Horse Whispers

by Bonnie Bryant

  “You need some serious grooming, don’t you, girl? Pretty soon we’re going to get you inside and curry you and brush you till you shine like a black pearl. That’s right—nobody’s going to hurt you at the Bar None. Everyone’s your friend here. I am and Kate is and Kate’s father …”

  As Carole went on talking and rubbing the mare’s neck, a thought suddenly occurred to her. She had been assuming that the previous owners were to blame for the horse’s being people-shy. She’d been guessing that they had been rough with her, or worse. But something about that theory didn’t fit. The mare didn’t seem abused so much as plain afraid of being caught. She wasn’t exhibiting any of the signs of an animal that has learned to mistrust people: She wasn’t laying her ears back or baring her teeth. She seemed to mistrust people instinctively. Carole made a mental note of the fact. She didn’t see how it would help, but it was always good to know as much as possible about a horse that you wanted to train. Sometimes knowing one little thing—like the fact that a horse was petrified of water, say—could save years of exasperation.

  Carole lingered a long time with the mare. She patted her and scratched her withers. She took her gloves off. Even though her hands were soon freezing, she pulled burrs from the black mane and straightened it with her fingers. The cold began to seep into her skin, through the many layers of clothing, but Carole persisted. Finally, after a long time, Carole clipped the lead shank to the mare’s halter. She didn’t try to bring her in right away, though. Instead she led her gently back and forth across the corral, asking her to walk and halt, walk and halt. Finally the mare seemed to relax. When the refined black head was lowered in boredom, Carole knew that she had gained the mare’s trust. Only then did she lead the horse inside to a waiting stall.

  On the way in, the mare stopped and put her head down to the ground. She foraged with her hoof, pawing at the snow till she found a tiny shoot underneath. Carole studied her movements. She was surprised that a domesticated horse would go to such lengths to get a bite of grass.

  Before leaving, she made sure there were water and hay in the stall.

  “I promise I’ll come back this afternoon, but right now I’ve got to go in myself and eat lunch.” Carole glanced at her watch to make sure she was on time. She caught her breath with a start: It was half past twelve—half an hour late—and she wasn’t even ready!

  LUNCH WAS NEARLY over. Frank took a last sip of coffee, wiped his mouth, and pushed his chair back from the table. Lisa and Stevie held their breath, praying he hadn’t noticed Carole’s absence. Kate’s father wasn’t a strict man, but he didn’t like guests—even guests like The Saddle Club—running around the ranch getting lost and missing meals. It was a formula for trouble.

  “I have to hand it to Carole,” Frank said. The girls exchanged worried glances. “She’s even more horse-crazy than I would have believed.” He chuckled. “I left her out there an hour ago with that black mare, and I’ll be darned if she isn’t still trying to catch her.”

  “Oh, I’ll bet she’s caught her by now,” Lisa said confidently.

  Frank looked at her, surprised. “You think so?”

  Lisa nodded vigorously. “Absolutely. Carole can catch anything that moves. She probably started talking to the mare and lost track of time.”

  Stevie seconded her friend. “Yup. Happens all the time at Pine Hollow. We’ll be waiting for her, thinking she’s in trouble, and instead she’s just sitting in Starlight’s stall having a conversation.”

  Frank laughed heartily. “A conversation? But that would mean the horses talk back.”

  “They sort of do,” said Lisa. “Not the way you’d think, but I swear Carole understands them.” She could tell by Frank’s expression that he didn’t quite believe her. “It’s true,” she insisted. “It’s just … It’s just this weird thing,” she finished lamely. Heck, she thought, I wouldn’t have believed it myself if I hadn’t seen Carole get through to difficult horses so many times before. Still, Lisa was pleased to see that John Brightstar had a thoughtful expression on his face: He believed her, at least.

  “I’ll put a plate of food in the oven for Carole,” Phyllis volunteered. “I’m sure she’ll want it when she remembers. Now, are you girls ready for pie-making lesson number one?”

  Stevie stood up from the table. “As ready as we’ll ever be, ma’am,” she declared, imitating a soldier going off to combat.

