Secret of the Stallion

by Bonnie Bryant

  Then the pair entered the ring where the course ended. Sterling didn’t hesitate at the final triple jump. His pace never slowed. He attacked the obstacle with courage. His feet ticked the first of the jumps, but it stayed up. He knocked the second one down but managed the third one without trouble. Then, clearly near exhaustion, they crossed the finish line.

  Nigel’s personal cheering section rose to its feet and clapped as loudly as they could while the rider drew to a halt and bowed to the judges’ box. He then tipped his hat to the Pine Hollow group.

  Lisa looked up at the scoreboard where Nigel’s score was posted. A cross-country event such as this was scored for time and faults. As long as a rider came in within the prescribed time, there were no time faults. In general, the time allowance was intended to be sufficient. Most riders who weren’t making egregious mistakes would make it within the time limit. So the more important factor became faults earned along the course. Faults would be given if a horse refused a jump, if the rider took him off the course, if the horse or the rider or both fell, and for many other things. Because of the length and difficulty of the course, it was virtually impossible for a rider to have a clear round with no faults.

  Nigel hadn’t had a clear round because of Sterling’s refusal and knocking one jump down, but he’d had a pretty good round and his fans were proud of him.

  “He’s in second place!” Lisa said, looking up at the board.

  “But it’s early in the day,” Carole reminded her. There are a lot of other riders yet to come.”

  “Still, I bet Yaxley will be happy with these results,” Lisa said.

  “He should be,” Max said.

  “He should have been happy yesterday, too, but he wasn’t,” Stevie told Max.

  “Well, I was happy with the way my group performed yesterday,” Max said. “And I’ll be happy today, too, if everybody is ready on time.” Max looked at his watch. It was a clear sign that it was definitely time to get to work grooming and tacking up.

  “Race you to the stables!” Stevie said. The Saddle Club ran off. Veronica followed them at a leisurely walk.

  “ALL RIGHT, EVERYBODY ready?”

  They all were. Sixteen Pony Club riders were set for the next round of games.

  “Then smile!” the woman commanded brightly before she opened the gate to let them into the ring.

  Lisa, Stevie, Carole, and Veronica all smiled confidently. They had a lot to smile about—they were in first place. When Lisa thought back on that moment later, she realized it was probably the last time that afternoon that she’d smiled.

  Nothing went right for the team from the moment the first handkerchief dropped until the final points were awarded. It wasn’t any one person’s fault, either. They were all making terrible mistakes.

  Stevie got mixed up and carried the batons both ways instead of handing them off to Carole in the first race. That earned the team a fourth place. In the second race, it was Lisa’s turn to blow it. She and Pip circled the pole in the wrong direction and had to go back and circle it again. That moved them from first to third in the race. In the third race, Stevie dropped her egg three times. That wouldn’t have been so bad, because all the teams dropped their eggs. It was hard to hold an egg in a spoon on horseback. The really bad part was when Carole dropped it and Miss Havisham stepped on it. When Carole dismounted to fetch the egg, it was scrambled. Third place.

  The team was drawing attention from the crowd, who wanted to see what kind of awful mistake they would make in the final race. The crowd was not disappointed. In the fourth race, it was Veronica’s turn to goof. She spilled an entire bucket of water, mostly on herself. At first there were just titters from the audience. Then, as Veronica tried to refill the bucket from the spigot, Nickleby got into the act. Apparently all that running and racing had made him thirsty, because as quickly as Veronica filled the bucket, he emptied it. When she bent to pick it up, he’d drained it nearly dry. The audience began laughing out loud.

  By the time Veronica had actually filled the bucket, returned to the course, and completed it, handing the bucket to Lisa, the whole race was lost. Good sportsmanship required that the team finish the race, and the only way to do that was to pretend nothing was wrong. By the time Lisa took the course, all the other teams had finished. Nevertheless, she and Pip did a good job, and after them Carole and Miss Havisham did a great job. The result of that was that when Carole finally finished, the team got a standing ovation. That felt good. The fourth place they took for the day did not.

