Third-Time Lucky

by Jenny Oldfield

  “And all this is over twenty years back,” Sandy stressed. “He hasn’t even been heard of in these parts for at least five years. So forget it, Matt. And Kirstie, don’t even think what I think you’re thinking about!”

  “The best in the West!” Kirstie repeated.

  It was late evening. She and Matt stood in the barn, gazing quietly into Lucky’s stall. The only sounds were the whispering rustles of hidden, small creatures creeping through the hay or perched on rafters, and the painful rasps of Lucky’s lungs as he struggled to draw breath.

  “Yeah, but logically, Mom’s got a point.” Matt had a foot in each camp; he saw that the Zak Stone option might be a straw to clutch at, but equally he agreed with Sandy that it was at best a long shot as far as finding a cure for Lucky went.

  In…out, in and out again. Kirstie stared at the difficult, double lift of Lucky’s ribcage as he breathed out through the blocked airways. “What’s logic got to do with it?” she whispered.

  “Sandy? Lennie Goodman here.”

  Kirstie had picked up the phone early next morning, thinking it might be Glen Woodford with Lucky’s test results. “Hi, Lennie. This is Kirstie. Mom’s right here.”

  She handed over the phone and stuck around, hearing the mild surprise in Sandy’s voice and her repetition of Lisa’s grandpa’s words.

  “Zak Stone? Not that name again!” Kirstie’s mom tried to make light of the question that had been hanging over the family all night. “My crazy daughter’s half persuaded my sane son that driving a truck across America with a sick horse to see a Sioux horse doctor who might not even be alive after all these years is a good idea!”

  Kirstie caught sight of Matt through the window and beckoned him inside. “Shh!” she warned, her finger to her lips, as the phone conversation continued.

  “Lennie, you surprise me!” Sandy laughed. “Here’s me thinking you were on my side. And what do I get? More Zak Stone! OK, so you recall hearing Red Mitchell sing this man’s praises. But that was then. This is now. How come you get behind this hippy stuff?”

  Holding her breath, thanking Lisa for convincing Lennie to make the call, since no doubt it had been her friend’s idea, she prayed that Sandy would sway their way.

  “So, you hear Mr. Stone’s still living in his hermit hideaway on Rainbow Mountain?” She cupped her hand over the phone and raised her eyebrows at her son. “Can you believe this?”

  Matt shrugged.

  “How’s Lucky?” Kirstie whispered, realizing that he’d just come from the barn.

  He shook his head and turned away.

  “… OK, Lennie, I’ll think about it. Thanks for the call.” Sandy put down the phone, staring thoughtfully out of the window.

  “What’s to think about?” Kirstie began. Please,

  please, please let me do this! she begged silently. Give Lucky a chance!

  “Matt?” Her mom glanced up at last. The look on her face said she was at a loss.

  At first he didn’t reply. The silence seemed to go on forever. “The horse is pretty weak. I don’t know for sure that he could stand the journey,” he began slowly.

  “And are you certain that there’s nothing either you or Glen can do for him if we keep him here?” Sandy double checked all the possibilities. Her gaze drifted to Kirstie’s face, held by her intense stare.

  Matt shook his head. “We’ve drawn two blanks,” he admitted. “Even with Glen’s test results to identify the infection, if that’s what it is, there still ain’t a lot we can give him.”

  Two blanks. Two failures. Please, please give him a third chance!

  “You want to take him to Montana?” Sandy asked.

  “I guess,” Matt agreed quietly.

  Yes! Kirstie closed her eyes. Third-time lucky! It has to be!

  Tuesday, midday, Lucky was loaded in a truck borrowed from Lennie Goodman, who’d driven it straight over from Lone Elm the moment Sandy had agreed to the plan. The horse had gone in without protest, too weak and ill to take in much about his change of surroundings. His coat, wringing wet across the shoulders and withers, was dull and lifeless, his legs and beautiful flowing tail bandaged tight for the journey.

  “Easy, boy!” Kirstie whispered and cajoled him into position, tying him firmly so that he didn’t come to harm when the truck swayed and jolted along the narrow country roads.

  Lucky looked back at her with a passive, uninterested stare. No spark, no pleasure in her gentle touch. Nothing.

