Stealing Thunder (Fesler-Lampert Minnesota Heritage)

by Mary Casanova

  The orange ball of fire sent out runners to crossbeams.

  “The horses!” Libby yelled, turning away, her body flooding with adrenaline. Three horses. Two people. One on crutches. Why did Porter set his own barn on fire? The answer hit her gut like lead: money. Insurance money. They had to get the horses out.

  She hobbled in circles, then stopped. Calm down, she told herself. Think. Think. Griff stood only three feet away, his blond hair bright in the illuminated light. He blinked, as if hypnotized by the fire.

  “Griff, open their stall doors,” Libby said.

  Libby step-hopped to the tack room, grabbed bridles, and draped them over her shoulder. Then she made her way back out. Step-hop. Step-hop. Though his stall door was open, Thunder hadn’t fled. “Get outta here!” Libby cried, stepping in. Thunder spun away from her, his eyes white, then reared, black hoofs glinting in the bright glow of firelight. Avoiding his pummeling hooves, Libby stepped to his side and reached up, glad he was wearing his halter.

  “C’mon boy!” she pleaded. “Please!” She pulled harder on his halter. But the harder she pulled, the more he resisted, throwing his head back in defiance, nostrils flared pink. He pushed back deeper into the stall. He flinched, but still refused to step forward, just the way he’d refused to cross the Bancroft wooden bridge: that time, she’d tied a windbreaker around Thunder’s head, covered his eyes, and led him across.

  “No!” Libby shouted. What had Jolene said? Don’t pull—you’ll never win. Get alongside and walk with him.

  Libby leaned her crutches against the stall wall, hopped to Thunder’s side, and balancing on her good foot, flung his bridle over his neck. With her thumb inside the corner of his mouth, she slid the bit inside. Then she grabbed his reins, hopped with him to the edge of the stall, crawled up a few boards, and hoisted herself up and over across his back. She reached down and pushed open his stall door. He pranced sideways, and her foot bumped against the door frame. Pain spiked through her, but she ignored it.

  She forced her voice lower, calmer. “Thunder, it’s okay, Thunder,” she said, her heart thudding. In the center of the barn, smoke hung in a dark mass. Libby’s eyes stung. She clicked her tongue and covered her mouth and nose with her hand. Atop Thunder, Libby spotted Griff outside Cincinnati’s stall.

  “What do I do?” he called. “They won’t leave their stalls!”

  Libby reined Thunder back toward the tack room, reached in around the corner, and grabbed two saddle blankets from a high shelf. Then she rode Thunder back toward Griff. “Here. Get it around her head,” she said, handing him the blankets, “then I’ll lead her out.”

  “I’ll try.” He dropped the extra blanket outside the stall, then stepped into where Cincinnati was pressed in the corner, nickering.

  Hungry flames arced up toward the rafters, snapping. How could the fire spread so quickly? The gasoline had created an explosion of fire. It fed on the hay bales and the bin of cedar chips alongside the bales.

  “Touch her neck first,” Libby coached. “Then slide the blanket up and over her head.”

  The mare inched sideways from the blanket. “I can’t—she won’t hold still!” But in seconds, Griff had the blanket around her head, her eyes covered. He walked her out of her stall, his hand beneath the gathered blanket. “Got her?” he asked, as Libby reached over to the mare’s head.

  “Got her,” she said.

  “Okay, one left,” Griff said, and headed to the next stall, blanket in hand.

  Libby stretched over to hold onto Cincinnati, grasping the edges of the blanket beneath the mare’s small head.

  Behind her, something crashed to the ground. Libby glanced back. The antique snow sled that had hung by twine to the rafters had fallen to the barn’s floor. She pushed forward, barely able to make out the pasture door. Straight line. Just head for it, she told herself. Don’t get turned around. Every second counts.

  Acrid smoke burned her lungs.

  Thunderbird lunged left, then right, but Libby held on and nudged him with her knees toward the door. If only it were open. She pulled back on Thunder’s reins, let the mare take a few steps forward, then quickly urged Thunder forward, nudging his chest into the mare’s rump. She balked, but lunged, and the door swung open. The blanket fell from Cincinnati’s head and she galloped out into the pasture.

  They were out. She gulped air. She rode Thunder farther from the barn, then stopped him and looked back.

