Third-Time Lucky (10 page)

He was a pinto stallion, strong and proud, his head big and handsome, his shoulders broad, chest deep. Behind him came a sorrel mare, daintier, with a white blaze running the length of her face. She was leading and protecting a nervous bay foal only two or three months old, his dark mane dripping from the recent rain, his skinny legs covered in mud. None of the horses wore head collars, none were shod. Perhaps they were wild.

Kirstie glanced over her shoulder. She wanted Matt to come back to share the sight of the silent, still creatures who had seen her and come to a wary halt. But he was out of sight past the pond, so she turned back again to study the horses.

Without a sound, a tall, broad man dressed in faded denims had stepped out of the trees between her and the pinto. He blocked her way, looked down at her with a stern, suspicious gaze. His eyes were deep set in a wide, bony face, his long hair tied back, his mouth thin and displeased.

Kirstie gasped and took a step away. She bit back a shout for help, knowing it would make her look dumb and scared. But truly her body was shaking and no words came to her aid as she stared up at the hostile man.

“You lost your way.” His deep voice broke the silence. Behind him, the three horses drew nearer.

She shook her head, even though it was a statement, not a question. Kirstie’s eyes latched onto a beaded leather sheath at the man’s waist containing a glittering blade.

“Yeah, you did. The road goes nowhere.”

“We came looking for Zak Stone.” She stole another glance at his face, saw no sign of softening, only a blank wall.

“Zak Stone don’t want to be found.”

Kirstie took a deep breath. This was obviously the man himself: part Native American, a hermit who shunned all visitors. “My horse is sick.”

No reply.

“Real sick. He could die.”
Please!
she implored with her wide gray eyes. She felt her bottom lip tremble as the man made as if to turn away.

Then he paused. He narrowed his dark brown eyes. “That your horse in the trailer? The palomino?”

“Yes!” He must have been secretly watching them as they drove into the culvert, then taken a look at Lucky as Matt and she explored on foot. This flashed through Kirstie’s mind as she seized the only chance she would get to secure Zak Stone’s help.

“My brother goes to vet school.” She began slowly, then the words poured out. “He couldn’t help, so we called in our vet, Glen Woodford. It turns out there was a mix up over Lucky’s shots. We had a foal die on us last weekend; he caught an infection from a pony I rescued. We guess my horse got the same bug. Glen’s doing tests to find out. Only I didn’t wait; I decided to bring Lucky here!” Running out of breath and courage at the same time, Kirstie lowered her gaze.

“You’re right—the horse is real sick.” Zak Stone let the pinto come and stand beside him, while the sorrel and the foal hung back. The man’s face had lost its hard, blank look and turned thoughtful. “The spirit is weak in him.”

Kirstie sighed and slumped against the nearest tree, suddenly swamped by a sense of defeat.

“But the light is there,” Stone went on. “Faded, like the rainbow when the sun goes, but still within him.”

Kirstie shook her head. She was exhausted to the point of admitting defeat. “What does that mean?”

He gazed at her, impassive again. “Your horse’s life is in the balance. But he doesn’t give in. He fights.”

Then she would fight, too. Kirstie hadn’t brought Lucky through three states, across mountains and plains to end in doubt and failure.

She drew herself up, met the piercing eye of the legendary horse doctor, spoke out at last. “Save him for me!”

Not a question, a statement. No shadow of doubt.
Trust this man,
a voice said from deep inside, from her heart.

“Wise men of the old nations had a different way of looking at life,” Zak Stone told Matt and Kirstie. He’d made himself known to her and agreed to help. Kirstie had run to fetch Matt and now they were unbolting the back of the trailer and letting down the ramp.

“The British and the French came to our wide plains and scorned us, asking why we believed in Wakan Tanka, the Great Mystery. ‘Where are the facts to support you in your belief? Where is the science? What is it but old superstition and nonsense?’” Zak spoke matter-of-factly, without resentment. “So the wise men of the tribes answered the ignorant questions with another question: ‘What is faith except belief without facts?’”

