Horse Spy

by Bonnie Bryant

  “Five,” Carole said. “I think there’s time.”

  She signed her name, addressed the envelope to Karya Nazeem at the president’s residence, and pasted what seemed like plenty of postage on it. She’d mail it on her way to Pine Hollow in the morning. Five months would be plenty of time for an answer. She smiled, thinking how pleased her father would be with his new stamp.

  STEVIE LEANED the pitchfork against the wall of the stall and rubbed the small of her back with both hands.

  “I wish stall muck weren’t so heavy,” she remarked to Lisa.

  “That isn’t the only thing I wish about it,” Lisa said, lifting the handles of the wheelbarrow to deliver their load to the manure pile behind the stable. “I wish it could self-destruct.”

  “Here are the fresh shavings for both stalls,” Carole said, arriving with her own wheelbarrow. She dumped half the load in the stall where Stevie stood and took the remainder to the second visitor’s stall. Stevie picked up the pitchfork with resignation and began spreading the sweet-smelling wood shavings around.

  This wasn’t her favorite part of working with horses, but she knew it was important, and she took a certain satisfaction in realizing that not much earlier the stall had been quite dirty and now it was almost ready for its newest tenant.

  Lisa returned and began spreading the chips around the other stall. “Too bad Karya Nazeem isn’t here already,” she remarked.

  “Right. Welcome, Ms. First Daughter. Won’t you have a pitchfork?” Stevie joked.

  “No, thank you. I’d prefer a wheelbarrow full of horse manure,” Lisa said back.

  “We could go for a ride,” Carole joined in.

  “Not while there are saddles to soap and horses to groom!” said Lisa.

  “Oh, she’d love this place!” said Stevie. “Too bad she’ll never see it.”

  “No, I mean us,” said Carole. “We could go for a ride.”

  “Oh, sure,” said Lisa. “But I don’t want to miss it when Polaris and Jennie’s Blue arrive.”

  “We don’t have to miss it,” said Carole. “Max said they’d be here sometime this morning. We can just stay in the ring. There are a lot of things we can work on there. Max laid out some cavalletti for yesterday’s class, and they’re still there. It’ll be good for all of our horses.”

  “As soon as we finish the stalls,” Lisa said.

  “Of course,” Carole agreed.

  They were almost done. They brushed out the feed boxes, rinsed out the water buckets, then stepped back to admire their handiwork. The stalls looked cozy and welcoming—just the kind of guest room a visiting horse would be glad to see.

  “Okay, last one in the ring is a rotten egg,” said Stevie.

  It was a challenge her friends were happy to accept.

  Ten minutes later, the girls had tacked up their own horses and met in the schooling ring for a practice session. At their last class, Max had had them working on the evenness of their horses’ gaits, and now they used the poles laid out on the ground to help control the horses’ steps.

  The idea was that the placement of the poles would prompt the horses to adjust their strides, making movement smoother for the rider as well as the horse. It was difficult, exacting work, because there was a temptation for both the rider and the horse to speed up or slow down at will. Each girl and her horse took turns sitting out a couple of rounds, so that one rider could watch and comment on the others.

  Stevie was the best at it, and both Carole and Lisa were grateful when she could help them out.

  “Lisa, tighten up on your reins a little bit so Prancer will be sure to notice who’s in charge.”

  Lisa took up some of the slack in her reins. Prancer’s head perked up and her gait smoothed out.

  “Carole, if you anticipate the turn too soon, Starlight’s going to sense it and begin turning before you want him to.”

  Carole adjusted her posture, and Starlight immediately returned to a straightforward trot.

  Both Lisa and Carole thought it was a bit ironic that the wild, scheming, joking Stevie was the one of the three of them who naturally understood the precision required in this kind of training. Carole was the best jumper of the three, Lisa the strongest pleasure rider, and Stevie always took prizes in dressage.

