Chapter Seven

The Painted Pony Chapter Seven


Jamie questioned her choice of friends as she drove to the family ranch. Why did she choose those like, Donna, with clairvoyant –seer tendencies? Suppose it was partly because of her own tendency to see—what wasn't visible to most. Donna saw danger for her both from a familiar person and a stranger. She did say a familiar person, not a "familiar," didn't she? There's a world of difference in what she said…Now Jamie questioned herself and her memory. I must learn to listen better and not assume.

Courtney was familiar person and always an explosive link in her life. When she wasn't involved in Jamie's life it was a good thing, but Jamie knew, if she returned to the res and the ranch there would be trouble with Courtney. There always was. That was a given.

More pleasant things crowded out those worry thoughts. Arrogant, but interesting, Ben's Grandson. The fact that he wasn't impressed by Courtney's flirting moved him u a notch in Jamie's book. Well, he was only temporary anyway and he'd probably be gone by the time she got back to the ranch.

Ben confided in her that he worried about some of the goings on at the ranch property, cutting fences was only one of them. The small herd of horses and the few cattle, no one should bother with. They certainly weren't worth rustling, not to someone looking for quick cash. So why cut fences?

Jamie was certain it wasn't rustlers, but what then?

She had a feeling she was about to find out as she pulled in to the ranch to see squad cars, troopers in uniform and some men in suits gathered around the bunk house. Where was Ben? Immediately her mind worried over his safety and well-being.

A deputy approached her truck a she slowed the truck and U-haul trailer to a stop. Ben hadn't indicated there was any trouble when she called him to tell him her plans to come back home.

The officer motioned for her to roll her window down. She obeyed without turning the engine off.

"No one is allowed on the premises, a police matter here." He motioned behind him to the men milling around the bunkhouse.

He was abrupt, a rookie showing his power to control. Jamie smiled. She recognized the rooster strut of new hires. "It's okay. I'm the owner. I'm moving back here." She pointed to the U-haul that had a large percentage of her worldly good in it.

Sheriff Ludwick (Ludy to the locals) Hale approached as she tried to reason with the rookie. Jamie smiled at Ludy. "What's up Lucy? Did Ben rob a bank?"

Sherriff Ludy ticked the brim of his hat as a salutation. "Good to see you Jamie." He waved the rookie away. The rookie laced his fingers into his belt and backed off; he didn't wilt, just stood as if on guard to protect his superior. Jamie found the display amusing, but what brought out this entourage of law concerned her more.

The suits definitely were FBI and that wasn't unusual, reservations were treated like a foreign entity, a sovereign nation when it came to law enforcement. Jamie knew this, but why they were here puzzled her.

Sheriff Hale leaned his elbows on the open window. "Discovered a marijuana grow back there."He indicated a region toward the mountain range that bordered the ranch to the North West.

Jamie glanced in that direction and saw J.C. Cole the tribal police chief headed her way. She pulled on the latch to open the truck door and Sherriff Ludy straightened up pulling the door with him.

"Where's Ben," Jamie directed her question to J.C. She didn't like him. He was the type of man who could be bought and often looked the other way when trouble surfaced.

JC shrugged. "Settin warm and cozy in his livin room I 'magin."

Jamie wanted to reach out and smack him. He never grew up. He was always a bully, all through school and continued to think he could get away with it.

She turned to face Sherriff Hale. "You know Ben would never knowingly allow this to happen."

"Well he did," JC fairly gloated.

She ignored him and waited for Sheriff Hale to respond.

"We have to investigate all angles, but I'm as sure as you are that Ben wouldn't have allowed this."

She studied Ludy Hale's face—he was holding something back. She could sense it, but what? Is Ben somehow implicated?

Choices for Painted Pony and other considerations

Hi Readers
 So far we have Jamie and her painted pony at a scene that hasn't yet been described by the author. I figure we have at least 3 choices. Here are the fourI'd like you to vote on.
 What Jamie encounters when she comes around the corner is:
1. A tape recorded trickery that used a trained horse to deliver her to this spot...someone with a sinister motive awaits her.

2. There is a crying baby, the mother is injured in a fall from the horse - the child is crying the mother is bleeding profusely from a gash on her head.

3. A Baby is discovered, surrounded by wolf cubs and a colt - the baby has a note pinned to his/her shirt.

4. a vision - a council fire with elders chanting and singing with the drum - they summoned her to save the Indian burial grounds from developers. Her deceased father is among those present at the council fire. The Painted Pony was sent because her father knew her love of animals would win over anything else going on in her life.

