Barnstorming (Gail Mccarthy Mysteries) Read Online Free Page A

the type called a dirt bike. I recognized the bearded rider as the guy I’d seen before. I was clearly visible on my bright yellow horse, standing by the side of the trail, but the biker neither paused nor slowed. He came on full speed and blew by me in a rush of noise and wind. I caught a glimpse of some sort of elation on his face as he sped by.
    Resisting the strong urge I felt to flip the biker off, I patted Sunny’s neck in gratitude for his completely calm, unflustered demeanor, and stepped him back down on the trail in the wake of the disappearing motorbike.
    “This is it,” I said out loud. “I am absolutely not going out riding on the weekends ever again. I never see anybody up here during the week.”
    The sound of my own voice was reassuring, as was the sight of Sunny’s yellow ears, pricked forward as he paced steadily down the trail. I tried to refocus on the green world around me, but I could feel my jangled nerves jumping restlessly, alert for trouble. The shot and the dirt bike had definitely rattled me.
    As I passed the turnoff to the “swingset trail,” so named because it led past an abandoned swingset in the woods, I caught the flash of a horse and rider disappearing through the trees in the distance, headed away from me, going uphill, toward the top of the ridge. Too far away and behind too many trees to have any idea who it was; the horse looked like a sorrel. Whoever it was, was going at the high lope, and would soon top the ridge, either aiming for Moon Valley or Tucker Pond. I peered curiously at the dust hanging in the air, but the rider was gone.
    On we trooped, steadily downhill. Redwoods and oaks made a leafy green wall of trees around me. Light slanted through, seeming to sparkle in brilliant flecks on the grass that fringed the trail. Soon we would reach the junction with the dirt logging road and the meadow full of pampas grass that I had looked down on from the ridge trail. This meadow was criss-crossed with the tracks of dirt bikes—I sincerely hoped that all would be quiet there today.
    Looking over my left shoulder, I saw the forked shape of the landmark tree silhouetted against the sky. Sunny and I were behind it now. I imagined how it looked from my front porch, solitary on the ridgeline. We were deep in the wild woods now, the heart of the green world.
    I glanced behind me. Nothing but trees and shafts of golden late afternoon light. But I had the sense that someone was watching me. I tried to shrug it off, reminding myself that I often had this feeling when I rode solo through the hills. Many times I had imagined the waiting, watchful eyes of a cougar fixed on us from some shadowy place. Once, long ago, I had met a mountain lion on these trails.
    But it wasn’t the wild critters who were worrying me now.
    Sunny walked out, eager to get home. We passed the junction with the logging road and I looked idly up its two ruts. Surely those were fresh tire tracks. Not a motorcycle. A truck or a car. The road was rough; it must have been a four-wheel-drive vehicle. I wondered who had driven up there.
    We were in the scrubby meadow full of clumps of rustling pampas grass. I remembered the day I had galloped across this meadow in the teeth of a blowing storm and reached down to stroke Sunny’s neck. “You got me through that one, didn’t you, boy?”
    Sunny ignored me. His stride was rhythmic and relaxed as he plowed steadily through the loose sandy ground and up a hill. He knew where he was going. He didn’t need my encouragement or my pats. Solid-minded little Sunny knew how to take care of himself.
    I smiled and felt my shoulders drop a fraction. Maybe we were going to get through the rest of this ride undisturbed. So far it hadn’t exactly been my most relaxing horseback jaunt.
    The trail curved through a grove of madrones and oaks, headed toward the next ridge. I took in the brilliant blue of the sky behind the sharp-edged, shiny, green leaves and smelled the trail dust. Up