Pack Trip

by Bonnie Bryant

  Eli looked at his watch. “If you want,” he said. “The horses have been doing a lot of work, and they could probably use a break. Okay, everybody—take ten!”

  One look at the sparkle in Stevie’s eyes, and Carole knew she had something fun in mind. “What’s up?” she asked.

  “I think it’s time for a friendly snowball fight,” Stevie announced. “My team is going to assemble behind that rock over there!” She pointed to a large boulder fifty feet off the path.

  Carole was definitely up to the challenge. “And mine is to gather over there!” she declared.

  The riders split into the same teams they’d had for the scavenger hunt.

  “Winner gets breakfast in bed tomorrow!” Stevie called out, forming her first snowball.

  “Oh, that’ll be great!” Kate yelled. “This time I want poached eggs!”

  The first volley of snowballs flew.

  It turned out that Amy’s ankle was at least temporarily healed, and she was an ace snowball pitcher. This was her kind of game. She and Stevie were a powerful pair when it came to barraging the others with snow. Lisa and Seth were almost as fast at making snowballs as Stevie and Amy were at throwing them. Carole’s team was no match for the bombardment, and by the time Eli announced the end of their “rest,” Carole, Kate, Christine, and John were ready to admit defeat.

  Still giggling, they swept snow off themselves and returned to their horses.

  “I hadn’t thought of poached eggs,” Stevie said to Kate as she tightened Stewball’s cinch. “That sounds like a wonderful idea. I like them with the white mostly firm and the yolk very soft, okay? And freshly squeezed orange juice—”

  “You like it cold?” Kate asked, poised to remount Spot.

  “Of course,” Stevie said.

  “Then start with this,” she suggested, and tossed one final snowball at Stevie. “Bull’s-eye!” she announced when it hit Stevie in the center of her back.

  “I guess I probably deserved that, but you still lost the snowball fight, remember that.”

  Kate grinned at Stevie. “Of course I remember. We lost fair and square. I just wanted to have the chance to get you with a good one.”

  Stevie put her left boot in the stirrup and swung herself up into Stewball’s saddle. “I know what you mean,” she said. “There’s something about having the last word, even when you’ve lost the argument.”

  “Something like that,” Kate agreed.

  Then Eli and Jeannie gave the signal, and they were on their way. The snow on the ground muffled sounds and made the whole world seem quieter. It almost made it harder to talk. Stevie listened to the hushed clip-clop of horse hooves in the snow and the comfortably familiar squeaking of the leather saddles. Although she was surrounded by friends, she felt their isolation on the mountain. They were so small, so few. It was so grand, so imposing, this fabrication of nature that was too wild to have trees grow on it and so cold that it made snow in the summer. The idea made her feel strangely insignificant.

  There weren’t many things that could make Stevie feel insignificant. In that way she was rather like Amy. The thought of Amy jolted her. She found that she didn’t like the idea that she had anything in common with Amy. Thinking about Amy made her think about Lisa. Stevie had barely talked to Lisa since they’d started the ride. Lisa seemed totally involved with Seth, and as far as Stevie could see, Seth was almost as mixed up as his sister. Stevie didn’t like the idea of Lisa being drawn into their problems. Lisa was older than she was, but in some ways she seemed younger. When it came to friends, other than her Saddle Club friends, Lisa could be impressionable. She’d get an idea in her head about how wonderful somebody was, and then no matter how wonderful that person wasn’t, it took Lisa a long time to stop being nice. A lot of the problem was that Lisa was such a nice person herself. Some of it, in this case, was that Lisa just didn’t see that Amy was using Seth and Seth was using Lisa.

  Then it dawned on Stevie that Lisa could be in trouble. As long as she was part of Amy’s schemes, even through Seth, it was dangerous because Amy was dangerous. Stevie wanted to help Lisa, but Stevie knew from experience that just telling her to stay away from Seth and Amy wasn’t going to do it. This, Stevie realized, was going to have to be a Saddle Club project. It was a good thing so many people on the trip were in the Saddle Club. With Carole’s help, plus Kate’s and Christine’s, she’d do whatever she had to do to make Lisa see that Amy and Seth were bad news.

