“Please control your hoodlum,” Elena snapped at Mr. Bridle as Shy Guy pulled again. “She’s frightening him. Whoa, boy. Whoa!”
“It’s you who’s frightening him!” Hanna couldn’t control the sobs that tumbled out of her as Mr. Bridle led her away to where Ma Etty stood on the front step.
“We can’t do anything right now,” Ma Etty said, wrapping her arm around Hanna’s shaking shoulders and positioning an umbrella over them both. “But I promise, tomorrow, we’ll do whatever we can.”
“You can’t let her take him!” Hanna cried, but she had stopped struggling.
“I’m so sorry,” was all Ma Etty could say.
When Shy Guy continued backing away from the trailer, Elena’s husband emerged with a whip. The whip cracked and Shy Guy reared up, hooves clawing the air. But Elena wasn’t frightened. She simply yanked on the lead rope and yelled, “Get in!”
“Idiot woman,” growled Mr. Bridle. “Didn’t even open the windows inside. Who’d walk into a dark box?”
“He’s so scared,” Hanna said in a tiny voice.
Elena snatched the whip from her husband and, holding the lead rope in one hand and the whip in the other, smacked Shy Guy across the rump.
Lightning shot down from the sky, turning the black clouds bright white.
Shy Guy’s ears flattened against his head, and he let out a horrible neigh. The third time the whip snapped, he jolted forward. Ears flattened to his skull and tail thrashing wildly, he finally hopped into the trailer.
“What a good horse,” murmured Paul, as the trailer ramp went back up and Elena latched it closed behind him. She returned to the truck and climbed inside.
Her husband went around to the passenger side door, then paused, and closed it again. He approached Hanna and Ma Etty.
“You have to understand,” he said quickly. “He’s the last one. He’s all she’s got. She’s not trying to hurt you, little girl. She just wants her horse back.”
“I want him back too,” said Hanna.
“Just, please.” His lower lip trembled. “Please, don’t blame her. Elena knows no other way.”
A head leaned out the truck’s window. “Come on, John!” Elena shouted. The squat man just shook his head and returned to the truck, getting in after her.
The truck’s engine roared to life and the vehicle started backing out. When the headlights blazed on and it started to drive away, Hanna suddenly shrieked and ran after it.
This was her last chance.
“Shy Guy!” she cried. Everything they’d been through, everything they’d done together—it was all for nothing. Elena was going to ruin him all over again, and she couldn’t save him, not this time. “Shy Guy!”
But it didn’t matter. The truck roared off down Bridlemile Road, heedless of her. The last thing Hanna saw was Shy Guy’s gray tail blowing in the wind as it vanished into the night.
Chapter Nineteen
“There must be something we can do.” It was the third time Ma Etty had said that since she got on the phone with the sheriff earlier that morning, and Hanna’s heart sank even further. “Can we file a counter injunction?”
There was noise on the other end of the line, and Ma Etty’s lips pursed into a deep scowl. Hanna had never seen this side of her before. She and Izzy leaned forward in their chairs. For the first time, the Bridles had allowed ranch kids into their small office in the back of the house (the one with a paper sign reading Internal Affairs taped on it). But to Hanna, it wasn’t a privilege. She couldn’t think of anything but getting Shy Guy out of that awful woman’s clutches.
“Well, I don’t know these things, Doug,” Ma Etty shot back at the phone. “Fine. I need to make a few phone calls, but I’ll be calling you back.” She hung up and turned to Mr. Bridle. “Will, I need you to call Ron.”
When Mr. Bridle took the phone, Ma Etty explained that Ron was their lawyer, and he should be able to help. But a few minutes later, Mr. Bridle returned, his face lined with defeat.
“Ron says there’s nothing he can do. Elena Baxter has purchase papers for Shy Guy—Star Dancer—and he fits the bill, markings and all. He’s all hers.”
That was it. They were out of options.
Hanna desperately needed some air. She walked out of the office and left the house. Izzy followed, not saying anything. But it helped just knowing she was there.
