Crown Prince Challenged (25 page)

“Nobody's coming to the top with me?” Tim asked, sounding disappointed. Paige shook her head, but Rita spurred Chancellor to catch up with Tim.

“I'd love to ride up there with you, Tim!” she said excitedly. Paige and Sarah looked at each other before turning their horses in the opposite direction and making their way back to the barn.

After Sarah put her horse away and cleaned her tack, she headed for the feed room. She wanted to finish soon and leave for home on time. Approaching the large door, she reached for the chain she always wore around her neck that carried the feed room key. When she didn't immediately feel the key or the chain, she came to a halt and groped for the key with both hands. But there was no chain around her neck.
Oh, my God!
she thought.

Just the possibility of losing the feed room key had always filled Sarah with horror. To face Gus with the news that she'd lost it sent a chill up her spine. After looking through all her pockets, she ran back to Prince's stall to search the cement area in front of it. No luck. Could the chain have broken while they were on the old orchard trail or during the lesson? She distinctly remembered slipping the chain around her neck when she'd changed her clothes after school. How could the chain have broken and the key slipped away?

Some of the horses were getting restless in their stalls, and a glance at her watch told Sarah the horses needed to be fed. She'd have to find Gus. She had never been to his apartment over the barn, but she knew how to get there. With more than a little dread, she stepped outside the barn and made her way up the wooden stairway. A light was on inside, but there was no response to her knock on the door. She rapped again, louder this time.

When Gus pulled the door open, Sarah was taken aback to see the craggy faced man without his red baseball cap. He looked so different, his longish gray hair slicked back. The smell of something cooking filled his living space, and a glance beyond his figure in the doorway showed he was preparing his evening meal. Gus's unshaven face, bristling with stiff gray hair, registered his surprise at seeing her at his door. “The horses all right?” he demanded.

Sarah wasn't sure how to break the news. She took a deep breath before blurting it out. “Yes, but I have a problem. I've lost the key to the feed room, and the horses need to be fed.”

Gus's hawkish eyes narrowed. “That key should have been kept safe day and night!” he said between clenched teeth. Don't you know what could happen if someone left the feed room open? A horse could get in there and eat so much grain he'd probably die of colic. Don't you care?” The more Gus raised his voice, the angrier he got, his face crimson, his fists shaking.

Sarah was terrified and didn't know what to say. Nothing she could think of would calm the man's rage. She felt like running back down the stairs to get as far away from Gus as she could.

Gus continued his rant. “I knew it was a mistake to hire a girl! I'd rather have six boys to manage than one of your kind.”

“I've looked everywhere,” Sarah pleaded. “Maybe it's at home. But right now the horses need to be fed.”

Gus turned on his heel and took giant steps to a shelf in his kitchen. Grabbing a set of keys, he stormed by her, muttering as he heading down the stairs. Sarah reluctantly followed him to the feed room where he unlocked the door.

“I'll lock it up later,” Gus said. “But you better find that key!” With that he stalked off.

Sarah couldn't hold the tears back as she went into the feed room. No one had ever spoken to her like that. She'd always tried to keep the key safe, and now it seemed to have vanished into thin air. How could she have lost it? For several minutes she leaned against the feed cart until she could regain her composure. Finally she straightened and wiped her face before pushing the cart into the aisle. She could just imagine what she looked like! It was late, and hopefully all the other boarders had left for the night.

Sarah had nearly completed her rounds with the grain cart when she approached Medina's stall. Her heart sank when Spin and Cameo ran to see her just as Mrs. DeWitt exited the stall. There was no way she could avoid talking to her.

“Hi, Sarah,” Mrs. DeWitt said cheerfully. But then her face clouded when she saw Sarah's puffy eyes and her face streaked with tears. “What's wrong, my dear?” Mrs. DeWitt asked with alarm. “I hope it isn't anything serious.”

“I've done something stupid. I lost the key to the feed room.”

Mrs. DeWitt came to her and put an arm around Sarah's shoulders. “That can't be the end of the world. It will probably show up, and we can always have another one made. Gus must have the original.”

Sarah hung her head. “Gus isn't very happy with me right now,” she said.