  Kate, Frank, and John helped clear before heading their separate ways. Frank went to his office to do some paperwork. John went out to the ranch truck: He had to run some errands in town. At her parents’ insistence, Kate went to her room to do a couple of hours of homework. “But Mom—”

  “Don’t ‘but Mom’ me,” said Phyllis. “That was part of our agreement: Even with your friends visiting, you’ve got to get some work done.”

  “Yes, Mom,” Kate said, sighing.

  Lunch cleanup took no time at all. Phyllis explained that she tried to tidy up after herself as she cooked. That way, the only things to be done after the meal were stacking the dishwasher and putting food away. “Of course, it doesn’t always work, especially when I’m busy, but it’s a good principle, anyway.” She paused to flip through her recipe box. “Now, I thought we’d start with a classic: a nice, simple, one-crust pumpkin pie that you can impress your mothers with next Thanksgiving. The filling’s a snap, so we can concentrate on the crust.” After a moment’s search, she took out a tattered card and clipped it to the refrigerator. Just then the telephone rang.

  “Hello, Bar None.” Stevie and Lisa watched as Phyllis’s face changed from anticipation to resignation. “I see.… Of course.… No, please! It’s no trouble at all.” Jotting a note down on a piece of paper, she hung up the phone. “Girls, I’m so sorry, but I’m afraid that we’re going to have to postpone the lesson. I’ve got to go on a little rescue mission.”

  “It’s nothing serious, is it?” Lisa asked, envisioning a guest with a broken leg, then a cow stuck in a ravine.

  “No, thank God. It’s just that Brenda has discovered that after six months of sitting at a desk, she’s not in great shape. They’re in town and she doesn’t feel up to snow-shoeing back.”

  “So you’re going to go get her?” Stevie asked, horrified. “Boy, I’d make her walk!”

  Mrs. Devine smiled. “Unfortunately, I don’t think that would make the Bar None very popular with the McHugh family. Anyway, it’s just a half hour’s drive into town.” She sighed. “I only wish they had called five minutes ago. I could have asked John to give her a ride. But this is what running a guest ranch is like—you have to be flexible.” Phyllis removed her apron and hung it on a nail beside the refrigerator. “We’ll try again tomorrow, okay?”

  “Great,” Stevie said.

  “Keep an eye on the oven, will you?” Phyllis added over her shoulder. “I’ve got Carole’s leftovers warming.”

  “Sure thing,” Lisa called. Even a little task like that made her feel professional.

  When Phyllis was gone, the girls gave the kitchen counters a final wipe. Both of them felt bad that she had been called away. They wanted to leave the kitchen as spotless as possible. On her second go-round, the pie recipe caught Stevie’s eye. She went to the fridge and read it over. It didn’t look like there was much to it. “Say, Lis’—” she began.

  Lisa glanced at her friend. She could already tell what Stevie had in mind. “No way!”

  “But Lisa—”

  “Forget it. I am not going to make the pie without Phyllis, so you can just drop the subject right now.”

  Stevie smiled. Some people had an inborn talent for talking to horses. She, Stevie Lake, had an inborn talent for talking to her friends—and persuading them to do things they didn’t want to do. “Of course you’re not going to make the pie,” she said in her most wheedling voice. “We’re both going to make the pie.”

  “No, Stevie—”

  “You heard what Phyllis said: a nice, simple, one-crust pumpkin pie. How hard can
it be?”

  Lisa crossed her arms over her chest defensively. She was all too familiar with Stevie’s powers of persuasion. “Very hard,” she answered. “Very, very, very, very hard.”

  “Listen to this: The only ingredients in the crust are butter, flour, and water. Don’t you think we can handle that?”

  Lisa frowned. She had to admit she was surprised. “That’s it? That’s all that makes a crust?”

  Stevie saw her window of opportunity and jumped. “Can you believe it? Three ingredients! It’ll be a piece of cake—I mean, pie! Think how great it will taste—”

  “Stevie—”

  “I mean, think how impressed Phyllis will be—and everyone—when we serve it for dessert tonight! We’ll be helping out in a big way. Phyllis is having such a busy day, and this will be one less thing she’ll have to worry about.” Stevie eyed Lisa shrewdly. She could tell her friend was wavering. It was time for the kill. “Think of how impressed a certain ranch hand will be.”

