Free Dude Ranch by Bonnie Bryant

hill like he’d gone crazy—and when we didn’t see you … Well, I’m glad to see you’re okay. Did he throw you? Did you get hurt? Shall we get the first-aid kit from Eli?”
    “I’m all—”
    “Oh,
there
you are, Stevie,” Lisa said, arriving breathlessly on Chocolate. “I’m so relieved that everything’s all right! You can’t imagine what we …” She looked at Stevie’s face and knew immediately that everything was
not
all right.
    “What
happened?
” Carole asked, deeply concerned.
    Just then, Kate pulled up on her horse. “Hello,Christine,” she said politely, acknowledging the girl’s presence. Then she, too, asked what had happened.
    Stevie had been standing in front of Arrow. Until she stepped aside, none of the girls could see Tomahawk’s lifeless body across the horse’s back.
    “Oh, no!” Carole said, looking stricken at the sight. “Is he …?”
    Christine nodded. “It was a rattlesnake,” she said. Then she paused to compose herself. “She was on the ground,” she said, pointing to Stevie, “and the snake was about to strike, and …” She had trouble going on.
    “What she means is that Tomahawk saved my life,” Stevie said simply. Then she described the terrible events that led to the snake’s attack on the dog.
    Christine took over. “And she held my dog,” she told the girls. “She held him through his painful last minutes, and let him know he wasn’t alone.”
    “It was the least I could do,” Stevie said, surprised that Christine was apparently touched by her own kindness to Tomahawk. “Now, I’d like to help you bury him. Do you girls want to help, too, or do you have to keep up with the herd?”
    “The herd’ll do just fine without us for a while,” Kate assured Stevie. “In fact, I get the impression from Eli sometimes that the roundup actually goes
better
without the dudes along.”
    Stevie smiled slightly. That was just like Eli. But she wouldn’t be surprised if it was true. “Yep, he thinks we’re just dumb dudes,” she said.
    Christine looked at Stevie thoughtfully for a moment. “I think I’ve been guilty of that, too,” she said. There was an awkward silence.
    “I’ll go get the shovel from Eli,” Kate offered after a moment. “I’ll tell him we’ll be with them at the lunch stop. I’ll meet you guys down by the creek.”
    Kate turned Spot around to catch up with the herd. The other girls dismounted and walked their horses across the range to the creek.
    As they walked, they introduced themselves to Christine, since they’d never even had a chance to tell her their names. Stevie was very aware of the sad task ahead of them, but she couldn’t help feeling that Tomahawk’s death was signaling a birth of friendship between The Saddle Club and Christine Lonetree. Certainly, the girls were coming to understand one another as they never could have done before.
    “Say, where did you girls learn to ride?” Christine asked. Stevie and her friends understood that Christine was trying to keep from showing her emotions by changing the subject. They followed her lead.
    Lisa explained that they were friends because they all studied riding at Pine Hollow Stables in Willow Creek, Virginia.
    “English?” Christine asked.
    “Of course,” Carole said. “But you know, horses are horses. And while there are differences in riding styles, there are a lot more similarities.”
    “I think I’m learning that it’s the same with people,” Christine said, drawing to a stop at the bank of the creek.
    “The main problem seems to be when people start thinking things about other people when they don’t have the facts,” Stevie added.
    “You mean like the Western idea that ‘dumb dude’ is really one word?”
    “Or the idea that a Native American girl riding in the early dawn must be on some ancient tribal mission.”
    “Oh, yeah, like protecting the treasure from the marauding settlers,” Christine said, smiling at last. “To tell you the