Barn Sour (Show Jumping Dreams ~ Book 26) Read online

  “Well if that’s the reason you are selling him then why don’t you just keep him here?” I said.

  “I can’t exactly afford your board and you don’t really have the room.”

  He looked around at the pastures which were now decidedly bare but it was winter. Dad had already talked about putting seed down in the spring and rotating the paddocks so that they could rest and so the grass would have a chance to grow. We had a plan. We just hadn’t been able to put it into action yet.

  “You can keep him here for as long as you want,” I told him, putting my hand on his arm.

  I could feel his muscles tight and firm beneath my fingers. Strong and powerful. He looked at me and I pulled my hand away before he could say anything.

  “Let’s put him out then and see how he does,” I said.

  “He’ll be fine,” Jordan said.

  But Wizard wasn’t fine. He paced the fence line and screamed at the other horses. He got Bailey and Bourbon so upset that I had to bring them in and put them in their stalls and then Molly showed up and yelled at me because her horses weren’t outside.

  “I didn’t want them to hurt themselves,” I told her as she stood there with her arms crossed looking all mad at me. “And I gave them both a big flake of hay. They are perfectly happy.”

  “I want them out,” she said. “I don’t care about some new horse. I was here first.”

  I expect that was what she’d told Cora. That she was here first and that Oscar was the one that was going to have to leave.

  “Well if you want them out then that is your decision,” I told her. “But I would recommend keeping them in for now until Wizard settles down.”

  “No,” she said firmly. “They go back out. Put that psycho in a stall instead. I don’t see why my horses should be made to suffer.”

  Bourbon and Bailey were hardly suffering. In fact they looked downright mad that I was now pulling them away from their delicious hay. But Molly was adamant that they go back out and so out they went. This whole catering to the boarders every whim thing was getting to be exhausting.

  Later, when Dad got home, he wanted to know why I hadn’t brought Molly’s horses in. They were pacing the fence line alongside Wizard, who hadn’t settled down at all. And Jordan had just left, telling me that I could handle it. I hardly thought that was fair but I also felt like I owed him so I didn’t really have much of a choice.

  “I brought them in,” I said. “But Molly yelled at me to put them back out so what choice did I have?”

  “Well can’t you put that nut job in a stall then?” Dad said, pointing to Wizard.

  “What stall?” I said. “We don’t have any left unless I use one of Molly’s, which I don’t think she’d be too thrilled about or unless I kick Socks outside. All the rest are being used.”

  “Great,” Dad sighed and kicked the wheel of his truck. “Well this is a fine mess. Couldn’t Jordan have waited until we had the rest of the stalls up to bring his horse over?”

  “It was a now or never type thing I think,” I said. “And I owe him. We both do after all the hard work he put into this place when we first moved in. He helped us without asking for anything in return.”

  “And now he is calling in that favor,” Dad said. “See what I told you? No one does anything for free. They all want something in the end. Molly wants the place to herself. Cora expects us to turn her horse into something he’ll never be and Jordan wants his horse trained and sold.”

  “What about us?” I said. “What do we get?”

  “Stomped on. That’s what we get,” he said.

  Then he stormed off and left me watching the black horse pace up and down. At the rate he was going he would have dug a trench by the end of the night. I fetched a flake of hay and took it to him.

  “Come on,” I said, throwing the hay over the fence. “Settle down and eat. It’s okay. We are all your friends here.”

  But Wizard didn’t care about his new friends or the hay. I suspected the only thing he cared about was the buddy he’d had to leave behind, Taylor’s horse. And I wondered if he was doing the same thing back at their home, pacing back and forth and calling out for a friend that was too far away to hear him and answer.

  CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

  No matter what I did, Wizard wouldn’t settle. In the end I had no choice but to leave him and hope that he would. I was tired and kind of grumpy and hungry all at the same time. I wanted to get a snack and take a hot shower and go to bed but when I got inside I found everyone huddled around the television in the living room.

