Wake now!
Rusty’s thought sliced through my dream like the sword I was holding – in my dream, of course. I’d been about to use it to stab the lock on the pirate’s chest I’d dug up – again, in my dream. Even more exciting, I knew the chest contained my mom’s secret, a secret that wasn’t only in my dreams, unfortunately. Her mysterious past was all too real, all too irritating, and, no matter how hard I probed, all too unknown.
However, with Rusty, my wonderful gray gelding, mind-shouting in my head, the sword and chest and almost-revealed secret popped into oblivion. I opened my eyes to see early morning light creeping into my bedroom.
Intruder, thought Rusty, a little calmer now that he knew I was listening. His agitation felt like a million crickets shrilling all at once, and yes, in case you haven’t guessed yet, I can feel horse thoughts and emotions. Especially Rusty’s. He’s the one who taught me how to use my gift – or my curse. I still haven’t decided which it is.
Intruder? Who? I asked as I pulled on my jeans. My big toe caught in the hole in the knee and I lurched amongst my scattered clothes and books as I tried to free myself.
Rusty didn’t waste time with words. He sent me an image: a muscular palomino stallion trotting across the unfenced part of our meadow, heading straight toward Rusty, Cocoa, and Twilight’s pasture.
Finally into my jeans, I raced to my window. Yeah, there he was, all gold and ivory in the raw light, high-stepping toward our three horses and looking like one of my dreams turned real.
I reached out with my mind, careful to just listen and not speak. I could mind-talk to him, but I didn’t want to risk scaring him. A bad experience in the past had taught me a horrifying lesson, and it had been a major relief to eventually find that the mustang I’d terrified with my mind-greeting had only been temporarily injured and not killed. But this is no time for side stories.
The palomino’s intent told me he wasn’t really trotting toward our three horses. He was trotting toward one and only one: Cocoa, my mom’s chocolate brown mare. Uh-oh!
I switched my radar to Cocoa to find exactly what I’d expected. She was interested in him only because this was something new in her tame little world and she was totally unaware of any danger whatsoever. She’s kind of clueless, to say the least. She wasn’t even alarmed enough to follow Rusty and Twilight, my almost-two-year-old filly, as they did the smart thing and moved away from the fence.
I didn’t bother changing my pajama top for a T-shirt. In seconds, the wild stallion would reach Cocoa and then he’d try to break down the fence to steal her away.
“Mom!” I yelled as I crossed the living room section of our small cabin. A muffled groan came from her bedroom. “There’s a wild stallion out here, trying to steal Cocoa!”
“What?” She sounded all croaky. “What did you say, Evy?”
I didn’t bother answering. There was no time. One of us had to get out there and frighten him off before he damaged the fence or Cocoa or himself.
“Where’s Loonie?”
Good question. Where was our ancient German Shepherd? Why wasn’t she barking? Didn’t she see him?
My question was answered a moment later when I almost tripped over her, curled up on the welcome mat on the porch, fast asleep and snoring. I didn’t bother calling her to follow me. There was no point now. I’d do her job for her.
I leapt down the stairs and ran toward the mustang, waving my arms. The stallion was so focused on Cocoa that he didn’t see me. He was at the fence now, straining into it and stretching over with his long, gleaming neck. Cocoa stood two yards away, looking at him curiously as he snuffled to her. As I raced toward them, he reached even farther, his lips quivering just inches from her shoulder – and then his teeth snapped together.
His nip missed but obviously Cocoa didn’t like his intentions. She laid her ears back and trotted snootily away. The stallion reared and an ear-splitting neigh rent the air, then he charged along the fence, fire flashing in his eyes as he followed Cocoa toward the barn. Toward me.
Closer. Closer.
“Hey!”
He didn’t even hesitate. I waved my arms as he bore down on me.
“HEY!”
Shock reverberated through my body as he finally noticed the horrible human right in front of him. His panic made my own heart sound like a bass drum in my head. Then he spun away and sprinted for the protection of the trees, looking like a contender for the Kentucky Derby.
I watched him go with both relief and dismay. Relief, because both Cocoa and I were safe; me from being trampled and Cocoa from being abducted. And dismay for two reasons: first, he was simply gorgeous. I could’ve watched him prance about for hours. Second, his disappointment felt like someone jerking on a string looped through my heart. The poor guy thought he’d finally found a partner – until the loud, nasty human appeared from nowhere and ruined everything.
As he vanished into the forest, another of his thoughts struck me full force. He’d be back. He wasn’t about to give up on the love of his life so easily.
Great. Now I’d have to start keeping Cocoa and Twilight in the barn at night. Cocoa wouldn’t care too much, but Twilight? She was another matter. She wouldn’t just hate being stuck in the barn. She’d loathe it. Detest it. Abhor it. The problem was that Twilight still didn’t consider herself a domestic horse; she still felt like she was just hanging out with us for a while. If I forced her to sleep inside during the beautiful summer nights, she might decide to rejoin her wild herd.
