“So no one got hurt?” Charlie heard Smilie out, then asked his advice. “You reckon it’s safe to carry on up to Eagle’s Peak today?”
The guard nodded. “Sure. Bears mostly sleep during the day. And they’re not aggressive, provided you don’t interrupt their feeding.”
“Maybe that’s a point your man from the RV should have known.” The wrangler gave a wry grin. “You hear that, everyone? Bears are in the neighborhood. Keep a lookout, and make plenty of noise as we go so we don’t surprise them.”
“No problem!” Brad turned Silver Flash back onto the trail. He gave a couple of “yee-hahs” and pushed on up the mountain, quickly followed by Troy.
Thanking Smilie, Charlie regrouped.
The ranger nodded toward the Jensen boys. “You got your hands full.”
“No problem!” With a smile and a wink, the wrangler echoed Brad. “It don’t matter if they ride ahead; they’re advanced riders, so they know what they’re doing. They just like to fool around.”
Soon, Charlie, Kirstie, Lisa, and Stevie hit Eagle’s Peak Trail again, climbing steadily but failing to make any impression on the lead that Troy and Brad had on them. They felt the stiff breeze gather force, seeing the tall, thick ponderosa pines thin out into twisted, gnarled krummholz, which grew in weird goblin shapes seemingly out of bare rock. Just ahead lay the snow line at eleven thousand feet.
Kirstie zipped her fleece jacket around her chin, spotting the two wayward riders bushwhacking through the trees. “The Jensens are way out of line now,” she muttered to Charlie. “They’re too far away for us to call them back.”
“Yep.” He didn’t say much as he decided to take the rest of the group after them. “We’ll pick up the trail again after we catch up with the boys.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t leave the trail in the first place.” Stevie Kane looked uneasy at the idea. “If Brad and Troy are stupid enough to get themselves lost, so what?”
“So, if we lose them up here, they’re in serious trouble,” Charlie explained. “Rule number one: don’t let the group split up!”
“And if we follow them and we all get lost, what then?” Stevie watched the two Texan boys ride along a ridge on the near horizon. Beyond them, the triangular shape of Eagle’s Peak loomed sheer and sparkling white.
“We trust our horses to get us unlost,” Charlie said sharply, making up his mind and setting Rocky off across country. If he didn’t act now, the Jensens would be well out of sight.
So, despite Stevie’s doubts, the group took a zigzagging path through boulders and battered spruce trees, gaining a little on Brad and Troy, then losing them behind a shadowy stretch of sheer granite. The wind grew bitterly cold, blasting down from the snowy peak in the distance, whirling occasional gusts of light snowflakes into their faces.
“This is mad!” Stevie hadn’t stopped complaining in ten whole minutes. Now he left Lisa and trotted alongside Charlie, gesturing back the way they’d come. “You realize what’s happening here? Those two up ahead are in danger of getting us seriously lost ten thousand feet up a mountain!”
The wrangler nodded, then grimaced. “You got a better idea?”
“There are bears around!”
“Sure. Like I said, we got a problem.” Determined to keep going, Charlie pushed on.
“If it snows any harder, we’ll lose the trail and never get back on!”
“I know it.”
“And you still think we should follow them?” Stevie sounded incredulous. With a panicky look up ahead, he reined Johnny Mohawk to a standstill.
“Yep. I reckon Brad and Troy will be up past that stretch of rock, waiting for us.”
“Yeah, really?” Stevie refused to move. He held Johnny on a tight rein. “I don’t think so. And to be honest, I don’t care!”
“C’mon, Stevie!” Lisa urged. “Charlie’s right. You know Brad and Troy; they’re most probably playing a practical joke.”
“Not funny!” He was having trouble controlling his horse as Johnny strained at the bit to follow the wrangler. Hooves were beginning to slip and slide as tempers frayed.
Kirstie shook her head and turned away. The slope was too steep, the weather too bad to stop and have arguments. “He’s scared to go on,” she muttered to Charlie. “I reckon you gotta let him go back down.”
“I’ll go with him!” Lisa volunteered to help with a way out of the difficult problem. “I don’t care about the rest of the ride onto Eagle’s Peak, honest!”
I bet you don’t! Kirstie felt a stab of jealousy. Since when did Lisa give up one of her favorite all-day rides so easily?
