Autumn Trail (10 page)

She mentioned this to her friends. “Good,” Stevie said. “That must mean that the medicine is working and he’s getting better.”

“I hope so,” Carole said, although Lisa thought she
didn’t sound quite as certain as Stevie did. “Anyway, I think we can give him another dose now.”

“Okay, let’s do it,” Stevie said briskly. “Pepper, you’ll be better in no time, now that the world-famous Saddle Club medical team is on your case.”

Lisa found herself smiling despite her worry. Things really didn’t seem so gloomy now that she’d told her friends about Pepper. She wished now that she had confided in them earlier. She should have known they’d see things the same way she did. And she knew that if anybody could help Pepper, it was The Saddle Club. They’d solved lots of seemingly hopeless problems before.

Lisa administered Pepper’s medicine, and then all three girls stayed with him for a while. As they petted him and talked to him, he seemed to perk up.

“Either his medicine is working, or he’s just enjoying all this attention,” Carole said as Pepper lifted his head to nuzzle her curly black hair.

“Probably both,” Stevie decided. “See, that proves it. If he keeps taking that medicine for a while, he’ll get better. Judy was just being pessimistic. She doesn’t realize how brave and strong Pepper really is, and how much he has to live for.”

“You’re right,” Lisa said. And looking at Pepper, she believed that Stevie really could be right. The old horse looked much better than he had a few minutes ago, although he still seemed tired.

“Come on,” Carole said, giving Pepper a last pat on
the neck before leaving his stall. “We’d better go help Veronica finish up with Garnet. It’s getting late.”

Stevie and Lisa said good-bye to Pepper and followed Carole out of the stall. As they walked away, Lisa glanced back to see Pepper’s head peering down the corridor after them. Lisa smiled.

L
ISA AWOKE BEFORE
dawn. She knew she had been having a bad dream, and that Pepper had been in it. She didn’t recall much else about the dream, except that Pepper had been in trouble and she had been helpless to do anything for him. She couldn’t remember any details very clearly. All she knew was that she had been so worried about Pepper that it had made her wake up.

She glanced at the glowing green numbers on her clock radio and groaned. It was much too early even to think about getting up. She rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.

It was no use. She couldn’t get Pepper out of her mind. She wasn’t sure why she was so worried, since he had seemed to be feeling a little better the day before when she and her friends had been with him. Usually
Lisa was too sensible to let herself be bothered by bad dreams, but there had been something in this one that had scared her more than the monsters and goblins she had sometimes dreamed about when she was younger, although she couldn’t quite remember what it was.

She got up and quickly pulled on the jeans and sweater she’d worn the day before, trying not to wake Stevie, who was sound asleep in the other half of the four-poster bed. Even with the heat on, it was chilly in the house at this hour, and the wide wooden floorboards in Lisa’s room felt like ice beneath her bare feet. She carefully slid open the top drawer of her dresser and located some warm woolen socks. She put them on, but left her shoes off for the moment so she could walk more quietly.

Lisa managed to find a pen and a piece of paper on her desk without turning on the lights. She quickly scribbled a note to Stevie and set it on her bedside table. In exchange for the note, she picked up the keys to Pine Hollow that Max had given to Stevie and that Stevie had tossed on the bedside table the night before.

Pocketing the keys, along with Pepper’s medicine, Lisa wrote another note, this time to her mother. She went downstairs and propped the note on the kitchen table, where Mrs. Atwood would be sure to see it as soon as she came down. Then Lisa put on her shoes and a warm jacket and left the house, pulling the front door closed behind her as silently as she could.

She hurried toward Pine Hollow, her shoes crunching on the frost-hardened grass and her breath forming puffs of steam in the bitterly cold air. She wasn’t used to being out at this hour, and as she approached the stable, even the familiar fences and buildings looked strange in the grayish predawn light. Everything was still and silent. There wasn’t a soul to be seen anywhere, human or equine. Lisa knew it was because all the horses were stabled inside, but she still thought it gave Pine Hollow a spooky, deserted look, sort of like an Old West ghost town.

“But colder,” Lisa whispered to herself with a shiver. She realized that the chill had crept in even through her thick down parka. Wrapping her arms around herself for warmth, she jogged the last few hundred yards to the stable entrance.

She had to take off her gloves to fish the key out of her pocket and fit it into the lock, and her hands grew numb even in the minute it took to do so. She was glad when she heard the click of the lock turning and could slip inside the stable building out of the cold.

Once inside, she wasted no time before heading for Pepper’s stall. She didn’t even stop to greet the curious horses who looked out and nickered at her as she passed, though she supposed they were probably wondering what she was doing there at this hour.

Lisa had almost grown accustomed to not seeing Pepper’s head poking out to greet her as she approached,
since these days he seemed to spend most of his time with his head hanging low, facing the back of the stall. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see that. But she was surprised by what she did see when she opened the stall door. Pepper was lying on his side in the straw, breathing hard.

“Pepper!” Lisa gasped, going down on her knees and taking his head into her lap. Pepper’s eyes looked dull, and his breathing now had a rasping sound to it that Lisa hadn’t noticed before. Even though she knew that horses sometimes like to lie down in their stalls for a rest, she also knew that horses as old as Pepper seldom do so, since it’s often very difficult for them to get up again. She was afraid that it meant that Pepper had taken a turn for the worse, and she felt the paralyzing sense of worry she remembered from her dream return, stronger than ever. For a second she felt frozen in place, completely helpless to do anything for Pepper, or even to think.

Then her logical mind took over, and she remembered the medicine in her pocket. As she stood up to dig the vial and syringe out of the pocket of her jeans, she noticed for the first time that Pepper hadn’t touched the food Stevie had given him the day before. She knew that in a horse a loss of appetite almost always meant trouble.

