. He flailed his arms as the current spun him around and swept him downstream.

  “Dad!” cried Stevie. She’d been waiting downstream. Now she pivoted Stewball and urged him down into the water.

  Stewball plunged into the white foam. Water swirled around the tops of his legs and splashed into Stevie’s boots as the two of them moved into the deeper water. Mr. Lake was moving toward them.

  Stevie whipped her poncho over her head and tossed one end to her father. He reached out to grab it, and Stevie held tight to her end with both hands.

  Quickly she wrapped the poncho around the pommel of her saddle, then signaled Stewball with her legs. That was all he needed. The horse turned back to shore, carrying Stevie on his back and towing Mr. Lake behind them.

  Without a poncho Stevie was drenched in a second. Rain streamed down her back. But she barely noticed. Every ounce of her concentration focused on clutching the poncho rope. Her father’s life depended on it.

  Finally they reached the bank. Stewball started to climb up out of the river. Stevie stopped him and dismounted to pull her father up on shore.

  Father and daughter collapsed in the wet rocks and mud.

  “Dad, are you all right?” Stevie gasped.

  “Yes,” he managed to say. “Thanks to you.”

  “And Stewball.” Stevie fought back the tears. “Think you can climb on him?” she said. “We have to get you farther up this bank, and it’ll be easier on Stewball than trying to hike it on foot.”

  “Okay.” Mr. Lake got up and Stevie helped him into the saddle. “Now lean forward, and crisscross your way up. You should stay on—this time.”

  Mr. Lake and Stewball started up. Stevie turned and looked back upstream. Kate was leading Mrs. Lake through the water. Stevie sighed with relief to see her mother still on her horse. Her mother looked at her and gave her a grim thumbs-up. After them came Mr. Atwood, led by John. Carole had come back down to wait in the shallow water at the edge in case anyone needed help.

  Stevie’s mother leaned forward as her horse followed Moonglow and Kate up the steep bank. Mrs. Lake clutched the horse’s soaked mane.

  Just then Stevie noticed another commotion in the water. Mr. Atwood’s horse, Tripper, had slipped going up the bank, and Mr. Atwood was starting to come out of his saddle.

  Carole pivoted Berry so that he came up alongside Tripper. She wedged herself up against the horse so there was nowhere for Mr. Atwood to fall.

  “Drop the reins. Grab your saddle,” Carole commanded. “Pull yourself back on.”

  Mr. Atwood did what she said, but the saddle started to slip with his weight.

  The girth must be loose from all this water, Carole realized. Quickly, she leaned out of her saddle and said, “Ready, one, two, three!” and gave Mr. Atwood a huge push. Berry moved sideways with the impact, but he kept his balance in the foamy water. Mr. Atwood was back in the saddle. Carole couldn’t believe she’d found the strength to do it.

  Carole glanced upstream, where Stevie was trying to climb up the muddy bank. She clung to a root and was grabbing for another.

  “Can you make it?” Carole yelled.

  “I think so!” Stevie hollered back. As the rain continued to pelt her, she pulled her way up the muddy hill.

  When she reached the top, Stevie saw her father leading Stewball over to her. He looked at Stevie, who was completely drenched.

  “I think it’s a little late for this,” he said, holding out Stevie’s wrinkled, twisted, wet poncho.

  She laughed. It felt good to laugh.


  She took the reins from her father and mounted her horse. Her jeans made a squishing sound as she sat in the saddle. Water oozed over the tops of her boots. Every inch of her was soaked. Her hair dripped down the back of her shirt, but she couldn’t really tell, because her shirt was so wet. Stevie looked at her father. She didn’t know how this was possible, but he looked as if he was even wetter than she was. Then she remembered, he’d gone for a swim—with all his clothes on.

  The rain had slackened some, but it was still falling hard. Stevie pushed the hair out of her eyes and looked up the bank to see the others riding toward them.

  “What a wet group!” she called out. Everyone was dripping. Water ran off people’s eyelashes, down their noses, down their boots, and off their stirrups. The horses’ tails were waterlogged and hung like snakes on their flanks.

