Crazy Horse (5 page)

“Please, Lisa, don’t start on that again!” Kirstie’s shoulders dropped, her eyes prickled from lack of sleep. She’d ridden in on the bus hoping for sympathy from the person she considered to be her best friend. Yet all Lisa could do was point out one more time how lacking poor Crazy Horse was in the equine beauty stakes.

“No, I’m serious!” Lisa opened her eyes wide and spread both hands palms upward. “Why Crazy Horse?”

Kirstie turned to follow the latest arrivals into school. “Maybe they have a problem judging what makes a good horse,” she said sarcastically. “You don’t have to be an expert on how a horse should look to steal one!”

“No!” Lisa ran up the steps after her. “I really mean it, Kirstie. I’m being logical here. Crazy Horse doesn’t have any kind of pedigree, does he?”

Slowly, Kirstie faced her. “Oh, yeah. His mother was a purebred Arab, his sire was Independence Day, a Kentucky Thoroughbred from one of the best studs in the country! Didn’t I tell you?”

Ignoring her scathing remark, Lisa rushed on. “So, no pedigree. Nothing special to pick him out from any other horse in the remuda?”

“You got it.” Giving up any hope of a sympathetic response, Kirstie headed down the corridor to her classroom.

“But you haven’t!” Lisa was still close on her heels. “Got my point, that is. Which is: it could’ve been Yukon or Jitterbug. But it wasn’t. It was Crazy Horse.”

“Wrong place, wrong time, I guess.” Poor Crazy Horse just happened to be the nearest victim. The rope had snaked out across the meadow and his had been the head that the noose had fallen over.

“But isn’t it too much of a coincidence? Doesn’t Crazy Horse stick by Cadillac, come hell or high water?” Lisa slipped in through the classroom doorway and put her arm across it to block Kirstie’s way. “They’re the same as Lucky and Rodeo Rocky; you can’t pry them apart. So what if the real plan was just to steal Cadillac? Wouldn’t that make more sense?”

“Maybe.” Kirstie was forced to think the theory through. “Cadillac’s worth twice as much money as any other horse we have. But when the rustlers roped him and began to drag him out of the field, you reckon Crazy Horse must have objected?”

Lisa nodded. “He’d see he was losing his best friend. It’s the middle of the night and these strange guys break in and take Cadillac prisoner. He’d go crazy, wouldn’t he?”

Kirstie nodded. “He’d put up a big fight to stay with Cadillac, that’s for sure.”

“So the only way the rustlers would make it was if they took Crazy Horse along, too.” Lisa saw that her argument had finally sunk in. “He played the hero and gave up his own freedom for Cadillac!”

“Right.” Kirstie closed her eyes and thought hard. A scary question shaped itself out of the turmoil of the previous night’s events. “But if the rustlers don’t really want Crazy Horse, and they only used him to get Cadillac out of the meadow…” she paused to look Lisa straight in the eye, “…then what’s gonna happen to the poor guy now?”

“Kirstie, I’m real sorry.” Lisa sought Kirstie out during lunch break. She found her outside in the empty yard, sitting on a low wall and huddled inside her fleece jacket.

“Yeah, I know.” A loud sigh escaped from deep in her chest. Kirstie had been hoping that her gloomy mood would ease during the morning. But it hadn’t. If anything, it had gotten worse. Here she was in school, not hearing a word anyone said to her. In English her teacher had called her out for daydreaming, and in math, she’d stumbled over an easy question.

“No, you don’t.” Lisa shivered, then sat quietly beside her. Together, they stared down San Luis’s long main street. “I don’t mean I’m sorry about Cadillac and Crazy Horse…”

Kirstie bit her lip and narrowed her eyes. She spotted the sheriff’s car pulling away from his office and cruising toward the school.

“…But sure I am.” Lisa pulled herself up short. “I reckon it’s a shame about the robbery.”

Kirstie turned a troubled gaze toward her friend. “Where are they now?” she pleaded. “Are they in a truck being driven to some sale barn somewhere? Are they holed up in some nasty, dark barn? Where?”

Lisa shook her head, struggling to say what she felt. “Listen, I feel bad, I want to tell you…the other day, I was way out of line.”

Giving an empty smile, Kirstie sighed again. “You gave Crazy Horse a pretty hard time,” she admitted.

