Wild Horses Page 5

  Kirstie jumped up from stirring the pan. “Don’t listen to him,” she told Lisa, striding over to Matt. “He’s winding us up.”

  “Me?” His eyes were still smiling. “Would I?”

  “Yes, you would!” Kirstie turned him around and marched him back toward Moose. “Go home, Matt!”

  Swinging into the saddle, laughing out loud, he prepared to do as he was told. “So why the camp?” he asked before he left. “Why here? Why now?”

  “Because!” Kirstie refused to answer. She stood, arms crossed, looking up at him, waiting for him to go.

  “Because she wants to find the black stallion.” Lisa spelled it out. “Because she can’t believe he got out of there alone, without help. She thinks he’s still around here someplace, needing her. And you know Kirstie; once she gets a notion, she just won’t let go!”

  “Promise me one thing,” Matt had insisted before he finally agreed to leave them alone on Miners’ Ridge. “You won’t climb down the canyon looking for the horse before daylight.”

  “It’s a deal.” Kirstie knew he was right. Trying to find a way down was too risky in the gathering dusk. The plan was that she and Lisa climb into their sleeping bags the moment it grew dark, get as much sleep as they could, then get up at first light the next morning to continue the search.

  “So who can sleep?” Lisa said now that Matt had finally gone. They’d finished cleaning up, made sure that Cadillac and Lucky were safely tethered, and crawled into the tent for the night.

  Kirstie was still crouched by the entrance, looking and listening. Except for the rustle of wind through branches and the occasional screech of an owl, the mountain was silent. Ignoring Lisa’s question, she went on with her own train of thought. “If you figure it out, even if the stallion did get out of the canyon somehow, there’s no way he can have gone far. He’d be too weak from losing so much blood …”

  “What was that?” Hearing a new noise, Lisa dived deep into her sleeping bag and pulled it up round her chin.

  “… And if he’s weak, maybe another stallion in the herd will take over from him as leader and guide the others someplace else. That means the black stallion gets left behind. And you know there are mountain lions on Eagle’s Peak …”

  “Lions?” Lisa squeaked. Her head disappeared into the sleeping bag so that only her curly red hair showed in the glow from the lamp which hung from the roof.

  “And black bears. The bears are no problem to the stallion. But a cougar’s different.” Kirstie knew that, though rare and seldom seen, a mountain lion would attack a horse weakened by injury. “They hunt at night,” she told Lisa in a worried voice.

  “Don’t tell me!” Lisa pleaded.

  “So you see, we need to get up at dawn and be out on the trail looking for clues.” She thought ahead, oblivious to the trembling heap inside the sleeping bag next to her. “Say we do pick up a track and find him. Say he’s weak and all alone. We can stay with him, radio Mom at the ranch, and she can send Glen back to give him the shots he needs.”

  “Sure,” Lisa said faintly.

  Zipping up the tent, Kirstie turned and sighed. She switched off the lamp and threw the tent into complete darkness. “See, since he didn’t get those antibiotics he could be in pretty bad shape by now.” Wearily she crawled fully dressed into her own sleeping bag. “In fact, Lisa, I know Glen was trying to make things sound good for our sakes, but if you really think about it, it’s pretty clear to me that the horse could actually die!”

  “Help!…Help me!”

  Rocks crashed down from the roof of a dark tunnel. Dust rose. Men choked and cried out. One picked himself up from the ground and staggered away, arm raised to shield his stooped head from the falling debris.

  “I can’t get out! I’m trapped! Somebody, help me!”

  Voices wailed in the thick blackness. Wild eyes, anguished faces under a landslide of heavy rocks.

  Kirstie beat her fists in the air. Her legs thrashed inside a confined space. “Help!” she cried, sitting bolt upright.

  “Wake up!” Lisa was shaking her. “You’re having a nightmare. Kirstie, wake up!”

  She opened her eyes, made out the dome of the tent in the gray light before dawn. Her legs were trapped inside the twisted sleeping bag, but there were no rocks, no miners suffocating in a dusty tomb. She took a deep breath and, for a few seconds, hung her head forward and buried her face between her hands.

  “Are you OK?” Lisa waited until she looked up again.

  Kirstie nodded. “Sorry I woke you.”

