Full Gallop

by Bonnie Bryant

  Sensing that the pony was becoming more agitated, Carole let him stop. Jinx planted his feet and faced the object, his ears pricked forward in obvious alarm. He let out several worried snorts, his muscles tensed for flight. Carole was careful to stay well out of his path in case he bolted, but he stood his ground. After a few long moments she clucked softly and gave a gentle tug on the lead. Jinx took a step forward, still tense. When he was finally close enough, he stretched his neck out as far as it would go and sniffed at the strange object. After a long moment he took another step, then another. Hesitating again, he lowered his head slightly, then lifted one delicate foreleg and pawed at the ball with his hoof. Stepping back, he cocked his ears at the beach ball again, snorting softly. Carole waited, smiling as she watched. After another moment or two the pony visibly relaxed. Jinx stepped forward again and nudged at the ball with his muzzle, snorting and jumping as it rolled away. This time, however, Carole could tell that he wasn’t really scared. In fact he seemed rather pleased with himself as he carefully watched the ball bump to a stop against a nearby jump standard.

  Carole chuckled and gave the pony a pat on the neck. “You’re coming along, boy,” she said proudly. “See? I knew you weren’t totally hopeless.”

  Jinx blew out another snort, stared at the ball for a few more seconds, then turned away and examined the dusty winter-killed grass at the edge of the schooling ring. Deciding he deserved a treat, Carole allowed him to nibble for a moment or two. As she waited, her gaze wandered to the area beyond the ring. An insistent beeping sound floated across the chilly air as a large dump truck backed up across what had once been a small side paddock. At the moment it was little more than a flat, bare area of packed dirt with a large pile of gravel at one end. A front-end loader was parked nearby. One day soon, Carole knew, that spot would become the entry area for the new stable row, which would add twelve stalls, an additional storage area, and a new, larger wash stall to Pine Hollow’s main building.

  I suppose it’s actually sort of lucky that all this construction is going on now, right when I’m trying to sack out Jinx, Carole thought, trying to look on the bright side. It gives us lots more strange sights and sounds to deal with—and he’s already used to some of them, like that annoying beeping. If he can handle all this commotion, soon he should be able to handle just about anything. She winced as the front-end loader started up with a wheezing roar. The pony flicked his ears in that direction but never lifted his head from his snack. Of course, it might drive me crazy in the meantime.…

  She did her best not to think about that, preferring to focus on her latest session with the gray pony. Jinx was a recent addition to Pine Hollow, and it was mostly due to Carole’s urging that he was there at all. He had been part of a package deal with a sensible, well-trained horse named Madison that had been offered for sale as an inexpensive school horse. While Max had liked Maddie a lot, he’d been understandably doubtful about taking on Jinx as well, especially at such a busy time for Pine Hollow—the cute but poorly trained Welsh pony was twelve or thirteen years old and still couldn’t be considered safely trained. He nipped whenever his girth was tightened, spooked at the air, evaded every move a rider tried to make, and was generally unreliable.

  But we’re changing all that, Carole thought with satisfaction as her gaze returned to the pony. With a little work and a lot of patience, I know I can turn him around. He’s got a good heart—that shows in his eyes. All he needs is someone to teach him how to behave. To change his perspective a little, so he realizes he can trust people to guide him down the right path. He’s just lucky Max trusts me. Otherwise, who knows what might have happened to him? Most people probably wouldn’t be willing to bother with an overaged, undertrained, ornery pony, no matter how cute and flashy he is.

  “Come on, sweetie,” she said aloud. “It’s getting late. Let’s put you back in your stall.”

  Jinx lifted his head and turned to follow her—proper leading had been the first lesson on Carole’s agenda after the pony’s arrival—and soon they were strolling across the stable yard toward the wide double doors of the main building. There were a couple of piles of cement blocks piled just outside, along with some rolls of cable, a precarious stack of plastic pipes, and other items. Carole kept an eye on Jinx as she led him past. He had seen the construction supplies on their way out an hour earlier, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t decide to spook at them all over again now.

