“I told you so.”
“I know you did. Let’s just hope and pray your horse comes out in as good a condition as you.”
“Thanks.” DJ ran her tongue over her chewed lip. “Sorry I was a brat.”
“Don’t blame you a bit. Take care now.”
The ambulance and the TV van left at the same time. DJ climbed into Robert’s car with Gran on one side of her and Lindy on the other—they acted as if she needed guarding or something. Could they read her mind, trying a million ways of going back for Major?
Later after a long soak in the bathtub, and wearing sweats and her heavy bathrobe, DJ returned to the family room.
“How you doing, darlin’?” Gran brought a tray from the kitchen. She handed DJ the steaming mug of hot chocolate and offered coffee to the others.
“I’m fine, thanks.”
“I put a bit of coffee in that.”
DJ knew Gran was trying make things right for her. Leave it to Gran, she could still read her granddaughter like a book. “Where’s Joe?”
Silence fell. The adults exchanged looks.
“Is Major all right?” Panic clawed at her middle again.
“DJ, Joe is camping right by Major. He said to tell you that you can go up there first thing in the morning.”
“He can but I couldn’t.”
“Well, he has a few more supplies than you did,” Lindy noted, the furrows obvious between her eyes. “And people there to help him if he needs it.”
“Face it, DJ—he couldn’t leave his old buddy up there alone any more than you could.” Robert raised his coffee mug in a salute. “That’s my dad.”
They started digging as soon as it was light, Joe told her later. It took four men two hours to dig around Major enough to slide a sling under his belly. DJ arrived when they were digging his legs free so the helicopter could airlift him out.
“Hey, big guy.” She threw her arms around his neck, kneeling in the mud in front of him. Major whuffled and nosed her pockets. “You knew I’d bring you something, didn’t you?” She looked over at Joe, who looked like he’d been sunk in the mud himself.
“He’s okay, darlin’.” His nod gave her as much assurance as his words.
“Th-thanks.” She opened a canteen she brought and gave Major a drink, then rationed the horse cookies she’d stuffed in her pockets. Another couple of hours passed, the sloppy mud slowing the digging. All through it, Major never floundered around or fought their efforts. He stood perfectly still, only quivering at times.
Joe finally ordered the helicopter to return. It hovered above them, the rotors drowning any talking. A hook descended on a cable, and the men worked together to hook it to the sling.
DJ kept up a running monologue in Major’s ear, stroking his neck and face to keep him calm.
“Okay!” Joe yelled, at the same time giving a signal to the man in the chopper door. “Tighten her up.”
“Oh, God, please make this work.” DJ held her breath as the sling tightened around Major’s belly. With a gigantic sucking, the horse’s legs came free, and he swung into the air. DJ dropped to the ground to keep from being hit by Major’s dripping, muddy legs as the chopper lifted the horse higher and higher. Major whinnied, but even then remained still, as if he understood the importance of not flailing around.
“That’s some horse,” Joe said, dropping a mud-caked arm over DJ’s shoulders.
“He’s some horse.” Brad Atwood stood by DJ as the helicopter gently set Major down in the parking lot at the Academy.
“Yeah, he is. Thanks for helping pay for the helicopter and all.”
“My pleasure. I couldn’t believe it when I heard your name on the news. You and that horse of yours are having your moments of fame.”
“I never thought much about the reporter there last night, but wow, they filmed the airlift and everything.” DJ stepped forward and took the lead shank from Joe, who’d helped hold Major while the crew unbuckled the sling. “Good fella.” She wrapped her arms around Major’s neck in spite of the caked-on mud. He nuzzled her pocket. “Bet you’re still starved. Thirsty, too, huh? That little sip you had was a long time ago.” He nudged her again till she handed him a whole horse cookie. She turned to see the television camera aimed right at them.
“You got anything you’d like to say?” the person filming asked.
“Yeah, thank you, God, for saving my miracle horse. And thanks to all those who worked so hard to get him loose, especially my grandpa Joe who spent the night in the mud with our horse.”
The man gave a thumbs-up sign and clicked off the camera.
