by Stacy Gregg
“You can do it, Diablo!” Issie said, putting all her faith into the horse, willing him to take the jump. Diablo sensed her confidence and, as he came into the fence he didn’t hesitate; his stride stayed steady as he took off and flew over the rails, landing cleanly on the other side without breaking stride. “Good boy!” Issie gave him a firm pat on his black and white patchy neck, her eyes remaining on Mystic, who was now galloping on ahead of them, across the rough gorse and scrub towards the crest of Blackthorn Hill.
As they galloped on and up the hill Issie caught a glimpse of some cross-country jumps to her left and remembered what Aidan had said about building a course across the farm. As she rode over the crest of Blackthorn Hill and looked down on the valley she could see several cross-country obstacles scattered over the paddocks below. To her left now she could also see the winding red snake of dirt that was the ridge track. Her cross-country route must have saved her at least twenty minutes, maybe more. Had she caught up with Kelly-Anne and Comet? Maybe she had even overtaken them? She looked up and down the track. Where were they?
There was a whinny from Mystic, who was already barrelling back down the other side of Blackthorn Hill, ducking and swerving his way around blackthorns and gorse as he headed helter-skelter at a gallop towards the valley below. Issie’s eyes followed the grey gelding, and then her heart leapt as she caught sight of another horse ahead of Mystic in the distance. It was Comet! The skewbald was about half a kilometre ahead. She could see him clearly next to one of Aidan’s jumps.
“Come on, Diablo.” Issie clucked the horse into a gallop, through the scrub and the long grass, following Mystic down the sheer face of the hill.
If you have ever galloped downhill, you will know that it’s terrifying. It would have been hard enough for Issie galloping downhill on the ridge track, but here on the uneven ground of Blackthorn Hill, with Diablo dodging this way and that to avoid the prickly gorse and blackthorn bushes, it was a total nightmare. All Issie could do was hold on and stick to the path that Mystic had taken ahead of her, trusting in the grey gelding to show them the safest way to go. Issie bit her lip to hold back her fear. She wanted to tell the little grey pony to slow down, but as they drew nearer she became even more afraid of what lay ahead.
Kelly-Anne had obviously tried to take Comet over one of Aidan’s cross-country jumps, a stacked logpile, and something must have gone wrong. Very wrong. Comet was standing stock-still and Kelly-Anne was no longer on his back. Issie could see her body lying sprawled and motionless on the ground next to the jump, with Comet standing over her. Comet raised his head a little when he caught sight of Diablo and Mystic, but other than that, the skewbald didn’t move a muscle. He was standing next to the girl, still as a statue! But Comet never stood still. He was always dancing about. Something was definitely wrong!
As they came into closer range Issie could finally see why her pony wasn’t moving. Instinctively, she pressed Diablo on to gallop even harder. She couldn’t afford to slow down; she had to reach her horse before things got any worse. Comet wasn’t standing next to the logpile, he was standing in the logpile. His front leg had somehow got wedged between two rails of the rustic fence. He was standing perfectly still because he had no choice. If he moved or tried to pull his leg free, the pony would rip the skin from his cannon bone or even break a leg as he tried to wrench his hoof out.
At the sight of Issie and Mystic, the skewbald gave a frantic whinny and began to try and free himself.
“Comet! No!” Issie called out. He had to stay still until she could reach him. She urged Diablo on faster now. She had to get to Comet.
Please, please don’t move, she thought. Stay still just a little bit longer, Comet. I’m coming…
Chapter 13
As she pulled Diablo up next to the logpile, Issie wanted more than anything to rush to Comet’s side, but first she needed to see if Kelly-Anne was OK. Issie vaulted off Diablo’s back, running over to the girl, who lay motionless on the ground.
“Kelly-Anne?” Issie put her hand on her shoulder and shook her gently. She didn’t move. She must have been knocked out cold from the fall. Quickly, Issie tried to remember what they had taught her in the first-aid sessions at pony club. Don’t move her, and check her breathing. She looked at her chest and could see it rising and falling. Good. Kelly-Anne was definitely breathing.
