Before They Rode Horses

by Bonnie Bryant

  “Sorry,” Carole said. “Okay, aside from P.C., Starlight, Belle, and Prancer—”

  “What about Topside?” Stevie asked. Lisa added, “What about Delilah?” Both were favorite Pine Hollow horses.

  Emily laughed. So did Carole. “1 guess you’d better just say they have very sweet horses at the Bar None,” Emily said.

  “That’s right,” Carole said. “I’d better not draw comparisons. I couldn’t anyway. Horses are all so different, like people.”

  “Emily, you’ll love it,” Lisa said softly. She was the quietest and most academic member of The Saddle Club. “I remember the first time I came to the Bar None. I really hadn’t been riding for very long then, and I had never imagined a place like it.”

  “I have,” Emily replied. “I’ve been dreaming and daydreaming about this trip ever since I learned we were going.” Then she laughed again and tossed back her short dark hair. “I have to admit, I think Pine Hollow is pretty close to heaven, because of all the trails! It’s hard to believe that this place will be even better. And I can’t believe I’m here on this plane with you guys. It’s amazing.”

  “Colonel Devine wanted to thank you,” Carole said. “He told us you helped him a lot.”

  The Devines owned the Bar None and ran it as a dude ranch. Colonel Frank Devine was one of Carole’s father’s friends. His daughter, Kate, had first been Carole’s good friend; now she was an auxiliary member of The Saddle Club. Colonel Devine had been a pilot in the military and still did some flying for corporations out West. Whenever he came to the East Coast, he tried to arrange a get-together for Kate and the Saddle Club.

  The Bar None had become a popular vacation spot for families. Last spring Colonel Devine had called Carole to explain that he wanted to expand their facilities. Many of his former Marine Corps buddies were veterans of the Vietnam War, and a number of them were disabled. He wanted them to be able to enjoy the ranch, too, so he was taking steps to make the Bar None accessible to everyone. Kate had told him about The Saddle Club’s work at Free Rein and the friend they had made there. Could he talk to Emily?

  Carole had given him Emily’s phone number, and later Emily had told her they’d had a long conversation. Frank Devine had already been in touch with several national organizations for the disabled, she said, including the North American Riding for the Handicapped Organization, or NARHA, which oversaw therapeutic riding organizations. But he had some specific questions to ask a rider, and she’d been able to answer most of them. A few months later, he’d invited them all West for a week, including Emily. Colonel Devine was flying the small plane they were in now, taking them to Kate and the ranch.

  “He wanted to thank me, but he said he wants to get some work out of me, too,” Emily said. “He wants my opinion on his improvements.” She grinned. “This is going to be really fun.”

  “Passengers, prepare for landing.” Colonel Devine’s voice was stern over the intercom.

  Emily giggled. “Does he always sound like that?”

  Stevie nodded. “When he’s flying, he becomes this whole other person, Colonel Invincible, Captain of the Skies. Don’t worry. At the Bar None he’s a regular Dad.”

  “He seemed regular before the plane took off,” Emily said.

  They gathered the books and snacks they’d spread about the small cabin and zipped their backpacks closed. Emily fit the cuffs of her crutches over her forearms. To walk she needed both crutches and leg braces, but to ride horses she didn’t need either. She had a wheelchair, but she avoided using it whenever she could.

  When the little plane landed, Colonel Devine had no sooner dropped the ramp down when a tall girl came flying up it. “Stevie!” she shrieked. “Carole! Lisa! Emily!” She gave them each a hug, nearly knocking Emily down.

  “Kate!” they all shrieked back.

  “Come on, let’s go!” Kate said, grabbing backpacks and hurrying them out the door. “My mom’s in the truck, she’s dying to meet you, Emily. We brought snacks in case you’re hungry, and John says hi to all of you. If we get back quickly we can ride before dinner, and, oh, Carole, wait until you see the new foals!” Kate clattered down the ramp.

  Emily burst out laughing. “You’re right, Carole,” she said. “You said I’d feel like I knew her right away, and I do. Who’s John?”

  “He works at the Bar None—he and his dad. He’s our age.” Lisa’s eyes were shining. She liked John Brightstar quite a lot. They all did, but Lisa liked him the most.

  Emily made her way slowly and carefully down the ramp. None of The Saddle Club offered to help her, and neither, they noted with satisfaction, did Kate. Emily was very firm about doing things for herself.

  Before long they were all on the way to the ranch. The drive was barely long enough to exchange all the news with Kate. Before long they were talking about horses.

  “This is P.C.” Emily pulled a photograph out of her backpack. “I knew you’d want to see what he looked like, so I brought this. It’s his summer coat, fortunately. In winter he looks like a yellow bear.”

  “He’s adorable!” Kate said. “Look how nice his expression is.”

  “He’s perfect for me,” Emily said. “He tries to do everything I ask.”

