TRAIL OF DANGER
Suddenly the woods were filled with the booming sound of cracking ice and melting clumps of snow, but there was something else, too. There was the sound of wood breaking, and rocks skittering and crashing against one another. Stevie’s mind raced even faster than her horse galloped. There was only one thing it could be. There were rocks rolling down the hill! It had to be the rock formation Dinah had been talking about. It was like an avalanche, and Dinah was riding right into the most dangerous part of it!
Read all the Saddle Club books!
Horse Crazy
Horse Shy
Horse Sense
Horse Power
Trail Mates
Dude Ranch
Horse Play
Horse Show
Hoof Beat
Riding Camp
Horse Wise
Rodeo Rider
Starlight Christmas
Sea Horse
Team Play
Horse Games
Horsenapped
Pack Trip
Star Rider
Snow Ride
Racehorse
Fox Hunt
Horse Trouble
Ghost Rider
Copyright © 1992 by Bonnie Bryant Hiller
Cover art copyright © 1992 by George Tsui
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
“The Saddle Club” is a registered trademark of Bonnie Bryant Hiller.
“USPC” and “Pony Club” are registered trademarks of the United States Pony Clubs, Inc., at The Kentucky Horse Park, 4071 Iron Works Pike, Lexington, KY 40511-8462.
Visit us on the Web! randomhouse.com/kids
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com
eISBN: 978-0-307-82498-1
Originally published by Bantam Skylark in February 1992
First Delacorte Ebook Edition 2012
v3.1_r1
I would like to give special thanks to Lou Willett Stanek for her help on this book.—B.B.
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
About the Author
STEVIE LAKE TOOK a deep breath. It was spring in Virginia. The air was fresh and warm. Wisps of clouds stretched across the bright blue sky. Early wildflowers peeked up through the rich earth. These things made her very happy. Warm weather meant more outdoor horseback riding. More horseback riding also meant more time to spend with her two best friends, Carole Hanson and Lisa Atwood. The three girls were walking together to Stevie’s house from Pine Hollow Stable, where they had just been riding.
“I think when I finish training Starlight, he’s going to be the best jumper in the county,” Carole said, interrupting Stevie’s thoughts of horseback riding with thoughts of her own. Starlight was Carole’s horse. Carole thought he had championship potential. Her friends agreed. After their riding class, Stevie and Lisa had watched and encouraged Starlight while Carole worked with him on jumps.
Stevie recalled the way Starlight soared over jumps. “It’s like he’s learning to fly,” she observed. “Only he doesn’t just want to fly. He wants to make it into orbit!”
As the three girls walked along, they continued chatting happily about their favorite subject: horses. They loved horses so much that they had formed The Saddle Club. It was a club with only two rules. The first one was that all members had to be horse crazy. The second one was that all members had to be willing to help one another out no matter what the problem was: horseback riding, school, boys, or anything.
The three of them could hardly have been more different from one another. Carole was black-haired, with deep brown eyes and a light brown complexion. Of the three of them, she’d been riding the longest. She’d been brought up on Marine Corps bases where her father was a colonel, and she’d learned to ride in the military stables. She planned a career with horses, but she couldn’t decide what it would be. She couldn’t choose among owner, breeder, rider, and veterinarian. Most of the time she was convinced she wanted to do all of those. Her friends thought she’d probably manage it. Carole could be flaky and indecisive about a lot of things, but never about horses. If horses were involved, Carole was all business.
Lisa was a year older than Carole and Stevie but didn’t look it. She had long brown hair and a young face. Her creamy complexion gave her a look of total innocence. Lisa was superorganized and was good at just about everything she did. She always got A’s in school, and she was always the president of something there. Her mother sometimes wished that Lisa had put her mind to a more ladylike activity than horseback riding, something like ballet or playing the violin. Lisa was pretty good at those, too, but her heart was in horseback riding.
Stevie was the most mischievous of the threesome. She had long light brown hair and hazel eyes. There was a random collection of freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose and her cheeks seemed to reflect the mischief that sparkled in her eyes. If there was trouble around, Stevie found a way to get into it. And, usually, if Stevie was in trouble, her friends were right in there with her. More than once Stevie had been awfully glad for The Saddle Club rule about having to help your friends. She’d really needed it! One of her strongest areas as a rider was dressage—the most disciplined kind of riding there was for a horse. Most of the time, however, “undisciplined” was a word Stevie heard a lot of, from Max Regnery, her riding instructor, from the headmistress of her school, from her teachers, from her parents—even from her three brothers. Yet Stevie always seemed to manage to come out on top. It was one of the things her friends loved most about her.
“I used to think you had to be almost lying along the horse’s neck, instead of just parallel to it, before he’d jump correctly,” Stevie remarked, returning to the subject of Starlight’s jumping ability.
“You can do that,” Carole joked. “Especially if you want to fly out of the saddle.”
“Ah yes. That was the lesson I learned in my first jump!” Stevie said, recalling how she’d ended up in the dirt. “I can remember how that horse stopped to look at me. I thought he was laughing.”