  Smoke spilled black out the door. Beyond it, inside, flames pulsed.

  “Oh, no,” Libby said, covering her mouth with her hand. Where were Griff and Two-Step?

  Suddenly, Two-Step, head blanketed, shot out the door, his dark coat slick in firelight, with Griff stumbling alongside. He pulled the horse blanket off Two-Step’s head, and the horse danced in a semicircle as Griff held the bay by the rope. “I did it!”

  There was something else. Libby racked her mind, staring at the fire. It spat and groaned like a living thing. “Oh, no,” she said. “Mitts!”

  Griff looked up at Libby.

  Roaring filled the barn. A whoosh of heat forced them yards back. Flames lapped at the edges of the door, then curled toward the roof. Libby’s mouth hung slack. Her face burned. She edged back farther and farther, away from the scalding heat. Her chest filled with an ache. Mitts was inside.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  From the barn, a crash sounded. An ember rocketed from the upper window and landed near Griff’s feet. The breeze licked it into flames. He stomped it out, still hanging on to Two-Step’s lead rope. The bay snorted, his nostrils flaring wide, and backed away, dragging Griff along, then stopped.

  On Thunder’s back, Libby remembered the bridles dangling from the crook of her elbow. She nudged Thunder closer to Two-Step, reached over awkwardly, and tried to bridle the quarter horse. Two-Step backed away. “Hold him,” she told Griff. She managed to curve her right arm over the top of Two-Step’s neck, slide her left thumb into the back of his mouth so he’d open it, then deftly slip in the bit. She had thought she’d grabbed another bridle, but her hands were empty now.

  “Griff,” she said. “Unclip the lead rope, and hand it to me.”

  He reached under the bay’s chin, then handed Libby the rope.

  “Now hop up on him. I’ll get Cincinnati, and we’ll get these horses out of here.”

  “But I’ve only gone on pony rides,” he moaned.

  “Just jump up.”

  “How?”

  “The fence rail there,” she said, pointing to the furthest edge of the paddock. Behind her, the barn wheezed. A crackling roar filled her ears. “Get up on his left side. And hurry!”

  Halterless, Cincinnati had ambled farther into the pasture. Libby trotted Thunder beside the mare, looped the lead rope through its steel clip, and wrapped the rope around Cincinnati’s neck. Hot air pressed against Libby’s back. Thunder snorted and danced. “It’s okay, fella. We’ll get away from here.”

  Shaking, she took hold of Thunder’s reins in her left hand and Cincinnati’s rope in her right, then pressed her knees into Thunder’s sides. He bolted. As one, the three horses cantered across the pasture.

  “Oh, sheezh!” Griff cried, hanging on to Two-Step’s neck.

  Like wild mustangs, the horses raced past the clustered oaks to the far end of the pasture. Just when it seemed they might crash through the fence, Thunderbird drew his haunches beneath him and stopped at the corner gate, tossing his head.

  Griff, half on and half off, clung like a sticky noodle to Two-Step’s neck. “I’m gonna get killed!” he cried, managing to sit up and center himself.

  They looked back. Flames shot from the ends of the barn, winding to meet in a handshake along the roof at the horse weathervane and sparking the dark sky.

  “I can’t believe … ” she began, but didn’t finish. The smell of smoke clung to her hair, rose from her lungs with each deep breath. Unable to shake the image of Mr. Porter striking the match, Libby leaned down across Thunder’s s
houlder to the gate. Fingers trembling, she fumbled the latch, pushed open the gate with her left foot, and nudged Thunder out, holding the door wide for the others to follow. It swung shut behind them.

  Amidst patches of moonlight, the horses trotted, the mare alongside Thunder, and Two-Step behind, along the well-trod trail through the woods. A branch scraped Libby’s cheek, then sprang back again as she passed. “Branch,” she called behind her.

  “Ouch!” Griff moaned.

  They rode around the north side of the pasture, on the outside of the fence, circling back toward the willows. Like a giant bonfire, the barn lit up the sky. Libby’s heart pounded. “We have to get them away from him!”

  “Got that right.”

  Libby swallowed her anger. “The ravine. We’ll take them there.” Her stomach tightened. “We can swim them across the river to Wisconsin. Get them as far away as possible.”

