Third-Time Lucky Read online

  © 2009 by Jenny Oldfield

  Cover and internal design © 2009 Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover photo © iStockphoto.com/Cynthia Baldauf

  Internal illustrations © Paul Hunt

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, an imprint of

  Sourcebooks, Inc.

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

  (630) 961-3900

  Fax: (630) 961-2168

  www.jabberwockykids.com

  Originally published in Great Britain in 1999 by Hodder Children’s Books.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Oldfield, Jenny.

  Third-time Lucky / Jenny Oldfield.

  p. cm. — (Horses of Half Moon Ranch ; bk. 6)

  Summary: When her beloved palomino horse, Lucky, contracts a mysterious and potentially fatal illness, thirteen-year-old Kirstie seeks out a legendary horse doctor who lives deep in the Rockies.

  [1. Horses—Fiction. 2. Ranch life—Colorado—Fiction. 3. Colorado—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.O4537Th 2009

  [Fic]—dc22

  2008039734

  Printed and bound in the United States of America.

  VP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  About the Author

  1

  Kirstie Scott yawned as she crept out of her warm bed and struggled into cold jeans and sweatshirt.

  She groaned as she fumbled her way downstairs, glancing at the clock in the hall. Two o’clock in the morning!

  “Get a move on, Kirstie!” her brother, Matt, called from the porch. “You’re the one who wanted to see this, remember!”

  “Uh-uhh!” Eyes wouldn’t stay open; fingers refused to work. “I’ve got a problem pulling my boots on!”

  Matt grunted. “Follow me to the barn when you’re ready, OK?”

  Kirstie heard his footsteps cross the yard. Two o’clock! She should be fast asleep, not struggling with stupid boots. With three hard stamps she forced the second foot inside the tough leather casing, grabbed her cap from the hook by the door, and followed her brother outside.

  Stars. A crescent moon. No clouds. Kirstie’s slow brain registered the fine night. Pure habit took her from the ranch house across the yard to the open barn door. She yawned again, then shivered. It was cold at night, even in late April. Her breath came out as a small cloud of steam, and frost glinted on the cabin roofs up Apache Hill.

  The barn was warm. Kirstie smelled the sweet scent of hay; cats were sleeping in dark corners. She stepped inside and pulled the door shut.

  “Is that you, Kirstie?” Matt was already hard at work in the stall where the mare was due to foal. Overhead, there was a bare electric bulb. “Get rid of this soiled bedding, will you? And break open a new bale. We need extra straw in here.”

  She gave a final yawn, blinked, then shook herself fully awake as she rounded the corner. “Oh my!”

  Taco, a black-and-white paint, was struggling to her feet. Then she raised her back feet to kick at her belly and tried to bite her swollen flanks. Through all this, Matt was attempting to wrap a bandage around her tail to keep it clean and neatly out of the way.

  “She’s already in labor,” he gasped. “We’ve gotta move fast!”

  Quickly Kirstie grabbed a rake and removed the soiled hay. She ran to break open a fresh bale and came back with armfuls to spread under Taco’s feet. “What now?” she asked Matt, the expert.

  He’d managed to fasten the bandage and now watched closely as the mare lay down and tried to roll. “We wait,” he murmured.

  “Can’t we do something for her?” To Kirstie it looked like Taco was in a whole lot of pain.

  “Nope.” Firmly he backed Kirstie out of the stall. “Don’t crowd her, OK? The foal’s presenting normally, head first. Now it’s up to Taco.”

  “Wow, how can you be so laid back?” Fully awake and alert to every movement of the mare, Kirstie began to pace up and down. The quiet barn echoed to the sound of her nervous footsteps. “I mean, I know you learn all this stuff at college, Matt, and it feels normal to you …” She turned and paced the length of the dark corridor between stalls. “… But I can’t help getting uptight. Like, there’s plenty that can go wrong, isn’t there?” Another turn, more anxious striding past Matt, who stood quietly by Taco’s stall. Kirstie didn’t even dare to glance in at the pregnant mare. “Like, the foal could be in the wrong position and get stuck. Or it can’t breathe after it’s born. Or …” She clenched her hands until the fingernails dug into her palms.

