Johnny Mohawk Page 5

  “No, it’s OK, I can ride him back,” Troy muttered. He’d been enjoying himself in the pen, aware of the Holgate girls looking on from the corral.

  “Just watch him,” Charlie warned, reluctant to let go of the rein.

  “It’s OK, he ain’t no trouble.”

  No, but here comes trouble! Kirstie said to herself as she saw her mom drive her car through the ranch gates. She knew Sandy had driven Paddy Kane into San Luis at dawn to collect Stevie from the hospital. This must be all three coming home now. The car swooped down the drive and pulled up in the yard.

  Troy Jensen rode Johnny out of the high-fenced pen just as Paddy Kane stepped out. The boy was still showing off to Carole and Linda Holgate, proving his point to Charlie that the horse would do exactly as he was told. He rode him from a walk to a trot and into a controlled lope around the yard, circling Sandy’s car, showing the magnificent Arab at his smooth and elegant best.

  “What’s that boy doing on that horse?” Paddy Kane’s voice exploded across the yard. Forgetting that he was holding the car door open for his injured son, he strode to remonstrate with Hadley, who had just come out of the tack room. “You see what that stupid kid you employ as a so-called wrangler has done now?” he challenged. “He’s let another guest up in the saddle of that darned horse!”

  Hadley narrowed his eyes and took in Troy and Johnny Mohawk’s circular path. Troy was changing rein, altering his commands so that Johnny sidestepped neatly in full view of his growing audience. The horse executed his piece of fancy footwork with perfect ease, tossed his head, and pranced as if he was glad to be back where he belonged—center stage and performing to loud cheers.

  “Great!” The Holgate girls called and clapped. “Do it again, Troy!”

  “You see that?” By now, Paddy Kane’s face was dark red with anger. He pointed in Charlie’s direction. “Yesterday he leads a trek and lets a young rider who happens to be my son and who doesn’t know the territory go off alone! Today he ignores an order not to let a dangerous horse be ridden!”

  “Now, just a minute …” Hadley rose to Charlie’s defense, but Kane cut in again.

  “It’s true! I heard it with my own ears; Mrs. Scott specifically told him that the black horse wasn’t to be tacked up. Word for word. ‘Charlie, don’t let anyone ride Johnny until I’ve decided what we ought to do about him’!”

  As Paddy Kane yelled, Kirstie’s mom came around to hold the door while Stevie stepped out of the car.

  “It’s OK, it was a mistake,” Hadley tried to explain. “Troy’s a little overenthusiastic, that’s all.”

  “It’s not OK!” Kane stormed on and waved his arms in his growing rage. “This horse is the crazy brute that bucked my son off and broke his arm yesterday!”

  “Troy can handle him!” Brad Jensen called across the yard, thinking he was helping matters but really making them worse. He pointed to his kid brother trotting Johnny smartly over the wooden bridge into the meadow.

  “So could my boy, Stevie!” Enraged by the implied comparison, Paddy Kane turned up the volume. “But if a horse is mean, it doesn’t matter how good the rider is. He’ll have you off his back and trample all over you without a second thought!”

  “We’ll make sure Johnny’s kept off work for a day or two,” Sandy assured him, taking over from Hadley, who had grimaced and turned away. “That’ll give us time to check his feet, have Glen Woodford, the vet, take a look at him to see if there’s any physical cause for his behavior yesterday …”

  Kane shook his head. “Not good enough! If you put this horse back on the trails by the end of this week—in fact, if you decide to use him ever again—it’s my opinion that you’ll be putting the safety of guests in severe danger!”

  Kirstie saw her mom frown and hang her head. She felt her own mouth go dry as she predicted what was coming.

  “You want me to take Johnny out of the remuda for good?” Sandy said quietly, standing hands on hips in the middle of the bright yard.

  “I know what I’m talking about! I have a trekking center of my own, remember, and thirty years of experience to back me!” Paddy Kane was laying down the law, leaving no one in any doubt. “I’m telling you that horse may look great, but his temperament is suspect. A horse like that is, and always will be, a danger to any rider, however good!”

  “Mom, you don’t have to listen …” Kirstie began. But Hadley stepped in front of her, shaking his head.

