“I wonder why she’s so nervous,” Emma said. “Do you think somebody’s been mean to her?”
“I doubt it. She probably just hasn’t been handled much. That surprises me, though, coming from the ranch where she was raised.”
When they had cleaned her up a bit, Emma’s dad tied the mare to the fence and brought Emma’s saddle down from the barn. It was lighter than his saddle and would be easier to lift on, so it always got called into service the first few times young horses wore a saddle.
“We might as well see what happens when I put this on her,” he said. “She was supposed to have been saddled by the former owner before the sale.”
He untied Miss Dellfene and asked Emma to come in and hold the rope so the mare wouldn’t panic and pull back on the halter. Slim and wiry, Emma had hung on to lots of colts that didn’t want to be held. She stood to one side of the horse like her father had taught her, out of the range of striking hooves, while he rubbed the saddle blanket along Miss Dellfene’s back and neck. She flinched each time he moved the blanket. Finally he left it on her back and lifted the saddle up gently. The mare sidled away, but he followed her with it until the fence interfered with further retreat. The mare’s eyes widened when he set it on her back, and she jumped when the cinch slid down on the far side. He reached carefully behind her front legs and found the cinch ring, threading the latigo through it and tightening it up slowly, a little at a time. The mare seemed frozen, with every muscle tensed. There was an arch in her back that made the rear of the saddle stick up several inches. Moving slowly, he took the lead rope from Emma, removed it from the halter and snapped on a lunge line. Then he took a pair of leather gloves from his hip pocket and put them on—protection against rope burns.
“Go outside again,” he said. “I think there’s about to be an explosion!”
For several seconds nothing happened. Then Emma’s father tugged lightly on the line, and Miss Dellfene launched herself into space. She let out a bellow, put her head down between her knees and began to buck wildly. Emma’s father let her have lots of slack in the rope so she could get it out of her system, and she put on a performance that would have done credit to a rodeo bronc. She jumped into the air and landed stiff-legged, desperately trying to get rid of that thing on her back. She whirled and kicked and turned her head around to try to grab the saddle with her teeth. Although the day was cool, she was quickly soaked with sweat. Finally, she reared high in the air on her hind legs and fell over backwards, landing on her side in the dust, the wind knocked out of her. While she lay on the ground, Emma’s dad stepped behind her and pulled her nose up off the ground with the rope. In this position, she couldn’t get up. She laid there, her sides heaving, while Emma’s dad talked to her reassuringly. After several minutes, he walked around her and loosened the rope. She jumped to her feet, but seemed a little dazed, and her nostrils flared as she tried to catch her breath. While she was standing still, Emma’s dad walked up to her and gave her a hearty pat on the neck.
“Good girl!” he said firmly.
A few minutes later, he loosened the cinch and slid the saddle off.
“My father always said to quit while you’re ahead!” he told Emma, laughing. “I guess we’re ahead; she didn’t get the saddle off or trample anybody.”
He brought the saddle and blanket out the gate and then leaned on the fence beside Emma.
“Well, if she was saddled before today, I sure wouldn’t want to have witnessed it,” he said.
“I think I’ll just wait ‘til tomorrow to get on her,” Emma joked.
“Good idea! We don’t want to move too fast with her training.” Then, more seriously he said, “I hope she doesn’t turn out to be an outlaw. She’s rough around the edges, but there’s something I really like about the way she moves.”
“She sure doesn’t like people much,” Emma observed.
* * *
The following Saturday everyone helped put calves through the chute so they could be vaccinated and have ear tags put in their ears. Kyle worked the head gate, which imprisoned the calf’s head, while Emma filled syringes with vaccine for her mom to inject in each calf’s neck.
“Be careful with those needles,” her mom admonished. “The calves need to be vaccinated for blackleg, but you don’t!”
Her dad wrote numbers on the ear tags and attached them with a clamp that made a small hole in the calf’s ear. The calves were not fond of this procedure and bawled loudly when the clamp was closed.
