CHAPTER SIX

THE LEAD ROPE FEELS THICK in Lily’s hand. She keeps lengthening it and shortening it, trying to make it feel right, as she rides along the edge of the clearing.

The tracks have disappeared over the bare ledge and the thick brown pine needles. Once Lily does see a narrow trail of bruised ferns, leading downhill. She finds a horse track there. It was made by a round, neat hoof that wore a horseshoe.

The sun turns some leaves gold and others deeper green. The breeze shifts them, and bright light slides along the ground. Up the hill Beware climbs, and then she picks her way down the other side. Together she and Lily decide which way to go. Sometimes Lily sees a mark on the ground that might be a track. Sometimes Beware moves forward with her ears pricked, finding an opening among the trees that looks like a path.

But it never is a track, and there never is a path. Lily goes a long way, down and down again, until she can hear the cars on the big road.

Near the road the ground gets rough. The trees grow small and close together. Lily turns Beware around, and they pick their way back to the top of the hill.

Lily stops there to let Beware catch her breath. The hill spreads down behind her and in front of her. It drops into deep folds. Brooks and small dirt roads are hidden there. Other hills rise up beyond. They are covered with trees, and they are all quiet.

“Maybe we’ll go home,” Lily says. “Maybe Stogie’s found his way back.” She knows it won’t be true. But the hills are too big to find a horse in.

“We’ll go home a different way,” she tells Beware. “If we can find it.” There’s a trail that leads down the shoulder of the hill. Mom cleared it years ago, and Lily cleared it again this spring. But the trail is steep and narrow, so Lily doesn’t take it often. It begins somewhere here, where Gramp has been cutting trees.

Lily angles across the cleared slope. There was a hemlock, and the trail started behind it. That hemlock is gone now. There are new stumps, and new brush piles, and new growths of ferns.…

Beware bobs her nose, asking Lily for more rein. Her ears point gently forward, and she steps eagerly. Beware seems to know exactly where she’s going. She crosses the bare, confusing slope, and suddenly there is the trail, slicing down between the thick-growing saplings.

The trail is a green tunnel. The light is dim, like the light at the bottom of the sea. Lily can see the gray stubs of branches that Mom cut long ago and fresher brown stubs of branches that she’d cut herself.

There are other branches she should have cut. They arch across the path, and Lily has to keep ducking. Once she doesn’t duck far enough, and a branch smacks hard on her helmet. Once Beware swerves and bangs Lily’s knee into a tree trunk.

“Ow! Beware, slow down!” Lily leans back in the saddle. She thinks about keeping her legs against Beware’s sides. She thinks about keeping her rump down in the saddle. Riding right, the way she would ride in a show ring, helps her stop Beware from going too fast.

It feels good to ride this way. Lily is thinking about that when suddenly Beware stops.

“What?”

Beware stares down the narrow path. She blows her breath out hard.

The path ahead is dark and dim. Lily stares into the darkness, trying to see what Beware sees.

The darkness moves.

Whoosh! goes Beware’s breath, and she’s going backward, fast. Lily can hardly tell what’s happening. “Whoa!” she says, but Beware keeps backing until she bumps into a tree.

Then she stands still. Her neck is high and hard like a rock. Her ears strain forward, and the breath in her nostrils goes p-r-r! P-r-r-r!

“Easy,” Lily whispers. She has never seen Beware this frightened before. Is it a moose down there? A bear? There’s nowhere to run except straight uphill, and Lily knows that a bear can run faster than a horse uphill. But the trees grow close together here. Beware couldn’t push between them.

There’s a sound. To Lily it seems like a growl. But Beware snorts and bobs her head, as if she is suddenly less afraid.

The sound comes again. Beware flicks one ear back at Lily, almost as if she wonders what Lily thinks. Then she takes a step forward.

Lily grabs the saddle. Beware wouldn’t go toward a bear, would she?

Beware takes two steps. She stops, she snorts, she listens, and she steps again. Lily just hangs on to the front of the saddle. If Beware decides to turn and run, Lily wants to stay on top of her.

The darkness groans and moves again. Now Lily can see a long black tail, hanging in ropes.

Stogie.

He is facing downhill, and he’s on his feet. His head is high. Why doesn’t he turn? He isn’t even looking at Lily and Beware. What is wrong with him? Doesn’t he know they’re here?

Lily shifts the whip into her free hand, so she can use it if she needs to. She shortens the real rein and the lead rope rein, so she’ll be able to control Beware.

“Hey!” she yells.

Stogie’s tail swishes limply. High against the leaves, Lily sees the white of his eye. But he doesn’t move.