  Stevie sighed with relief, her breath a little puff of steam in front of her. Now all she had to do was find a way to talk to Carole alone.

  CAROLE STOWED BERRY’S saddle for the night and looked around the campsite for her next chore. Everywhere people were working busily. The day’s ride had been wonderful but long, going all the way up, and then back down, the mountain. All the riders were ready for an early supper and a good night’s sleep.

  “Give me a hand, will you, Carole?” Stevie asked.

  “Sure,” Carole responded wearily before she even knew what Stevie wanted her to do. “I’m never too tired to help a friend, except maybe now, but you’re a good friend. How can I help?”

  “I think Stewball picked up a stone. I want to check his hooves.”

  Carole willingly followed Stevie out of the campsite to the temporary corral but realized quickly that something odd was going on. Stevie was the best stone picker at Pine Hollow There was no way she needed help.

  “What’s up?” Carole asked. “I mean, I know you don’t need me to help you with a stone in your horse’s shoe. That’s the lamest excuse—pardon the pun—you ever came up with. Is this some kind of joke? Because if it is, I’m going to remind you how long I’ve been riding and how tired I am.”

  “No joke. It’s about Lisa,” Stevie began, shaking her head with concern. “I think we’ve got a Saddle Club project on our hands, and I needed to talk to you alone.”

  “Lisa? What’s the matter?” When it came to friends, there was no such thing as being too tired. Carole was wide awake.

  “It’s not so much Lisa as it is Seth and Amy, really. They’ve drawn Lisa into their problems, and Lisa just doesn’t see how they use each other. Now they’re using Lisa, too.”

  “I noticed,” Carole agreed. “Everytime Seth runs to help Amy, Lisa runs to help Seth—even when nobody really needs help.”

  “Correction,” Stevie said. “Both of them need help, but not the kind Lisa can give them.”

  “I don’t know what to do,” Carole said.

  “Me neither, but we’ve got to do something.”

  When they arrived at the corral, they stood and looked at the horses. Somehow they always seemed to be inspirational, just like The Saddle Club.

  “I could look at horses for hours,” Stevie remarked.

  “I could, too,” Carole agreed, gazing across the field. “They are so—” Carole stopped and stared at the small herd. Her eyes caught something, and she wasn’t sure what it was.

  “What’s the matter?” Stevie asked, suddenly alarmed.

  “I don’t know,” Carole said. “But look at the horses; something’s wrong.”

  Stevie turned and looked, too. There were all the horses, now gathered in a small area of the field, as if for the protection of the group. All of them looked very alert, ears turning this way and that, tails swishing. A few pawed the ground. Noses were in the air, and nostrils were flared.

  “Oh, look!” Carole said, suddenly seeing what was wrong and pointing. There, in a wooded section of a hill across the field and perhaps two miles away, a dark stream of smoke rose steadily.

  “A forest fire!” Stevie cried. As both of them stared, the smoke began to billow and turned a deep orange red. Then, suddenly, flames shot up from the sooty mass.

  The breeze that had brought the flames to the hillside then brought them the strong, acrid smell of the smoke.

  “We’ve got to get out of here!” Carole said urgently. “Let’s get Eli.”

  She didn’t ha
ve to say it twice.

  “THERE’S A FOREST fire, and it’s coming this way!” Carole cried out to Amy, who was sitting on a rock near the temporary corral. She seemed to be putting some kind of support bandage on her ankle, and she barely acknowledged Carole’s news.

  “I hope we have enough marshmallows,” she said.

  Since there was no point in wasting time arguing with Amy, Carole and Stevie ran past her to the campsite. By the time they reached it, the smell of smoke had penetrated the woods. Eli hurried back with them to see the view over the corral.

  They found that the horses were now very restless, shuffling toward them, away from the approaching fire. The fire, though still small, was growing, fanned by the breeze.

  “Look, that’s where it came from,” Eli said, pointing to a mountainside several miles farther away from them, now clearly burning. “See, some kind of spark or ball of fire rises up out of a larger flame section and leaps ahead of the main body of the fire. That’s one way secondary fires start.”

  “You mean this is just a secondary fire?” Stevie asked.

