Saddle Up: Thoroughbred Horse Stories - Softcover

Pullein-Thompson, Christine

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9780753461457: Saddle Up: Thoroughbred Horse Stories

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0753461455 ISBN 13: 9780753461457

Publisher: Kingfisher, 2007

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Young horse lovers are sure to enjoy this thoroughbred collection, which includes a diverse selection of stories and extracts by authors such as Anna Sewell, Leo Tolstoy, and C.S. Lewis.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:

Focusing on horses and ponies, Christine Pullein-Thompson wrote children's books for more than 40 years. Her writing continues to be enjoyed by a new generation of children.

Chapter One

MY FRIEND FLICKA

Mary O'Hara

Ken McLaughlin and his family live on a ranch in Wyoming, where they raise
thoroughbred horses.

WHEN KEN OPENED his eyes the next morning and looked out, he saw
that the house was wrapped in fog. There had been no rain at all since that
day a week ago when the wind had torn the "sprinkling system" to pieces and
blown all the tattered clouds away. That was the day that he had found
Flicka. And it had been terribly hot since then. They had hardly been able to
stand the sun out on the terrace. They had gone swimming in the pool every
day. On the hills, the grass was turning to soft tan.

Now there were clouds, and they had closed down. After a severe hot spell
there was often a heavy fog, or hail, or even snow.

Standing at the window, Ken could hardly see the pines on the hill across
from him. He wondered if his father would go after the yearlings in such a fog
as this—they wouldn't be able to see them; but at breakfast, McLaughlin
said that there would be no change of plans. It was just a big cloud that had
settled down over the ranch—it would lift and fall—perhaps up on Saddle
Back it would be clear.

They mounted and rode out.

The fog lay in the folds of the hills. Here and there a bare summit was in the
sunshine, then a little farther on came a smother of cottony white that
soaked the four riders to the skin and hung rows of moonstones on the
whiskers of the horses.

It was hard to keep track of each other. Suddenly Ken was lost—the others
had vanished. He reined in Shorty and sat, listening. The clouds and mist
rolled around him. He felt as if he was alone in the world.

A bluebird, the color of the deep-blue wild delphinium that dots the plains,
became interested in him and perched on a bush nearby; and as he started
Shorty forward again, the bluebird followed along, hopping from bush to bush.
The boy rode slowly, not knowing in which direction to go. Then, hearing
shouts, he touched heels to Shorty and cantered, and suddenly he came out
of the fog and saw his father and Tim and Ross.

"There they are!" said McLaughlin, pointing down over the curve of the hill.
They rode forward, and Ken could see the yearlings standing in a bunch at
the bottom, looking up, wondering who was coming. Then a huge coil of fog
swirled over them, and they were lost to view again.

McLaughlin told them to circle around, spread out fanwise on the far side of
the colts, and then gently bear down on them so that they would start toward
the ranch. If the colts started running in this fog, he said, there'd be no
chance of catching them.

The plan worked well; the yearlings were not as frisky as usual, and they
allowed themselves to be driven in the right direction. It was only when they
were on the county road, and near the gate where Howard was watching, that
Ken, whose eyes had been scanning the bunch as they appeared and
disappeared in the fog, realized that Flicka was missing.

McLaughlin noticed it at the same moment, and as Ken rode toward his
father, McLaughlin turned to him and said, "She's not in the bunch."

They sat in silence for a few moments while McLaughlin planned the next
step. The yearlings, dispirited by the fog, nibbled languidly on the grass by
the roadside. McLaughlin looked at Saddle Back, and Ken looked, too—the
passionate desire in his heart reaching out to pierce the fog and the hillside
and see where Flicka had hidden herself away. Had she been with the bunch
when they were first found?

Had she stolen away through the fog? Or hadn't she been there in the
beginning? Had she run away from the ranch entirely, after her bad
experience a week ago? Or—and this thought made his heart drop
sickeningly—had she perhaps died of the injuries she had received when she
broke out of the corral and was lying stark and riddled with ants and crawling
things on the breast of one of those hills?

McLaughlin looked grim. "Lone wolf—like her mother," he said. "Never with
the gang. I should have known it."

Ken remembered what the colonel had said about the lone wolf type—it
wasn't good to be that way.

