Million-Dollar Horse (9 page)

“I
CAN
’
T BELIEVE
Max would do that to us,” said Stevie. “Doesn’t he trust us enough to tell us what’s going on?”

“Maybe he thought it was just our business to look after Honey-Pie,” Lisa said. “It doesn’t matter what her bank account is. We’d take care of her just the same.”

“But the problem is that he didn’t warn us about Paul. All we heard was that he was hinting to Paul that
we
weren’t trustworthy,” Carole said.

“But I guess what he was thinking was that we were totally trustworthy, right?” Lisa asked.

It was Sunday morning and the girls were walking toward Pine Hollow. They’d been talking about the same thing since dinner the night before and they were fairly
sure they understood two things now: Number one was that Paul Fredericks did not have Honey-Pie’s best interests at heart, and number two was that they did.

“Isn’t that will too weird?” Stevie asked.

“I like the idea of leaving a lot of money to a horse,” Carole said.

“What can a horse do with two million dollars?” Lisa asked sensibly.

“I guess I didn’t say that right. I like the idea of leaving money so that a lot of horses can be helped,” Carole corrected herself. “If I had two million dollars and nobody but a useless nephew to give it to, I’d give it to charity.”

“I can change my name to Charity if you’d like,” Stevie offered. “Just let me know when you get the two million bucks, okay?”

“Ha ha,” said Carole.

The girls opened the door to the stable and walked in.

“If Max is in his office, I think we should talk with him,” Lisa said. “He should know that we know about Honey-Pie, and he should also know that Paul’s been lurking around here trying to talk us into doing bad things for her.”

“Max knows we’d never do those things!” Carole said.

“Right, but he may not know that Paul’s been trying to talk us into doing them—like overfeeding her and overexercising her.”

The girls turned toward the stable office, but the door was closed. It was a sure sign that no one was welcome to knock or come in.

But the door wasn’t closed tightly and, standing right outside it as they were, it was impossible for The Saddle Club not to hear what was going on.

“It is clear from what our daughter says that the staff here is inadequate to take care of …”

No question whose voice that was. Nobody but a diAngelo would speak to Max that way. It had to be Veronica’s father. Her mother was there, too.

“She said that boy, Red Something—”

“O’Malley,” Max supplied.

“… just doesn’t care about the horses the way he ought to. I mean, we know you don’t have any other particularly valuable horses here, but if you want to have any in the future, perhaps you’ll have to consider hiring a more professional staff.”

There was a pause. Outside the office door, the girls didn’t move. They weren’t going to miss a second of this. They knew what was going on. Max was taking a deep breath and thinking about what he was going to say.

“Mr. and Mrs. diAngelo,” he began. “I appreciate the fact that you have heard everything that happened from Veronica’s point of view. Perhaps there were one or two things that she failed to mention to you.”

It was music to the girls’ ears to hear Max list the things Veronica had left out, like that it wasn’t Red’s job to latch the stable door, that Veronica frequently treated him as if he were her personal servant, that every other rider in the stable understood that it was his or her own job to look after his or her horse, that every single horse in the stable was valuable. The only difference was that some cost more than others.

He talked about Veronica’s attitude problems and her inability to get along with the staff—including his mother—and with the other riders. By the time he was finished, there was almost nothing even Stevie would have added about Veronica’s shortcomings, except that she wouldn’t have said any of it nearly as nicely as Max had done.

“And now we have to consider what’s going on with Danny,” Max went on. “The horse ran away yesterday. He’s been in the woods almost twenty-four hours and there’s no sign of him. There isn’t another rider in the stable who wouldn’t have set out on a personal search for her horse if he’d run away. Veronica, on the other hand,
is right here. Those woods are not a safe place for a horse accustomed to the security of a stable. What do you intend to do about it?” Stevie knew he was glaring straight at Veronica.

“Th-There’s the reward …,” Veronica stammered.