  “We’re gonna get you better. Trust me.” If ever she’d wanted him to understand her words it was now. But then maybe he did know what her hands and eyes told him. In any case, he stood patiently in the stall inside the truck, waiting for the journey to begin.

  “I’m not gonna make a big deal,” Sandy told Kirstie and Matt as she helped bolt the ramp into place then saw them into the cab. “That’s what moms do at times like this, so I won’t!”

  Still, there was a worried crease between her eyes, and a sack full of tinned beans, chips, and chocolate bars that she’d prepared, now tucked safely between Kirstie’s feet. And she’d already asked them three times over about money, motels, cell phone, and maps.

  “OK, no big deal!” Kirstie agreed.

  Matt started the engine, checked the fuel gauge, and leaned out of his side of the cab for a few final words with Charlie about the possible temperamental aspects of Lennie’s elderly diesel truck, since their own was still laid up in the maintenance shed.

  Kirstie caught sight of Lisa standing quietly on the house porch with her grandpa. “Why don’t you come?” she mouthed, for at least the third time.

  “… Come with us!” she’d begged. “This whole thing was your idea. Why not come along?”

  “No way!” Lisa had made a million excuses: she didn’t like riding in trucks, Bonnie needed her in the diner, she had ten thousand and one more interesting things planned.

  “So what’s the real reason?” Kirstie had pressed her for an answer she could believe.

  “This is your trip,” Lisa had replied. “Yours and Matt’s and Lucky’s.”

  And she’d stuck to that, even now, when her face was wistful, her hair blown about by the breeze that had got up since breakfast. She came down from the porch as Matt eased the truck into gear.

  “Map?” she asked.

  Kirstie held it up for her to see.

  “Address?”

  “Zak Stone, Somewhere on Rainbow Mountain, Wentworth County, Montana!” She recited with a grin what little they knew.

  Lisa nodded and smiled. “So, give me a call.”

  Kirstie’s turn to nod and wave.

  “Safe journey!” Sandy called.

  Lisa held two hands in the air, a double wave. “Good luck!”

  The truck rolled out of the yard up the drive. It rattled across the cattle guard and lurched around the first stiff bend. That was it; Half Moon Ranch was out of sight. Lucky, Matt, and Kirstie were on the road.

  7

  They drove north on the Interstate around Denver, then took a highway that led west through the Rocky Mountain National Park. Trail Ridge Road took them to a height of 12,000 feet into a world of ice and snow. Glaciers glinted on Flatiron Mountain and Nakai Peak. The narrow road switchbacked through steep valleys across the roof of America.

  “You see those peaks ahead?” Matt pointed into the distance. It was late afternoon, four hours into the two-day journey. “I reckon they’re the Never Summer Mountains.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah. The Never Summer Mountains. How’s it sound to you?”

  “Great!” Though the cab was warm, Kirstie shivered. She leaned forward to turn up the volume on the radio. A guitar sobbed Western-style notes, while a country singer gave them the tearful story of a woman he had loved and lost. “Where do we plan to spend the night? Don’t tell me: Frozen Fingers Ridge, Dead Man’s Wilderness, Eaten-By-Bears Lodge!”

  Matt grinned and took a hairpin bend. “I take it you’re not grab
bed by the amazing alpine landscape, Ms. Scott?”

  “Jeez, Matt slow down!” Kirstie twisted sideways, then straightened up. “We’ve got a sick horse in the back, remember.”

  “How could I forget?” The reminder sobered him up anyway. “Listen, we’ll be out of this snow pretty soon and heading for the Arapaho National Forest. We’ll stay overnight in Kawuneeche Valley, get an early start tomorrow, and be across the Great Divide by midday.”

  As she listened to the plan, with the country singer wailing in the background, Kirstie noticed soft white flecks whirl out of a darkening sky and land on the windshield. Soon, the road ahead was covered with a fine dusting of snow. “Oh, great!” she moaned again. “A blizzard in June—that’s all we need!”

  Ignoring her, Matt trucked on. The wipers whooshed and squeaked, keeping the screen clear; the engine whined and struggled with the gradients. Thirty minutes later they would be through the worst of the weather, he promised.

  “I could’ve loved you better,” the country and western star wailed. “Didn’t mean to be unkind. You know that was the last thing on my mind!”