  As they neared the pond, the barn blazed higher. “Whoa,” Libby said. The horses clustered in the dark fringe beyond the fire’s far-reaching circle of light.

  “What if Porter spots us?” Griff asked, his knee lightly touching hers.

  “I don’t see his truck,” she answered. “He must have lit the barn and taken off.”

  Flames danced through the air, arcing from the stable to the Porters’ house and fingering its shingles. The fire grew louder, crackling, refusing to be tamed.

  Within seconds, sirens whined from the south.

  Cincinnati reared, but Libby held her rope. “Easy, girl. Easy.”

  Careening around the corner into the Porters’ driveway, a fire engine rolled in, its orange light glowing. Two police cars followed. The sirens stopped, and the fire’s roar seemed to grow louder still, as if it were a defiant dragon, spewing fire and at the same time sucking everything consumable toward its mouth. Like frenzied ants, yellow-clad firefighters poured from the truck, headgear on. They moved quickly, grabbing hoses, carrying axes, running toward the stable and house. They hooked up wide hoses and blasted the fire with water.

  Thunder whipped his tail, slapping at Libby’s leg.

  “Let’s go while they’re focused on the fire,” Griff whispered.

  Firefighters scurried, turning their full attention to the barn, to the smoke and flames pouring from the roof’s edges. Smoke-filled wind rushed through the willow leaves.

  Suddenly, as if kicked by a horse, it struck Libby; if they hadn’t been there, the horses would have died. No amount of kicking or whinnying would have helped them. Images filled her mind. If she and Griff hadn’t been there, Thunder would already be dead. She shivered involuntarily and clenched her jaw. She didn’t care what the laws were, or who legally owned Thunder. She was never taking him back. Laying the reins alongside Thunder’s neck, she turned the Appaloosa around. She firmly held Cincinnati’s rope and led the way from the pond toward the road. The horses’ hooves clomped across the pavement, then grew silent as they followed the path down the grassy slope, found a narrow path, and headed into the ravine.

  Thunder braced his legs against the incline, but started down. Down the steep, thickly rooted path, a few miles of twists and turns, alongside steep grooves, toward Highway 61 and the Mississippi River snaking below. “It’s okay, Thunder,” Libby whispered.

  A light clicked on from behind her, illuminating Libby’s bare thigh. “Would this help?” Griff asked, holding the flashlight, riding last behind Cincinnati, whose head nearly rested on Thunder’s spotted rump.

  “I figured you left it in the barn,” Libby said. She was trusting Thunder to stay on the trail, since he knew it. But his hooves kept slipping—thwuck, thwuck—in muddy patches left from the morning’s rain. Libby’s shoulders rose and fell. Her foot hurt—needed to be propped up. But that was the last of her worries.

  “Here,” Griff said.

  Libby reined Thunder in and reached back for the flashlight. Just as she did, she dropped Cincinnati’s rope. Behind and above them, along the road, another siren whined. The mare suddenly reared, tossed her head, and pushed past Thunder. She bolted deeper into the ravine.

  “Oh, great,” Libby cried. She clasped the reins in her left hand and aimed the flashlight on the path. Thunder’s muscles tensed. But under these conditions, she wasn’t about to let him run. A horse could break its leg. “Walk,” Libby said, and Thunder resumed his earlier pace.

  “Where will she go?” Griff asked.

  “I don’t know. She’s like that. Hopefully not far.” Libby remembered something Jolene had said. “Arabians are like cats,” Libby said out loud, “they have their own ideas about things.”

  Ferns and moss carpeted portions of the trail. Old stands of leafy maple and basswood shrouded their way. Roots crept like thick snakes, intertwining and knotting. Thunder picked his way carefully through the thickest masses. At one point, a windblown tree blocked the trail. Libby nudged Thunder wide around it, pushing through raspberry nettles and underbrush, then swung the flashlight back and forth, searching for the trail again. She found it.

  They rode for an endless time, hunched over the horses’ necks, so as to not get swiped off by an unexpected branch.

  “So where’d she go?” Griff asked.

  Libby shrugged. “I wish I knew.” They were far enough away now, deep in the belly of the ravine. Libby called for the mare. She whistled. But there was no response. Wind played in the leaves, carrying with it the smell of smoke. Again they moved on.

