Ranch Hands

by Bonnie Bryant

  Then she spotted the thrown rider. It wasn’t hard to figure out. There was a girl, about her own age, decked in a perfect riding outfit, standing on the edge of the bridle path, rubbing her elbow and looking annoyed.

  Lisa pulled up to her. “I think I found something that belongs to you.”

  The relief on the girl’s face was visible. “Thank you so much. I was just wondering where this fellow went.” She peered at Lisa curiously. “American, are you?”

  “Yup,” Lisa confirmed. “My name’s Lisa Atwood. I’m from Willow Creek, Virginia, U.S.A.” She dismounted and held out her hand to shake.

  “Lady Theresa,” the downed rider said, taking Lisa’s offered hand and shaking it vigorously.

  Lady? She was no older than Lisa. How could she be a lady? Lisa wasn’t sure what protocol called for, but she knew she couldn’t help herself. “Lady Theresa? That’s what people call you?”

  Lady Theresa smiled. It was a warm and kind smile in response to what Lisa realized must have sounded like a rather rude question. Lisa liked this girl immediately.

  “Not at all,” Lady Theresa said. “My friends call me Tessa.”

  That didn’t help Lisa very much. She tried again. “Am I a friend?”

  Tessa shook her head, laughing. “No. You’re a savior. But it’s okay because saviors call me Tessa, too.”

  That was the moment when Lisa knew for sure that they would be friends forever. The girls began talking. Lisa learned that Tessa had been riding by herself because she had thought she was good enough to be safe. Lisa explained that it was never wise to ride alone. “It’s almost as silly as swimming by yourself,” she said. “That’s why I always go riding with my friends.”

  “And where are they now?” Tessa asked. “I mean, you just rode over here by yourself!”

  “It’s a long story,” Lisa said.

  “Well, we have a long walk,” Tessa said. “But why don’t we do it on horseback? We can ride double, as long as you’re in front. My ankle hurts a little. Why don’t you get up first and then give me a hand?”

  Lisa did that, once again finding a park bench for a mounting block. Then she offered Tessa a hand, and the two of them were ready to ride together.

  “Where to, miss?” Lisa asked in a pretty good imitation of a Cockney accent. She was trying to mimic one of the London cab drivers and must have done a fairly good job of it because Tessa laughed.

  “Royal stables, please.”

  Royal stables?

  “ ’Ow do oi get there?” Lisa asked, when she had recovered.

  “Just over that hill and follow the path,” Tessa said.

  “Really the royal stables?” Lisa asked, unable to contain her curiosity.

  “Really,” Tessa said. “You see, my mother is a distant cousin to Her Majesty, and as a result I’m invited to ride the royal horses occasionally. Today was one of those occasions.”

  Lisa was having some trouble taking in all this. She was actually on a horse belonging to the royal family, riding double with a member of that family, albeit distantly related. At the same time as this was going on, her parents were on a nearby park bench, talking about lunch. To Lisa, it seemed like a dream. Then it occurred to Lisa that her parents were probably also worried about her.

  “I think I’d better let my parents know where we’re going,” Lisa said, and she explained where they were.

  “No problem,” said Tessa. The two of them went back over the route that Lisa and the horse had taken to find Tessa in the first place.

  Lisa’s parents were much as she’d left them. Her mother was flipping through pages in the guide book, trying to find something else deadly dull to see before they left Windsor. Her father had stretched his legs out in front of him and was clasping his empty stomach.

  “Mom, Dad, this is Tessa,” Lisa said, introducing her new friend. “Tessa, my parents, Mr. and Mrs. Atwood.”

  “How do you do?” Tessa asked.

  “Pleased, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Atwood.

  “Say, do you live around here? Do you know a good place for us to get lunch?” Mr. Atwood asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Tessa said. “Let me think.”

  “Tessa has hurt her ankle so I’m going to ride back with her to the royal stables. I should be back here in a little while.”

  “I’ll have someone drive Lisa back,” Tessa assured the Atwoods. “In the meantime, however, there’s a pleasant little restaurant next to the woollen shop.”