"Well, we'll drive the yearlings back up," said Rob finally. "No chance of
finding her alone. If they happen to pass anywhere near her, she's likely to
join them."

They drove the yearlings back. Once over the first hill, the colts started
running and soon were out of sight. The fog closed down again so that Ken
pulled up, unable to see where he was going, unable to see his father or
Ross or Tim.

He sat listening, astonished that the sound of their hooves had been wiped
out so completely. Again he seemed alone in the world.

The fog lifted in front of him and showed him that he stood on the brink of a
sharp drop, almost a precipice, although not very deep. It led down into a
semicircular pocket on the hillside that was fed by a spring; there was a
clump of young cottonwoods and a great bank of clovers dotted with small
yellow blossoms.

In the midst of the clovers stood Flicka, quietly feasting. She had seen him
before he saw her and was watching him, her head up, clovers sticking out of
both sides of her mouth, her jaws moving busily.

At the sight of her, Ken was incapable of either thought or action.

Suddenly from behind him in the fog, he heard his father's low voice, "Don't
move—"

"How'd she get in there?" said Tim.

"She scrambled down this bank. And she could scramble up again, if we
weren't here. I think we've got her," said McLaughlin.

"Other side of that pocket the ground drops twenty feet sheer," said
Tim. "She can't go down there."

Flicka had stopped chewing. There were still stalks of clovers sticking out
from between her jaws, but her head was up and her ears pricked, listening,
and there was a tautness and tension in her whole body.

Ken found himself trembling too.

"How're you going to catch her, Dad?" he asked in a low voice.

"I kin snag her from here," said Ross, and in the same breath, McLaughlin
answered, "Ross can rope her. Might as well rope her here as in the corral.
We'll spread out in a semicircle above this bank. She can't get up past us,
and she can't get down."

They took their positions, and Ross lifted his rope off the horn of his saddle.
Ahead of them, far down below the pocket, the yearlings were running. A
whinny or two drifted up, as well as the sound of their hooves, muffled by the
fog.

Flicka heard them too. Suddenly she was aware of danger. She leaped out of
the clovers to the edge of the precipice, which fell away down the
mountainside toward where the yearlings were running. But it was too steep
and too high. She came straight up on her hind legs with a neigh of terror and
whirled back toward the bank down which she had slid to reach the pocket.
But on the crest of it, looming uncannily in the fog, were four black figures—
she screamed and ran around the base of the bank.

Ken heard Ross's rope sing. It snaked out, just as Flicka dived into the bank
of clovers. Stumbling, she went down and, for a moment, was lost from view.
"Goldarn—" said Ross, hauling in his rope, while Flicka floundered up and
again circled her small prison, hurling herself at every point, only to realize
that there was no way out.

She stood over the precipice, poised in despair and frantic longing. The
sound of the colts running below drifted up. Flicka trembled and strained over
the brink—a perfect target for Ross, and he whirled his lasso again. It made a
vicious whine.

Ken longed for the filly to escape from the noose—yet he longed for her
capture. Flicka reared up, her delicate forefeet beat the air, then she leaped
out; and Ross's rope fell short again as McLaughlin said,

"I expected that. She's like all the rest of them."

Flicka went down like a diver. She hit the ground with her legs folded under
her, then rolled and bounced the rest of the way. It was exactly like the
bronco that had climbed over the side of the truck and rolled down the 40-foot
bank; and in silence the four watchers sat in their saddles, waiting to see
what would happen when she hit the bottom—Ken already thinking of the
Winchester, and the way the crack of it had echoed back from the hills.
Flicka lit, it seemed, on four steel springs that tossed her up and sent her
flying down the mountainside— perfection of speed and power and action. A
hot sweat bathed Ken from head to foot, and he began to laugh, half-choking.
The wind roared down and swept up the fog, and it went bounding away over
the hills, leaving trailing streamers of white in the gullies and coverlets of
cotton around the bushes. Far below they could see Flicka galloping toward
the yearlings. In a moment she joined them and then there was just a
multicolored blur of moving shapes, with a fierce sun blazing down, striking
sparks of light off their glossy coats.

"Get going!" shouted McLaughlin. "Get around behind them. They're on the
run now, and it's cleared— keep them running, and we may get them all in
together, before they stop....

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