“I know. And that’s why I’m sorry. If I’d known he was gonna be stolen, I’d never have been so rough on him. And now he’s gone, and it feels like it’s my fault.”

“No way.” Kirstie softened. “But thanks anyway.”

As the sheriff’s car drew near and eased into the curb, Lisa nodded. “So we’re OK, you and me?”

Kirstie nodded back. Sheriff Francini had gotten out of the car, was zipping up his jacket and heading toward her. “Hey, Lisa,” she murmured before her friend could slip away. “Don’t feel bad.”

“No?” Lisa hesitated. “How come?”

For the first time since the incident, Kirstie smiled. “You were right. Crazy Horse doesn’t score high marks in the looks department. I’m not saying he’s ugly, mind; just unusual. And you know something? He kinda makes up for it.”

“Great personality,” Lisa confirmed.

“Smart,” Kirstie added. “Real clever.”

“A kidder.”

“Yeah, a joker,” Kirstie agreed. “And I guess I have to admit, just a
little
bit nutty.”

Sheriff Larry Francini looked and sounded more like the man who ran the local pizza restaurant than the upholder of law and order in San Luis County, Colorado. He was short—stocky if you were kind, fat if you were honest—and had a fringe of dark hair below a shiny bald head. He wore a dark mustache and a permanent, easygoing smile.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” he told Kirstie after she’d tried to describe the three horse thieves from the night before. “Your mom tells me it was pretty dark out there. Ain’t no surprise to me that you don’t remember too much about them.”

“You seen my mom?” Kirstie sat in the principal’s office with the sheriff. She’d been excused from the first class of the afternoon to talk to him.

“Sure. I was out there this morning. Helped Charlie and her fix the fence. According to her, it was you who raised the alarm.”

“Yes, but I wish I’d concentrated more on how they looked. All I know is there were three of them, wearing Stetsons, collars up.”

“How about their horses?”

“One was a sorrel, two were paints.” Kirstie remembered this much, at least. “Oh, and one was wearing a fancy bridle; one of those plaited kinds, red and white leather, I guess. It looked new to me.”

“Hmm.” The sheriff made a mental note. “Maybe I could check that with the local saddlery store, see if an item like that has been sold lately.”

Kirstie nodded quickly. It was the only detail so far that might provide a lead. “What else are you gonna do?” she urged.

“Well, now, first I file my report…”

“No, I mean, where are you gonna start looking for Cadillac and Crazy Horse?”

Larry Francini stood and picked up his white felt hat from the principal’s desk. “It ain’t that easy. For a start, we don’t have too many clues to go on.”

Kirstie broke in. “They were headed up by Hummingbird Rock. We saw them there, heading for Miners’ Ridge. Isn’t that a start?”

Francini went on steadily. “Second, I’m a little short of men right now. My deputy is on vacation, and I have a whole stack of traffic violations piling up on my desk, plus a break-in at the gas station last Friday night…”

This was bad news for Kirstie. “You mean, you won’t be going after the rustlers?”

Hat on head, the sheriff shrugged. “I mean to keep my eyes and ears open,” he promised on his way out of the door. “Once I’ve filed the report, I reckon that’s about the best I can do.”

“That’s the real world.” Later that afternoon, Sandy Scott sat Kirstie down at the kitchen table. “You can’t expect all the cops in Colorado to drop everything and go out onto Miners’ Ridge looking for Cadillac and Crazy Horse!”

“I don’t want all the cops in the whole state, just a couple!” Frustrated and angry, Kirstie flopped into a chair and fought back the tears. “When did the sheriff’s office in San Luis last arrest a criminal? That’s what I want to know!”

Sandy frowned and glanced at Lisa, who had ridden out with Kirstie to Half Moon Ranch on the school bus. Kirstie’s mother looked pale and tired, resigned to what had happened.

“I agree.” Lisa defended her friend. “If they were my horses, I’d want Sheriff Francini to visit Jim Mullins at the Lazy B for a start. That’s the next ranch to here, so there’s a good chance the rustlers had to pass through Horseshoe Valley around about dawn.”

“Maybe.” Sandy Scott nodded. “And I’m sure the sheriff will do that when he finds the time.”

“Yeah!” Kirstie had paid attention to Lisa’s theory. “Once you come down the far side of Miners’ Ridge, the dirt track running along Horseshoe Creek is the only road for miles. That’s where the rustlers must have parked their truck!”