Much belated, Loonie barked, then ranged around me to where the stallion had spun away. Her nose dropped to the ground and she sniffed fervently, her tail stretched straight behind her.
Cocoa wandered back to the fence and stared at the forest where the stallion had disappeared. Her huge groaning sigh gusted through the air. I reached out to touch her mind again. Bored. Like I needed to read her mind to know that. At least all the stallion had been was a diversion to her. Thank goodness. It would really be a tough situation if she wanted to be stolen away as much as he wanted to steal her.
“What’s happening, Evy?” Mom called from the porch.
“There was a mustang stallion after Cocoa,” I answered, walking back to the cabin.
“Is she okay?” Mom sounded ultra worried.
“Yeah, she’s fine.” Mom studied me like she was sure I was leaving out part of the story – and as you may have guessed, I was. She doesn’t know about my ability to understand horses. No one does, except for one guy, Charlie, the Wild Horse Ranger, who guessed because of some Native American legend.
Not that I didn’t try to tell her. I did, when I was little, and I’m still suffering from that single attempt. Whenever she notices anything about me that she thinks isn’t 100% normal, she questions me and questions me. I don’t see why she even worries – it’s not like she’s normal, with her hermit life and her mysterious past. I’d tell you more about that, but I can’t. That’s all I know, except that her self-induced exile to the wilderness has something to do with me. You’d think she'd tell me, since I have something to do with it, but nooo…
Mom yawned and headed back inside as Loonie trotted past me to the porch and wagged her tail at Mom beseechingly. Obviously the promise of breakfast meant more to her than the investigation of the mustang’s presence.
A loud bawl erupted behind me. Tumpoo. He’d heard the commotion and wanted out of his stall now! Moose are so impatient. Tumpoo was only a few months old, but talk about demanding. You’d think he’d be a little more considerate since I saved his life last spring. I’d found him huddled beside his poor dead mother, and with Rusty and Twilight’s help had brought him home. It took a long time and a lot of work, but eventually Mom, my best friend Kestrel, and I got him to eat. Now he eats constantly, and is getting bigger and stronger everyday – and lately he’s decided that he’s a comedian. I have to watch him every second or he’ll play some practical joke, like climbing into the water trough and splashing the horses, or knocking over the woodpile, or tromping through Mom’s vegetable garden, or chewing on the clean laundry hanging on the clothesline. It would be funny, except who has to clean up after him and fix all the things he destroys? You guessed it. Me.
Hoping to save myself later chores, I detoured into the barn and got Tumpoo’s cracked corn ready, then put it outside in front of the barn doors, all to the beat of Tumpoo drumming on his enclosure. I hurried back to open his door before he could hurt himself or his stall, and a brown whirlwind shoved past me. He raced for the corn and dove headfirst into his breakfast, not looking up until he’d swallowed at least four times. You’d think I was starving him or something.
I meandered over to him and patted his glossy coat. Even though he was a pest, I was proud of him. He was healthy and happy, and was only just starting to get aggressive, which is actually normal for moose. They have to be belligerent to survive in this hard country, and Tumpoo was going to be one great survivor. His front-legged strike was already formidable. Plato and Socrates, our black and white barn cats with mismatched blue and green eyes, scrambled to high ground whenever they saw him now.
“Good boy, Tumpoo,” I murmured. He narrowed his eyes at me as if I was threatening to eat his corn. “We’ll go get you some fresh sticks today and try again with the moose food, okay?” His heap of willow twigs – normal moose fare – was drying up and becoming unpalatable. Not that I had any hope he’d eat them if they were fresh. Basically, I was a failure as a moose mother; I couldn’t even teach my baby how to eat the right stuff.
“Evy! Breakfast!”
I gave Tumpoo a final pat and looked back at the horses. They were grazing serenely. My work here was done, at least for a while. “Stay out of trouble,” I said to Tumpoo and then hurried toward the cabin.
Mom didn’t waste any time. “We have to start keeping the mares in the barn at night,” she said as soon as I walked inside.
I kept my mouth shut, not because I don’t like a good argument, but because there was only one thing to add to the discussion and I didn’t want to bring it up: Loonie. She used to be good at keeping wild animals away, but for the last couple of months she’d been failing in her guard dog duties. It was like she didn’t hear intruders. And sometimes, if I was far away, she didn’t even hear me. But I couldn’t bear to talk about how my oldest friend might be going deaf.
As if she expected me to argue about Twilight, Mom continued, “She stayed inside at night during the winter. This is no different from then.”
