Spirit Riding Free

by G. M. Berrow

  In the next stall, a reddish-brown mare with a cropped mane was munching on some hay and eyeing the PALs. Abigail skipped over just to see if she was as soft as she looked. “Aww, I like her. She’s perfect for Mr. Granger! Don’t you think?”

  “I’m not sure.” Pru joined her and began to pet the gentle mare’s muzzle. “She’s a Morgan—they definitely have a sweet disposition and are pretty hardy. But I think my dad is looking for something even bigger.…” While Pru and Abigail debated the merits of the Morgan horse, something in the far right of the stables caught Lucky’s eye.

  The stallion must have been about eighteen hands high—a full three hands higher than Spirit. He was a rich brown color, with a white blaze down the front of his muzzle. When he stomped his hooves, his furry white fetlocks swung around like giant tassels. He was magnificent. Even the shafts of sunlight seemed to stream in and illuminate his stall as if a spotlight were shining on him.

  Lucky gasped in awe. “Pru! Abigail! There he is! That’s the horse we’re looking for!”

  The three girls bounded over to meet the towering Clydesdale. “His name is Buster!” Lucky exclaimed, reading his stat card.

  Abigail craned her neck to look up at the huge horse from below his chin. He sniffed at her and then licked a wayward piece of popcorn off her shirt. “Whoa.”

  “We did it! We found the perfect horse.” Pru clapped her hands together in delight. “I’m going to find my dad. Buster is definitely the one.”

  But before Pru could leave, there was a loud CRASH! Bits of dust kicked up around Buster as the noise repeated, growing even louder. Buster seemed to be standing still, but was somehow rattling the wood panels of his own stall. It was almost as if he were going to bust right out and run away. Maybe that’s how he got his name! Lucky thought.

  “Look! It’s not Buster doing that.” Pru pointed to the space behind Buster’s hind legs. “It’s a tiny horse!” Suddenly, a little cream-colored muzzle appeared and quickly disappeared again. Buster whinnied. Then he spun around to reveal a small, stout, flaxen-colored horse with a blond mane jumping and kicking around in the back of the stall. The little horse kicked her hooves playfully, flinging hay into the air. Buster let out a heavy sigh. He seemed used to this routine and had little patience with it.

  “Is that a pony?!” Abigail shrieked. Her smile reached from ear to ear.

  “No, I’m afraid not, ma’am,” said an unfamiliar voice, causing all three girls to jump in surprise. “Not a pony. But she is a li’l devil. And if I were you, I’d stay far, far away.”

  Chapter 3

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle ya!” The speaker chuckled and tilted back his white cowboy hat. “I’ve been told I have a flair for the dramatic.” He smiled underneath his bushy red beard and mustache. He shook his head apologetically as he approached the stall. “I’m Mr. Rollins, that’s Buster, and that little gal there is Sandy.”

  “Awww…” Abigail leaned over the edge of the stall. “Hi, Sandy!”

  “Don’t let looks deceive ya. She’s the wildest mini horse I’ve ever owned. Had to bring her to the auction today just to keep an eye on her while I’m away from my barn! Otherwise, I’d probably come home to a pile of planks and rubble. Isn’t that right, Buster?”

  Buster gave a little nod, but he could have just been looking for a snack instead of agreeing.

  “Really?” Lucky replied, regarding the cream-colored horse. “But she’s so… itty-bitty.”

  “You’d be surprised. She’s incredibly strong and packs a big punch when she wants to. Doesn’t want to be trained, either. Do you, girl?” Mr. Rollins opened the gate and whistled. At this, Sandy whinnied, then did a little spin. She was clearly trying her best to look cute. “That’s about as far as we’ve gotten, and it’s not good for much.” Mr. Rollins laughed and wiped the sweat from his brow. “But enough about Sandy. Were you interested in Buster?”

  Once the girls located Al Granger, he immediately fell in love with the Clydesdale. While he busied himself with getting acquainted with Mr. Rollins and asking all the necessary questions, Lucky saw her opportunity. She wondered if Pru and Abigail had the same idea that she did. There was no doubt about the fact that Buster was the perfect specimen—strong and big. Just what they were looking for. But Lucky couldn’t get Sandy out of her head. She was clearly a handful, but maybe she didn’t have to be. Not with their help!

