Straining her eyes against the darkness, Lisa scanned the path ahead. She had no idea if they were telling the truth, and she certainly had no reason to believe anything they might say, so she urged Stewball into a fast walk to put some distance between her and the thieves.
Within fifty feet, however, the horse came to a halt and refused to move. Looking in front of her, Lisa felt like bursting into tears. The path simply ended, and all she could see beyond was blackness.
The men followed, slowly moving closer. “Come on, little girl, we’re not going to hurt you. We only want to talk to you.”
“Besides, the only way down is the hard way!” one of the others hollered.
They moved at an almost leisurely pace, as though certain of the outcome of the chase.
The sound of their laughter enraged and frightened Lisa. “Leave me alone!” she screamed, tears blurring her vision. “I just want to go home!”
Then, to her complete horror, she felt Stewball lurch beneath her, and the two of them went over the cliff.
LISA SCREAMED AS she felt the horse jump. A second later Stewball hit the ground and she was thrown forward, the saddle horn ramming her in the stomach and knocking the wind out of her. She clutched frantically at the knob, trying to keep herself from pitching forward over the horse’s neck. Rocks and shale slid all around her, tumbling down the face of the cliff. Stewball gave one more lurch forward and then stood still.
Lisa looked wildly around. To her left was the sheer rocky wall of the cliff, close enough to touch. To her right, a mind-numbing abyss. She risked a cautious look behind and saw a pile of loose rock. With his night vision, Stewball had known what she had not: There was an old, virtually unused trail down here. Apparently when she had yelled that she wanted to go home, he had taken her at her word and took the fastest route.
Voices shouted above, reminding Lisa that she was not out of danger yet.
“Did you see that? She jumped!” one of the men was yelling incredulously.
“I never seen nothing like that.”
She could hear them approaching the cliff face.
“She didn’t jump, she fell.”
“Whatever. Is she dead?”
Against the moon, Lisa could make out the vague shape of a head in a hat peering over the edge of the precipice. She pressed back against the cliff wall and held perfectly still, willing Stewball to do the same. The horse’s scramble to find footing had carried them a short distance from where they had vanished, so her pursuers were focused on the wrong spot, but one small movement of horse or rider would give them away.
“Of course she’s dead, you idiot! Nothing could survive that fall.”
“Can you see her?”
“No, I can’t see her, you moron, it’s dark! She and that horse are probably buried under a pile of rock down there, and I don’t have X-ray vision.”
“We’d better go tell Hatch, then. Problem sort of solved itself, didn’t it?”
The voices were fading into the distance. “Did you hear her scream?” were the last words Lisa could make out.
It looked like the poachers were one less thing for her to worry about, but her sigh of relief was cut short as her situation became clear. She was precariously balanced on what appeared to be little more than an old goat trail. She had no idea how far it continued down and no way to go back the way she had come, even if she’d wanted to.
“Kate said you have some mountain pony in you, Stewball,” she said, nervously patting his neck. “Guess this is where we find out if that’s true.”
Having no other options, Lisa gathered her reins loosely in her left hand and took a shameless death grip on the saddle horn with her right before giving the pinto a gentle nudge. It was all up to the animal now. Her life was in his hands.
Stewball moved slowly forward, picking his way cautiously down the precarious path. It seemed to Lisa that he was testing every piece of ground ahead of them before committing his weight to it, which suited her fine. She made no effort to interfere, only doing her best not to throw him off balance. To control her own anxiety, she tried to avoid looking down into the dizzying depths of the shadow-filled canyon. How the horse managed to keep his footing she had no idea. She wasn’t sure she could have walked along that path even with her spine pressed tight to the wall, let alone with four feet and a person on her back. They inched along at a painfully slow pace, each and every step life-threatening. Once in a while she would try to look ahead, but mostly she contented herself with sitting quietly, eyes screwed tightly shut, letting the horse take control. When she closed her eyes she saw her friend lying in the cold prairie grass. When she opened them she saw blackness.
Stewball stopped moving. Lisa opened her eyes to see what was the matter, and her heart plummeted to her boots. Part of the trail was gone. Apparently a rock slide had wiped a section of it clean off the cliff face. In the ten-foot gap was a pile of loose rock and shale that would offer no footing.
On the far side of the gap, the path continued for a short distance, then made a sharp right. It headed down a steep grade, then doubled back in their direction about twenty feet below. The area affected by the landslide was substantially narrower on the trail below. In fact, the lower gap looked small enough to jump—if they could only get to it. The immediate problem was the area currently confronting them. The distance across appeared impossible to span.
Doubtfully, Lisa looked behind her. By the light of the moon she could make out the treacherous path the two of them had already traveled to get to where they now stood. She reasoned they were about halfway down, and there was no room on the narrow path to turn around. Her heart thumped painfully against her rib cage as panic mounted. There was no going forward; there was no going back.
Perhaps she and Stewball should stay where they were and wait for help to come in the morning. When she and Carole didn’t return to the ranch they would surely be missed. Naturally Mr. Devine would send out a search party. But would Carole be alive by the time they got back to her? Lisa had no way of knowing how sick her friend was, but her condition had certainly appeared very serious. There was no time to wait for a rescue. Lisa was going to have to take action herself.