“Kelly-Anne, can you hear me?” Issie tried again. This time there was a groan and the girl murmured, her eyelids fluttering. She was waking up. “What happened?” Kelly-Anne said groggily “You’ve had an accident,” said Issie. “Don’t try to move yet. Just lie still. I’ll be back in a moment.”
Now she was certain that Kelly-Anne was OK she was finally able to get a closer look at Comet. The skewbald had been standing still all this time, waiting patiently for Issie to come to him.
“Hey, Comet,” Issie said. “It’s going to be OK, boy.” At first glance, though, Issie wasn’t sure things were going to be OK at all. Comet was shivering with shock. His flanks were damp with sweat and he was covered in mud. But what really worried Issie was Comet’s leg. The pony’s near foreleg was completely wedged through the shattered wood rails of the logpile fence. By the look of the angle, he had brought the leg down on top of the jump and his hoof had rammed straight through the wood. The weathered timber had splintered under the sheer force of the pony’s hoof so that Comet was now stuck knee-deep in the logpile. Luckily, Comet had had the common sense to recognise his predicament and had stood still, waiting for his rider to free him. Only Kelly-Anne was in no fit state to help him at all.
How long had Comet been standing there like this? Issie wondered. And what would have happened if she hadn’t arrived in time? Even now that Issie was here to help him, the skewbald was still in a perilous position. He was terrified. Issie could see the whites of his eyes and knew the pony was exhausted with stress and fear. How long would it be before he lost his cool and went into a frenzy, trying to free himself at any cost? Issie felt the panic rising in her too; she knew she had to act fast.
“Easy, boy,” she cooed as she moved slowly towards Comet. She had to be careful. A sudden movement might spook him and if he pulled back he would wrench his leg horribly against the pointy barbs of broken wood.
“Easy, Comet,” she said. “It’s OK, boy,” she whispered as she stroked the skewbald’s neck. “Steady, boy, that’s a good Comet, steady…” Her hands ran along his neck and down his near foreleg, the one that was wedged tight into the logpile. “Easy, Comet,” Issie soothed him, stroking his neck and looking at the leg. “Stay still. I’ll get you out, I promise. There’s a good boy…”
“He’s not a good boy, he’s a stupid, mean pony!” It was Kelly-Anne. She was on her knees and looking dazed and wobbly as she struggled to clamber back up on to her feet.
“Kelly-Anne!” Issie said. “Don’t get up. You’ve had a bad fall and you were knocked out. Sit down for a minute and catch your breath.” For once, Kelly-Anne seemed to listen. She collapsed back against the logpile.
“No!” Issie said. “Not on the rails! You’ll crush his leg if you sit there! Get off!”
Kelly-Anne staggered back up and looked at Comet. “It’s his own fault,” she said. “He wouldn’t jump it. I was trying to jump the logpile and he wouldn’t go over and then he stopped in front of it so I whacked him and he still wouldn’t go over so I hit him again and then he did this stupid sort of bunny hop and I guess he must have landed on top of the fence and that was when I fell off…”
Issie felt her blood boil. She knew it! It was exactly the same back at the riding school when Kelly-Anne had terrified poor Julian.
“I don’t want to hear any more!” Issie snapped. “It’s always the horse’s fault, isn’t it? Well, I’ve got news for you, Kelly-Anne. It’s your fault. You’re a nightmare. You shouldn’t even be allowed to ride. You don’t know anything about horses and, even worse, you don’t seem to care about them either!”
All the blood draine
d from Kelly-Anne’s face as Issie said this. The girl stood there for a moment, too scared to speak. “I’m, I’m sorry…” she started.
“Don’t be sorry,” Issie said. “Be useful.” She looked around frantically. “Take off your jacket!’ she barked at Kelly-Anne.
“What do you mean?” asked Kelly-Anne.
“Just what I said. Take it off and pass it here.”
“What are you going to do with it?” Kelly-Anne asked nervously as she handed the jacket to Issie.
“I’m going to wrap it around Comet’s leg like a bandage so he doesn’t hurt himself when we pull him out.” Issie took off her own jacket too. Then, speaking softly to Comet the whole time, she bent down and wedged her hand through the logs and began to wrap the jackets around his knee and cannon bone. As Issie worked Kelly-Anne watched over her shoulder.
