Free Lisa by Bonnie Bryant

the mail or something, or maybe he’s so busy with his studies and his newspaper reporting and the rest of it that he doesn’thave time to write. I guess I could understand that. But it would be nice to hear from him …
    Anyway, as I was saying, John’s tale was quite a story. After he’d finished, he left the bunkhouse as quickly as he’d come, and we were left talking about it. Stevie and Carole thought the tale was very romantic, and Christine said her mother had told her a similar story once, though she hadn’t told it as well as John had.
    “He is good,” Stevie agreed. “I mean, his story made me shiver, though not in the way my story scared you guys, right?”
    “His wasn’t supposed to be a scary story,” Carole said.
    “Oh, yes it was,” I said. “It was meant to scare Kate from adopting the stallion.”
    “I know. And it’s not fair,” Kate added.
    We talked about it some more, trying to figure out what John was really up to and why he’d come to tell us that story. Whatever he’d meant it to do, in the end, I think his tale just made Kate more determined than ever to adopt the stallion. After all, the story was just a story.
    It took me a while to fall asleep that night. My mind was full of John, the stallion, and all sorts of other things. But the next day I didn’t have much time to think about any of it. There was too much to do to get ready for the Halloween Fair. Stevie kept us all busy—hanging decorations, peeling grapes, and so forth.
    That evening we saddled up our horses for a moonlight ride over to Christine’s house. Her mother was going to help us put the finishing touches on our three blind mice costumes. She was even going to come up with a costume for Kate as the farmer’s wife!
    It was during the ride that it happened. It started with a howl:
How-oooooooo!
I had never heard the sound before, but I knew immediately what it had to be. A coyote. It was a spooky sound, dangerous and lonely in the clear, cool night. I found myself shivering as it came again.
How-oooooooo!
    “Let’s go,” Christine said. Coyotes don’t usually attack humans, but they are dangerous animals, and it made sense for us to hurry on our way in case there were more of them about.
    “No, wait.” Kate was staring off to one side. “Look!”
    We all turned and saw what she had seen. Some distance away, a cloud of dust rose from the dry earth. “It’s the herd,” Carole said. “They must have been startled by the coyote. Look at them!”
    We hadn’t even noticed the horses until they started moving, though they weren’t all that far away. But now we couldn’t miss them. The mares and foals were milling frantically, letting out frightened whinnies and snorts.
    “We’ve got to help them!” Carole said.
    “By doing what?” Christine shook her head. “What’s going on here is what’s been going on for thousands of years. There’s nothing for us to do.”
    I could tell Carole wasn’t happy about that. But a moment later, just as the moon slipped behind some clouds and the unseen coyote let out another long howl, the horses suddenly stopped their panicky movements. After a moment, the stallion emerged from the center of the pack, his gleaming, silvery coat shining in the dim light from the stars.
    I squinted at him. There was something about him—something odd about his shape. “Did you see that?” I whispered to the others. I couldn’t believe what my own eyes were telling me, and I wanted someone else to confirm it.
    “What?” Stevie asked as the stallion led his herd behind a rock outcropping. Within seconds, the horses had disappeared from our sight.
    “It was a rider,” Kate said breathlessly.
    I nodded, glad that she’d seen it, too. “Pure silvery white, just like the horse.”
    “And just like White Eagle,” Christine added.
    Stevie looked at us skeptically. “Come on, you guys,” she said. “It’s just John, playing another joke on us.”
    I wasn’t too sure about