Matt smiled at Kirstie. “What’s logic got to do with it, huh?”

“Yeah, right!” Fumbling at the bolts, she helped lower the ramp and stepped inside the trailer. Lucky gazed at her, almost too weak to lift his head. The veins in his thin face stood out; his eyes were dull. “What did I tell you?” she said, going right up to him and cradling his head in the crook of her arm. “This is Rainbow Mountain. Didn’t I say I knew there was someone special here who could help?”

“Bring him out, Kirstie.” Matt sounded anxious. “I’ve got a blanket out here to keep him warm. The sooner we get moving the more chance we have.”

“No. No blanket, and take your time,” Zak advised. He looked like he never hurried or raised his voice.

“Anyway, I have no choice.” She noticed that the stiffness in Lucky’s legs was worse, that the fetlock joints visible above the trailer bandages had swollen to twice their normal size. Given his weak condition, she knew that moving fast was beyond him.

So she soothed and tempted him down the ramp, talking all the while, but shocked when she brought him into the daylight to see how lifeless his golden coat had turned, how thin he’d grown over the last four or five days. His tense jaw and arched back showed what a strain it was to make even the small amount of effort involved in walking out of the trailer.

“There’s open grazing land behind the sluice box,” Zak told her, leading the way past the running water, down a grassy track between willow bushes. He’d taken in Lucky’s weakened state and said it was important for him to drink and rest for the remainder of the day.

“What else?” Kirstie asked, as step by step she encouraged Lucky along the track. Ahead she saw a green meadow surrounded by trees and rocks, a natural enclosure where her horse would be safe. But she expected more action from Zak. “When do we start to heal him?”

“We already started,” Zak replied. “We give him time to drink spring water, for the sun to shine on him, for the moon to rise and look down.”

“Yeah, but …” She wondered about herbs and old native medicines, but Zak’s stern look had returned so she fell silent. Instead of bothering him with questions, she simply led Lucky into the middle of the meadow, released him from his head collar and stepped back.

The horse doctor nodded. “The spirit of Thunder Rock will find him here,” he explained. “He’ll protect your horse from harm. Tomorrow, when Lucky is stronger, we’ll take him to the rock and talk to the spirit.”

“You want me to leave him here?” Kirstie understood, but she hesitated. Lucky was sick and confused; surely he needed her to stay close.

Zak looked at the panic in her eyes. “Trust the spirit,” he told her.

Boy, this was hard! Lucky was so weak he could hardly stand. Every breath looked like it might be his last. Yet Zak Stone was saying walk away—leave him in this strange green prison. And she had to do it. If this was going to work, she must follow exactly what the guy said.

“Kirstie?” Matt murmured. He stood on the track with Zak.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be close by,” she whispered to Lucky. “Call if you need me.”

Thunder Lodge, where Zak Stone had lived for more than thirty years, was a small, two-roomed cabin at the foot of a sheer, overhanging cliff. A stream ran by its door, feeding a small wooden water tower powered by a steam pump. There was a high woodpile in the porch and a small corral where the backwoods man would keep his pinto, his sorrel, and her foal during the long winter months.

Inside, all was kept neat and clean. A plain table stood in the center of the main room on a floor covered by a red and black patterned rug. There was a sink with one tap, a wood-burning stove, a window without drapes overlooking the stream. The room, smelling of pine and woodsmoke, had no ornaments, no personal possessions except those few pots and pans which Zak used for cooking.

He stood in the doorway with Matt and Kirstie, looking out at the setting sun. Lennie Goodman’s trailer, the only reminder of modern life, was parked by the sluice box out of sight.

“So why did you break your rule and decide to help us?” Matt asked, going to sit on the porch step, his long legs stretched out, his boot tapping a rhythm on the grass. “The woman in Bear Claw Creek said no way would you do any more work with sick horses.”

“Blame your sister.” Zak’s gaze didn’t flicker from the far horizon. “The girl would just about give up her life for that horse. Who am I to turn her away?”