  Kawuneeche Valley was green. Yellow, pink, and blue flowers spread across the hillsides like a huge, soft carpet, as far as the gray granite rocks. Beyond them were more mountains, more rugged and bigger still than the ones Kirstie and Matt had driven though on this, their first day on the road.

  Matt pulled up in a small campground run by a forest ranger named Bill Englemann. The ranger, an elderly man with a paunch and a fine head of pure white hair, showed them where to build a wood fire for cooking. “Ain’t nothing fancy here,” he warned. “No showers, no telephones, no other campers using the site tonight—nothing except clean air and peace and quiet.”

  When he saw the palomino horse in the trailer and heard the reason why they were traveling northwest, Bill told Kirstie she could lead Lucky out of the trailer into a small, secluded pasture at the back of his cabin.

  “You hear that?” Kirstie lowered the ramp and went inside the trailer to untie Lucky. She noticed that he’d eaten very little hay from his net and that his breathing was no easier than it had been when they’d set off from Half Moon Ranch. “You think you can make it out to Bill’s meadow?” she cajoled, leading him carefully into the open.

  Dragging his feet, Lucky slipped and slid down the ramp. His legs seemed stiff after the journey; his coat was patchy with sweat, his head hanging low.

  “I got good clean water back here,” the ranger told Kirstie in a concerned voice, leading the way around the side of his small log cabin.

  “C’mon, boy!” she urged, feeling Lucky pull back. “I know you don’t feel too good, and this is a pretty strange place for you to find yourself. Yeah, those are new mountains over there!”

  Lucky had half raised his head and flared his nostrils. His ears came forward slightly as he took in his surroundings.

  “You see that one with the sun on? I checked it out on the map. It’s named Blue Ridge Mountain. The snow’s beautiful, isn’t it? Cold, but you gotta admit, it sure is pretty.” She smiled as Lucky’s head turned in the direction of her pointing finger. “We drive across to Blue Ridge at dawn tomorrow. After that, we go down into Wyoming. You know Wyoming? It’s where your ancestors roamed the prairies—wild mustangs, thousands of them. You’re gonna like Wyoming!”

  The sound of her voice seemed to encourage him. He took a few stiff steps forward.

  “She always talk to her horse?” Bill Englemann quizzed Matt, standing to one side to give Kirstie and Lucky room to pass. He closed the gate to the meadow after them.

  “More than she talks to me!” Matt told him. He went off to cook beans and make coffee while his sister settled Lucky down for the night.

  “No point telling you not to worry?” Matt said quietly as he handed Kirstie her supper.

  Sitting huddled inside a blanket at the opposite side of the fire, she sighed and shook her head.

  The campfire flickered and glowed red. Overhead, the black sky was dotted with silver stars.

  “So, eat!” Matt ordered.

  She moved the beans around her plate with her fork. “I think Lucky got worse,” she confessed. “He hardly ate anything all day. His breathing sounds real rough.”

  “He’s bad,” Matt admitted. “I ain’t gonna pretend otherwise.” With his solemn, handsome face shadowed by the dancing flames, he fell silent for a while. “On the bright side, it’s been a couple of days now, and he’s still hanging on in there.”

  Kirstie nodded miserably. “Matt, you should see how he looks at me. Like, he’s asking me for help because he feels so bad. And he’s wondering what’s wrong—why he can’t run around and act normal. And when he doesn’t get an answer, it’s like I’m letting him down big time!”

  “You’re not letting him down.” Matt gazed at her across the flames. “We’re doing everything we can.”

  “Not enough,” she murmured. In a dark place in her heart that she would never share, she hid a gnawing fear that what they were doing now was too little, too late. Lucky was going to die.

  “Yeah!” Matt contradicted in a louder, firmer voice. “Enough. We’re doing plenty here. You gotta believe that!”

  “What exactly?” She stared back at him, startled into paying more attention.

  Matt frowned. “Zak Stone was your idea, remember.”

  “Yeah, but what exactly are we letting Lucky in for when we get there?” Here, under the vast canopy of stars, with woodsmoke and sparks drifting skyward, she felt at a loss. What had seemed like a good idea when Lisa framed it had lost its focus. “What do we know about him?”

  “Zak Stone?” Matt shrugged.

