Hay Fever (11 page)

“Ready?” Stevie called.

“Ready!” Lisa and Carole responded in a confident yell. “Remember we have to go as fast as we can, but we can’t do anything stupid!” Carole added.

“Right!” Stevie said. “Anything else? Then we’re off!”

The horses, knowing something exciting was up, had been prancing around and were eager to go. The girls set
out toward the fields at a brisk trot, but soon broke into a canter, an easier gait to sit to.

Lisa was surprised at how easily she could stay on. Stevie and Carole occasionally forgot that she was an inexperienced rider compared to them. Most of the time she didn’t mind their forgetting this fact, knowing it was a compliment about how fast she had learned. Sometimes, though, she still worried about being able to keep up with them. Stevie’s idea to forget the saddles and save time had surprised her. She had ridden bareback many times before but not usually so fast. Barq’s canter was smooth and steady, however, and she soon found herself relaxing her death grip on his mane and getting more involved in the purpose of the ride. “Do you think we’ll make it?” she called to Stevie, who was up front, setting the pace.

“We have to!” Stevie yelled.

“There are only about three buses a day out of Willow Creek,” Carole pointed out.

“But how do we know we won’t miss hers by a minute?” Lisa asked.

“We don’t!” Stevie said. With that, all three unconsciously leaned farther forward over their horses’ necks, urging them on. In minutes they had crossed two fields, jumping the low brushes and panels in the fences put there to enable the hunt to pass. At such a fast pace, a
three-foot fence didn’t feel much different from another, bigger stride.

All of a sudden Stevie stopped short and waved to Carole and Lisa to follow suit.

“Oh, no!” Lisa wailed when she saw the white post-and-rail beyond the next crest. The fence marked the beginning of the Biddle property. Notorious in Willow Creek, the Biddles had forbidden all trespassing on their property and threatened to sue anyone who set foot on their land. Normally, riders cut back to the woods to avoid the wrath of Mr. Biddle.

“If we go back now, we’ll end up going twice as far,” Carole said.

“I’m prepared to risk it,” Lisa decided. “There’s a chance no one’s around to see us.”

“Yeah, and there’s a chance good ole Biddle will be in the middle of target practice with his hunting rifle and will get off a few quick rounds at some live prey,” Stevie said.

“Boy, this is probably the way the Native Americans felt when the European settlers fenced in the land,” Lisa said in disgust.

“What a perfect idea!” Stevie practically shouted.

“What idea?” Lisa asked.

“We’ll make like Indians and lie flat on the horses to evade discovery. At worst, Biddle will think a few loose
horses ended up in his field. Come on!” Stevie set off once more for the property ahead.

When they reached the fence, she carefully unlocked the gate, waved Lisa and Carole through, and closed it behind them. Luckily Topside remembered his trail-horse manners and cooperated perfectly. Then they all lay down as low as they could and trotted stealthily across the field.

At the far end Carole volunteered to do the gate. Opening it was easy enough, but when she tried to hook the latch afterward, Starlight decided to spook at his shadow, nearly unseating Carole, who had been leaning out to finish the job. The gate banged opened with a clash. No cattle were anywhere in sight, so there was no danger of their escaping. But up at the Biddle farmhouse, a dog began to bark furiously.

“Please, Starlight!” Carole pleaded. Unfortunately, Starlight was having too much fun prancing and being a pain and was too excited from the gallop to settle down. Lisa rushed to help. She got the gate right away but not quick enough.

“Hey, there!” Mr. Biddle’s voice boomed across the field. “You all stay right where you are. I want to talk to you!”

After a split-second pause, Barq, Topside, and Starlight sprang into a gallop like racehorses coming out of
the starting gate. “We’ll talk to you later, Biddle!” Stevie screamed into the wind.

Before long the girls could hear traffic once more and knew they were nearing civilization.