Stewball shifted his weight uneasily. He was waiting for her decision, and he seemed to be picking up on her fear. If she wasn’t careful she would shatter his confidence, and then they truly would be doomed.
Forcing all doubt from her head, she considered her options. There was no way to span the gap in a single jump, but maybe, just maybe, the shale in the middle wasn’t as loose as it appeared. If Stewball could find even a little extra foothold, with a lot of luck they might make it to the other side.
Lisa gathered her tattered courage. An inner voice shrieked that what she was about to try was utterly insane, but she refused to listen. Straightening her shoulders, she sucked in a big breath of air and signaled Stewball to step backward. The horse complied, moving cautiously. His second step sent a small river of rocks running down the face of the jagged cliff. To Lisa it seemed like the sound of their falling would never end—a grim reminder of how far it was to the floor of the canyon and safety.
Lisa leaned forward a little. “Stevie swore you could tell what your rider wanted almost before they knew it themselves. So I guess you know what I’ve got in mind here.” Stewball’s ears flicked back, indicating he was listening to her. “Look, if you have a better idea, now would be a good time to tell me about it, because otherwise I think we’re out of choices. Shall we do this?”
The horse remained stubbornly mute.
“I’m going to take that as a yes.”
Lisa had read somewhere that in order for a horse to find courage to jump a scary obstacle, it was necessary for its rider to commit her own heart first. Lisa’s heart was definitely on the other side of that obscene gap, waiting to be reclaimed. Before she could lose her nerve, she kicked the horse sharply in the sides, urging him forward with all her will. “Go, go, go!” she yelled.
They didn’t make it.
For one wild moment Lisa thought they might actually clear the whole distance, but they landed short, hitting the treacherous pile of shattered rocks. Stewball scrambled wildly to find footing where none existed, and it was all Lisa could do to stay in the saddle as he thrashed and fought, sliding inexorably downward.
“No!” she screamed helplessly as they neared the point where they would be swept past the lower trail and over the edge. Her cry was echoed by a desperate whinny from Stewball, who miraculously came up with a little more power. With one last mighty surge forward, he managed to carry the two of them back onto firm ground.
“Oh, you amazing horse!” Lisa cried, slapping his neck heartily. She was trembling from head to toe, and Stewball was huffing from his tremendous effort.
She felt a warm trickling on her chin, and when she reached up to wipe at it, her hand came away smeared with blood. During the struggle to reach the other side of the trail she had bitten her lip. She laughed, enjoying the salty taste of the blood. It reminded her that she was still alive.
Studying her new situation, however, Lisa realized that something was terribly wrong. After sliding down the mountain twenty feet, Stewball had managed to leap forward onto the lower section of the trail, saving them from plunging over the cliff, but now they were facing the wrong direction. If they went forward they’d only reach a hairpin turn to the left that would take them back to the upper gap. The descending trail was behind them, and the path in front was too narrow to turn around on.
She twisted in the saddle to look over her shoulder. The gap down here was, indeed, narrower, and Stewball could traverse it fairly easily—if he was facing the right direction. No horse could jump it backward, and even if he could there was no way he could negotiate that ridiculously tiny trail all the way down to the bottom if he was moving backward. Sooner or later he would put a foot down wrong and it would be all over for both of them. Not to mention for Carole.
Lisa suddenly realized she was the only one who knew where to find the stricken girl. If she and Stewball didn’t make it, the odds seemed good that Carole wouldn’t, either.
Okay, Lisa, think, think, think, think!
She continued looking around, trying to sift substance from shadow, scanning for any place that showed the slightest widening in the trail. Then she spotted it, or at least she thought she did. Just before the hairpin turn leading upward, there was a rocky outcropping that formed an overhang. It looked like there might be a small indentation under it. It probably won’t be much, but it’s the best chance we’ve got right now. Gently she urged Stewball forward.
There was indeed a small hollowed-out chunk in the wall, and the trail did widen a little, but certainly not enough to allow a horse to make a conventional turn.
If it weren’t for bad luck we’d have no luck at all, Lisa thought.
Lisa chewed her sore lip in frustration. There had to be something she could do, some way for her to take advantage of this slight cavity. How could Stewball make a turn without putting his front feet down?
Suddenly she heard an echo of Kate’s voice in her head. “Out here we call that a rollback.” Lisa’s eyes grew wide as she remembered how the horse had pivoted on his hindquarters to face in the completely opposite direction.
The voices continued in her head, and she heard herself say, “It was like Stewball did it all on his own.”
“He almost did. He’s been doing those moves so long, all I had to do was give him a hint of what I wanted.”
Her heart raced. If she could get Stewball to do one of those turns, they might still have a chance of getting out of this nightmare with their skins intact. She was sure that if he only knew what she wanted, he would be glad to oblige. Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure how to cue the pinto.
Once again she replayed the scene in her mind, focusing on Kate’s actions. There had been a subtle shift of the girl’s weight deeper into the saddle, and she had lifted the reins toward her right shoulder at least ten inches higher than the normal riding position. Lisa was sure of that much. All that remained was a leg cue. Was it supposed to be in front of the girth or toward the back?