  “Emily even taught him to lie down on command,” Stevie bragged. “She uses it for mounting and dismounting whenever there isn’t a ramp around.” Emily couldn’t lift her foot high enough to mount a horse from the ground.

  Emily grinned. “We all taught him that, Stevie, and it was your idea in the first place. But he does it whenever I need him to.”

  “Well, we haven’t got any lying-down horses at the ranch yet,” Kate said. “Moonglow does most other things, though. I can’t make up my mind what sort of horse I want her to be, so right now I’ve got her jumping logs, schooling trot extensions and collections, working on spins.”

  The others laughed. Trot extensions and collections were advanced English-style riding; spins were advanced Western. “What sort of saddle are you riding her in?” Carole asked.

  Kate shrugged. “Usually Western, but sometimes English.”

  “I didn’t think you were jumping much out here,” Lisa added.

  Kate shrugged again, this time with a wide grin. “You see a log, you might as well jump it,” she said. “Moonglow seems to think so, too.” Kate had gotten Moonglow from a government sale of wild horses. Moonglow’s training had been an extensive project that Kate thoroughly enjoyed. Before her parents bought the ranch, Kate had been a top competitive junior rider, but her drive to win had taken all the fun out of riding for her. She’d given it up entirely, until she met The Saddle Club; now she rode strictly for fun.

  “We’ll have to see some logs, then,” Carole said. She loved jumping. “Kate, we came to an agreement on the plane. Emily’s never ridden in a place like this, and we haven’t been here for a long time. So we’re going to ride all week long.”

  Kate looked surprised. “Do you ever do anything else?”

  “Well, sometimes—”

  “This week we’re not doing anything but riding,” Stevie cut in.

  “Ride, ride, ride,” Lisa said.

  “Great!” said Kate.

  Emily grinned. Her friends could see how thrilled she was.

  “So, Emily,” Mrs. Devine said, over the back of the front seat, “did Frank tell you all about our improvements?”

  “No, he just told me to fasten my seat belt. What’s new?”

  They talked for a while about the ramps added to all the buildings, for wheelchair entrance, the enlarged doorways in some of the bunkhouses, and other modifications the Devines had made. Kate told them excitedly about the retraining program she and John Brightstar had undertaken with some of the ranch saddle horses.

  “We tried to do everything the people from NARHA told us about,” she said. “Getting them used to the mounting ramp and being mounted from either side, getting them to move off voice and stick commands, as well as leg commands—everything. Plus, of cour
se, making sure they’re super calm. We’ve got two or three horses we think are completely ready, and several more are coming along.

  “Emily, I’m going to give you Spot for the week. He used to be my horse, until I got Moonglow, and he’s got wonderful gaits and a great disposition. You’re going to love him. He’s an Appaloosa.”

  Emily grinned. “Thanks, Kate. I’m sure I’ll love him.”

  “One of our mares is doing amazingly well,” Kate continued. “Her name is Buttercup. I’ve been working with her a lot, because I want her to be ready for Monica. Monica always rides Buttercup when she comes here.” Kate’s voice dropped to a sad tone. “I haven’t told you about Monica.”

  Mrs. Devine looked over the back of her seat again. “Such a tragedy. And they’ll be here tomorrow.”

  “Who?” asked Lisa.

  “Monica and her parents,” Kate replied. “See, they started coming here the first year we opened the ranch, and they loved it so much they came back every year. Monica’s our age. She’s funny and athletic, and a great rider. We got to be pretty good friends.

  “She had an accident on a motorbike last fall. It crushed her lower leg, and they had to amputate it. Her parents had already made their reservations to come here. They told Mom they wanted to cancel, but Monica wouldn’t let them. She wants everything in her life to be the same as it used to be.”

  Kate’s eyes filled with tears. “I wanted to have disabled people come to the ranch, but I didn’t want that to mean Monica! I mean—of course I’m glad she’s coming, I’m just so sorry this happened to her.”

  Carole patted Kate’s leg sympathetically. Lisa gave her shoulder a squeeze. “It sounds terrible,” Stevie said. “We’ll just have to do all we can to make sure she has a really good time.”

  “If she was a good rider before, she should still be a good rider,” Emily said. “Does she have an artificial leg?”

  Kate blinked. “I don’t know.”

  Mr. Devine shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think it’s still too soon.”

  “That’s too bad,” Emily said. “What about her knee? Did they save her knee?”

  Lisa burst out laughing. “Emily, what a question! You sound so practical—in a ghoulish sort of way.”

  Emily shook her head. “Think about it. If she still has a knee, her seat in the saddle will feel pretty normal. Otherwise it will be harder for her to balance, without an artificial leg.”

  “She still has her knee,” Kate confirmed. “I didn’t talk to her—she was still at the rehab hospital when her mother called here—but her mom said it was just her lower leg.”

  Emily nodded. “Good. She can use a crop for leg commands, the way I do, but she should be able to adjust quickly. She’ll be able to ride every day, just like us.”

  “The more the merrier,” Stevie said, and the others agreed.