Scooby’s only reply was to turn and slobber cold water down her arm. She decided to take that as a yes.
A few minutes later she was mounted and trotting down a slight incline on the trail. Scooby’s ears were up and alert, and he seemed to be enjoying the exercise. Callie kept a close eye on the trail ahead, not wanting to miss the turnoff she wanted. She planned to follow the map she’d left in the office, which indicated a path along a tiny tributary of Willow Creek that led straight into the heart of the huge tract of state forest land that lay between Pine Hollow and the town of Cross County, some ten miles away. She didn’t want to overextend Scooby on their first day on the trails, but she wanted to ride far enough to get a better idea about what they needed to do. She also wanted to get away from the usual Pine Hollow student trails, which Max and his staff kept carefully groomed. That was fine for most riders, but Callie wanted to test Scooby’s comfort level on different footings, from rocky to muddy to slippery, and she was sure she could find all the variety she needed on the more remote and wilder state forest trails.
“Maybe in a couple of months when the weather improves, we can enter a local twenty-five-miler,” she told the horse. “Then we can work our way up from there.”
She recognized the right trail when she spotted the tributary, which was hardly more than a trickle at that time of year. Turning her horse, Callie smiled. Now they could really get to work.
They were trotting along the smooth trail a few minutes later when Callie realized that she needed a drink of water almost as much as Scooby had a few minutes earlier. Bringing Scooby down to a walk, she steadied the horse, then took both reins in one hand and twisted around in the saddle. She’d stashed some drinking water with her other supplies in her cantle bag, and it took her only a moment to undo the zipper and dig out the canteen.
She almost lost her balance when Scooby came to an abrupt halt. Leaving the zipper half open, she quickly righted herself and turned to face front again. “Oops,” she said, automatically squeezing her legs to get the gelding moving again and then reaching to pat him on the neck. “Okay, boy? What’s the problem?”
Scooby snorted, his ears pricked forward and his head high. He hardly seemed to notice Callie’s pat.
Callie scanned the forest ahead, wondering what had made the horse stop. Then she shrugged, figuring he had probably heard a deer or something. Or maybe it had happened because she herself had been distracted—maybe her twisting and turning had sent Scooby a confusing signal and that was why he’d reacted that way. Taking both reins in one hand again, she tipped her canteen up and took a long drink, this time making sure she also maintained clear communication with her seat and legs.
Twenty minutes later, they emerged from the heavily wooded trail into a clearing of sorts. The only trees were a few shrubby evergreens, which were clinging to a steep, rocky embankment leading down to a wide spot in the creek.
“Aha,” Callie said to her horse. “Here we go.” The clearing was exactly the sort of challenge she’d been looking for. If she and Scooby were to compete at the highest levels of endurance, they would have to take such tricky footing in stride.
Callie didn’t rush her horse as they descended, allowing him to pick his way down the slope. Except for a little bit of slipping and sliding near the bottom, the trip was uneventful.
“Good boy!” Callie exclaimed as they reached the edge of the stream. She leaned forward to give him a pat before dismounting. “I’d say that deserves another drink.”
Scooby lowered his head and snuffled at the water, taking a few sips and then turning to examine a patch of weeds at the edge of the small stream. He stretched his neck toward the weeds.
“Forget it, buster.” Callie pulled his head away and led him back to the flattest part of the clearing. She wedged her foot in the stirrup and started to mount. Just as her right foot left the ground, Scooby suddenly shifted his weight, taking a large step forward and to the right. His ears were pricked again, this time toward the top of the slope they’d just come down.
“Hey!” Callie said, taken by surprise. “Hold still or I’ll break my …” Her voice trailed off as she saw the horse shift his weight again, lifting his right foreleg off the ground slightly. “Oh no,” she muttered, all sorts of horrible scenarios flashing through her mind. They were miles from civilization. What if Scooby had injured himself during that sidestep? He might have stressed or twisted something in his leg. Or, for all she knew, Judy Barker might have missed something on that vet check, thorough as she had been. Scooby could have serious soundness problems that hadn’t manifested themselves until that moment.…
Forcing herself to remain calm until she knew what was wrong, Callie stepped around to his right side and bent down, squeezing his leg gently until he obediently lifted his foot. Then she leaned over it and immediately saw a large, jagged pebble wedged against the edge of his shoe.
