Beach Ride (11 page)

“Even though we
were
just trying to be helpful,” Lisa finished.

“We’re sorry,” Stevie said again. “Really, we are.”

Alice didn’t say anything for a long time. She just stood there behind the screen door. Then, as they watched, Alice’s eyes brimmed with tears.

Stevie was embarrassed, but understood that it would be wrong to say any more. They’d done their apologizing and said their piece. “Class starts at two,” she said.

“Please come,” Lisa added.

Alice stepped back and closed the door.

There was nothing for Stevie and Lisa to do then but to go to Pine Hollow, catch up on some chores, and hope that Alice would show up for class.

T
HROUGH THE HAZE
Carole could feel a constant motion. The world around her swarmed. Bright lights above! She pushed herself toward them. She gasped for breath. Cool, fresh air entered her lungs.

She opened her eyes. It took a few seconds to understand. The constant motion came from the gurney beneath her. The bright lights were built into a ceiling. And the cool fresh air was from an oxygen mask that covered her nose and mouth. She was in a hospital. Sheila was on a gurney next to her, and her relatives were there, too, along with a mass of doctors and nurses.

“Hi, honey!” her father greeted her. “You’re fine and so is Sheila, but you two gave us quite a scare.”

“It was awful, Daddy,” Carole said. “I kept going away and under.”

“It was a riptide,” Uncle Willie explained. “Those things’ll pull out to sea before you know what’s happening. And then, by the time you get out of its grasp, you’re too exhausted to make it back to shore. You were very lucky.”

Carole’s memories of everything but the masses of powerful swirling water were vague. There had been a horse, though, she was sure of that.

Next to her, Sheila sat up and spoke to her.

“Hello!” she said.

Then Carole remembered. She and Sheila had somehow ridden the pony to shore. Sheila and her pony had braved the incredible force of tide and surf to save her.

“You guys rescued me, didn’t you?” Carole asked.

“It was Maverick who did the rescuing,” Sheila said. “I was just along for the ride.”

“How is he?” Carole asked.

“The vet came to the beach to get him,” Uncle Willie said. “Uncle Mitch and I followed the ambulance here. I told the vet we’d call later. Honestly, dear, I just don’t know how he is. He collapsed on the
beach just like you two did. But he was alive. I never saw more determination in one animal in my whole life than I saw in that pony of yours.”

“He loves me, Dad,” Sheila said.

There were tears in Aunt Joanna’s eyes. “I’ll say,” she agreed. “His love for you is strong enough to move mountains of water.”

For Carole, the next couple of hours were spent at the mercy of an endless stream of well-meaning medical people. Carole was sure she was fine, but they insisted that she have every inch of herself checked. That meant X rays from head to toe and a careful examination of all of the scratches, abrasions, and contusions on her body. She was surprised to find how many places had been cut and scratched. Most of the cuts had probably come from being dragged along the sandy bottom of the ocean. None of them appeared to be serious, but they all got serious attention by the doctors and nurses.

Finally, she and Sheila were declared fit to leave.

“Sleep,” the doctor said. “That’s what they’re both going to need a lot of.”

Carole didn’t doubt that for a minute. She was ready to start the prescription
almost
immediately. The “almost” meant that she wanted to put it off until she and Sheila had checked on Maverick.

Their parents couldn’t object. After all, the pony had saved both girls’ lives.

Uncle Willie drove them to the vet’s clinic. They found the vet with Maverick, who was now lying down on the soft straw of a clean box stall. The vet was listening to him with his stethoscope. He took the instrument out of his ears and looked up at the visitors.

“How’s he doing?” Sheila asked.

“Pretty well, considering,” said the vet. “But he’s tired. He took a lot of water into his lungs. The whole thing was a terrible strain on his heart. There is probably some lameness. Hard to imagine that he could endure such an exhausting trial without any effect on his mobility. I don’t know what damage may have been done to any of his other systems, but my main concern is the exhaustion and his heart.”

“Can I touch him?” Sheila asked.

The vet stood up and opened the stall door for Sheila. “Of course,” he said, inviting her in.

Sheila went right to Maverick. She sat down by his head and began patting his cheek. He opened his eyes and looked up at her. He lifted his head ever so slightly. Sheila slid her legs under his face and then held his head on her lap. Maverick closed his eyes again and seemed to relax, reassured.

“You’re going to be okay, boy,” she said. “You are the strongest, bravest pony in the world. I never would have been able to save Carole without you, and she would be long out to sea without our help. You’ll get better, Maverick. You just have to. If you could make it through the ocean, you can make it back to health. You just have to. I don’t think I could—”

Sheila didn’t finish the sentence, but Carole thought she knew what she was going to say. Carole had seen a lot of horses and owners and knew how close a relationship could form between horse and rider. She knew how much she loved Starlight. But she didn’t think she’d ever seen anything like what she was witnessing right then. She’d seen Sheila and Maverick ride together as one. She’d seen the pony risk his life to do what Sheila asked him to do. And now she was seeing Maverick heal because Sheila asked him to. With every stroke of her hand, the pony seemed to find strength. It was awesome.