  “What is it?” I said, assuming that some big celebrity had died or something.

  “Storms,” Dad said. “Tonight. There is a tornado watch.”

  “Well that is no big deal,” I said. “We get those all the time.”

  “But this time they seem serious,” Dad said. “And at the very least we are going to get thunder and lightning, strong wind gusts and lots of rain.”

  “Great,” I said. “What are we going to do with the horses that don’t have stalls? Bring them in the house?”

  “Over my dead body,” Mom said with a snarl.

  I didn’t like to tell her that could be arranged.

  “The horses will just have to manage,” Dad said. “The ones outside would have a better chance if a tornado did blow through anyway.”

  “That’s encouraging, thanks Dad,” I said.

  I sat at the kitchen table looking at the mushy rice meal my mother had half-heartedly prepared and couldn’t find the will to eat it. Cat sat next to me, her face bare of makeup and her freshly washed hair pulled back into a ponytail. Whereas before she’d looked older than she was, now she looked about twelve. I didn’t like to ask why she’d had the change of heart. Perhaps my mother had talked to her after all.

  “I can stay up if you like,” she said. “To keep a watch on the horses and make sure they are okay.”

  “And if they aren’t, what exactly is it you are going to do?” Mom said. “Run out there in the raging storm? I think not.”

  “What do you expect us to do?” I said. “Sit by and watch the horses get blown away or have projectiles launched at them.”

  I thought about the hurricane that I’d rescued Arion in. How everything had been dark and the rain had stabbed my body like a thousand needles. How up and down got all mixed together until you couldn’t tell which way was which or where you were. How terrifying it had been. I could only imagine that Arion would remember it too and that he would be just as scared as I was.

  “Maybe we could put them all in the barn?” Cat said. “Just close the doors.”

  “And have them all milling around in there?” Dad said. “Getting into the grain and the hay and annoying each other. Kicking out in such a confined space? No way.”

  I thought of Bluebird, my team pony. He liked living outside. Preferred it really. But did that extend to nights filled with all kinds of horrible weather? I didn't think so.

  “It’s going to be a long night,” I said.

  “Well I’m not staying up,” Mom said. “You are all fools if you think that going out there in the bad weather will do anything but cost you your lives.”

  “We have to try Mom,” I said.

  But she just shook her head and floated up the stairs, almost a ghost. Not quite part of this house or this world. Not wanting to have anything to do with us and probably resenting the fact that horses took up so much of our lives and that left so little for her.

  “I’ll stay up and help,” Cat said.

  But I knew it was only because she was still feeling guilty about nearly killing me and Bluebird.

  “Thanks,” I said but I doubted that she’d be much help.

  Horses hyped up on the wind and the storm would be hard if not impossible to control and since we didn’t have anywhere to put them in a way Mom was right. They were going to have to brave out the night on their own and we would only be able to sit and watch and clean up the mess when the sun ro
se.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Before the last light left the orange sky we ran around and secured anything that might get tossed about by the wind. Buckets, hay bags, things that we’d laid down and forgotten about. An old bottle of fly spray by the ring, a lunging whip and line by the gate. We took down the poles and propped them against the fence and put the jump standards on their sides.

  If we’d still been at Fox Run, I wouldn’t have been worried. The horses would have been tucked in their stalls all snug and secure in a barn that had been built to survive a hurricane. Sure the wind might have messed up the outside but the chances were that all the horses at Fox Run would make it through the night unscathed.

  I looked over at my pony, standing by his bucket, his face all eager and happy, completely unaware of what the night might bring because he lived in the moment and I wished I could be like him. I wished I didn’t know that horrors awaited us when the sun fell and the night sky slunk over the land, bringing with it the storms on the radar that looked red and angry. Marching towards us like an army that refused to be stopped.

  “Do you think maybe it won’t be that bad?” I asked Dad.