“He probably was,” Carole agreed. “But the thing about training—either a horse or a rider—is that you have to keep on teaching the lessons until they become automatic. There are no shortcuts. Those are always mistakes. If you don’t do something right, then the only thing you and the horse learn is how to make a mistake.”
“Uh-oh, here she goes,” Lisa said. Stevie smiled. So did Carole. Carole was famous for giving long-winded answers about horses to questions nobody had asked. Her friends teased her about it, but the fact was, they were usually glad when she shared her considerable knowledge.
“Okay, okay, so enough about horses,” Carole replied. “I’ll change the subject. Let’s talk about riding. Spring vacation starts next week. How much riding are we going to do?”
“A lot,” Lisa said. “My parents have said I could ride every day. And you know what I was thinking? Why don’t we plan a trail ride before class on the Saturday at the end of vacation?”
“Great!” Stevie said enthusiastically. “We can—uh-oh …”
“What’s the matter?” Carole asked.
“Saturday, Saturday …,” Stevie said thoughtfully. “That’s the nineteenth, right?”
“Yup,” Lisa confirmed.
“That’s the day of Phil’s pony club meeting. They’re having an unmounted meeting, and he asked me to come to it.”
Phil Marston was Stevie’s boyfriend. He was also an out-of-town member of The Saddle Club. He and Stevie had met at riding camp and formed a close friendship because of the love they shared for riding. They were both naturally competitive as well. When the girls’ pony club, Horse Wise, played games against Phil’s pony club, Cross County, sparks flew.
“I can’t imagine why he wants me to come to the meeting,” Stevie continued. “He usually wants to keep all the things they do secret from me. Something’s up.”
“Maybe he just wants to spend some time with you,” Lisa suggested.
Stevie smiled. “Maybe,” she agreed. “Then again, maybe not. Anyway, I have to wait until the nineteenth to find out. I can’t even call him and try to squeeze the information out of him. He’s on a class trip until Monday. I hate secrets, you know—unless of course I’m in on them!”
“How can you stand the suspense?” Lisa asked a little sarcastically.
“You know the old poem?” Stevie asked. Her friends waited. “ ‘Patience is a virtue; Have it if you can. Seldom in a woman—Never in a man.’ That’s me, Miss Patience.”
Both Carole and Lisa burst into laughter. If there was one thing Stevie didn’t have, it was patience.
The girls were still laughing when they arrived at Stevie’s house and took the kitchen by storm. Within minutes they’d located everything they needed for snacks, piled the goodies onto several plates, tucked soda cans into their pockets for carrying ease, and retreated toward Stevie’s room, ducking brothers as they went.
They only paused momentarily so Stevie could fetch a letter taped to the door of her room. She didn’t have any free hands, so she tugged it loose from the tape with her teeth and dropped it on her bed.
“Oh, wow!” she said. “It’s from Dinah Slattery in Vermont! Remember her?”
Lisa shook her head. “Never heard of her.”
“She was at Pine Hollow before you started riding,” Carole said. “She used to ride Barq, and Max always had to remind her to keep her heels down.…”
“Right,” Stevie said, putting the snack foods and the sodas on her bedside table. She picked up Dinah’s letter. “She was in our riding class, but she also went to my school, and we used to sit next to one another in art class and draw horses.”
“Oh, cool,” Lisa said. She loved to draw horses.
“I thought so, too, but the teacher, Miss Eberley, didn’t agree. See, we were supposed to be drawing grapes, so when she complained, we just explained that we were drawing an exotic and rare fruit—the equine grape.”
“I bet that got her mad,” Lisa said.
“It sure did. And it got us a free pass to the principal’s office. I think that was the time. Or maybe we got sent to the principal’s office the time we got into a meatball fight in the lunchroom. No, it wasn’t then, it was …”
While Stevie continued to muse out loud, she slit the envelope open and began reading to herself. She considered it a real skill that she could read and talk about different things at the same time.
“… when John Richman told the teacher we’d fed the hamster some tuna salad from the lunchroom to see if it caused cancer, and the teacher believed him … Wow! Guess what?” Stevie said. Suddenly all her attention was riveted on Dinah’s letter.
“What?” Lisa and Carole asked in a single voice.
“She’s invited me to Vermont! Get this”—then she read out loud—“ ‘Every year, at the time of spring break, we have sugaring off. That’s when we collect the sap from the maple trees and make syrup and sugar. We make up teams of three and I just learned that my team is one person short. Naturally, I thought of you. It’s a whole week full of fun. We do it the old-fashioned way, using horse-drawn sleds and everything. You’re going to love it, Stevie. It’s a great time of year here, and I promise we won’t spend a minute of it in the principal’s office!’ ”
“Fabulous!” Lisa said. The idea of riding in snowy woods in Vermont was so overwhelming that she couldn’t think of anything more to say about it.
Carole could. She jumped up off Stevie’s bed and bounded over to where Stevie was still standing and began clapping her on the back. “Oh, it’s great! You’ll have a wonderful time!”
