Saddle Sore by Bonnie Bryant

Author:Bonnie Bryant [Bryant, Bonnie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-82566-7
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2013-01-30T05:00:00+00:00

AS THEY DRESSED, Kate told them that she was going to go ask Monica to come with them. “I always used to knock on her cabin door for early morning rides,” she explained. “She might even be expecting me.”

The other girls slipped into the ranch house kitchen and packed their backpacks with biscuits and apples. Carole boiled some water for hot chocolate and filled three thermoses. Before she was finished, Kate walked in, shaking her head sadly. “No one even answered,” she said. “No one. I’m sure Monica would have heard me. Maybe she’s already down by the barn.”

But the barn was empty—even John hadn’t started working yet—and Monica was nowhere to be seen. Kate looked a little disappointed, but Lisa thought that there was almost no way Monica would come there early by herself. She hoped Kate would still be able to enjoy the ride.

In fact, it was a perfect morning. As they crested a ridge toward the east end of the ranch, looking up into the sun-touched mountains, they saw another rider coming toward them.

“Christine!” Stevie yelled, and loped Stewball down the slope to meet her. Dude, Christine’s dog, frolicked between the horses.

“Hi, everybody.” Christine introduced herself to Emily, and Emily to Dude.

“So this is the show dog,” Emily said.

“The obedient dog. You bet he is! I was really proud of him yesterday. He’s got the commands down pat. Now all he needs to work on is his speed. Watch this!” She rode down the hillside to where a row of sagebrush bushes grew in a line like soldiers. “Dude! Weave!”

To their surprise and delight, Dude wove in and out through the line of brush, passing one bush on the left side and the next on the right. They cheered. “That’s amazing,” Lisa said. “I wish I’d seen—well, I wish the trial had been some other time, so we could have been there.”

“Yeah,” Christine joked, “it’s too bad they don’t hold them at midnight. That’s okay. We’ll show you all our tricks out here on the prairie.”

“First we need to find a breakfast spot,” Carole suggested. “I’m starving.”

Christine looked around. “Why not right here?”

Kate shook her head. “Nope.”

“Why not? It looks fine.”

“Because I can’t mount from the ground by myself,” Emily explained. “I need something to climb onto, and even then it has to be the right sort of something.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Christine looked a little embarrassed.

“How could you have known?” Emily asked her. “Besides,” she added, with a playful grin at Kate, “if this horse were thoroughly trained, I wouldn’t need to worry.”

Kate and The Saddle Club laughed. Christine, who knew perfectly well what a highly trained horse Spot was, looked confused. Emily explained how P.C. could drop to his knees.

“That’s a pretty specialized trick,” Kate commented. “I might try to teach Spot someday—but it’s asking a lot. Horses don’t often lie down in the wild, because they’re more vulnerable that way. They’d have to really trust their rider to do it on command.”

“P.C. is just naturally brilliant,” Emily informed them.

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