Ghost Horses Page 3

  “Don’t know. You check it out when you get there and send me a postcard, OK?” Steven joked.

  “Ha ha, very funny, Dad. Like I’ll still be here in the year 200,000!”

  “Give or take a few centuries,” he quipped. “What about you, Ethan? Summer? What are your plans for the year 200,000?”

  Summer and Ethan didn’t even smile. They just stared at the sheer walls of rust-colored sandstone that rose like skyscrapers on both sides of the road. It was as though the Landons were speaking a language the Ingawanup kids didn’t understand.

  As they swung around a bend, Steven slowed to a stop. A barricade blocked the road that led to the lodge; beside it, a park ranger in uniform was holding up his hand in a “halt” signal.

  “What’s happening?” Ashley asked.

  “We’ll find out, as soon as I can figure out how to open this window.” Steven fumbled with the unfamiliar buttons on the inside of his door until he hit the one that controlled the windows. All four windows rolled down at the same time.

  The ranger, so tall that he had to bend forward to reach eye level with Steven, said, “You’ll have to turn back, sir.”

  “What’s the problem?” Steven questioned.

  “A horse got loose up there.” The ranger gestured toward the lodge.

  Olivia leaned over to ask, “You mean one of the horses from a guided tour group?”

  “No, ma’am, this is a wild mustang, and I do mean wild. It’s been kicking up a storm. We’re afraid someone might get hurt if they get in the way of the capture, so we’ve asked the lodge guests to stay inside till the horse gets caught. Also, we’re trying to keep vehicles out of the parking lot.”

  “How on earth did a wild mustang get into Zion?” Olivia asked. “There aren’t any wild herds anywhere near the park, are there?”

  “No ma’am. But this horse broke out of a trailer, and it ran pell-mell up the canyon till it got here between the lodge and the river. We have some guys out there trying to catch it, but so far no luck.”

  “Can we watch?” Ashley asked eagerly, but her mother hushed her.

  “I’m a wildlife veterinarian,” Olivia said. “If there’s anything I can do to help, I’d be glad to. What about darting it with a tranquilizer?”

  Smiling back at her, the ranger said, “I bet you’re Dr. Landon, right? I plan to come and hear you speak tomorrow.”

  “Right.” She reached across Steven to shake the ranger’s hand. “And this is my husband, Steven.”

  “Pleased to meet you both. Well, as far as darting her, if a tranquilizer put the mustang down, we’d have no way to drag her out. So we’re trying to rope her instead. What’s happening is”—he leaned his arms on the car door—“the tour-group horses that the visitors ride are corralled over there beside the lodge. This mustang seems like she wants to get near them—she keeps whinnying, and they whinny back, but every time she comes close to the corral, she gets spooked and runs away again.” He looked up the road as if he were considering something, then said, “Why don’t you go ahead into the parking lot, and then I’ll take you to where the horse is running now. Maybe you can give us some suggestions, Dr. Landon.”

  “Call me Olivia. And I’d be happy to help.”

  The ranger pulled back the wooden barrier to let the Landons’ SUV roll through. As they drove forward, Steven shook his head in pretend disapproval and said, “Did you guys see how your mother was flirting with that ranger? Shameless, isn’t she?”

  “Hey, it worked,” Ashley answered. “He’s gonna let us into the parking lot. Way to go, Mom!” Ethan just stared at his hands, but a tiny smile twitched the corners of Summer’s lips. Maybe she was beginning to catch on to Steven’s teasing.

  They drove into a large paved area in front of a four-pillared building made of stone that matched the ginger color of the tall canyon peaks. A U.S. flag on a silvery pole hung limp in the still air. Beneath it, the vast lawn was empty of people. And there was no sign of the mustang.

  “Steven, why don’t you and the kids register,” Olivia said, “while I try to find out what’s going on with that horse.”

  “Wait. I want to go with you, Mom—please?” Jack pleaded.

  “Me too.” Ashley took Summer’s hand and asked, “You want to come?”

  Shyly, Summer said, “Yes,” while Ethan gave a terse nod.

  “OK, leave the stuff in the car, and we’ll all walk up,” Steven said. “Just make sure you kids don’t get in the way of the wranglers.”