  They were working on lengthening their horses’ strides when the van pulled into Pine Hollow’s driveway. There was no question about who was arriving. In the first place, it was a large luxury van, the kind that only wealthy people could afford to rent. In the second, and more important place, it had LONG ISLAND HORSE TRANSPORT painted on the side. Dorothy DeSoto’s training farm was on Long Island, and that was where Polaris and Jennie’s Blue were coming from.

  “Let’s give them a hand,” Carole said. “Max is teaching a class in the indoor ring and may not even know they’re here.”

  She didn’t have to say it twice. The girls dismounted and secured their horses to the rail before heading toward the truck, from which two people were climbing down.

  At first the girls assumed that the people getting out of the truck were grooms, but when they saw that both were middleaged women and both were well dressed, they began to consider other possibilities.

  “It’s the mothers,” Lisa concluded.

  “A little odd,” said Stevie.

  “What’s odd about it?” Carole asked. “Maybe they love horses as much as their daughters?”

  “Cool,” said Lisa, wishing her mother cared as much about her riding as these women must about their daughters’. She couldn’t imagine her mother riding in a horse van for ten minutes, much less six hours! The smell alone would drive her out.

  Setting that thought aside, Lisa stepped up with her two friends to greet the newcomers.

  “Welcome to Pine Hollow,” Carole said, offering her hand.

  One of the mothers looked at her, smiled coolly, and nodded. The other was too busy waiting at the back of the van to even acknowledge the presence of the three girls.

  The Saddle Club was not deterred. No doubt it had been a long trip in the big van. The women were probably tired and eager to see to the horses.

  “Where’s that Mr. Regnery?” asked the woman at the back of the van.

  “He’s teaching a student right now,” Stevie said. “We’ll let him know you’re here, but in the meantime, my friends and I can help get the hors—”

  “We told him what time we’d be here,” said the other woman sharply. “You think he’d have the courtesy to meet us so we can get this over with.”

  “He’ll be right here,” said Lisa. She was the closest to the stable door and only too glad to flee the mothers she’d so recently admired. Max would know how to deal with them.

  Lisa found Max in the ring with a new rider having a first lesson. It was a woman named Frieda who seemed to be getting the hang of riding very quickly. Lisa admired the way she sat in the saddle and already seemed to have absorbed many of the basics of riding.

  “Max, Polaris and Jennie’s Blue have arrived,” Lisa said when she could get his attention.

  “Why don’t you girls get them settled in? You know where they go, right? You did clean out the stalls, right?”

  “Right on all counts,” Lisa assured him. “But I think these women would like to see you. I think it would be a good idea.”

  “Well, I can’t leave a new rider alone,” Max said. “Tell them I’ll be there in”—he glanced at his watch—“eight minutes.”

  “Okay,” Lisa said. She returned to the driveway with the news, which was received with one grunt and one harrumph.

  “We just cleaned out the stalls,” Stevie said, trying to sound cheerful and welcoming. It hadn’t worked before and wasn’t working now.

  “You?” one of the women said. “Does that mean there’s no professional staff here for such duties?”

  Stevie gulped, swallowing the words she really wanted to utter, and said instead, “At Pine Hollow, everybody pitches in, especially when it comes to pitching
out—um, manure, I mean. I think you’ll be pleased with the work we’ve done.”

  “Well, let’s get this over with,” said one of the women.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Lisa agreed. The sooner this pair was gone, the better.

  “I’m Carole Hanson,” Carole introduced herself, this time refraining from offering a hand to shake. “This is Stevie Lake, and this is Lisa Atwood.” The girls nodded and smiled.

  Finally the women relinquished their names. The woman by the cab of the truck was Mrs. Walker; her daughter, Ellen, rode Jennie’s Blue. The other woman was Mrs. Hatfield; her daughter, whose name was Lucy, rode Polaris.

  “We’ll get Blue off this thing first,” said Mrs. Walker, gesturing to the back of the truck.

  “I think Polaris should get off first,” said Mrs. Hatfield. “After all, he got on first and has been cooped up longer.”

