Cody and I came flying around the corner, past a huge live oak, with me holding on to him for dear life, and there was Diana. Her face was white and sweaty.
Cody put on the brake, causing me to slide more tightly against his back, and squealed to a stop beside her.
“Oh my gosh, there you are!” I said. “We’ve been looking for you.”
“I’ve been looking for you!” she said.
“You look awful. Are you okay?” Because she looked so wiped out, I decided not to mention the fact that she’d left without even telling me where she was going.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said. “Maybe a little weak from running so much and not eating much.”
“Get on, and we’ll head back,” said Cody, turning his head to indicate the back of the ATV.
“Is there room for all three of us?” Diana said.
“I’ll scoot up.” I moved closer to Cody, leaving a narrow strip of seat behind me. I was sitting up so close to him, I felt my face get hot. “Cody, can you scrunch up a little bit?”
“Not much.” He inched forward, I moved up again, and Diana climbed on behind me, wrapping her arms around my waist. Her skin felt cold and clammy against mine.
“Stephanie, I can’t believe you’re riding this thing!”
“I can’t either,” I said with a laugh. I was wedged between the two of them, with barely room to breathe. “I don’t think they’re built for three people.”
“They’re not,” Cody said. “Ready?”
“Go slow!” I said.
“I’ll try.” He put the ATV into gear and took off down a path to our right.
“Where are you going?” Diana yelled to Cody, leaning forward.
“Back to the beach,” he yelled.
“This isn’t the right way,” she shouted. “We have to go the other way, to the left. That’s the way I came in.”
“No, the path goes in a wide circle,” he shouted.
“This is wrong,” she mumbled furiously, just next to my ear. Her arms tightened around me.
The path we were on did seem to be heading deeper into the shadows of the forest. The twisted branches of the trees closed in more tightly around us, and a damp coolness seeped into the air. Pine needles covered the path, muffling the sound of the engine. My heart began to thump, and I broke out in a sweat. Maybe Diana was right. Maybe we were lost.
“Cody, are you sure you know where we’re going?” I asked.
Then suddenly the path opened up, and we saw, in the middle of nowhere, a line of small shops, a café, some outdoor restrooms painted in pastels, and a sandy playground with spotty clumps of grass. All completely deserted. Not a soul was anywhere to be seen.
“What is this place?” Cody said, slowing us to a crawl.
“It seems like a deserted town, or a movie set,” I said.
“Told you it was the wrong way,” Diana said with an impatient tone.
Cody turned off the motor. “Listen.” We heard the thundering sound of many hoofbeats in the sand, and also other engines in the distance. Gradually, the engines increased in volume, coming closer.
In a few seconds, a herd of horses we hadn’t seen before, white-eyed with manes and tails flying, raced into the open area from a path on the other side, their hooves pounding the sand, their necks dark with sweat beneath their manes. Cody hit the foot brake and put one foot on the ground. As soon as the horses saw us, they veered off in a different direction, sending clouds of dust swirling.
“What’s going on?” Cody said.
My chest tightened.
Then we saw. Two guys on ATVs emerged from the woods on the path, their engines grinding at earsplitting volume, and the minute they spotted the horses, they turned and went after them.
“They’re chasing the horses!” Diana yelled.
As the riders flashed through the open area, we caught snatches of their laughter. They were both stocky and helmetless—the same two boys we’d seen yesterday, with the buzz cut and the curly, blond hair. They glanced at us as they drove by but didn’t acknowledge us at all, and soon we were looking at billows of their dust.
“Go after them! Make them stop!” Diana said.
Before I could tell them to let me off, Cody gave the ATV gas with a flick of his wrist. With a jerk that snapped my head back, we tore after them. I closed my eyes and tightened my hold on his waist, pressing my cheek against his back. Diana’s arms wrapped even more tightly around me. The ATV leaped forward, bumping over the dunes and picking up speed, and we closed the gap between us. My heart was beating so hard I could barely breathe. When our ATV was a few yards behind them, Diana yelled, “Stop chasing the horses!” But with the noise of the three vehicles, there was no way to hear.
The boys turned and glanced at us and then picked up their speed. They began to pull away, following the horses that had all raced out of sight to the left of a stand of live oaks, except two foals in the rear, struggling to keep up with their mothers.
Cody, with another flick of his wrist, upped our speed. “I’m going to cut them off,” he yelled back at me, and headed out to the right of the oaks.