  “Oh, that was awful!” Stevie groaned while they were untacking their horses and getting ready to groom them.

  The Italian team walked past their stalls.

  “Better luck tomorrow,” said Gian.

  “Though not so much luck that you beat us again as you did yesterday,” Marco added.

  “Don’t worry,” Stevie said. “Tomorrow we’re going to beat you better than we did yesterday!”

  “We shall see!” Marco said.

  “Can you teach me some of your techniques?” Andre asked the girls, innocently. “I’d like to pass them on to all our opponents!” The boys laughed.

  The girls knew the boys were just teasing, but still it hurt a little. Nobody liked being embarrassed by their own performance.

  “Oh, come on,” Carole said to her teammates. “Everybody has bad days.”

  “This wasn’t just bad,” Stevie said, hefting Copperfield’s saddle off his back. “This was worst.”

  “Then tomorrow will be better,” Carole said confidently. “It has to be.”

  “Maybe,” said Lisa. “If only we remember what it is we’re supposed to do!” She picked up a currycomb and began working on Pip’s coat.

  “Don’t worry, Pip. I’m not mad at you,” Lisa said. “The mistakes were all my fault, not yours. You deserve a better rider.”

  “Oh, you all were wonderful!” came a bright greeting. It was Tessa.

  “Were you in the audience?” Stevie asked, genuinely wondering if Tessa had seen the debacle.

  “Oh, yes. Everything went wrong, didn’t it? Well, that happens to everybody. And tomorrow it can just happen to somebody else. Anyway, the audience loved you.”

  “They root for underdogs,” Lisa said. “We weren’t supposed to be an underdog. We started out the day as top dog. I like that better. Can you hand me the dandy brush?”

  “I don’t know what kind of dog you were, but when things went wrong, you all showed real gumption and courage to continue. Veronica, that was especially true of you.”

  Veronica looked up, surprised. She was used to getting compliments, but they usually had to do with her hair or her clothes, not her behavior and her spirit. Still, she seemed to know exactly how to respond.

  “Breeding will tell,” she said. Then she handed Nickleby’s lead rope to a lad and walked off, leaving four girls behind her with their jaws agape.

  When she could talk, Stevie said, “In her case, I’d like to say the breeding took place in a pigsty, but I don’t want to insult pigs!”

  The girls finished grooming their horses. Tessa pitched in and did the work on Nickleby. Then, when the horses had been fed and watered, the girls secured them in their stalls. They wanted to get back out to the course to watch the rest of the cross-country trials.

  “Come on, this way,” Stevie said, leading them through the maze of stalls. The route she chose went near enough to the area where the Italian team’s horses were housed that the girls saw something surprising. The boys were all there, finishing the necessary grooming and horse care. Someone else was there, too. Veronica diAngelo.

  She stood right next to the door of Enrico’s horse’s stall. She was peering over the doorway, watching Enrico work and chatting easily with him.

  “Oh, you were very courageous to finish the race in that manner,” Lisa heard Enrico tell Veronica.

  “It seemed to me the only choice I had,” Veronica said. “After all, one must maintain one’s dignity, don’t y
ou think?”

  “Definitely,” Enrico said. “And you did a fine job of that.”

  Lisa felt a miserable tightening in her stomach. Enrico was saying nice things—to Veronica! When the boys had stopped by their stalls, there had been nothing but teasing. Now he was all sweet and pleasant—to Veronica!

  “Did you just growl?” Stevie asked Lisa.

  “Perhaps,” she answered somewhat enigmatically.

  “Let’s go this way,” Tessa said, leading the three girls in another direction. Lisa followed blindly.

  “Which part of the course do you want to go to first?” Stevie said, unfolding her course map.

  “First we have another stop,” said Tessa. She patted her pocket significantly.

  “Aha!” said Stevie. “You got the goods.”

  “I did, and I’m certain my brother will never know.”