  “Driver? Driver?” Mrs. Walker called.

  “I’ve got paperwork to do, ma’am,” the driver said from inside the cab. “And neither of those horses is getting off until I finish it.”

  At that moment it occurred to all three of The Saddle Club girls that the six-hour ride from Long Island must have seemed much longer than that to the driver—more like six weeks!

  Stevie came to the rescue. She told the women they should take the few minutes to tour Pine Hollow and see where the horses would be housed.

  That turned out not to be such a good idea. The freshly cleaned stalls for the horses were near each other but on opposite sides of the aisle. The girls had never particularly noticed this before, but it meant that one of them had a window that looked south and the other’s window faced north. As was true with most stable windows, they were dusty and afforded little view, but the southern window did allow more sunlight through the grime.

  “This will do for Jennie’s Blue,” said Mrs. Walker possessively, smiling at the stream of sunshine.

  “Well, I’m not so sure about that,” said Mrs. Hatfield. “I think Polaris would do better in the brighter stall.”

  The Saddle Club was relieved that the women seemed to have abandoned their concern about whether the three girls had done an adequate job of removing manure from the stalls, but shifting to an argument over which of the two stalls had a better exposure was bizarre.

  “This one is right next to my horse,” Carole said politely, pointing to the northern stall. “His name is Starlight. He’s really wonderful. He seems to thrive on the northern exposure.”

  The two women looked at her briefly, and Carole knew her thoughts were irrelevant to their argument, which in any case bore little relation to reality.

  “This one definitely is brighter,” said Lisa, sensing that a resolution might lie in agreeing with the women. “And that’s good, because it makes it seem almost as large as the other one.” That shifted their attention.

  Finally the women decided which horse would be in which stall, taking in such factors as the new latch on one stall versus the larger manger in the other. One had a little more headroom (though the headroom was more than adequate in both) and another was on the side of the aisle that generally got hay first in the mornings. When they chose, it was clear to the girls that each mother had been convinced that she had gotten the “better” stall for her daughter’s horse.

  The women walked back to the truck ahead of the girls. Stevie clapped Lisa on the back. “You have a great future as a diplomat,” she whispered.

  Carole agreed.

  Lisa wasn’t so sure. “That was the stupidest conversation I’ve ever had,” she said.

  “It wasn’t the conversation that was stupid, it’s those two women,” said Carole.

  “I don’t think they like one another much,” Lisa whispered, making her friends collapse into giggles at the understatement.

  “And people say the way I act about Veronica is childish!” said Stevie.

  Max was finished with his lesson and came out to greet the women, who seemed relieved to be with an adult. Max started to tell them how pleased he was to have both Polaris and Jennie’s Blue in his charge, but as with all previous pleasantries, the women dismissed that.

  “I certainly hope you’ll have enough time to work with Polaris properly,” said Mrs. Hatfield.

  Max didn’t skip a beat. “You bet,” he said. “It’s a pleasure and an honor to help out my former student just the way I did when I helped her train the first horse she ever worked with.”

  “Of course,” said Mrs. Walker. “Well, let’s get on with this.”

  It didn’t take long before all the paperwork was completed, and the girls helped Max unload Jennie’s Blue and Polaris and put them in their carefully selected stalls. Max and the mothers went over routines and regulations, checking through the paperwork while the girls filled the horses’ water buckets and made them feel welcome.

  “I bet you’re glad to be away from that awful woman,” Stevie whispered to Jennie’s Blue. The horse whinnied a response that Stevie was sure meant she agreed totally.

  Pretty soon the truck pulled out of the driveway, headed back for Long Island and carrying Mrs. Hatfield. It turned out that Mrs. Walker was staying over with a friend near Willow Creek and had to wait for the friend to pick her up. It didn’t take long. A big dark-windowed SUV lumbered into the Pine Hollow driveway, where Mrs. Walker met it. She pulled open the heavy door and climbed in, greeting her friend with the words “Thank God you’re here. I’m so relieved to have seen the last of that dreadful woman!” And then the door slammed.