  Lisa’s eyebrows flew up. “A certain ranch hand … Now who could that be? I don’t know what you’re— Oh, John!” She grinned. “I’m not even sure he has a sweet tooth,” she said coyly.

  Stevie looked unconvinced by Lisa’s theatrics. She opened the refrigerator door and took out a stick of butter. She opened the pantry and took out a canister of flour.

  Lisa watched her, chewing on a nail. She felt herself weakening. “Oh, okay!” she burst out. “I give in! Let’s make the pie ourselves. You’re right. How hard can it be?”

  Stevie congratulated Lisa on her decision. And she silently congratulated herself on her ability to influence her friends. Obviously it was as sharp as ever. “ ‘Preheat the oven to three-fifty,’ ” she read.

  “Got it,” Lisa said. “What next?”

  “It’s strange. We’re supposed to ‘cut’ the butter into the flour.”

  “Cut?” Lisa asked dubiously.

  “Cut,” Stevie affirmed.

  The two girls looked at one another. They had the tiniest inkling that they were about to get more than they had bargained for. But this was no time for thinking negatively.

  “It probably just means mash them together,” Lisa guessed.

  Stevie frowned. “All right. That’s easy enough.”

  Stevie got two big steak knives out of a drawer and proceeded to chop the stick of butter into tiny pieces, humming as she worked. Then she poured the flour Lisa had measured over the butter. She mashed the mixture with a fork. “The most important thing about cooking is that you’ve really got to get into it,” she announced. “No holding back.” She laid the fork down and started using her hands.

  Lisa watched her skeptically. “Isn’t that kind of … germy?” she asked.

  “Germy, schmermy!” Stevie replied, scraping dough from her wrists. “All right, we’re ready for the water.”

  Lisa consulted the recipe. “Okay. Three tablespoons of ice water, coming right up.”

  “Three tablespoons? That’s it? That must be a mistake. Who ever heard of a recipe calling for spoons of water? I’ll bet they mean cups,” Stevie said confidently. “Pour it in whenever you’re ready.”

  Lisa poured about a cup of water into the flour-butter mixture. Then she stopped. Why was she trusting Stevie’s advice on the amounts? “That’s all I’m adding,” she announced. “It looks like too much already.”

  “Too much? What do you mean?” Stevie said indignantly.

  Lisa pointed. “Look. The dough is all wet and … pasty,” she said.

  Stevie laughed dismissively. “That’s because we haven’t chilled it yet. Come on, into the fridge with you,” she said, trying to gather the wet dough into a ball. “Aaah! It’s alive!”

  Lisa turned to see Stevie attempting to stop the dough from slipping through her fingers. With loud plops, two blobs of it landed on the floor.

  “Gross!” Lisa screamed. A piece of it had jumped up and hit her cheek.

  Ignoring her, Stevie shoved the rest of the dough onto a piece of waxed paper, the waxed paper onto a cookie sheet, and the cookie sheet into the fridge. “All right, now we wait an hour while—” Stevie’s foot hit the spilled dough and slid forward a yard.

  “Gee, I didn’t know you could do a split!” Lisa joked.

  Stevie glowered. She pushed herself back up. “As I was saying, we wait an hour—”

  “Say, couldn’t we move the dough to the freezer and then wait just a half hour?” Lisa suggested. Her practical mind was always trying to think of shortcuts.

  Stevie thought. “Why not?” She took the ball of dough from the refrigerator and opened the freezer door above. A large frozen steak came shooting out and hit the floor. Lisa grinned. Stevie glared. Lisa picked up the steak and handed it solemnly to Stevie. Stevie tried to put it back into the freezer, but another steak slid out. “Here, you pick up—”

  The cookie sheet of dough slid out, sloshing water. “Aaarrgh!” Stevie yelled, stamping her foot. It took the two of them about ten minutes to rearrange everything so that the freezer door would shut.

  “Let’s play Go Fish while we wait for the dough to chill,” Lisa suggested.

  “Great idea.”

  A half hour later, the girls ran to the kitchen, playing cards in hand. “It looks like a frozen potato stuck in an ice chip,” Lisa wailed when she saw the results. “How are we ever going to roll it out?”

  “Don’t worry,” Stevie reassured her. “We’ll chop it down to size.” She grabbed a knife and began hacking at the frozen crust. “Take that, you stupid crust!”