  “Or about this medicine stuff he does?”

  “It’s Native American; we know that.” Matt gathered together what little information they had. “OK, so that’s gotta be about spirits and visions, stuff like that. Maybe herbs to help healing.”

  Spirits? Visions? Kirstie gazed up at the dancing red sparks. Her eyes were stinging from the smoke and from the tears that would keep on springing up. “Do you mean this is about ghosts?”

  “Well, it sure ain’t about antibiotics and endoscopes!” Matt told her. He stood up suddenly. “If you change your mind, we can turn the trailer around and head for home first thing tomorrow.”

  “I didn’t change my mind!” Jolted by his quick turnaround, she, too, stood up. “Did you?”

  They were face to face, doubt written over their features: Matt’s dark and angular, Kirstie’s fair and softer.

  “We don’t know enough to make a good decision,” Matt pointed out. “We don’t know what kind of healing is involved, except we can be pretty sure it’s like nothing I ever learned in vet school. But, hey, we don’t even know if this guy is gonna be there!”

  Slowly she nodded. “We tried everything you and Glen knew before we set off, didn’t we?”

  “Everything.”

  “So it’s more to do with how we feel.” Like she’d said to him before, when they’d both taken this Zak Stone stuff on board: “What’s logic got to do with it?”

  “I guess.”

  “So, how do you feel?”

  Matt’s doubts intensified. He shook his head hard. “I think …”

  “Not think, feel?”

  “I feel scared,” he admitted. “Like everything I learned about being a good vet might turn out to be garbage. How about you?”

  “Scared, too,” she whispered. “That Zak Stone will take one look at Lucky and say there’s nothing he can do.”

  There was a million miles of space out there, planets so many light years away you couldn’t begin to understand. A sprinkling of ancient light.

  “So?” Kirstie asked Matt.

  He looked up at the sky, then turned back to her. “We go onto Rainbow Mountain,” he said.

  On Wednesday morning they crossed the Great Divide, the jagged backbone of mountains that split the United States from north to south. West of the Rockies
into Wyoming, the map gave Kirstie gentler names for the endless expanses of high, flat land: Sweetwater, Sandy River, and Pinedale.

  “Keep going on Interstate 80 through Cheyenne and Laramie,” Bill Englemann had instructed them. “Take a right at Rock Springs for Jackson and Teton National Park. You can’t miss it.”

  “We’re aiming for Montana,” Matt had told the kind and courteous forest guard. “Rainbow Mountain, Wentworth County. Do you know it?”

  “Sure.” Bill had stabbed Kirstie’s map with a stumpy forefinger. “Through Yellowstone, across the state border, still on the 80. You’re pretty close to Bighorn Canyon where Custer made his Last Stand. There are a couple of reservations up that way, too: Cheyenne and Crow Indians.”

  “How long is the drive?” Matt had checked his watch at 7 a.m.

  “Three hundred and fifty, four hundred miles, straight through the Cowboy State into the Big Sky!”

  “Sounds good to me!” Kirstie had said as they set off.

  By midmorning, they’d traveled a hundred and fifty of the four hundred miles and stopped twice to water Lucky. They’d seen road signs warning them of the presence in the area of elk, moose, and grizzlies and others inviting them to stop off and soak in half a dozen natural hot springs.

  “Happy now?” Matt asked Kirstie. The flat plains stretched on forever, the white road straight as a die.

  “I will be when we cross into Montana.” Dipping her hand into the bag of provisions made up by their mom, she drew out a couple of apples and threw one to him. The radio played a cheerful, jog-along tune about cowboys rounding up cattle and singing around the campfire.

  The sun rose in a clear sky; the land was empty and windswept. At midday Matt stopped for gas while Kirstie went to check on Lucky. She made him drink and eat a little alfalfa, promised him that by the following day they would have reached their journey’s end. “Rainbow Mountain!” she whispered in his ear. “Sounds kinda nice, doesn’t it?”

  A listless Lucky nuzzled her hand, his lank mane brushing against her cheek.

  “It will be,” she said, resting her hand on his trembling neck. “And there’s a guy up there who everybody talks about as the best horse doctor around. OK, so he’s not your ordinary vet, with drugs and needles and stuff. He may be a little weird with his herbs and visions; who knows?”