Lucky Horse (9 page)

“Okay,” her father called, his head bent over the eyepiece. “Here’s our old pal Saturn, still surrounded by rings.” He stood up straight and looked at Carole. “Want to come have a look?”

“Sure.” She hurried over to the telescope. Saturn looked just as beautiful as it had the night before—an icy yellow ball suspended in a black sky. The rings looked like giant flat roads racing around the planet.

“Let’s see if we can find Mars next,” her father suggested.

They found the red planet and tried to count the canals, then tried to focus on Venus—but the stars suddenly seemed to glow less brightly. When her father began to search for Mercury, Carole began to yawn. As wonderful as looking at the stars was, she felt as if she’d been up forever.

“Hey, Dad, I think I’m going to lie down while you look for Mercury,” she said, snuggling down on the ground in her quilted jacket.

Colonel Hanson smiled. “Take a snooze if you want
to. I’ll wake you up when I find something spectacular.”

“Thanks.” She folded her arms behind her head, but not before she felt a funny lump in the left pocket of her jacket. She reached inside it and smiled—she’d left one of Starlight’s leg wraps coiled up in a soft ball. She’d have to remember to put it in her cubby when they got back to civilization.

Starlight. Her horse’s name suddenly had a whole new meaning. It was as if she’d never known what starlight was until this trip. Her mind wandered back to Pine Hollow, and she thought about her friends and the fun they must be having. Were they looking after her horse as they’d promised? Of course. That was what friends did. This weekend it was as if Starlight had two owners instead of one. He was a lucky horse indeed.

Carole settled back down and looked up into the Milky Way, thoughts of Pine Hollow settling comfortably into the back of her mind.

Though the stars twinkled a little more dimly than they had earlier, it was still the most magical and mysterious thing she’d ever seen. She sighed and felt like a tiny spot in the universe, no bigger than the amoebas she’d studied in science the previous year. She felt her eyelids growing heavy as she thought about amoebas and stars and starlight and Starlight and Stevie and Lisa and—

Carole jumped. A loud rumble had broken the stillness of the night. Something must have fallen nearby. Maybe it was the telescope! She opened her eyes. She was still lying on the top of Mount Stringfellow; in fact, her father was curled up just a short distance away. He must have gotten as tired as she had and fallen asleep, too. But what was that noise she’d heard?

She rose on one elbow. A fierce gust of wind blew hard against her eyes and she felt the sting of raindrops on her face. She tried to look up at the stars, but they were gone, covered by a huge black storm cloud that blotted all light from the sky.

“Dad!” she cried. “Dad! We need to get out of here!”

“What?” Colonel Hanson jolted awake.

“A storm has blown up. We need to find some shelter.” The wind suddenly started to blow so hard that Carole had to yell to be heard. She watched her father get up and grab the telescope.

“Let’s go over to those rocks!” he yelled, pointing to a pile of boulders on the very top of the mountain. “We’ll be safe there as long as there’s no lightning!”

He grabbed her by the hand and pulled her to her feet, and together they ran toward the boulders. They hadn’t taken three steps before rain began to pour down so hard that Carole had trouble keeping her
eyes open. It was impossible to see anything, and the wind howled like some savage animal. It whipped the rain against her even harder. She lowered her head and ran hard to keep up with her father.

Finally they reached the boulders. There was a small outcropping of rock that sheltered them from the rain, but not the wind. “Are you okay?” her father yelled, frowning with concern.

Carole nodded. “I just hope it doesn’t start lightening.”

“If we’re lucky, it won’t,” Colonel Hanson said just as a huge clap of thunder broke overhead. He turned to scan the northwest horizon. As he did, blistering fingers of lightning crackled down from the clouds. First one, then another, and a third. All reaching from the heart of a dark black cloud down to the earth below; all seemed to be heading straight toward Carole and her father.

“Did you see that?” her father shouted as another clap of thunder rent the air.

Carole nodded; she was too scared to speak.

