Barnstorming (Gail Mccarthy Mysteries) (3 page)

Now we were in a redwood grove; the blind was hidden behind trees. I couldn’t see much of anything. The woods were quiet; only the creak of my saddle and the crunch of Sunny’s footfalls reached my ears. I stared at the trail in front of me, seeing the usual mix of horse hoofprints, deer tracks, pawprints, and human footprints. Everything quiet and peaceful. I could smell the rich dusty scent of the redwood duff, loamy and evocative of summer. A jay squawked high in the branch of a nearby oak tree. I turned my head to catch the flash of blue as he skipped across the air.

Crack! Loud and sharp, the distinct explosion of a gun, firing through the hills, not too far from us. Both Sunny and I flinched. I grabbed the saddle horn and got ready to stop Sunny if he bolted, but my little yellow horse didn’t even spook. Apparently he’d heard gunshots before. I pulled him up and listened as the echo died away.

Nothing. No second shot. No voices. Nothing changed in the green world around me; nothing crashed, nothing moved. Deep in the forest as I was, I couldn’t see far. The silence seemed absolute, as if the little critters of the woods were listening, too. I waited, listening. A squirrel chattered on the limb of a pine tree above me. I looked up. Then I squinted down the trail. Still nothing. Moments passed. Taking a deep breath, I bumped Sunny’s sides with my heels, letting him step forward. My heart was pounding, but I didn’t see what else to do. That shot had not come from very far away.

Sunny trooped down the hill, ears forward, shuffling his back feet a little, as he often did on descents. He didn’t seem perturbed by the shot. On we went. My heart gradually slowed down. I’d heard shots in the woods before, many times. Usually at dawn or dusk, usually when I was home, sitting on my own front porch. I had never, that I could remember, heard a shot as I rode through the hills on a Saturday afternoon. Perhaps a poacher. It was the season for it. I thought of the hunter’s blind. It was well behind me now, and I wasn’t going back.

We were almost at the trail junction when Sunny’s head came up and he halted suddenly. I looked where he was looking and saw motion through the trees, which quickly became a horse and rider loping towards us up the pretty trail.

The horse was a buckskin; the rider, I was quite surprised to see, was male. I rarely met men riding back here. Why, I wasn’t sure. But virtually all of the equestrians I encountered were female, mostly riding solo.

In another second I’d recognized the guy. Jonah Wakefield, the resident trainer at Lazy Valley Stable. The fact that Jonah got to call himself a trainer had a lot to do with the fact that he was sleeping with the owner of Lazy Valley—Juli Barnes. Jonah had taken a six-week course with a well-known horse guru and now felt he was equal to anything when it came to breaking and training horses. Juli apparently liked him well enough to second this belief by calling him her trainer. The whole situation made a lot of us local horse folks roll our eyes.

If there’d been a way to avoid talking to Jonah, I would have been glad to take it. But the man had spotted me and pulled his horse up. Tipping his black cowboy hat—of course he would wear a black felt Stetson—he invited me to pass by.

I’d met Jonah before, but I could see by his face that he didn’t recognize me. This was just fine with me. I smiled a small smile in his general direction, and clucked to Sunny. Obligingly Sunny stepped forward quietly, ready to pass the other horse. But the buckskin danced and skittered sideways towards us, determined to greet this newcomer. Jonah, who was wearing a long duster that went perfectly with the black hat—that is, if you like an affected wannabe cowboy style—allowed his horse to sidle up to Sunny and sniff his nose.

“He’s just a baby,” he said.

Right. I kept my opinion that he should make his baby mind to myself. Sunny ignored the buckskin, except to tip his ears backward. I bumped Sunny’s face with my hand and his sides with my leg, and my steady little horse made to go on by.

“I wouldn’t let him pin his ears like that,” Jonah said.

Now this was a bit much. I had ignored his horse’s genuinely bad manners and he felt free to criticize me for my horse’s very mild response. Call me bad-tempered and hasty, but I couldn’t quite keep my mouth shut.

“Is that right?” I said. “If I were you, I wouldn’t allow my colt to nuzzle strange horses. If they don’t happen to be as well broke as Sunny, your baby could get kicked.” I smiled sweetly.

