Midnight Lady (9 page)

“Arnie Ash called me. I just got off the phone five minutes before you pulled into my yard.” Donna seemed to be trying hard to get her muddled thoughts in order. “Well, I knew he was loaded; the slaughterhouse does good business. But I never knew he had that kind of dough. A cash offer!” she repeated.

Kirstie frowned suspiciously. “Why does he want to buy the ranch?”

“Why not?” Sandy seemed to think it was a reasonable idea. “It would be a good thing for him if he went into cattle ranching, raised his own cows and so on. There could be a lot of extra profit in it for him.”

“Especially if he modernizes,” Donna conceded. “He’d keep a manager in place who would bring everything up to date.”

“Manager?” Kirstie echoed. Her brain ticked over faster than before.

“Sure. He said he hoped Leon would stay on after I sold up. I haven’t had the chance to talk to Leon yet …”

“That figures!”
Tick-tick-tick.
Leon Franks had been driving out of the abattoir as they went past. He’d been looking pretty smug. So that was what he’d been up to, running to Arnie Ash to tell him about Donna’s problems, encouraging the slaughterhouse owner to move in on the widow with a cheap offer. Yeah, of course!

“Kirstie, don’t interrupt!” Sandy said sharply.

“Sorry.” She frowned down at her feet. Now was not the time to explain her theory. But she thought it through. “Hit the old lady while she’s down!” Leon must have told Arnie Ash. “She can’t handle this latest crisis of her horses running off. Right now she’d listen to any offer, even if it was peanuts!” Arnie Ash would get the best deal of his life. He’d be grateful to Leon for the inside information. Leon would probably be rewarded with a good raise in pay.

Bad news. Terrible news, in fact. Made all the more real by the fact that Leon’s pickup was approaching the ranch house right now. He sped over the bumpy track and swung into the yard with a squeal of brakes, slamming the door and giving Sandy and Kirstie a long, hard look.

“Why the trailer?” he demanded.

“We loaned Donna some horses until she gets hers back.” Sandy’s voice sounded defensive.

“Who asked you to do that?” Glancing angrily at Johnny Mohawk, Silver Flash, and Yukon, Leon lifted his leather chaps out of the back of the truck and began to tie them on.

“No one asked us. We thought it was the least we could do.” Realizing that they’d outstayed their welcome, Sandy headed for the trailer. “Keep them as long as you need to,” she told Donna.

“You gotta realize these aren’t real ranch horses,” Leon cut across Sandy and Kirstie’s path to warn his boss. “They’re used to dude ranch work, carrying amateur riders out on the trail, not professional cowboys cutting out and roping cattle.”

Kirstie stopped in her tracks. “Hey. Johnny Mohawk is as good as any cutter or roper on Circle R!”

Leon sneered at her. “In your dreams!” He went across to the dainty black horse, who backed away at his sudden approach. He laughed outright at Johnny’s slim build. “Are you saying this weakling can hold his ground against a fifteen-hundred-pound steer, or work up enough speed to rope a calf?”

“Sure!” Kirstie refused to back down. “Arabians are pretty fast, and they’re known for having a lot more stamina than a quarter horse.” Her heart was thumping with a mixture of anger and anxiety. It didn’t take much imagination to guess how Leon Franks would treat the Half Moon Ranch horses while they were here. She saw the cowboy’s spurs glint in the sun and watched Johnny Mohawk pull back to the limit of his halter rope.

“C’mon, Kirstie,” her mom said, looking worried herself. She said good-bye to Donna, who had stood nervously on the porch since Leon’s arrival, as if working up enough courage to break the news of Arnie Ash’s recent offer to him.

For another few moments, Kirstie hesitated. “How long have you got before you have to give Arnie an answer?” she murmured quietly to the elderly ranch owner. She noticed Leon Franks hovering rudely on the edge of their private conversation.

Donna sighed and shook her head. “Not long. He said the offer was only good for a short while, otherwise he would put in a bid on another ranch he’s been looking at lately.”

“But how long exactly?” Kirstie knew that an awful lot hung on Donna’s answer.

There was the dim, distant look in her eyes, a catch in her throat as she replied. “Twenty-four hours,” she whispered. “Arnie wants a decision from me by this time tomorrow morning!”

“TJ and Jesse just found two more of their horses!” Hadley greeted Sandy and Kirstie with good news.