Colonel Hanson looked at her gravely. “We’ve got to get off this mountain now! That storm’s tracking straight at us, and this is the absolute worst place to be in a thunderstorm.”

“Where can we go?” she asked in a squeaky voice.

“We’d be better off under a lot of trees in a valley,
but anyplace is better than this,” her father yelled. “Grab your flashlight and we’ll try to find the trail back down the mountain!”

“Okay.” Fortunately, Carole had remembered to pick up her flashlight when the storm had started. She switched it on, but its normally bright beam looked more like a candle in the thick, wet darkness.

“Hurry!” Her father yelled. “And stay close behind me!”

They scurried away from the shelter of the rocks, the raindrops once again stinging them like needles. The wind almost toppled them, and they had to bend forward at the waist to get anywhere at all.

Carole followed her father blindly, trailing after his dark shape as he pushed his way through the wind and rain. The thunder crashed directly over them, and just a few hundred yards away, Carole saw a bolt of bright lightning streak down from the sky. It crackled around the top of one tall pine, and the highest tree limbs exploded like a bomb. Carole could make out the dark outline of birds fleeing the sudden inferno.

“Keep your head down!” her father called. “I think the trail’s over here!”

Shaking with fear, she followed him to the edge of some scraggly trees. Underbrush tugged at their jeans as they tried to press themselves beneath the branches. Abruptly her father stopped.

“Wait.” He turned and tried to peer through the
rain at where they’d just been. Carole turned and looked too, but her flashlight was useless and she could see clearly only when the lightning flashed. Unfortunately, that was when it was hardest to keep her eyes open.

“Oh, no!” she heard her father cry.

“What?” She was barely able to make herself heard above the wind and rain.

“We must have gotten disoriented when we got up so fast,” he called, his voice now hoarse from yelling. “The trail’s over there, right across from where we just were.”

Carole’s heart skittered with fear. “You mean we’re going to have to cross the mountaintop again?”

Her father nodded as raindrops dripped off his chin. “These trees won’t be safe if that storm stays on track.” He looked down at her and grinned. “Are you with me, kiddo?” he asked softly.

Again, she only nodded. She was afraid that if she spoke out loud he’d know how scared she was.

“Okay, then, let’s go!” He shifted the telescope to his other shoulder and gave her a thumbs-up.
“Semper fi!”

Colonel Hanson waited until a clap of thunder rolled away, then stepped out from the shelter of the skinny trees. Again they had to bend at the waist and throw themselves into the wind. The rain seem to hit them from all directions, and Carole felt icy raindrops
sliding down her back, under the collar of her jacket. Everything she had on was soaked, and her feet slid inside her shoes. Still, she slogged after her father.

They had almost reached the middle of the mountaintop when suddenly the sky lit up as if a million fireworks had all exploded. A crash of thunder like no other boomed around Carole’s ears. The earth itself seemed to tremble beneath her feet. The sky went bright, then dark; then she couldn’t see anything. Where was her father? He had been there just a moment before. The sky lit up again, and she saw his crumpled form.

“Dad!” she screamed, just as another thunderclap crashed above her head.

“Y
EOW
!” L
ISA SAT
straight up in her sleeping bag, her heart thumping in her chest. “What was that?”

“I think it was a horse.” Stevie blinked sleepily, but she was already sitting up. “Something’s wrong downstairs. We’d better go check it out.”

They switched on the hayloft light and began to crawl down the ladder. Suddenly a loud boom shook the roof overhead; then the shrill scream of a horse split the air.

“That’s what woke me up!” cried Lisa.

“I bet it’s Patch,” said Stevie as rain began to ping like marbles against the barn’s tin roof. “You know how crazy he gets when we have thunderstorms.”

The two girls hurried down to Patch’s stall. Sure enough, the old pinto stood there terrified, his ears
slapped flat against his head, the whites of his eyes showing all around.

“Whoa, boy,” Stevie said softly, reaching out and trying to pat the horse’s nose. “Take it easy.” Patch swished his tail and stomped his right foreleg. Stevie wanted to go into the stall and put her arms around him, but he looked so terrified that it was safer to stay outside.