  Instead of following the crowd toward the cross-country course, the group followed Stevie to the old oak tree. There was no one around when they reached it. Everybody wanted to watch the competition.

  “Lisa, why don’t you do the honors?” Tessa invited her.

  Lisa wasn’t feeling very cheerful or conspiratorial.

  “That’s okay. You do it,” she said.

  “No,” Carole said. “You do it, Lisa. Remember, this isn’t just another get-Veronica scheme now. It’s a how-can-we-get-even-with-the-rotten-miserable-girl-who’s-trying-to-steal-your-boyfriend scheme.”

  A small smile crossed Lisa’s face. She held out her hand. “I’ll take that fool’s gold now,” she said.

  Tessa handed it to her.

  Lisa dropped to her hands and knees and scratched at the earth with her fingernails. In a few minutes, the deed was done. Part three of the duke’s treasure was properly placed. She had to bury it a little more deeply than the earlier “treasures” because their afternoon and evening schedules were so busy that Veronica probably wouldn’t have a chance to look for it until that night. The last thing they wanted was to have some other spectator come up with the little chunk of pyrite.

  Lisa stood up. She didn’t know what magic Veronica might work with Enrico, but she knew The Saddle Club was working some very special magic with Veronica.

  “Yes, indeed,” Lisa announced. “Breeding will tell!”

  They headed for the cross-country course to watch another afternoon of exciting riding.

  “WOW! DID YOU see that?” Lisa asked. She and her friends were standing on the cross-country course by the jump serpentine. By the time all the horses reached this point, they were tired from the long and arduous course that preceded it. But many of them simply flew over the fences. Sterling had been good. That afternoon the girls found themselves watching a lot of horses that were simply better.

  “Watch this man’s form,” Carole said. “See how he leans into the jump but never loses control or balance?”

  “Is that the way I’m supposed to do it?” Lisa asked.

  “It’s the way everybody’s supposed to do it,” Tessa said. “Only a few of us are anywhere near that good.”

  “Including Nigel?” Lisa asked.

  “Nigel’s that good, sure,” Stevie said. “But it’s a partnership between the horse and the rider. It has to be just right.”

  “I guess Sterling is a difficult horse,” Lisa said.

  “He is,” Carole agreed. “But he’s got heart and he wants to do his best. He was about ready to collapse this morning, but he kept on going because Nigel asked him to.”

  For a few minutes, there was no horse on the course. The girls sat down so they could chat.

  “Do you ever wonder what the Duke of Cummington’s stallion looked like?” Lisa asked her friends.

  “Easy,” said Carole. “He looked just like Sterling. I knew it the minute I laid eyes on him.”

  “I think so, too,” Lisa agreed. She pulled a blade of grass and began to chew on it. “Do you think Sterling’s got a secret like the duke’s stallion did?”

  “You mean like a treasure that can only be found by a rider with fire in his heart?” Tessa asked, echoing the words of the story ’Ank had told to Lisa and Enrico.

  “I guess that’s what I mean,” Lisa said.

  “Depends on what you mean by treasure,” said Carole.

  “Or what you mean by fire,” said Tessa.

  That made Lisa think. She considered the romantic fable and remembered that there was a lot of fire in it. There was the fire of passion that the duke had for Lady Elizabeth; there was the fire that burned the stable and consumed the stallion; and there was the fire opal he held in his hand—the only part of his treasure anyone had ever found.

  Carole was thinking as well. “All horses have secrets,” she said. “They try to share them with us, but they can’t always succeed. It’s the rider’s job to find out what’s in her horse’s heart. That is the key to the union of horse and rider. Think about the contestants we’ve seen this afternoon. With the best of them, it’s almost impossible to tell where the rider ends and the horse begins. It’s as if they’re one and the same.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Lisa said.

  “Oh, here comes another,” Tessa said, watching the next contestant emerge from the forest. The girls stood up and watched.