Jonah bared his teeth in a white flash that passed for a smile in return, but he didn’t look pleased. “I’m a horse trainer,” he said. Again he flashed the smile, no doubt sure that I would be both charmed and impressed. After all, he had a whole herd of middle-aged women who looked just like me and they all thought he was a big deal.

Unfortunately his quite handsome face cut no ice with me. I’ve never been all that impressed with handsome men, and I wasn’t getting any more so in my old age.

“You’re a trainer?” I said innocently. “I wouldn’t have guessed it. Do you mind keeping your colt under control while I ride by. I don’t need my good horse kicked.” And, once more, I asked Sunny to step by the buckskin.

Sunny complied. Jonah didn’t seem to know what to say to this. Although obviously nettled, he reined the prancing buckskin to the side. Just as I cleared him and made to head off down the pretty trail, he called after me. “Do you know Ross Hart?”

“Guy who trains at the Red Barn?” I said, pulling Sunny up once more.

“Yeah. I saw him down below, running his horse at warp speed. Looked like he was headed this way. You might want to keep an eye out.”

“Right,” I said. “Did you hear that shot?”

“What shot?” Jonah Wakefield sounded puzzled.

“I heard a shot. A minute or so ago. From down there somewhere.” I waved my hand in a downhill direction.

“Nope. Didn’t hear a thing.” Jonah’s horse was dancing with impatience and he gave up trying to control it. “See ya,” and he flashed me a meant-to-be charming smile at the same moment that he let the buckskin whirl around and resume careering up the hill. I watched his retreating form and shrugged.

Sunny and I continued down the pretty trail, with me quite earnestly hoping I was done encountering people for the day. But I’d only rounded one corner when an angry buzz in the distance made me flinch. I knew that buzz; I knew what it meant. And it was rapidly approaching.

Somewhat desperately I searched the terrain around me, looking for a safe spot. I didn’t have much time. That slope up ahead next to the curve would have to do. I kicked Sunny up to the trot, reached the wide spot, and reined him up the hill and off the trail. Sunny complied calmly; the approaching mechanical snarl didn’t seem to bother him.

In another second it was visible, engine roaring as it blasted up the hill, a little motorcycle of the type called a dirt bike. I recognized the bearded rider as the guy I’d seen before. I was clearly visible on my bright yellow horse, standing by the side of the trail, but the biker neither paused nor slowed. He came on full speed and blew by me in a rush of noise and wind. I caught a glimpse of some sort of elation on his face as he sped by.

Resisting the strong urge I felt to flip the biker off, I patted Sunny’s neck in gratitude for his completely calm, unflustered demeanor, and stepped him back down on the trail in the wake of the disappearing motorbike.

“This is it,” I said out loud. “I am absolutely not going out riding on the weekends ever again. I never see anybody up here during the week.”

The sound of my own voice was reassuring, as was the sight of Sunny’s yellow ears, pricked forward as he paced steadily down the trail. I tried to refocus on the green world around me, but I could feel my jangled nerves jumping restlessly, alert for trouble. The shot and the dirt bike had definitely rattled me.

As I passed the turnoff to the “swingset trail,” so named because it led past an abandoned swingset in the woods, I caught the flash of a horse and rider disappearing through the trees in the distance, headed away from me, going uphill, toward the top of the ridge. Too far away and behind too many trees to have any idea who it was; the horse looked like a sorrel. Whoever it was, was going at the high lope, and would soon top the ridge, either aiming for Moon Valley or Tucker Pond. I peered curiously at the dust hanging in the air, but the rider was gone.

On we trooped, steadily downhill. Redwoods and oaks made a leafy green wall of trees around me. Light slanted through, seeming to sparkle in brilliant flecks on the grass that fringed the trail. Soon we would reach the junction with the dirt logging road and the meadow full of pampas grass that I had looked down on from the ridge trail. This meadow was criss-crossed with the tracks of dirt bikes—I sincerely hoped that all would be quiet there today.