She let out her relief in a whoosh of breath. He had picked up a stone with that awkward sidestep. That was all that was wrong.
“Okay, hold tight a sec, bub,” she said soothingly, letting the foot drop. As usual, she had packed a hoof pick in her kit. All she had to do was get it out of the cantle bag and dig out the offending pebble and they could be on their way.
What’s with me today, anyway? she wondered as she sifted through the cantle bag. It’s not like me to panic that way before I have any idea what’s wrong. Locating the hoof pick, she patted Scooby on the rump and walked back to his front. I must be even jumpier than I thought about this whole new-horse thing.
“Here we are,” she said briskly, lifting the horse’s leg again with her left hand, hoof pick at the ready in her right. “I’ll have that out of there in just a—” Her hand froze in midair as she heard a shout from somewhere nearby.
“Callie!” George Wheeler’s voice called cheerfully. “Hey, Callie, it’s me!”
Dropping Scooby’s foot, Callie slowly straightened and looked over her horse’s back. George was riding down the hill toward them.
TWELVE
Callie’s head spun, and for a moment she seriously wondered if she was stuck in some kind of bad dream. But the cold metal of the hoof pick in her hand and Scooby’s warm presence beside her were very real, and that meant George had to be real, too.
“George,” she said carefully as he dismounted and hurried toward her, leaving his mare ground-tied. “What are you doing out here?”
George shrugged, averting his eyes. He nodded toward the hoof pick in her hand. “Looks like you ran into some trouble,” he said.
Callie frowned, wondering why he hadn’t answered her question. “No big deal,” she responded, trying to keep her tone casual. For some reason she really, really didn’t want George to know how much his sudden appearance had spooked her. “Scooby picked up a stone, that’s all.”
“Are you sure?” George looked concerned. “I guess it’s lucky I happened along, then. It’s a long, long way back to Pine Hollow, and you wouldn’t want to be stranded.”
Callie felt her fists clench at her sides. “I’m not stranded,” she said as calmly as she could. “Scooby just picked up a pebble, that’s all. No biggie.”
“Okay, if you say so.” George’s face expressed his doubt. “I just hope the stone hasn’t bruised his foot or anything.”
If she hadn’t been so angry and freaked out, Callie might have laughed. Who did George think he was dealing with, anyway? It wasn’t as if Callie had just started riding yesterday. She’d probably ridden more miles on challenging trails in the past three years than George had seen his whole life. She couldn’t even remember how many times she’d popped a pebble or a stubborn clod of dirt out of a horse’s hoof during a ride. So where did George get off acting like he’d just galloped to her rescue?
But she forced herself to smile politely. “I’m sure he’s fine,” she said.
“I don’t know.” George shook his head and gazed worriedly at Scooby. “You can’t be too careful, you know. Joy
bruised her foot on a stone just last summer. Why don’t you let me take a look, just to be on the safe side?” George held out one pudgy hand, obviously expecting her to hand over the hoof pick.
Callie loosened her grip on the hoof pick, realizing she’d been squeezing it so hard that it was digging into her hand. She handed it over, wondering why she should feel so unwilling to do so. There was no reason in the world she couldn’t dislodge the stone herself. Scooby was her horse. But maybe if she allowed George to satisfy his own ridiculous worry, he would realize that she and Scooby were fine and go away.
“Be my guest,” she said as George took the hoof pick and stepped toward Scooby, who was still standing calmly a few yards from the bank of the creek.
Running his hand down Scooby’s foreleg, George grabbed the Appaloosa’s foot, pulling it up farther than Callie had ever done. Scooby clearly didn’t like that. His ears went back and he turned his head to glare at George, his tail swishing. But George seemed oblivious to the horse’s discomfort.