  It was nearly impossible to watch the competitors without comparing them to Nigel. This one wasn’t as good a rider as Nigel, but the horse was making a smoother run on the course than Sterling.

  “I bet they got more penalty points than Nigel,” Carole said.

  “Maybe,” Tessa agreed.

  Then another rider came along the course. “Lots more penalty points,” Lisa said. She hoped she was right.

  By the time the final rider was nearing the end of the course, the girls were almost as tired as the competitors. They headed for the finish line to see the final standings. Nigel and Sterling were no longer in second place. They had fallen to ninth. In the large field of competitors, that was an excellent finish, and the girls were rightly proud of their friend Nigel.

  “But that’s not good enough for a championship, is it?” Lisa asked.

  “No,” Carole agreed. “And perhaps more to the point, it’s not going to be good enough for that man Yaxley, either.”

  “But it’s good enough for us, isn’t it?” Lisa asked. “Nigel’s done a wonderful job and I’m proud to be in his cheering section.”

  “Prouder than he was to be in ours this afternoon,” Stevie said, reminding her friends of the humiliation they’d met in the mounted games.

  “Oh, let’s change the subject,” Tessa said wisely. “Why don’t we go and get ready for the ball? I had Hamilton drop my suitcase off at your hotel this morning. You’ve got space enough for me to spend the night in your room, don’t you?”

  “We’ll make space,” Carole assured her.

  The girls made a final check of their own horses and headed back to the hotel. Carole, Stevie, and Tessa went straight upstairs. Lisa volunteered to shop for orange sashes in downtown Cummington.

  It didn’t take long to find the right place. Cummington had a Marks & Spencer’s right on the High Street. Lisa loved the store. It had everything from handbags to frozen food, plus makeup, books, fabric, and notions. In fifteen minutes, she’d secured enough bright orange ribbon to make Roundhead sashes for herself and her friends. She paid the cashier and headed back to the hotel.

  Lisa had only been on the streets of Cummington with Enrico or with her friends. Now she was alone, and this gave her a real chance to look at the town. It was old. The main street still had cobblestones, and many of the buildings that edged High Street had been there for more than two hundred years. Lisa thought the town probably didn’t look very different from the way it did when the duke owned all the lands around. She could almost hear the hooves of his stallion clopping down High Street. The thought made her smile.

  In Willow Creek, anything over a hundred years old was an antique. Here, a hundred years was still new. Parts of the castle w
ere known to be more than five hundred years old. Parts of this town were probably that old as well.

  Lisa took a deep breath of air, thinking that perhaps she was breathing the same air the duke had breathed those hundreds of years earlier.

  In an alley just off High Street, there was an old building made of stone with small-paned windows. It looked as if it had been there as long as the castle. As Lisa admired the weathered facade, she saw a man come out of the door, saying something loudly to people still inside. That was when Lisa realized it was a pub, what people back home would have called a bar or a saloon. A big sign swung outside over the door.

  “King’s Arms,” it read. That sounded old, too.

  Lisa walked down the alley to get a closer look at the building and the pub. As she stood in front of it, the door swung open again and a well-dressed young man held the door while his companion, a woman, pulled on a sweater. Lisa looked past them. She didn’t mean to stare, but she couldn’t help herself.

  There, standing at the bar, was none other than Lord Yaxley. He looked different from the glowering man Lisa had seen that morning in the stable. For one thing, he had a pint of ale in his hand. For another, there was a smile on his face.

  Yaxley had his arm slung across the shoulder of another man at the bar, who stood with his back to Lisa. The other man shifted uneasily, clearly uncomfortable. One leg was held in an awkward position, as if it had been injured. Lisa thought it was just like Yaxley, smiling or not, to let someone with a bad leg stand while Yaxley drank instead of taking the man to a table where he’d be more comfortable.

  The woman finished putting on her sweater and stepped out of the pub. The young man let the door swing closed.

  It was time to return to the hotel and get dressed.

  “OH, TESSA!” STEVIE gushed, looking at the dress Tessa took out of a garment bag.