“I’m not moving!” Stevie continued to threaten, helping Charlie make up his mind in the pro cess. “I’m not risking my neck for those two idiots. In fact, I’m turning right back and heading for home!”
Charlie frowned and bit his lip.
“I’ll go!” Lisa insisted, taking Crazy Horse a few unsteady steps back down the rocky slope. It was against the horse’s instinct to split away from the main bunch.
“OK.” The wrangler gave in. “You take him onto the trail and let your horses find their way down, you hear?”
Lisa nodded. “No problem!”
“You tell them back at the ranch that we’re carrying on with the ride!”
“We’ll tell them you let two crazy fools get us seriously lost in a blizzard!” Stevie retorted.
Charlie watched carefully as Crazy Horse and Johnny Mohawk turned on the narrow trail. Soon, the two breakaway riders were on their way. Though advanced, the group had broken the first rule of trail riding, and he’d failed to prevent it.
“I’ll make sure my dad hears about this!” Stevie called.
Slumping slightly in the saddle, Charlie pushed Rocky on up the mountain, with Kirstie and Lucky close behind. “…Whatever!” he sighed.
By early afternoon, the snow had eased, and the sky turned deep blue in every direction. Kirstie and Charlie had long since caught up with Brad and Troy, and, after an ear-bashing from Charlie, the four of them had enjoyed the thrill of riding above the snow line along the frozen shore of Eden Lake.
“Hey!” Brad whooped and cried as Silver Flash plunged knee-deep into a snow drift. The sorrel horse floundered and struggled out again, snow caked to her sides.
“Use the trail!” Charlie reminded him. “Some of those drifts go down more than twenty feet!”
“It’s hard work for the horses.” Kirstie felt Lucky’s flanks heave in and out as he drew breath in the thin air. Ploughing through snow made the going slow and difficult.
Whizz! A snowball from Troy grazed her cheek. Thud! A second landed square on her shoulder.
Kirstie scraped the icy snow from her sleeve. “OK, Troy, you asked for it!” Leaning sideways, she swept snow from a nearby branch and shaped it in the palm of her hand. Within seconds, she had returned fire. The snowball flew straight and true, catching the brim of the boy’s hat and tipping it sideways.
“Good shot! Me and Kirstie against you and Charlie!” Brad yelled at his kid brother.
For a few minutes, the four of them charged along the shore, dodging enemy missiles and stopping behind trees to scrape up fresh snow and stock up their own snowballs.
“Ouch!” Kirstie cried as Troy got his revenge. Chunks of snow slid beneath the collar of her fleece and melted down her back.
“Gotcha!” Brad surprised his brother from behind.
Through it all, the horses loped gamely, churning up snow beneath their feet.
But in the end they were exhausted. Their legs slowed, their sides heaved, and they breathed clouds of steam into the crystal-clear air.
“OK, enough! Ten hits each!” Charlie declared a draw and decided that they should call it a day. He told them that he wanted to cut short the ride, head for home, and make sure that Stevie and Lisa had made it back to the ranch as planned.
“Aww!” Troy curled his lip.
“That ain’t right!” Brad protested. “You said this was an
all-day!”
“And it would have been if you two hadn’t messed things up,” Kirstie reminded them. She too felt an edge of worry about the two riders. “Next time, we stick together, OK?”
Grumbling about “the British kid” (“Irish,” Kirstie reminded them), the group backtracked down Eagle’s Peak Trail, coming down below the snow line and into the dense forest where Smilie Gilpin had his ranger’s lodge.
“Seen any more bears lately?” Troy called cheerily to a family sitting on camp chairs outside their gleaming silver RV.
“Not funny, Troy!” Kirstie picked up the pace. Being attacked by a black bear was no joke.
The family couldn’t have heard, because they nodded and smiled and waved as the four horses rode by.
“Hey, what happened to the sun?” Putting on a show for the bemused campers, Brad did the trick of swinging around in the saddle to face Silver Flash’s tail. He pulled his Stetson over his eyes and rested his legs along the horse’s rump. Good as gold, Silver Flash trotted steadily on.
“Crazy!” Kirstie murmured. But she smiled to herself. The Jensen kids were over-the-top but good fun in small doses.
“Bears! Make a run for it!” Troy yelled from behind. He overtook Kirstie and Charlie at a gallop, crouched over the saddle, holding the reins high, and urging Yukon on as if lives depended on it.
