10

Good-Bye

Colt keeps his word and walks me home, even though Dylan tries to get him to go to baseball practice. “Ellie, listen to me!” Colt says. “If you don’t want to run away, I have another idea.”

“What?” I try to hope. I want Colt to have a real plan. I want God to pull off a real miracle.

“We let them take Dream. Then we break into their barn or pasture and take her back.”

I sigh. “And they’ll never guess who did it, right?”

“Maybe they’ll quit looking like they did last time?” Colt doesn’t sound so sure of himself.

“How are we supposed to get to Cameron in the first place? If we do get there, how are we going to get Dream back? And if we do get her back, then what? What do we do when they come looking for her? And what do you think my parents would do if—?”

“Okay, okay.” Colt kicks an invisible ball. Hard. “I didn’t say the plan was perfect.”

“I know. Thanks for trying. At least you had a plan. Everything still feels like a nightmare. I can’t stop hoping I’ll wake up. Now that’s a lousy plan.”

We turn onto our road, and Colt stops dead. “Man, they’re not wasting any time, are they?”

A black horse trailer is parked in front of my house. I freeze. Everything goes blurry. I can hear Colt’s voice, but it sounds far away.

Ethan runs up to us. His fingers are moving so fast I can’t read them.

“Slow down, Ethan,” Colt says.

Ethan signs again. They were here when I got home. Dad told Mr. Clayton he had to wait until you got here. Then Mom got home from the reptile rescue.

“What did she tell him?” Colt asks.

She told him to hold his horses, Ethan signs.

Ethan and Colt fall in on either side of me. We bump arms as we walk toward the ugly black trailer. Our footsteps echo like thunder in my ears. I stretch on my tiptoes to see if I can spot Dream inside the trailer. It looks like a prison, with bars on the side windows. But I’m too short to see anything. And tears are blurring what I do see.

“Ellie!” Dad calls. “You made it!”

Mom is planted firmly next to him. “When I found out what was going on, I was ready to lie down in front of that trailer.”

“She’d do it too!” Colt shouts.

I turn to see who Colt’s shouting to.

Annika comes walking up from the side of the house. I think she’s crying. “I’m so sorry, Ellie. I told Grayson and Uncle Martin to wait. But they thought they’d be doing you a favor by taking the horse before you got home.”

“Where are they?” I ask, my voice shaking.

Annika motions to the backyard. “They can’t catch her.”

I push past all of them until I’m at the gate. Grayson and his dad are running at opposite ends of the yard. They’re trying to corral Dream. It makes me think of the day I saw Dream galloping across the school yard with animal control chasing after her. They didn’t have any luck either.

Suddenly I’m aware that Annika is beside me. “Please tell them to stop chasing her,” I beg. “I’ll catch my horse.”

Annika climbs to the top of the fence and shouts, “Grayson! Uncle Martin! Come over here!”

Her uncle and cousin look shocked. Maybe they’ve never heard her yell before. They run over to the gate.

“That horse is crazy!” Grayson says.

His father is panting. Sweat streaks his white shirt. “Is it always this hard to catch?”

I ignore them and slip through the gate. I take a few steps into the yard and call, “Dream!”

That’s all it takes. She trots up to me. She snorts, then nods as if agreeing with me. I throw my arms around her neck. I feel like a traitor as she follows me back toward the gate. I want to give Grayson and his dad a lesson in how to catch a horse. Don’t walk or run straight at her. Don’t look her in the eyes. Act like you know she wants to see you. Love her.

But even if I could say all this without crying, they wouldn’t listen.

Grayson tosses me a lead rope. Once I snap it to Dream’s halter, he jogs over to us. “I can take it from here.”

It’s not easy, but I step aside.

Grayson stands to Dream’s left and faces forward. He folds the excess rope the way he should, not wrapping it around his hand. Somebody has at least taught him something about horses.

“Grayson’s had two years of riding lessons at the stable in Kansas City,” his father says.

I turn to look at him. “K. C. Stables?”

“Right,” he answers. “How did you know?”

I shrug. I knew because that’s where Larissa keeps her horse, Custer’s Darling Delight. Is that where Dream will have to live after the summer’s over? I can’t even think about it.

Dream lets Grayson lead her around the side of the house. They get as far as the trailer before my horse puts on the brakes.

Grayson turns and frowns at her. “Come on. We’re almost there.”

Dream stiffens her forelegs, locking her knees and digging in. She refuses to go another step.

“She won’t go in, Dad,” Grayson whines. “I can’t load her.”

“Here, I’ll do it.” Mr. Clayton takes the lead rope. He walks Dream in a big circle. As she passes by me, she turns her head and stares at me. I can almost hear my horse ask me, Why?

Warm tears choke my throat and make me cough.

The trailer’s ramp is down. Dream lets Mr. Clayton lead her right up to the back of the trailer. But my horse refuses to set foot on the ramp.

“Has this horse ever ridden in a trailer?” Mr. Clayton demands.

“Yes.” I walk up and take the rope. “Please step back.”

When he doesn’t back off, Annika shouts, “Uncle, just get out of the way!”

As soon as Mr. Clayton is out of our sight, I walk straight up the ramp and into the left side of the trailer. Dream follows me. “Good girl, Dream,” I murmur, stroking her soft forehead and her beautiful blaze.

I’m standing with her when Grayson storms up the other trailer stall. He takes the rope out of my hands. “I’ll tie her. You better go now.”

I run my hand over Dream as I back out of the dark and musty trailer.

A minute later Grayson jumps down from the trailer, causing it to shake. Then his dad slams the tailgate shut, closing in my Dream.