  Carole was so attentive to the pony as she stepped into the stable building that it took her a second or two to notice that someone was watching her from the other end of the entryway. It wasn’t until Jinx’s ears flicked toward the other human that she finally glanced up. “Oh!” she said, blushing as if she’d been caught doing something wrong. “Hi, Ben.”

  Even after several weeks she still wasn’t quite used to the idea that she and Ben Marlow were a couple. They had worked together for so long, and it wasn’t until just a month or two earlier that Carole had allowed herself to admit—even to herself—that they could possibly be more than friends. It still seemed like a wonderful dream sometimes, especially when she thought back to the night several weeks earlier when Ben had admitted that he had feelings for her, too. Ever since then they had been slowly finding their way toward being a real couple. It had been awkward sometimes and not always easy. But they were doing it—together. And that was the most wonderful feeling Carole could imagine.

  “Hi.” Ben stepped forward and leaned over, planting a small kiss in the vicinity of her lips. Then he stepped back, looking slightly uncertain, as if he wanted to say something more and couldn’t quite find the words. Carole didn’t mind—she knew that words weren’t his strong suit. His one true talent was communicating with horses. He seemed to speak their language more easily than his own. Carole felt that way herself sometimes, so she understood. “How’d he do?” Ben added at last. He nodded toward the pony at Carole’s shoulder.

  Carole glanced back at Jinx. “Not bad,” she said, giving the pony a pat. “Some workers drove by in a big bulldozer-type thing while we were out working in the ring, and he barely batted an eye. I really think he’s coming around. He’s starting to realize that it’s not going to get him anywhere to spook every two seconds.”

  “Good.” Ben fell into step beside Carole as she continued towing Jinx toward the stable aisle.

  After depositing the pony in his stall with a fresh flake of hay, Carole and Ben gave him a good-bye pat and then headed off, taking the long way around the U-shaped stable aisle. Lessons were over for the day, and only a few horses that had taken some intermediate riders on a late trail ride were still out. Just about every stall was occupied.

  This is nice, Carole thought as she patted one of her favorite stable ponies, a little silvery gray gelding named Nickel. Across the aisle, another pony named Peso snorted jealously, eager for an equal share of attention. Just me and Ben and the horses. How could life possibly get any better than this?

  The two of them moved on, taking their time, stopping to give a pat or a scratch on the neck to each horse they encountered, from a boarder’s frisky quarter horse named Pinky to amiable old Patch, one of the stable’s oldest and most reliable school horses. Even Geronimo, Pine Hollow’s only stallion, stepped to the front of his double-sized corner stall to say hello. Finally Carole and Ben reached the end of the aisle. A boarder’s horse named Memphis was on one side, her nose shoved into the fresh pile of hay in one corner of the stall. Across the way a gray roan gelding stretched his head toward them, nickering eagerly. “Hey there, Checkers,” Carole said, giving the friendly horse a fond pat. “Looks like Max finally followed through on his threat to move you over here to the end, huh?”

  Ben’s dark eyes gleamed in amusement. “This morning was the last straw,” he said. “When Maureen got here, Checkers was standing on Max’s favorite baseball cap. In the office doorway.”

  Carole burst out laughing, imagining the scene. Checkers shifted his weight and shook his head,
looking slightly disgruntled. The mischievous quarter horse gelding had been one of Max’s best school horses for the past couple of years. In that time, he had also earned a reputation as an escape artist, managing to find a way to free himself from confinement in increasingly creative ways. His most recent stall was decorated with so many bolts and extra latches that it looked like a prison cell. Any young rider who made the mistake of leaving Checkers’s door open with only the stall guard attached while she dashed down the aisle to the tack room or the student locker room generally ended up paying for it by spending half her scheduled lesson chasing him down in the acres of pasture surrounding the stable. Max had been muttering for months that he should just move the mischievous gelding closer to the main entrance. That would make it easier for the staff and students to spot him when he made his escapes, and perhaps for them to head him off before he got out of the building. Besides that, Checkers occasionally had the urge to let the other horses out, too; and being on the end of the aisle, with one of the stable’s few empty stalls beside him, no less, might cut down on that habit, too.