“Maybe!” her mom repeated, more loudly this time, and with a note of warning not to rush ahead without thinking.

But Kirstie jumped up from the table. “Is Hadley still over there?” she demanded. “Why don’t we give him a call and ask him what he saw?”

“Cool it.” Running a hand through her hair, Sandy motioned into the living room for Charlie to begin loading bales of hay onto the pickup truck to drive out to Red Fox Meadow. The young wrangler got off the phone, stepped outside, and got to work. “I already thought of Hadley and called the Lazy B,” Sandy went on. “He says they slept through the night. No one at the ranch saw anything suspicious.”

The news seemed to put to rest the only good theory the girls had had so far. “Back to square one,” Lisa muttered.

“Farther back than that,” Kirstie said bleakly, slumping down at the table once more. “Square one minus one!”

“And you know what?” Sandy hovered by the living-room door. She picked up a cup of coffee which she’d allowed to go cold, took a sip, then threw out the dregs. “There’s one phone call I didn’t make, and that was to Denver to tell Matt what happened.”

Kirstie listed the reasons why not. She’d sprung into life at the mention of her brother’s name, crossed the room, and told her mom not to pick up the phone.

“Number one, he’s in an exam room right this minute, so no one gets to speak to him. Two, you can’t just leave a message; you have to give him the bad news person to person. Three, he has more tests later this week. If you tell him about Crazy Horse and Cadillac now, he’ll want to skip his exams and come right home!”

What she still didn’t tell Sandy was that Matt was already on the brink of quitting his course. The news about his beloved horses would definitely be the final straw.

“I know!” Her mom began to pace up and down the hallway. “Why do you think I’ve been putting it off?”

“You have to tell him sooner or later,” Lisa pointed out quietly. She glanced apologetically at Kirstie. “If it was me, I guess I’d really want to know.”

“But we should wait!” To Kirstie, it seemed vital.

“For what?” Lisa held steadily to her opinion. She raised her eyebrows. “For Sheriff Francini to make an arrest?”

“No. For…for Matt to finish his exams,” Kirstie faltered.

“And?” Sandy Scott was caught between a rock and a hard place. She genuinely wanted to know what else Kirstie had in mind.

The idea, when it came, was the obvious one that they should all have thought of much sooner.

“For a few of us to ride out onto Hummingbird Rock,” Kirstie suggested. “That was the last place we saw the horses. Surely, someone should go take a look!”

Because it could do no harm, Sandy agreed to let Charlie ride out to the rock with Kirstie and Lisa.

“After he’s finished feeding the horses in the remuda,” she insisted. “That will still give you a few hours of daylight: enough time to find out if the rustlers left any clues.”

“And you promise not to call Matt while we’re gone?” Filled with sudden energy, Kirstie quickly lent Lisa some jeans and a sweatshirt, and the girls changed out of their school clothes, ready to saddle Lucky, Jitterbug, and Rodeo Rocky.

“I promise,” Sandy agreed with a troubled frown. “If you promise me not to do anything crazy.”

“Me?” Kirstie joked, pulling on her boots, reaching for her cap.

“Yes, you.” Sandy followed them to the door. “Remember, the trail gets steep and narrow up there. It’s below freezing, so there’ll be ice on the ground. You just take it easy.”

Exchanging promises, tightening cinch buckles, checking stirrups, they tacked up, ready to ride.

Sandy held Lucky’s reins as Kirstie sprang into the saddle.

“We’ll be back before dark, no problem,” Kirstie assured her. It felt good to be doing something positive at last. “And Mom, there’s bound to be clues: footprints, a trail of some kind.”

“You hope!” Her mother smiled and let go of the reins.

“I know!” Kirstie said as she pointed Lucky out of the corral and over the footbridge. “It’ll all slide into place once we’re up on the rock. I get this weird feeling we’re gonna find out exactly what happened to those two horses out there on Hummingbird Rock!”

Snow weighed down the branches of the lodge-pole pines. It slipped and thudded gently to the ground as Kirstie, Lisa, and Charlie guided their horses up the mountain. Small flakes floated in the air, settling and melting on their faces. Their gazes were fixed on the narrow trail. Far ahead, at 13,000 feet, the jagged outline of Eagle’s Peak appeared, then disappeared behind a blanket of heavy gray clouds.