The wind and the rain had died down since the previous night, leaving the sky overcast and gray. The downpour had filled the creek to overflowing, leaving the driveway and pasture wet and muddy.
It was past time for riding lessons to start.
“Hey, girls,” Madison called to them, as if on cue. She walked over, swinging a halter and forcing a smile. “Ready to join the rest of us for lessons?”
Hanna shrugged, and they followed Madison back to the arena, where the other kids were working with Fletch. Rae Ann trotted over when she saw them.
“How did it go?” she asked. “Is Shy Guy coming back?”
Josh, Cade, and Fletch joined her. Hanna was so shaken that she realized she couldn’t speak, but luckily, Izzy stepped in.
“Elena has papers proving she owns Shy Guy,” she said. Her eyebrows lowered dangerously. “She even told the sheriff that she thinks one of us stole him.”
“What?” cried Rae Ann. “How could she?”
“She has no proof,” growled Josh.
Cade sat back abruptly. “That’s a crock.”
Hanna nodded, helpless. “There’s nothing we can do,” she said.
Everyone was silent, not sure what to say.
“Tomorrow’s another day,” said Fletch eventually. “I’m sure the Bridles will figure something out. Come on, everyone. We’ve got a lesson to finish.”
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
After lights went out that night and Madison closed her door, Izzy didn’t even wait for Rae Ann to fall asleep before whispering to Hanna in the dark.
“We have to get him back,” Izzy said.
“How?” asked Hanna wearily. “What can we possibly do?”
“What if we broke in and stole him? Maybe camouflaged him or hid him somewhere on the property where Elena couldn’t find him?”
“And what, get arrested? She’ll know we took him. And so will Paul when he finds him, not to mention the sheriff . . .” Hanna sighed. “Sorry, Izz. I don’t mean to shoot you down. I’ve just thought of all this before.”
“We understand,” said Rae Ann. “You love him. Like I love my Sadie.”
Hanna’s chest ached. She felt a lot more strongly about her horse than about a cat. “Yeah,” she said. “Like Sadie.”
Rae Ann plowed on. “We should ask the boys. I bet they have some good ideas. Josh is really smart.”
“Together we can think of something,” said Izzy, her voice steady and sure. “I know we can. We have to, for Shy Guy’s sake.”
Hanna didn’t want to talk anymore. She was tired and her head hurt and her mind swam with images of Elena hitting Shy Guy—sometimes with the whip, sometimes with her bare hands. Every time Hanna heard the same cracking sound.
She wanted to fall asleep and never wake up again.
“Let me know when you’ve all come up with your great idea,” Hanna said, curling into a ball on her bed.
“Don’t worry,” Izzy replied, without an ounce of doubt in her voice. “We will.”
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
The next day, Madison asked Hanna to ride Lacey during the lesson, and she agreed without thinking about it. It was all the same to her.
In the ring, Lacey was . . . well, a horse. She did everything that Hanna knew how to ask for—and she did it completely placidly, without any of Shy Guy’s smooth grace or spirit. Hanna and Lacey were both robots, doing what they were told.
Lacey was a fine horse.
Hanna didn’t really care.
“Good work, Hanna!” Fletch called from the edge of the arena as she completed the keyhole. “
Lacey’s really responding to you.”
“Thanks,” she muttered and walked to the back of the line behind Josh.
“Hey,” he said. “Since we have free time this afternoon, you want to play bean bag toss?”
“Isn’t it a little muddy still?”
He glanced around at the trenches their horses had carved in the arena, thanks to the rain.
“I guess so. Well, maybe Monopoly? You owe me a rematch.”
Hanna shrugged. “Sure.”
Josh’s slight smile faded. “I’m really sorry about Shy Guy. That was such . . .” He sounded like he was about to say a curse word, but Madison was standing right near them, so he coughed and went on. “I can’t believe the nerve of that lady.”
“Yeah,” she said as Cade finished his turn. “Nothing I can do now but try and forget.”
He furrowed his eyebrows. “Forget?”
“Josh!” Fletch was trying to get his attention. “Your turn.”