It was midday when they finally got back home, having driven the trailer along the back roads around Renegade and San Luis, searching for the missing animals. They’d looked along the banks of Horseshoe Creek, in meadows hidden behind copses of willow and aspen. Once, they’d spotted movement: a reddish brown creature stumbling through marshy ground. They’d left the trailer and tracked the animal on foot, coming across it as it drank from the creek.

“Bovine!” Sandy had said quietly, using the jokey cowboy term.

The cow had raised her white head, water still dripping from her blunt pink nose. The brand on her rump showed a capital R inside a circle.

“She’s Donna’s cow, but she must have wandered off ranch property,” Sandy had decided. “C’mon, girl; yip, yip!”

They’d spent the best part of an hour driving her out of the culvert and back onto Circle R land.

Arriving home to Hadley’s news, Kirstie was the first out of the trailer. She followed him into the barn. “Any idea which two horses?”

The wrangler tossed alfalfa hay into wooden feed troughs, then watched as three foals scrambled across the pen behind the barn. Their sticklike legs and heavy heads made their progress ungainly. But soon they were tucking into a good feed. “Two more ranch horses,” he reported. “A sorrel named Foxy and an appaloosa named Pilgrim.”

“Where did they find them?” For a few seconds, the cute foals had taken Kirstie’s mind off the problem. The biggest, a black-and-white paint, was head-butting the palomino and the bay to get at the best of the hay. But then the other two ganged up to cut the paint out. In the end, they all seemed to agree there was enough for everyone and settled down to munch contentedly from the manger.

“To the south of the ranch,” Hadley told her. “Leon reckoned they’d head across the plain rather than cut back toward the mountains. Seems he was right.”

Kirstie gave a small nod, then turned away. She had a flashback to the night before, seeing in her mind the moonlit scene, when the horses had split off in all directions: some toward the flat lands to the south, it was true, but some toward Eagle’s Peak in the north. Skeeter, for a start. Probably Moonpie and Midnight Lady had followed close on his heels. But she said nothing to Hadley about that.

“Kirstie!” Her mom called her from the house porch.

She broke into a run, along the dark corridor of wooden stalls, past the round feed bins, through the heavy pine door into the corral.

“Lisa’s on the phone!” Sandy waited, arms folded. “You two are grounded, remember! Don’t go making plans!”

Nodding, Kirstie scooted by to take the call in the kitchen. She arrived breathless and curious.

“Hey.” Lisa didn’t sound her usual bubbly self.

“Hey!” She perched on the edge of the table, staring out at the mountains.

“I’m up at Lone Elm. I just heard from Grandpa; they found three of Donna’s horses so far.”

“I know.” News traveled fast. “Donna’s thinking of selling Circle R.”

“What! I never knew that.”

Not that fast, then.
There was a long, awkward silence for her friend to start feeling guilty in. “Did you call me just to tell me about the three horses?”

“No, really …” Lisa seemed to be making a decision to say what was on her mind. “Kirstie, I just drove up to the trailer park with Grandpa. He’s pretty mad at me.”

“The whole world is mad at us,” Kirstie confirmed. “So?”

“So, he wasn’t saying much. I spent the whole time looking out of the window, making like I didn’t care.”

“You and me both.” Lisa was having the same kind of hard time as she was, Kirstie realized. “So, is there a point to this story?”

“Well, I couldn’t swear to it,” Lisa sighed. “Maybe I’m a bit crazy right now. But we were driving up to Lone Elm and Grandpa stops to talk to the Forest Guard. I’m seeing loose horses everywhere, like, not really seeing them, just imagining them.”

“It’s because we didn’t get any sleep last night.”

“Well, whatever. They mostly turn out to be shadows or mule deer. Finally, I’m looking up at a rock, seeing what I think are three horses on the skyline. Grandpa is saying good-bye to the Forest Guard. I’m saying, ‘Hold on a second!’ but he’s deliberately ignoring me. So I’m trying to work out if this time it’s more mule deer, or if it really is three horses. One’s definitely a black-and-white paint …”

“Skeeter!” Kirstie gasped.

“One’s too far away to know if it’s a flea-bitten gray, but I’m nearly sure …”

“Moonpie!” Kirstie lowered her voice to a murmur.

“And the third one, another gray, is looking down from the rock, watching me watching her. She’s wearing a head collar, and her ears are up, and she’s staring, ready to run …”

Kirstie closed her eyes and almost stopped breathing. “Midnight Lady!”

“I guess so. But I can’t do anything because Grandpa’s refusing to listen to me. He’s driving on and the sound of the engine spooks them. We take a bend to the left, through some trees, and when I look up again the horses have gone. I’m staring up at an empty rock. Zilch. Nothing!”

