Hoof Beat (3 page)

But first, she realized with a start, she had to write an article about training Samson.

S
TEVIE STILL COULDN
’
T
believe how cute Samson was. She’d seen him being born and she’d watched him stand and nurse for the first time. Since then, she’d seen him almost every day—and each time she saw him it was as exciting as the first time.

He was a lot bigger, of course. He’d grown a tremendous amount in the first months of his life, but he was still little and he was still very cute.

Samson stayed near his mother most of the time, though now he would sometimes venture as far away as the other side of the paddock, a distance of perhaps twenty feet. But if somebody approached the paddock, Samson would usually trot quickly to his mother’s side. Delilah was always there waiting for him. She’d nuzzle him and comfort him when he was frightened. Stevie thought she was a very good and attentive mother.

Stevie was alone with Samson and Delilah today. Carole, she knew, was at the shopping center, volunteering for the library. Lisa had promised to come help Stevie later. She’d called Stevie in the morning, saying something about an appointment. She had been awfully vague. Normally, this would have upset Stevie, partly because of her curiosity and partly because she had been counting on Lisa’s help. However, she was excited about being the only person working with Samson. She’d watched Carole the day before and was sure she could do it. It would be a lot of fun, too.

“Hi, there,” she said, greeting mother and son in their paddock. Delilah glanced at her with little interest. Samson snuggled up to his mother’s side.

The first thing Stevie did was to put a halter on Delilah, then she fastened the lead rope to the fence of the paddock. Delilah cooperated the way she always did. There was no problem at all.

“Good girl,” Stevie said, patting her firmly on the neck. She wanted to show Samson that she was friends with his mother. “See, boy, you can trust me. Your mom and I are old pals.”

The foal ducked around his mother’s rear.

“I mean it,” Stevie said to him. “We’ve ridden together lots. She’ll tell you. As a matter of fact, she even tried to throw me once, but I held on!”

That was a vivid memory to Stevie. The first year she’d been a rider, she’d ridden Delilah on a trail. She had been wearing sneakers and her foot had slipped
out of the stirrup and the stirrup had started banging on Delilah’s belly. Not surprisingly, the horse hadn’t liked that at all and had started acting up. Stevie had held on to her mane for dear life, and most important, she’d gotten her footing again. It had been enough to make her want to wear cowboy-style boots with a high heel now when she rode.

“Good old pals,” Stevie repeated. Then she climbed up over the fence and into the paddock. She walked along Delilah’s side, approaching Samson slowly. She didn’t want to frighten him. She held the halter in her left hand, behind her back. She showed him her empty right hand. He didn’t seem very interested in it. He stepped back, away from her.

Stevie stepped toward him. He stepped back again. She tried again. He did it again.

“This is almost like dancing class!” she said.

She moved to the right. He moved to the left. She shifted. So did he. She giggled.

Stevie hopped a few inches off the ground. Samson fled, running all the way around the ring until he came to the far side of his mother. Then he snuggled up to her.

Stevie crept around Delilah’s rear. Softly, she put her hand on Samson’s flank. He moved away from her again.

She loved to watch him move. There was something about the colt’s gaits that was different from an adult horse’s gaits. Stevie realized that it must have to do
with the proportions of the animal. The colt’s legs were relatively longer than his mother’s, and he almost seemed to bounce as he moved. Stevie could have watched him for hours.

Samson took cover next to his mother. Stevie peered under Delilah’s belly at the colt.

“Peekaboo!” she said, startling the colt. He bolted, quickly circling the paddock. He returned to his mother, staying on the side away from Stevie. Once again, she peered under Delilah’s belly. This time, Samson was waiting for her. He peered right back at her. “Peekaboo!” she said, and he circled the paddock.

“Smart boy!” Stevie said, genuinely impressed that the colt had learned the game so quickly. Playing with Samson was as much fun as playing with a puppy, and Stevie quickly found that he liked fun and games.