  “Kirstie!” her brother said calmly. He gestured for her to come back, then pointed to the deep straw bed where the mare lay.

  “Oh … wow!” A skinny, wet brown foal lay on its side beside Taco. “Oh … ugh!” No way was this bit pretty, no matter how many times she saw it happen at Half Moon Ranch. The foal was surrounded by a slimy sack and attached to the mother by a bloody cord.

  Matt smiled. “You want to dry him off?”

  Gritting her teeth, Kirstie nodded. She edged past her brother, picking up a handful of straw and approaching the newborn foal with great care.

  Taco gave a low whinny to warn off the intruder, but as yet was too weak to stand.

  Kirstie knew they were getting to the interesting bit now. Matt was about to try out a new technique that he’d learned at vet school called imprinting. But first, she knelt to rub the foal’s coat. He raised his big, clumsy head to look at her, then flailed his feet in the straw. As she rubbed, the sticky, dark coat turned paler. It dried to a soft golden color, while his stumpy mane and tail were almost white.

  “He’s a palomino!” Kirstie whispered. Her favorite color of all, like her own horse, Lucky. Palominos shone in the sun like new gold. “Beautiful!”

  Matt nodded and moved in. “Time to bond,” he announced, telling Kirstie to hold Taco’s head while he began to work with her foal. “‘Give me a foal for his first hour on this earth, and he’s mine for life!’”

  “Who says?” Kirstie wasn’t sure about this imprinting stuff, and neither was Taco. The mare wanted to be up on her feet, tending to her offspring herself.

  “Brad Langer, my college principal. Say, Kirstie, you can let Taco lick and smell the foal while I work with him,” he told her. “Yeah, head to head, that’s great.”

  As the foal tried to rise, Matt held him down gently but firmly, all the while rubbing his head and neck. “This tells him, ‘I’m the boss!’ And he’s taking it fine, see—he’s letting himself relax.”

  “Easy, Taco!” Kirstie murmured. It was still hard for the mare to stand by and let this happen.

  Slowly Matt moved his fingers over the foal’s face and neck, then over his skinny withers and back. “The idea is, he gets used to the feel of my hands right from the word go,” he explained. “That’s the imprinting bit: learning to go with it now, while he’s weak, instead of being able to fight it when he grows stronger.”

  “So he kind of thinks you’re his pa
rent.”

  Matt was gradually working his way around the foal’s body, bending his legs, then stroking under his belly. “The way Mr. Langer tells it, this is how a foal learns respect for man from the moment he’s born. A horse is a flight animal, but he’s too young to flee. So I dominate him by holding him and stroking him all over, and he learns that’s the way it’s gonna be from now on.”

  “Hmm.” Kirstie found herself frowning and having to hold hard to Taco’s head collar. “I don’t like the sound of that ‘dominate.’”

  “That’s because you’re too soft.” Once Matt had stroked the foal from head to foot, he let him go. “Now we give him a chance to have his first feed. After a few hours, we come back and do it all over again.”

  Relieved, Kirstie let go of Taco’s head and watched the mare and her newborn get into position to feed. “This feels better!” she sighed.

  The foal sucked greedily, his sticklike legs splayed out, his head tilted back.

  “Much too soft!” Matt laughed, though he too was satisfied to see the foal suckle strongly. “This imprinting stuff is supposed to work real well when we come to break a horse later on.”

  “‘Break’!” Kirstie echoed, watching Matt reach for the light switch. There was another word she didn’t like.

  The light above the stall went off, and they felt their way out of the dark barn together. They crossed the yard by moonlight and kicked off their boots on the porch. Inside the house, a cozy bed waited and Kirstie realized she still felt dog-tired.

  “You wanna come down and help with the imprinting stuff again?” Matt asked.

  “When?” Did she, or didn’t she? Kirstie wasn’t sure.

  “At dawn. We follow up a couple of hours after the first session.” Matt took off his black Stetson, studying her doubtful frown. “What’s getting to you, exactly?”