“So why stop the good work in the first place?” Curiosity drove Matt on. “If you have a gift, why not use it?”

Zak shrugged. “Folks bothered me,” was all he said. Then he got to talking about the past. He said he did remember a guy from a ranch in Colorado and a pinto horse called Bandit. “Smart horse,” he murmured, nothing more.

But when Matt asked him to go further back in time to tell them about his roots, he opened up willingly. He was part Sioux Indian, he confirmed. “My great-grandfather was a Teton, a buffalo hunter. His grandfather was brother to Red Cloud. He fought at Little Bighorn with Sitting Bull.”

The names from the past impressed Kirstie and made her sad. She thought of warriors in buckskin with buffalo-horn headdresses, of treaties made and broken, of lands taken away. And she could picture Zak Stone as part of that tradition, as he gazed at the sunset with his proud head held high.

“My own grandfather was born on a reservation in Montana. He married a French Canadian woman and went fur trapping in the North.” He described in his own family history the break-up of a way of life. “When he died in a hunting accident, his wife and children moved to Montreal. My mother was brought up in the city, the youngest of seven children. I never knew my father. He and my mother didn’t marry, and he left her before I was born.”

“So what brought you back from Canada?” Kirstie asked quietly. There was nothing to disturb the conversation except the stream running over rocks and jays calling from tall pine trees on the overhanging cliff.

“There was nothing for me in Montreal. I was a kid, just drifting, picking up scraps about the past the way you do. So I drifted south, wound up in Bear Claw Creek with a beat-up motorbike and a head full of stuff about my ancestors.” Zak grinned at this distant memory of himself. “This was thirty-five years ago. I’d been over to the reservation in Montana where my grandpa was born, learned all the stuff about healing. Let’s just say I found out it was my thing.”

“So you came out here, built your cabin and stayed for thirty-five years.” Matt stood up and stretched.

“I guess I like it,” came the understated reply.

Stealing a glance at Zak, Kirstie saw that he was smiling. The first time that had happened since they met, she realized. It changed her view of him totally to see the even white teeth, the creases in the skin around his eyes. “You like it until guys like us come poking around bothering you!” she countered.

“Yeah, well.” The smile faded on a shrug. “Wait here,” he told her, disappearing inside the cabin and coming back out with a hammock made of skins and leather thongs. He thrust it into her hands without explanation.

“What’s this for?”

“You wanna sleep out in the meadow?”

“With Lucky?” She nodded eagerly. “Yeah, but—”

“I said you wouldn’t help the horse get better by sticking around?” he interrupted. “Sure, I know.”

“So why this?” She untangled the leather strips and found out how the thing worked.

“It’s not to help the horse get through the night. It’s so you don’t lie awake in the cabin fretting yourself sick.”

“Right.” She glanced excitedly at Matt, who nodded. “I get to sleep under the stars with Lucky!”

Kirstie swung in the hammock, staring up at the moon. She thought of her mom running Half Moon Ranch without her and Matt, of Lisa and the friendship bracelets they exchanged each year. Slipping her fingers through the one she wore on her wrist, she sighed.

Nearby Lucky stirred. He took a step or two toward her, his dark shape outlined by moonlight, his mane and tail showing up white in the shadows. Stiff, poor guy, and still fighting for breath, his lungs possibly damaged beyond repair. Standing in the shadows, he gave off the confused aimlessness of all animals who are sick.

Kirstie turned her head and caught the gleam of his eye. “You listen to me,” she murmured. “There’s a spirit out here taking care of you, OK? It lives in the mountain, or maybe in the air; I don’t know exactly. Something to do with Wakan Tanka.”

Lucky gazed patiently at her swinging gently in her hammock. In…out, in…out—his breath rattled.

“This spirit is a great power and for some reason it likes Zak. The way I see things, it’s given him a special gift. If Zak goes up the mountain and talks to it, he can call up the spirit and use it to heal horses who are sick.”