  “Oh, sure, I saw that one. It’s good?”

  “Best in town,” Tessa said. “Why don’t you go on over, and I’ll have the driver drop Lisa off there. She’ll be about an hour. I know she’s going to want to see the stables, and you shouldn’t have to wait.”

  “Did you say royal stables?” Mrs. Atwood asked. Clearly the words had taken a few minutes to sink in.

  “Yup,” Tessa said, doing as good a job of imitating an American accent as Lisa had done with the Cockney.

  “See you later, Mom and Dad,” Lisa interrupted. She wanted to get out of there before her mother tried to come along. Mrs. Atwood went absolutely bonkers over anything that had to do with the royal family. But before they were out of sight and earshot, Lisa saw her mother turn to her father and heard her say, “Isn’t it nice that Lisa’s not too old to play pretend with her friends?”

  Behind her, Tessa started laughing. Lisa giggled, too. It was a nice thing to do with a new friend.

  The royal stables were as wonderful as Lisa had expected, not because they belonged to the royal family but because they were stables containing horses. There were a few things that set this stable apart from any stable Lisa had ever seen. The first was that every single horse in there was clearly extremely valuable. The other was that in the carriage house, there were a few carriages that were for state occasions and were exquisite antiques. Other than that, the royal stable was just like every other stable, down to the barn cats whose job was the same as it was at Pine Hollow: Keep the mouse population to a minimum!

  Lisa would have liked to have spent the whole day at the stables. Tessa even hinted that they might try to get her a horse to ride so the two of them could go out on the trail together. But Lisa thought about her parents sitting alone in the restaurant, probably wondering what Lisa was up to, and she knew that she’d done all the riding she was going to do for the day.

  She and Tessa had a great time together. Tessa introduced her to everyone in the stables as “the American who rounded up my horse and saved my life.” It was more than a slight exaggeration, but it did seem to give Lisa a certain status among the groomers. They saluted her and thanked her.

  Finally, it was time for her to go. The stables’ driver said he’d be more than happy to drop Lisa off at the restaurant next to the woollen shop. Hastily, Lisa and Tessa scribbled their addresses on paper and exchanged them, promising to write often. Tessa even said she thought she might be coming to America for a visit soon.

  “I understand there are some good stables in Virginia, aren’t there?”

  “The best,” Lisa assured her. “And its name is Pine Hollow. The welcome mat will always be out for you.”

  The girls gave each other hugs, and then the visit, the magical time, was over. Lisa hopped into the front seat of the big comfortable car, and the driver took her into town.

  Her parents were ordering dessert when Lisa arrived at the restaurant. She asked for a sandwich and began to tell her parents about her adventure. Her mother just nodded and smiled sweetly. Mrs. Atwood clearly thought Lisa was still playing pretend.

  “It’s for real, Mom,” Lisa said. “I was actually at the queen’s stables.”

  “It must have been very interesting,” said Mrs. Atwood.

  Mr. Atwood just kept scanning the dessert menu. “What’s trifle, do you suppose?”

  Lisa sighed. There was no way either one of them would care or believe her. The adventure was hers and hers alone, until she had a chance to write to her friends ab
out it.

  Then the door to the restaurant flew open. In walked a tall man in uniform.

  “Is there a Miss Lisa Atwood here?” he asked.

  Lisa’s parents looked alarmed. “I’m here?” Lisa said tentatively, and raised her arm.

  “Oh, good,” said the man approaching their table. “Her Majesty wanted to give you her personal thanks for rescuing her cousin Lady Theresa today. Her Majesty hopes you will accept this as a small token of her appreciation.”

  He held out a box. Lisa accepted it and opened it while everybody in the restaurant looked on. It was a small crystal horse, nearly a perfect replica of one of the Thoroughbreds from Her Majesty’s stables.

  Lisa’s mother was absolutely speechless. It was enough to divert her father’s attention from his stomach, too.