“We need to talk about that,” said her father. An iciness came into his voice as he spoke to his daughter.

“It’s been posted,” said Max. “Right there on my bulletin board. You can’t withdraw it.”

“I realize that,” said Mr. diAngelo. “What I hadn’t realized was Veronica’s part in the carelessness that allowed Danny to run away. The reward stands. The only change is that I won’t be paying it. Veronica will.”

“Daddy!”

“It’ll come out of your allowance. Of course, if you find the horse yourself …”

“Daddy!”

“It’s up to you, Veronica. I think it’s time for us to go now.”

Aware that the office door was about to open, Stevie gave her friends a hasty shove. By the time the door swung wide, they were in Nickel’s stall, crouched down behind the half wall. It took the diAngelos only a few seconds to leave the stable, and that was a good thing,
because a few seconds was as long as Stevie could contain her joy at the scene she and her friends had just overheard.

The three of them hugged one another to stifle their giggles and shrieks.

They still wanted to talk with Max but realized that now might not be the very best time. He would still be steaming mad at Veronica, and it was just possible that that anger might extend to anyone in Veronica’s age bracket.

“I think we can talk to him later. In the meantime, let’s go on a trail ride,” Stevie suggested.

They agreed that putting a little distance between themselves and Max was probably a wise idea. They fetched their grooming buckets and tack and headed to their horses’ stalls.

Lisa clipped a lead rope on Prancer and brought her out into the hallway to cross-tie her for a quick brush-down. It took just a second to see that something was wrong, and Lisa called Carole and Stevie over to take a look.

Carole ran her hand down the mare’s right foreleg and then, for comparison, down the left one. There was no doubt that Prancer had a problem.

“Here, feel this,” Carole said, offering Prancer’s lower leg to Lisa. Lisa gently took hold of the horse’s right leg.
Prancer flinched a bit as she did so. Then Lisa felt the left leg.

“It’s warmer and it’s swollen,” she said.

“Right,” Carole said.

“Sure signs of some kind of hurt,” Lisa said.

“Probably a strain or something. Usually these things aren’t serious and will clear up pretty much on their own, but let’s wrap it for now and ask Judy to take a look at it when she comes by. In the meantime, of course, you can’t ride Prancer.”

Those were words any rider dreaded hearing. It wasn’t as if Prancer belonged to Lisa, but she felt as if the mare did. She always rode Prancer. She’d loved Prancer from the first moment she’d set eyes on her. She didn’t want to ride any other horse, but this time she didn’t have a choice.

“So, now what do I do? Which horse should I ride?” Lisa asked.

Normally Mrs. Reg assigned horses, but she was sick with a cold. When Mrs. Reg wasn’t available, Max performed that particular job, but The Saddle Club had already decided they didn’t want to talk to Max about
anything.
Red was giving a class, so that left no one free to help them.

“I’m afraid that any schooling horse we choose for you will already be reserved by someone else,” Carole said. “I’m not sure what we should do.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Stevie said. The mischievous look on her face indicated to her friends that this might be one of her wild schemes.

“And that is?” Carole asked.

“Honey-Pie,” said Stevie.

“We’re not supposed to ride her,” Lisa said.

“Says who?” Stevie countered.

“Paul and Mr. Stookey,” said Lisa.

“And what do they know? We all heard Max saying that Honey-Pie should be ridden.”

“And we all heard him agree that he’d follow Mr. Stookey’s orders, too.”

“Maybe we heard that part wrong,” Stevie suggested. “There was a lot of noise in the barn then. I’m sure I heard Starlight snorting.”

“Isn’t that when the big truck was backing in to deliver some grain?” Lisa asked. “That made a lot of noise.”

Carole looked at her two friends. She knew what they were up to and she was reluctant to get drawn into trouble with them. On the other hand, the important thing here was what was good for Honey-Pie, and there was no question whatsoever in Carole’s mind that Honey-Pie would love a nice trail ride.