  “Just is the wrong word,” Eli cautioned her. “It’s definitely an offshoot from the other fire, and that makes it secondary. It’s still serious, though, and it’s still headed this way. Your first instinct was right. We’ve got to get out of here. If we can get back to the valley, we should be safe, but it’s a long trip yet, and it’s getting dark. We don’t have a second to waste.”

  Eli told Carole and Stevie to round up the horses and prepare them to be saddled up. He went back to oversee breaking camp. Tired as they and the horses were, there would be no stopping until they were safe.

  Carole decided that Stevie should walk into the corral and circle behind the horses, getting them to walk over to where Carole waited with halters and lead ropes. Stevie took a halter with her and slipped it over the head of the farthest horse, who happened to be Stewball. Stevie was glad about that. Whatever else could be said about Stewball, he was smart. Stevie clipped the lead rope on him and began to use him to move the small herd toward Carole.

  Some of the horses were balky. Stevie didn’t know exactly what to do, as she tried to be in three or four places at once. Carole couldn’t help her. She had to stay where she was. Then Amy arrived, obviously sent by Eli and just as obviously reluctant.

  “Go help Stevie,” Carole said. “She’s got to round the herd up and get them over here.”

  “Oh, go boss someone else,” Amy said. “Your know-it-all act doesn’t work with me.”

  Stevie couldn’t hear what was being said, but she could see that Carole was having trouble with Amy. The air was growing dim from the approaching smoke. They didn’t have time for trouble. They didn’t have time for Amy.

  While some of the horses in the herd moved slowly and nervously toward Carole, others pranced and galloped every which way. Kate’s Appaloosa shot past Stevie and Stewball, running to the far side of the paddock. Another horse took two steps to the left and stood frozen, completely panicked. Stevie was near panic herself.

  Just then help arrived, in the form of a four-legged expert at herding. Eli’s dog, Mel, came bounding across the field to Stevie.

  “Eli always said you were the smartest creature he knew,” Stevie said. “Now you have a chance to show me just how right he is.”

  The first thing Mel did was to run around the field, as if she needed to figure out the lay of the land. Then, once she knew what had to be done, she got to work. She stood flat-footed by the horse who was frozen in fear and barked. It took only a few seconds for the horse to decide that he was more afraid of Mel than he was of the fire. He turned on his heels and trotted willingly to Carole, who put on his halter and lead rope.

  Mel’s next target was the Appaloosa, who had run toward the fire. The dog circled on the far side of the horse, wagged her tail briskly, and changed the horse’s mind. Spot trotted over to Carole.

  Stevie was so fascinated by Mel’s herding technique that she almost forgot how important it was to finish the job quickly. However, with Mel’s help the rest of the horses remained in a herd, and Stevie was able to move them over to where Carole, and by then John, were waiting for them.

  When the last horse had a halter and lead rope and had been secured, they began saddling up. Stevie didn’t think she’d ever tacked up so many horses so fast in her life. She was working so quickly, she almost didn’t notice Amy, still leaning against a tree. The sight, however, was too much to ignore.

  “Get to work, Amy,” Stevie said. “The saddles are over there; you can see what needs to be done.”

  “You’re getting pretty bossy, Stevie,” Amy retorted. “Sounds to me like you’ve been spending too much time around the queen boss, Miss Carole Hanson.”

  Stevie was shocked by Amy’s response. Any admiration she had ever had for Amy’s boldness fled. So did any sympathy she’d harbored for the girl’s family situation. All she felt was fury, flamed by her own fear of the approaching fire. “How dare you?” Stevie exclaimed. “This is no time for your stupid games. As far as I’m concerned, you can take whatever risk you want with your own safety, and you can drag your dumb brother down with you if you want, but when it comes to my safety and the safety of my friends and these wonderful horses, you have no right to act the way you do. Grow up or get out!”

  Amy drew herself to her feet and limped away. Stevie didn’t consider her departure much of a loss. Amy hadn’t shown much talent at tacking up horses anyway.

