Purebred (5 page)

“No one knows, honey. No one knows.”

Everyone sat silently for a little while, thinking about the story Grand Alice had told, and then Christina rose.

“Thank you for the story,” she said to Grand Alice. “Thank you for the cobbler and the marshmallows, Mrs. Foley. It’s late. I have to go home.”

Louise walked her to the door and Carole tagged along behind. They waved as Christina drove her snowmobile away. Louise yawned.

“I’m tired too,” Carole admitted.

“I didn’t say I was tired,” Louise said a little crossly. She yawned again. “But I guess I am. I guess it’s time for bed.”

Carole was very ready to go to sleep. She gladly said good night to everyone in the living room, washed up, and crawled beneath the blankets of her bed in the guest room. She’d had a long day traveling and her family had given her a lot to think about.

She remembered Uncle John’s kind welcome and the love and warmth that seemed to pour from Aunt Lily. She thought of Grand Alice’s bright eyes, rich voice, and fascinating stories. Then she thought of Aunt Jessie, and the way she seemed to hold herself away from Carole, and Louise, who was friendly to Christina and Jessie but not to Carole. Worst of all, she thought about her own great-great-great-great grandfather, Jackson Washington/Foley, who had betrayed his own wife and children.

What kind of family is this? Carole thought. She had come here hoping—no, expecting—to find out great things about her past. The runaway slave in her background was supposed to have been a hero, not a traitor. The story of Jackson Foley surprised and upset her; she felt shocked and disappointed. Were all of her ancestors like him?

“There must have been plenty of good people too,” she murmured to herself. Her mind was a whirl. There was no use keeping herself awake. Tomorrow she could learn more. She settled herself more firmly into her pillows and soon, the long day catching up with her, she fell asleep.

“S
NOWBALL
,
COME HERE
,” Lisa called in what she hoped was a voice of authority.
Horses
listened to her when she spoke like that. She patted the kitchen floor beside her. Snowball looked at her, arched his back, and scampered away.

Stevie laughed. “See, I told you,” she said.

Lisa sighed. “He doesn’t change.” It was Wednesday afternoon, the day after Carole left, and she and Stevie were in the Hansons’ kitchen feeding Snowball and playing with him. Lisa tried again. “Snowball, go to Stevie,” she commanded. Snowball came up to Lisa and leaned his head against her knee. “He was certainly well named,” Lisa said, stroking his coal-black fur. “He’s as opposite as he can be.”

“I wish a name for No-Name would come as easily,” Stevie commented.

Lisa smiled sympathetically. “We’ll come up with something. I wonder how Carole’s doing,” she mused. “Too bad she missed the vacation Pony Club meeting. I thought all that stuff about bandages was really interesting, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. I’ve wrapped most of them before, except for the tail bandage. But it always helps to go over things again.” Stevie laughed. “And I don’t think I quite got the hang of the tail bandage. Poor No-Name! Did you see the look she gave me, when I was fumbling around with her tail? What a mess!”

“But at least you can braid tails. Tail bandages don’t do me any good—the braid’s so bad there’s no reason to try to protect it.”

“Braiding takes practice,” Stevie said, remembering her own messy first attempts.

“Remember how long it took you and Carole to teach me to braid Prancer’s mane for the Briarwood show? It still looked like birds’ nests—not that it mattered.” Lisa frowned. At the Briarwood show Lisa had done everything wrong, and Prancer had been disqualified.

“It was a good learning experience, Lisa Atwood,” Stevie said, imitating Max’s deep voice.

Lisa grinned sheepishly. “That’s for sure. Anyway, we’ve got to start planning Prancer’s birthday—”

The phone rang, and Stevie jumped for it. Lisa grabbed
her friend’s arm. “Stevie! That’s the Hansons’ phone! Don’t answer it!”

Stevie shook her head. “Could be Carole,” she said. “Or it could be Ed McMahon. Hello, Hanson residence.”

On the other end of the line a girl’s voice asked, “Carole?”

“I’m sorry, she isn’t here right now,” Stevie replied.