It took only a second. “Wasn’t Red yelling at a student to keep her heels down?” she asked. “You’re right.
There
was
a lot of other noise going on at exactly that moment. We couldn’t possibly have heard what Max said, now, could we?”

The pact was sealed. Ten minutes later, the girls were on their way across the field to the woods.

L
ISA SETTLED INTO
the saddle on Honey-Pie’s back with total contentment.

“How is she?” Carole asked.

“Every bit as good as we thought she’d be,” Lisa said.

“No, I didn’t mean how is she to ride, I meant how is she doing?”

“Fine, I think,” Lisa said. “She’s done everything I’ve asked of her so far and seems alert and happy. She’s stretching her legs, walking smoothly, perking her ears all around and sniffing the air curiously—all signs of a happy horse.”

Lisa was amused but not surprised that Carole’s question wasn’t whether Lisa was enjoying the ride, but whether Honey-Pie was.
Typical Carole!
she thought. In
any case, it didn’t matter, because both she and the horse were enjoying it.

Honey-Pie didn’t have the grace and elegance that Prancer’s breeding brought to her gaits, but Honey-Pie’s sweet personality came through in her ride. She was completely obedient and obviously making an effort to please.

“I definitely understand why Aunt Emma left all her money to Honey-Pie.”

“Sure,” Stevie said. “So she wouldn’t have to give it all to Paul. Now, let’s trot.”

It felt good to give way to the pure experience of riding, trotting, enjoying the trail, breathing the fresh air, smelling the wonderful pungent, healthy scent of horse and leather. Lisa put behind her all thoughts of wills and trusts, fiduciary responsibilities, and worthless nephews and surrendered to the moment.

Behind her, Stevie was watching Honey-Pie trot and could sense the horse’s pleasure in the simple act of responding to her rider. Unlike Lisa, Stevie wasn’t able to focus totally on the moment, however. She was still getting too much pleasure from replaying in her mind the dressing-down that Veronica had received first from Max and then from her father. Stevie wondered how Danny was doing and what he was up to.

Max was right that being alone was a dangerous thing for a pampered horse like Danny, but the fact was that most horses who wandered off usually wandered back when they got hungry and cold. It wasn’t likely Danny was lost. It was more likely he was as irritated by Veronica’s attitude as everybody else. The problem was that there were dangers in the woods and fields, beyond the reach of human protection. Would Danny be able to look after himself until he decided to return or until someone found him? Or if someone found him, would they perhaps recognize that he was a valuable horse and decide that keeping him was a better idea than returning him?

If that was the case, then the thousand-dollar reward was probably a good idea.

In the lead, Carole brought Starlight down to a walk as the path through the woods narrowed. Honey-Pie slowed down as well, and Belle followed suit. Belle and Starlight had ridden this way often enough to know that this meant they were approaching the creek and they’d have an opportunity for a rest.

Carole turned into the clearing where they always stopped. She halted Starlight and dismounted. Honey-Pie looked around curiously. She sniffed the air. Lisa dismounted and began to lead her to the bush where the girls usually secured their horses, but Honey-Pie, in her
own inimitable way, was having none of it. She began nudging Lisa, as she had Carole that first day in the stall when she wanted to go out to the paddock herself. This time it was water she wanted. She gently nudged Lisa all the way to the bank of Willow Creek.

Stevie and Carole laughed as they watched the old mare get the best of their friend. It was fine if Honey-Pie wanted water; what amused them was how she made her wish known.

“One of a kind,” said Lisa, holding the reins while Honey-Pie drank her fill of the clear mountain stream.

“One in a million,” Stevie corrected her friend.

Once Honey-Pie and her trail mates had had a drink, the girls sat on their favorite rock and simply luxuriated in the chance to do nothing for a few minutes. They didn’t feel comfortable being away from the stable for any length of time when they were breaking a rule they all knew they’d heard issued very firmly, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t take a moment to refresh themselves.