Horse Spy

by Bonnie Bryant

  “But the Rocky Trail can be dangerous,” Carole said.

  “Not that part of it, and the mountain view is so beautiful from the top!” said Stevie. “And as long as we ride carefully and get back safely, there’s no harm, is there? What’s the worst that can happen—that Karya misses out on a ribbon-cutting ceremony at a hydroelectric plant model?”

  “That’s about it,” said Karya, her eyes sparkling with delight.

  “Then let’s go.”

  The four girls pulled their boots back on and went back to their horses. The animals were ready for their drink at the creek; after their thirst had been satisfied, the riders remounted and took off across the creek in the opposite direction from the trail plan the girls had left with Max.

  It didn’t take long for the security agents to become concerned. They’d expected the riders to reappear along the path they’d left for the visit to the creek.

  Pretty soon the girls could hear the men calling out to one another. Then they could hear the buzz-click of walkie-talkies flicking on and off all around them. And they could also hear some of the agents calling to Karya.

  Karya had a big grin on her face. It was infectious, and the girls had to share her excitement at the game they were playing with the security agents. For a moment she clicked on her own walkie-talkie and listened to the furious buzz back and forth among the riders and the men on foot. She giggled at their chatter. Then she turned the walkie-talkie off again.

  “Oh, this is wonderful!” she said. “Now show me this view of yours!”

  “This way!” Stevie announced, waving them all forward.

  ONCE AGAIN, Stevie was in the lead. She could feel the excitement of the chase welling in her chest. Around her, not more than several hundred yards away, agents of the ADR were searching for them, and she knew, deep in her heart, that they were not anywhere near as clever as she was. She could outfox the best of them. They were well equipped with electronic devices, but they didn’t know the woods, and from what she’d seen, they didn’t know much about horses or riding, either. This was going to be fun.

  “Ms. Nazeem!” one man called out.

  Stevie put her finger to her lips to remind them not to answer, but it wasn’t necessary. Nobody had any intention of responding.

  “Karya!” came another cry.

  “This way!” Stevie whispered, pointing upward.

  The girls followed.

  The Rocky Trail was as treacherous in parts as any trail the girls had ever ridden. It was hilly and had twists, curves, and switchbacks. It also lived up to its name, which meant that it could be slippery for a horse’s hooves.

  It wasn’t used often, and Max never bothered much about keeping it open. That meant that branches hung down low along the trail, and storms during the previous winter had laid a couple of trees across it. The girls proceeded slowly.

  “You’re going to love this,” Stevie assured Karya.

  “I already do,” Karya said, ducking a big maple branch. “We have no woods like this at home. It’s beautiful.”

  “Karya!” came another cry from deep in the forest. The man’s voice yelled something else, too.

  “What was that he said?” Lisa asked.

  “He said I should, um, stop this nonsense right now. See, they’re not worried, just annoyed with me.”

  “Are you going to get in trouble?” Lisa asked her.

  “Only if they tell. And the only reason they’d tell is if we make a mistake.”

  “And we won’t do that,” said Stevie. “We know exactly what we’re doing. Come on, there’s a clearing up ahead where we can make some time at a canter.”

  Stevie focused her attention on the path, which she knew would become narrower and steeper before the clearing. The dappled sunlight laid patches of bright and dark on the forest floor, and all around, birds were chirping. The sounds intermingled with the cries of the agents and the occasional staticky crackle of a walkie-talkie. It was interesting how clearly sound carried through the forest.

  And then she realized there was another sound. It wasn’t behind them or below them. It was up ahead and it was unmistakable. It was a horse.

  “Someone else is on the trail,” Stevie said to the riders behind her. Carole frowned. She hated the idea that one of the agents, who were so clearly inexperienced riders, might get onto this trail. The girls would end up rescuing him instead of the other way around.

  “Nobody passed us, did they?” Lisa asked.

  “No, and the only other way onto this trail is across the creek beyond the clearing,” said Stevie.