“Let’s cut through the fairgrounds so that we come out on the right side of the street,” Carole yelled. She turned Starlight toward the public park on the outskirts of town. After they rounded a corner, the bandstand came into view almost at once, along with several huge tractor-trailer truck beds. The girls slowed to a trot once they realized what was going on. They had come to the site of the evening’s fireworks. Crews of men and women stood around setting up the display. They turned to wave as the girls passed. “Hi-ho Silver!” one called.

“What’s the big finale going to say?” Stevie asked good-naturedly.

“ ‘America the Beautiful,’ what else?” one of the workmen answered.

The Saddle Club gave them the thumbs-up sign and hurried along, knowing the bus stop was only minutes away. They ducked through a line of trees bordering the park and emerged on the grassy strip of land that stretched along Main Street.

“Look!” Carole cried. Up ahead passengers were boarding a bus that had just pulled in to the stop.

“Come on!” Stevie urged. They raced toward the stop.
Unbelievably, in front of their eyes, the doors of the bus closed, and it pulled away.

“Stop!” Lisa cried. “Oh, stop!”

Thirty seconds too late, they reached the now-empty stop and pulled up short. Or, at least, Lisa and Carole pulled up. Undaunted—and very foolishly—Stevie crouched lower on Topside’s neck, drawing her knees up like a jockey, and raced alongside the bus, waving her arms to try to get the driver’s attention. The passengers stared out the window excitedly. When the bus stopped at the first light a few hundred yards away, Stevie pulled Topside down to a walk. She rapped on the door.

The driver opened it slowly, staring at Stevie suspiciously. “Yes?” he asked uncertainly.

“I have to see a passenger on this bus, a Miss Deborah Hale,” she announced.

The driver remained impassive.

“Please! It’s a matter of love!” Stevie begged.

Shaking his head incredulously, the driver agreed to pull over when the light changed. Stevie watched him park on the grassy verge and trotted behind. He stood up and made an announcement. Then he opened the door again.

“Nobody on board by that name, miss,” he said.

“Nobody?”

“What part of the word didn’t you understand? ‘No’ or ‘body’?” the driver asked.

“Thanks a lot,” Stevie said sarcastically. She was in no mood for humor now that Deborah Hale had somehow slipped through their fingers.

Discouraged, she turned Topside back toward the stop. One of the passengers opened her window and leaned out. “Good luck finding your friend,” the smiling woman said. “Anybody who’ll chase a bus on horseback deserves to succeed.”

A couple of other passengers followed suit. “Hear, hear!” a gray-haired woman called.

“Go for it, cowgirl!” a young boy said.

Stevie managed to smile wanly at them. She thought her attempt at stopping the bus had been pretty dramatic, too, but it was looking more and more as if she might have lost Deborah for good, no matter what heroics she could think up. The thought made her want to get down off Topside and give up. What else could she do?

They had failed. They had ruined Max’s life. Not only that—they had triple-handedly caused the termination of one of the great horsey bloodlines of the country.

S
TEVIE LET THE
reins go slack. She idly nudged Topside back in the direction of the bus stop where the others would be waiting. Acting as dejected as Stevie felt, the horse shuffled along with his neck stretched out.

“Good try, boy,” Stevie said. She gave him a consoling pat on the shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault, Topside. You tried your best. I wish Max could have seen the way we raced after that bus.…” She let her voice trail off despondently. Her thighs and seat ached, and her mouth felt as dry as a desert. And it had all been for nothing.

Topside could sense Stevie’s disappointment. He barely lifted his head when Lisa and Carole came running up leading Barq and Starlight. They had huge grins on their faces, and Stevie knew why. How was she going
to break it to them that Deborah had vanished, after all—that the whole chase had been pointless? Worse than pointless, in fact, since Max would almost definitely get an irate phone call from Mr. Biddle.

“Stevie!” Lisa shouted as she came up. She and Carole turned and fell in beside Topside.

Stevie looked sadly at their two eager faces. Looking down at her hands, she began to explain. “I know, I know. Good try, huh? But that’s all it was—Deborah wasn’t even on the bus. For all I know, she’s halfway to Kalamazoo by now, hating us and despising Max because of us. And after all that. Poor Topside’s spent. I guess there’s nothing left to do but hack home.”