  “I think we’d better pray that it won’t be,” Dad said. “Because we really don’t need another mess right now.”

  “But what is the worst that can happen?” I said, looking around. “So the horses get caught in the storm and they go and stand under a tree. That’s what they’d do in the wild, isn’t it?”

  “But these aren’t wild horses,” Dad said with a sigh. “They are show horses and ponies and a foal that can’t take care of himself yet. These are expensive horses that belong to people other than us, people who are paying for us to protect them.”

  I watched as Wizard, who still hadn’t settled, spooked as a strong gust of wind blew leaves across his pasture. He reared up, striking against the sky with steel hooves, then touched down and galloped off to the end of his makeshift paddock. When he touched the electric fence and it zapped him, he spun and squealed and ran back again.

  “Jordan shouldn’t have brought him here,” I said. “Not tonight.”

  “You could call him and ask him to come back and get him,” Dad said, trying not to sound like he wanted to say I told you so, which I knew he totally did.

  But Jordan wouldn’t answer his phone and he didn’t call back when I left him a message and then texted him later. The black horse was stuck with us and we were stuck with him and we were all stuck with the approaching cold front and the terrible storms that would hail its arrival whether we wanted them to or not.

  CHAPTER FORTY ONE

  Dad said that we should all try and get some sleep. The weathermen were predicting that the storm would sweep through some time in the early hours, just like they always did. I reluctantly agreed even though I didn’t feel in the least bit sleepy. I went up to my room but I didn’t go to bed. Instead I stood by my window and looked out into the dark. The sky was already cloudy and without the light from the moon it was difficult to make out the horses grazing quietly in the dark.

  Every now and then I would catch the glimpse of a white sock or a blaze but I wasn’t sure who they belonged to. And I could still hear Wizard as he trotted up and down in the dark, calling forlornly every now and then to his lost friend. If Jordan was trying to get his horse to work himself sick he was going the right way about it. There was nothing I could do for him and I wished that Jordan had watched the weather forecast and realized that bringing his horse here tonight was a big mistake. Wizard could have been back at their house in their little barn in his stall, happy with his friend by his side. But instead he was stuck out here with us and only a few strands of electric fencing keeping him from galloping all the way back home.

  I lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling, not bothering to take off my clothes. The wind was already howling. I could hear it snapping small twigs and blowing leaves and dirt around. Every now and then a gust would shake the house, pushing against the windows like a monster begging to be let in. Above it all I heard Wizard whinny and beyond the wind a horse answered, probably one of Jess’s. But her horses would be snug in their stalls in her fancy new barn. She wouldn’t be lying awake worrying about what might happen to them in the storm. She didn’t have anything to worry about. Her father's money took care of that.

  Eventually I must have drifted off to sleep because I woke to a loud crash of thunder. I sat bolt upright, listening to the wind. It was stronger now, roaring like it had a voice and was trying to tell us things we didn’t want to hear. Something out in the dark smashed. A flower pot maybe or maybe something worse. I pulled my boots on over my thick, chunky socks and tumbled down the stairs. Dad was standing in the kitchen, fully dressed.

  “Is this it?” I said.

  He had flashlights on the table. Halters, lead ropes and carrots. We were prepared to catch any horses that got loose. The only problem was that I wasn’t sure what we were supposed to do with them once we’d caught them.

  “This is it,” he replied.

  CHAPTER FORTY TWO

  Cat appeared behind me, scuttling down the stairs, already pulling on her coat.

  “I’m worried about Phoenix,” she said as a crack of lightening was quickly followed by a rumble of thunder.

  I listened for the sound of hooves but I couldn’t hear anything over the rain and wind.

  “No one is going out in that unless it is absolutely necessary,” Dad said. “I’m going to go out and do a sweep and I want you girls to stay here. If the horses are all safe then you don’t need to come out.”

  “And if they’re not?” I said.

  “If it comes to that then we’ll figure out what we are going to do,” Dad said.