  “Look!” cried Lisa. Everyone looked toward the island. Only now nothing was left. The flooding waters had completely engulfed the patch of land.

  “Talk about the nick of time,” Colonel Hanson said soberly.

  The riders watched the raging river for another minute, each one realizing how close they’d come to disaster. Finally John turned Tex in the direction of the herd, and the wet, weary riders headed off to find Walter.

  When Carole glanced back one last time at the flooded arroyo, her eyes streamed with tears. The memory of her father’s silly cowboy hat floating downstream was almost too much to bear. She looked over at him now, and a sob caught in her throat. With her mother gone, he was everything—all the family—she had. What if she had lost him?

  Ahead of Carole, Lisa was thinking similar thoughts. Just this afternoon she’d been furious at her mother. Now, after seeing her mother sliding into the white water, totally helpless and panicked, Lisa felt grateful and lucky to be riding beside her.

  She may be a pain sometimes, Lisa thought, but she’s still my mother.

  Suddenly Mrs. Atwood reached over and grabbed Lisa’s hand. The rain had stopped and off in the distance a rainbow glittered over the majestic Rockies.

  “Look, honey,” Mrs. Atwood said softly. “A rainbow. Isn’t it beautiful?” Lisa just nodded, still too filled with feelings to speak.

  For a moment all the riders watched the rainbow together. Then they continued on to where Walter and the herd were waiting. As they rode, the sun burst out from behind the clouds and slowly began to warm their dripping clothes and bodies.

  BACK AT THE Bar None, the girls first took care of their exhausted horses, then headed to their bunkhouse to take care of themselves.

  They all showered and changed into dry clothes.

  Carole was combing out her thick black hair, when a knock came on the bunkhouse door.

  “Anybody home?” It was a girl’s voice.

  “Christine!” Stevie cried.

  Christine Lonetree, Kate’s neighbor and the other member of The Saddle Club’s Colorado branch, stepped inside. “I didn’t think you’d still be in here this close to suppertime!”

  “Well,” answered Carole, pulling her hair into a barrette, “we had a long afternoon. But that’s another story.”

  “What happened?” Christine asked.

  Carole gave a shudder.

  Lisa sniffed the air. “We’ll tell you at dinner and later, when you sleep over,” she said. “Right now I can’t wait another minute for some of the Devines’ barbecue!”

  And as they stepped off the porch of their bunkhouse, the big triangle at the main house rang loud and long.

  “WELCOME BACK TO all our drenched, exhausted cowpokes. Drive was more than you bargained for, I heard.” Frank Devine placed the final platter, piled high with chicken, steak, and ribs, in the middle of the big table. “We loved having all of you with us this week. Here’s to a safe trip home tomorrow—under sunny skies—and a speedy return to the Bar None sometime real soon!”

  He took off his chef’s apron. “Dig in!” he said, and they all did.

  “So what happened this afternoon?” Christine asked.

  Carole put down her corn on the cob and wiped her hands on her napkin. She took a deep breath. “We all got caught in a flash flood.”

  “You did?” Christine said. “You were out in that rainstorm?”

  Carole nodded. “And we weren’t exactly expecting it.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Christine. “Didn’t you pack your ponchos?”

  “Yup,” said Stevie, “and it’s a good thing we did.”

  “Stevie used hers as a lifeline,” explained Kate.

  “A what?” Christine asked. She looked from Stevie to Carole to Kate to Lisa. “Okay. So what exactly happened?”

  “Some of us got a little stuck in a creek bed,” said Carole, “that kind of filled up with water. So some others of us helped out—”

  “Don’t underestimate yourselves!” boomed a voice from down the table. It was Colonel Hanson. Everyone else stopped talking.

  “That’s right, don’t underestimate yourselves or the flood.” Colonel Hanson put both his hands on the table, paused, and looked around at everyone. “There was a flash flood. And some of us didn’t exactly get stuck, we goofed. It wasn’t you girls. It was us dudes. We tried to ride where we had no business riding. They don’t call us Saddlebags for nothing!”

  There was a small titter from the girls’ end of the table.