  A tabby cat, scraggly coated with one ear tattered, appeared in the flashlight’s beam. It shot an eerie yellow-eyed stare their way, then slunk off, its belly low to the ground. It made Libby think of Mitts. Mitts, who had carefully given her kittens baths, had faithfully licked them head to toe. She sighed heavily.

  Twice Thunder stopped, but Libby urged him on with the click of her tongue. They had no choice but to go forward. She blinked back fatigue, focused on seeing straight ahead, and kept going.

  In small gullies along their trail, water wound its way down—down to a creek, a wider stream, and on toward the Mississippi below. Water flows to the point of least resistance. Someone said that.

  A rushing sound came from ahead, water rushing over rocks and sand, cascading in small steps downward. The creek. The creek with no bridge. They’d have to walk across it. It was too wide to jump. At its edge, Libby shone the light on the water. Thunder complained with short snorts and tossed his brown mane.

  Not far beyond the creek, the trail crossed the highway. A busy highway. She didn’t want the mare to get that far.

  Suddenly, from somewhere through the green trees and undergrowth, came the sickening screech of brakes, of crunching metal. Libby’s heart sank. “Oh, no!” she cried, and lifted Thunder’s reins. “C’mon, let’s go.”

  Thunder slid down the creek’s bank, splashed across in uneasy lurches through the knee-deep water, then bolted up the other side.

  “Whoa, mama!” came Griff’s voice and Two-Step’s harder breathing from behind. “If this keeps up,” he said, “I’m never going to be a father!”

  Libby ignored his comment. She dreaded what might be ahead. She let Thunder canter the rest of the way down the trail, which widened and widened, first to a grassy rest area with scattered picnic tables, then to a small parking lot. And beneath a single streetlamp, beside the sloping highway, only a five-minute ride to the river which glittered below, was the Golden Wheat Bakery truck, its front end smashed against the base of a bluff.

  And in the road beyond the truck, lying on her side, lay Cincinnati.

  Perfectly white, perfectly still.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Yards off, Libby stopped Thunder.

  Griff rode up beside her. “What the …?”

  A dull, cold ache settled in Libby’s chest. She wished this were a dream. But she knew otherwise. The flashlight dropped from her hand to the ground, and Thunder flinched, his muscles moving like waves beneath Libby’s legs. She brought her hand to her mouth.

  Reluctantly, she
urged Thunder closer. He stepped, turning his head to eye the still white form. He lowered his head to the mare’s muzzle, sniffed, and with his nostrils flaring, jerked back.

  Libby fell into Thunder’s neck and pressed her cheek against his warm coat.

  “Hey! Get me outta here!” came a muffled voice from the truck. Libby jumped. She’d forgotten the truck had a driver. The front end was smashed in so deeply, it was a wonder anyone could be alive at all. She clicked her tongue and nudged Thunder around to the driver’s window, right up to the concave door. Mr. Freeman, the father of one of her classmates, his forehead bloody, knocked on the window. “Can’t move my legs or get this door open! I called for help.” From inside the delivery truck, voices buzzed on a CB radio.

  Just then, a police car rounded the bend and parked in the center of the road, lights flashing. Doors flung open. The officers ran toward the truck. “Radio in,” the woman officer called over her shoulder and pulled at the truck door. “We’re going to need some more help here.”

  Libby trotted Thunder away from the truck, back into the shadows near the picnic tables. The sky was turning pale gray. Birds began to sing—a predawn chorus.

  The woman officer was at the other side of the truck, opening the door. “How ’ya doin’ in there?” she asked, climbing in.

  “Sooner I get outta here, the better,” came Mr. Freeman’s reply. “This ain’t no picnic.”

  Swaying his bulky form in question over the horse, the other officer called over his shoulder, “This horse is deader than a doornail.”

  Then he looked up, past the mare, and saw Libby and Griff staring back at him. “What are you two … ” He looked back at the mare, and scanned the ground. His tone grew more serious. “Was there another rider here?”

  Libby shook her head. “No,” she said lamely. “We were only trying to save them.”

  “Them?”

  “The horses.”

  “Bad night for horses,” the officer said. “Porter’s barn just burned to the ground with a few horses inside.” Then he seemed to study Griff, who was appearing to study his left knee or an ant on the ground. “Wait. You’re maybe … what’s your name, kid?”