Riding Camp

by Bonnie Bryant

  Lisa looked around, thinking furiously. They needed something really visible, something that would be impossible for the horses not to notice. She spotted a small stack of rags by the spigot that were used to dry the horses after their baths.

  In a flash, she hopped down from the fence, retrieved the rags, and handed them out to all the people standing by the fence. A few campers looked at them, momentarily puzzled.

  “Wave them!” Lisa yelled. “Anything to get the horses’ attention and frighten them away from the barn instead of toward it!”

  The campers followed her instructions. It seemed to help, but Lisa didn’t think that it would be enough.

  Then came two sounds that she had been expecting to hear—one bad, one good. The first was the collapse of the loft floor. There was a loud crash as it landed on the main floor of the barn, spreading the fire further and faster. The horses jumped back in surprise, but then quickly resumed their press toward the building.

  The second sound was one of sirens. The Fire Department had arrived. The barn was burning too fast to be saved, especially since the loft had collapsed, but maybe the firemen could keep the fire from spreading.

  Lisa returned to her work.

  NEARBY, CAROLE WAS thinking as hard and as fast as she could. She’d never seen anything like the horses’ frantic press to return to the barn, and she’d never seen horses less interested in nine people waving rags. If only just one horse would start to retreat, Carole was sure others would follow him to safety. Normally, waving a single rag would be enough to send a herd of horses on the run. She’d even witnessed Topside completely miss a jump in a horse show because a thoughtless spectator had waved her cloak.

  Topside—where is Topside? Carole asked herself. Although Stevie was riding Topside at camp, Carole had ridden him at Pine Hollow a couple of times and she knew what a wonderfully obedient horse he was. Then it occurred to her that if she could get on Topside’s back, she’d have a chance to convince him to run for safety—and maybe convince the rest of the herd as well.

  Swiftly, she boosted herself up onto the fence. She just had to find Topside. Unfortunately, Topside was a bay horse, which meant he was brown with a black mane and tail—like almost every other horse in the paddock! Carole anxiously scanned the herd.

  And there he was. Like the others, he was clearly terrified. He was frightened by the sound and garish light of the fire, but he was also alarmed by what the other horses were doing.

  “Here, boy,” Carole said as calmly as she could. Horses, she knew, couldn’t understand most words, but they were experts at tone of voice. She tried to keep her voice even and soothing. Topside’s ears flicked toward her in response. She was just able to reach out and pat his neck. Then the throng of horses moved to one side, carrying Topside with them. His ears flattened again. Carole followed them, shifting her position on the fence.

  She could do it, she was sure. She had to do it, but she sure needed help. The best help in the world with Topside was Stevie. Where was she?

  THERE WERE EIGHT horses in the stable area of the barn’s lower level. Stevie looked around. She was alone. She didn’t have time to go for help. She was going to have to do this herself.

  Common sense told her to release the horses farthest from the door first. She dashed in, ran for the most distant stall, opened the door, and tugged at the horse’s halter. He whinnied a sound somewhere between angry and scared.

  “I know just how you feel, boy,” she said. Firmly, steadily, she led him to the door and walked him through it. As soon as she released his halter, she gave him a slap on the flank. He neighed loudly and took off in the direction of the pond. Stevie hoped the horses she released wouldn’t run too far, but she hoped they’d run far enough. There would be plenty of time to find them, as long as they were alive.

  Wasting no time, she went on to the next horse. In the eerie, orangish light, she thought she recognized him. Major! Lisa would be glad she’d saved him. Major followed the first horse off into the darkness.

  In the split second before she returned to the barn, she heard the sound of the loft falling—and the Fire Department arriving. Maybe, maybe, she’d get some help from them. Maybe they’d be able to save some of the barn.

  As Stevie rapidly led the horses out one by one, she thought about the camp’s nice old barn—the cool feeling of the stable area on a hot summer day, the old-fashioned drive-through design, the tack room, and the other storage rooms with the wagons and the sled. She hoped some of those things would be saved. But horses came first.