  With Carole, Stevie, and John working as a team, the horses were soon ready. Carole secured the riding horses and stayed with them. John and Stevie took the packhorses along the path to the campsite to facilitate packing. They found Amy once again sitting on a rock near the campsite, fussing with the bandage on her ankle. Stevie was so angry, she didn’t even say a word. John didn’t, either.

  “Where’s Amy?” Seth asked as they entered the campsite. “Wasn’t she with you?”

  Stevie shrugged her shoulders. John told Seth where Amy was.

  “Oh,” Seth said. “It must be her ankle. She needs help!”

  He dropped the tent he had been folding and ran past the packhorses to his sister. Lisa was close on his heels.

  John and Stevie secured the packhorses and took up the tent folding where Seth and Lisa had dropped it. Stevie had learned a lot about tents since her first unsuccessful attempt at putting one up, and one thing she’d learned was that there was a lot of material, and it was difficult to fold, especially with only two people. It would have been much easier with more, but with Seth and Lisa hovering over Amy, there was nobody extra to help.

  John was methodical and organized, and he and Stevie managed without help. They stowed the tent on the horse and helped Eli, Jeannie, and the other riders put everything else away. At the same time the riders had to pack up their personal belongings to be carried by their own horses. Stevie put Carole’s things away, knowing Carole was too busy with the rest of the horses. She packed up Lisa’s things, too, because Lisa, after all, was one of her best friends. Kate and Christine helped her. Nobody touched Amy’s clothes or belongings.

  All the while they were working at top speed, the wind kept bringing reminders of what they were working against. Each gust carried a stronger smell of smoke. Then small animals started overrunning the campsite. When the first squirrel zipped across Stevie’s feet, she jumped with surprise. She soon found, however, that it was followed by many more, plus rabbits and a lot of other small animals, including some she didn’t even recognize.

  “If they’re running, we should be, too,” Eli said. “I don’t want to scare you guys unnecessarily, but I think we should be scared. Anything that’s not on a horse’s back now, stays. We are out of here.”

  Eli began jogging, leading one of the packhorses. The others followed, bringing the rest of the horses with them.

  “Seth, Amy, Lisa!” Eli called. “Get to your horses. We have to get away from here! Now!” He added the last word when he
saw how slowly Amy was standing up.

  It pained Stevie to see Lisa and Seth each holding one of Amy’s arms across their shoulders. She was sure, beyond any doubt, that Amy was more than capable of walking, even jogging, over to the temporary corral. She was just slowing everybody down with her phony ankle act. Stevie knew enough about fires to know that sometimes seconds counted—and Amy was costing them a lot more than seconds.

  “My clothes!” Lisa cried out.

  “We got them for you!” Kate assured her. “Get to your horse!”

  “Hurry!” Jeannie cried out. “There’s no time to waste!”

  Stevie had a sickening feeling in her stomach when Jeannie said those words. She knew what Amy’s reaction would be. To confirm her suspicions she turned to look just in time to see Amy stumble. Seth and Lisa held her firmly, but it made them lag even farther behind.

  “Slow down!” Lisa called. “Wait for us!”

  “Meet us at the corral,” Christine said. “Your horses are all tacked up there.”

  Stevie couldn’t believe the changes she saw when she reached the corral and the saddled horses. The fire, which had been small and distant the last time she’d seen it, had grown to enormous proportions in less than half an hour. It was now visibly raging on the hillside no more than a mile away. The field that served as their temporary corral buzzed with activity as the small animals continued their flight from the impending fire.

  “If these guys are out of here, so am I!” declared Stevie. She mounted Stewball, took the lead rope of one of the packhorses, and began the trail ride of a lifetime.

  “HURRY, LISA!” CAROLE called to her friend. Lisa was still supporting Amy, who now seemed to be favoring the wrong ankle. Carole had mounted Berry and, like Stevie, held the lead rope of one of the packhorses. Lisa, Seth, and Amy hadn’t even reached the corral yet.

  “I don’t want to leave Seth—he needs my help with Amy!” Lisa protested.

  Carole was about to give Lisa a list of twenty reasons why she had to leave Amy and Seth, when the fire did her convincing for her. A flaming ball flew over their heads and into the forest, less than fifteen feet from where Amy was standing. As soon as it landed, the ground cover began smoldering.