“What now?” Kelly-Anne said. “Do we just make him pull his leg out?”
“No way! We can’t move him yet!” Issie said. “The poles are still wedged too close around his leg. We need to open them up a bit so he has enough room to get his hoof out.”
Issie looked at the logpile. It had been built solidly like a true cross-country fence. It wasn’t going to be easy to pull the logs apart. But the timber logs next to the pony’s leg were already broken, so all she really needed was something to push between and lever them apart. Then if she could wedge the logs open another few centimetres, she would be able to get Comet’s leg out.
“Give me your riding helmet,” ordered Issie. Kelly-Anne didn’t hesitate this time. She unbuckled her chin strap and passed Issie the helmet. It was dented in badly on the left side from the fall.
“It probably saved your life,” Issie said, showing Kelly-Anne the dent. Then she looked around on the ground. “We need a big stick,” she said. “Go and search over there and see if you can find something we can use as a lever to push the logs back while we shove the helmet in the gap. While Issie stood with Comet, reassuring him as she double-checked his bandages, Kelly-Anne searched the ground around the jump.
“How about this?” She lifted up a tree branch. The branch was about two metres long and as thick as her forearm. “Will this do?” Issie took the branch from Kelly-Anne and tried to bend it. The branch didn’t yield at all. The wood was green and firm–perfect.
“That should be strong enough,” Issie said. “Now,” she instructed Kelly-Anne as she shoved the branch at a right angle in between the broken logs, “when I tell you, I want you to lean back on that branch and push down on it as hard as you can. That should prise the logs around Comet’s leg apart for a moment. I’m going to shove your riding helmet in between the logs, which will hopefully hold them apart long enough for us to get Comet out.”
Issie looked at Kelly-Anne. “Do you understand what you have to do? Are you ready?” The girl nodded.
“OK…now!”
As Kelly-Anne heaved against the branch the logs pulled apart and Issie managed to ram the riding helmet in right next to Comet’s trapped leg.
“Keep holding it until I can get the helmet all the way in!” Issie shouted.
“I’m trying!” Kelly-Anne snapped.
As Issie forced the helmet in further, Kelly-Anne’s strength faltered and she let go of the stick. There was a horrific cracking noise and Issie was gripped with panic. It sounded like the logs had snapped back and crushed the bones of her horse’s leg!
She was relieved to realise it was actually the sound of the hard fibreglass shell of the riding helmet cracking under the pressure. Thankfully the cracked helmet held firm in the gap and the logs remained bowed apart, hopefully just enough for Issie to get Comet’s leg out.
The sound of the helmet cracking had startled Comet too and the skewbald pony was now moving about restlessly. “Easy, boy,” Issie murmured. “Easy, Comet. I’m going to get you out in just a minute. Steady now…”
There was now room to get both her hands right down into the hole and wrap them tight around Comet’s fetlock. Issie lifted the fetlock gently and eased the leg out.
She felt her heart stop when she saw a dark trickle of blood soaking through the jacket that was wrapped around the cannon bone. She told herself to ignore the blood now covering her hands and to focus on getting her horse out. Issie kept lifting the leg, slowly, gently, talking to the quivering skewbald all the time, reassuring him with her voice. It seemed to take forever, but finally she managed to ease Comet’s hoof all the way out from between the logs.
“Is he OK?” Kelly-Anne asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Issie said anxiously as she lowered Comet’s hoof back down to the ground. She hastily unwrapped the makeshift bandages to check his leg. There was a lot of blood but the cut on his cannon bone wasn’t deep. “I’ll have to walk him and see.”
As Comet took his first steps forward he seemed reluctant to put any weight at all on the injured leg, holding it up in the air.
“He’s lame!” said Kelly-Anne.
“Wait a minute,” Issie replied. “He’s been stuck in that fence. It’s only natural that he’s going to favour that leg until he’s sure it’s OK…”
Sure enough, in a few strides Comet was putting his weight on all four legs again and was walking normally.