“Let’s take a break,” Emma’s mom said when they finished the first group of calves. “I need to get another bottle of vaccine from the refrigerator, and I’ll bring us some sodas from the house.”
Kyle jumped up on the tailgate of the truck next to Emma and smiled his lopsided smile at her.
“How’s the society horse?” he asked.
“She had a wall-eyed fit the other day when Dad saddled her. She’s almost impossible to catch even in a small pen, and she acts like she might turn around and kick your head off if you get her in a corner. But he still says he likes her.”
“Yeah, I know,” Kyle said. “He told me she moves like a gazelle.”
When they finished the vaccinations, Emma and Kyle walked to Miss Dellfene’s pen. The mare dozed in a corner, a wisp of hay hanging comically from her lips.
“Come here, Little Miss,” Emma said softly.
The mare raised her head and looked at Emma, who pulled an apple from the pocket of her sweatshirt and let herself through the gate into the mare’s pen. She walked toward the mare holding the apple in her outstretched palm.
“Come on, girl. You’ll like this,” Emma crooned.
The mare raised her head higher, her little ears pointed at Emma.
“Okay, this is as far as I go,” Emma said, stopping a short distance from the mare. “If you want it, you’re going to have to come and get it.”
Minutes passed and neither Emma nor the mare moved, a silent contest of wills. At last the mare looked away, blew softly through her nose and took a step toward Emma and then another. Stretching her neck out as far as she could, she sniffed the apple suspiciously. Again she looked away. Emma remained frozen in place. At last the mare reached out again and took the apple. Emma still didn’t move. When the mare backed up and began crunching the apple, Emma turned and walked back out the gate.
“I think she’ll come around, but she sure doesn’t act like she’s had a lot of good experiences with people,” she told Kyle.
“And you’re about to change that, aren’t you?” Kyle said.
Chapter Four
Emma got off the school bus the following Monday afternoon to discover the truck and trailer parked by the horse pens with Scout already loaded and wearing her dad’s saddle, his bridle hanging from the saddle horn. The day was overcast and blustery and it was way too early for Emma’s dad to be home from the sheriff’s office. As she hurried up the lane to the house, her father came out the back door in his uniform carrying a small, canvas bag.
“What’s going on?” Emma shouted as she broke into a run to intercept him.
“A kid from the elementary school is missing,” he said. “She was probably gone all night, but her parents didn’t discover it until this morning. We’re gathering a group to search the woods behind her house on horseback, just in case she wandered in there and got lost. I hope that’s what happened and not something worse, but it was pretty cold last night and we need to find her.”
“Can I help?” Emma asked. “I could take Ditto and keep you in sight all the time. I have a good pair of eyes.”
Her father got that “don’t bother me with this now” look on his face and opened his mouth to answer. But then he paused and looked thoughtfully at Emma.
“You know, maybe you could help. Put on some warm clothes and a jacket and fill one of your mother’s plastic bottles with water. There’s no telling how long this will take. I’ll load Ditto.”
Emma dashed for the house.
“And leave a note for your mother,” he called after her.
Emma had seen her father go out on search and rescue missions before. Sometimes, the outcome was heartbreaking. He had finally located an old gentleman who had gone fishing on a deserted part of the Leon River, but not soon enough to save him from the heart attack that had overtaken him on the riverbank. Usually, though, the searchers returned empty handed and the missing person turned up somewhere else entirely. The thought of a child alone in the woods all night gave Emma a slightly queasy feeling that spurred her to move faster. She grabbed her old hooded jacket and a pair of gloves, pulled on her boots, and scribbled a note to her mother. As she filled the water bottle she heard the truck start and pull up beside the house.
“We’ve only got a couple of hours of daylight left,” her father said, turning on to the highway. Ditto stood beside Scout, his mane still tangled and mud on his chest. He was wearing Emma’s saddle.
“I have to be able to count on you to stay close to me. Looking for one kid in five hundred acres of thick trees and brush will be hard enough without having to search for you, too.”
“Yes, sir,” Emma promised. “I won’t let you out of my sight.”