  The park ranger who’d stopped them at the barrier now pointed them toward the area west of the lodge, to the other side of the road, where the Virgin River flowed, pleasant and gentle. Jack thought that the Virgin didn’t look powerful enough to slice through a loaf of bread, let alone through sandstone cliffs thousands of feet high.

  Several trucks with horse trailers attached were parked side by side in a half-circle on the road. As they approached, Steven peered at a man next to one of the trailers. His brow furrowed in a frown, and then he stared harder.

  “Hey,” he said, “I think—no, I’m sure. I know that guy.”

  Leaving the rest of them behind, Steven ran toward a tall, grizzled man wearing a shirt with vertical stripes, jeans, and boots, and topping it all off with a huge black cowboy hat. “Len?” he called, “Len Pelton? It’s you, isn’t it?”

  The man’s mouth dropped in surprise as he shouted. “Steve? Steve-o, you young son of a gun! Well, my heck, where in thunder did you come from?”

  They grabbed each other in a big bear hug with a lot of backslapping. By the time Olivia and the kids reached them, Steven was grinning so widely his eyes almost disappeared in wrinkles of glee. “This is my old group supervisor from the boys’ ranch,” he explained. “I started out in regular foster homes, but then the state decided it would be better for me at the ranch. At first I was scared to go, but Len—he made me feel like I belonged. I’ll tell you, that was a great time for me.”

  “Yep, you was with me from the time you was what? Sixteen, seventeen?”

  “Fifteen. And I stayed till high-school graduation,” Steven answered. “So what are you doing here?”

  The man raised his hat to wipe his forehead with a big handkerchief. “Workin’. Too hard, sometimes,” he said, and grinned. “I’m with the Park Service now. We keep a couple of horses here in Zion for search-and-rescue operations and for jobs like this one. What happened today was—a couple of lady ranchers adopted a wild mustang from the Bureau of Land Management. They was drivin’ through the park this mornin’ and stopped at the visitor center for a hour or so, when the pin on their trailer door worked loose, and the horse busted out.”

  Again the brim of the hat got tilted back; this time Len scratched the top of his balding head.

  “The mustang was adopted, you said?” Steven asked, encouraging Len to go on with the story.

  “Yep, you know how the BLM adopts out wild mustangs every now and then. This one’s a young mare, and she’s been leadin’ us a merry dance. I’m wore out from chasin’ her. Ain’t as young as I once was.” Len laughed and patted his round belly; it bulged over the big silver buckle on his belt. Then he said, “Hey, Steve-o, wanna try her?”

  “Try what?”

  “Catchin’ the mustang. For old times’ sake. When I had you at the boys’ ranch, you was the best wrangler I ever seen in all my years there. I told you you ought to go on the rodeo circuit, but you got interested in those dang cameras instead. So now, here’s your chance to show if you still got the stuff in you to catch a horse.”

  “Steven, I really don’t think you should—” Olivia began.

  “And who’s this pretty little lady?” Len interrupted, his voice booming.

  “This is my wife, Olivia. And these are my kids.” Steven’s outflung arm included Summer and Ethan, who hung back. But for once, Ethan looked interested.

  “Hey, go for it, Dad!” Jack yelled. “I want to see you ride.”

  “You can take thi
s here gelding, Steve,” Len told him, pointing to a tall horse tied up to a roadside signpost. “He’s saddled and ready to go. Here’s a couple of ropes. The wild mare’s down there beside the river somewheres—you’ll see the other two riders workin’ her. We’re tryin’ to get her before she heads back up to the lodge again.”

  “You mean you want Steven to ride down there on all those rocks and try to rope a wild horse?” Olivia asked, her voice rising.

  “We gotta get her out of here,” Len replied. “If we can’t rope her, we might have to shoot her.”

  Ashley gasped, and Jack felt his stomach squeeze tight. “Why can’t you just leave her here in the park to run wild?” he asked.

  “She’s an exotic. Look,” Len said, “there’s no time now to explain park policy. We gotta get that mustang while there’s still daylight. These here canyon walls are so tall that once the sun gets behind ’em, it’ll be too dark to chase down a horse, even if it’s only five in the afternoon. What do you say, Steve-o? Wanna do ’er?”