“Can you remember which rock?” Kirstie begged. She glanced over her shoulder to see her mom standing in the doorway.

“Angel Rock,” Lisa whispered back.

Then something must have happened at her end of the line. Suddenly there was a click, and the phone went dead.

That afternoon, Sandy booked Kirstie’s horse, Lucky, into one of the trail rides and planned a list of chores for Kirstie which would keep her busy until nightfall. Beginning with logs. She had to help Charlie to stack the wood in the back of a trailer and deliver it to each of the guest cabins. Then there were horse blankets to hose down, scrub and clean, before slinging them over the corral fence to dry. After that, there was tack to clean, bales of hay to shift, yards to rake, and the tack room to sweep.

“I’ll stack the hay,” Charlie suggested. It was two thirty and he saw that Kirstie looked exhausted. “You catch up on some sleep.”

Sandy was out leading a ride up Coyote Trail. She wouldn’t be back until five o’clock. “Are you sure?” Kirstie checked her watch.

“Sure I’m sure.” He took a heavy bale from her and set off across the barn. Then he hesitated and glanced back. “Just make sure you stay out of trouble, OK!”

Charlie must have sensed that Kirstie’s brain was racing and that sleep was the last thing on her mind. So she made a quick exit before he could withdraw his offer.

Angel Rock! It was beyond Lone Elm Trailer Park, on the far side of Miners’ Ridge. How could she get over there without a horse? Or should she risk saddling Charlie’s horse, Rodeo Rocky? No way. The tack room was next to the barn where Charlie was working. Could she grab a rope instead, lead Rocky out of the meadow, and ride him bareback? That way she was much less likely to get caught. Stopping by the house to think, Kirstie realized this was the best way.

Soon she had slung a rope across her shoulders and was slipping over the bridge toward Red Fox Meadow. Rodeo Rocky was the only horse in there, since every other horse on the ranch was in use or out on loan. He looked up and whinnied as she approached.

“Ssh!” Kirstie climbed the fence and jumped into the field. The bay horse’s coat shone with its peculiar metallic glint in the full sunlight. His dark mane and tail hung silky smooth. Quickly she reached out to clip the lead rope onto the head collar, then led him quietly out of the meadow.

The next move was more difficult. Rodeo Rocky was a brave and intelligent horse, one they’d rescued from San Luis Rodeo where they’d found him being badly treated. Once wild, he’d now learned to trust Kirstie and was a wonderful ranch horse, Charlie’s pride and joy. But he was young and strong, and had no experience of being ridden bareback. It was possible that as soon as Kirstie tried it, the strangeness would make him kick and buck. She could soon be thrown to the ground and trampled by the panicking horse.

Leading him out by the creek, away from the house and barn, Kirstie waited until they reached the cover of some willow bushes before she stopped and made her first attempt to talk gently to the horse, persuading him by her voice and gesture, that whatever she was about to do wasn’t intended to frighten or hurt.

“I wouldn’t ask you to do this if I didn’t have to!” she whispered, looping the lead rope around his neck.

Rodeo Rocky dipped his head and snorted. He shook himself from head to foot.

“This is gonna seem kinda strange,” she went on. This time, she ran her hands over his neck and shoulders as she talked. She felt him watching her carefully. “I know you like a saddle and bridle, so that you’re familiar with what’s going on. But just for today, we’re gonna have to do without.”

I’m listening,
he said by the turn of his head, the flick of his ears.
Go ahead.

Kirstie found a nearby rock to raise herself from the ground and bring herself level with the horse’s head. Then she rested both arms across his left shoulder. Leaning against him, she felt him brace himself to take her weight. “Now, I’m gonna grab a fistful of mane and haul myself up,” she warned. “Once I get my leg over your back, you have to stand nice and easy. Otherwise I get thrown off, see!”

She was breathing the words into his ear, slowly easing herself into position. Rocky stood fast, obviously wondering what she was up to, but prepared to trust her.

Smooth and slow, Kirstie slid her leg over his broad back. She pushed herself upright. “Easy!” she murmured, as Rocky felt her full weight. She kept hold of his mane, kicked gently, and clicked her tongue.

He took a step forward, then another, swaying as he climbed the slope away from the creek. When he found that Kirstie slipped from side to side without her saddle, he tried to even out his stride. And without the usual bit and reins to guide him, he saw that he must pay more attention to her legs and voice.