  “I don’t know. Something. Like, imprinting doesn’t seem natural somehow.” That was it; it meant coming between the mare and her newborn foal in an artificial way.

  Matt nodded. “Not natural.” He considered it. “But think about it, Kirstie. What’s natural about putting a lead rein on a yearling? Is slinging a saddle on a colt’s back what nature intended? Were we ever meant to climb on a horse’s back and tighten a cinch under his belly?”

  She sighed because she knew her tough-minded brother had a point. Left to nature, no horse would ever have been ridden. “No, but …”

  Matt shook his head and took the stairs two at a time. “What’s ‘natural’ got to do with it?” he insisted. “Ask yourself that next time you ride Lucky up Meltwater Trail!”

  “He’s right.” Lisa Goodman took Matt Scott’s side. “Honestly, Kirstie, Matt’s doing a great job with little Moonshine. I really don’t see your problem.”

  “Thanks, friend!” Kirstie urged Lucky into a trot, bushwhacking off Coyote Trail. She cut through a copse of slender aspen trees, heading up the steep hill toward an army of tall pines, seemingly marching shoulder to shoulder as far as Eagle’s Peak. She’d hoped at least to have Lisa on her side.

  “No, really!” Lisa followed on Snowflake, a five-year-old appaloosa which Kirstie’s mom, Sandy Scott, had bought for Half Moon Ranch earlier that spring. The willing little brown and white mare soon caught up with Lucky. “Just because Matt’s your big brother doesn’t mean he’s always wrong!”

  “I never said he was always wrong!” Kirstie had wanted this to be a carefree ride, a rare chance to get away from the chores of the busy guest ranch.

  She’d invited Lisa along, thinking they’d be on the same wavelength as usual. But when she’d started talking about the five-week-old foal, she’d opened up a big gap between them.

  She’d said Matt had been going over-the-top these last few weeks with his imprinting theory. Moonshine wasn’t being allowed to think for himself: all he’d learned to do was to submit. Lisa had said she thought it was kind of neat, the way the palomino foal followed Matt everywhere. He’d even had a head collar on him in the round pen, way before he was weaned, and anyone could go in and pick up his feet because he’d already learned to trust.

  “You never said he was always wrong!” Lisa argued back. “But you don’t have to—I can hear it in your voice!”

  Kirstie clicked her tongue, the order for Lucky to lope. She felt him settle back onto his haunches then surge forward; she enjoyed the sensation of her long, fair hair blowing back from her face as the horse wove through the trees. But by the time they reached the ponderosa pines, Lucky was breathing hard, so she reined him back to a trot. Turning around in the saddle, she decided it was time to back down and enjoy the rest of the day. “OK, you win; my darling, handsome, hunky brother is right 100 percent of the time!”

  Snowflake came to a sliding stop on the gravelly soil. Lisa pitched forward against her neck. When she righted herself, her thick, red, curly hair had tumbled over her eyes. “Hey, hold on! Did I say that?”

  A broad grin lit up Kirstie’s tanned face. “You don’t have to!” she replied. “I can hear it in your voice!”

  Lisa had denied everything: no way did she have a crush on Kirstie’s big brother. Sure, he was tall and dark, but she wouldn’t say handsome. Not even in spite of his hazel eyes. “He’s twenty years old, for heaven’s sakes!” she’d protested. “That’s officially ancient!”

  “I’ll tell him that,” Kirstie had threatened.

  “You do and I’ll never forgive you!” Lisa had pushed Snowflake on ahead, heading across country for a clearing in the trees.

  Kirstie had watched the mare’s smooth lope, her white tail streaming behind her, the pretty, white flecks on her coat picked out clearly in the shadows. Then she’d clicked her tongue and made a kissing sound. Lucky had taken off like a shot and thundered after Snowflake, his golden coat gleaming, his head loose and easy. By the time they’d reached Deer Lake, the two horses were neck and neck.