  Lucky quickly pulled Pru and Abigail aside to an empty stall for an impromptu PALs meeting. She spoke in hushed tones. Luckily, all the hay around them helped deaden the sound. “We need a new horse to train to become Trail Trainers, right? And Sandy needs training—desperately! Let’s ask Mr. Rollins if we can bid on Sandy. It’s perfect. What do you guys think?”

  A moment passed before anyone said anything. Lucky held her breath as she waited. Finally, Pru raised an eyebrow and admitted, “Well, the timing is perfect.…”

  “And she’s just so cute!” Abigail added. “How hard could it be?”

  “Not as hard as it will be convincing my dad to let us bid on Sandy,” Pru retorted. She paused for a second, considering. “But that’s never stopped me before. Let’s do it!”

  “Trail Trainers, here we come!” Lucky cheered. “Okay, we have to hurry.” They didn’t have much time. Buster was set to go to the auction stage soon. The girls knew that as soon as Al bid and won his horse, they’d have to leave Silverlode.

  Sure enough, when they rushed back over to the corner stall, Mr. Rollins was trying to untie Buster’s rope. Sandy put her head right in the way of where Mr. Rollins was trying to reach each time he extended his arm. The little horse had her mouth open and kept nibbling at the rope, causing quite the added difficulty for all three of them. Buster flicked his tail and turned his ears back in annoyance.

  “What a troublemaker!” Al Granger laughed. “Good luck getting that filly off your hands today.”

  “Oh, I’m not even going to put her up for auction,” Mr. Rollins admitted. Finally, the cowboy was able to untie the rope and get a harness on the horse. He began to lead Buster out of the stall, but Sandy ran between the stallion’s legs and blocked him. “No one would bid on her, anyhow.”

  “Except us!” Pru blurted out. “We want to bid on Sandy.”

  “Oh boy.” Al crossed his arms over his chest and met his daughter’s eyes. “Didn’t we have a deal today?”

  “Deal?” Pru echoed innocently. “Oh, yeah, ‘stay focused on the goal.’ But, um… see, well, we have a side goal now, too.”

  Al raised his eyebrows. “Side goal?”

  Pru motioned to her friends and her words all came spilling out at once. “The three of us want to become Frontier Fillies Trail Trainers, but to do that, we need to teach Lucky how to train a horse from scratch and Sandy is the perfect horse for the job! Between the three of us, we have a little money saved up from our apple baked goods sales and horse washes, so we can put in a bid ourselves.”

  “Whoa there, little filly!” Mr. Rollins put up his hands in a “stop” motion. “Let’s just back it up for a second.”

  Lucky was sure that Mr. Rollins was about to tell them their idea was out of the question, but instead he tilted his head to the side and asked, “Where did you all say you’re from again?”

  “Miradero,” Mr. Granger replied. “Do you know it?”

  “Sure do.” Mr. Rollins nodded. “In fact, I’ll be heading out that way in a couple of weeks for the Founders’ Day Parade. I’ve got some… business to attend to for the parade,” he said vaguely. Of course, Lucky and her friends knew all about the upcoming parade that featured famous “front-row” horseback riders who were chosen each year to play the parts of the Miradero founders. Abigail and Pru had always wanted to be picked, but the honor usually went to much more skilled riders.

  “Tell you what”—Mr. Rollins pulled a piece of hay from his vest pocket and began to chew on it. He narrowed his eyes, wheels clearly turning in his mind—“if you girls can train Sandy by then
, you can keep her. But if she’s not up to snuff, I’ll have to take her back for her own good. Who knows—maybe you’ll have better luck than me.”

  “We can take her home with us? Just like that?” Lucky asked, trying to contain her excitement.

  “Well, you seem like responsible young horse wranglers.” Mr. Rollins turned to Al. “What do you think, Dad? Are they trustworthy?”

  “They are a little too impulsive.…” The stern look on Al Granger’s face melted away. “But yes, they’re trustworthy.” He sighed with a chuckle. “It’s not too much trouble for you?”

  “Actually, you’d be doing me a favor. I love the little gal, but I have a lot of horses to keep me busy. She clearly needs some extra attention.”