When Issie trotted him up to check if he was lame or not, miraculously it looked like the leg was totally sound. The cut on his cannon bone would probably need antibiotic cream, but it seemed to be superficial and other than that the leg was fine. Comet was going to be OK.
“He should be OK to walk home,” Issie said with relief.
“Which one of us is going to ride him?” asked Kelly-Anne.
Issie looked at her with astonishment. “The weight of a rider on his back is the last thing Comet needs right now. Neither of us is riding him. You can ride Diablo. I’m going to walk back.”
Issie looked up at the sun that was now rising over Lake Deepwater. “It should take us about an hour and a half. We’ll take it slow to rest Comet’s leg, but we’ll still make it home before lunchtime in time for your mum to pick you up.”
Kelly-Anne looked even more upset. “Please, Issie.” She had tears in her eyes. “I don’t want to go home.”
“Why not?” said Issie darkly. “You don’t seem to like it here much–I would have thought you’d be glad to leave.”
Kelly-Anne shook her head. “That’s why I ran away on Comet. I thought if Mum came and I wasn’t there she’d just give up again and go home. She’s going to be so mad at me. Everyone at home is angry all the time. It must be my fault because I know I make people angry. I don’t try to, but I do.”
Issie looked at Kelly-Anne, who was trying to hide the fact that she was now crying by making a curtain of hair out of her brown bob.
“Kelly-Anne?” Issie said gently. “I think maybe you’re the one that’s angry. About your parents, I mean. You’ve been taking it out on the horses since you got here, and on us. But it’s not our fault your parents are getting a divorce. And it’s not your fault either. These things just happen.” Kelly-Anne nodded, but she kept her face hidden under the veil of hair.
“Your mum isn’t angry at you. She was really worried about you when Hester said you’d been in trouble,” Issie continued. “She told Aunty Hess that things were tough for you at home. And if we’d known what was going on with the divorce and stuff, maybe we wouldn’t have been so hard on you.”
Kelly-Anne parted her hair away from her face and looked at Issie. “Do I have to go home?”
Issie reached her hand down and helped Kelly-Anne to stand up. “I don’t know,” she said. “Right now, I think we just need to worry about getting back to the farm before we even think about that.”
Kelly-Anne dusted off her jodhpurs and Issie was about to leg her up on to Diablo’s back when the girl hesitated. “You got here really quick. How did you do it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, how did you reach us so fast? I was way ahead of you, I must have been. Th
ere’s no way you could have caught me up.”
“I went straight over instead of taking the ridge track,” Issie said, pointing back at the steep slope of Blackthorn Hill. Kelly-Anne couldn’t believe it.
“But how did you know I was here?” she continued. “How did you know where to come?”
Issie didn’t know what to say. She looked over Kelly-Anne’s shoulder. There he was, cantering away over the hills in the distance. She smiled as she watched the grey pony, his mane and tail streaming out in the wind. He was almost out of sight now, rounding over the ridge that would take him out of view into the basin of Lake Deepwater. If it hadn’t been for Mystic, they would never have made it here in time to save Comet. As for Kelly-Anne, she would never know how Issie had managed to find her that day.
“You were knocked out for a while,” Issie told Kelly-Anne. “In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t have a bit of amnesia!” That seemed to shut Kelly-Anne up. Before the girl could ask any more questions, Issie changed the subject.
“You see that big hill up there to the right? Once we get over that we’ll be back on the ridge track. It’s all downhill after that. We’ll be home in no time.”
Issie gave Kelly-Anne a leg-up on to Diablo. Then she picked up Comet’s reins and checked the skewbald’s leg one more time before they began to head for home.
They had just reached the top of the hill when Issie heard the sound of hoofbeats coming from the other direction and a few moments later Hester and Aidan appeared, cantering around the bend on Stardust and Paris.
“Thank God! Are you both OK?” Hester called out. “Kitty told me everything. Why are you walking? What happened to Comet?” Issie told them the story while Kelly-Anne stood there looking suitably ashamed. The utter stupidity of her actions, taking off with Comet like that, had finally begun to dawn on her.
“Is he lame?” Hester asked.
Issie shook her head. “I don’t think so. But I didn’t want to ride him back just in case. He took a bad knock when his leg went through the logpile.”