“Oh … could you please tell her that Karenna called? She’ll remember me. We lived on the same base in California. My dad had to come here to Quantico for a few days, and he brought me with him so I could see Carole. Here’s the number …” Karenna started to recite a phone number.

“Wait,” Stevie interrupted. “Carole’s not here. She’s in Minnesota for the week, visiting relatives.”

“Oh, no.” Karenna sounded very disappointed. “I would have called her before I came, but I lost her phone number. I guess I should have called. Yuck. I don’t know what I’ll do this week if Carole’s gone. Well, thanks anyway.”

“Wait!” Stevie said. Since she answered Carole’s phone, she felt as if she were a little bit responsible for the consequences. This Karenna was Carole’s friend, and she would be lonely spending the week by herself. “Do you like horses?” Stevie asked.

“Do I? Sure! Carole and I used to take lessons together. I ride all the time.”

“Why don’t you come see Pine Hollow? That’s the stable
where we ride. I’m Stevie Lake, Carole’s friend. Lisa Atwood and I could introduce you to Carole’s horse, Starlight.”

Karenna seemed a little surprised. “Okay,” she said after a pause. “Okay, I guess I could. I’d love to see Carole’s horse.” They arranged to meet at Pine Hollow on Friday, and Stevie hung up the phone.

“I can’t believe you just did that,” Lisa said. “First you answer someone else’s phone, then you invite someone else’s friend, out of the blue, to come to Pine Hollow.”

“She’s not someone else’s friend, she’s Carole’s friend. You know Carole would want us to be nice to her. Besides,” said Stevie, grinning mischievously, “I
had
to answer the phone. It could have been Ed McMahon. We could have been the lucky winners of ten million dollars in the fantastic, fabulous sweepstakes giveaway.…”

Lisa had to laugh. At least part of what Stevie said made sense. They should be hospitable to Carole’s friend.

J
UST AFTER BREAKFAST
in Minnesota, Louise and Aunt Jessie disappeared into Jessie’s darkroom. Carole didn’t mind. The night before, Christina had offered to take her on a snowmobile tour of the area today, and Carole had happily accepted.

The day was beautiful and the sun shone so brightly on the white snow that it made Carole’s eyes ache. Once she was on the snowmobile the rest of her ached, too, from
cold. Even though she’d worn a pair of Aunt Lily’s windproof ski pants, her parka, boots, hat, scarf, and heavy gloves, the wind seemed to cut right through her. Still, she thought as she held on tightly to Christina, she wouldn’t have missed this for anything.

The pine trees were laden with snow. Snowdrifts curved in and out around the trees, and Christina drove the snowmobile right through them. They saw rabbits and deer tracks, a frozen waterfall, and hundreds and hundreds of trees. They also saw many more snowmobiles, most of them driving down the country roads.

“Are they out sight-seeing, like us?” she shouted to Christina above the engine’s roar.

“What? No, they’re probably going into town for something. People use these for transportation around here, Carole. Cars and trucks get stuck in the snow. The wind’s always blowing—the roads can drift shut pretty quickly.”

Carole was impressed. She’d always thought of snowmobiles as fun toys—like motorbikes, but for winter.

“Want to drive?” Christina offered.

“Yes!”

Christina stopped the snowmobile and switched places with Carole. She showed Carole how to start, stop, and turn, and Carole drove them back to the Foleys’ farm.

“Thank you,” Carole called, waving as Christina headed home. She herself headed for the kitchen. She thought she
could smell lunch cooking, and she was hungry. Sure enough, her father stood by the stove stirring a pot of soup.

“Boy, does that smell good!” Carole plopped herself on a kitchen chair and began to unwrap her layers of clothing. “I had the best morning, Dad!”

“I can see that,” her father replied. “Bright eyes, roses on your cheeks …”

“Roses from the cold. You can’t believe how cold it is out there. And Christina says this isn’t even cold, really, for this time of year—and it’ll be like this until spring.” Colonel Hanson ladled the soup into bowls and sat down next to her. Carole began to eat.