  Lisa blushed with excitement. She looked up at the equerry. “Please tell Her Majesty that I was glad to help and that she really doesn’t have to give me anything.”

  The man looked at Lisa and winked. “She knows that,” he said. Then he saluted her smartly and left the restaurant.

  That was when Lisa decided that maybe this trip to Europe with her parents wasn’t going to be such a bore after all!

  CAROLE WAS DREAMING. It was a weird dream about rows and rows of onions that needed to be weeded and pots that needed to be washed and horses that needed to be fed and groomed. Then all of a sudden, a bell rang. In her dream she was sure it was a fire alarm—just like the one that rang in school. She knew what to do in a fire drill. You were supposed to get in a neat line and walk out of the school. She and dozens of campers—all of whom had names that started with “L”—got in line with the onions and the pots and began walking in an orderly fashion.

  The bell kept ringing, insistently. It wasn’t a fire drill. Carole sat up in bed and opened her eyes. The bell still rang, but it wasn’t exactly a bell. It was the triangle. That was very weird because it was still pitch black outside. It wasn’t morning at all. Then Carole realized that if the bell was ringing at this hour, Jeannie needed her help.

  She didn’t bother with clothes. She just pulled on her boots and ran to the main house.

  “Carole, you’ve got to help!” Jeannie said breathlessly.

  “What’s on fire?”

  “Nothing,” Jeannie told her. “It’s the horses. They’re gone!”

  Carole looked over Jeannie’s shoulder to the field where she’d put all the horses earlier. There was not a horse in sight.

  “Well, at least we’ve still got Arthur,” Carole said, trying very hard to find a bright side to twenty missing horses.

  Jeannie looked over at the paddock where the lone horse stood quietly. “That’s not Arthur,” she said. “Arthur’s got a crooked blaze. That horse has a star.”

  Carole squinted to be sure Jeannie was right. “You mean I spent an hour this morning separating all the other horses from a horse that isn’t Arthur?”

  “I guess so,” Jeannie said.

  Then Carole remembered that Arthur was always supposed to stay away from the herd because he was a troublemaker. She was getting a very bad feeling about this.

  “What kind of trouble does Arthur cause?” she asked.

  “He makes the herd roam,” Jeannie said, once again indicating the empty field. “He’s just a natural leader, and when he’s got some horses who will follow him, he leads them. Away. See, he’ll jump a fence and everybody else follows.”

  “But where did he go?”

  Jeannie stood on her tiptoes and looked across the darkened landscape. It wasn’t easy to see because there were no lights around at all, except the stars and a sliver of a moon. Then she noticed some motion on a hilltop perhaps a mile away.

  “I think they are over there,” she said, pointing. Carole looked. There seemed to be a number of dark patches silhouetted against the pale grass. She agreed that it was likely those were the horses.

  “I’ll go get them,” Carole offered quickly, “Why don’t you go back to bed.”

  Jeannie looked exhausted, and she didn’t bother to protest. “Thanks, Carole,” she said. “As long as you think you can handle it. I should tell you, though, that if that is our herd of horses, we could be in some real trouble. That land belongs to a neighbor who tried very hard to stop us from running the camp here this summer. He hates kids and doesn’t much like anybody else, either. Eli had to promise on a stack of Bibles that he’d never even know we were here. So, while you’re busy getting the horses off his land, be sure he doesn’t discover you, okay?”

  “Okay,” Carole said. She said it because it was the only answer she could give, but she gulped at the very idea. It wasn’t easy to get twenty horses to move without letting anybody know. How was she going to do it?

  She wasn’t sure how, but she was sure when. It had to be right away. It was 3:30 in the morning. By 4:30, the sun would start to rise. By 5:30, it would be fully light and people around here tended to wake up with the sun. It might be possible to sneak a herd off the farmer’s land in the dark; it would be impossible after dawn.

  Carole ran over to her bunk and slipped her jeans on over her pajamas. Her mind raced as she buttoned her shirt. She couldn’t do this alone; she couldn’t do this with Jeannie. Her only other choice was to get the three campers to help her.