“Hold on there, big guy,” he said firmly, holding on even more tightly as Scooby jerked his leg a few times.
“Careful,” Callie said, taking a step forward. “I don’t think he—”
“It’s okay,” George broke in. “I can handle this.”
Callie wasn’t convinced of that. But before she could figure out a tactful way to say so, Scooby took the situation into his own hooves. With one strong yank, he pulled his foot out of George’s grip and skittered to the side, snorting. Nearby, George’s horse, Joyride, raised her head from the grassy patch she’d found and let out a slightly nervous snort of her own.
Good, Callie thought, moving forward quickly and taking hold of Scooby’s head before he could decide to take off. Maybe now George will give up on the Dudley Do-Right bit and let me handle this.
George glanced quickly at Joyride, then returned his attention to Scooby. “Whew! See what I mean?” He shook his head and patted the Appaloosa on the shoulder. “He’s pretty jumpy. That stone must be lodged in there pretty good. It’s probably so painful that he’s afraid to have me touch it.”
Callie grimaced. With the way George was manhandling Scooby’s foot, it was no wonder the gelding was jumpy. Why did George have to show up and make things more difficult, anyway?
She stopped to think about that. It was pretty strange that George was there at all. She was sure she would have noticed if he’d followed her all the way from Pine Hollow, and there really wasn’t much chance of them running into each other randomly—not in this remote part of the forest. She glanced up at the trail at the top of the rocky slope, wondering if George was some kind of secret mountain man, tracking her by following broken twigs and hoofprints in the mud.
Then she shook her head, feeling slightly foolish. It was stupid to freak herself out that way. Encountering George out there was a coincidence, that was all. A horrible, ridiculous, unfortunate coincidence. She cleared her throat and glanced at George, who was moving toward Scooby with the hoof pick again. “By the way,” she said as casually as she could manage, “what made you decide to ride out this way? It’s kind of off the beaten path.”
George didn’t answer. “I’d better give it another try,” he said. “Come on, Scooby. Let’s take care of that foot of yours, okay?”
Callie watched as he patted her horse for a moment, then bent to lift Scooby’s foot again. Propping the foot against his leg, he set to work with the hoof pick.
“Wow, this is really wedged in here,” George commented after a moment. “It’s going to take some elbow grease to pry it out. Lucky thing I happened to see that map in the office. Otherwise you would have had to—”
Callie didn’t hear the rest of what he said. “The map?” she interrupted. “What map?”
But she already knew the answer, even before George straightened up slightly to respond. “Your map,” he said with a shrug. “The one you drew to show where you were going today. When I saw how far out you were riding, I figured I’d come on out here and make sure everything was okay. You know, new horse and all.”
“What?” Callie couldn’t contain her fury anymore. “You’ve got to be kidding! Why would you do that?”
George looked startled. “Well, I just thought—Um, whatever. Besides, you haven’t lived here that long. And it’s not like you’ve spent a whole lot of time on these trails, so I—”
“So you decided to appoint yourself my personal baby-sitter?” Callie could hardly believe this was happening. It was too much—like something out of a nightmare. Suddenly another question occurred to her. “And how did you see that map, anyway? Maureen or Red should’ve put it in the daybook so that it wouldn’t get lost.”
Instead of responding to that, George bent over Scooby’s hoof again. The gelding shifted uneasily, but George kept a firm grip on the hoof and after a moment the horse stood still. “Good boy,” George murmured. “Just let me help you out here, okay?”
Callie realized she had taken a few steps back, away from George. To her own surprise, she felt fear—real, palm-sweating, gut-twisting fear—welling up alongside her anger, confusion, and disgust. She and George were out in the woods, miles from anywhere, all alone. For the first time, as she watched him bend over her horse’s hoof, George didn’t seem like the same irritating, bumbling loser she had known for months. Suddenly he had become someone mysterious, unpredictable, and sort of scary.