The rest of training, Hanna didn’t speak to anyone. As they were putting the horses away, Cade came over to help her close up Lacey’s stall.
“Hey, Hanna,” he said. “I know you’re really sad right now. We all are. But I hope you know . . . we’re here for you. And I hope you don’t actually forget about Shy Guy and what you did for him. I’m sure he won’t forget you.”
Hanna’s throat tightened. “Thanks, Cade.” She bowed her head. “You’re right. I could never forget him.”
“Remember the good things. And, well,” he looked around and lowered his voice, “if you do come up with a plan to get him back, I’ll be the first to help you. I have over four hundred hours of experience as a tactician in my Team Strike Ops guild! Undercover missions are my specialty.”
Hanna cast an annoyed glance at Izzy, who gave a sheepish shrug.
“Seriously,” Cade said. “Josh and I are standing by, ready to assist.”
The dedication in his voice made Hanna pause. He sounded so confident that it could be done, that there was no reason to give up hope.
She started to wonder if maybe there was something they could do.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
The day Hanna realized she’d been at Quartz Creek Ranch for more than a month was the day she realized she hadn’t once missed home. Or her mom, for that matter. Mom was probably itching to call, but she knew the ranch rules: no visits, no letters, and no phone calls. One of the few things Hanna could appreciate.
It had been a week since that rainy night, and her thoughts were still consumed with Shy Guy—with the feeling of total freedom she’d felt as they flew together across the arena, the wind whipping her hair back.
What was he doing now? How was Elena treating him? Each day Hanna felt worse, rather than better. She thought, unfortunately, it was probably the same for Shy Guy.
She had to save him, but she didn’t know how.
One evening during free time, Hanna took Izzy’s elbow and pulled her aside.
“I don’t have an idea yet,” she whispered, “but I want to see if the Internet can help us.”
“What do you want to find?” Izzy asked, her brown eyes lighting up with hope and curiosity.
“Where Elena Baxter lives. What she does. Anything we could use against her.”
Izzy’s smile was devilish. “Yeah!”
Hanna asked Ma Etty if they could use an hour of their free time to look something up online.
“Sure,” she said, not even putting down her newspaper. “I’ll come get you when your time’s up.”
Once they had the computer to themselves, they looked up Elena Baxter’s name, hoping they could find her house, anything about her that might be helpful.
But it wasn’t Elena’s name that brought up search results—it was her mother, the Olympic athlete, who kept appearing.
Honoring Our Coloradan Olympians.
Dressage Hall of Fame: Great Olympic Goofs that Cost a Medal.
Olympian Juliet Baxter’s Legacy Lives On—Daughter Announces Entry Into Olympic Competition.
“That’s her,” said Izzy, pointing at the screen. It was dated over five years ago. Hanna clicked on it, but after scanning the article, didn’t find any useful information about Elena besides a heavily doctored photo of her face.
“She looks way too old to be going to the Olympics,” said Izzy.
“Ugh,” said Hanna. She started writing an angry comment at the bottom of the article. “I hate her.”
“Don’t.” Izzy deleted the text before Hanna could post it and navigated back to the search screen. “Come on. Let’s look for something else.”
The next result was for Elena’s dubious-looking real estate business. It listed an office address and phone number but nothing else. Hanna closed the window in frustration.
Even if they had found Elena’s address, what would they have done with it? Stolen Shy Guy for real, only to end up in jail? It was a pointless exercise, Hanna realized, and got up halfway through their hour. She went out to the garden to pull weeds instead.
Izzy came out to find Hanna later and crouched in the dirt next to her.
“You’re pulling weeds. With your only free time.” She said it as a statement, rather than a question.
“So?”
“So that’s pathetic.”
“Thanks,” muttered Hanna. “That makes me feel so much better about it.”
Izzy’s mouth opened to make a retort, but they were interrupted by Paul calling their names. Izzy shot up, her crush on the handsome blond ranch manager blatantly obvious. Hanna thought it was kind of gross.
“He’s, like, thirty,” Hanna had said.