Stevie paused in her speech to sigh. She looked up at her friends to see how they were taking it. To her surprise Lisa and Carole hadn’t stopped grinning. “What—?” Stevie began.

“Stevie,
look
,” Carole said. She pointed eagerly toward the stop. Stevie raised her right hand to shield her eyes from the strong setting sun. All at once she drew a sharp breath. There, with her suitcase beside her, stood Deborah Hale.

Stevie stared incredulously. “I must be seeing things. It’s like those desert travelers who think they see an oasis, but it’s really only a mirage. That woman looks suspiciously like Deborah Hale, but of course it’s not her.”

“She’s real, all right,” Carole said.

“Then what—?” Stevie pointed in the direction the bus had gone.

“That was a different bus! Deborah’s bus doesn’t come for another hour,” Lisa said. She explained that while Stevie had gone on her mad chase, they had decided to get sodas at the drugstore to cool off. Carole had gone to buy them and had found Deborah inside, buying a Willow Creek newspaper so she could read up on some local news.

“Local news at a time like this?” Stevie asked. She had expected that, if they did find Deborah, she would undoubtedly be completely distraught and crying her eyes out.

Lisa shrugged. “I guess her career really matters a lot to her,” she said.

“I’ll say,” Stevie agreed. She followed Lisa and Carole up to the stop, eyeing Deborah cautiously. “So has anyone made our apologies yet?” she asked.

“Not exactly,” Carole said. “When I saw her in the drugstore, I was so shocked, I didn’t know what to do. I said hello and asked where she was going, but I didn’t get around to telling her that she
can’t
go anywhere—I mean, not anymore! Then she left and came out here, and we decided to get you before you galloped off into the sunset again.”

“Don’t worry—Topside and I have had our fill of wild-goose
chases tonight,” Stevie said. She took another glance at Deborah. Deborah looked as if she was trying very hard to concentrate on her newspaper but failing. Every so often she looked in their direction curiously.

“I think it’s time for a little explanation,” Stevie said.

“Me too—before Deborah gets more upset—” Carole said.

“—and confused and annoyed and decides to disappear again,” Lisa finished.

Slowly they approached Deborah. She looked up expectantly.

Carole decided to dive right in. “Deborah, we all owe you an apology. A huge apology. You see, we got to thinking about Max—and how old he was—not that he’s
really
old or anything—and we thought that he might be kind of lonely, and we’d hate for him to be unhappy, so we decided to—what I mean is—we wanted to make the Fourth of July picnic a sort of a—well, a meeting of eligible—” Carole stopped. Perspiration dotted her forehead, and she was completely flustered. Deborah had raised one eyebrow and now looked puzzled and stern and the tiniest bit amused all at the same time.

Stevie rushed to help Carole. “Here’s what happened. First all those single women, then the green hamburgers, then target practice, then the announcement—or the lack of announcement, I guess—then the conversation we overheard, then the race to get here and find you, so,
to make a long story short, we’re sorry.” She looked hopefully at Deborah, who was by now looking utterly confused but trying to suppress a smile.

Lisa sighed. It was up to her to clear the air once and for all. She chose her words carefully. “Deborah, none of us is proud of what we’ve done this week—even though we did it without knowing what we did. We turned your stay at Pine Hollow into a nightmare. We thought we were helping Max by inviting a lot of women we know for him to meet, and you by trying to include you in Pine Hollow’s craziness. We didn’t realize that we were just getting in the way. But now that we know that Max was
already
in love, we want to do everything we can to make things right again.”

When Lisa had begun speaking, Deborah was smiling politely, nodding as Lisa explained. Then she seemed to do a double take. She grabbed Lisa by the arm. “What did you say? Max was already in love? How could he? I mean, with whom?”

It took about a second for The Saddle Club to absorb that Deborah still didn’t know what they meant. “With
you
!” they cried in unison.