  “I’m ready and willin’.” All of a sudden Steven didn’t sound like the father Jack knew; he was talking more like Len. Like a ranch hand. Before Jack knew it, Steven had swung himself up on the back of the tall brown-and-white horse. “What’s his name?” he asked, leaning forward in the saddle to stroke the horse’s neck.

  “Glory Hallelujah. My grandkid named him. But we call him Hal.”

  Nudging Hal with his knee, Steven moved the horse to the shoulder of the paved road, where he paused, looking for an easy descent down the slope to the river. Chunks of rock of all different shapes, from breadbox-size to Volkswagen-size, littered the slope and the bed of the Virgin River. Jack and Ashley, excited, crowded the edge of the road to watch their father. Summer and Ethan watched, too, while Olivia stood beside them, nervously chewing her thumbnail. “I’m scared. It’s been years since he did anything like this,” she murmured.

  Jack watched intently as his father rode upriver to where two other men on horseback were talking to each another. At the back of his mind hung a question he wanted to ask his mother when all this was over. Len had said the runaway wild mare was an exotic. Jack pretty much knew what that meant. If a species invaded an environment where it didn’t belong, it was called an exotic species. Like the wild boars at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The boars weren’t native to the Hawaiian Islands; they were brought there by the first Polynesian settlers. When they ran wild, they dug up palm tree roots and destroyed the trees. In Florida, people brought iguanas as pets from Mexico and sometimes turned them loose; a few of them escaped into Everglades National Park, where they multiplied. Wild boars and iguanas sounded like exotic species, but a horse? A plain old horse?

  Steven reached the other men and spoke to them. Jack couldn’t hear what they said, but he saw them gesturing to a rocky rise above them. There she stood, the mustang mare, a gray color so pale it was almost white, making her look silver in the sunlight. Her sides were heaving from exertion, or maybe from fear.

  “She has a name,” Len told them. “She’s called Mariah.”

  “They call the wind Mariah,” Ashley murmured. “She looks like the wind.”

  “She looks like a ghost,” Summer said, low enough that Jack wasn’t sure he’d heard her. The horse did look ghostly, pale against the red rock, her black mane falling over her forehead. She whinnied as though calling her herd for help, but she was all alone.

  Then Jack’s eyes jerked back to his father, because Steven had ridden forward, a coiled rope in one hand, the other hand guiding the horse named Hal. They picked their way carefully past the rocks, sometimes splashing through the shallow Virgin River. Just as slowly, the other two men moved away from Steven, one stopping in front of Mariah, the second riding farther upriver. Mariah stood still on her rock outcropping, snorting, wide-eyed, her ears laid back, moving her head from side to side to watch all three riders.

  “Be careful, Steven,” Olivia said, barely breathing the words.

  Suddenly Steven sent his horse into a gallop, climbing the steep incline toward Mariah. She looked for a path to escape, but the other two riders were heading toward her from other directions. The rope in Steven’s hand took shape as if by magic, spinning in a perfect circle. Whinnying and turning, Mariah reared up just as Steven tossed the loop of his rope over her head. When she jerked her neck back violently, the taut rope nearly pulled Steven off his own horse. Both Hal and the silvery mustang danced backward and forward on the slope as small rocks, loosened by their hooves, rolled down toward the river.

  “No!” Olivia cried as Steven’s horse began to slip on the loose rocks, its hooves thrashing wildly. Steven fought hard to keep both his balance and his control of Hal, at the same time wrapping the taut rope around Hal’s saddle horn.

  “Steady, boy, hold ’im steady,” Len yelled. But Hal slipped even more dangerously on the sharp incline.

  “He’s falling!” Ashley screamed. “If the horse lands on Daddy, he’ll—”

  Jack clapped his hand over his sister’s mouth to shut her up. It was scary enough without Ashley screaming. Across the river, Hal’s rear legs buckled beneath him as he flung his head in panic. Steven struggled mightily while both horses pulled in opposite directions.

  The other riders tried to find a way to reach him through the rough terrain, but Steven didn’t need any help. He managed to quiet Hal, to get him upright on all fours, and to hang onto Mariah at the same time, leading both horses to the safer flat land along the riverbanks.