Stevie slung Samson’s halter over the edge of the paddock fence and the lead rope with it. It was going to be easier playing games without being bothered by those things.

Stevie tried several varieties of peekaboo—sometimes meeting up with Samson under his mother, sometimes in front, and sometimes behind. Delilah stood obediently still, ignoring the shenanigans of her colt and Stevie. Stevie wasn’t surprised that Delilah didn’t participate in any way. She was a well-trained horse and knew that when she’d been haltered and tied someplace, it was her job to stand still and await further instructions.

When Stevie tired of peekaboo, she taught Samson how to play tag. Samson won hands down. Every time Stevie reached for him, he dodged her and ran in the opposite direction. He was good—really good. She tried faking him out, reaching first with her right hand, and then when he began moving away from her reach, she’d quickly extend her left hand and tap him with that. It only took Samson a bit to figure out that the surefire way to evade her was to back up and turn around. And when Stevie chased after him, he just ran faster.

Stevie was beginning to wonder if she could teach Samson to play follow-the-leader when Lisa arrived.

“Come on in and see what I’ve taught Samson!” Stevie said, inviting Lisa to join the fun.

“I think I’d rather watch,” Lisa said. “Unless you need me, I mean.”

“No, we’re having a ball. I never knew a horse as smart as this! Wait’ll you see.”

Stevie demonstrated peekaboo and tag. Lisa could hardly believe what she was watching. She’d seen horses trained to do some very complicated things, but she’d never seen a horse having as much fun as this.

“You try,” Stevie said. “I’m sure you’ll be as good at it as I am. He makes it easy.”

Lisa was tempted. It looked like an awful lot of fun. But she had a job to do. She had a column to write and she wanted to surprise her friends with it. Now she really had something to write about!

“I can’t,” Lisa said to Stevie. “There’s something I have to do.”

“But you just
got
here,” Stevie reminded her.

“I know, but … well, I’ve got to do it.”

Stevie could tell there was something Lisa was keeping from her, but right then she was having too much fun with Samson to care what Lisa was up to. She just told Lisa she’d talk to her later and returned to her games, barely noticing as Lisa left for home.

Follow-the-leader, it turned out, was a much harder game to play. She walked ahead of Samson and then skipped, sort of like a trot. He was following her all right, but she didn’t think he was doing what she’d been doing. The only way she could tell was if she stopped and turned around. Every time she stopped and turned around, she found that Samson had stopped, too, and was looking straight at her. Then, if she tried to let
him
be the leader, all he did was to go over and stand by Delilah. The third time he did it, he also began nuzzling his mother for something to eat.

Stevie realized that she, too, was beginning to be hungry, and since she was also rather tired, Samson was probably tired as well. She glanced at her watch. It was nearly one o’clock. She’d been playing with Samson for more than two hours—and it seemed as if it had been just a few minutes. She’d only promised Carole to be with the colt for fifteen or twenty minutes, but that had turned out to be not nearly enough. Wouldn’t Carole be pleased!

She didn’t want to disturb the nursing colt. He seemed so peaceful, in sharp contrast to the lively little creature she’d just been playing with. Stevie climbed up on the paddock fence, loosened Delilah’s lead rope, removed her halter, and then climbed down. She was halfway back to the tack room before she remembered the halter and lead rope she’d brought out for Samson, which she’d never had the chance to use. She returned to the paddock and found the contented little colt lying down on the cool earth in a shady spot of the paddock, sleeping very soundly. She grabbed the halter and lead and took them back into the stable.

She was greeted by the familiar and unpleasant smell of fresh paint. “Ick,” she said, wrinkling her nose. There was nobody around to sympathize with her. Most of the girls who were usually in her class were on the trail with Red O’Malley. Stevie could have gone with them, but she’d had a lot more fun with Samson.

