Blue Moon
Marilyn Halvorson
ORCA Soundings
Copyright © 2004 Marilyn Halvorson
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.
National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data
Halvorson, Marilyn, 1948-
Blue moon / Marilyn Halvorson.
(Orca soundings)
First published: Don Mills, Ont.: Maxwell Macmillan Canada, 1994.
ISBN 1-55143-320-6
I. Title. II. Series.
PS8565.A462B68 2004 jC813’.54 C2004-900489-1
Summary: Can Bobby Jo take a beat-up old horse
and turn her into champion barrel racer?
First published in the United States, 2004
Library of Congress Control Number 2004100596
Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP), the Canada Council for the Arts, and the British Columbia Arts Council.
Cover design: Lynn O’Rourke
Cover photography: Getty Images
In Canada:
Orca Book Publishers
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Victoria, BC Canada
V8T 1C6
In the United States:
Orca Book Publishers
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98240-0468
Printed and bound in Canada
on New Leaf Eco, 100% post consumer waste paper
07 06 05 04 • 5 4 3 2 1
To Goldie,
I’ve owned a lot of good horses,
but only one great one. You were it.
—M.H.
Other titles by Marilyn Halvorson,
published by Orca Book Publishers
Bull Rider
(Orca Soundings)
Chapter One
“Sold!” the auctioneer yelled. “To the young redhead in the red jacket.”
For a second I just sat there stunned. Out of the corner of my eye I could see a curl of hair above the shoulder of my jacket. The hair was red. The jacket was red. There was no getting out of it. I had just bought a horse.
But why had I bought this horse? I watched gloomily as the bony blue roan mare limped out of the sale ring. Her ears were laid back angrily. As the ring man swung the gate closed behind her, she lashed out and kicked it with both back hoofs. Oh, wow! Did I have a winner on my hands! How could I have been so stupid? What was my dad going to say? He lets me go to my first horse sale alone, on a school day even, and I mess up big-time. But sitting here wasn’t going to help. Slowly I stood up and made my way down from the stands and toward the sales office.
I was partway through the barn area when a voice stopped me. It was a cool, lazy, laid-back voice. “Skippin’ school, Bobbie Jo?”
I swung around and almost bumped into the guy who owned the voice. Cole McCall, the kid from the farm next to ours. Just who I needed to finish wrecking my day. I tossed my hair back. “That’s an interesting question. Coming from the all-time champion at that sport,” I said coldly.
I turned and kept on walking. Cole just laughed and fell into step beside me. I pretended he wasn’t there.
“Where are you goin’?” he asked.
“To pay for my horse, if it’s any of your business.”
“You just bought a horse?” Cole’s voice had taken on a new note of interest.
“That’s what I said,” I answered, looking straight ahead and walking a little faster. “Now why don’t you go find some of your hoodlum friends and leave me alone?”
A look I couldn’t quite get flickered across his face. For a second I almost thought there was a real person behind Cole McCall’s grin. But then he gave a careless shrug. “Yeah, why not? The guys are better company than you. See ya around, Blue Jeans.”
Cole had been calling me that ever since he first came into my grade ten class at West Valley High School last year. The nickname did fit my initials. It fit my clothes, too. But I still didn’t want Cole McCall calling me that. I didn’t want him calling me anything. Maybe it was because I was afraid he kind of liked me. At least, my friend Julie said he did. But I wasn’t about to get involved with a guy like Cole. He had a real attitude. He was always in trouble at school, mainly for skipping, and he didn’t even try to come up with a good excuse for it. Besides, I wasn’t about to go out with any guy who had longer hair than I did. I tossed my head and marched off to pay for the horse I shouldn’t even have bought.
At the office I told the clerk my name and he flipped through some papers. “Okay, here it is. B.J. Brooks, lot number 79. All I need is a check for $690” His eyes widened as I dug in my pocket and came out with a fat roll of bills.
“Cash okay?” I asked. I’d emptied my piggy bank, dumped the jar of quarters I’d been saving since I was ten, and taken all the coins to the bank. Then I’d closed out my savings account and taken that in cash, too. It looked like a lot of money when I got it all in bills.
The clerk nodded. “Cash is fine. You’re just the first person I’ve seen in a long time who actually has some.”
I started counting out the money and thought about how much work I’d done to earn each one of those twenty-dollar bills. The profit from three years of raising 4-H calves, all those summers of cutting the neighbors’ lawns. And I’d gathered up every cent and brought it here to buy this horse.
No, that wasn’t true. I didn’t bring it here to buy this horse. I came to buy a colt. A yearling at the oldest. A good, young quarter horse that I could train myself and make into a champion barrel horse. Buying a colt would mean it would be three or four years before I could actually race him. I hated waiting that long, but I didn’t have a choice. If you watched your chance you could get a good colt for the money I had. A trained barrel horse, ready to go, would cost a few thousand.
So how had I set out to buy a colt with a future and wound up with a sour, beat-up, old mare that obviously had a past? I’d asked myself that question a lot of times in the last few minutes, but I still wasn’t sure of the answer.