  Lisa chuckled. Bits of ice flew through the air. One hit Lisa on the shoulder. Stevie laughed. “Watch out for flying frozen pie crust,” she murmured.

  “Ha-ha,” said Lisa sarcastically. On an impulse she picked up a handful of flour and blew it at Stevie’s back.

  Stevie grinned. She knew a challenge when she saw one. She took a chunk of crust and lobbed it at Lisa.

  Lisa ducked; the crust hit the wall. “Is that in the recipe, too?” she inquired. “Are you supposed to ‘toss’ the crust?”

  Stevie snorted in spite of herself. “Yeah, first you toss it, and then you juggle it!” She picked up another three chunks and proceeded to juggle. One by one they hit the floor. “Hey, did you hear the way they landed? I’ve got rhythm!”

  “Stevie, really,” Lisa deadpanned, “I thought you knew better. You can’t roll out the crust on the floor!”

  “Oh yes I can!” Stevie said, dropping to the floor and doing a forward roll on top of the melting crust.

  Lisa cracked up. “But the recipe says you’re supposed to flour the surface first,” she reminded Stevie. She took what was left in the bag of flour and dumped it on top of Stevie’s head.

  “Say, Lisa, wasn’t this supposed to be a joint effort? I thought we were doing it together,” Stevie said, yanking Lisa down to the floor.

  Lisa tried to sit up. She was laughing too hard. The butter wrapper had fallen on the floor. Somehow Lisa felt that Stevie’s face needed a good greasing, and now was the time. She stretched out her hand …

  “Don’t even try it, Atwood!” Stevie yelled. She sprang to her feet, brandishing a long fork at Lisa. “En garde!”

  Lisa pawed the floor. She snorted and galloped toward Stevie on her hands and knees. In the middle of her charge, she stopped. Instead of Stevie’s faded jeans and boots, she was face to face with a pair of gray wool slacks and black shoes. Lisa gulped. She looked from the shoes to the trouser legs to the knees. Then she sat back on her heels and looked up. Phyllis Devine was smiling down at her.

  At that moment Stevie spun around, waving the apron. “Hey, Lis’! Here’s your red flag!” she shouted. Then she stopped dead in her tracks. Kate’s mother was standing in the doorway with Carole behind her. Carole was trying very hard to keep a straight face but was only partly succeeding. Stevie felt flour cascading down her back.

  Lisa looked up at her imploringly.

  “Oh, hello,” Stevie said nonchalan
tly. “We were just, you know, making a nice, simple, one-crust pie.”

  PHYLLIS STARTED LAUGHING so hard, tears ran down her face. “I wish I had my camera!” she cried. “This is one for the ranch scrapbook!”

  As she went on cracking up, Lisa sniffed. “All we were trying to do was make a pie!”

  “Yeah—we were going to surprise you,” Stevie mumbled. The two of them were embarrassed beyond belief.

  “I have to say, I admire your spunk,” Phyllis said when she had managed to stop guffawing. “But next time, wait for me, okay?”

  Stevie and Lisa nodded shamefacedly.

  “Hey!” Phyllis said. “Why the hangdog expressions? Come on, let’s get this place whipped into shape. Do you mind?” She pointed to her apron.

  “Oh, ah, no, not at all,” Stevie said, relinquishing the “red flag.”

  Phyllis swiftly tied it on. “We’ve got dinner to prepare. I’m serving vegetable soup and I need two choppers.”

  “I’ll help you guys clean up,” Carole volunteered. Crossing in front of her friends, she couldn’t hold back a giggle.

  “Watch it, Hanson,” Stevie growled. “This pie-making isn’t as easy as it sounds.”

  “Yeah,” Lisa added. “Have you ever tried making a crust?”

  “Once,” Carole said. “Dad and I ended up looking just like you. Now we always buy ready-made crusts.”

  “Say, Carole,” Phyllis said, “I’ll bet you’re hungry. I saved some lunch for you. It’s right here in the oven.” She reached for the oven door.

  Too late Stevie realized what they had done. “Oh, no!” she cried. “We forgot—!” A huge cloud of black smoke poured out. Warily Phyllis held up a plate of charred food. Carole’s leftovers were burned to a crisp.