Lucky Horse (3 page)

One of Pine Hollow’s traditions was that riders all touched the good-luck horseshoe before riding. So far, no one who had done that had ever been seriously injured.

Carole and Lisa each buckled on their helmets and touched the horseshoe, then mounted up and followed Stevie.

Stevie began leading them to the back of the stable property, where all the trails began. On their way they saw Danny out in the paddock, grazing uninterestedly, his right foreleg wrapped in a red bandage. When The Saddle Club rode by, the big gray gelding pricked his ears and whinnied as if he wished he could come along, too.

“Look at Danny,” Carole said as they trotted past. “He looks so sad. I feel sorry for him.”

“Me too,” said Lisa. “He’s such a beautiful horse.”

“I said it before: He’s unlucky,” Stevie called over her shoulder. “He’s got creepy old Veronica for an owner.”

“Hey, could you guys add one more thing to your list of chores this weekend?” Carole gave Starlight a pat on his neck.

“Anything,” Stevie said. “Now that we don’t have to shovel that big pile of manure.”

“Could you take care of Starlight for me?”

“Sure,” answered Lisa. “We’ll take extra-special care of him, just for you.”

“Thanks.” Carole smiled. She knew she could depend on her friends.

As they reached the end of the paddock, Stevie and Belle picked up a trot and headed toward the creek trail. The day was tailor-made for a horseback ride. Puffy white clouds floated through a deep blue sky, and late-summer cicadas rasped in the underbrush along the creek.

“Anybody want to canter to our favorite spot?” Stevie asked, grinning over her shoulder.

“Absolutely!” said Carole, and Lisa nodded.

Stevie only had to touch Belle with her right heel and the pretty bay mare moved into an easy canter. Starlight followed, and Prancer stretched her long legs out as well. Soon all three girls were flying along the wide trail in the deep green forest, the warm wind blowing in their faces. They cantered, trotted, and
walked until they reached a wide spot by the creek where the horses could graze and the girls could dip their toes in the water.

“Wow.” Lisa slid off Prancer. “That was great.”

“It was even better than yesterday,” Carole said as she led Starlight over to a patch of tender clover. “Starlight just gets stronger and stronger.”

“So do we,” added Stevie. “I bet we’re all much better riders than we were at the beginning of the summer.” She sighed. “Now it will all go to waste, though, because of dumb old school. Our skills and muscles will atrophy—that’s a vocabulary word from last year—from lack of use.”

“Oh, Stevie, quit thinking about it,” Lisa said. “School isn’t that bad, and you can’t do anything about it anyway.”

“I suppose,” replied Stevie, plopping down beside the creek and removing her boots.

The girls wiggled their toes in the water until the sun grew hot in the sky. Carole and Lisa wondered what their new classes would be like, and finally even Stevie admitted that she was a little curious about who her math teacher was going to be. Too soon it was time to go, so they put their boots back on and pulled their horses away from their happy munching.

They knew better than to race back to the barn, so they took the rest of the trail at an easy trot and the last quarter mile at a walk. When the Pine Hollow
paddocks came into view, Carole stood up in her saddle.

“Look,” she called. “Danny’s in practically the same spot we left him in. Isn’t Red supposed to be longeing him?”

Lisa nodded. “He is, but maybe he got busy with a class or a delivery of hay.”

Carole frowned as they rode closer to the paddock. As much as she disliked Veronica, she liked Danny a lot, and the idea of a talented, intelligent animal being ignored made her uncomfortable. She wondered if Stevie and Lisa wouldn’t start on their promise to her just a little early.

“Hey, you guys,” she said, pulling Starlight to a halt right beside Danny’s paddock. “Since the longe line’s right here and Red seems to be busy, if you two will take care of Starlight now, I’ll go ahead and longe Danny. He didn’t do anything to deserve this.”

“Go ahead.” Lisa took Starlight’s reins. “We’ll look after Starlight for you.”

“Thanks.” Carole smiled as she grabbed the longe line and crawled through the fence.

The big gray nickered, then trotted up to Carole. She noticed he favored his right leg just a little bit.