  “You didn’t. I was already awake, looking out for mountain lions … bears … ghosts …” She gave her friend a wry grin. “Didn’t spot any, though. But wait till I see your brother!”

  Shaking off the nightmare and reaching out to unzip the tent for fresh air, Kirstie spied Lucky and Cadillac standing quietly under the nearby trees. Both horses looked pale and unreal in the morning mist as they stretched their tethers to turn their heads at the sound of the zip.

  She crawled out on all fours, feeling the cold dew on the grass. Lifting her hands to her hot face, she cooled herself down.

  “You’re sure you’re OK?” Lisa followed her out, already dressed in shirt and trousers.

  “Yep. Glad to be awake,” Kirstie confessed. Sleeping out was usually more fun than this, with a saddlebag full of potato chips and Hershey bars for breakfast, and sun breaking through the trees. Today there was no sun; just more clouds and the wet mist clinging to the ridge. From somewhere deep in the canyon, she recognized the sound of a bobcat’s yowl.

  Cadillac skittered sideways at the noise. He knocked into Lucky, who tossed his head and pulled at his tether.

  With her stomach still churning from the nightmare, Kirstie stood up. Down below, lost in the mist, the bobcat went on making his high-pitched racket. “I wonder what got into him?”

  “And the horses.” Lisa glanced nervously toward Dead Man’s Canyon, then over at Lucky and Cadillac. “You know something? I’m not the only one who doesn’t like this place.”

  “I agree. What do you say we saddle up and get out of here fast?” Kirstie suggested, eager in any case to begin the search for the black stallion.

  She was heading toward Lucky when a gray shape came hurtling out of the canyon and along the ridge. About a yard long from head to the tip of its stubby tail, with a mottled coat, there was no mistaking the sturdy bobcat. He flew toward Kirstie, saw her, and veered off for the trees where the horses were tied up.

  It all happened in seconds; the bobcat flashing by, Cadillac smelling and hearing him before he saw him, the wrench at the halter rope, the brittle branch snapping.

  “Watch out!” Lisa yelled a warning, too late.

  The branch that tethered the two horses had broken. Cadillac reared, dragging Lucky off-balance. The branch cracked and splintered, fell apart, leaving the startled horses free to gallop.

  Kirstie stood by, helpless, as the bobcat swerved, then darted between Lucky and Cadillac. Their flailing hooves crashed down inches from where he ran. Then he was clear, darting through the trees out of sight.

  “Easy!” Kirstie cried.

  Cadillac reared again. A fragment of branch swung from the end of his rope. It crashed against Lucky and sent the palomino prancing toward the edge of the canyon. From higher up the hill, the bobcat gave out his eerie yowl.

  Twisting and rearing, sliding and kicking in their efforts to free themselves from the dangling ropes, Cadillac and Lucky ignored Kirstie’s call. The mist swirled around them as they struggled. It disguised the sheer drop into the canyon, swallowed first Cadillac’s pale, bucking shape, then Lucky’s.

  Rooted to the spot, Kirstie and Lisa heard a shower of loose stones rattle over the edge of the cliff. The sound of metal shoes on granite rang out.

  Then Lucky whinnied, and the sound seemed to unlock Kirstie from her frozen position midway between tent and trees. She jerked into action, sprinting for the cliff, praying she and Lisa would be able
to guide Lucky and Cadillac away from the lethal edge.

  6

  “It’s OK, Kirstie, I’ve got Lucky!” Lisa was there before her. She’d seized the palomino’s halter rope and held tight, as Kirstie ran through the wet mist.

  Kirstie saw a dim outline. Lucky tossed his head and reared, only a few yards from the cliff. When he came down, he ducked, then kicked out with his hind legs, narrowly missing Cadillac behind him. The white horse skewed sideways, away from the edge.

  “Easy, Lucky, easy!” Lisa got things under control. She steadied the frightened horse, leaned into him, and pushed him out of danger while Kirstie changed direction and went after Cadillac, disappearing once more into the mist.

  “Steady.” She found the big horse standing by one of the mossed-over mounds of waste from the old mine and approached carefully, speaking in a low voice. “The bobcat’s gone. Nothing to be scared about anymore.” Privately, Kirstie wasn’t so sure. She wondered what had upset the cat in the first place and sent him scooting from the canyon.