  “Now, that we can do!” said Pru as she, Abigail, and Lucky rushed over to pet Sandy. She tried to lick their hands, looking for wayward popcorn. “How much do we owe you?”

  “Did I hear you say you’re bakers?” asked Mr. Rollins with a little wink.

  “Yes, sir!” Abigail chirped. “Apple pies, apple turnovers, Apple Abigails, horse oat biscuits, scones, biscuits for people, cookies, brownies—”

  “In that case,” Mr. Rollins interrupted, “how does one apple pie sound?”

  A new mini horse to train for the price of one little baked dessert? Lucky could hardly believe her good fortune. “Sounds like you’ve got yourself a pretty sweet deal, Mr. Rollins!”

  Chapter 4

  After the journey home from Silverlode, the PALs were exhausted. With the two extra horses in tow, it had taken almost twice as long for the gang to herd themselves back to Miradero. Al’s new stallion, Buster, was steady and strong, just as predicted. The Clydesdale was totally unfazed by the long walk and easily kept pace with Spirit, Boomerang, and Chica Linda.

  But Sandy was another story.

  The mini horse pulled and tugged at her ropes and constantly tried to gallop in the opposite direction. Sometimes she would just sit down in the middle of the trail and start chewing on weeds. Mr. Granger was skeptical of Sandy’s potential. “I hope you girls know what you got yourselves into,” he said. “The Founders’ Day Parade will come up sooner than you think.”

  It was going to be a lot of work to train her. But Lucky felt excited about trying.

  They’d even set up a special corner of the barn just for her—Sandy-proofed. Lucky had brought a bunch of old pillows from her house and secured them to the walls so that the rowdy horse could twirl and kick without breaking anything. Buster was content in his stall up front, far away from his pesky “little sister.” Sandy and all the other horses were also resting for the moment. Even Spirit was perched in his stall with his eyes closed.

  “It’s a pity we couldn’t have just let Sandy take a piggyback ride on Buster’s back,” joked Abigail as she brushed Boomerang. “He’s big enough to carry anything!”

  “I don’t think training horses to ride other horses was what Mr. Rollins meant by ‘training Sandy,’” Pru reasoned. She filled Chica Linda’s water trough and used the pitchfork from the corner to replenish her stall with fresh hay. “But now that I think about it… what did he mean?”

  “I’m too tired to even think about it right now,” Abigail replied as she collapsed onto a hay bale.

  “Me too,” admitted Lucky. “And I’ve got to get home before dinner. I promised my dad and Kate that I’d set the table.” Lucky regretted having to tear herself away from her new project, but it was probably important for everyone to get some rest. Until then, Lucky would just have to be patient. It was not her strongest suit.

  The next morning, Lucky was the first one to the barn. If she’d been allowed to spend the night there, she probably would have. So when Lucky swung open the door, she couldn’t help feeling as if it were Christmas morning and she was about to open her presents. But she had to contain her enthusiasm. She didn’t want to wake the other horses, who were snoozing peacefully.

  “Sandy?” Lucky whispered as she crept past the stalls. “Where are you, little girl?” But the mini horse was not in her corner. All that was there was a big pile of hay. That was peculiar. Maybe she’d broken into Buster’s stall. She was used to sharing with the Clydesdale after all. But a quick survey determined that Buster was still fast asleep and enjoying his own personal space.

  Panic was starting to rise in Lucky, but she stayed calm. “Sandy?” she whispered again. “I brought an apple for you!” Suddenly, the pile of hay in the corner began to rustle! A muzzle popped out of the top, nostrils sniffing. The hay fell away as Sandy stood up and trotted over to Lucky.

  “What a strange creature you are!” Lucky laughed as she petted Sandy’s mane. Sandy pushed her muzzle under Lucky’s armpit. “Oh right, your apple. Here!” It took the mini horse three bites to eat the treat, as opposed to Spirit, who could chomp one whole. “At least we know you’re food-motivated. That’ll help us in training. Are you ready for your big day?”

  Sandy’s quizzical look implied that she had no idea of what was about to happen. That made two of them. “Don’t worry,” Lucky said, more for herself than the horse. “We’ll figure it out.”