Mrs. DeWitt immediately sized up the situation. “So Gus opened up the feed room for you?” Sarah nodded.

“I expect he had a few choice remarks to make, now didn't he?” When Sarah only hung her head, Mrs. DeWitt said, “Excuse me, Sarah. Just go about your feed detail.” She turned abruptly and marched toward the side door, her dogs following behind.

Sarah fed Medina before returning to the feed room to dish up the morning grain rations. Had Mrs. DeWitt gone to confront Gus? Mrs. DeWitt knew the curmudgeonly barn manager all too well, and no doubt had witnessed his tirades before. What would she say to him?
If Mrs. DeWitt calls him up on his rude behavior, then Gus will really have it out for me,
Sarah thought.

Sarah had nearly finished dishing up the grain when Gus suddenly appeared. Sarah stepped back, anticipating more of his poisonous tongue. But Gus just held out his hand. “Here's another key,” he said evenly. “Be careful with it.” With that he retreated out of the feed room and was gone.

Sarah sighed, relieved that she had a key back in her possession and Gus had his temper under control. Mrs. DeWitt had come to her rescue once more. But that didn't change the fact that the lost key was still out there somewhere, and how she wished she could find it—the key on the buffalo head key ring. Sarah checked the feed cart to be sure every horse's pail contained its morning grain before leaving the feed room and locking the door. With the hay detail still to do, she called her mother to let her know she was running late.

Sarah had just gotten home when her phone rang. She sat down on the mudroom bench to answer it. “What's up, kid?” Kayla said. “How was the ride to the old orchard?”

“Fine. I wish you could have come. Rita started talking about the Wexford Hall event. You know who she thinks would be the perfect stable manager?” Without waiting for Kayla to answer, Sarah said, “Kelly. I think Rita's going to urge her to try for it.”

“You've got to be kidding!” Kayla said. “Kelly pretends to be all-knowing, but it wasn't that long ago she didn't know a halter from a bridle.”

“This means she'll probably be competing with me to be stable manager. I'm the newest rider in the Young Riders class, and Prince is the greenest horse, so it's a total no-brainer who the four riders on the team will be.”

“I don't think there will be an actual tryout, so it will all depend on who Jack picks. You never know, kid. Prince has been going super.”

Just then Mrs. Wagner poked her head around the corner. “Dinner's almost ready,” she said. “We could use a hand setting the table.”

“Sure, just a sec,” Sarah answered. Then into the phone she said, “Listen, Kayla, dinner's ready. I'll call you later.” Her mother had cut the conversation short, so there was no time to tell Kayla about the lost key. It would have to wait.

As soon as Sarah had removed her paddock boots and washed her hands, she rushed to her room, taking the stairs two at a time. She looked to the wall hook where she always hung the key chain when she wasn't wearing it. The hook held nothing. After checking the top of her bureau, Sarah hurried down the stairs to help Abby set the table.

When the family had gathered around the table and started eating dinner, Abby couldn't wait to talk about her softball team. “Coach made the cuts today. I'm pretty sure I've got second base locked up. We play Winchester a week from Friday.”

Next Sarah told them how well Prince had performed in the lesson and on the old orchard trail. The days of her worrying that her parents might consider him too dangerous for her to ride had slowly slipped into the past, and now she enjoyed bragging what a wonderful horse he was. As for the lost key, she didn't want to talk about it.

“What about that competition you told us about?” her father asked. “Has Jack decided who will be on the team?”

Sarah held up a hand while she finished chewing. “No, but we're going to start schooling on the cross-country course next week,” she said. “The ground is finally dry enough. I can hardly wait!”

Her father wanted to know more. “What kinds of jumps will there be on the cross-country course at that event?”

“Jack told us that Wexford Hall has everything you could imagine. That means water obstacles, ditches, banks, and drops. They probably have a table jump, a coop, and who knows what else.”

Her mother was frowning. “Jack wouldn't expect Prince to be part of that, would he?”

Sarah wanted to reassure her mother. “No, Prince is the new kid on the block. I'm sure Jack will pick Rita, Tim, Paige, and Kayla.” She reached for the mustard to go with her ham. “But maybe I'll get to be the stable manager.”