  “Have you got him?” Lisa called anxiously.

  Cadillac had come to a halt at a distance of four or five yards. He eyed Kirstie warily, nostrils flared, one hoof pawing the ground. “Good boy.” Realizing that the horse might bolt again at the slightest thing, she, too, stopped.

  “Kirstie?” Lisa called again.

  “Give me a couple of minutes.” She waited until Cadillac had stopped striking his foot against the ground and had lowered his head; a signal that he was ready to be approached. Then she went slowly, smoothly, toward him, softly clicking her tongue and offering him the back of her hand to sniff at. Only when he’d leaned forward to nudge at her hand with his soft gray muzzle did she reach out to take hold of the dangling halter rope.

  “OK, got him!” she called to Lisa, breathing a sigh of relief.

  Cadillac snorted. Through the mist Lucky whinnied back. Then both horses agreed to be led to the spot where the tent was pitched. Soon they were safely tethered once more.

  “Lousy start to the day,” Lisa murmured, as Kirstie got busy with Lucky’s tack.

  Kirstie nodded. “I wish I knew what spooked that bobcat.” Taking a saddle from the low branch of a nearby tree where they’d kept it overnight, she slung it over the palomino’s broad back. Smoothly she brought the cinch strap under his belly and buckled it in place.

  “I’ll pack the tent.” More eager than ever to be out of there, Lisa slid the flexible rods out of their casings and collapsed the dome. Quickly she rolled up the lightweight fabric, only stopping to shake off the worst of the water drops. “It’s not that I let Matt’s stuff about ghosts get to me,” she insisted. “This place would’ve given me the creeps in any case. I mean, look at the horses; even they hate being here.”

  “Looks that way.” Kirstie worked on, lost in thought, listening carefully to the sounds of streams full to the brim and rushing between rocks, over ledges. Water gushed and drowned out the other noises she might have heard: of the stealthy bobcat still circling the area, or maybe fox or coyote creeping through the undergrowth.

  “So?” Lisa asked, when, a few minutes later, they were packed and mounted.

  Kirstie took a deep breath, glancing up at the gray sky and round at the shadowy shapes of trees and hillocks. “So I guess we should go down.”

  “Down?” Lisa groaned. “Into Dead Man’s Canyon?”

  She nodded. “Something’s down there, otherwise the bobcat wouldn’t have acted the way he did. But you and Cadillac could stay here.” Kirstie glanced at the friendship bracelet on her brown wrist; a gift from Lisa earlier that spring. She held her breath for the reply.

  “No way. If you go, we go, don’t we, Cadillac?” Lisa read her mind. She held up her own matching bracelet.

  “Not if you don’t want to. Lucky and I can do this.”

  In spite of everything, Lisa grinned. “Liar, Kirstie Scott. You need me to come. You know you do!”

  “OK, OK.” Kirstie realized that this was what was great about Lisa. She could be scared, but she would still go ahead and join in. “Let’s you and me cowboy-up together!” she decided at last.

  “There’s even more water coming down here than yesterday!” Kirstie had dismounted now and was leading Lucky step by step down the track. Halfway along, she paused. It seemed that every ledge was now a waterfall and every jagged surface treacherously slippery.

  “It’s coming down from the high peaks,” Lisa pointed out. She and Cadillac had stopped a few paces behind. The mist clung to Lisa’s dark red curls so that they stuck damply to her face. Wet from head to foot, her boots squelched water. “You know, the storm hit pretty hard yesterday. That’s why the streams are so full.”

  “I guess.” Kirstie went on, letting Lucky pick the safest way. “That’s why, the more I think it through, I can’t believe Glen Woodford when he said the stallion could’ve made it out of the canyon. Like, how, when there’s all this water?”

  Frowning, Lisa followed. “You mean, it’s hard enough when the ground’s dry? But when it’s wet, it’s impossible?” She seemed to agree, then thought back to the previous day. “But hey, how come there wasn’t a single horse down there when we arrived?”

  Kirstie stepped along a ledge where the water came up to the top of her boots. “How do we know that?”

