Hoofbeats of Danger by Holly Hughes Page A

his chin doggedly. “Jeremiah said that was a powerful hard kick Magpie gave Pa,” he said. ‘At first I was afraid she’d killed him. He still could die, couldn’t he, Annie? Don’t lie to me.”
    Annie paused, brought up short. She realized she’d been talking down to Davy. Her brother deserved more respect; he wasn’t a baby anymore. “I reckon that’s true, Davy,” she admitted quietly. “I’m awful scared about him dying. You are too, aren’t you? But all we can do is hope and pray.”
    Davy’s blue eyes filled with tears. “I just wish I hadn’t thought so many mean thoughts toward Pa,” he mumbled. “I wish I could take them all back, right now!”
    â€œI feel just the same way, Davy,” Annie confessed with a catch in her throat. She opened her arms and wrapped them around her little brother. They sat huddled like that for a few minutes.
    Finally Annie let him go with a deep, comforted sigh. Jumping to her feet, she seized on a new task, folding the blankets that the coach passengers had left in a heap by the woodbox. Davy picked up a broom propped against the wall near the fireplace. He began to whistle as he swept the hearth.
    Underneath the blankets Annie found the McGuffey’s Reader Davy had been thumbing through yesterday. She slipped it into her pocket. Books were few and precious out here. With no school around, she was bound and determined to teach Davy his letters herself. She couldn’t let him lose this book.
    Carrying the pile of blankets to the chest of drawers, Annie forced herself to think about Magpie. She knew if she didn’t, she’d begin to worry about her family’s future—and right now, that was even more worrisome. Instead, she ran over yesterday’s events once more in her mind. Who had had a chance to cut Magpie? Jeremiah and her pa, she remembered, had been going back and forth between the hay meadow and the barn all afternoon. Billy might have helped with the haying too, though Annie suspected he’d slipped off to the hayloft instead for an afternoon nap—he’d been dead tired after his hard ride. Once the stagecoach came in, however …
    Suddenly, Annie noticed small thunking noises coming from the far corner of the room. “Davy? What are you doing?” She glanced over at her brother.
    Davy was kneeling by the woodbox, the broom on the floor beside him. In his right hand he held a folding pocketknife. He cocked his wrist, then threw the knife at the log cabin wall. Its silver point pierced the wood and the knife stuck there, quivering.
    Annie frowned. “Where’d you get that fancy knife, Davy?” she asked. “I’ve never seen it before. I’d remember something newfangled like that.” Most of the men at the station, like Billy, carried long Indian-style knives in their belts, not clever folding contraptions like this.
    Davy yanked the knife out of the wall and clutched it to his chest. “I found it out in the barn. I reckon one of the coach passengers dropped it. But they’re gone now, Annie—I can keep it, can’t I?” he pleaded. “Finders keepers, you know.”
    â€œWhen did you find it?” Annie asked, suspicion dawning. She shut the blanket chest and stepped over to get a closer look.
    â€œLast night, after supper,” Davy confessed slowly. “I guess I should’ve said something then, so the owner could claim it. But it’s so fine, Annie!”
    Annie took the knife from Davy. She turned it over in her hand curiously.
    The knife had a dull brown handle and a short steel blade. At the base of the blade, where it folded into the handle, was a flaking crust of something dark red.
    â€œWhere in the barn was it lying, Davy?” Annie asked sharply.
    â€œOn the floor—just outside Magpie’s stall,” Davy answered.
    Annie pushed the blade backward on its spring. Twisted