Free The Wild Boy and Queen Moon by K M Peyton Page B

work and would have given anything to be in Ian’s shoes, taking over from his father. Sandy was convinced Ian never would take over, he hated it so.
    ‘You will have it, you’re the only one,’ she had told Duncan.
    ‘But I can never own it! If it can’t be passed into the family, your father will sell it.’
    ‘He can pass it on to me. I wouldn’t mind being a farmer,’ Sandy said. After this conversation she realized the brilliant thing would be for her and Duncan to get married. This thought embarrassed her so much that she now found it difficult to talk to him easily. She wondered if the same thought had passed through his mind. If it had, he made no sign.
    He threw the bales down off the trailer and she stacked them until they got too high. Then he came to do it. He was enormously strong from so much outdoor work, but was gentle by nature, which made him a very good cowman. He was seventeen, like Ian, but very responsible. He had a quiet voice and manner, yet no-one took advantage of him; Bill Fielding never shouted at him, like he did at Ian.
    ‘It’s a bad do about Gertie,’ he said. ‘Must have given you a fright, finding her.’
    ‘Yes.’ She hoicked a bale towards him. ‘The police are coming down to ask questions.’
    ‘Why’s that then?’
    ‘Her money’s been stolen. All that money in her mattress.’
    Duncan stopped, in mid-fling, and looked down from the stack, shocked. Sandy tried to notice if it was play-acting, but it was difficult in the half-light.
    ‘Who’d do a thing like that?’
    Exactly. Stealing from an old girl like Gertie was too awful. There was no way she could mention the penknife. He would think she was accusing him.
    He went home after stacking the straw, and the livery people started to dribble in to hear the news. There was no sign of Sneerwell, as usual, so Sandy got a headcollar and went down to catch King of the Fireworks out of the field, with Polly and Henry. They were going to ride, although it was nearly dark. They schooled in the field just down from the yard, which was flat and gravelly and didn’t get too poached.
    ‘The police are coming.’
    ‘They think it’s one of us!’
    Sandy put Sneerwell’s horse in its box, changed its rug and went back to Polly, who said she had her livery money to give her.
    ‘I had it in my pocket last week,’ she said. ‘But when I came to give it you, it was gone. I blamed my own carelessness, but if there’s a crook like that around – who knows?’ She passed Sandy a twenty-pound note. ‘Perhaps someone pinched it.’
    Sandy was horrified. ‘Don’t say that!’
    ‘I never thought it before. But now . . . I left my jacket in the tackroom. Anyone could’ve done it.’
    Polly was a blunt, down-to-earth female in her early twenties. What Ian called a ‘real horsy woman’. She was a very hard worker and tough, but easy enough to get on with, and Sandy depended quite a lot on her knowledge and expertise. She really knew horses and thought of little else. Her horse was a dark grey, rather funny-looking ex-racehorse called Charlie’s Flying. Although he had rather a lot wrong with him, he was a good jumper and fast, and the best Polly could afford. She loved competing on him, but rarely won anything. Polly worked in the local supermarket. She was quite pretty when she made an effort, which was rarely, but her shrewd eyes and hard manner put the men off. Sandy liked her a lot and thought she looked marvellous on her horse in her competition gear – like a being from another planet. Sometimes Sandy went to events with her, to help, and she was always impressed by the way Polly got Charlie’s Flying round the cross-country course – no easy option.
    She hung over the stable door, while Polly gave her horse a quick brush over and put on the saddle and bridle.
    ‘Will you tell the police about your money?’
    ‘If they ask, I suppose. Mind you don’t lose it!’
    Sandy put the note in the zip pocket of her jods.