“You look like the guy carrying the mailbag in an old cowboy movie!” Kirstie yelled. She let Lucky take up the challenge of a final race into the valley and along the side of Five Mile Creek. The two horses arrived in the yard together.
“Dead heat!” Troy proclaimed. He slid from the saddle with a broad grin.
Kirstie nodded back. She decided to walk Lucky around the yard a couple of times to cool him down, heading first toward Sandy Scott, who had just come out of the house to greet them.
“You’re back early,” Sandy said, looking up at Kirstie with one hand shielding her eyes from the afternoon sun.
“Yeah. Charlie wanted to check up on Stevie and Lisa.” She glanced into the corral, looking to see if Crazy Horse and Johnny Mohawk were tethered there.
“What about Stevie and Lisa?” Sandy was careful to keep her voice down as they spotted Paddy Kane coming out of his cabin and making his way down the hill.
“They already got back, didn’t they?” Kirstie frowned at the empty corral.
“What do you mean, they got back?” Alarm crept into Sandy’s voice.
“… They didn’t?” Gradually, the truth dawned. Mr. Kane drew near. He was heading for Charlie, demanding to know what had happened to his son. “They split up from us!” Kirstie whispered. “They should’ve been here hours ago!”
“Split up!” Paddy Kane exploded as, across the yard, Charlie explained. “You let them go off alone, without a guide?”
Sandy Scott closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Oh, Charlie!”
“I don’t believe I’m hearing this!” Mr. Kane gave an exasperated bellow and looked around furiously for the ranch boss. “You get that? He expected them to find the trail in the snow, then make their own way home!” Wagging his finger, he strode across to where Sandy stood. “I warn you, if anything’s happened to Stevie out there on the mountain, I’ll sue you and your precious ranch for every last penny you’ve got!”
4
“It wasn’t Charlie’s fault. It was my idea, and anyway, Stevie refused to go any farther!” Kirstie tried to get the message through to Paddy Kane.
“Yeah!” Troy Jensen did his best to back her up, while Brad took charge of Yukon and Silver Flash.
“I don’t care whose idea it was. The wrangler has the final word. It’s his job to keep the whole group safe; a fact which Charlie-boy here seems to have overlooked!”
“I’m sorry, sir. I was relying on the horses to find the trail and come right on home.” Charlie spoke in a low, quiet voice, glancing guiltily at Hadley, who had come out of the tack room to hear the bad news.
“It seems to me you were between a rock and a hard place,” the head wrangler acknowledged. He turned to appeal to Sandy Scott on Charlie’s behalf. “You remember I didn’t reckon Johnny Mohawk was the right horse for the kid from the start.”
“Now don’t you go blaming my boy for this!” Paddy Kane turned on Hadley. “We’re talking negligence on the part of an inexperienced wrangler, and what do you do? You try to shift the blame elsewhere!”
“Let’s cool it, shall we?” Sandy stepped in between the two older men. “Look at the facts. What we know is that for some unknown reason, Stevie and Lisa have been held up. It could be they’re lost, plain and simple, or—”
“Or there’s been an accident!” Paddy Kane refused to let her finish. “If my boy’s hurt, I’m calling my solicitor in Killarney and getting him to draw up a case for negligence!”
Kirstie stared openmouthed at the irate father. Forget the ambulance and the hospital, she thought with a cold shiver. Call the attorney!
“There was that loose girth strap for a start!” Striding across the corral and out onto the start of Eagle’s Peak Trail, Mr. Kane looked across the meadow and recalled his earlier criticism of Charlie. “If I hadn’t spotted it, this wrangler would have let Stevie set off without even checking it!”
“Charlie did check it. It wasn’t loose,” Kirstie muttered to her mom. “And anyhow, I saw Stevie fiddling with the buckle after we left.”
Sandy Scott nodded. “We’re jumping ahead too fast,” she insisted. “What if there’s been an accident, but it’s not Stevie, it’s Lisa who’s been hurt?”
Kirstie felt a shock run through her body at the new idea. It was true; it could be her friend who was in trouble, after all.
But then Hadley cut in. “Listen!” he warned. “There’s a horse heading this way!”