  “Easy, Snowflake!” Lisa reined her horse back as soon as she spotted a couple of fishermen at the water’s edge. The men wore rubber waders and stood thigh-deep in the crystal clear water, casting their lines far out into the lake with quiet concentration and skill.

  “That’s Dan Stewart.” Kirstie recognized the red-checked shirt, bushy beard, and burly figure of one of that week’s guests at Half Moon Ranch. He had three teenaged sons, Craig, Richie, and Brad, who had all headed out earlier that morning on an advanced ride with Hadley, the head wrangler. Dan, it seemed, had chosen the quieter pastime of fly-fishing.

  “Hey, Kirstie!” The lawyer from New Hampshire greeted her as she and Lisa rode quietly by.

  “Hey.” She ducked her head shyly, letting her hair fall forward across her face.

  “Did you see that little appie in the trees back there?” Dan inquired. With a quick flick of his wrist, he sent his line snaking through the air.

  Kirstie shook her head, ready to ride on.

  “A little appaloosa?” Lisa stopped. She was curious. “A Half Moon Ranch horse?”

  “I guess not.” Patiently, Dan Stewart cast out his line again. Sooner or later a fish would bite. “Looked like a kids’ pony, not a ranch horse. I thought it was kinda strange: a pony all tacked up, running loose without a rider.”

  A few paces ahead of Lisa and Snowflake, Kirstie sat back in her saddle and reined Lucky in. A loose horse was something that needed to be sorted out. She turned Lucky and went to quiz Dan Stewart. “You’re sure the rider wasn’t around? Then how did the pony get to be here? Have you told anyone what you saw?”

  Dan grunted and made her wait for answers. “You’d make a good prosecution lawyer, did anyone ever tell you?”

  “Sorry,” she blushed.

  “No, that’s OK. First, yes, I’m sure the pony was a runaway. I hollered for a rider to show up and didn’t get any reply. Second, I have no idea how come she’s running loose this far from civilization.” He gazed around at the magnificent silent mountains rising above the snow line, their white peaks jutting into the blue sky. �
�And third, I’m telling you two what I saw right now!”

  “Yeah, thanks!” Picking up that Kirstie was worried by the news, Lisa stepped in. “Where exactly did you see the pony?”

  Dan didn’t turn from his task, but nodded his head in the direction of the trees from which the girls had just emerged. “Back there, five minutes ago.”

  “C’mon.” Letting Lisa thank the fisherman, Kirstie retraced her steps. She noticed Lucky prick his ears and point them forward, listening intently. His keen hearing had already picked up something unusual. Then, as he re-entered the forest, he curled his lip, threw back his head and gave a high, loud whinny.

  “Good boy!” Kirstie leaned forward to pat his neck. Peering between the tall, scaly trunks of the pine trees, she saw a tiny chipmunk scoot across the trail, his boldly striped tail sailing behind like a black-and-white banner.

  “Anything?” Lisa came up quietly beside her.

  “Nope. Lucky heard something, but he didn’t get an answer.” Softly, Kirstie urged him forward. She watched the moving shadows where sunlight filtered through the trees, listened, and let her horse take the lead.

  Deeper into the wood—rich with the smell of pine resin—over fallen trunks, pushing aside brushwood, Kirstie and Lucky went searching for the runaway pony. A glance over her shoulder told her that Lisa had decided to wait with Snowflake on the trail in case there was anything to be seen back there.

  Lucky went on, his feet falling softly on the cushion of pine needles. The shadows closed in as the trees grew thicker. Soon, Lisa and Snowflake were out of sight.

  “Easy!” Kirstie murmured. She trusted Lucky’s judgment on this. His ears were still up, his whole body alert. He stopped, turned his head to listen, changed direction, and walked steadily on.

  He stopped when they came to a large, smooth rock shaped like a dome. It had brilliant pink paintbrush flowers growing at its base and the trunk of a half-felled tree resting against one side. Kirstie noticed with a faint shiver the exposed roots reaching out of the earth like gnarled witches’ fingers. “Here?” she whispered to Lucky.

  The palomino stood full square, his head turned to the ten-foot-high rock.