Just before they got to the edge of town, Emma’s dad turned off on a narrow blacktop road that wound through thick stands of live oak and pecan trees.
“This is the Leon River bottom,” he explained. “The river itself is a couple of miles to the west as the crow flies. I can’t imagine a kid wandering in there, but her parents can’t come up with any other explanation.”
Above the tops of the trees, Emma saw a sprawling white limestone house on a hill. Her father turned into the drive and parked near two other horse trailers with saddled horses tied to them. Another deputy, a game warden in uniform, and a woman Emma had never seen before were tightening cinches and bridling the horses.
“Can you unload and cinch them up while I find out what the plan is?” her father asked.
Emma untied Ditto and backed him out first, then went back for Scout. Both horses nickered to the others nearby. Before her father returned from the small crowd gathered beside the house, she had put on the bridles and climbed aboard Ditto, holding Scout’s reins. From the top of her horse, she could see a blonde woman sobbing into her hands. A bulky man in a suit stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders. The riders swung onto their horses, and Emma noticed the sun peeking out from a break in the clouds low above the trees. A walkie-talkie crackled in her father’s hand, making Scout skitter sideways as though a big bee was after him. Her dad hung it on the saddle horn, patting the big spotted horse reassuringly.
“Her name is Darla,” her father said, sliding his fingers under Scout’s cinch to check it and swinging aboard. “She’s ten years old and in the fourth grade. Her parents aren’t sure what she’s wearing, but they last saw her in jeans and a green sweater. That will make it harder to spot her in the brush. We’ll head south until we reach the river. As soon as we get in the trees, we’ll spread out a little. And call her name. Loud.”
The other riders started for the edge of the trees behind and on the north side of the house. A hundred yards into the woods the dim light swallowed details of the scene before them.
“Darla! Darla, where are you?” her father shouted.
Emma heard shouts from the other riders too, although as they rode deeper into the woods the sound became muffled. She moved Ditto a few yards to the right of Scout and searched the surrounding brush for any sign that someone had walked through here. There were no trails, and soon the horses were pushing their way through dried brittle weeds up to their chests.
“Darla! Darla!” Emma called, but she heard nothing but the sounds of the horses crackling through the dry weeds. Huge live oaks loomed above them, and fallen limbs hid beneath the weeds waiting to trip the horses. The sharp smell of dried dove weed filled her nostrils. Emma gave Ditto his head so he could pick his own way, but failed to notice a limber sapling until Ditto brushed against it, bending it down. When it snapped back, the little tree lashed across her face making her cheek burn.
For what must have been an hour, they inched their way forward, calling Darla’s name every few minutes. The horses seemed to know that they were supposed to stay together. When they strayed too far apart, Ditto adjusted his course to keep Scout in sight. Emma caught her father glancing back to check on her, but although blood dripped from the scratch on her cheek and dried on her neck, she was determined not to worry him.
In the tangled deadfall under a large tree, a small animal scuttled through dry leaves, and Ditto tipped his head toward the sound. Emma hoped the neighborhood rattlesnakes were gone to their dens by now. Temperatures at night had dipped into the 40s, so she thought they would be underground. Everything blurred together in shades of brown and gray. Turning to check on her father, Emma discovered that he was off his horse searching the ground. The walkie-talkie on Scout’s saddle crackled with static, but no voices brought good news. She reined Ditto toward her father and climbed down.
“Did you find something?” she asked. Her father brushed her scratched cheek with his fingertips wordlessly.
“Something traveled through here recently,” he said. “See how the weeds are bent over? But it could have been anything. A deer. A coyote. The ground is too dry and there are too many dead leaves to show footprints.”
“Darla!” he hollered. “Answer me. Help us find you!”
Silence.
“Maybe she’s asleep,” Emma said. She couldn’t bear to think about the possibility that the girl was dead.