“Hey, boy,” she said softly as she clipped the line on his halter. “Looks like you’re doing okay. We’re going to do a little work now—just what the doctor ordered.”

She led Danny to the center of the ring and walked him in a circle, letting the longe out slowly. As the circle grew larger, Danny’s pace grew faster. Carole knew from her work with the vet, Judy Barker, that it was important to keep a horse moving while he was on the mend or his muscle tone would suffer. She worked Danny for fifteen minutes clockwise, then another fifteen minutes counterclockwise. At the end of the half hour, he was warm but not sweaty, and he looked pleased when they stopped, as if he knew he’d done something that would help him heal.

“Good boy,” she said, rubbing him between his eyes. She unsnapped the longe line and dug in her pocket for one of the carrots her father had forgotten to eat the night before. She’d planned on giving them to Starlight, but Danny had worked so hard, he deserved at least one. “Stevie and Lisa will take good care of you this weekend,” she promised him as she coiled up the longe line and walked to the stable.

By the time she got to Starlight’s stall, Lisa and Stevie were just finishing up.

“Starlight’s all tucked away,” Stevie reported. “He’s got fresh water and hay, and Lisa gave him a nice brushing.”

“Thanks, you guys,” Carole said as she gave Starlight a farewell scratch behind his ears. “You be a good boy, Starlight. Mind Stevie and Lisa—do exactly as they say. I’ll see you Monday.”

Starlight twitched his nose at Carole for a moment, then turned his attention to his new hay.

“That must be horse for
okay
,” Lisa said with a laugh.

“I guess that’s it for me,” Carole said. The girls began walking toward the stable entrance. “I’ve got to go home and do a few chores before we leave tomorrow. How about you guys?”

“We need to figure out what we’re going to bring tomorrow night,” said Stevie. “I’ve never camped for a whole weekend with twenty-five horses before.”

They walked to the end of Pine Hollow’s long drive, then joined in a three-way hug.

“I hope you have a great time with your dad, Carole,” Lisa said. “We’ll miss you.”

“Thanks.” Carole smiled. “I’ll miss you guys, too. I’ll think of you when I’m out in the woods, cooking brownies in my solar-powered oven.”

“Have a great time,” added Stevie. “And don’t worry about Starlight. He’ll be number one on our list.”

“Thanks,” Carole called as she hurried to the bus stop. “I know you guys’ll have fun. I can’t wait to hear all about it.”

“Call us as soon as you get back.”

“Right,” Carole said with a bright farewell wave. “I’m sure we’ll have a lot to talk about!”

“H
EY
, C
AROLE
! C
AN
you lend me a hand for a second?” Colonel Hanson’s voice boomed from the kitchen.

“Sure.” Carole opened her bedroom door. “I’ll be right there.” She tossed a pair of clean socks on her bed and hurried through the house. Her father stood at the kitchen door, his eyes shining with excitement.

“I want you to see all this neat stuff we’re taking with us,” he said.

Carole followed him out into the driveway and gasped. Tents and sleeping bags and backpacks spilled from the back of their station wagon like a Thanks-giving cornucopia. Carole blinked. All this was supposed to be for a four-day trip to a national park in Virginia. The only place she’d ever seen this much
equipment was when she saw her father’s battalion going on maneuvers.

“Gosh, Dad,” she breathed. “Your buddy Colonel Cheatham must really love to camp.”

“He does. Last year he went up to Mount Rainier in Washington State. Almost made it to the top, too.” Colonel Hanson smiled at Carole. “Come, let me show you some of these things.”

She walked over to where her father stood. Two down sleeping bags were rolled up on the ground, along with a couple of blow-up mattresses. A telescope stood next to two camping chairs, which sat next to two camping armchairs, and two camping stools rested nearby. A special bag for water hung from the door of the station wagon, just touching the top of a thing that looked like a miniature blackboard.

“What’s that?” Carole pointed to the blackboard-looking thing. “We’re not going to practice for school, are we?”

“Oh, no.” Her father laughed. “That’s a solar energy collector. You point that black panel toward the sun and it charges a battery inside.”