  “Five horses,” Carole said, suddenly remembering and not liking what she recalled.

  “What?” asked Karya.

  “There were five horses,” said Carole.

  “No, the agents only had four horses,” Karya said. “I’m sure of that. That’s all the van holds.”

  “There were five horses on the trail,” said Carole. “First four went by, and then, a few seconds later, another. There’s someone else in the woods.”

  “On this trail?” Stevie asked.

  “Obviously,” said Lisa.

  “But who?” Carole asked. “And why?”

  “There’s only one way to find out,” said Stevie, giving Belle a little nudge that made her pick up her pace. The other horses followed obediently. As soon as the path leveled, Stevie began trotting. So did the other riders.

  A fresh scattering of manure confirmed to Stevie that they were right—someone was ahead of them. Every ounce of logic she had (and while her friends often said she was totally lacking in it, Stevie knew better when it came to horses) told her it didn’t make any sense. If one of the agents was trying to find them, why would he go along this obscure trail? And how could he not be aware that the girls were behind him? There was something very odd going on, and Stevie had every intention of getting to the bottom of it right away.

  The woods opened up into a high meadow. It was time to canter. Stevie signaled Belle for the fast gait and the mare responded, eager for a chance to stretch her muscles in the open field. As they flew across the grassy expanse, Stevie pointed to the vista to their right.

  “Beautiful! But let’s hurry!” Karya responded. She was as much into the spirit of the chase as Stevie and her friends were.

  “We really shouldn’t go there,” Carole said, looking at the trail before them where it entered the forest. “It’s a dangerous trail. We can go back now.…”

  “But who’s riding ahead of us?” Stevie asked. “We need to find out.”

  “One of the security men could be in trouble,” Lisa reasoned.

  “It’s an adventure!” said Karya. “Come on, girls!”

  Carole sighed. Maybe her father would never find out. She nudged Starlight forward and followed Stevie, Karya, and Lisa into the woods, wondering what lay ahead.

  As they entered the woods, it suddenly grew much darker. The dense greenery overhead nearly blocked out the sun. The horses were forced to slow to a walk, as the horse they were following had done.

  And the trail rose again, too, twisting into a series of hairpin turns as it ascended the steep hillside. This was the steepest and most dangerous part of the whole Rocky Trail. And it was where they finally spotted their quarry.

  “Hey! Who’s there?” Stevie cried, gazing at the rider hurrying up the hill high above them.

  The only answer the rider gave was to strike the horse with a riding crop. The willing horse flinched but responded, clambering up the treacherous hillside even faster.

  “You’re going too fast!” Carole cried. “You’ll hurt the horse!”

  Once again the rider struck the horse with the crop.

  “That guy’s nuts!” Stevie said.

  “That guy’s a girl,” Karya said. “Or a woman, really.”

  “Who would do something like that?” Lisa asked.

  “Someone who’s nuts,” Stevie said.

  “That makes sense,” Lisa agreed.

 
“No, it doesn’t,” said Carole. “It’s dangerous.”

  “So who is it and why?” Stevie said.

  “I don’t know, but I know we’ll find out,” Carole said. All worries about herself and her friends fled from Carole’s mind. There was no way she would allow any rider to put any horse in that much peril. “Stevie, isn’t there another—”

  “Yep! Come on, Karya—we’re going to cut them off at the pass!”

  At that moment they came to a Y in the path. The main fork of the path continued up the hill, following more switchbacks to the crest, where the wild rider had gone. The other, straighter segment of the trail actually went around the hill. It was a longer route but an easier way to get to the top, something an inexperienced rider unfamiliar with the trails and the terrain would not know.

  “Karya and I will go this way. Lisa, you and Carole keep after her!” Stevie said.

  The riders split up. Carole looked ahead anxiously, still wondering who on earth would ride the way that woman was riding. And then the horse came into an open area where the sunshine streamed into the woods, almost like a spotlight. It was impossible not to recognize the horse when it was highlighted that way.