  “Later,” he cautioned.

  “If I see this lousy wrangler out in charge of another group …” Kane worked himself up to a final declaration, ignoring Stevie and pointing the finger of blame wherever he could, “… and if I see or hear of Johnny Mohawk being used on this ranch ever again, I’ll do what I said I’d do yesterday; and I’ll see you in court!”

  “He means it,” Hadley said. “And he believes he’s right. The man’s pride is at stake.”

  Sandy, Matt, and Kirstie had gathered in the ranch-house kitchen for a meeting with Hadley and Charlie before the start of the Tuesday morning ride.

  “If he recognizes that Troy can handle Johnny Mohawk better than his own son, he loses face. No way can he afford to do that.” The old wrangler’s gravelly voice confirmed what they all already knew.

  Looking around the group of worried faces, Charlie broke the silence. “I’ll quit!” he offered. “If it helps, I’ll pack my bag and leave!”

  “That wouldn’t be right!” Kirstie gasped and shook her head. Charlie had just volunteered to sacrifice everything for them.

  “No,” Sandy and Matt agreed together.

  “Anyhow, I doubt that it’d help,” Matt put in quietly.

  “But the guy blames me.” Charlie was in earnest, gripping the brim of his hat with clenched fists. His confidence was obviously low and his conscience was beginning to trouble him. “Some might say he was right.”

  “We don’t say so, Charlie,” Sandy replied calmly. “And we’re the ones who count around here.”

  “Looks like you’re staying.” Hadley gave a satified grunt.

  “And it looks like Kane will sue.” Matt faced facts.

  “Maybe.” Sandy sighed as she looked out of the window and up the hill to the Kanes’ cabin, where Stevie sat on the front porch, a lonely figure nursing his injured arm, while every other guest on the ranch prepared to ride. “Maybe not, if I go halfway to meet him.”

  “No, Mom, you can’t!” This meant a decision about Johnny Mohawk, and Kirstie leaped in to defend him.

  “Can’t what?” Lisa hovered on the outside of the meeting, not part of it, but unable to help overhearing from where she stood on the landing at the top of the stairs.

  “You can’t get rid of Johnny. He doesn’t deserve it!” Kirstie stood across the doorway as if she would physically stop her mother.

  “I said to meet Mr. Kane halfway, not the whole hog.” Sandy looked her steadily in the eye. She raised her hat and put it squarely on her blonde head.

  “By doing what?” The gaze made Kirstie step to one side and lower her voice.

  “By agreeing to take Johnny out of the remuda for the rest of the week,” her mom told her. “And I’m gonna tell Mr. Kane that we’ll make a final decision on the horse’s future no later than the coming weekend!”

  6

  “Once, when Half Moon was still a cattle ranch and your grandpa ran the place, we had something like this happen,” Hadley told Kirstie. He delved back into the history of the ranch to help her understand why Sandy had given in to Paddy Kane’s demands.

  At first, she was only half-listening, more interested in watching Johnny Mohawk gallop the length of the long, white fence of Red Fox Meadow. The black stallion seemed not to know why he was being left out of the morning ride. The sidelining didn’t suit him; he wanted to be out in the corral with the rest of the horses, up front as usual when the wranglers set off along the trails.

  Hadley told her the story anyhow as they waited for Matt to head the group of beginners off
first. “We had a guy over from Oklahoma to work the spring roundup with us. It was his first time in Colorado, but he came with a big reputation in the professional rodeo events in Oklahoma City: champion calf-roper, champion steer-wrestler. According to him, he’d made a 4.5-second check with a 220-pound steer to clinch the title the previous year. Your grandpa took him at his word, gave him the best horse on the ranch to work with.”

  “And?” Kirstie grew more interested as she made the comparison with the boasts of Paddy and Stevie Kane.

  “And, the first time I rode out to Hummingbird Rock with him to bring back half a dozen steers, I could see he was pretty good …”

  “… But not that good!” Yeah, exactly the same as the Kanes.

  “You got it. No way was this guy a professional champion. And the same sort of thing happened; he tried too hard, pushed his horse where she didn’t want to go, came out of the saddle, blamed the horse.”

  “You saw it?”

  “Every last bit, down to him picking himself up and dusting down his fancy new leather chaps.”