  Stevie kept looking for Teddy. She hadn’t found him yet, but it was very hard to see in the stable area at all. She knew he was there. She wanted more than anything to get him out, but she couldn’t waste time looking for just one horse. They all needed freedom.

  And she needed time!

  FOR ONCE, CAROLE was glad about Fred’s carelessness. He’d left a lead rope slung over the fence instead of putting it away as he should have. It was just the thing Carole needed.

  The next time the horses surged toward her, she slipped her hands between the slats of the fence and clipped the lead rope onto Topside’s halter. It wasn’t exactly a snaffle-bitted bridle, but it would have to do because it was all there was.

  Then she reached one hand over the top of the fence, took the lead rope in that hand, and climbed up. She knew she wouldn’t get a better opportunity than this.

  Talking constantly, softly, surely, using his name, patting his neck, Carole slowly lowered herself onto Topside’s back. She was in pajamas and barefoot. She had no saddle, no boots, no spurs, nothing to tell Topside she meant business, except her calves and her voice.

  She gripped him with her legs to let him know she was on board and she was in charge now. She wanted him to feel that he didn’t have to make any more decisions in this very frightening experience—Carole would do it for him.

  “Okay, Topside,” she said. She clucked her tongue. His ears straightened right up. It was a good sign. It meant he heard her and was alert for other signals. “This is going to test your skills as a roundup horse and mine as a cowboy. We don’t have any time to waste, so let’s get down to business. Let’s go.”

  She nudged his belly with her bare feet. He tensed under her. She felt his uncertainty. She didn’t want him to be uncertain. She wanted him to follow her instructions without question. She kicked him. At that, Topside seemed ready to take orders from her, but by then Carole was in the middle of a sea of horses, with no place to go!

  At that instant, the first gigantic arc of water reached upward from the other side of the barn, suddenly visible to the horses. As one, the animals stepped back in fear, opening up their ranks ever so slightly. Carole held her hands low and pulled on the lead rope and prayed that Topside would recognize the signal as if it were from a bridle with a bit. For a moment, he stood still. Then, slowly, carefully, he began to walk backwards.

  “Good boy!” Carole said, and she meant it!

  “OUCH!” STEVIE SAID. One skittish mare had just kicked her. She rubbed her shin. It was swelling already, but it wasn’t bleeding. She’d be okay. The mare would be all right as well. Her skittishness was actually helping her, because it meant she was anxious to escape. As soon as Stevie unbolted the door to her stall, the mare hightailed it out of the barn to safety.

  “Teddy, Teddy! Where are you?” she called, coughing. The smoke was beginning to billow down into the lower level. It was much harder to see than it had been just a few minutes before.

  Stevie found a gray horse cowering in the corner of a stall. She reached in over the half-door, hooked her fingers through his halter, and pulled gently.

  But there was nothing gentle about the horse’s reaction. The horse reared on its hind legs, terrified, shrieking loudly. His movement was so sudden that he pulled Stevie right up off the ground and halfway over the edge of the door. She managed to release her fingers from the halter and backed out of the stall before the horse could land on her.<
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  “Swell—I’m trying to give you a hand and you think this is the right time to get on your own two feet!”

  It wasn’t much of a joke, but it was the best Stevie could do. In fact, she was quite proud of the fact that she could still make a joke, even a feeble one, at a dreadful time like this.

  “Listen, let’s save the fun and games for tomorrow. Then you can do your Hi-ho-Silver imitation. I might even clap. For now, let’s stick to routine. I tell you what to do, you do it.”

  The gray eyed her warily, but didn’t protest when she snapped a lead on his halter. He also didn’t move when she tugged at it. She tugged it harder. Then she yanked it. He yanked back. This horse wasn’t going to budge.