  That was exactly the way The Saddle Club felt. Times two.

  “Are you going to stand there all day staring at that expensive car driving away, or are you going to come in here and give me a hand?” Max asked.

  The followed him into his office.

  “This is a big responsibility,” he began.

  “What’s the big deal about looking after two more horses?” Stevie asked.

  “It’s more than looking after,” Max said. “I have to continue the training so that this pair can be in top condition for the horse show. This is an important show by any standard and extremely important for the two riders. Ribbons here could make the difference in their futures. I have to have the horses totally ready.”

  “Can we watch?” Lisa asked, remembering the conversation she’d had with her friends the night before.

  “Well, one of you can at a time,” he said.

  “Just one?” Stevie asked.

  “The other two will be riding,” said Max.

  “We can watch and ride at the same time,” Carole assured him. “And we’ll keep our horses out of the way, too.”

  “That’s not what I mean, Carole,” Max said. “These horses are used to being ridden by young girls, not much older—or larger—than you three. I’m going to need riders, and their owners aren’t here. Do you think you can give me some extra time between now and when Lucy and Ellen arrive? Can you ride, follow instructions, and help with the training?”

  “Us?” Lisa asked.

  Max pretended to look behind The Saddle Club. “No, not you, the girls standing behind you,” he teased.

  “Are you kidding?” Carole asked.

  “I never kid about horses,” said Max.

  “Count us in,” Stevie said.

  “It’s hard work,” said Max.

  “But it’s horses,” said Carole.

  “It’s a lot of time,” said Max.

  “It’s going to be fun!” said Lisa.

  “And I was afraid I was going to have trouble talking you into this,” said Max. “Okay, look,” he said, showing them the schedule. “It’s going to mean being here before and after school almost every day.”

  “Can you talk to our parents?” Lisa asked him.

  “Yes, I’ll do that,” Max promised. “I’m going to need their help and cooperation, too, getting you here and all that. I know they’re going to ask each of you to promise that—”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll keep up on our schoolwo
rk,” Lisa said, anticipating his concern.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “Can we start now?” Carole asked.

  “No, these guys have had a long drive and they’re tired. They get some time off. But tomorrow. At six-thirty—”

  “That’s dinnertime,” Stevie started to say.

  “A.M.,” Max said.

  Stevie grimaced. Morning wasn’t her favorite time.

  “Don’t worry. She’ll be here,” Carole promised.

  Max dismissed them then, asking them to give his new student, Frieda, a hand with untacking and grooming before they put their own horses away. They were practically walking on air as they left his office.

  WEDNESDAY MORNING at six-thirty, Stevie stumbled into Pine Hollow—in the cheery, wide-awake manner she now reserved for that hour. The truth was, it wasn’t very cheery or very wide-awake, but it was a manner she had perfected over the past couple of days. Secretly, she was almost getting used to the early hour, but she wouldn’t admit that to anyone.

  “Where am I?” she asked Lisa, who tended to be more genuinely wide awake and cheerier at early-morning hours.

  “You’re at Pine Hollow,” Lisa told her. “Just where you’re supposed to be, and where you’ve been the last two mornings. Now go put on a riding helmet so we can get to work.”

  Robotlike, Stevie followed Lisa’s instructions, and a few minutes later, she was on board Polaris, remembering exactly where she was—Pine Hollow’s schooling ring—and what she was doing—working hard.

  Lisa was riding Blue, and Carole was leaning against the fence, making notes on a clipboard for Max about all the exercises the horses were doing and the progress they were showing. Max was standing next to her.

  “Polaris’s stride is longer today,” Carole told Max, stuffing the measuring tape back into her pocket.

  Stevie was pleased. She’d been working on the length of the horse’s stride, and it was nice to know that she was succeeding. It seemed such a small thing, but a horse with a longer stride could move more elegantly in dressage and achieve more variation when its rider asked for it.