Ranch Hands (9 page)

“Okay,” Carole said. She said it because it was the only answer she could give, but she gulped at the very idea. It wasn’t easy to get twenty horses to move without letting anybody know. How was she going to do it?

She wasn’t sure how, but she was sure when. It had to be right away. It was 3:30 in the morning. By 4:30, the sun would start to rise. By 5:30, it would be fully light and people around here tended to wake up with the sun. It might be possible to sneak a herd off the farmer’s land in the dark; it would be impossible after dawn.

Carole ran over to her bunk and slipped her jeans on over her pajamas. Her mind raced as she buttoned her shirt. She couldn’t do this alone; she couldn’t do this with Jeannie. Her only other choice was to get the three campers to help her.

The three of them were sleeping in the spare bedroom in the other half of Carole’s bunkhouse. Waking them up would be no problem. Motivating them could cause some difficulty.

Carole wished Stevie were there. Not only would she be invaluable in helping with the roundup, but she’d also know exactly how to get the campers to be useful. Carole had found that exposure to Stevie sometimes made her think a little bit like Stevie. She
knew she needed a Stevian inspiration. And one came to her.

She slipped a kerchief around her neck and over her face so she looked like a bank robber. She stepped into the campers’ bunk room and turned on the light.

“Okay, you rustlers, it’s time to get up and steal the herd before the owner catches us. If we do this right, we’ll have all them horses miles and miles away before anybody knows they’re gone!”

“Huh?”

“Rustlers?” Linc asked, sitting up in bed. He was such a troublemaker that the idea of doing something—or even pretending to do something—that was against the law sounded like a really good idea to him.

“Yup, rustlers,” Carole confirmed. “There’s a herd of horses, about twenty head, in a field about a mile from here. We’re going to have to sneak up on them on foot—and the sneaking part shouldn’t be too hard because most of them are probably asleep. We’ll each carry a bridle with us, and then we’ll bring them on home. All by the light of the stars and the moon. Are you guys good enough for this?”

That was exactly the right question to ask. There was nothing like a challenge to get the kids up and going. Even the boy with the cold was willing to go along. Carole said it was okay as long as he wasn’t coughing (he wasn’t) and if he wrapped up warmly. He promised to wear a sweater and a scarf.

The four “rustlers” were ready to leave in five minutes. They stopped off at the barn to pick up the tack and began their trek across the field.

They had to go in the dark. Flashlights might have awakened neighbors or upset the herd of horses. The horses were going to be hard enough to bring home without having them upset. Carole led the way. It wasn’t easy going. The ground wasn’t all that smooth and was dotted with clumps of grass that were just perfect for tripping unsuspecting “rustlers.” Every time Carole stumbled, she found another route and made the campers take it. She wouldn’t have minded twisting her own ankle, but she hated the idea of twisting anybody else’s, even Linc’s.

It was turning out that Linc was perfect for this deed. He took to it like a fish to water. He got real pleasure out of being sneaky, and got right into the part of rustler.

Soon enough they approached the herd. Most of the horses were standing quietly, sleeping as they stood. A few munched on grass. One or two looked up when the “rustlers” drew near, but none of them seemed interested in going anywhere.

The first thing Carole had to do was to find Arthur. It wasn’t easy locating a bay with a straight blaze. Most of the horses were bays. Plenty of them had blazes. However, she spotted one bay with a blaze who was completely surrounded by other horses. That,
Carole decided, was charisma—the trait of a natural leader. It just had to be Arthur!

She moved the adoring fans away from around the horse and slipped a bridle onto him. It wasn’t hard to do, and he didn’t protest. It seemed that Arthur’s only undesirable quality was his tendency to lead other horses astray. Other than that, he was a fine, obedient horse. Carole hoped so, anyway, since she was going to have to ride him bareback.

Once she had his bridle on, she gathered her “rustlers” and told them what they were to do. First of all, each of them was to pick a pony to ride, put the bridle on it, and then mount up. Carole would help them.

Linc found a dappled gray. Ellis located a sorrel, and Jack found a bay for himself. Quietly, but surely, each put the bridle on his chosen horse. Linc’s horse gave him a hard time, and Carole insisted that he choose another horse. She couldn’t afford to have the young riders on horses that gave them any trouble at all. Eventually, Linc decided on a horse that was so gray he was almost totally white. Linc seemed to think that meant he was sleek. Carole knew better. What it really meant was that he was old and in this case old seemed to mean gentle. Carole approved.

With a boost from Carole, the three campers mounted their horses. There was nobody to help Carole get onto Arthur’s back, but fortunately he was
patient and didn’t seem to mind Carole’s efforts. Finally, everybody was mounted up and the work began.

It didn’t turn out to be much work at all, though. What happened was that Carole, on Arthur, led the way. As soon as Arthur began walking slowly back toward High Meadow, all the other horses simply followed. Carole had to be in front because she was on Arthur. The three campers brought up the rear. Clearly this was the accustomed position for Linc’s tired old gray horse. As long as the three of them were pretty much walking abreast, Carole wasn’t worried. If anything happened to one of them, there were two more to get her help.

Carole and the three bareback campers brought the herd into the pasture nearest the barn, and then Carole rode Arthur into his very own area. She dismounted, removed his bridle, and led the horse she’d mistaken for Arthur earlier back to the field with the rest of the herd.

Then all that remained was to help the campers dismount and remove their bridles. The job was quickly done.

Carole and the campers were going to return to the bunkhouse when they saw that the light was on in the kitchen of the main house. The four rustlers went to see what was going on. Inside they found a note from Jeannie and a plate of cookies. “Help yourself,” the
note said. “And sleep in tomorrow morning. Thank you all so much!”

“You mean we get a reward for stealing twenty horses?” Linc asked.

