Horsenapped! (11 page)

“In time to call the police so they can get back to the farm and arrest those guys before they skedaddle,” Lisa finished.

That was true. Sooner or later, the horsenappers would be able to back out of the creek, and as soon as that happened, they’d be gone.

“Let’s go!” Stevie said, urging her friends, though it wasn’t necessary. They were all moving their horses as fast as possible.

The girls had spent some time on a dude ranch in the Southwest with a friend of theirs named Kate Devine. They’d been on a genuine cattle roundup and had learned some skills that they put to use. They knew they had to surround the herd as well as they could, even if it was only a herd of three.

Carole went first. She picked up the lead rope tied to Garnet’s halter and began riding forward down the creek. Lisa was in the rear. It was her job to see to it that the other two horses kept up with the group. Stevie had the
trickiest job. She rode in the center and she had to see that Sat and Bodoni stayed in line. As long as they were riding in the creek bed, it wasn’t hard, but as soon as they reached the fire road, where the woods opened up considerably, it became trickier.

Bodoni was not only a beautiful black stallion, he was also bold and independent. He seemed to get an idea in his head about showing off for the two mares, Garnet and Sat, and that made Stevie’s job much harder. She had to pay a lot more attention to Bodoni than to the horse she was riding. Fortunately, Topside was good at doing what he was told, even when his rider wasn’t paying all that much attention to him.

This was where Stevie’s dressage training stood her in good stead. They weren’t riding for ribbons, they were riding for real. Every time Bodoni veered off to the right, Topside circled around behind him and headed him back to the left. Sat, it seemed, was tired and was perfectly satisfied to simply follow Carole and Garnet. She didn’t cause Stevie any trouble at all, though she did drop behind a few times to nibble at the grass. Lisa tugged at her mane once and used her riding crop on her flank occasionally to remind her that her job was to move forward. She willingly followed along.

Although it had seemed like a world of time, because so much had happened, when Carole looked at her watch she saw that she and Stevie and Lisa had only been
gone from Pine Hollow for two hours. Now, as they emerged from the woods and Pine Hollow was only a couple of hundred yards away, all of them felt the same relief and eagerness to return. That was especially true of Bodoni. It was as if he could smell the hay and oats he knew he’d get. That was enough to make him pick up his pace. Before Stevie and Topside could do anything about it, Bodoni was cantering, and then
galloping
toward Pine Hollow.

There was nothing for the girls to do but gallop with him. They followed along the street by Pine Hollow, and when Bodoni crossed, they crossed, too. Fortunately, there was no traffic coming at all.

Bodoni didn’t stop at Pine Hollow’s stable, he proceeded right past it, through the parking area, around the barriers, past the spectator stands, and right smack into the ring where the stadium jumping was taking place. One astonished rider, in the middle of the adult competition jump course, drew her horse to a halt and demanded to know, “What’s going on here?” A lot more people asked the same question when Carole, Lisa, and Stevie, on Starlight, Pepper, and Topside, arrived along with Garnet and Sat. Starlight was so hyped by the invigorating gallop that he even jumped one of the fences on the jump course. Carole tried not to smile. She didn’t succeed.

At that point, Max Regnery ran into the ring. His face
was red with anger. “I’m sure there’s some explanation for this!” he blurted out furiously.

Stevie drew Topside to a halt in front of him. A big grin crossed her face. “You bet there is!” she announced proudly.

I
T TOOK A
few minutes to round up Bodoni and get him safely into a stall Garnet and Sat were tired out and only too willing to be led to safety by Carole, who put them in stalls and gave them fresh water and clean hay. It took a few more minutes for Stevie to explain some of what had been going on to Max.

While these things were happening, Lisa had another job to do. She called the police. It took more than a little effort to convince them that she knew what she was talking about and they didn’t have any time to waste. Finally, she told them that if they missed out on the collar of the century just because they didn’t believe her, they would look pretty silly. The dispatcher said a car would go to the farm immediately—and one would come to Pine Hollow to talk to her as well.

“Good,” she said. “There’s somebody here they have to meet, too.”

When she hung up the phone, Lisa found herself laughing out loud. She’d astonished herself by using the expression “collar of the century.” That was the sort of thing
Stevie
would say, not the kind of thing straight-A-student Lisa would say. She decided to thank Stevie for the inspiration.

“You what?” Max asked, astonished, as Stevie finished telling the story of their rescue.

Stevie just nodded. There was no point in telling it again. He’d heard it right. She told him as much.

“You rounded them up and herded them away from the—what did you call them—
horsenappers
? But how did you know?”

There was a good question. Stevie had known from the beginning that they really ought to have told at least Max what was going on. There was no way they should have taken the chances they did, but they’d taken them for good reasons. If they had told, all of the horses would have been endangered and maybe none of them ever would have made it back. Still, if Stevie let on that they had actually seen the ransom note, they could be in more hot water than even she was willing to risk. So Max’s question hung in the air.
How did you know?

Then inspiration struck. “Elementary, my dear Regnery,” she said. “Elementary.”

The answer was so astonishing that Max forgot that he hadn’t learned anything from it. He just burst into laughter and so did all the other people standing around.

A
FEW MINUTES
later a police car pulled into Pine Hollow. Lisa met the officers at the front door and brought them around to the back, where the combined-training event had been taking place until it was interrupted by the arrival of the rescued horses. Lisa wanted the police to talk to Stevie. She was the best at explaining what had happened. It took a while to unravel the whole story, but Stevie managed it, without mentioning the “missing” ransom note. She just said that their suspicions were aroused when all the expensive purebred horses seemed to be mysteriously withdrawing and disappearing. The part she had the hardest time explaining was the significance of the bubble-gum wrappers. The police just kept exchanging confused looks.