Looking over my left shoulder, I saw the forked shape of the landmark tree silhouetted against the sky. Sunny and I were behind it now. I imagined how it looked from my front porch, solitary on the ridgeline. We were deep in the wild woods now, the heart of the green world.

I glanced behind me. Nothing but trees and shafts of golden late afternoon light. But I had the sense that someone was watching me. I tried to shrug it off, reminding myself that I often had this feeling when I rode solo through the hills. Many times I had imagined the waiting, watchful eyes of a cougar fixed on us from some shadowy place. Once, long ago, I had met a mountain lion on these trails.

But it wasn’t the wild critters who were worrying me now.

Sunny walked out, eager to get home. We passed the junction with the logging road and I looked idly up its two ruts. Surely those were fresh tire tracks. Not a motorcycle. A truck or a car. The road was rough; it must have been a four-wheel-drive vehicle. I wondered who had driven up there.

We were in the scrubby meadow full of clumps of rustling pampas grass. I remembered the day I had galloped across this meadow in the teeth of a blowing storm and reached down to stroke Sunny’s neck. “You got me through that one, didn’t you, boy?”

Sunny ignored me. His stride was rhythmic and relaxed as he plowed steadily through the loose sandy ground and up a hill. He knew where he was going. He didn’t need my encouragement or my pats. Solid-minded little Sunny knew how to take care of himself.

I smiled and felt my shoulders drop a fraction. Maybe we were going to get through the rest of this ride undisturbed. So far it hadn’t exactly been my most relaxing horseback jaunt.

The trail curved through a grove of madrones and oaks, headed toward the next ridge. I took in the brilliant blue of the sky behind the sharp-edged, shiny, green leaves and smelled the trail dust. Up ahead I could see the bright openness of another small meadow.

And suddenly Sunny came to a stop. His head came up; his ears pricked so sharply that they almost touched at the tips. And then he nickered.

Now this was surprising. Sunny didn’t nicker under saddle. Not once that I could remember had he done this. I craned to see ahead through the trees. One day last spring Sunny and I had met a coyote pup at this very spot. Both horse and coyote had been intrigued with each other—but Sunny had certainly not nickered.

I couldn’t see anything. I bumped with my heels, but Sunny stood as if rooted to the spot and nickered again. This time an answering nicker rang out. Up ahead, in the meadow.

Once again I bumped with my heels against Sunny’s sides and clucked to him. Sunny’s head lifted a fraction more, and he stepped forward. Both of us stared intently down the trail, peering through the screen of trees as we walked on. There was another horse there somewhere.

In another fifty feet we emerged from the shrubbery into the sunny wide-open golden grass of what I called the “warm meadow.” Our trail ran right through the middle of this meadow until it reached the spot where four single-track paths came together. Standing near this junction, grazing, was a white horse, wearing a saddle and a bridle. She lifted her head and nickered softly when she saw us.

I stared. Sunny stared. Surely that was Dolly. I recognized the mare, and the saddle. But where was Jane? It didn’t seem like her to turn her horse loose to graze dragging the bridle reins.

“Hey, Dolly,” I said in a conversational tone. “Where’s your person?”

The mare lifted her head and looked at me. I wasn’t exactly expecting an answer to my question, and yet it seemed as if the horse had heard and understood.

She took a couple of steps down the trail, and then her hoof came down on the dragging reins, jerking her in the face. Dolly’s head flew up, but she was an old horse and she’d been around. She lifted her hoof, releasing the rein, and kept on down the trail at a walk. I followed her.

Past the trail junction, on down the valley. Sunny eyed the trail that led to home, but followed the mare fairly willingly. I wondered if I should get off and catch the riderless horse, but Dolly seemed to be managing okay.

“Jane!” I called. The sound seemed to echo off the hills around me. No one answered.

This was weird. Where the hell was Jane?

And then Dolly stopped. Her head went down. I rode past the small scrubby pine tree by the side of the trail and saw the figure lying on the ground behind the tree. Blue jeans, boots, dark blond hair streaked with gray—face down. Dolly was sniffing her hair.

In a second I was off of Sunny and tethering him by the reins to a tree branch. Sunny stood quietly while I stepped past the white mare and reached down for Jane. I turned her over.