Carole laughed. “This time, Linc. Just this once.”

Later Carole lay in bed, her mind filled with swirling thoughts. She felt very good about having gotten all the horses back to camp without the difficult neighbor’s ever knowing about it. It was quite a victory, and she knew she was entitled to be proud. But at the same time, she’d caused the problem in the first place, and she didn’t like that. It would have been a whole lot easier if she had done the right thing to begin with.

“T
HIS IS THE
life, isn’t it?” Stevie asked.

“I love it, too,” Kate agreed.

The two of them were riding near one another at the back edge of a herd of obedient cattle. Eli was in the lead, twelve campers were strategically placed around the edge of the herd, and the two Saddle Club girls were on mop-up. Except that with Mel around there wasn’t anything to mop up. She was a wonder to watch, apparently sensing trouble before it began. Mel didn’t want a single steer or cow to get out of hand. She ran back and forth around the rear half of the herd and occasionally across the front of it—barking, growling, and wagging her tail busily, just to make her presence known.

“She’s like an exam proctor,” Kate observed. “The
kind who won’t even let you tap your eraser just in case you’re using Morse code.”

“None of these dogies can get away with anything when she’s around. By the way, what
is
a dogie?” Stevie asked.

“A motherless calf,” Kate said. “They tend to be sort of directionless, so they need a lot of watching and guidance. That’s where the expression ‘Get along little dogies’ comes from.”

“I always thought it had something to do with puppies.”

“Nope, cattle,” Kate explained.

Suddenly, three steers shot out of the herd and headed to the left. Since Stevie was on the left, they were her responsibility. Kate stayed with the rest of the herd.

This sudden burst of activity seemed odd to Stevie, even though she knew that cattle sometimes behaved oddly. She also knew she could use some help. She whistled for Mel. Mel, however, was occupied with a pair that had gone off ahead of the rest of the herd and she couldn’t be disturbed. Stevie signaled to two campers to give her a hand. They circled around the three errant steers and tried to convince them to get back with the herd.

The campers got two steers headed for the herd while Stevie chased after the third. By then the third one had made up his mind that he definitely didn’t
want to have anything to do with the pack. He’d just taken off.

Stevie took the rope off her saddle horn. She knew there was no way she could actually swing the thing around and capture the steer, but she thought that if she could get the fellow’s attention by waving the rope, she could talk him into going away from her. The problem was, Stevie needed to be in
front
of the steer. Since the steer was running at full tilt, this was a true challenge.

Stevie thought about Stewball, the horse she’d ridden at Bar None. When it came to herding cattle, Stewball was as good as Mel. The horse she was riding today, an Appaloosa whose name she’d forgotten, was no Stewball. He seemed to need as much attention as the steer, and that was no help to Stevie. One thing about the horse, though, was that he was fast.

Finally, Stevie was able to get in front of the steer. She turned her horse around so he faced the oncoming animal. Her horse planted his feet in the ground. The steer stopped and did the same. It was like a game of chicken. If Stevie had been on Stewball, he would have known exactly how to dodge and block and keep the steer in check. This horse, however, needed Stevie to tell him what to do.

She used her legs, getting him to move to the left and right, along with the steer. Then she raised her hand, swung the rope around, and hollered. She
didn’t know why, she just thought it was a good idea. Her horse didn’t know why she’d done it, either. It startled him so much that he bucked and then reared. Stevie wasn’t prepared for that. She bounced in the air and landed flat on her bottom, right next to her horse. The good news was that her horse didn’t run. The better news was that all the activity had convinced the steer he didn’t want to proceed any farther afield. Calmly he turned and walked right back to the rest of the herd.

Stevie pulled herself up, rubbed the area that hurt the most, and then got back into the saddle. She found herself sitting on the area that hurt the most, but otherwise she was fine. She hoped nobody had seen her fall. She wasn’t so lucky on that score.

“Nice flight!” said Lois.

“You forgot your cape, though,” said Larry.

“Thanks, kids,” said Stevie. “At least I got the steer back into the herd.”

“Seemed to me that the steer did most of the work, dude,” Larry said. Stevie did her best to shrug off the insult.

“Going’s going to get tougher now,” Eli said, circling back to the rear of the herd. “We’re going to veer to the left and up that little hill.”

“Doesn’t look too bad,” said Stevie.

“Wait’ll you see the other side,” said Eli. Then he noticed the dirt on her jeans. He didn’t say anything.
Stevie thought she saw the smallest bit of a smile, but decided she was probably wrong. Eli wouldn’t make fun of her. He knew she wasn’t really a dude, didn’t he? She didn’t have a chance to say anything else, though, because Eli had to finish circling the herd and preparing all the cowboys for the turn and the hill.

The herd proceeded obediently up the incline, and then Stevie watched a curious thing. As each row of steer got to the top, they stopped, then proceeded down, almost jerking as they went. Stevie wondered what kind of landscape would cause that to happen so consistently.

Her question was answered when she and her horse reached the crest of the hill. She stopped and gaped. The hill was nearly straight down! There was a path and it was negotiable, but it was clearly treacherous. There would be no careful herding as the riders went down this hill. It would be everything they could do to manage the hill and stay on their horses.

“You okay, dude?” Larry asked her. The sneer was more than slight. “Don’t forget to lean backwards,” he said. “If you don’t, you may fall off your horse. Again.”

Stevie could think of a lot of retorts, but she found herself so worried that Larry might be right and she
might
fall off again that she just closed her mouth and kept all her retorts to herself. Fortunately, she made it to the bottom without mishap. So did all the campers. Not so the steer. There were eight or ten of them
stuck on the hillside, frozen with fear and unable to move up or down. There was nothing to be done but to go get them. Eli got all the campers to circle the herd and told Stevie and Kate they’d have to help him with the frightened strays.