ChasetheLightning Read Online Free Page A

with a smile. Any other time, she would have
been a little blue at Rob’s absence, but not today. She dressed quickly and
hurried outside, eager to check on her new horse. But the stallion was gone.
    Frowning, she checked the empty corral. The gate was shut,
all the rails in place. But the stallion was gone. Had she dreamed the whole
thing? She picked up the brush she had left on top of one of the fence posts,
ran her fingertips over the long white hairs caught in the bristles, solid
proof that the horse had been there. She glanced inside the corral, reassured
by the faint hoofprints discernible in the dirt. The horse had been there—of
course it had. After all, Rob had seen it, too. Perhaps the stallion had jumped
the fence. Or been stolen. Or, most likely, the real owners had come along and
taken it back. But even if that was the case, there should be tracks of some
kind.
    With that thought in mind, she circled the corral. But there
were no fresh tracks to be found. No sign that the stallion had been led out of
the corral, no tire tracks, no footprints except her own, and Rob’s. And over
there, the stallion’s hoofprints where she had led him out to graze. If only
Rob was here. He was always bragging about his ability to hunt things down.
Maybe he would have been able to find her phantom stallion.
    * * * * *
    A vibration in the earth roused Trey from a deep sleep. In
his experience, only two things made a rumble like that: a stampede, or a posse
hard on the trail of its quarry. Caught between shit and sweat, he didn’t stop
to wonder how they had managed to trail him this far so fast.
    Gaining his feet, he saddled his horse, rolled his blankets
into a tight cylinder and lashed them behind the cantle. There was no time for
anything else. Swinging into the saddle, he urged the stallion into a gallop.
    He rode the stud hard and long. A lesser horse would have
been winded and covered with lather by the time Trey drew rein in a copse of
trees that marked a desert waterhole. Relámpago mouthed the bit impatiently,
still fresh, still ready to run, but Trey needed a break.
    Dismounting, he loosed the saddle cinch and let the stallion
blow while he stretched his back and legs. He drank from the waterhole, filled
his canteen, and then let the stud drink before tightening the cinch and
swinging back into the saddle. And then they were riding again, heading east,
setting a more sedate pace. There were no sounds of pursuit. They’d left the
hard-riding posse, if that’s what it had been, far behind, on lathered and
worn-out horses.
    He rode until sunup, backtracking, covering his trail the
way his Chiricahua grandfather had taught him. He let the stud drink from
another desert waterhole that was concealed by a tangled thicket of mesquite
trees, then dismounted with a weary sigh. The mesquite was dense enough to hide
them from any observation. He stripped the rigging from the stallion, spread
his bedroll on a relatively flat patch of ground, then gathered armfuls of dry
mesquite needles and spread them in a wide circle on the outskirts of his camp,
making it near impossible for anyone to sneak up on him. If by some chance, he
didn’t hear them, the stud would.
    Bone weary, he sank down on his blankets, too tired to eat.
He stared at the stallion. Relámpago had been a gift from his Apache
grandfather, Walker on the Wind. Walker was a medicine man blessed with many
powers, among them the gift of sight. He had given Relámpago to Trey the day
before Trey’s mother died.
    You will be leaving us soon , Walker on the Wind had
said. The path you will take when you leave here will be long and filled
with danger.
    “A white horse?” Trey had said, taking the reins. Few warriors
rode white horses. They were far too easy to spot from a distance.
    This is a spirit horse , Walker on the Wind had said. He
is as swift as lightning, as sure-footed as a mountain goat, as reliable as old
Father Sun. Treat him well, and he will always carry you