Carole was too tired to stand any longer. She just sat down on the floor of the stable and watched Sheila and Maverick. Her father, Aunt Joanna, Uncle Willie, and the vet watched in silence. It was a magical event, and only Sheila and Maverick mattered.

“Nobody’s going to take you away from me,” Sheila assured Maverick. “Never, as long as we live. We’ll
always be together. And if you are lame, I’ll take care of you. I don’t care if I never ride you again. I’ll take care of you forever. I don’t want another horse. I just want you.” She was crying then. The tears spilled down her cheeks and landed on Maverick’s soft brown coat, still crusted with salt from the ocean water.

Maverick snuggled closer to Sheila. Sick and tired as he was, he was nuzzling her, comforting
her.

The vet crouched back down and put the stethoscope to Maverick’s chest. He smiled.

“He’s better,” said the vet. “You’re helping him, you know.”

“He’s helping me, too,” said Sheila. Then she looked up at her parents. “You won’t make me sell him now, will you? I’ve just got to keep him. You can understand that now, right?”

Aunt Joanna was crying. She couldn’t answer. Uncle Willie answered for both of them.

“Any horse that’s willing to risk his life just because you ask him to is a horse you can keep for as long as you want. Maverick has a home in our family. Guaranteed.”

Sheila looked down at her horse. “Did you hear that, Maverick?” The pony took a deep breath and sighed. He closed his eyes.

“Is he okay?” Aunt Joanna asked the vet.

The vet reached out and put a hand on the horse’s chest where his breathing was now regular, deep, and slow, just as it ought to be.

“He’s okay. He’s much better, in fact. And he’s sleeping. That’s what he needs most right now. Rest.”

Very carefully, Sheila lifted his head from her lap and lowered it back onto the soft straw, patting him gently and talking calmly, aware that at some level he heard her voice and knew she was there and caring for him. She crouched next to the sleeping horse for a final farewell.

Carole listened. She was close, so she could hear what Sheila said as she patted her beloved pony while he slept.

There was one more contented sigh from the pony. Then Sheila stood up. It was time to leave. It was time for Sheila and Carole to sleep, too.

J
UST WHEN
S
TEVIE
and Lisa were going to stand by the door of Pine Hollow to see if Alice would show up, Mrs. Reg spotted them. Before the two girls could even say hello, Mrs. Reg began spouting a list of “little” jobs for them to complete before class. Since they felt they were still in hot water for their escapade on Sunday, they didn’t dare argue. The next thing they knew, they were mixing feed grains in the grain shed. And then they were carrying a bale of hay to the feed room in the stable. And then they were mucking out Delilah’s stall. By the time they finished these “little” jobs, they had to dash to tack up their horses for class.

The first they saw of Alice was in the schooling
ring. She was mounted and walking Comanche around to warm him up before class.

Both girls wanted to talk to her, to tell her how glad they were to see her, to say how right she’d been to decide to come back, and to apologize once again. None of these things got said, however, because Max entered the ring then and slapped his riding crop against his leg twice to signal the beginning of class. Max didn’t allow any talking in his classes. Stevie and Lisa both felt that was a rule they shouldn’t break just then. Class began.

Max started with the usual warm-up exercises. The riders walked, trotted, and cantered, and then switched among the gaits some until each rider was relaxed and comfortable with his or her horse and the horses were comfortable with their riders. Then he said that since this was a holiday week, he thought they ought to have some holiday spirit and would, therefore, be playing games for the rest of the class.

They began with follow the leader and, as usual, Stevie was picked to be the leader because Max knew he could count on her to do some fairly ridiculous things. She did not let him down. She took the eight riders in the class on a crooked trail around the ring and then right out of the ring by opening the gate. Three riders got eliminated right off the bat because
they forgot to dismount at the gate as Stevie had. Stevie put down her reins and held her arms out like airplane wings, directing her horse with leg signals alone. Stevie was good at that and so was Topside. Most of the riders could handle it. A few could not. They were eliminated and ended up back in the ring, too.

It took another five minutes for Max to spot errors from the other riders, including the fact that Lisa was laughing. Alice, on the other hand, seemed to do everything just right. She and Stevie were the only ones left when Max declared the game ended, thanked Stevie, and congratulated Alice.

Then, since there were eight of them in class, Max formed two teams of four, and they began a series of relay races. In one of the races, the first rider had to ride to the far end of the course, pick up a water bucket from a stool, and carry it back to a teammate, who then had to ride it back and put it on the stool. The trickiest part of that one turned out to be putting the bucket back on the stool. Lisa approached the stool slowly and cautiously and managed the task the first time. Stevie was in such a hurry that she had to make Topside pass the stool four times before she could do it, and that included once when she had to dismount to pick the bucket up off the ground!

Then Max set up everybody’s favorite game, and that was mounted squirt gun target practice. The problem was that all eight of the riders were issued squirt guns. While one member of each team rode forward to the targets and sent a stream of water as near as they could get to the bull’s-eyes on the targets, the other three members spent their time squirting members of the opposite team. The opposing team returned “fire.” The game ended in total chaos. The riders were all dripping wet, but laughing too hard to care. In fact, the driest part of the ring seemed to be the targets!