  He left us standing there, the door blowing out of his hands and banging against the wall before he could finally shut it.

  “I think we should go out there,” Cat said. “I’m worried about Phoenix.”

  “I’m worried about Bluebird,” I said. “And Arion and all of them.”

  I knew that our horses were used to storms. After all this was Florida and in the summer time we had more than our fair share of them but somehow this one seemed different and the fact that it was blowing through overnight only made it seem more menacing.

  Cat and I stood with our faces pressed against the glass, looking out the window as Dad made sweeps back and forth with his flashlight. The rain came down sideways and we watched as the wind almost knocked him off his feet.

  “I think they must be okay,” Cat said. “I don’t see any horses.”

  “Neither do I,” I replied.

  But the next minute there was a flash in the dark and a horse blew past my father, almost knocking him to the ground.

  “They’re out,” I cried. “The horses are loose.”

  I grabbed a flashlight, as many halters as I could carry and dashed out into the storm without a second thought.

  CHAPTER FORTY THREE

  The wind almost knocked me off my feet as soon as I stepped outside and the rain was coming down so hard and fast that I couldn’t see. I could feel it seeping down the collar of my coat and my feet were already wet inside my boots but I didn’t care.

  “Who is it?” I called out to my father. “Who is loose?”

  He turned, looking surprised to see me standing there, his hair slicked down by the rain and his face as pale as a white sheet.

  “I think they all are,” he said, his voice mingled with the sound of the wind.

  For a moment panic surged through my body but I knew that I didn’t have time to fall apart. The only thing we could do now was spring into action and contain the situation, which meant catching the horses and finding somewhere to put them, even if it meant sitting up and holding them in the barn all night.

  “What’s happened?” Cat screamed from behind me.

  “The horses are loose,” I said. “Go and check the front gate. Be sure that it is closed and that it won’t blow open. The last thing we n
eed is these horses getting off the property.”

  “Okay,” she said. “But what about Phoenix? Is he okay?”

  “I don’t know,” I yelled over the wind and the rain. “Check the gate and I’ll go and see.”

  Cat stumbled off into the darkness, her own flashlight swinging back and forth as she went.

  “Now what?” I asked my father.

  I was looking to him to guide us. To tell us what to do but so far he’d just stood there looking dazed and confused.

  “Now what?” I yelled at him again.

  “We shouldn’t have come here,” he mumbled. “This was a mistake.”

  “Yeah well it’s too late for that now,” I told him. “Go and check on the horses in the barn and make sure they are okay and see if you can clear a spot where we can at least tie some of these guys up. If we can catch them,” I added.

  I’d expected my father to take charge. I wanted him to tell me what to do but he seemed as overwhelmed by it all as I had been standing in the dry kitchen while the wind and the horses swirled around us but there wasn’t time to doubt ourselves. We had horses that needed us and the only way we could be there for them was if we kept it together. There would be time to fall apart later but not now. I refused to. I had to find Bluebird.

  I stumbled in the direction of his field, the wind almost knocking me off my feet. The gate was closed and his field was fenced with wood boards. He didn’t have the electric tape like the others did. Tape that was probably no longer live after all the lightning strikes and was therefore as useless at keeping the horses in as baling twine.

  “Bluebird,” I screamed into the darkness. Nothing. “Bluebird. Arion. Hashtag,” I called out my horses names. None of them came but then again they probably couldn’t even hear me.

  I climbed over the fence and stumbled across the dark grass, tripping in puddles of water that went over my boots and spilled inside. I didn’t even care. My pony was smart. He was smarter than any horse I’d ever known. He would have gone to shelter under the tree and he would have taken his friends with him. At least that was what I was hoping and so heart in my throat I ran to the outline of the big old tree that my father had saved for me. The one he hadn’t chopped down and for a moment I saw nothing. Then lightening lit up the sky and I saw the three horses, huddled together with their tails to the wind.