Read Online Hoofprints (Gail McCarthy series) by Laura Crum - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Laura Crum
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gate.
"What's the phone number?"
"He said he doesn't have a phone. He was calling from the neighbor's house."
"Okay," I said resignedly. This sounded like another backyard horse case. Worse yet, a backyard horse back up in the wilds of the Santa Cruz Mountains. There were some pretty odd little places buried up there in the redwoods. With some even odder people living on them.
I left the house quietly so as not to wake Bret. It was a wasted effort, I was sure. Bret was snoring so loudly he would have wakened himself if he hadn't been so deeply under. Blue slept on the floor next to him, and I stepped carefully over the old dog, not waking him, either. In his younger days, I never could have sneaked by him like that, but old age had made him increasingly deaf.
Headed down Old San Jose Road once again, I ran my fingers through my bangs and thought longingly of bed. Nighttime emergencies were the rule, not the exception; horses, like people, seem prone to having their disasters in the dark. When I was on call I expected to have my evening interrupted at least once, if not more often; it was a rare night that I wasn't paged at all. I crossed my fingers that the calls wouldn't be too far away and that they'd be of an easily solved nature-which wasn't the case here. Bonny Doon was a good hour's drive, and colic was unpredictable. A generic term for any type of digestive disturbance in a horse, colic cases ran the gamut from horses with minor bouts of gas that would be fine when I got there to those with life threatening problems that would involve me in an all-night battle to save them. You could never tell.
Bonny Doon is north of Santa Cruz, an area of the mountains more than an actual town. In the daylight it's beautiful, full of redwoods and great open fields of grass with long vistas to the ocean in the distance. At night, the mountain roads curved and twisted secretively between the black shapes of silent trees, and I saw few cars, the scattered lights of an occasional dwelling.
I found The Lost Weekend without any difficulty but had to retrace my route a couple of times looking for the yellow gate. It was set back a little way from the road and the yellow paint was old and had mostly peeled and chipped off. Not an easy thing to spot on a dark night.
The gate was shut. I pulled in and got out of the truck. There was a chain with a lock, but it was hanging loose. There was also a faded sign that said, PLEASE CLOSE GATE. I opened it, drove in, and pushed it shut. Ahead of me, a set of faint tire tracks ran off across a field. I could only see about ten feet in the glare of the headlights; the fog had come in and swirled around the truck, cold and thick, blocking out the world.
I bumped slowly across the field, following a poor excuse for a road. Eventually a mass of black loomed up in front of me, blacker than the foggy darkness. Trees, I judged, a big clump of trees. At the same time, the headlights showed another gate. This one was wooden, a sliding rail gate. I got out and slid the rails to one side, then drove through.
Fifty yards farther, a building showed up in the headlights. It was dark and silent-no lights on. I stopped the truck and cursed inwardly, hoping this wasn't going to be one of those real "mountain man" situations, where people were living without electricity on a whim of some kind. I got my flashlight out of the glove compartment and got out of the truck.
The small flashlight beam didn't show much. I walked up to the building, which proved to be a cabin; it had windows, anyway. Around the corner, I found a door. It was locked, but there was a note on it with an arrow that pointed away from the direction I'd come. It said, "Am out at the barn. Mark Houseman," in neat square printing.
At least I was at the right place. I held the flashlight up, trying to see where I was supposed to go. It looked as though I was underneath some big redwood trees. When I swung the beam from side to side, I could see a
"What's the phone number?"
"He said he doesn't have a phone. He was calling from the neighbor's house."
"Okay," I said resignedly. This sounded like another backyard horse case. Worse yet, a backyard horse back up in the wilds of the Santa Cruz Mountains. There were some pretty odd little places buried up there in the redwoods. With some even odder people living on them.
I left the house quietly so as not to wake Bret. It was a wasted effort, I was sure. Bret was snoring so loudly he would have wakened himself if he hadn't been so deeply under. Blue slept on the floor next to him, and I stepped carefully over the old dog, not waking him, either. In his younger days, I never could have sneaked by him like that, but old age had made him increasingly deaf.
Headed down Old San Jose Road once again, I ran my fingers through my bangs and thought longingly of bed. Nighttime emergencies were the rule, not the exception; horses, like people, seem prone to having their disasters in the dark. When I was on call I expected to have my evening interrupted at least once, if not more often; it was a rare night that I wasn't paged at all. I crossed my fingers that the calls wouldn't be too far away and that they'd be of an easily solved nature-which wasn't the case here. Bonny Doon was a good hour's drive, and colic was unpredictable. A generic term for any type of digestive disturbance in a horse, colic cases ran the gamut from horses with minor bouts of gas that would be fine when I got there to those with life threatening problems that would involve me in an all-night battle to save them. You could never tell.
Bonny Doon is north of Santa Cruz, an area of the mountains more than an actual town. In the daylight it's beautiful, full of redwoods and great open fields of grass with long vistas to the ocean in the distance. At night, the mountain roads curved and twisted secretively between the black shapes of silent trees, and I saw few cars, the scattered lights of an occasional dwelling.
I found The Lost Weekend without any difficulty but had to retrace my route a couple of times looking for the yellow gate. It was set back a little way from the road and the yellow paint was old and had mostly peeled and chipped off. Not an easy thing to spot on a dark night.
The gate was shut. I pulled in and got out of the truck. There was a chain with a lock, but it was hanging loose. There was also a faded sign that said, PLEASE CLOSE GATE. I opened it, drove in, and pushed it shut. Ahead of me, a set of faint tire tracks ran off across a field. I could only see about ten feet in the glare of the headlights; the fog had come in and swirled around the truck, cold and thick, blocking out the world.
I bumped slowly across the field, following a poor excuse for a road. Eventually a mass of black loomed up in front of me, blacker than the foggy darkness. Trees, I judged, a big clump of trees. At the same time, the headlights showed another gate. This one was wooden, a sliding rail gate. I got out and slid the rails to one side, then drove through.
Fifty yards farther, a building showed up in the headlights. It was dark and silent-no lights on. I stopped the truck and cursed inwardly, hoping this wasn't going to be one of those real "mountain man" situations, where people were living without electricity on a whim of some kind. I got my flashlight out of the glove compartment and got out of the truck.
The small flashlight beam didn't show much. I walked up to the building, which proved to be a cabin; it had windows, anyway. Around the corner, I found a door. It was locked, but there was a note on it with an arrow that pointed away from the direction I'd come. It said, "Am out at the barn. Mark Houseman," in neat square printing.
At least I was at the right place. I held the flashlight up, trying to see where I was supposed to go. It looked as though I was underneath some big redwood trees. When I swung the beam from side to side, I could see a
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