  “It’s for your own good, bad boy,” she told Checkers, giving him one last pat. Then she turned to Ben as they headed into the entryway. “It’s probably not just the baseball cap thing that made Max move Checkers now. It’s a really bad time for him to be out gallivanting around the place,” she commented, thinking back to her earlier observations. “With all this construction, there are way too many ways for horses to get hurt. Not that they ever need much of an excuse for that,” she added with a wry grin.

  Ben smiled in agreement. “We still on for dinner?” he asked.

  “Absolutely,” Carole said, a little thrill going through her as she remembered their evening plans. She could hardly believe that she and Ben were going to be double-dating with Stevie and Phil. For as long as she’d thought to notice guys at all, she’d been unable to avoid noticing that her two best friends always seemed to have one hanging around. Stevie and Phil had been a couple since meeting at riding camp back in junior high. And Lisa had had a long string of adoring, though usually temporary, boyfriends in the years before Alex.

  And now I guess I’m in the club, Carole thought with a secret smile as she glanced at Ben out of the corner of her eye. That thought made her happy. But not as happy as the idea that her friends might finally get to know Ben through her, to see him as she had always seen him—as a wonderful, caring person who knew and understood more about horses than many riders three times his age. So far Carole had avoided pushing Ben on her friends too much, knowing that her friends still weren’t sure whether her new relationship with him was a good idea. But the other day during a trail ride, out of the blue, Stevie had suggested that they all get together that weekend. Lisa had begged off, but even so, Carole was thrilled. Her friends seemed to finally be accepting the idea that she and Ben just might work out after all. And you know what? she thought giddily. I think they may be right about that.

  “We still have over an hour till we have to leave,” she told Ben. “So what else needs doing around here?”

  “Someone’s coming to see Joyride in a few minutes, but I already groomed her for that.” Ben checked his watch. “I suppose we could set up a stall for the new boarder.”

  “New boarder?” Carole blinked, wondering if she’d heard him right. “What new boarder?”

  “Oh.” Ben looked slightly sheepish. “Guess I forgot to mention it. That twelve-year-old from Windward Farm—Casey? Katie? Something like that. She’s moving her horse in today.”

  “Kelsey. Kelsey Varick,” Carole corrected automatically. “But I thought she was coming when the addition was finished, just like everybody else.”

  Ben shrugged. “Max says today. Seems this girl insisted.”

  Carole was more surprised than ever at that. Max wasn’t the type to give in to twelve-year-olds who “insisted” he do things their way. “Well, okay then,” she said uncertainly. “I guess we should go do that. The stall on the corner by the back door is free. Let’s ask Max if that one will work.”

  When they arrived at the office, Max was sitting behind his desk talking with Maureen, who was lounging in the doorway. “Hi,” Carole said. “Um, sorry for interrupting, but Ben just told me about the new boarder coming this afternoon, and we were going to get a stall ready. Should we use that one in the back corner?” She avoided looking at Maureen, who always made her a little nervous. There was something about her cool gold-flecked eyes that made Carole feel like a bug under a microscope. Besides, Maureen had never made any secret of the fact that she thought Ben was cute. Even though she was at least four or five years older than him, she insisted on checking him out, head to toe, almost every time they ran into each other. While Carole couldn’t fault the older stable hand’s taste, it was still kind of disturbing.

  “Sure, that corner stall will be fine,” Max agreed, leaning back in his chair. “And thanks, you two. I meant to get to that myself, but the whole afternoon has been crazy.”

  “No problem,” Carole said. “Uh, but I didn’t even realize a new boarder was going to be moving in already. What’s the big rush? I thought she wasn’t coming until spring, like the others.”

  “I admit, it’s not the ideal time. In more ways than one.” Max rubbed his jaw, his eyes wandering to the wall clock. “Tonight’s the night I have to leave early so Deborah and I can drive into D.C. She’s accepting an award for that story she did on the new environmental laws.”