Lisa carefully measured out a dose of the medication and knelt down again to give it to Pepper. Stroking his
cheek, she waited for the medicine to take effect. As she waited, she talked softly to the old horse, not even aware of exactly what she was saying. But that didn’t matter. As Max frequently told all the riders at Pine Hollow, horses didn’t understand English anyway. But Lisa knew that they did respond to different tones of voice. Now she tried to make her voice as comforting as possible—almost as much for her own benefit as for Pepper’s.

As she sat with him, talking all the while, Lisa noticed that Pepper’s breathing seemed to get a little bit quieter, although the rasping edge didn’t go away. The faithful old horse seemed glad for her company, but Lisa couldn’t help noticing that he also seemed less attentive to her than usual. It was as if he were thinking about something else and was just barely aware of her comforting presence. The restlessness she’d noticed in him so often lately was gone, though, and his breathing, while still labored and obviously painful, was slow and steady. His ears, which had once been so alert to every sound around him, flicked toward her occasionally, but like everything else about him, they seemed to be moving almost lazily, in slow motion, as if the effort was just too much for him.

Lisa continued to pet him, and she continued to talk. She realized that she was telling him about how much she had enjoyed every single ride they’d ever had together, from the very first time, at her second riding
lesson at Pine Hollow, to the last, on a trail ride just before Pepper’s retirement.

“You know, Pepper,” she told him seriously, “I think you’re one reason I’ve gotten to love riding so much. I’m sure you’ve done that for a lot of other people, too. Remember how many people came to see you for your retirement party? They all came to say how much they loved you and appreciated you. And that goes triple for me, you know.”

The horse let out a long sigh and blinked. For a second his eyes focused on her; then the faraway look returned as he blinked again more slowly.

“Remember our first horse show?” Lisa asked. “Well, actually, it wasn’t really
your
first show, not by a long shot. But it was the first one we were in together, and those ribbons we won showed what a good team we made, didn’t they?

“And do you remember when we both got to be in that movie with Skye?” Lisa continued. She and Pepper had both been featured in a movie that had been filmed at Pine Hollow. Skye Ransom, the teenage star of the movie, had asked Lisa to pick out a horse for him to ride. She had chosen Pepper, knowing that the calm and obedient horse would be perfect for the role—especially since Skye wasn’t a very good rider. Lisa smiled a little at the memory. Making the movie had been much harder work than she had expected, but it had also been a lot of fun. Her smile faded, though, as she realized just
how many of her favorite Pine Hollow memories involved Pepper. Could things ever be the same without him?

“That was exciting, wasn’t it, boy?” she continued, trying to banish such thoughts. She was supposed to be comforting Pepper, not feeling sorry for herself. “And how about that time …”

The words tumbled from her mouth faster and faster as more memories flooded her mind. She reminisced about all the good times she and Pepper had had together, telling him over and over again how much she had appreciated every single moment of it all. She talked about the Mountain Trail Overnight they’d gone on together, and the magical Starlight Ride they’d shared on Christmas Eve. She reminded him how much fun it had been to learn to play polocrosse together. Then, of course, there was that very first show—a combined-training event at Pine Hollow at which Lisa and Pepper had won three ribbons. There was so much to remember that Lisa didn’t think she could ever finish telling Pepper about how much fun it had all been. And she didn’t want to.

As she talked, Lisa looked as hard as she could for signs that the medicine was working. But aside from quieting his breathing a little, she had to admit that it didn’t seem to be having much effect. “Pepper, you have to get better,” she told him fiercely, straightening his forelock with her fingers. “You just have to!”

But as the horse sighed again and his ears drooped a little, Lisa could tell how much effort it was costing him just to breathe. His eyes closed, and in a few seconds he was asleep.

“It’s okay, Pepper,” Lisa whispered. “Don’t worry. I’m here with you now. Everything’s going to be okay.”

But as she said it, she realized that she needed to hear those words more than Pepper did. In fact, she realized that he already seemed to know what she herself was just beginning to understand.

“Pepper,” she said quietly to the sleeping horse. “You’ve done so much for me, ever since I’ve known you, and for everybody else around here, too.” She took a deep breath. “And I think I’ve finally realized what I need to do for you right now. I don’t like it much, but I think it’s the best thing for
you
, and that’s what’s important.”

She stroked Pepper’s cheek again gently, being careful not to wake him. She knew she had to say the words out loud. Otherwise, she’d never be able to carry them through. “Pepper, you’re in pain all the time now, and it’s not fair to you. You’ve been too good to me for me to make you go through this any longer than you have to, especially if it’s just because of my own selfishness. If it’s just because I can’t stand to see you die. But it’s time now for me to do what’s best for you. Stay right here and rest, and I’ll go call Judy.”

She lifted his head off her lap and lowered it carefully to the straw on the stall floor. Pepper didn’t wake up, and he didn’t move as she left the stall. She could hear the sound of his rasping breathing following her down the corridor as she walked toward Max’s office to use the phone.

Lisa noticed that the sun had risen while she was with Pepper. She was surprised that so much time had passed. Then again, she realized that she had had a lot to talk about with Pepper before she said good-bye.

Lisa called Judy first. The vet promised to be there within the hour. Next, Lisa called her own house. When her mother answered, she quickly explained what was happening and asked to talk to Stevie.

“Hello?” Stevie’s voice came groggily over the phone a few minutes later. “Lisa? Where are you?”

“Pine Hollow,” Lisa replied. “I came over because I was worried about Pepper. With good reason, as it turns out. Stevie, he’s much worse.” Lisa’s voice cracked a little as she said it.