"For now," she said. "But Jess is freaking out. She says she needs to move her horses over to this barn."
"There is no guarantee that this roof is going to hold any better," Esther said when she overheard Fern. "Besides, it's too dangerous to move the horses around now. They just have to stay where they are. Do they have tarps to put over the stalls?"
"Apparently Hashtag doesn't like tarps." Fern made a face.
"Does he like being plastered with rainwater?" Mickey said.
"No but she's bribed another girl into switching stalls with her."
"If she lets that horse go in this storm, she'll never see it again," Esther said.
"Yeah that would be bad," Mickey said. "We should go and watch."
"I don't think that’s a good idea, girls," Esther called out after us but we'd already grabbed our own raincoats and were running after Fern.
Watching Jess being tossed about on the end of a lead rope was something none of us were willing to pass up and besides, I figured that if Hashtag did get loose then one of us could grab him before he made a mad dash out into the storm. Because even though I didn't like Jess, I didn't want to see her horse hurt.
CHAPTER THIRTY
We ran through the covered walkway that linked the barns together but it didn't do much to keep us dry since the rain was blowing sideways anyway. By the time we got over there, things were already a mess. Jess had Hashtag out of his stall and the big bay horse was pumped up on adrenaline, his neck crested and the whites of his eyes showing. Jess was holding on to the end of the lead rope but he was tossing her about like she was a rag doll.
"Hold him," Mr. Eastford was yelling. "Don't you dare let that horse go."
"I'm trying," Jess said through gritted teeth. Her face was pale and I knew that she knew she'd done a stupid thing and now she couldn't undo it.
People were trying to get close enough to grab the horse and help her but he was all steel hooves, skittering over the cement and sliding into people. No one could get close enough to help Jess and she wasn't going to be able to hold onto him much longer.
"You let him go and you'll be sorry," Mr. Eastford shouted.
"You’re not helping, Dad," Jess shouted back.
"Where is the stall that she's trying to get him to go in?" I asked Fern.
She pointed all the way down the aisle.
"She's never going to get him in there." I shook my head.
"I know," Fern said.
"Jess," I called out. "Why don't you just try and put him back in his old stall for now."
Jess didn't answer me but she tried pulling the gelding over to the open stall that she'd got him out of but Hashtag was too wound up to even think about going back in there. He balked at the door, eyeing the rain that was streaming through the roof and when Jess yelled at him he reared, hooves narrowly missing her head.
"I don't know what to do," she cried. "Someone help me."
I'd never heard Jess ask for help from anyone before. It was like when Cat was almost swept out to sea and for that one brief moment I knew that if I didn't try and save her then I would never be able to live with myself, even if I died in the process. This felt the same. I could stand by and watch as Jess got trampled or Hashtag galloped out into the hurricane and broke a leg or something. Or I could step in and try to help her, all while possibly being kicked in the head.
A group of adults were standing around watching. One woman in tan breeches tried to dive in and grab the lead rope from Jess but Hashtag whipped around and she was sent flying, landing on her butt. After that no one else seemed to want to help. The ambulance service didn't run during a hurricane because the winds were too strong and it was too dangerous for them to be out on the road. That was why they told you to stay inside and not do anything stupid because if you got hurt, you were on your own until the storm passed and even after that, they could only get to you when the roads were cleared. But as I watched the expensive jumper and the girl who hated me battling it out, I knew I couldn't just stand by and watch any longer.
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
I knew it was dumb to think I could step in and help a horse who was freaking out when other, more experienced people had tried and failed. But I'd always had an uncanny knack of being able to calm horses even when I didn't feel calm myself. I stuck my hand in my pocket, hoping beyond hope that I hadn't given the last mint to Wendell and there it was, stuck in the very corner all sticky and melted and covered in lint. I pulled it out and crackled the wrapper.
At first Hashtag didn't notice. He was too busy dragging Jess around to even hear but I kept scrunching that plastic wrapper between my fingers and eventually he heard it. For the first time since I'd seen him, he stood stock still, his sides heaving in and out and covered with sweat.
"Jess," I said softly. "Follow me, okay?"
"Okay," she said, her voice wavering slightly.
I walked down the aisle pretending not to care about Hashtag at all, just focused on my mint, acting like I had the best treat in the whole world and I was going to eat it all myself.
For a moment Hashtag stood there, not knowing what to do. I paused and turned, holding out the mint so that he could smell what it was. He stuck his nose out and tried to snatch it but I pulled it away at the last minute.
"If you want it, then come and get it."
I walked towards the dry stall and Hashtag followed. Jess still had the lead rope in her hand but it was slack. He wasn't doing what she wanted. He was following me. The crowd parted before us. No one said a word. I crossed my fingers that there wouldn't be a giant rumble of thunder or crash of the wind tearing something else down before we got to the stall because I knew that the spell of the illusive mint was only temporary. A fine thread of imaginary silk that connected me to the scared horse and could easily be broken by anything.
When I got to the stall I walked straight in. I heard the hoof beats pause behind me and then he followed. Jess dropped the rope and closed the door. He was safely inside.
