Scarecrow on Horseback by C. S. Adler

the gate for him. “He don't
like cars honking at him on the road and loose rock drives him
wild.”
    “He buck you off, Jeb?” Sally asked with sly
sympathy.
    “Now you know I can ride anything on four
legs, Sally. I stayed on him, but he jammed me into a tree. Can't
use him for trail riding, that's for sure.”
    “He's fine with me,” Mel said, looking up
from the sore on a horse's leg that she was bandaging.
    “You think so? Well, it's your hide,” Jeb
said, and he had Sally tack up another horse for him so he could
rejoin the group that he'd left waiting for him up the road.
    * * * *
    One week, four of Mel's eight riders included
a tight-lipped, frowning father, his twin ten-year-old sons, and a
teenage daughter who was complaining about having to get up so
early. “It's my vacation too, Daddy,” the girl said. “Why can't I
just go on afternoon rides?”
    “Because we're doing things together this
week,” the father said. When Mel adjusted his stirrups, he asked
her if she was going to be leading them.
    “Yes, I'm your wrangler this morning. ”“My
name's Mel.”
    “You look young to be leading us,” the father
replied. “How old are you?”
    “Fifteen.”
    “Same age as my daughter.” Without another
word, the man pulled his horse out of line and walked him over to
where Jeb was standing with the checklist of morning riders.
    “I want a more mature wrangler. It's
dangerous to give a fifteen-year-old responsibility for a group of
riders,” the man said to Jeb.
    Jeb's jaw twitched. All available wranglers,
including Jeb himself, were assigned to more difficult trails.
“Mel's really good with horses,” Jeb said. “She's been leading this
ride for weeks without a problem.”
    “What if something goes wrong on the trail?
How's a kid her age to deal with it?”
    “She's got a cell phone. She'll call for help
like any other wrangler.”
    “I'm not comfortable with that. I'm asking
you to send someone more experienced with us.”
     
    “You can take the morning ride up to the
breakfast stop on the mountain,” Jeb said. “We got a college boy
leading that in half an hour.”
    The man turned to his sons who were mounted
and ready. The one who looked like a smaller, thin-lipped version
of him said angrily, “You promised us, Dad.”
    “My sons want to see the beavers,” the man
said to Jeb.
    “All right, tomorrow morning I'll switch
wranglers around,” Jeb said. “You can do Beaver Lake tomorrow and
today do the mountain trail. How's that?”
    “We want to go today,” the other twin
said.
    The man studied his sons for a few seconds,
shrugged, and said to Jeb, “Okay, we'll follow that girl, but I
hold you responsible if anything goes wrong.”
    Mel swung into her saddle and was ready to
lead her group out when Jeb stepped up beside her to say quietly,
“Be extra careful with this bunch. Don't let nothing happen or
we're both in deep horse doo.”
    Mel nodded and swallowed hard. She started
down the road with a stomach clenched around the waffles she had
had for breakfast. The two hours on the trail had better go off
without incident or she'd lose her job and any hope of earning
enough to buy Colby. The frowning father was riding tail for her
group behind his two sons. Ahead of them was an older couple, not
related to them. They'd introduced themselves as Sam and Mabel. The
thirteen-year-old daughter rode in front of Mabel on a bay that
kicked any horse that came too close behind it. Mel twisted around
in her saddle and rode backwards for a bit to warn Mabel that she
needed to keep her horse, General, out of kicking range.
    “Will do,” the grandmotherly woman said.
    But then after they'd gone over the bridge
and were climbing the rock-strewn slope to the road, Mabel turned
to tell her husband something about the altitude pills he was
supposed to have taken. “Are you feeling all right, sweetie?” she
asked him, not paying attention to her horse.
    General, feeling the reins loosen,