Get a grip, girl, Callie thought sharply, irritated by her own wild thoughts. This is still George Wheeler we’re talking about. George the nerd, the annoying but harmless one, the junior-class wimp. He may be clueless and weird, but that doesn’t make him an ax murderer or something.
She was taking a few deep breaths, trying to calm herself, when out of the corner of her eye she saw George make a quick, sharp movement with the hoof pick. She blinked and focused on what he was doing. Scooby’s ears were flattened again, and this time the gelding wasn’t giving up. He jerked his leg sharply, causing George to lose his grip.
“What was that?” Callie asked, a little anxious. She wouldn’t have let George get near Scooby’s feet if she hadn’t thought he knew what he was doing. But he was definitely acting weird. “Did you get it out?”
Instead of replying immediately, George straightened up and gestured to her with the hoof pick. “Come here, check this out.”
Callie slowly stepped forward, strangely reluctant to approach him but forcing herself to act as if nothing were wrong. “What is it?”
George wrestled Scooby’s foot up, though he only managed it by leaning hard on the gelding’s shoulder. “See? This shoe is totally loose. It’s a good thing we caught this before it got any worse or you could have had real problems.”
Callie stared, her mind refusing to accept what she was seeing. Scooby’s metal shoe was partially off, one nail twisted out slightly at an awkward angle. But that just couldn’t be. The blacksmith had just shod Scooby on Saturday, after he’d come to Pine Hollow. All four shoes had been tight and properly fitted then, and they had been just as tight that morning when they’d set off. Callie would bet her life on that.
Then how did it come loose now? she wondered, cold fingers of fear tickling her spine. Did it happen somehow at the same time he picked up that stone?
But she knew that wasn’t it. She’d lifted the horse’s foot herself after that had happened. There was no way she could have missed noticing such a major problem with the shoe. No way at all.
“It looks pretty bad,” George said, waving the hoof pick to punctuate the comment.
That was when Callie noticed that the tip of the metal hoof pick was bent at an odd angle. And she finally had to face the truth. George had done it. He had intentionally loosened her horse’s shoe, making him virtually unridable.
But why? she wondered desperately, hiding her face from George by bending closer over Scoobys hoof. What in the world would make him do something like that?
She shook her head, pushing the question out of
her mind. She would have to figure that out later.
Because at the moment, she had a much more important question to deal with. What was she supposed to do now?
Stevie shivered slightly as a cold breeze lifted the hair off her forehead. She was perched on the rustic wooden hitching fence outside Cross County Stables, waiting for Phil. “Brr,” she commented to no one in particular. “It’s starting to feel like Christmas now.” She shivered again, though not from the weather. The Starlight Ride was the following evening—Christmas Eve. Stevie was a little surprised at how much she was looking forward to it.
She jammed her hard hat on her head, hoping it would help keep her warm until she started riding. A moment later she finally spotted Phil riding toward her across the fields from the direction of his house. She stood and waited for him.
“Hi!” Phil called when he got close enough, bringing Teddy down from a trot to a walk. “Sorry I’m late. My little sister needed help with her pony. She’s practicing over cross rails today in our pasture, and my parents are practically hysterical about making sure her girth is good and tight.”
Stevie stood back until Phil dismounted, then stepped forward to kiss him hello. “That’s okay,” she said. “I just got here a few minutes ago. So, is A.J. going to be joining us or what?”
“I don’t know. I tried to reach him all day yesterday, but no luck.” Phil looped his reins over Teddy’s neck and led him forward beside Stevie as they headed slowly toward the stable. “I finally just left a message with his dad, telling him we’d be here today. I don’t know if he’ll show or not.”
“Oh.” Stevie was disappointed. “I was hoping maybe he’d have some news.”
Phil shrugged. “Me too. Come on, let’s go find you something to ride.”
The two of them were tacking up a horse for Stevie a few minutes later when they heard a familiar voice calling their names. “It’s A.J.!” Stevie exclaimed. “He made it!” She raised her voice slightly. “We’re in here, A.J.”
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