Wild Horses by Jenny Oldfield Page A

stallion standing at the farthest point beside the copse of young aspens, she saw that he couldn’t yet take his weight on his left leg. The knee was bent, the hoof raised from the ground.
    But maybe … Kirstie went slowly forward. Maybe with her help he would be able to limp across the meadow, through the narrow chasm and along the ledge to freedom.
    The stallion tossed his head and whinnied loudly. He shifted awkwardly, almost collapsing onto the left leg, then backing away.
    Kirstie paused. The horse was more lame than she’d thought. The knee joint was swollen, the covering of white grease over the wound beginning to turn brown and dirty. He staggered again in an effort to keep her at a distance.
    It was no good then. Her plan depended on him being well enough to follow her out of the clearing and up the difficult track onto the ridge. But it would have to wait. Kirstie sighed and turned away. Then she stopped. But what if the drifter came back for the stallion before her? The drifter—not the healer, not the mystery horse doctor, since Kirstie’s talk with her mom—might force him out of the canyon, bad leg or not. He wouldn’t care if the wild horse was in pain, not if he could make money out of him at the sale barn.
    But what could she do? Nothing. Except keep watch. Kirstie took a deep breath and tilted her head to the darkening sky. One thing was for sure; no one in their right mind would come along after nightfall to move the stallion. They were safe at least until morning.
    Encouraged, she made up her mind to leave the horse where he was.
    “Until daylight,” she told him, as if he could understand. And in a way, he did.
    Her gentle voice, her soft movements seemed to calm him. He no longer tried to back away, stumbling on his injured leg, but stood quite still. Head up, mane ruffled by a warm breeze that whispered through the aspens and up the steep cliffs onto the ridge above, he watched her go.
    “I must be crazy,” Lisa complained. She yawned and slumped in the saddle. “It’s the first day of my vacation and I get up before dawn!”
    Kirstie grinned. “You know what we say at Half Moon Ranch; you just gotta …”
    “… Cowboy-up!” Lisa groaned. “Yeah, yeah.”
    She’d driven out to the ranch with her mother in answer to Kirstie’s secretive phone call of the night before. Kirstie had asked her to ride back to Dead Man’s Canyon with her to look out for the stallion, but she’d warned her not to say anything to her mom. As far as the adults were concerned, Lisa and Kirstie had simply organized a breakfast ride to celebrate the beginning of the school vacation.
    The two women had been surprised that the girls wanted to ride out so early, but they’d shrugged, seen them off on Lucky and Cadillac, and settled down to an early morning cup of coffee over the ranch house kitchen table.
    “Better to be crazy than mean,” Kirstie said now, thinking all the time of how they must beat the drifter and his plan to sell the stallion.
    “Huh.” Lisa piled on the groans. “Just don’t tell anyone I did this, OK?”
    Her good-tempered complaints passed the time until Miners’ Ridge came into view against a clear morning sky.
    “Sun’s gonna be hot today,” Kirstie predicted. “It’s gonna melt the snow off the peaks and send a whole lot more water down.”
    As if to prove her point, Horseshoe Creek seemed even deeper and faster than it had the night before. Lucky went down the bank and stepped sturdily in, swaying slightly as the water rose round his flanks and soaked Kirstie’s jeans. She urged him on and he surged through, then they turned to wait for a reluctant Cadillac.
    “C-c-cold!” Lisa gasped, as she too felt the water dash against her legs.
    But by the time the girls made it to the ridge, the first rays of sun had dried off their jeans and they were both feeling good about the plan to take another look at the stallion.
    “Even if his leg’s not good enough to come out of the