DJ ran her hands down Major’s legs, checking for any strain. One front leg and one back leg felt hot. “Let’s get you fed and then washed down so we can doctor you, okay?”
Major nudged her and blew gently in her hair. He rubbed his forehead on her chest and nuzzled her pocket again.
Munching on the last cookie, he followed DJ through the barn and up to his stall.
“I put warm water in for him,” Tony said. “And there’s molasses in his grain. My grandpa always said molasses gives extra energy.”
“Thanks. He’ll like that.”
“I’ll help you wash him. I’ve never seen such a muddy horse in my life.”
“I can’t believe you’re both okay.” Hilary stopped at the bars. “Over a fifty-foot cliff and still walking. Not even a real limp. He must be made of steel.”
“They both are,” Tony said.
Major drained one bucket, and Tony took it to refill.
DJ looked after him and then at Hilary, both of them raising an eyebrow.
“He’s been real nice since—”
“Since he sprained his ankle that day. Never would have believed it if I didn’t see it with my own eyes.” DJ took a rubber currycomb out of the bucket, and Hilary another. They set to work combing the worst of the mud off.
Much later with Major wearing ice boots on both hot legs, DJ allowed Joe to take her home to Gran’s. Brad and Jackie were still there—she could tell by their car in the drive. Robert’s car was there, also.
“Life sure can change fast, can’t it?” She looked over to Joe as he turned the key and pulled it out of the ignition.
“Yeah, sometimes things happen out of the blue. All you can do is get through.”
“Joe, I felt Jesus with me up on that cliff.”
“I know He’s the one who set a bug in my ear to skip the opera. I just knew we had to get home.” He shook his head. “Any other woman would have made a fuss, but not your grandmother. She just said, ‘Can’t you drive faster, darlin’?’ And to a retired policeman—can you beat that?”
“Well, I’m sure glad you were listening.” DJ glanced up to see the twins come barreling out the door. “Uh-oh, better go.”
They each glommed on to a leg. “DJ, we was missing you! You okay? Is Major okay?”
“He’ll be okay in a couple of days, and you can see I’m fine.” She bent over and hugged each of them. “Now, hang on.”
She groaned as she lifted each loaded foot.
“DJ, you gonna be our sister for real?”
“Soon, guys, soon.”
A wedding coming up. Not out of the blue, but another big change nonetheless. DJ stopped her straddle walk and grinned.
“Race you to the door!”
To Aunty Bobby and my mother,
who read to me when I was little,
thus beginning a lifelong love of words,
reading books, and now writing.
Who ever knows how God
will use our efforts!
Thank you—
small words that convey
a lifetime of gratitude.
CHAPTER • 1
“Major, I’m so sorry you got hurt.” DJ Randall leaned her head against her horse’s dark neck. The blood bay turned his head to nose her shoulder. “Yeah, I know you forgive me. It’s forgiving myself for doing stupid things that’s hard.”
Major sno
rted and pushed his head farther into her ministering fingers, making it easier for her to reach his favorite places. At five feet seven, DJ had no trouble reaching to scratch his ears or his white blaze, but Major had clearly learned that the simpler he made it for his human friends, the more often they obliged him with a rub.
“You’re going to spoil that horse rotten.” Joe Crowder, DJ’s grandfather now that he had married her widowed grandmother, leaned on the aluminum bars separating his horse’s stall from Major’s. Grandpa Joe, whom DJ had fondly nicknamed GJ, stabled his new cutting-horse-in-training, Rambling Ranger, next to Major, his old friend from the police force.
“Hey, you scared me! I didn’t know you were here.” DJ straightened up so fast, she clipped Major’s muzzle with her shoulder. The horse threw his head back, returning the favor by knocking her across the stall. She grabbed the stall bars with both hands to keep from smashing her face into the wall. DJ glared at Joe, who was trying not to grin. “Thanks for nothing.”
“Far as I’m concerned, it was a good show.” He reached out to stroke Major’s nose. “Hey, big fella, you sure are easy to spook today.” Joe had taken his aging Thoroughbred-Morgan horse with him when he retired from the San Francisco Mounted Police Patrol. Learning how badly DJ wanted a horse, he had offered to let her buy his friend.