Her mother thought about that for a moment. “That would be fun for you. Prince couldn't possibly be ready to take part in something as challenging as the Wexford Hall event.”

WHEN THE YOUNG RIDERS CLASS
arrived in the indoor arena for their lesson the following week, they were surprised to see Jack mounted on French Twist. They'd known they would be doing a cross country school that day, but they weren't aware Jack would be on horseback.

French Twist, a lanky chestnut Thoroughbred, was a resale prospect that had come to the farm off the racetrack almost a year earlier along with a second Thoroughbred, Hedgerow. Jack had retrained them to be sport horses, and at the end of the summer, both had been put on the market with high price tags. Hedgerow, a superior mover, was sold soon after the horses were advertised, going to a woman looking for a show hunter. There was also interest in French Twist, but for two different buyers he failed to pass the pre-purchase exam. In both cases he appeared to be slightly off, and although the vets couldn't put a finger on what was wrong, neither buyer wanted to take a chance on him. Jack felt confident French Twist was a sound horse that just needed more time after his racing career was over.

Jack had the riders do their usual flatwork warm-up, and once the horses were supple and moving freely, he called the riders into the center. “We're going out to school on some cross-country fences now,” he said. He reviewed some of the things he wanted them to remember about jumping cross-country obstacles. “We'll begin with two you're already familiar with in the meadow near the barn,” he continued. “After that we'll take the trail that will bring us to the brook, where we can school in water.”

The riders filed out of the indoor behind Jack and made their way to the meadow. Closest to the barn was a jump made out of yellow straw bales, recent replacements for the soggy, tired bales that had been exposed to the weather for a year. On the other side of the meadow, a telephone pole-to-a-bank combination awaited them. The spectators who'd been watching the lesson from the bleachers followed the horses outside and stood near the driveway at the edge of the meadow.

“We're going to start with the straightforward straw bales jump,” Jack told the riders, as they walked their horses toward the meadow. “'Twill will be a good warm-up. 'Tis uncomplicated, so you can go behind one another as long as you spread out a good distance between horses. Follow me.” Jack asked French Twist to canter on a large circle in the field, and soon the riders in the class were following him over the jump.

Sarah went last, and although Crown Prince hadn't jumped in the meadow before, he showed no hesitation and followed Fanny over the bales. “Good boy!” Sarah stroked his neck to let him know she was pleased with him. After the riders had jumped the straw bales three times, Jack asked them to come over to the bank combination and halt by the edge of the woods.

When Sarah looked the obstacle over, she began to feel nervous. Prince had never jumped anything like this, and it looked intimidating. The telephone pole element was a solid jump, not something designed to fall down if a horse hit it or landed on top of it. If a horse had a problem there, he could conceivably get hung up. The bank, an earthen mound several feet high and reinforced with railroad timbers, would be scary to a horse that had never jumped up on one before. The class had schooled over these two obstacles shortly before she joined it, so she was at a real disadvantage. Sarah definitely wanted to go last, and she halted Prince at the end of the line.

Jack called on Paige to start, and Quarry jumped the combination without hesitation. Kayla and Fanny did equally well, and both Tim and Rita's horses showed excellent form going through it. All at once it was Sarah's turn, and every face was looking at her, waiting.

Jack was well aware this was Prince's first time to be faced with jumping up onto a bank. “Sarah, I want you to do the bank without the vertical first, coming in from the side. Ride it as you would any other fence, having solid contact with his mouth while your legs ask him to go forward. After he lands on the bank, continue the one stride across the top of it and jump off the opposite side.”

Sarah swallowed hard and took a deep breath to calm herself as she asked Prince to pick up trot and circle toward the bank. Before they straightened to approach it, she asked him for canter and then focused on getting a forward and straight line into the obstacle. She felt her horse hesitate when he became aware of what was ahead, but with her legs pressing hard against his sides, she sent him on. With a huge jump, Prince took off well in front of the bank, landing beyond its center. Sarah again asked him to continue going forward and jump down off the bank, but he was at an awkward distance and instantly skidded to a halt, coming to a standstill on top of the mound.