“Her parents said she might have run away,” her father said, shaking his head in frustration. “She had some kind of ruckus with her father last night. I guess it’s possible that she doesn’t want to be found, although by now she’s bound to be cold and hungry.” He climbed back on Scout. “You okay to keep going?” he asked.
Emma nodded and turned to Ditto, noticing small drips of blood on his front legs from scratches he’d gotten forcing his way through the tangled brush. Emma could see thorny vines scattered among the tree trunks, but there was nothing to do but keep looking. She climbed back on in the deepening gloom.
* * *
A half hour later she could hear the rushing water of the river. It had been a dry summer and fall and the low water flowed slowly over stones that usually hid beneath the muddy surface. The bank dropped off sharply to the river below, and Emma reined Ditto up. On a muddy rock bar below that had been exposed by the receding water she saw something red. It was a sock. A sock with a foot in it. And blending into the mud lay a mud-smeared little girl.
Emma opened her mouth to shout for her father, but nothing came out but a croak. Her voice was hoarse from yelling Darla’s name.
“Dad,” she croaked. She’s over here!”
Scout was still thrashing through the tall blood weeds above the river.
“Dad!” This time she could hear a slightly hysterical tone in her own voice. Her father looked through the brush and spotted her. Within seconds Scout was beside Ditto and her father was out of the saddle and sliding down the bank.
“Darla,” he said, bending over the prone body on the ground. “Are you all right?” Emma saw the girl draw up her legs and heard small, muffled sobs as her father knelt on the muddy rocks.
“Emma,” he called. “Tie the horses to a tree and bring me the walkie-talkie and a bottle of water.”
Emma’s legs moved stiffly as she jumped down and looped the horses’ reins around the branch of a small tree. She unzipped her father’s canvas bag and grabbed the water, lifting the walkie-talkie’s strap from the saddle horn.
“You guys stay here,” she said to the horses, as though this was a scene from a Western movie, although she knew it was not. Ducking under Ditto’s neck, she hurried to the edge of the bank. It was steep, nearly straight down, and the top had been undercut by flowing water at some earlier time. A twenty-foot drop stood between Emma and the spot wh
ere her father crouched beside Darla. She sat down on the bank and grabbed a handful of weeds with her free hand, scooting over the edge. The weeds held for a moment and then the roots ripped loose sending her skidding down the dirt bank on her bottom in a shower of loose dirt and rocks.
Her boots were full of dirt when she finally stopped sliding, but she still had the walkie-talkie and the water bottle. Her father had removed his coat and wrapped Darla in it, pulling her head onto his knees. Pitiful sobs and whimpers came from the girl’s muddy face. Emma handed the walkie-talkie to her father and knelt on the other side of the girl.
“Hi Darla,” she said. “I’m Emma. You’re safe now. Do you want a drink of water?”
There was no response from the girl, who looked tiny and helpless curled in the mud and shivering in her father’s coat. She had lost one shoe at some point, exposing the red sock that had caught Emma’s attention. Emma could see purple-black bruises along the left side of her face and dried blood clung to several scrapes and scratches on her forehead and neck. Emma’s father lifted the girl’s head slightly as he examined the injuries and spoke to her.
“Where does it hurt, Darla?”
Emma could not hear the whispered reply, but her father stood and lifted the girl in his arms. His short-sleeved uniform shirt revealed ropy arm muscles and large capable hands that cradled the limp girl gently. Emma was overwhelmed with thankfulness that he was here. He moved the girl closer to the bank, to a spot where the dirt was dry and relatively smooth and turned up the collar of his coat so her head rested on it.
“I’m going to have to go back up the bank to get reception on the walkie-talkie,” he told Emma. “Can you stay with her for a few minutes?”
“Sure,” Emma said, although she noticed that her own hands were trembling and tears of worry pushed against the backs of her eyes. She sat down beside the silent girl and took her hand. It was freezing. Remembering the gloves in her pocket, she pulled them out and slid them onto the girl’s hands. They were dirty and much too big, but at least they would keep her hands from getting any colder. The temperature had to be near forty degrees.
Emma and the Cutting Horse Page 3