I buried my face on his shoulder. As we curved around the trees, we spotted the horses on the other side, racing for a flat, marshy area just beyond us. Cody cut behind them and kept going straight, and in the next second, the other two boys emerged from the opposite side. They veered to our right to try to get by us and stay with the horses, but Cody stayed on target, aiming right at them.
“Hey!” Curly shouted. “Watch out!”
Cody didn’t flinch. He kept going, heading directly for them.
“Cody!” I screamed, burying my head in his back.
The others, at the last minute, slammed on their brakes and skidded, brakes squealing, throwing up chunks of black dirt.
“What are you doing?” Buzz Cut screamed.
Cody hit the brakes and turned the handlebars into a skid so quickly, Diana and I both went flying.
I landed in a heap on the sand, sliding along my side, but I had so much adrenaline, I hardly felt a thing. As I scrambled to my feet, Diana was already up, screaming at the boys, shaking her fist at them.
“How dare you! Stop it! Stop chasing the horses!”
“What’s wrong with you? What the hell were you doing?” yelled Curly.
“She said don’t chase the horses!” Cody said.
“Are you kidding?” said Buzz Cut. “Are you trying to kill us, you moron?”
“Stay out of our way, you stupid idiots!” yelled Curly.
When those words came out of their mouths, I felt like someone had just slapped me in the face.
“Shut up!” Diana shouted. “These horses are defenseless! They aren’t hurting you! Leave them alone!”
“You shut up!” said Buzz Cut. “Come on, Jesse. Let’s get outta here.”
My chin had begun to tremble, and I was afraid I would cry if I tried to talk.
Curly revved his engine and spun away, deliberately trying to spray dirt in our faces. Buzz Cut lurched after him.
“I’m going to report you!” Diana choked out, running after them.
I was shaking all over.
“Stephanie, are you okay?” said Cody.
“I … I’m not sure.” I looked down and saw I had scrapes and bruises on both legs, and one of my arms was bleeding. “I … I just feel like someone beat me up. What were you doing? We could have crashed.”
Cody shrugged. “Diana said to go after them.”
“Do you do everything people tell you to do?”
“Well, it worked,” said Diana. She was trying to brush sand and dirt from a scrape on her thigh. One of her elbows was bleeding. But she was looking at Cody with a new, respectful expression on her thin face.
“Luckily!” I said.
“Are you okay, Diana?” Cody asked.
“Yeah.”
“Whew.” I sat down on the ground, just to stop the trembling of my legs. “Imagine how scared those horses must have been, with people chasing them like that.”
“I’m going to report them,” Diana said, wiping dirt from her cheek. “I met a lady who’s a volunteer for the Wild Horse Fund. I’m going to call them and tell them what we saw.”
“What lady?” I said.
“A lady named Sally. She told me to let them know if I saw anyone trying to feed or ride or hurt the horses.” Diana straightened and squared her shoulders. “The horses are wild. This is where they live. They need to be protected from people.”
“Weren’t you saying yesterday that you wanted to feed and ride them?” I asked.
Since talking to Sally, Diana had changed a hundred and eighty degrees in the way she thought about the horses.
“Well, she explained some things to me,” Diana said quickly. “Anyway,” she said, changing the subject, “let’s try to remember what those guys looked like.”
“Let’s see, that one guy had blond, curly hair.” I described them as well as I could. “He had on a red T-shirt and jeans. The other had a buzz cut. One earring and a white T-shirt. Both of them were kind of heavyset.”
“The blond one was driving a black Yamaha Raptor,” Cody said. “The other guy drove an old red Mongoose, just like this one.”
“Oh, good!” Diana said with admiration. “I was looking at the guys, not the four-wheelers.”
Diana pulled a business card from her pocket. “Can I borrow a cell phone?” I handed her mine, and she punched in the number, listened for a minute, then mouthed to us, “Answering machine.” After a moment she said, “I just wanted to report that I was in the maritime forest behind the dunes and saw two boys on ATVs chasing some of the wild horses.” She then carefully described the boys as well as the ATVs and then hung up.
The names the boys had called us flashed through my mind again. And once again, Diana and Cody had been brave and stood up to them, while all I could do was try not to cry and crouch out of sight.
My phone dinged with a text message, and I opened it. “Oh my gosh.” I stared at Diana. “Daddy and Lynn are on their way home.”