I should have realized from the start that the blue roan mare was a meat horse. If I hadn’t known by the way she looked, I should have known by who was bidding on her. There were a couple of crafty old guys who always hung around the sales, picking up the horses that had hit the end of the trail. They bought for the meat packers and they were always on the lookout for a chance to buy cheap. Much as I hated the thought of any horse ending up that way, I knew it was a fact of life. I guess it was better than the horses being left to starve. Better than getting so old and crippled they got down and couldn’t get up.
So why couldn’t I have just left things alone and let nature take its course? Why did I have to go and buy this mare? It might have been her color that did it. When I was a little kid I had a picture book called Lady, the Little Blue Mare. It was about a blue roan horse and I read it until the cover fell off. Ever since, I’d wanted a horse that color more than anything else in the world. But blue roans are about as common as honest politicians. I guess I went a little crazy when I came across a blue roan I could actually own. Or maybe the real reason I bought her was because she was a rebel. I liked the way she held her head up. The way she fought back when she was pushed around.
While one half of my mind was thinking about that, the other half was counting out the money. “Six hundred, six hundred and twenty, six hundred and forty, six hundr
ed and sixty, six hundred and eighty,” I counted out loud. Suddenly I stopped. That was my last twenty I’d just tossed on the pile. I dug in my pocket for the other twenty I knew was there. Nothing but a well-worn Kleenex. I checked the other pocket. Empty as my kid sister’s head. I checked the pockets of my jean jacket. Lint and two gum wrappers.
The clerk cleared his throat. “Another ten dollars, miss.”
“I know, I know,” I muttered, shooting him a dirty look. “Don’t get your shirt in a knot. It’s here somewhere.” I made another panic-stricken tour of my pockets. That twenty dollars was not here anywhere. I could hear the people in the lineup behind me shuffling their feet.
“Miss,” the clerk said firmly, “either you’ve got the money or you haven’t. If you’re short on cash, why don’t you write a check for the last ten?”
“Because I don’t have any money left in the bank,” I muttered. “But I did have the cash. I know I did.”
“Well,” the clerk said wearily, “you don’t now. Step aside and let these other people go ahead. I’ll give you half an hour to come up with the cash or we’ll have to resell the horse.”
Resell the horse? Let him resell the horse and I’d be off the hook. I’d have my $690.00 and I wouldn’t be stuck with that sorry excuse for an animal. I should have jumped right up and kissed that old clerk on his tobacco-stained mustache. But, oh no, not me. Right then and there I bristled up like a cornered cat and glared at him. “You will not resell that horse. I bought her fair and square and I’ll get you your lousy ten bucks. You can count on it!”
Chapter Two
Okay, now, I told myself. This is not a problem. Just find somebody you know and ask them to lend you ten bucks. Half the farmers from West Valley are always at the auction market. One of our neighbors must be here.
Well, maybe not quite always. I made three tours through the whole auction market. Along the way I had the offer of a date—from an eighty-year-old guy with no teeth. I was yelled at twice for standing in front of somebody and blocking his view of the sale ring. And when I reached up to push my hair back at the wrong moment I almost bought another horse. But I didn’t see a soul I knew.
I was getting desperate enough to call home and explain the mess I was in to my parents. I checked my watch and scrapped that idea. Right now, Mom would be at work driving the school bus and Dad would be out in the field planting green feed. But I had to think of something. The closer I got to losing that blue roan horse, the more I started to like her.
Then I caught a glimpse of Walt Devon. He was one of the meat buyers, running a string of sorry-looking old horses up the ramp into his trailer. When the last one was in, his helper closed the door behind it. “Ready to roll, boss?” he asked.
Devon picked a tidbit of leftover lunch out of a crack between his teeth. “Naw, don’t get in a hurry, Bill. Think I might pick up another one cheap here in a minute.”
That did it! Walt Devon was not going to haul my horse off to the packing plant. I took another desperate look around. Over by the corrals, three or four guys were throwing square bales onto a truck. I didn’t recognize any of them at first. Then something about one of them caught my eye—long, curly blond hair, ragged denim jacket. Yeah, it was him all right. I never thought I’d be desperate enough to ask Cole McCall for the time of day, but I was stuck. I took a deep breath. “Cole?”
Either he didn’t hear me or he pretended not to. He kept on tossing bales. Just talking to him was bad enough. Did I have to yell his name for all the world to hear?
“Cole!”
He set down a bale and slowly turned around. The two strangers he was working with turned to stare at me.
“Cole, I, uh, need to talk to you.”
Cole gave me a cold look. “Don’t bother me, Blue Jeans,” he said between breaths. “We’re busy.” The other guys laughed. I could feel my face getting warm.
“Cole,” I said through my teeth, “would you just come here, please?”
He gave his friends kind of a shrug. To me he gave a low bow and a taunting grin as he walked over. “What can I do for you, Blue Jeans?”
I held my temper. “Uh, Cole, do you have ten dollars?”
He gave me an unbelieving stare and then he laughed. “Do I look like I have ten dollars?”