I gave him the sticky mint, showering him with praise and taking his halter off. He licked my hands once the mint had gone, content with that small peace offering. The one thing that had got him to safety barely even anything at all.
"Get him some hay," I told Jess.
She ran away and then came back with an armful, throwing it inside so that I could get out of the stall without him escaping.
I waited for her to say thank you but she just looked at me blankly and then walked away. Unlike my stepsister, I hadn't saved Jess's life. Hypothetically speaking I’d stopped her father from killing her, which is what he would have done if she'd let the horse go but Jess was too proud and spoiled to ever thank anyone for anything. Still, it didn't stop everyone else from crowding around me and slapping me on the back.
"How did you do that?" Mickey said.
"I don't know." I shrugged. "I didn't even know if it was going to work or not."
"Of course you did." Fern gave a little smile.
I had a feeling that she probably could have done the same thing too.
We stood around chatting with the Fox Run girls for a while. It turned out that they were just as scared as we were and unlike Jess, who seemed to get even meaner when she was stressed out, they were happy to have people around them who were nice.
"Where is your trainer?" Mickey asked. "Where is Andre?"
Andre was the Fox Run trainer only I hadn't seen him around in ages. The last I heard, Mr. Eastford was going to hire someone else to teach Jess and Amber and although I hadn't seen anyone else around, I had seen significant enough improvement in Jess's riding to believe that someone else was training her. Someone who she would actually listen to.
"I think he took his horses up north," Fern said.
Amber, Jess's twin sister, came over and stood with us.
"He left us." She shook her head. "Took his own horses and went out of the state. Can you believe it?"
"No," Mickey said. "Why would he do that?"
"I don't know," Amber said. "But my father is going to make sure that he doesn't have a job to come back to. He was furious."
And I knew that was true because even though Amber and Jess kept their horses at home, they rode and trained under the Fox Run banner and Mr. Eastford had probably pumped a ton of cash into that facility, even if he was having his daughters also trained on the side. I wanted to ask who they were really riding with but didn't dare what with Jess and Mr. Eastford on the rampage.
The wind was picking up again and thunder and lightning cracked closer together now.
"We should get back," I said. "I need to check on Bluebird."
"Yes, I wouldn't leave your precious pony alone for too long if I was you," Jess snapped as she walked past with another armful of hay for Hashtag. "Someone might try and steal him."
"Talk about ungrateful," Mickey said as we ran back to our barn. "You save her horse from galloping off into the hurricane and being hit by a flying car or something and not only does she not thank you, she says something stupid like that?"
"It doesn't matter," I said. "Just forget it."
But I couldn't follow my own advice. Why would Jess think that someone would want to steal my pony? Didn't I already have enough to worry about? And as we dashed along the pathway back to our barn, lightening lit up the track. It flickered back and forth across the sky and this time I wasn’t almost sure that I saw something. This time I was certain.
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
I grabbed Mickey's arm.
"Did you see it?" I yelled at her.
"See what?" she shouted, her hair blown back by the wind.
"The horse?" I said.
"What horse?"
"The white horse."
"Don't be stupid. There is no white horse."
We clutched each other as she dragged me back to the safety of our barn. It was getting harder to stand upright in the wind. At first we had laughed at the news reporters as they braved the first squalls of the hurricane that came ashore. Holding onto the safety of their news vans and tying themselves to trees so that they wouldn’t blow away. We'd laughed at them, said that their camera man probably had a big fan that they were blowing on them to make it look worse than it was. Now we knew it was true. It was hard to keep your footing in the wind. It threatened to knock your feet right out from under you and toss you away into the dark. I didn't want to go out there. It was the last place I wanted to be but I knew I'd seen something and I was pretty sure that what I had seen wasn't a ghost horse. It was a real one.
Esther was standing in front of our stalls looking unamused that we had taken so long.
"I told you to let that girl take care of her own horse," she scolded.
"You should have seen Emily," Mickey gushed. "Hashtag was all crazy but she didn't care. She was like the horse whisperer. She had this candy wrapper and she crinkled it and he just followed her like she was the pied piper of horses."
"That's great," Esther said. "Now how about tending to your own horses? The rain has been running down the barn aisle and the fronts of the stalls are flooding."
I looked down at my boots to see a river of water running down the barn aisle.
"Oh no."
"Oh yes."
"What do we do?" Mickey said, her eyes wide. "What happens if the stalls flood?"
"I'm using the bags of shavings like sand bags, putting them in front of the stalls to direct the water away."
"Is it working?" I said.
"For now." Esther sighed. "But I don't know how long they will hold."
"They'll hold," I said.
"Besides, the storm has to be over soon, doesn't it?" Mickey added.
"The storm has slowed." Esther shook her head. "It's practically sitting over us just churning away. We haven't even seen the eye yet."
"I can't believe it's taking so long," Mickey groaned.
"They think it may take a couple of days to clear out of Florida." Esther leaned against the stall and wiped her face with her bandana.