“Sure,” Stevie said. “Except for one thing. Who says I’m going to get to go? After all, my parents are going to insist on having something to say about this—including how much it’s going to cost. I can hear them now. In one word. And that word is no.”
As if on cue, Stevie’s mother knocked on the door and stuck her head into Stevie’s room. “Can I come in?” she asked.
“Sure,” Stevie said. “We’d love to have you join us.” She didn’t want to be accused of rudeness when she was about to ask her mother a gigantic favor. “Besides, there’s something I need to ask you about. Would you like a cookie? Some soda?”
“This is going to be good, isn’t it?” Mrs. Lake said brightly, accepting the snack and sitting comfortably in the chair Stevie offered her. Stevie even shooed her cat, Madonna, out of the chair. Stevie’s parents had come to enjoy those times when Stevie wanted something. Stevie was a very creative convincer and not above bribery.
“I had a letter from Dinah Slattery,” Stevie began.
“I know,” her mother said. “And it would be a pleasure to sit here and let you try to convince me you should go to Vermont for the sugaring off. But I don’t really have time. I have a brief I have to work on.” Stevie’s mother was a busy and successful attorney and she often brought work home. “So before you describe all the garden chores you’ll do this spring, or how you’ll paint the ceiling of the den all by yourself, or how you promise to do extra-credit work in Spanish, and change the cat’s litter box, I might as well tell you that Mrs. Slattery called me at the office today. Your father and I have already discussed this, and the answer is yes.”
“Yes?” Stevie echoed.
“Yes.”
Stevie was so astonished that she actually asked, “Why?”
Her mother smiled. “I’m not surprised that you wonder, but it’s really very simple. You and your brothers are all out of school next week and your father’s been talking about taking you fly-fishing—”
“Uch!” Stevie said.
“My sentiments exactly,” Mrs. Lake said. “The problem is that I have this big case coming up, and I can’t take time off. Since the boys are getting a trip with your father, it seems only fair that you get a trip, too. So you’re going to Vermont.” Mrs. Lake stood up and looked at the unopened soda can and the cookies that she still held. “Here,” she said. “I can’t really accept these. It amounts to bribery after the fact, and that begins to look like extortion. Whoops, I’m sounding like a lawyer instead of a mother. Anyway, you’ll leave this Saturday and come back on Sunday a week later. I know you’ll have a wonderful time. We’ll talk about this some more at dinner, okay? Good-bye, girls,” Mrs. Lake said, and then she slipped out the door.
There was a stunned silence in the room.
“Pinch me,” Stevie said. Her friends obliged willingly. Then Lisa gave Stevie a big excited hug, and Carole jumped on the bed.
“It’s going to be great!” Carole said. “Imagine—a whole week in Vermont!”
“Yeah, the entire vaca—I can’t go,” Stevie said, a sudden realization coming to her. She sat down on her bed.
“Why not?” Lisa asked, dropping down next to her.
Carole sat on Stevie’s other side. “Yeah, why not?” she asked.
“I promised Phil I’d go to the pony club meeting on Saturday. He made me promise, you know. Like it was really important. He’s my boyfriend, and a promise is a promise.”
Lisa and Carole looked at one another.
Lisa wrinkled her brows. “Sure,” she agreed, “but a trip to Vermont is a whole trip to Vermont, and a pony club meeting is just a meeting. Phil will understand. Call him.” Lisa pointed to the phone on Stevie’s bedside table.
“That’s just it,” Stevie said. “I can’t. Remember the class trip? I can’t reach him until Monday, and by then I’ll already be in Vermont. I couldn’t call him from there. The whole situation is impossible. I’ll just have to let Dinah know I can’t come.” Stevie was only half joking, and her friends knew it.
“Um, Stevie,” Carole said. “I think you ought to go to Vermont. I got the distinct impression from what your mother said that if you don’t go to Vermont, you’ll end up fly-fishing with your brothers and your father, and you’ll miss Phil’s pony club meeting anyway.”
Stevie’s face brightened. “Then I’ll just have to go to Vermont,” she said. “But what about Phil?”
“I’ll call him for you on Monday,” Lisa offered. “I’m sure if I explain, he’ll understand.” That was all the convincing Stevie needed, so for the next two hours the girls had a wonderful time discussing the clothes Stevie should take and everything she would need to know about driving a sled pulled by a horse.
“… SO, THE MOST important part seems to be keeping an even tension on the long reins,” Stevie told the man in the seat next to her on the plane. Before they had left Washington, he’d expressed some interest in the fact that Stevie was going to be involved in sugaring off, so Stevie had been talking about it ever since the plane had taxied down the runway. Stevie looked out the window as she spoke. They were about to land.
“Oh, my goodness, we’re almost here!” she said.
The man sat upright. “In Vermont already?” he asked, looking across Stevie and through the window. He rubbed his eyes. “I had a great nap. I always sleep well on planes. Now, what was it you said you were coming up here to do?”
Stevie felt her mouth drop open. The man had slept through every word she’d said! This called for an appropriate response.
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