I was in no position to be rude. I meant to be polite. Really, I did. But the words just came out. “No, you look like you should be standing in somebody’s garden to scare the crows away. But I still need to know if you can lend me ten dollars.”
That remark should have finished my chances of borrowing ten cents from Cole McCall. I couldn’t believe it when he started to laugh. “You’re somethin’ else, Blue Jeans.”
Before I could decide on an answer to that he reached into his pocket and came out with a crumpled five-dollar bill and some change. “That’s all she wrote. Seven good enough?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t come this close and give up. “Check your other pockets. Maybe you’ve got some more change.”
He stared at me again for a minute, sighed and checked the other pocket of his jeans. He shook his head. “Out of luck, lady.”
“Are you sure?”
Cole sighed. “Honest, Officer, I’m sure. You want to search me or what?”
I could feel my face warming up again. “No!” I blurted out. “But what about your jacket pockets?”
He shrugged and jammed his hands into the pockets of his ragged jean jacket. His right hand came out the bottom of the pocket. He laughed and waved it at me. I just glared at him. Then he brought out his left hand, closed.
“Well?” I demanded.
Slowly, he opened his hand. He was holding three matches, his truck keys—and four coins. I pounced on the money. A loonie, two quarters, two dimes and a nickel.
“Close enough! Give it to me quick.” I held out my hand. “Please,” I added, remembering to be polite this time.
“Uh-uh. Not until you tell me what you want it for.”
I felt my temper fraying around the edges. If he kept this up the horse would be canned before I got back with the money. “To pay for the horse, okay?”
Cole raised his eyebrows. “Ten bucks for a horse? Must be a real winner.” But he handed me the money.
“For your information, I paid 690 dollars for her. I’m just short ten dollars. I’ll pay you back at school tomorrow—if you happen to show up.”
“Wouldn’t miss it, Blue Jeans,” he said, starting to turn away. “I better get back to work before I get fired.”
“You work here?”
“Yeah, I work here. You think throwing those bales around is a hobby? Low-rent bodybuilding or something?”
I glanced at the muscles in his forearms below his rolled-up sleeves. Throwing bales wasn’t doing Cole any harm in the bodybuilding department.
“Hey, kid!” one of the guys over at the truck called. “Get over here. You can talk to your girlfriend on your own time.”
Cole looked at me. “Now look what you’ve gone and done to my reputation,” he said with a taunting grin. He turned and was gone before I could say thanks—if I’d been going to say thanks, that is.
Chapter Three
I recounted my $680 and pushed it across to the clerk. Then I handed over Cole’s bills and change. Last, I gave him a smoothed-out gum wrapper. He looked down at the money, flicked the gum wrapper aside and then looked up at me. “Short a buck and a quarter,” he growled.
“I know that,” I said. “That’s why I gave you this.” I pushed the gum wrapper back across the desk.
“I don’t want a gum wrapper.”
“Read it. Never mind. Maybe you can’t. I’ll read it to you. ‘IOU a dollar twenty-five. Signed, B.J. Brooks.’ I’ll mail you the money tomorrow.”
The clerk sighed wearily and rubbed his head as if he had a real bad headache.
“Aw, come on!” I burst out. “I swear you’ll get the money. You aren’t gonna resell my horse on account of a buck and a quarter,
are you?”
The clerk didn’t answer. He just reached into his pocket and brought out a handful of change. He picked out a loonie and a quarter and put them on top of my pile of money. Then he took the bill of sale and scrawled PAID IN FULL across it in big, black letters. He handed it to me.
“Hey, uh, thanks,”” I said. “That was nice of you.”
“Just do me a favor, miss. Take your horse and go. Go far and go fast.”
I took the bill of sale and went. I had to get my horse and load her into Dad’s stock trailer. The thought of hauling her home made me more nervous than I wanted to admit. I hadn’t done much driving with the trailer behind me. And what if I couldn’t get the horse into the trailer? Stop worrying about that, I told myself. After all, she hadn’t walked from wherever she came from. Somebody must have loaded her.
I glanced down the row of parked trailers. A kid about my age was leading a big, strong-looking red mare up to the back of a trailer. I remembered seeing that horse sell. The meat buyers had been the only ones bidding on her, too. I guessed it was because of her age. She was a real old horse. But at the last minute this kid had jumped in and bought her. I wondered at the time if he knew what he was doing. Now I watched as he opened the trailer door and stepped inside without even looking back. The big mare lifted her feet neatly and calmly stepped into the trailer, too. The boy came out, fastened the door and got into the truck. Loading his horse had taken about two minutes. Maybe the kid did know what he was doing. At least the old mare had manners.
Okay, B.J., you saw how that guy did it. Walk right in and assume the horse is going to follow. Don’t look back. Never let her know you’re not sure of yourself.
I led the horse to the trailer and stepped right up into it as smoothly as I could—considering the tightness of my jeans. I took two more steps inside the trailer. The rope went taut so suddenly that I almost did the world’s first sideways bungee jump. I decided that now might be a good time to look back. My roan mare had stopped dead at the trailer door. She was standing there rooted to the ground like a big oak tree, and I could see she had no plans for travel.
Blue Moon Page 1