  “Polaris!” Carole said in a loud whisper.

  “Frieda?” said Lisa.

  It was. They recognized Frieda, the beginning rider who hadn’t known to keep her heels down and toes in as recently as a week before. Now there was no doubt about it: The woman was riding like a champion. The only thing wrong with what she was doing was that the way she was riding, she was just about guaranteed to hurt the horse.

  Carole called out to her as loudly as she could. “Frieda! It’s us! It’s me, Carole!” she yelled. “You can’t go that fast. It’s dangerous!”

  In response, Frieda once again took the riding crop to Polaris’s flank, and this time she whacked him viciously.

  And then Carole knew one other thing: Frieda didn’t care.

  “We’ve got to stop her!” Carole said to Lisa. She didn’t have to say it twice.

  Without saying a word to each other, Carole and Lisa urged their horses up the hill.

  “WHAT’S GOING ON?” Karya asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Stevie as the two of them rode as fast as they safely could along the trail. “But whatever it is, it isn’t good.”

  “So, tell me what you do know.”

  “Well, I just realized who that horse and rider are—Polaris and Frieda.”

  “That’s the woman we met, and she’s riding one of the champion horses, right?” Karya asked.

  “Right,” said Stevie.

  “So, what’s wrong with that?”

  “For one thing, it’s not her horse. For another, the last we knew, she was a beginning rider, and she’s got that valuable horse riding on a dangerous trail at a pace that is sure to get at least one of them, probably the horse, hurt really badly.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  And that was the question to which Stevie needed an answer. She shook her head. Nothing was making any sense. All she knew was that there wasn’t any time to waste.

  “We could really use some help here!” she said, thinking out loud.

  “I think I can do something about that!” said Karya, reaching for her belt.

  Stevie hit herself on the forehead. Why hadn’t she thought of that? They could bring the full force of the security agents of the ADR to their aid instantly!

  Still moving uphill at a rapid clip, Karya switched on her walkie-talkie. She was instantly inundated with a barrage of clicks, buzzes, and whistles, followed by several angry and insistent voices.

  She spoke into the machine. Someone answered her. She issued rapid-fire instructions in a language that meant nothing to Stevie, and then she looked puzzled as she held the device to her ear. “Huh?” she said.

  She spoke again, nodded, then hooked the transmitter back onto her belt so that she could listen for progress while keeping both hands on Barq’s reins.

  “They tell me they’ve already got the helicopters deployed,” she said after a moment.

  “Won’t do much good in these thick woods,” said Stevie.

  “Well, it might scare that woman, Frieda.”

  “Maybe,” said Stevie. “But I wish I knew what was going on.”

  “Well, why would she ride that other girl’s horse?”

  “I have no idea—unless she was trying to steal it … Oh, my,” Stevie said, a light breaking over her.

  “What?”

  Before Stevie could answer, Karya’s walkie-talkie buzzed. Karya took it off her belt and responded into the mouthpiece.

  While Karya spoke with the agent on the other end, Stevie’s mind raced. She wished both that she’d been smarter to begin with and that she’d studied Arabic.

  “What’s going on?” she asked when Karya stopped talking.

  “He said they are after the person who is chasing us.”

  “Nobody’s chasing us. We’re chasing someone!” said Stevie.

  “That’s what I told him,” Karya said. “And he said the helicopters are getting closer.”

  “Not to us, they aren’t,” Stevie said, vaguely aware of the distant sound of helicopters—still way too far in the distance to be menacing anyone. “Come on, we’d better get a move on!” Stevie nudged Belle, who once again obediently responded and picked up her pace.

  “Hurry, Belle, hurry!”

  On the other side of the hill, Carole and Lisa were beginning to gain a bit on Polaris and Frieda. The horse was a dressage specialist, which meant that he could ride elegantly, but that didn’t guarantee the kind of stamina needed for a mountain chase.

  “Frieda, stop now!” Carole called fruitlessly.

  “What’s going on?” Lisa asked, utterly confused by the very strange turn of events.

