Abandoned (9 page)

Aunt April laughed. “But it’s Trooper
who steals the show. I don’t blame you. I loved the horse I had as
a girl with all my heart.”

“You had a horse? What was he like?

“He was a she, actually. Her name was
Comanche and she was the most beautiful horse in the world, at
least to me. She was a pinto, a bay and white tobiano pinto, to be
precise.”

“What’s tobiano?”

“It just means she was white with brown
spots, instead of brown with white spots. The one with white spots
is called an overo.”

“Weird.”

“Anyway, she was the fastest horse in
the neighborhood. She was never beaten in a race. Not once. And she
was the best barrel racer I ever owned.”

“You used to be a barrel racer, Aunt
April? Wow!”

The ring of the phone interrupted their
conversation.

“Can you get that Lauren?” her Aunt
asked. “My hands are all sticky.”

“Sure.” She picked up the receiver.
“Hello?”

“Hey, Kiddo. How’re you doing?”

“Hi, Dad, I’m doing great,” answered
Lauren. “Do you have time to talk today or do you have to rush
off.”

He chuckled. “I have time. And I’m sorry
I’ve been gone so much. I’ll explain everything when I see you. I
have good news for you.”

“Yeah?” prompted Lauren.

“I’m coming out to see you right away.
I’ll be leaving in the morning.”

“That’s awesome, Dad! I can show you
Trooper then. Maybe Charity will let you ride Orion and we can go
out together. I found a hidden road today that we could explore.
It’s so cool. Oh, Dad, are you bringing Sweetie? She’d love
it.”

Lauren’s dad was laughing. “I don’t know
when I’ve heard anyone so excited to see me. You always do my heart
good. And of course, I’ll bring Sweetie. I’ll be driving out, so
she can ride in back. I hope she doesn’t get carsick this
time.”

“Me too,” said Lauren. “Hey, why are you
coming out now anyway? What about your job? What about the
stalker?”

“I’m taking some time off work. I
couldn’t stand being away from my favorite girl any longer,” he
said, ignoring her second question.

“But what about the stalker?” Lauren
persisted.

“We can talk about that when I get
there, okay?”

“So you’ve found something out,”
concluded Lauren. “Is that why you’re coming out early?”

Her dad laughed again. “You are
persistent, aren’t you? Yes, the mystery is solved, but I’d rather
tell you about it face-to-face, okay? Do you think you can wait
until tomorrow evening? I should get there about six.”

Lauren grimaced. “I guess I can wait,”
she said slowly. “But it’ll be hard. Why can’t you tell me
now?”

“It’ll take too much time to explain and
besides, this way you’ll have more time to get Trooper all fancied
up.”

“Yeah. Hey, you should have seen him
today, Dad. He looked awesome.” Lauren went on to tell him about
the visit to the tack store and her purchases. She tried to
describe how beautiful Trooper was, but knew her words didn’t do
him justice. “You’ll just have to see him, Dad,” she finally
concluded.

“I’ll bring my camera too,” he offered.
“Now how about you let me talk to your Aunt April for a minute,
Kiddo. I have to let her know to expect us.”

“Us?”

“Uh, Sweetie and me.”

“Okay, Dad. I can’t wait to see you.
Bye.”

Lauren held the receiver while Aunt
April washed her hands and dried them. When she took the phone and
started talking, Lauren went back to peeling potatoes.

Aunt April took the receiver from her
ear. “Lauren?” she asked. “Would you mind running out to the cellar
and getting me a couple jars of peaches for dessert?”

“Sure,” said Lauren. She walked out the
back door and slipped on her shoes that she’d left on the porch.
The cellar was the old fashioned kind, built into a hillside near
the house.

“Okay, Alan. She’s gone,” she heard Aunt
April’s voice come from the kitchen. The door was still open a
crack and Aunt April’s voice was clear. Knowing she probably
shouldn’t, Lauren moved a little closer to the opening.

“What?” Aunt April’s voice was shocked.
“It
is
her then.”

The
stalker,
thought Lauren.
I
shouldn’t be listening. I should wait until Dad tells me
himself.
Slowly she backed away from the door, trying not to
make the boards squeak.

“Did Beth explain herself? About where
she’s been all these years?”

For a moment, Lauren couldn’t move.
Couldn’t breathe.
Beth. The person
in the blue car was named Beth. Was it a coincidence? A horrible,
terrible coincidence?
She tried to move her feet from where
they were rooted to the porch.

“I thought we’d never see her again.”
Aunt April’s voice floated from the crack in the door. “Poor
Lauren. She thinks…”

And Lauren ran, her thoughts tearing
through her head like a herd of wild, crazed horses.
The stalker is my mom! She wasn’t killed in that
car accident. This is even worse than her being dead. She left us
because she wanted to! She abandoned us!

Somehow, Lauren found herself in the
barn. Trooper threw his head into the air, startled, when she
rocketed into his stall, his halter in her hands. Within seconds,
the halter was on his head. She led him from the barn and ran to
the gate. She undid the special latch and flung it into the grass.
Lauren barely had the presence of mind to close the gate behind
her. Then she led Trooper to the woodshed, to the chopping block.
She jumped from the block onto his back, and dug her heels into his
side. As she trotted Trooper down the driveway, she heard the back
door bang open and Aunt April call to her to wait.

Automatically, Lauren pulled back on the
lead rope. But then she leaned forward and her heels dug into
Trooper’s side.

I can’t talk to her! I can’t talk to
anyone about this. Not now. I need to think. How could my mom
betray me like this? And does Dad just think I’ll accept her back,
after she walked out? Is that what he really meant by ‘us’? That
not just him and Sweetie are coming to Misty Lake? Is he bringing
her here to try to make up with me?