  One of the very first things a horse is taught to do, is to obey a halter lead rope. This horse was so upset and frightened that he had obviously forgotten everything he’d ever been taught. Stevie was trying to save his life, but he was acting as if she were trying to make him do something unpleasant, like lead him onto a van—

  That was it! There were lots of tricks to putting horses on vans, and the first was a blindfold. Within a few seconds Stevie had torn off one of the legs of her pajamas. It was the only thing she had that would work, and besides, she’d never liked the little flowers on them. For a moment she imagined explaining to her mother what had happened to the pajamas. “See, we had this barn fire, Mom …” Stevie smiled to herself as she worked. Talking reassuringly to the gray horse, she slipped the homemade blindfold over his eyes. If he couldn’t see anything, he’d have to rely on her. At least that was the idea.

  It worked. Stevie tugged at the lead rope. One foot came forward. Before the horse knew what he was doing, he had followed Stevie out of the stall and was letting her lead him to the door. She took him all the way out of the barn before she took off his blindfold. She was afraid that once he could see, he might make his escape back into the barn. That would be awful.

  “Get out of here!” Stevie yelled at the gray. She released the lead rope and slapped him hard on the rump. He looked over his shoulder at her with what she was sure was a dirty look. She whacked him again, harder. He bolted for freedom at full speed.

  Now seven horses had been freed. But where was Teddy?

  ONCE CAROLE WAS on Topside and Topside was paying attention to her, it began to seem as if everything were easy—especially when she had so much help from the other campers and the staff.

  She got Topside to canter toward the herd, which made the horses shift over toward one side, even though they were still terrified of the fire. On Carole’s signal, the campers at the fences began waving their towels. Eventually they got the horses’ attention. Topside, whose bloodlines were one hundred percent Thoroughbred, now worked the horse herd like an experienced quarter horse. Quarter horses were the breed preferred by cowboys for their strength, stamina, speed, and intelligence. Topside was showing all these qualities. It was as if he understood the task before him, not just from command to command, but as a whole job. Topside began charging the herd and getting it to go in the right direction.

  Not all the horses were cooperative. There were several who just wouldn’t join the ranks as the herd began to back away from the barn.

  Debbie saw the problem and found the solution. Her own horse, Bellevue, was one of those at the fence. Debbie found a way to climb up near him and, before he could object, she mounted him bareback. Holding his mane like reins, she began to ride him.

  It was what Bellevue had needed, just like Topside. Debbie circled the herd, moving around to the side opposite Carole. When Carole approached the herd from one side, Debbie did the same from the other. Lisa and the other campers at the fence continued to wave.

  Just three horses remained at the fence. One of them was Basil, whom Lisa had been riding just a few hours earlier. It seemed impossible that so much had happened in such a short period of time. Lisa glanced at the barn. This was no time to get philosophical. She hopped into the paddock and when she could get Basil’s attention, she gave him a firm smack on his rear. It was just what he needed. Basil and the other three horses ran after the herd.

  “Yahoo!” Nora called, running back to the fence. “You were fabulous.”

  “You did exactly the right thing!” Elsa said. The other campers standing by the fence applauded.

  “It was teamwork,” Lisa reminded them. “We were great. All of us.”

  “We’re not done, though,” Elsa said. “We brought everything we could find to make a fence, but now we’ve got to set it up. If we don’t look out, we’ll have every one of those horses back here in no time.”

  Lisa smiled to see that everybody who had been working with the herd was now joining Elsa in building a temporary fence. It had always been her experience that when people worked together, things got done. She was pretty sure this team could contain a mere herd of horses!

  “Where are the horses?” someone asked. Lisa spun around. It was Phil.

  “They’re over on the other side of the hill,” Lisa answered. “We got them away from the barn. They’re safe now.”

  “All of them?” he asked.

  “Sure, all of them,” Lisa said. “You don’t see any here now, do you?”

  “Did you see Teddy? Was he there?” Phil asked.

  “It’s hard to tell them apart in the dark, Phil,” Lisa said, with more patience than she felt. “But the horses that were in the paddock are safe. They’re over the hill.”