“So?” Izzy shrugged. “He looks exactly like young Brad Pitt. Swoon!” Hanna had to agree about the Brad Pitt thing.
“Hey, girls!” Paul greeted, leaning up against his truck. He gestured with his thumb to the cab. “I need some helpers to come with me and pick up feed. I know you’re on free time, but if you come with me, we can get subs at the sub shop.”
Neither of them had eaten out since getting to the ranch, so Izzy jumped to her feet.
“Subs and ice cream, and you’ve got a deal.”
“Done,” said Paul, and opened the back doors of his four-door truck. The girls hopped in, and they roared off to Quartz Creek.
Chapter Twenty
At the feed store, Paul got sidetracked by a work boot sale, so Izzy said, “Let’s go look around out back while Brad gets his shop on.”
Outside, the feed store lot was piled high with stacks of hay bales, bags of grain, and rusted farm equipment. “Check it out!” Izzy pointed past tractors with no tires and a dismembered Caterpillar claw to a graveyard full of old cars.
Before Hanna could stop her, Izzy clambered over the equipment in a way that Hanna was sure Paul would not approve of and vanished.
“Izzy!” Hanna called after her, but she was gone. With a sigh, Hanna followed.
On the other side of the junk pile, Izzy roamed through rows of old, broken-down cars, oooh-ing and ahh-ing. “Look at this, a ’51 Mustang!”
“You like junky cars?” asked Hanna.
Izzy shrugged. “My dad collects scrap cars like this, and I used to help him fix them up.” She laughed. “My mom hates it, though. Takes up a lot of space.”
“You don’t help him anymore?” Hanna asked.
Izzy paused next to an old Chevy truck. She patted the domed hood. “No. Not since I started getting in trouble at school.”
She stopped and gave Hanna a calculating look, like she was trying to decide whether to trust her with more. After a moment, Izzy went on.
“My parents figured they needed to spend more time with me. And that was what I wanted! But they treated me so differently. When my mom and I used to garden together, we’d listen to music and she’d tell me about the different instruments and styles. But after things at school got bad, she’d make me stay inside to do my homework and look over my shoulder the whole time. Dad used to ask me to
help him with the cars, but now he lectures me about why school’s important or why fighting won’t get me anywhere. Instead of looking at me like his helpful assistant, he looks at me like I’m the thing that needs fixing. And maybe I am.”
She stopped talking and walked around the old Chevy, opening the rusty door. She climbed inside and leaned back in the seat.
“Careful,” said Hanna. “There could be mice.”
Izzy shrugged. “I’m not scared of mice. But sounds like you are.”
“I’m not!”
“You’re scared of horses,” said Izzy. “And I don’t see how horses could possibly be scarier than mice. I mean, those long, scaly tails! And they’re diseased.”
“Are you kidding?” said Hanna, climbing in the passenger seat to prove her wrong. “Horses are totally scarier. They’re huge, for starters.”
“Of course.”
“And you never know what they’re going to do. They could kick you, and bam, you’re done.”
Izzy narrowed her eyes. “Has a horse ever tried to kick you?”
“Well, no.”
“Then what’s your deal? You know, way back when, I heard Madison say you liked horses.”
Hanna rolled her eyes. “When I was, like, seven! My mom told her that because I used to collect little toy horses.”
“So what’s the difference?”
“Well, there’s a big difference. One’s a toy. One’s big enough to kill you.”
Izzy narrowed her eyes and leaned over the middle seat toward her. Hanna leaned away. “What happened?” Izzy asked. “Did something happen?”
“No,” Hanna said automatically.
“Come on, Hanna. Tell me. I told you my secret. What made you so freaked out about horses?”
Hanna swallowed. Izzy was right. Fair trade.
“Mom took me to the county fair,” Hanna said. “I was seven. I’d been collecting toy horses forever, so when we got to the pony ride, she insisted I do it.” Remembering it, her pulse jumped. “But the horses were so much bigger in real life, and I didn’t want to ride. But Mom made me. As soon as I got on that pony, I started crying.”
Shy Girl & Shy Guy (Quartz Creek Ranch) Page 11