“You don’t seem too concerned about your granddaughter’s health.” DJ rubbed her shoulder and made a face at her grandfather. A second look was directed at Major, who was enjoying his nose rub so much that he completely ignored her.
“Hey, you two, remember me?” She planted her fists on slim hips. At fourteen, DJ was stick straight and flat in both front and back, to quote one of her frequent complaints. Her sun-shot honey blond hair waved past her shoulders when it wasn’t in a ponytail—which was almost never. This rainy mid-January day, she wore long jeans with both a sweat shirt and a Windbreaker—unusual garb for a girl living in supposedly sunny California.
“You think she’ll go away if we ignore her?” Joe asked Major in a stage whisper.
“Fat chance.” DJ grinned up at him. “Unless you want to teach Andrew to ride. He’s supposed to go on the lunge line today, but you know him—he backtracks more than he heads forward.”
Andrew, an eight-year-old with a belly-deep fear of horses, was one of DJ’s newest students. Slowly but surely, thanks to her patient coaching and Bandit’s gentle manner, the shy boy was coming around. She’d led him around the arena on the dapple-gray pony for their last lesson to the cheers of everyone around. That major accomplishment had taken six months.
DJ stroked Major’s shoulder and down his injured leg. Every minute of every day, she wished she had never gone riding up in Briones State Park that terrible afternoon. A mud slide had carried her and her horse over a cliff. It was a miracle they’d survived. Her Gran said it was the grace of God that had protected them, and DJ fully agreed. She’d pleaded for God to send help, and He had. Now they were both well and healthy—well, at least one of them was healthy. Major’s leg was taking its own sweet time healing.
She chewed on her lip and shook her head as she felt the heat that persisted in spite of ice packs, massages, and liniment. It had been ten days since she’d ridden him, and it might be ten more. Sighing, DJ rubbed both hands up and down over the swollen muscles of his leg again, feeling him flinch when she went too deep.
“I’m going for the ice boot.” She gave Major a pat on the cheek. “Go back to your first love, you big fake.” He nuzzled her ponytail before she got away.
“He loves you, too, you know,” Joe called after her.
“Right! See if I come back with any carrots for him.” DJ trotted down the aisle to the room set aside for the ice machine, the locked medicine cabinet, a sink for washing wraps, and other equipment needed for the health of the horses stabled at the Academy. She scooped out a bucket of ice, grabbed the canvas wrap that covered shoulder to hoof on an injured horse, and headed back to the stalls.
“You riding today?” Amy Yamamoto, petite as DJ was tall and her cohort in hundreds of escapades since they were five, called from her gelding’s stall.
“Later. Bridget had an appointment and won’t be back as soon as she’d thought.” Bridget Sommersby, who owned the stable and riding school, was also DJ’s coach, mentor, and encourager. DJ owned a solid case of hero worship for the former Olympic competitor from the French National Equestrian Team, who never accepted excuses or sloppy work from her students. To DJ’s unending excitement, Bridget agreed with her that, a few years down the road, there might be a place on the U.S. Equestrian Team for a girl with big dreams.
DJ marched back to Major’s stall, which was housed in the open stalls with corrugated roofing at the west end of the long red barn. Academy boarders could be kept inside the barn, in the outside stalls, or on pasture, depending on how much their owners wanted to spend.
DJ stopped a moment at Patches’ stall to palm him a carrot piece. “You put on your willing hat now, you hear? I don’t want any surprises.” Patches nodded as if he agreed and searched her pocket for more. In truth, Patches would be better known as Trouble. A smart rider never took her mind off the sneaky gelding when riding him. As his trainer, DJ had learned that the hard way.
Back in Major’s stall, she wrapped the boot around his leg and Velcroed the straps in place before pouring in the flat ice cubes. As the cold penetrated the boot, Major wrinkled his skin, as if shrugging off flies. “I know it’s freezing, but you’re tough—you can stand it.”