Lisa became aware that time was slipping away, and, with it, Carole’s chances of survival. She had no choice but to try—and hope Stewball really was psychic enough to figure out what she wanted.
“All right, boy,” she told him. “My money’s on you. Now, rollback,” she instructed, giving him all the cues she had.
Almost like magic Lisa found herself facing the opposite direction. She blinked in disbelief. It had been so easy!
“You are too much,” she crooned to the little horse with a choke in her voice. Stewball nodded his head as if in agreement. For the first time in many hours, Lisa heard herself laugh. It felt good. “Let’s keep moving, pardner. After that last jump, this one is cake.”
It was. The horse cleared the narrow river of shale with room to spare.
Hoping they had come through the worst of things, Lisa guided her mount forward. For a while they made steady progress, the floor of the canyon growing ever closer with each shuffling step. Then, about forty feet above the flatlands, the trail really came to an end.
Lisa peered down and saw that the wall of the cliff was sheered away and the rest of the precious ledge they had been so painstakingly working their way down was lying at the bottom of the gorge in large rocky pieces.
The angle of the slope to the bottom was hideously steep, perhaps fifty degrees at its worst. It would be easier to ride straight down the face of a pyramid. No horse she knew had a chance of getting to the bottom in one piece on his own, let alone with a rider on his back.
Maybe if I went down by myself I could slide on my butt. Then I could walk to the ranch and send help back for Stewball and Carole.
She had a sudden vision of herself losing her footing and cartwheeling down the mountain head over heels, ending in a heap at the bottom with a broken neck. At the very least she would break a leg, and that wouldn’t do anybody any good.
Once more she would have to place her trust in her horse. “What do you say, fella? Are you game for one last roll of the dice?”
Stewball shifted back and forth under her. She could tell he was tired. The strain of walking down such a narrow and steep trail had taken a serious toll on his strength, but she also knew that he was her only hope of getting to the bottom in one piece.
She gently caressed his lathered shoulder. “I know you can do it, boy,” she told him solemnly. “Do it for me and Carole, okay?” Mustering what remained of her courage, Lisa closed her eyes, muttered a prayer, and urged the sturdy little pinto over the edge.
The horse dropped out from under her and Lisa thought she would come out of the saddle for sure. Stewball connected with the earth at an angle that whiplashed her in the opposite direction. She desperately flailed her right arm backward to check her forward momentum and managed to retain her seat. The horse went bounding toward the bottom. He took huge leaps, drawing his powerful hindquarters under him as he struggled to maintain balance in what seemed to be nothing more than a controlled fall.
The ground raced at Lisa with a strange combination of alarming speed and agonizing slowness. Every gut-wrenching lurch threatened to fling her into the air over her straining mount’s head, but time and again she gritted it out, teeth clenched tightly, relying completely on instinct and the will to survive and see this monumental task through to the end.
They were almost at the bottom when she felt her overly taxed leg muscles give out. Not even her white-knuckled grip on the saddle horn could save her. The best she could manage was to throw herself sideways to avoid doing a complete cartwheel over the top of the horse as he continued to plunge downward.
She hit the earth with bone-jarring impact. Searing pain ripped through her shoulder. She slipped, rolled, and skidded th
e rest of the way to the bottom, dragging a small avalanche of rocks and debris with her. At some point she felt her head collide with a rock and everything went black.
Sometime later she woke up, facedown in the dirt. It took a while before she could muster enough strength to roll over and lift her face to the night sky. Her breath coming in ragged gasps, she struggled to stay conscious. Gingerly she began to check herself out. Every inch of her body was in pain, but she was fairly certain that nothing was broken. She forced herself to her knees, the world swimming before her eyes, and promptly threw up.
Finally, when the violent stomach contractions had subsided and she could once again draw little gasps of cool air, she climbed wearily to her feet and looked around. Stewball was standing not far from her. She staggered over and threw grateful arms around his neck, bursting into tears. Before she knew it she was crying almost hysterically against him. Between racking sobs, she heard herself muttering praises of undying gratitude. Stewball seemed to take it all in stride.
Eventually she managed to pull herself together enough to once more climb into the saddle, shaking with shock and muscles like jelly. With utter weariness she picked up the reins and slumped forward in the saddle. She had no idea in what direction the Bar None lay, but she wasn’t worried about it.
“Take me home, Stewball,” she murmured into his dirt-encrusted mane.
Stewball did as he was told.
STEVIE THOUGHT SHE was going to die. At the very least, she was on the verge of a major breakdown.
She had endured an entire day of hanging out with long-lost relatives who, unfortunately, wouldn’t stay that way. She couldn’t begin to remember all the names of the people to whom she had been introduced. After a while she’d stopped trying and simply did her best to be polite. “Nice to meet you.” “My pleasure.” “Thank you very much.”
Then there was the never-ending rehearsal dinner, a huge feast at one of the best local restaurants, where the food and the wine had flowed nonstop and the conversations had gone on and on and on.
Trail Ride Page 9