“Oh, forget about how we figured out what was going on,” she said. “We just did. And then, we trailed the horses into the woods …”

“So, where is this gum chewer?” one of the officers asked.

“I don’t know,” Stevie said. “Carole, what did you do with him?”

“Oh, you’ll find him in the tack room,” Carole said with a mischievous grin on her face. “I told him Mrs. Reg
wanted him to polish the dressage saddles. All of them. You may find him reluctant to leave. He’s a very hard worker!”

Everybody who had seen Donald dashing around and working extremely hard, just to cover up the fact that he was doing things he shouldn’t have been doing, laughed. He
was
a hard worker.

The police emerged from the tack room a few minutes later, bringing Donald with them. They explained that they would be taking him back to the station house as soon as their colleagues returned from fetching the horsenappers from the van in the woods.

“I think we have some time, then,” Max said. “Why don’t we finish up the event?” Then he turned to his mother. “And while we’re watching the last two riders, could you call the owners of the three rescued horses and tell them what a wonderful show some of our junior riders have put on today?”

“I’d be pleased to,” Mrs. Reg said. “It seems small thanks since, after all, because of them, all the dressage saddles are clean as whistles!”

It was just like Mrs. Reg to think of the tack at a time like that.

The one disappointment Stevie, Lisa, and Carole had was that they had missed almost all of the adult jumping competition. Max saw to it that they got front-row seats to watch the final competitors. The adult course had
more obstacles in it and they were higher, but the rules were the same. It was fun and exciting to watch the competitors, but, they all agreed, it had been more fun competing themselves.

When the last jump was cleared and the final salute given, Max announced that the parade and ribbon ceremony would begin in fifteen minutes. That allowed Red and a few volunteers enough time to take down the jumps and it allowed riders who hadn’t competed in the advanced competition enough time to saddle their horses.

Carole though Starlight looked less than enthusiastic about the idea of donning his saddle another time that day. “This is the last time,” she promised him. “And it’s going to be easy. No wild rides through the woods, no tracking through water, no jumps. Just a nice walk around the show ring and then a few times up and back to the judges for ribbons, okay?” He still seemed skeptical, but Carole thought he’d change his mind when he had a ribbon clipped to his bridle. She gave him a carrot in the meantime and that seemed to help, too.

All of the riders lined up as they had practiced before the event for the final parade. Mrs. Reg put some marching music on the public-address system and they all rode into the ring. It reminded The Saddle Club of the rodeo parade they’d been in once. The crowd, stirred up by the excitement of the rescue of the horses, stood and cheered for all of the riders as they entered. Carole felt exhilarated.
She had always known that she would enjoy competing, but she’d never known it would be as exciting as this. She simply loved it, especially knowing that she and Starlight had done their best, both in the event and in the rescue operation. She hoped she’d never have to save a horsenap victim again, but she also hoped it wouldn’t be long before she was in another horse show.

The riders all drew to a halt, and turned to stand in a row, facing the judges’ stand.

There were a lot of awards to give out. Each event had first- through sixth-place winners, junior and senior.

When Max began handing out ribbons, Carole thought it seemed like it was just The Saddle Club show. In junior dressage, Stevie took the blue ribbon for first place, Lisa got red for second place, and Carole took a yellow for third place. Carole thought she was pretty lucky to have gotten third, but Stevie certainly deserved first and Lisa was just right in second place.

Then, for cross-country, Lisa got the blue ribbon. She was the only rider of all the junior entrants to have had a “clear” round without any mistakes, within the time limit. Stevie and Carole clapped long and loud for her. She’d worked hard on her riding skills and deserved that blue ribbon. Carole got second place, which surprised her, and Stevie took third. Then came the jumping awards and it still seemed like The Saddle Club show. Carole was the undisputed winner, and everybody who
had seen her perform stood up again to give her and Starlight one more round of applause. Stevie got second place in that and Lisa took third.

“Doesn’t anybody else ever win anything?” Stevie whispered to Carole. Carole knew Stevie was joking. After all, Max was giving lots of ribbons to other people. It’s just that he was giving all the best ones to Carole and her friends. And, she decided, that was okay because they deserved them!

Then Max gave out the awards to the adult riders. There had been a lot of competitors in the adult division and there were a lot of ribbons to hand out. Carole didn’t mind waiting through that, though. After all, she was doing something she loved. It wasn’t just that she was in the saddle of her very own horse, though that was important. Nor was it that they were standing in the middle of a show ring, surrounded by an audience that had only recently spent a fair amount of time clapping for them, though that was nice, too. The best part was that when Carole looked straight forward, as she was supposed to, aiming her eyes between her horse’s ears, he had three well-deserved ribbons flapping from his bridle!

“And that brings us to the conclusion of our awards ceremony,” Max told the audience. “Except for two very special awards. In each division, we award a ‘Blue ribbon’ to the rider who accumulated fewer penalty points than all the others in each of the three categories. In the adult
division, this is an easy matter because the winner is clearly John Malcolm.” He handed Mr. Malcolm his ribbon and there was polite applause.

“In the junior division, however, it’s not an easy matter, as those of you who were paying attention will realize.” He paused.

Carole, Lisa, and Stevie all looked at one another. They hadn’t even known that there was such a thing as the “Best in Show” ribbon. It had been enough that each of them had excelled in one of the three events. That had made it easy to root for each other.
But
, Stevie thought,
if there was an overall ribbon for the single best rider
 …