They strained to hear the hoofbeats, standing at the fence around Red Fox Meadow, scanning the hillside. Kirstie saw moving shadows everywhere —under the aspen trees, beneath rocks—but no horse, until suddenly, Johnny Mohawk appeared out of nowhere. His silky black mane and tail flew in the wind, his head was high, his eyes stared as he pounded toward them.
“Stop him!” Paddy Kane yelled, standing in the horse’s path and waving his arms.
Johnny’s reins hung loose, he trailed a lead rope along the ground, and his heavy stirrups beat against his sides as he galloped. When he saw the figure, arms raised, shouting angrily, he whirled and reared up, hooves flailing.
“Something bad got into him!” Charlie gasped, his face pale with worry. He moved to catch hold of Johnny’s reins, but the rearing horse pawed the air, making the wrangler duck to avoid the heavy blows.
“He’s exhausted!” Kirstie saw the patches of sweat on Johnny’s shoulders and flanks, the foaming corners of his mouth. How far had he galloped before he reached home? Where was his rider? What had happened to Lisa? Still nothing made sense.
But the first task was to catch the runaway horse. Hadley moved in quietly, past Paddy Kane and Charlie, waiting for Johnny to finish rearing, speaking in a low voice, then herding him toward the corral where he knew he would be able to corner him.
Johnny’s ears flicked toward the calm wrangler, listening to him, gradually quietening, slowing to a trot inside the corral, then to a walk, and finally coming to a standstill. His eyes were on Hadley. He was lowering his head, breathing hard, still agitated but not backing away as the old ranch hand eased closer.
“Whoa, boy, nice and easy!” Slowly, Hadley raised his hand. He took hold of the trailing lead rope and moved in smoothly. Then he stroked and spoke into the ear of the quivering stallion.
“Get a rug from the barn,” Sandy told Charlie as Hadley worked quickly to unfasten the cinch and take off the saddle. “Kirstie, once Johnny’s untacked, walk him around the corral, give him a chance to unwind.”
Following orders while her mom dealt with Mr. Kane’s fresh barrage of questions, Kirstie took the lead rope and led Johnny at a steady, calm walk. He was hot and edgy, flicking hi
s ears this way and that, rolling his eyes at every new sound. When Charlie came with the rug and flung it over his back, he flinched and pulled away as if an enemy had jumped him.
Yet, in spite of his agitation, Johnny was the one who now warned them that Lisa and Crazy Horse were on their way.
He and Kirstie had reached the far edge of the corral overlooking the creek when he dug in his heels and refused to go on. He raised his head and stared out with a fixed gaze. Listen! he said. Here comes the answer to all your angry man’s questions!
“Crazy Horse!” Kirstie tethered Johnny to the fence, climbed it, and ran out into the meadow. She’d never been so relieved to see the pale tan horse’s ungainly gait. He thundered across the grass, short legs pounding, heavy head hanging, carrying Lisa to safety.
“Gosh, Kirstie!” Lisa reined Crazy Horse to a sliding stop. Then she tumbled out of the saddle. “You might look as if you’re glad to see me!”
Kirstie helped her to stand upright, then took Crazy Horse’s reins. “Believe me, I am! Are you OK? What happened? Where’s Stevie?”
“You want the bad news or the good news?” Lisa took in the group of anxious faces gathered by the corral fence. She saw Johnny Mohawk pulling at his tether, trying to rear and break free.
“The good!” Kirstie could hardly wait for her to spill it out. “C’mon, Lisa!”
“Stevie’s hurt, but he’s gonna be OK!”
“Hurt? How bad?”
“I think he broke his arm. And he cut his head, but don’t worry, he’s conscious.” Lisa had obviously rehearsed her message on the ride home.
“Oh, Mr. Kane’s gonna love this!” Kirstie groaned.
“He’s gonna love that his son broke his arm?” Lisa frowned.
“Yeah; don’t expect him to care about Stevie!” She grabbed her friend’s arm and stopped short of the corral, where Johnny Mohawk still kicked up a fuss at their approach. “Come on, Lisa, spit it out. If this is the good news, what’s the bad?”
Lisa drew a deep breath and stared at Kirstie with troubled eyes. “The bad news is that the horse bucked and threw Stevie off,” she told her. “This whole thing is because of Johnny Mohawk; it’s 100 percent his fault!”
Johnny Mohawk Page 3