  “What a rider!” Len yelled. “Good as he ever was! That boy always did have a natural-born talent for handlin’ horses. If he ever gets tired of that photography business and wants a real job—”

  Jack kept cheering, “Way to go, Dad!” while Steven rode across the shallow Virgin River, leading a balky Mariah by the rope around her neck. Steven must have felt pretty good about what he’d done, too, because halfway across, he let out a loud, “Yee haw!”

  Laughing, feeling so proud of his father he could burst, Jack turned toward Ethan and Summer. They were standing with their heads close together, whispering. Neither of them looked one bit relieved or happy that Steven was safe. Instead, Summer looked…worried!

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Jack thought his mother was going to run up to his father and hug him or something because he’d been in so much danger. If Hal had fallen on him, Steven could have been crushed.

  Instead, Olivia moved straight toward Mariah, slowly, carefully approaching the frightened horse. Mariah reared back, choking for air as the rope tightened around her neck. “It’s OK, it’s OK,” Olivia kept saying in a soft, soothing voice while Len, working swiftly, managed to get a halter on the mustang. Cautiously, Olivia raised her hand to stroke Mariah’s silvery neck, and then gently rubbed the spot just above the horse’s jaw. “Good horse, good horse,” she kept murmuring.

  Len said to the kids, “Looks like your mom’s got a way with horses, too, just like your dad does.”

  “She’s a wildlife veterinarian,” Jack told him.

  “Well, my heck!” Len exclaimed. “I shoulda figured that one out by myself. She’s Dr. Olivia Landon, right? She’s gonna speak at the seminar tomorrow about how we handle animals in the park. Hey, Art,” he yelled to one of the two riders crossing the river toward them, “that pretty lady is—guess who? Dr. Landon!”

  Jack couldn’t help himself—he had to turn around and toss a cocky grin at Ethan. Jack’s dad had just proved he could handle a horse like a champion; his mother was being treated like a celebrity. Since Jack had exceptionally cool parents, that trickled down to make him special, too. Ethan just stood, his face as stony as usual, his legs planted into the ground like two trees.

  Steven and the other two men had dismounted and were holding their horses by the reins. “I’m Art Meacham,” one of the men said, introducing himself to Olivia, “from the Bureau of Land Management, and this is Gus Todd, also from BLM.” After the introductions, Art mentioned, “Soon
as we get these horses back into the trailers, I’d sure like it if we’d all go into the lodge for a soda. I’ll buy, Steven, since we owe you big time for ropin’ Mariah here.”

  “Will she be all right?” Olivia asked, concerned about the frosty, almost white mustang that snorted and pawed at the ground. Mariah’s dark eyes were opened wide enough to show the whites all around.

  “She’s just scared, but she’ll quiet down,” Art answered. “We’ve had her in a corral at the BLM holding facilities for the past couple of months, so she’s lost a lot of her wildness. She still put on quite a show for us, though.” He paused, then said, “Hey, I guess I better radio headquarters so they can tell those ladies we got their horse. After we grab our drink, I’ll haul Mariah back down to the visitor center.”

  In the lodge coffee shop, they settled into chairs—the five grown-ups around one table, the four kids at another table right next to them. Both Art and Gus were dressed pretty much the same as Len, in typical Western clothes: plaid shirts, thick leather belts with big silver-and-turquoise buckles, Levis, and boots. At the table, out of politeness to the lady—Olivia—they’d taken off their wide-brimmed cowboy hats. All three of them wore their hair cut short; their necks looked tanned and leathery, like old boots.

  “Man, did you see my dad?” Jack enthused as he slid into his seat. “I couldn’t believe he did that! I never knew he could ride—not like that, anyhow.”

  “Well, I hope he never does it again,” Ashley snapped.

  “Why?”

  “Duh! Because that big horse nearly fell on him.”

  “You worry too much,” Jack answered with a grin. “Dad’s tough. What did you think, Ethan? I mean, about my dad riding all that muscle and energy—it’s got to be awesome to rope that kind of power and bring it under control. You know, I bet he could break Mariah a lot faster than the new owners will. Maybe he can tell them how it’s done.”

  Ethan picked a paper-covered straw out of a metal container and began to peel the tissue away, dropping bits of it onto the table like flakes of snow. Without looking up, he said, “The Shoshone respect horses.”