  Colonel Hanson continued. “You see, we made an error of judgment that on any ordinary day might not have been so foolish. But in a flash flood, it was incredibly dangerous. We decided to see if we could all fit on top of this tiny hill in the middle of the arroyo. Then it started raining. The hill became an island. We panicked.

  “And that’s when The Saddle Club, and John, found us. They stayed calm, used good judgment and tremendous riding skills, and got us all out of danger, and up to the dry ground. If they hadn’t found us …”

  Colonel Hanson paused and swallowed hard. His eyes met Carole’s, and he quickly looked down.

  Carole looked around. All the other parents’ eyes were glistening. Mr. Lake cleared his throat, and Mrs. Atwood put down her fork.

  Colonel Hanson took a deep breath. “Matter of fact,” he said quietly, “I’m not sure any of us Saddlebags would be here tonight if it weren’t for our daughters and John Brightstar.” He looked up, smiled, and raised his glass. “So I propose a toast to our wonderful daughters—the smartest young women on horseback!”

  “Hear, hear!” said Mr. Lake. Everyone raised a glass.

  “And to John Brightstar,” Colonel Hanson continued, “a terrific wrangler and horseman, and a fine young man! John, may you win only blue ribbons in your horse shows. You did more special riding today than anyone’ll ever see at a rodeo.”

  All raised their glasses once again. John blushed a little.

  Mrs. Atwood suddenly spoke up. “I also want to thank you, John, for thinking fast and keeping me and my horse from swimming all the way to Texas!”

  Everyone laughed.

  “I think I understand now,” Lisa’s mother continued, “that when my daughter says riding is serious fun, she means riding is both serious and fun.”

  Stevie raised her mug of soda. “I’ll drink to that!” she said.

  “Amen,” said Carole under her breath.

  Lisa caught her mother’s eye and winked.

  TAP, TAP, TAP.

  In her sleep Stevie stirred.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  This time the noise awakened her.

  Christine was already up, looking around. “I think someone’s at the door,” she said quietly.

  Stevie sat up and pulled on her robe. She slowly opened the door and peered around it.

  “Good morning!” said a low voice.

  “Colonel Hanson!” Stevie exclaimed.

  Carole sat up in bed.

  “Is something wrong?” asked Stevie.

  “No, not at all,” replied the colonel with a smile. “Us ’Bags just wanted to know if you’d like to take us on a bare
back sunrise ride. It’s our last chance before going home.”

  “You bet!” cried Carole.

  “Just give us two minutes to get dressed,” said Stevie.

  “Meet you at the barn,” replied Carole’s father, and he left.

  Lisa got up and scampered to the window. “It’s still dark. I can’t believe they all got up this early!”

  The girls quickly pulled on their jeans and shirts and boots and headed out to the barn.

  All the parents were standing at the barn door, waiting.

  “Let me cut our horses,” said Kate as she went inside to get a bridle for Moonglow.

  “I think you might want to use saddles,” Carole said to the parents. “Sometimes it’s hard to keep your balance when you’re riding bareback, so you’ll have more fun on this ride if you use saddles.”

  Mrs. Atwood smiled. “This time I think I’ll take The Saddle Club’s advice. I’d much rather enjoy the ride than be worrying about whether or not I’m going to stay on.”

  “I agree,” added her husband. “Bareback riding takes more skills than I’ve got, even after yesterday’s intensive lesson.”

  Soon all horses were ready, the grown-ups’ horses with saddles and bridles, the girls’ horses with bridles only. The Saddlebags mounted up, and waited until the girls could join them.

  Mounting with a stirrup was easy, but stirrups came attached to saddles, and bareback riding came with none. Mounting a horse bareback usually required a boost.

  The girls were all experienced bareback riders by now, but Stevie remembered her first time riding bareback, and how hard it had been to keep her balance on the horse without a saddle. She was glad the grown-ups were using saddles. It took only a few minutes until the girls were ready.

  The group rode off toward the hills, under a sapphire predawn sky.

  Christine and Stevie led the way out of the valley and up into the hills. It was the same ride Christine had taken them on when they first met her, on their very first stay at the Bar None.