“What I really find interesting,” she said, between mouthfuls, “is how everyone here arranges things differently because of the harsh weather—like the covered walkways between the houses.…”

Aunt Jessie and Louise came in from the darkroom and began washing up for lunch. Carole waved to them and continued. “And the snowmobiles, they’re actually real transportation. We saw people driving to town to do their grocery shopping. Christina let me drive her snowmobile and I really liked it, but not as much as I’ll like the ride this afternoon.” Louise and Christina had promised to take her on another tour—on horseback, this time.

Aunt Jessie turned from the sink. “I’m sure to a delicate child like you, coming here from way down South is something of a novelty,” she said with a slightly sarcastic sneer.
“You don’t know even what winter is, or what it means to be up here in wilderness. Up here, the roads aren’t always passable, and the phones don’t always work. We have to take care of ourselves. You wouldn’t know how to do that. You’d better let Louise take care of you on your ride.”

There was a small silence. Carole said nothing, even though she felt stung by Jessie’s rude words. She hadn’t been raised here; she didn’t know about winter, but she did know she could take care of herself.

What was Aunt Jessie’s problem? Didn’t she care that Carole was her niece, the daughter of her own sister?

You’re just like Jackson Foley. He didn’t care about his family either. Carole directed the angry thought at her aunt, and for a moment felt better. She wasn’t rude enough to say it out loud, but she could think just as mean as Jessie could.

Then she had a second thought—if bloodlines were true, and Jessie was a rascal, what did that say about Carole herself? Here she was now, acting just like Jessie. She didn’t feel better anymore.

She got up from the table and rinsed her bowl and spoon at the sink. She’d go riding. She wouldn’t think about her family.

Carole dressed for the ride in clothing that Jessie and Louise loaned her.

“Your parka’s fine,” Louise said. “Forget breeches; they’re too thin. Wear the snowpants Mom gave you this
morning. And here”—she handed Carole a tube of soft knit fabric—“this is a gaiter.” The gaiter slipped over Carole’s head and fit snugly around her face and neck.

“A regular scarf could get caught on the saddle if you were thrown,” Louise explained. “And the gaiter covers your face better, anyway.” Next came a black padded cloth on an elastic band. Louise put it on Carole’s head so that the padding covered both ears and the elastic encircled her forehead. “Like earmuffs, but you can still wear your riding helmet,” Louise explained. Finally she gave Carole a pair of silk glove liners, a heavy insulated pair of riding gloves, and the strangest riding boots that Carole had ever seen.

They were black, knee-high, and had a foot shaped like a regular boot’s, but the sides were made of thick, padded windproof cloth. “Insulated,” said Louise. “Regular snow boots won’t fit in a stirrup, but you’d freeze your feet in regular riding boots. Ready?”

Carole nodded. She was beginning to feel like a mummy.

Nothing, however, made her feel more normal than riding. The back of a horse—any horse—was where Carole always felt happiest, and riding Kismet, Jessie’s spirited Arabian mare, was a particular joy. Kismet tossed her beautiful head and pranced through the snowdrifts. Beside her, Louise and Jiminy Cricket moved into a gorgeous, long-striding trot, while Christina and Spice followed her, and Ginger, Louise’s dog, romped along behind.

Carole felt as if she were seeing everything new. Even though she and Christina had snowmobiled over some of the exact same land that morning, now with the horses she felt much closer to the peaceful, frozen wilderness. This must be how the early settlers felt, she thought.

“It’s magnificent!” she shouted. She’d already learned that, with ears and mouths so heavily covered, she would have to yell in order to be heard.

“The best part’s just ahead!” Louise replied.

They followed a cross-country ski track through a stand of tall white pines. Suddenly the track opened onto a beautiful snow-and-ice-covered lake, and they pulled their horses to a halt.

There was no beach, like Carole was used to seeing in Virginia. Instead, the forest ended abruptly in favor of large, snow-covered rocks, which just as abruptly ended at the edge of the lake. To their left a huge pile of rocks jutted dramatically into the sky high above the surface of the lake. Carole caught her breath—it was wild and spellbindingly beautiful.

Louise pulled her gaiter down to her chin. “That’s Lover’s Point,” she said. “Sometimes in the summer we climb up there, but we won’t try it today.”