  A few hours later, Pru and Abigail finally joined Lucky in the barn. The rest of the horses were awake by then, munching on hay and stomping around in their stalls. Lucky was raring to go, too. She had spent the whole morning reading a book called How to Train Your Packhorse: A Practical Guide. She’d come across it in a stack of Kate’s books back home. Maybe it would be of some help to them today.

  “Lucky Prescott—are you studying?” Pru teased. Lucky tossed the book to Pru. Abigail appeared behind her shoulder. They quickly leafed through the pages. “I’m not sure if Sandy is really a packhorse, but it’s a start.”

  “But that’s the thing, isn’t it?” Lucky pointed out. “We don’t really know what kind of horse she is yet. All we know is that she’s small, strong, adorable, and spunky!”

  “She makes a good point,” admitted Abigail. “Especially the spunky part.”

  They led Sandy out to the ramada—the enclosure where they trained with their horses—and looked to Lucky. “So, what should we try first?” Pru asked. “I would know where to start if we were training her to do basic runs with a rider, but I’m not sure about packing.”

  Abigail considered this and came up short as well. “What does the book say, Lucky?”

  But before Lucky could open her mouth and answer, Sandy took off at a wild gallop around the enclosure! She wriggled and bucked her legs out behind her like a rodeo horse. Her whinnies were accompanied by kicks and clouds of dust that covered the PALs. Sandy was acting like a wild horse, and, oddly enough, seemed to be enjoying how stunned the girls looked.

  “Whoa, girl!” Lucky called as she chased after the little runaway. She caught up to Sandy and procured a sugar cube from her pocket. The filly came to a screeching halt. Lucky had Sandy’s attention; now she just had to keep it. “Good, Sandy. Good horse… that’s it…” she cooed, leading her back over to Pru and Abigail. Sandy lapped up the sugar and twirled around in a circle happily.

  “She likes sugar almost as much as I do,” Abigail joked. “Do you have any more of those, Lucky? I could use a treat.”

  Lucky sighed with a smile. “If we put in a full day of training, maybe we’ll go get ice cream. For now, we’ve gotta focus!”

  Now that Sandy was settled, Lucky read aloud from her book. “‘First you must saddle the horse with a packsaddle so that he can get used to the breeching around his rump. Then lunge the horse or run him in a pen.’”

  The girls couldn’t find a packsaddle—or any saddle, for that matter—that was small enough to fit Sandy’s tiny frame. They decided to use a pile of woven blankets meant to act as saddle pads instead. Pru folded the blankets to a smaller size and then tied the short stack around Sandy’s middle with two leather girth straps. As long as they kept feeding Sandy sugar cubes, she stayed relatively still while they got her ready.

  After a few runs around the
ramada, Sandy seemed to be catching on a little. Maybe she was destined to be a packhorse. At any rate, Lucky was eager to keep going. If their work kept running so smoothly, they would have Sandy trained well before the Miradero Founders’ Day Parade! Who knew that becoming a Trail Trainer would be so easy?

  “Next it says to fill some baskets with small rocks and tie them to either side of her packsaddle,” Lucky explained. ”Or I guess, her blanket stack.” She remembered thinking that instruction was a bit strange.

  “Why the rocks?” Abigail asked. “Won’t the noise spook her?”

  “That’s sort of the point. It’s to get her used to carrying things around, and used to the sound of whatever she is carrying,” Pru said as she pointed to the open page. “Packhorses never know what sort of cargo they will have to carry.”

  The PALs fed Sandy some carrots while they looked around the ramada, choosing the smoothest rocks they could find. A couple of picnic baskets swiped from the kitchen acted as the cargo containers.

  Once they attached them to either side of Sandy’s body, she was calm for a moment. But, after hearing the rocks shift against one another, she took off across the pen as if her tail were on fire! The rocks clattered around in the baskets, sounding as if Sandy were playing two giant maracas! She kicked and writhed and twirled, until finally she galloped right at the fence and brushed against it, causing the baskets and blankets to fly off her body. Rocks went soaring through the air and landed like tiny meteorites in the dirt. Then Sandy sniffed the ground for sugar cubes as if none of it had just happened. Maybe this wouldn’t be exactly as easy as Lucky had thought.