  “But Teddy wasn’t in the paddock,” Phil said, almost stumbling over his words. “Stevie told me to put him in the barn—for the farrier.”

  Lisa had been concentrating so hard on the horses in the paddock that she’d completely forgotten about the horses in the barn. Phil’s words reminded her that Major was in the barn, too. Major and Teddy were both in the barn—and where was Stevie?

  “Oh, no!” Phil gasped. He ran. Lisa followed him. They couldn’t get within thirty feet of the side entrance to the barn, though. The firemen wouldn’t let them.

  “Too dangerous,” one said. “The whole side’s about to go.”

  “But there’s someone in there!” Phil said urgently.

  “And it’s my best friend!” Lisa added.

  “Nobody’s in there,” the fireman said. “That would be crazy! Stand back now. And stay clear.”

  “TEDDY?”

  The horse answered with a nicker. Stevie kept calling his name and followed the sound of his nicker to find him.

  He was there all right, but Stevie knew as soon as she found him that the fire might not be his worst problem.

  Teddy was in a box stall, larger than the others. He was lying down, completely immobilized with terror. Experience had taught Stevie that every horse had his own distinct personality. At that moment, Teddy’s wasn’t helping him at all.

  Stevie remembered how Phil had had trouble with Teddy when his foot hurt. She also remembered how she’d calmed him with her voice and gotten him to lift his foot. Now she had to do something similiar, only it was going to be very hard to sound reassuring with the fire crackling above her and the heat increasing every second. She didn’t feel calm at all.

  She started talking to the horse. She didn’t think Teddy cared what she said, but he listened. She babbled on, not really aware of what she was saying, but as she spoke, she hooked on a lead rope and began matter-of-factly getting the frightened horse to his feet. She was surprised to find that she’d been telling him the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears—Teddy Bears, of course.

  At first, Teddy seemed to like it. Slowly but steadily, he rose to his feet. Then he stopped. He wouldn’t move an inch. Stevie tried the makeshift blindfold. It didn’t work. She tried tugging, then she tried yanking. He wouldn’t budge. Teddy felt secure in his box stall, and no matter how treacherous it really was, he didn’t want to leave it.

  But Teddy was also a trained riding horse, and there were some things which were always true about a riding horse. Stevie decided it might be the on
e way left that would work with Teddy. She entered the box stall, gave herself a boost on an overturned water bucket, and mounted Teddy. She was right about one thing. Once he had a rider on board, he wasn’t going to stand still. Before Stevie even got a good grip on his mane, he was off!

  The horse seemed to smell the fresh air and, having made up his mind that that was where he was going, wasted no time about it. He flew out of the barn, up the small incline of the entry path, and along the trail toward the pond. Stevie held on for dear life! This horse hadn’t been named after the Rough Riders for nothing!

  Most of the horses had headed for the pond. Stevie was certain Teddy would do the same. Teddy did, but he didn’t stop at the beach the way the other seven horses from the barn had done. He kept on going at full gallop! The last voice Stevie heard as she and Teddy flew past the cabins was Phil’s. It was faint but distinct.

  “Stevie!”

  Stevie was a good rider. She knew a lot about how to control a horse, how to make it do what she wanted, and how to keep it from doing what it wanted to do. But all of these things were difficult riding bareback without a bridle. On a still-terrified Teddy, they were impossible. There was only one thing she could do, and that was to hold on. The horse raced through the woods, snorting and sweating up a lather. He stumbled on rocks and roots, brushing up against branches, trees, and briars. Stevie’s legs got scratched a dozen times and she could feel blood trickling down them. It didn’t matter, though. The only thing that mattered was saving Teddy. As long as she was with him, there was a chance she could keep him from killing himself. Until he was ready to stop running, there wasn’t much she could do, but she could be with him to calm him when he wore out. She clutched his thick mane with both hands, gripped his sleek belly with her cut legs, and leaned forward, making herself as small a target as possible for the branches that lashed at her body.