  “She’s a spy,” Carole said. “We thought she was just a student, but she’s a spy!”

  “How can she be spying on Karya when she’s running ahead of us?” Lisa asked, following Carole as well as she could.

  “Not Karya,” said Carole.

  “Who’s she spying on, then?” Lisa asked.

  “Polaris!” said Carole.

  “What’s Polaris got to do with spying?” asked Lisa.

  “Later—I’ll explain later,” said Carole, carefully guiding Starlight along the final rocky ascent.

  Lisa sighed. She’d figure it out later. For now, she just had to follow, and it wasn’t easy. Prancer wasn’t made for riding on this kind of terrain any more than Polaris was. She could get badly hurt, and Lisa didn’t want to risk that.

  Badly hurt. The phrase stuck in her mind. Badly hurt. That could happen to Polaris. There was only one person who would want Polaris badly hurt. There was only one person who hated Polaris and who would see it as a good thing if Polaris was put out of commission, either temporarily or permanently. It could only be Mrs. Walker.

  Mrs. Walker hated Lucy Hatfield, hated Mrs. Hatfield, and hated Polaris, the only real competition her daughter had. The girls didn’t hate each other, but the mothers did.

  “She’s spying for Mrs. Walker!” Lisa blurted out.

  “That’s what I said!” Carole retorted. “Now, pay attention. There’s another patch of rocks ahead!”

  Lisa paid attention.

  “Where are you?” Karya spit into the walkie-talkie in Arabic. Even though she couldn’t understand the language, Stevie knew exactly what Karya was saying, because she was also looking up at the sky, hoping to see a helicopter coming to their aid.

  “No!” Karya called out. Annoyed, she stuck the walkie-talkie on her belt again.

  “They keep telling me they’re closing in and have the kidnapper in their sights, but there’s no sign of them. I don’t know what’s going on and neither do they.”

  “Then we’re just going to have to do this ourselves,” said Stevie. She gave Belle one final kick and the horse sprang up the last ridge of the hillside, coming to a stop where the trail opened o
ut into a small hilltop meadow.

  Everyone was there.

  Frieda was on Polaris, standing in the middle of the field. Carole and Lisa appeared out of the woods on the far side.

  “You’re a spy!” Lisa called out.

  “I wouldn’t put it that way,” said Frieda. “Just helping a friend even the playing field for her daughter.”

  “By endangering a helpless animal?” Carole said.

  “I wouldn’t put it that way, either,” said Frieda.

  “Well, you were galloping along a rocky trail,” Stevie said. “That’s dangerous. You could have killed Polaris.”

  “I never intended to kill him,” Frieda said. “I just wanted to borrow him for a few days. And I want to thank you three for all the help you gave me.”

  “Not like you needed our riding lessons,” Carole said.

  “Hardly,” Frieda agreed. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to pretend to be a bad rider when you’re not?”

  “You nearly had us fooled,” said Lisa.

  “I had you completely fooled,” Frieda responded.

  She was right about that.

  “Well, we’ve got you fooled now,” said Stevie. “You can’t get away from us. And we’ll protect Polaris.”

  “I’ve already won,” said Frieda. “Polaris picked up a stone way down at the bottom of the hill. He’s good and lame by now. I don’t have to borrow him. He’ll never be able to perform in the show, and that’s all we ever really wanted. And there’s nothing you can do about it. If you tell someone, I just say I took Polaris out for a ride. So what? Okay, I didn’t have the authority to do it, but they can’t throw me in jail. What’s Max going to do? Ban me from the stable? I don’t plan on coming back anyway. And even if you do say anything, I’ll be long gone by the time you get back to Pine Hollow. So thanks for all your help—I’d never have been able to do it without you. Good-bye.”

  With that, before anybody could stop her, Frieda slid down out of Polaris’s saddle and walked straight into the thick underbrush that surrounded the hilly meadow. The girls couldn’t follow her on horseback and didn’t want to. They wanted to look after Polaris.