She was about to sit on the bench nearest her cubby when she realized the bench was sparkling white and obviously freshly painted. Her jeans certainly didn’t need a white stripe across the seat!

Complaining out loud to nobody, she sat down on the floor and pulled her backpack out of her cubby. She’d wear her jeans home, but she wanted to switch into her sneakers first. Boots were great for riding, or working in the paddock, but not for walking.

It only took a few seconds to make the change. She
didn’t even bother tying her laces. She rammed her boots back into her cubby, zipped up her backpack, and was ready to go when she realized that she hadn’t seen her wallet—not that it mattered much. She’d spent three of her four cents on a chewy mint and that didn’t leave much in the way of spending money. Still, she didn’t want to lose the wallet. It had her library card in it.

She checked her backpack. It wasn’t there, not even in the outside zipper compartment. Annoyed, she sat back down on the floor and pulled her boots out of her cubby, figuring that she must have shoved it into the back when she put her boots away. It wasn’t there.

Stevie was annoyed with herself. She didn’t like to lose things. She knew she hadn’t taken it out of her backpack since she put it there the day before, but it looked as if it was gone. Not that it was a valuable wallet; nor that she had much money in it, certainly nothing to steal. It was just that … Then she remembered: Carole’s money had been in the wallet. Carole had asked her to hold on to her fifteen dollars so she could buy her father a birthday present—and it looked a lot like it had been stolen!

Stevie suddenly had an awful empty feeling in the pit of her stomach. Fifteen dollars! How could this have happened?

The cubbies weren’t locked, but everybody at the stable knew everybody, and it was hard to imagine who
would steal something from a friend. Certainly Carole didn’t take it. Lisa was out of the question, too.

Stevie’s vivid imagination went to work. First, she tried to remember who had been there when Carole had given her the money, but it just didn’t seem possible that one of the other young riders could have taken the wallet. One of the stableboys? she asked herself. She shook her head. Perhaps it was an outside job—maybe someone wandered in off the street, into the empty locker area, just looking for loose wallets. That at least seemed possible, but it was a little difficult to imagine thieves who would waste their time in the kids’ locker area of a stable. Stevie realized she was about to daydream up an international plot, so she stopped herself. At that moment it didn’t matter how the wallet had disappeared. It did matter that it
had
disappeared. She needed to talk to Max.

Stevie found Max in Barq’s stall, examining a hoof. He angled the horse’s hoof so that it was centered in the stream of sunlight slanting across the stall. He alternated cleaning out the hoof with a hoof-pick and gently prodding the hoof tissues with his fingers. Stevie waited. She wasn’t feeling patient, but it would be useless to try to interrupt Max while he was caring for a horse.

“Got it!” he announced finally. He eased the hoof-pick between the horse’s shoe and foot and manipulated it gently until a pebble dropped into the straw on
the floor of the stall. Max released Barq’s hoof. The horse put it back onto the ground and continued munching at his hay as if nothing had happened.

“What’s up, Stevie?” Max asked as he stepped out of the stall and fastened the door behind him. “I saw you heading for Samson’s paddock; everything okay there?”

“Oh, sure, Samson and I had a great workout,” she said. “But I do have a problem.” She told him about her wallet and Carole’s money.

“Boy, that’s tough,” he said. He shook his head sadly, sympathetically.

“Sure is,” she said, sensing that Max would find a way to solve the problem. “I knew you’d help me out.”

“Oh, I’m not sure there’s anything I can really do to help, Stevie,” Max said. “But you’ve learned something.”

This was definitely
not
what Stevie was hoping he would say. He was saying exactly what her parents would say.

“That’s not fair, Max,” Stevie wailed. “The money got stolen. In
your
stables. I couldn’t help it.”

“Stevie, this is a public place. There are no locks on the cubbies. They are there for the convenience of our riders—not for security. I’m sorry about Carole’s money, but it was careless of you to stash that much money in an open area. Next time, just remember that I can lock valuables in my desk.”