Another thunderclap rattled the barn, and Patch seemed to jump a foot into the air.

“He looks upset enough to hurt himself,” said Lisa. “What should we do?”

Stevie frowned. “Max usually gives him a tranquilizer when bad weather’s on the way, but this storm sneaked up on us. I guess we could give him one of his pills and stay with him until it takes effect.”

Lisa reached over and rubbed Patch’s soft nose. “Too bad we don’t have any equine earplugs.”

“Wait a minute!” Stevie snapped her fingers. “You just gave me a fantastic idea. Stay right here!”

Lisa watched as Stevie ran back to the ladder that led to the hayloft. She scurried up, and in just a moment she came back down, clutching her CD player in one hand.

“Stevie, what are you going to do?” Lisa asked as Stevie ran back down the aisle.

Stevie looked at her and grinned. “Earplugs blot out unwanted noise, right?”

Lisa nodded.

“Well, so does other, louder, constant noise.” Stevie held up her CD player. “If I play my new CD over the PA system, the horses won’t be able to hear the thunderstorm so much. This music will lull them back to sleep, just like babies!”

“But Stevie, you played me that CD last night—it’s all screaming guitars and thumping drums and weird synthesizers. It would be more likely to wake the dead than lull anything to sleep.”

“I’ll bet it works, though. I’m going to go hook this up. I bet we’ll have a barnful of drowsy horses in no time!”

“I think I’ll give poor Patch his tranquilizer, anyway,” said Lisa. “He looks like he’s about to have a nervous breakdown.”

As she was getting one of Patch’s blue capsules and an apple, all sorts of strange, electronic noises started chirping from the speakers overhead. When she walked back to Patch’s stall, she noticed that all the horses that had been sound asleep were now standing at their stall doors, their ears flicking at the electric guitar music that was bouncing around the ceiling.

“Okay, Patch,” Lisa said as she reached the distraught horse. “Just a few more minutes and you’ll feel fine.” She cut the apple in two, then opened the capsule and poured tiny grains of yellow medicine across the fleshy part of the fruit.

“Here, boy,” she said, holding one half out to Patch. “Eat this.” As terrified as Patch was, he still couldn’t resist nibbling an apple. In just a second, he’d swallowed the half with a satisfied crunch.

Lisa held the rest of it out. Patch was just as excited about the second half as he’d been about the first. He was chomping happily away when someone started singing over the PA system.

“
You’ve got to know-ow-ow-ow-ow
,” a high-pitched singer yowled, “
The best time to go-o-o-o
 …”

Lisa looked at Patch, expecting him to jump straight into the air. Instead he just stood there, once again the calm horse she’d always known him to be.

“Well, Patch, maybe Stevie’s on to something,” Lisa said, again rubbing his nose. “I know your medicine couldn’t have worked that fast.”

Just then she heard a bump in the neighboring stall. She left Patch and peaked inside. Prancer had woken up and was anxiously looking out her stall door.

“Hey, girl,” Lisa said as Stevie’s music shrieked even more loudly. She had just begun to scratch her favorite horse behind the ears when she heard a high-pitched whinny of panic from the far end of the stable.

“Oh no!” she said, giving Prancer a last pat. “That’s Starlight! Sorry, girl. I’ll be right back!”

She ran down to Starlight’s stall. He stood just as Patch had a few moments earlier, with his ears slapped
back and his nostrils flaring wide, showing the pink insides of his nose. He paced back and forth in his stall.

“Uh-oh,” said Lisa, reaching out to give him a reassuring touch.

“Hi!” Stevie suddenly turned the corner. “How’s it working? Is everybody back to sleep yet?”

“Well, Patch is fine, but now Starlight looks wired.” Lisa frowned as the big bay stomped his foot. “I think he might be more of a Mozart horse, Stevie. Heavy metal doesn’t seem to be doing a thing for him.”