Ghost Horses by Gloria Skurzynski

Author:Gloria Skurzynski
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: National Geographic Society
Published: 2000-09-10T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

Jack had never before been in a situation like this. Eight people sat waiting in that blind made from juniper trees and broken branches, all of them in touching distance of one another, but no one spoke a single word. Not even a whisper. It had to be hard on Ashley, who was a nonstop talker, but she seemed content to lie on her back and watch the stars weave themselves into the bright, shining carpet of the Milky Way.

All through the first hour, Jack strained his ears to listen for whinnies in the distance, but he heard nothing except the rustling of the grass as the breeze played with it. Halfway into the second hour, he stopped looking at his watch, and his thoughts drifted. Drifted…. Maybe he was falling asleep. In his half-awake state he heard it—the same whinny he’d heard echoing off the cliffs the night before.

Now there were more whinnies—real ones, not dream ones. A sense of movement beside him pulled him into wakefulness. Even in the dark, he could tell that the other people waiting with him had become tense. The mustangs were coming to drink!

They were graceful shadows in the moonlight, flowing leisurely across the range, knowing where they were headed. An even dozen of them—Jack could count them, although he couldn’t tell their colors because all he could see were silhouettes.

They came closer, whinnying and nickering constantly as though holding a horse conversation of vital importance. Now Jack could see that three of them were white, the rest darker in color. The white ones kept close to the others, actually touching their noses to the darker horses’ flanks. One white mustang laid its head on the rump of the horse in front of it. When the herd stopped abruptly, the white mustangs whinnied long and loudly, as though questioning what the problem might be.

The herd had noticed the panels erected around the spring. Circling cautiously outside the trap, they snorted and sniffed, examining this new contraption that stood between them and their nightly drink. The white horses shuffled impatiently, shaking their heads so that their black manes tossed.

Earlier, while the Landons and the others had waited for the mustangs to arrive, time had dragged. Now Jack didn’t even think about checking his watch; his eyes stayed riveted on the restless, nervous herd. The mustangs knew that their accustomed source of water lay very near, beyond those metal rails, but this strange barrier puzzled them.

There was a way to reach the water—they’d figured that out, too. The gate stood wide open, inviting them inside. Yet they hesitated, because something so strange and unknown might be a threat. One heavily muscled dark brown stud, the obvious leader of the herd, stamped the ground fretfully. Wary, with his head lowered and his legs spread wide, he stuck his nose inside the gate, then backed up quickly and snorted. The other mustangs continued to mill around. Again, the dark mustang nosed past the gate; this time he took a few steps forward.

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