  Carole noticed that he hadn’t really answered her question, but she knew better than to push it. If Max didn’t want to elaborate, he wasn’t going to. “Oh! That’s right,” she said instead. It really was pretty exciting that Max’s wife, a newspaper reporter, had won a prestigious journalism award. “Tell Deb congratulations.”

  “I will.” Max looked worried. “I just wish I could be here tonight for the newcomer. Especially since Red and Denise are both off.”

  “Don’t sweat it,” Maureen said with a shrug. “I think the three of us can handle moving in one kid and her nag. It’s Friday—a bunch of the Pony Club twerps will probably be hanging around anyway. They can help out.”

  “Right,” Carole agreed, sneaking a peek at her watch and hoping this wasn’t going to interfere with her date. “No problem at all.”

  TWO

  Callie Forester leaned forward slightly, balancing herself easily in the stirrups as her horse climbed a steep hill. The sun had almost disappeared over the tops of the trees, and the wooded trail Callie was following was draped in deep shadow.

  “Good thing we’re almost at the stable,” she murmured to her horse, a leopard Appaloosa gelding named Scooby. “Otherwise I’d have to let you find the trail home.”

  Scooby flicked his alert, shapely ears in her direction, then returned his attention to the trail ahead. He crested the hill and Callie sat back, urging the horse into an easy trot. It was growing cold as night approached, and the sky glowed crimson and orange and pink. This is the stuff, Callie thought with a sigh of deep contentment. It was moments like those, when she was alone with her horse, far from civilization, that she felt the most alive—the most like herself.

  She knew it surprised some people that she had chosen the sport of endurance riding as her specialty—it wasn’t nearly as glamorous as other disciplines she could have picked. To Callie, though, her choice made perfect sense. She had spent several years showing in more traditional areas of equestrian competition. But all the time she spent circling the hunter ring had never brought her the sense of peace and personal satisfaction she felt at times like this. There were no artificial obstacles to get in her way, no silly show clothes to worry about, no judge watching her every move. It was just Callie and her horse, depending on each other and their months of steady training and conditioning. It was riding in its simplest, most basic form. That was why Callie had switched to endurance riding five or six years earlier, and why she’d never looked back.

  I’m just glad to be righ
t here, right now, she thought, taking an extra-deep breath of the crisp winter air. After the year I’ve had … Well, it’s just nice to be back, that’s all. She did her best not to let thoughts of George Wheeler enter her mind. Or the car accident the previous summer, which had robbed her of six months of training as she relearned how to use her body. Or even her family’s move at the end of her sophomore year, which had uprooted Callie and her brother, Scott, from lifelong friends, neighbors, schools, and coaches. Scott had adapted easily enough, of course—he had their congressman father’s gift for making friends instantly wherever he went. But Callie couldn’t help wondering what would have become of her if she hadn’t had riding to carry her through. For one thing, it had given her something to focus on in those first uncertain weeks when everything else was new and scary. Also, the stable was the place where she’d met Stevie, Carole, and Lisa, who had become her true friends.

  A moment later horse and rider approached a fork in the trail. Callie brought Scooby to a halt, debating which way to go.

  “The left way is shorter,” she mused aloud. “But that hill above the creek crossing looked pretty muddy when we passed it earlier. Maybe we should go right. It’s a little longer, but it’ll be easier on us.”

  Scooby stood patiently, offering no opinion one way or the other, his breathing creating little puffs of steam in the cold air. After one last glance at the red-streaked late-afternoon sky, Callie turned right.

  Why not take the easy route for once? she thought with a half smile. People are always telling me I put too much pressure on myself. And see? That’s not always true.

  Fifteen minutes later Callie emerged from the woods just a short distance from the stable yard. As she rode Scooby toward the building, she noticed a small knot of people clustered near the gate of the schooling ring. A fully tacked horse was trotting at the end of a longe line inside—a tall, elegant gray mare.