  That was where the difference came in; no one had seen Stevie Kane’s accident. “What did you do?” Kirstie asked.

  Hadley shrugged. “I never said a word. I just let him tell your grandpa his whole story about the horse bucking and ask for a different mount next day. I knew that it wouldn’t make a bit of difference. Even if he got up on a dozen top-grade quarter horses, he still wouldn’t make champion steer-wrestler.”

  “But why didn’t you tell Grandpa what you knew?” To Kirstie, it seemed obvious that the truth should have come out.

  “Like I said, the man’s pride was at stake. It meant a heck of a lot to him. The rest of that roundup, I rode with the guy, took care of anything he couldn’t handle. Together, the two of us did pretty good. By the end of the month, he was doing a whole lot better than when he first came.”

  “You covered up for him for a whole month?”

  “Kinda. Your grandpa knew what was going on without me opening my mouth, though. He just gave me a hard look and let us get on with roping those steers.”

  “But why?” Kirstie had begun to compare Hadley with Lisa, who, when she examined it, also seemed to be covering up for an imposter’s poor riding.

  Hadley gave another of his casual, barely noticeable shrugs, then made ready to ride Moose out along Bear Hunt Trail. “I guess I kinda liked the guy,” he murmured, pulling down the brim of his hat and heading the Jensen boys out of the corral on an all-day ride.

  The ban on guests riding Johnny Mohawk, which Sandy had agreed upon with Paddy Kane, didn’t include her, Kirstie decided.

  She’d spent all morning and most of the afternoon doing jobs on the ranch, cleaning out the tack room and hosing down the stalls in the stable block. Tonight there would be a sing-along beside the creek. Lanterns would light up an old-fashioned chuck wagon which they used as a small stage for the singers, so Kirstie finished her chores by checking the wicks of the lanterns and sweeping the wagon floor. She’d saved the treat of riding Johnny until the end of the day.

  But now, as she stored the broom in the tack room and unhitched a head collar from its hook on the wall, ready to head out to the meadow to find Johnny, she realized she was being watched. She’d heard footsteps crunching across the gravel in the yard then stopping, so she turned to see Stevie Kane, his arm in a white sling, a gauze pad covering the wound on his head. Catching her glance, he hurried on across the lawn in front of the ranch house and up the slope toward his cabin.

  “Hey.” Annoyed by his sulky reaction, Kirstie muttered a sarcastic greeting under her breath, then carried on. She could see Johnny at the fence, as before, looking out and still wondering why he’d been left behind. “I know; it’s tough!” she told him as she drew close. She climbed the fence and quickly fitted the head collar, led him to the gate, and laughed as he nudged impatiently at the catch with his nose. “Hold your horses—oh no, you can’t do that; you are a horse!”

  Johnny nickered and fiddled with the catch.

  “Yeah, yeah, just let me get at it, then we can be out of here!” They were through the gate, hurrying toward the corral. Johnny was practically leading her, not the other way around. He trotted as she ran into the corral, right up to the tack-room door.

  “We just won the world record for tacking up a horse!” she grinned, fetching bit and bridle, then the heavy saddle. “One and a half minutes from start to finish!”

  Johnny stamped his feet and snorted. He snaked his neck and turned his head to look over his shoulder, as if to say, What’s the holdup? Why aren’t you in the saddle?

  “OK, I’m there!” She hooked her foot into the stirrup and swung up, had hardly settled before the horse took off at a brisk walk, heading for the bridge. “Hey, we’re not following the others on the trail!” Kirstie warned, reining him to the right. “We’re gonna work in the round pen.”

  Sure; anything! Johnny changed course and entered the pen, willing as could be. There was a spring in his step, his fine neck was arched, he was looking all about him, waiting to be worked.

  So Kirstie put him through his paces, trying the tricky stuff that Troy Jensen had performed, then working more on her own posting trot. She wanted to perfect it without stirrups, but this meant strengthening her thigh muscles, and she knew it wouldn’t come right away. She also realized that her balance had to be 100 percent. Sensing her try out something new, Johnny Mohawk continued around the pen at a smooth, steady pace, head up, ears flicked toward his rider, catching Kirstie’s every move.