“It’s totally different. Daylight that lasts until late and starts again three or four hours later would make any horse hate to be inside, except maybe Cocoa,” I argued, but with a tone so mellow and conversational that Mom looked over at me with surprise. She flipped a fresh pancake out of the pan and onto a plate, then handed me the plate. My stomach rumbled as I sat at the table. “Thanks, Mom. It smells awesome.”
She waited, hands on hips, for me to say more, but I just cut my pancake into square bites. How could I add that my beloved dog was getting old? It felt too awful to even think about. And besides, I wondered if Mom had had the same unwelcome realization about Loonie that I had, and the same wish that it wasn’t true. Why else would she stop complaining about the deer and rabbit damage done to her vegetable garden?
A loud thud made me jump and syrup splattered across the table. The bang came again and this time I noticed the front door shaking.
“Tumpoo,” I had time to say before Mom rushed past me with the broom in her hands. She flung the door open and shoved the straw end toward Tumpoo’s nose. The poor calf’s eyes almost popped out of his head as he leapt back to avoid the whirling dervish that was my mother. His legs tangled together, but somehow he made it down the stairs, and then he collected himself enough that he could gallop toward the barn in that ungainly, hilarious way that moose run.
Mom shut the door quietly and hurried back to the kitchen area, as if ashamed of her outburst. I kept a straight face as I concentrated on my food, but I couldn’t stop from laughing on the inside – until I thought of my homework, that is. I was getting behind again on my home schooling, and I’d promised Mom yesterday that I’d finish my latest assignment before Kestrel arrived today. Her once-a-week visit in the summer months is a big deal, because no one else ever comes to visit us. Okay, not quite true. Edward, Mom’s agent, comes two times a year. And Kestrel’s parents show up every month or so. And Charlie, the Wild Horse Ranger I mentioned earlier, drops in whenever he’s in the area. But seriously, that’s it. Ever.
I’d just put the first heavenly bite of apple cinnamon pancakes with butter and maple syrup into my mouth, when the all-too-familiar rumbling came from outside. The avalanche continued for fifteen long seconds, which was just long enough for all the wood to tumble from the woodpile.
“You better go see if he’s okay,” Mom said, her voice resigned.
I didn’t feel nearly so resigned as I stomped toward the door. It was the second time this week that Tumpoo had knocked over the woodpile! My muscles were just starting to recover from the last time I’d picked up and stacked the two cords of wood. That moose better be long gone by the time I got out there. I even thought of grabbing Mom’s broom.
Tumpoo wasn’t gone. He was actually wading into the thickest of the firewood, sniffing and nibbling bark here and there. And he wasn’t alone. He had two accomplices: Loonie, who was watching, and Twilight, who was leading the way into the jumble of wood. The second Loonie saw me, a guilty look flashed into her honey-brown eyes and she started to bark at the two scoundrels.
“Give it a rest, Loonie,” I said – a little harshly, I admit. I was just ticked that she didn’t bark at Tumpoo and his partner-in-crime before they tumbled the pile.
How did you get out? I mind-asked Twilight, irritably.
A wave of amusement washed over me as she turned to face me, her eyes bright with humor.
Not funny! I stomped my foot to further make my point. I have to fix. No ride until I fix.
This sobered her immediately. She pinned her ears and bit Tumpoo lightly on the top of his neck. His fault.
You should have stopped him.
She just snorted at me, shook her mane, then picked her way out of the jumble. Obviously, she didn’t want to talk to me anymore. I watched her trot toward the barn, Tumpoo bawling and kicking as he hurried after her. She looked back and slowed at one point, giving him a chance to catch up. Brat One and Brat Two were becoming friends – great. My work would never be done now.
I looked for Loonie, thinking she’d stay to keep me company as I cleaned up their mischief, but no, she was gone. I kicked a log, and then hopped around a bit, holding my foot. The pain faded little by little, and when I could finally think of something other than my foot, I sat on the chopping block, leaned my chin on my fists, and stared at the jumble of wood. With Tumpoo’s moose behavior – which he couldn’t help – and Loonie’s age – which she couldn’t help either – combined with Twilight’s odd sense of humor – which she could totally control if she wanted – I was close to the end of my rope. At that moment, I never wanted to see their cute little animal faces again.
“Honey, come inside and finish eating.” Mom’s voice came through the window. “I’ll help you clean up.”
My frustration released in a rush of air. At least someone cared and understood. Well, Rusty understood and cared too, but he didn’t have any hands to help me pick up wood.
Remembering Mom and Rusty’s support, I felt a bit better – but only a bit. I needed to fix this situation, which meant figuring out some way to train Twilight and even Tumpoo, a wild moose. It seemed impossible.
But not as impossible as figuring out some way to help Loonie. Old was just old. Deaf was just deaf. There was no way to fix that.