  “We looked, remember! Zilch!”

  “Only zilch from the ridge. I mean, how do we know for sure what we’ll find when we get down?”

  Lisa shivered, then pulled herself together. “Yeah, like a whole bunch of wild horses were playing a game of hide-and-seek!”

  Ignoring this, Kirstie led Lucky down a track she’d spotted which would take them all the way to the floor of the canyon. “What we need is for this mist to clear,” she muttered.

  But it still clung to the cliff and swirled into the crannies and crevices in the rocks. When they finally made it to ground level, it seemed thicker and damper than ever.

  “So?” Lisa challenged again. Her voice was deadened by tall walls of rock which they could feel rather than see all around them. Stepping backward, she blundered against a boulder and overbalanced into a deep, muddy puddle.

  “Listen!” Kirstie let go of Lucky’s rein, knowing that there was nowhere for him to bolt even if he had a mind to. The exit from the canyon was still blocked by the landslide, and the opposite end narrowed to a dead-end, as she knew. “Did you hear something?”

  “Yeah … water!” Lisa stepped out of the puddle and squelched anew.

  “Right!” Kirstie reacted as if Lisa had really put her finger on something. “Lots of water!”

  “So what’s new?” Except that her boots were full of the stuff. Dirty water was bubbling through the seams and out over the tops.

  “I mean, like, really lots! A waterfall!” By now, Kirstie was convinced. She set off along the rock-strewn ground toward the narrow gully at the top of the canyon. “A new waterfall. Like, one where there wasn’t one yesterday!”

  “OK,” Lisa sighed. She took off her boots one at a time to shake out the muddy water. Then she ran to catch up. “I believe you, but I still don’t see …”

  “Shh!” Kirstie turned, finger to her lips, eyes wide. She’d reached the end of the canyon and come up against a sheet of water falling from a high ledge.

  “Is this it?” Lisa craned her neck and stared up at the waterfall, created by several streams running together and meeting on the ledge some fifteen yards above the spot where they stood. It tumbled over fast and furious, splashing into a shallow pool at their feet.

  Nodding, Kirstie walked up to the edge of the pool. She felt the spray on her face, noticed a lower ledge behind the fall which was almost dry because of a rocky overhang. “Why isn’t this pool deeper?” she queried, still listening, looking, investigating.

  Lisa too studied the spot. It was clear that many gallons of water per second were pouring down the fall, but that the pool where it landed was neither big nor deep. “Maybe the water
drains out someplace?”

  Kirstie edged around the pool. “But where? This is supposed to be the spot where Dead Man’s Canyon ends. It’s solid rock. There’s no place for the water to run out.”

  “Through here.” Lisa pointed to where the surface of the pool swirled with eddies and small currents. She saw that the water was channelled away at the base of the low ledge. “There’s a kind of stream at the back of the waterfall, beside this ledge.”

  Quickly Kirstie ran to join her. “Water can’t run through solid rock!” she gasped. It could vanish underground, but what Lisa was saying was that it ran away in a stream above the ground. Which meant there was a gap in the rock!

  “There’s a gully!” Lisa was still one step ahead. She was down on her hands and knees, crawling onto the ledge behind the fall.

  Almost deafened by the crashing water, Kirstie followed. The ledge sloped downhill and ran the width of the waterfall.

  “Hey!” Suddenly Lisa stopped.

  “What? What is it?” All Kirstie could see was a sheet of water to her left, a wall of rock to her right, and Lisa in front.

  “The stream runs along a kind of gully.” Lisa turned to whisper, as if she could hardly believe what she saw. “Like a chasm. Really narrow. But I think it opens out again.”

  “Let’s go!” Kirstie felt her stomach tighten into a knot. A hidden entrance to a place she never suspected before!

  So they crept on, behind the thundering water, until the ledge flattened out, turned to the right, and led them on between a narrow, tall crevice where the stream ran away from the waterfall.

  “Hey,” Lisa whispered. “Do we really want to do this?” She was squeezing down the gully, up to her ankles in water, feeling closed in by tall rocks.

  “We do,” Kirstie insisted. The gully and the stream behind the fall held the answers to all her questions. She felt they would soon solve the mystery of the missing black stallion. “We really do!”