  The three of them were sleeping in the spare bedroom in the other half of Carole’s bunkhouse. Waking them up would be no problem. Motivating them could cause some difficulty.

  Carole wished Stevie were there. Not only would she be invaluable in helping with the roundup, but she’d also know exactly how to get the campers to be useful. Carole had found that exposure to Stevie sometimes made her think a little bit like Stevie. She knew she needed a Stevian inspiration. And one came to her.

  She slipped a kerchief around her neck and over her face so she looked like a bank robber. She stepped into the campers’ bunk room and turned on the light.

  “Okay, you rustlers, it’s time to get up and steal the herd before the owner catches us. If we do this right, we’ll have all them horses miles and miles away before anybody knows they’re gone!”

  “Huh?”

  “Rustlers?” Linc asked, sitting up in bed. He was such a troublemaker that the idea of doing something—or even pretending to do something—that was against the law sounded like a really good idea to him.

  “Yup, rustlers,” Carole confirmed. “There’s a herd of horses, about twenty head, in a field about a mile from here. We’re going to have to sneak up on them on foot—and the sneaking part shouldn’t be too hard because most of them are probably asleep. We’ll each carry a bridle with us, and then we’ll bring them on home. All by the light of the stars and the moon. Are you guys good enough for this?”

  That was exactly the right question to ask. There was nothing like a challenge to get the kids up and going. Even the boy with the cold was willing to go along. Carole said it was okay as long as he wasn’t coughing (he wasn’t) and if he wrapped up warmly. He promised to wear a sweater and a scarf.

  The four “rustlers” were ready to leave in five minutes. They stopped off at the barn to pick up the tack and began their trek across the field.

  They had to go in the dark. Flashlights might have awakened neighbors or upset the herd of horses. The horses were going to be hard enough to bring home without having them upset. Carole led the way. It wasn’t easy going. The ground wasn’t all that smooth and was dotted with clumps of grass that were just perfect for tripping unsuspecting “rustlers.” Every time Carole stumbled, she found another route and made the campers take it. She wouldn’t have minded twisting her own ankle, but she hated the idea of twisting anybody else’s, even Linc’s.

  It was turning out that Linc was perfect for this deed. He took to it like a fish to water. He got real pleasure out of being sneaky, and got right into the part of rustler.

  Soon enough they approached the herd. Most of the horses were standing quietly, sleeping as they stood. A few munched on
grass. One or two looked up when the “rustlers” drew near, but none of them seemed interested in going anywhere.

  The first thing Carole had to do was to find Arthur. It wasn’t easy locating a bay with a straight blaze. Most of the horses were bays. Plenty of them had blazes. However, she spotted one bay with a blaze who was completely surrounded by other horses. That, Carole decided, was charisma—the trait of a natural leader. It just had to be Arthur!

  She moved the adoring fans away from around the horse and slipped a bridle onto him. It wasn’t hard to do, and he didn’t protest. It seemed that Arthur’s only undesirable quality was his tendency to lead other horses astray. Other than that, he was a fine, obedient horse. Carole hoped so, anyway, since she was going to have to ride him bareback.

  Once she had his bridle on, she gathered her “rustlers” and told them what they were to do. First of all, each of them was to pick a pony to ride, put the bridle on it, and then mount up. Carole would help them.

  Linc found a dappled gray. Ellis located a sorrel, and Jack found a bay for himself. Quietly, but surely, each put the bridle on his chosen horse. Linc’s horse gave him a hard time, and Carole insisted that he choose another horse. She couldn’t afford to have the young riders on horses that gave them any trouble at all. Eventually, Linc decided on a horse that was so gray he was almost totally white. Linc seemed to think that meant he was sleek. Carole knew better. What it really meant was that he was old and in this case old seemed to mean gentle. Carole approved.

  With a boost from Carole, the three campers mounted their horses. There was nobody to help Carole get onto Arthur’s back, but fortunately he was patient and didn’t seem to mind Carole’s efforts. Finally, everybody was mounted up and the work began.