Lauren’s hands shook with disbelief and
anger as she gripped Trooper’s mane. When they reached the road,
she urged him into a gallop. She had to get away. Far, far away.
When Trooper reached the hidden road they had explored that day, he
turned into the forest. Lauren didn’t even try to stop him. It was
the perfect place to go. Charity and Kjerstina would find her if
she went to the spring or down any of the other trails they had
ridden together.

After they were on the old road, Lauren
pulled Trooper to a walk. No one would find her now. The gelding
wove easily through the bushes and saplings on the road and Lauren
became lost in her thoughts. Why would a mother leave her daughter?
Her family? Lauren thought of the last time she had seen her,
laughing and telling them not to fuss over her so much in the
hospital. Then her mind turned to the time her dad told Lauren her
mother was dead.

He must have known she wasn’t. He was
lying to me, she realized and for the first time, tears prickled
her eyes. Why did he tell me she was dead? Did he do something to
make her leave? But he only ever took care of her, just like he
does with me. They were always laughing. They were happy. Weren’t
they? He should have told me the truth about her!

When Trooper came to an abrupt stop,
Lauren jerked out of her thoughts. She watched, dazed, as he bumped
an old wooden gate on the road with his nose. The gate fell with a
crash and Trooper picked his way over it. Lauren was just about to
pull him to a stop, when they rounded a corner.

A dilapidated house stood in front of
them. It looked like an old farmhouse. A run-down barn leaned
precariously on the other side of the overgrown yard. Abandoned,
just like her. There was no sound in the stable yard, no movement.
Not even the flutter of leaves or a breath of wind. Not the
smallest peep of a bird.

“Where are we, Trooper?” Lauren
whispered as if afraid to stir something inside the old house or
barn. “Where on earth have you brought me?”

Trooper tossed his head and
tried to step forward into the weed choked yard. “Whoa,” said
Lauren and held him back. She shivered in spite of the warmth of
the early evening.

The sides of the house were so weathered
they were almost black and the windows were dark with grime. Some
of the glass was broken. Lauren couldn’t have imagined a place more
spooky and decrepit if she tried. Her eyes explored the barn across
the yard. There was something even creepier about the barn,
something indefinable. It was dark like the house, but it seemed
scarier, especially in the unnatural stillness. Lauren listened
again for a noise – any noise, but there was nothing. When Trooper
took another step forward, she pulled him back again. He whinnied
softly to her and turned his head.

“What is it, Trooper?” she asked. “Why
did you want to come here so much?”

Trooper whinnied again and stepped
forward. This time Lauren let him walk toward the barn. He wove
through the saplings and brush to stand in front of the double
doors. Lauren reined him to a stop and looked up at the huge
building. A black opening yawned above her. “That must be a hay
loft,” she said in a voice still shaking with emotion. “It’s an old
farm. I wonder what happened to the people who lived here. Why they
left?”

She looked behind her at the house. She
could use the porch to stand on when she wanted to jump onto
Trooper’s back. She slipped off the horse, then reached to touch
his warm side, drawing comfort from his solid presence. The barn
door was barred. Lauren was surprised, when she pulled up on the
board attached to the door on her left that it lifted so easily
from the bracket on the right. She pulled the left door back until
it hit a small tree. Trooper took a step forward and pushed his
head through the door, but Lauren pulled him back.

“You just wait here, buddy,” she said.
“I’m going to explore a bit.” She tied him to the tree and turned
back to the opening. As she passed through, she pushed the right
side of the double door open. It too only opened a few feet before
hitting a thick wild rose bush. But it was enough to let the light
in. Late sunshine spilled across the dusty board floor.

The barn was huge. Ten stalls lined the
back wall and all the stall doors were firmly closed except one. To
Lauren’s right, at the end of the building, she could see a chicken
coop and to her left was a large pen with a high wire fence.

Lauren walked to the right first,
looking around her as she went. Pieces of farm machinery rusted
against the wall opposite the stalls. She thought it was strange
that they were parked so neatly and spaced so evenly along the
wall.

Someone
must have loved this place
, she thought.
It looks like they took good care of it before they
left. I wonder why they didn’t sell their stuff before they went. I
bet it was worth a lot of money back then.

Lauren came to the chicken coop at the
end of the barn and pulled the door open. The rusty hinges
protested loudly in the stillness and dust flew from the bottom of
the door as it scraped across the barn floor.

It was dark inside the chicken coop. All
the windows to the outside were shuttered. Lauren picked her way to
the first window, unlatched it and pulled the shutters open. Light
and fresh air billowed through the wire covering the window and
Lauren looked around the abandoned enclosure.

There’s
just a whole bunch of dust and feathers in here,
she
thought.
Wait, what’s
this?

She scuffed a pile of feathers with her
foot and felt something solid. She jumped back against the wall,
bumping one of the shutters with her shoulder. It banged shut,
darkening the chicken coop.

It’s a
dead chicken
, Lauren realized. She put her hand over her
mouth and stared into the shadows.
All those feathery lumps are dead chickens! There must be
twenty or thirty. Or more.

“Oh god,” Lauren whispered and leaped
between the piles of feathers and out the door. She slammed it
behind her.

Were they
sick?
she wondered.
The poor,
poor things.
Her next thought made her cringe.
What if there are more dead animals in the
barn?
A prickle of revulsion crawled up her spine.

Fearing the worst, Lauren walked toward
the closest stall, the one with the open door. To her relief, it
was empty. But inside the second stall lay the bones of a large
animal. They were picked clean and tumbled in disarray over the
dirty yellow straw. Lauren covered her mouth again and hurried
along the row of stalls. All the other stalls were filled with the
bones of dead animals. The skeleton in the last stall looked a bit
different than the others. When Lauren noticed the iron shoes on
the hooves, she realized it was a horse.