  “Great!” Breathless and aching, she sat in the saddle at last. “Good boy, Johnny! You were fantastic!”

  The lavish praise must have carried out of the round pen into the yard, because suddenly Lisa’s wavy red hair and freckled face appeared over the top of the fence. “Hey, Kirstie, what do you think you’re doing?”

  “Riding Johnny Mohawk,” she said, calmly stating the obvious. Behind Lisa, she caught a glimpse of Stevie Kane hanging around in the yard.

  “I can see that. I mean, why? Isn’t he supposed to be banned or something?”

  “Only from being ridden by dudes.” Kirstie intended Stevie to overhear this. “I know Johnny like the back of my hand; I don’t find him to be any kind of problem!”

  Lisa frowned. “You can never be sure,” she warned. “Once a horse has bucked someone off, he gets a mean streak. A horse like that is dangerous.”

  “Not Johnny!” Kirstie insisted. Stevie Kane, you’d better hear this! In the background, she saw the boy slouch off across the lawn. “Look at him; Johnny Mohawk is a fantastic horse!”

  “No!” In spite of seeing him behaving like an angel, responding once more to Kirstie’s complicated commands, Lisa’s surge of sympathy for Stevie made her resist her old friend, Kirstie.

  Kirstie trotted him right up to the fence, stopped him in an instant. “Yes!” she argued. Never mind that Stevie Kane had slunk off out of sight, this one was for Lisa: “If you’re a halfway decent rider, Johnny is the best, the most perfect horse you could wish for!”

  “In the mornin’, I was ridin’,

  Through the breaks of that wide plain,

  With the saddle-leather creakin’,

  In the sun and in the rain!”

  Charlie sang a favorite cowboy song, long legs hanging over the side of the chuck wagon, cropped dark head bent forward over his old guitar.

  Tuesday evening, and everyone had gathered around a campfire by the creek. After an open-air supper of barbecued chicken, and with fleece jackets zipped up against a chilly wind, they happily joined in the sing-along.

  “Late at night, we were returnin’,

  Horsemen ridin’ wild and free,

  Waitin’ for the next day’s dawnin’,

  ’Cross wide plains, my horse and me!”

  Hadley sang the second verse, then sucked and blew on his silver harmonica. He invited the Half Moon guests to join in the chorus.

  “That land
was ours, that land was free;

  Mountains, lakes for all to see!”

  Kirstie sang with the rest, but her heart wasn’t in it. The disagreement with Lisa that afternoon had left her feeling down—and the fact that Lisa had ignored her ever since. She was sitting now with Stevie Kane on a bench by the fire, light from the flames flickering red and yellow on their faces as they talked. Their expressions were intense, as if whatever they were talking about took up every scrap of their attention, as if the world of the campfire and the people gathered to sing simply didn’t exist.

  “Anyone would think Lisa didn’t have a home to go to,” Matt remarked with a grin as he passed Kirstie on his way for a second helping of chicken.

  “Hmm.” She turned her back on Lisa and Stevie, showing she couldn’t care less.

  “Uh-oh!” Matt raised his eyebrows. Then his jokey manner changed as he saw Paddy Kane heading for the barbecue, too. “I’m outta here!” he said, quickly changing his mind.

  “Good food!” the temperamental Irishman told Sandy Scott, seeming for the time being to have dropped his threat to sue the ranch. His voice carried above a quiet section of harmonica playing from Hadley. “My compliments to the chef!”

  From behind the barbecue table, Kirstie’s mom thanked him pleasantly.

  Yuck! Kirstie couldn’t understand why she was being so nice. The guy was smooth and smarmy beyond belief in his riding pants and padded jacket, his hair slicked back after a shower, a false smile on his face.

  “Hey, Sandy!” It was Troy Jensen’s turn to ask for seconds. Piling potato salad onto his plate, he blundered into a conversation with the Irish visitor. “Say, Mr. Kane, I had me a good idea earlier!”

  “Really?” The response was stiff and brief.

  “Yeah. Brad and me had this talk about the black stallion: y’know, Johnny Mohawk!”

  “I know who you mean.” More distance as Kane frowned and took a step back.

  Kirstie, on the other hand, got up from her seat and went closer.