Carole frowned. She couldn’t imagine Colonel Cheatham climbing Mount Rainier with a solar energy collector strapped to his back. “And then what does it do?”

“Well, after it charges up, it can run all this other equipment.”

“What other equipment?”

Colonel Hanson grinned and held up a big lantern. “This solar-powered light bank so that we can read in our tent at night.” He turned around, searched through the rest of the equipment, and finally held up a thing with spindly metallic legs that looked like a space satellite. “And this, which is a solar-powered stove, where we’ll cook things that we’ve kept in our”—he pointed at a shiny aluminum box and grinned—“refrigerator.” He put the stove down and knelt in front of the refrigerator. “It runs on batteries, but they can be recharged by—”

“Solar power?” Carole finished his sentence for him.

“Right!” He looked up at her. “Isn’t this great?” He leaned over and opened the refrigerator. “And look what we’ve got to eat—spaghetti and fried chicken and brownies. How’s that for roughing it with your old man?”

“Great,” Carole said, hoping she sounded more enthusiastic than she felt. Her favorite camp food was a simple hot dog sizzled over an open fire. It looked like her dad was trying to see how many gourmet meals he could cook with solar power.

“And,” Colonel Hanson continued, “we’ve got collapsible bowls for mixing up the pancakes, collapsible cups, and a collapsible clothes-drying rack, in case either of us falls into the creek.”

Carole blinked in amazement. “What are all those shoes over there?”

“The tall boots are hiking boots. The shorter ones are walking boots. The soft-soled shoes are for sitting around camp, and the things that look like slippers are for keeping your feet warm when you don’t want to wear boots at all.” Colonel Hanson reached into the back of the station wagon. “And look at these.” He pulled out a pair of khaki trousers. “These look like pants, right?”

Carole nodded.

“Well, with just a few quick zips of this Velcro …” Colonel Hanson fidgeted with the pants for a moment, then pulled one leg off. “Ta-da! You’ve now got shorts!”

Carole didn’t know what to say.

“And I bet you thought this was a jacket, right?” He held up a tan-colored jacket.

Again Carole could only nod.

“It is. But it’s also a vest.” Colonel Hanson unfastened the arms of the jacket just as he had the legs of the pants and pulled off one sleeve. “If you’re out hiking in a jacket and pants and you get hot, with just four quick zips of Velcro, you can be in shorts and a vest!”

Carole stood there, looking at her father holding up a vest that had once been a jacket, and pants that could soon be shorts, and started to laugh. She
couldn’t help it. He looked just like someone you’d see on television, selling camping gear in a commercial.

“Oh, Dad,” she laughed. “I’ve never seen as much Velcro and solar energy in my life. Compared to all this stuff you’ve got, staying at the Ritz would be roughing it!”

Colonel Hanson’s eyebrows drew together in a frown. “You think so?”

“Well, it is a lot of fancy equipment,” Carole said gently.

“Yes, but it’s all so neat and makes camping so much easier. I can remember camping on maneuvers when the only shelter we had was the foxhole we dug ourselves and the only food was whatever we could scoop out of a can of K-rations.” Colonel Hanson shuddered. “Believe me, that was not fun.”

“You’re right, Dad,” Carole said. “I forgot how much you’ve camped on duty.” She looked at him and smiled. “But don’t you think portable electric blanket liners for the down sleeping bags are a little much? After all, this is Virginia, and last night the low was only sixty.”

Colonel Hanson looked at the array of equipment spilling from the car and smiled. “I suppose you’ve got a point.” He reached in and took the two fleecy liners out. But let’s take everything else. You never know what kind of weather you might run into.”

“Okay, Dad.” Carole smiled.

“Have you finished packing?” he asked.

“Not quite.”

“Why don’t you go finish up, and I’ll stow our gear in the car and we can plan on leaving in about half an hour.”

“Okay.”

Carole hurried back to her bedroom, her head spinning. With all the gear her dad was packing, she wondered if there would be enough room in the car for the small backpack she had planned to take.