“If that’s the worst that ever happens to him, he’s home free. Let me tell you, when he took a bullet meant for me and the vet threatened to put him down, I lived in his stall for days.” Joe shook his head. “That was a bad time.”
DJ stroked the shoulder scar that had never regained its hair covering. She wrapped her arms around her horse’s neck and squeezed, and Major sighed as though he liked hugs as much as she did. “You big sweetie, you.” She inhaled. “And you smell so good, too.”
Life according to DJ meant horses were the best smelling creatures on God’s green earth. Unfortunately, her mother did not agree.
“You better hustle, kid. I just saw Bridget pull in.” Joe ran his rubber currycomb over his brush and banged the two together to clean them. “You want a ride home later?” He raised his voice because DJ had ducked under the web gate across her stall door and was heading up the aisle.
“Yes, please.” DJ dogtrotted to the far corner of the building to Megs’ stall. Bridget had ridden the Thoroughbred-Arabian in world-class dressage competitions, retiring the horse two years earlier. DJ felt privileged that Bridget allowed her to ride the well-trained animal, even though dressage was not her idea of fun. It was jumping that made her heart beat faster and her dreams soar.
Lessons on Megs were a sign that Bridget believed in her.
“Okay, girl, let’s get you groomed and out there to warm up.” DJ took her grooming bucket in the stall with her and, after giving the dark bay mare a carrot, took out her brush and rubber currycomb. Using both hands and the flick of the wrist she’d learned from Bridget years before, she had the horse groomed in record time. She picked the hooves with the same quick motions and had Megs tacked up and walking toward the arena in minutes. On the way past the tack room, DJ snagged her helmet off the rack, then mounted up and trotted across the puddle-pocked parking area to the covered arena.
The outdoor arena looked like a small lake in spite of the tons of sand that had been dumped in the ring. Most of the jumping lessons were held in the outdoor arena, so it was DJ’s favorite of the Academy’s two arenas. In spite of the landslide, her most favorite place in all the world to ride was still up in the hills of Briones State Park.
She walked the horse one circuit of the covered, lighted arena, then trotted, her posting as natural as breathing. They spent the next twenty minutes at a walk, trot, canter, and reverse, repeating the maneuvers before working large circles and figure eights, half halts and halt
s, all to limber up both horse and rider.
When Bridget, wearing a yellow rain slicker, opened the gate and entered the arena, DJ turned Megs and trotted over to stop in front of their trainer.
“You reviewed your last lessons?” Bridget asked after greeting both horse and girl.
“Yup. Working on the bit is so easy on her. Makes me aware how much training Major and I need.”
“Good. I am glad you finally agree with me.” Bridget stepped back. “Next time you will not argue, right?” Her arched eyebrow said she was teasing. DJ had been as excited about learning dressage basics as she was about math. As a freshman at Acalanese High School, studying algebra never made it to even the bottom of her fun list, while anything to do with horses or art flew to the top.
DJ nodded. “I’ll try not to.”
“Try?” The eyebrow disappeared under Bridget’s Australian hat brim.
DJ flinched. She knew better than to use that word. “I won’t argue.” Try was not an acceptable answer around Bridget. You either did or did not. You didn’t just try. All Bridget asked was that her students do their best—at all times.
“Go on now. Review for me.”
DJ took Megs through all she’d already done, making sure her transitions from gait to gait were smooth.
“Deeper in the saddle.” Bridget called when they cantered past. “Use your seat and legs to drive her into your hands and onto the bit. Shoulders. Elbows. Eyes.”
DJ checked each area of her body that Bridget mentioned. Looking straight ahead and sitting perfectly straight with relaxed shoulders, so deep in the saddle that she felt the horse’s movements with her seat bones, should have been natural by now. At least that’s what DJ told herself. Since she usually leaned forward slightly for jumping, sitting deep and straight took concentration.
She ignored the others using the arena and focused on both her own body and what Megs was doing. Around and around she went, obeying the commands of her trainer, rejoicing in the round feel of the horse under her. She glanced over at a shout from one of the other riders, and Megs faltered. DJ winced, hoping Bridget had been looking the other way.
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