It was black, like my mood. I didn't want to be stuck in the hurricane for days. Hashtag was just the start. Soon all the horses would get restless and nervous and then what? I didn't have enough candy for all of them.
"I saw something," I said. "Out in the storm."
"You're not still going on about that ghost horse are you?" Esther seemed exasperated with me.
"No," I said. "It wasn't a ghost horse. It was a real one."
"Out there?" Esther looked out into the darkness where lightning still streaked across the sky. "Are you sure?"
I tried to recall what I had seen. The flick of a tail. The sound of a hoof striking the ground. The snort from a nostril. I hadn't imagined it and it hadn’t been a cloud of fog that resembled a horse, floating along like some kind of spirit. It had been real flesh and blood and bone.
"Yes,” I said. "I am sure."
"Well maybe it was one of the horses from the other barn. You know I'm sure Jess isn't the only idiot who thinks it is okay to take her horse out in this."
"Maybe," I said.
"Or it could be one of the track horses. You know they are all pumped up from their race training. I wouldn’t put it past one of them to burst right out of their stall."
"Right," I said but I wasn't sure that it was either of those things.
I stood at the end of the barn, looking out into the dark. Each time the lightening lit the track, I scoured the grounds for anything moving. Mickey came to stand beside me, her arms wrapped around herself as a cold wind blew all around us.
"I didn't see it," she said. "Are you sure it was a real horse? It could have been anything blowing around out there."
"I think I know a real horse when I see one," I said.
"I know, it's just, it's kind of sad if a real horse is stuck out there in that." She pointed as a giant branch broke off a tree with a crack and landed on the wet ground with a splash. "After all, if it was out there alone, it wouldn't have a herd to protect it."
"I know," I said.
After a while Mickey left but I stood there watching. I needed to see the horse again. I needed to know that I wasn't mad and if there was a horse out there then I really needed to catch it. Mickey was right. The hurricane was no place for a horse to be out there alone. It wasn't even contained in a pasture. It was galloping around free with all the downed power lines and sharp pieces of twisted metal that had blown off the roof. It was a death trap out there.
I strained to hear the sound of hooves against the wind or a whinny whistling over the rain but I didn't hear anything. If there was a horse then it had gone again.
"No sign of it then?" Fern came to keep me company for a while.
"No," I said.
We listened as the wind howled and the rain continued to flow in a river through the barn. Phoebe was curled up asleep in the pocket of Fern's jacket. Every now and then she would open an eye and check that all was right with her little squirrel world before closing it again.
"Do you think I'm crazy?" I said, fully aware that I was asking the girl with the pet squirrel if I was the mad one.
"No," she said, then pointed. "Look."
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
The horse stood out there in the rain. His mane was long and tangled and there were twigs and leaves in his tail. His head was high and his ears pricked as he watched us. The lightning struck over in the trees and he reared up, for one moment suspended in midair before galloping off.
"I told you," I cried, jumping to my feet. "I said there was a horse out there."
"I believed you," Fern called after me as I ran to find Esther.
She was sweeping water away from the front of our stalls, a flashlight hanging around her neck. Its yellow beam swung back and forth as she swished the water away from our horses.
"I saw the horse," I said breathlessly. "A real horse."
Esther looked up. "Okay?"
"What do you mean, okay? There is a horse out there in the hurricane."<
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"And what am I supposed to do about it?" She stopped sweeping and lent on the broom.
"We have to catch it," I said.
Esther sighed. "Don't be ridiculous."
"It's not ridiculous." Tears pricked in the back of my eyes. "How can you just leave a poor horse out there in that?" I pointed as a smaller tree branch blew past the end of the barn.
"Exactly because of that," she said. "I don't want to get hit by a falling tree or swept off my feet into a downed power line and neither do you. It's dangerous out there, Emily. You have to understand that."
I looked at my feet. "But the poor horse."
"That horse has obviously managed to survive out there for this long."
She put her hand on my shoulder and I wanted to shrug it off but I didn't. I stood there while her hand, that was supposed to be comforting, instead pressed into me like a hundred pound weight.
"And let me remind you," she said. "That horse doesn't belong to you. Your pony is right here, safe in his stall. He needs you. What help are you going to be to him if you get hurt?"
I looked at Bluebird who was standing in the corner of his stall napping, completely oblivious to the commotion that was going on outside.
"But I wouldn't get hurt," I mumbled.
"You don't know that. Now come on, why don't you sweep some of this water for me?"
"Okay," I said.
Esther didn't understand. The horse was special, I just knew he was and even though he wasn't mine, that didn't mean that I could just leave him out there to get hurt. I could never turn my back on a horse, no matter who he belonged to. After all, I'd helped Hashtag and he belonged to Jess, who hated my guts.
"What did she say?" Fern came over when she saw me sweeping.
"She said I should leave it alone." I sighed.
"It is pretty dangerous out there," she said. "But I still feel bad for the horse."
"Me too."
I thought for a moment, trying to come up with a plan that wouldn't involve Esther or my mom being mad at me.
White Horses (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 10) Page 9