So there are your choices for me to continue - send me an email at Billie and tell me what you think.
Then I will continue with the next chapter next week.
Thanks!
 Search Amazon.com for Watch For The Raven
Billie

This is the new cover for Watch For the Raven

The Painted Pony

A new story I'm starting today. Here is the first chapter.
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Painted Pony

Jamie Lynn watched as a pale cloud of dust signaled the early morning arrival of a visitor who showed up at 6 a.m. every morning for the past week. The thunder of her hooves shook the ground. Jamie felt it in the souls of her bare feet. Her breath caught in her throat as the painted pony glided over the top of the hill. She stopped abruptly and stared at Jamie.

The two of them stood frozen like two moments in time. Jamie didn't dare blink for fear Ember would disappear again. Jamie could feel the heat of Ember's aliveness, she was real, what did she want?  Where did she come from? Why here, why now?

Jamie Lynn's grief was so profound she came to Nimberbrook to regain her equilibrium. She came to figure out if she could go on, which direction she should take. What was the significance of this delightful creature who wouldn't be approached?

As if on cue, Ember reared up, marked the air with her signature, three pawing motions in the air, before she spun and disappeared the way she had come. Today, Jamie was prepared. She hurriedly mounted Daisy and coaxed the horse forward, toward the hill where the painted pony had stood. Ember seemed such an appropriate name. It had appeared in Jamie's mind just as the horse appeared. Ember glowed like a ghostly apparition, but Jamie was sure she was real; at least, until she found no footprints where Ember had stood, she believed she was real. Her image was too distinct not to be real, wasn't it?

The ground shaking thunder of her approach was real. Jamie felt it; it was enough to make her think a herd stampeded toward her, not just one magnificent creature. 

Jamie slid down from Daisy's saddle to examine the ground more closely where Ember made her showing. She ran her hand over the undisturbed ground. The feeling of heat warmed the palm of Jamie's hand. She paused and went back over the area—heat, but no tracks. Was she losing her mind? Her gaze followed the dust that puffed like clouds toward the horizon. No sign of the horse except for those fading puffs of dust raised by her hooves. Distance is hard to judge in open country fenced in by the LaPlata Mountain range, a very familiar sight to Jamie. But, always mysterious, always offering new visions, inner as well as outer. Distance was one she hadn't managed to conquer just yet.

Who did the painted pony belong to? Why did she get the distinct feeling she should follow her?  Daisy seemed totally disinterested in the other horse as she grazed on the tufts of sedge grass poking up centaur-like from the dry earth. No rain in over a month gave the once lush mountain valley a desert tawny hue.

Pursuing the elusive creature who seemed to be luring Jamie out of her comfort zone into untraveled territory seemed her only option. A very strong pull made her move toward the painted pony's path. It wasn't the old west where savage Indians roamed and lurked for unsuspecting travelers. The term "savage Indian", shuddered the nerves of her spine. What a legacy she had inherited. Do people still think savage when they see her? Sometimes she thought they did even with her rise up from nothing to owner of the chain of holistic health and beauty stores across the Iron Range back home in Michigan.  Colorado always held her heart though, her father's land called her back here regularly. She always followed that call. This time Ember stood at the end of that call, or so it seemed she was part of that call.

Slowly, Jamie urged Daisy forward. The horse seemed reluctant to travel in a straight line toward what Jamie saw as her goal—the distant, shrinking dust ruffles Ember kicked up as her bread crumbs in the forest. The Hansel and Gretel fairy tale spirited across her mind as did the word 'lost'. She could never get lost. Daisy would always know her way home, wouldn't she?

Jamie reined the horse in, twisted in the saddle to gaze behind her for a landmark, something to call her home if Daisy should somehow forget. Daisy's fur twitched. Jamie saw why. Coyotes streaked across the path behind her. During the day? Unusual but it was very early. She hoped they weren't after the painted pony, though the pony seemed healthy enough, alone it could be the target for that marauding pack. She nudged Daisy forward. "Come on girl, we need to find Ember."

Daisy snorted and immediately obeyed, albeit, reluctantly. Jamie could tell she was in no hurry to obey her master's orders. Urgency fueled Jamie's insistence that the horse follow her command. Normally, she wouldn't force the issue. Daisy was a seasoned horse and seemed to sense the presence of danger, the avalanche, the rattle snake, the bear, Daisy had balked, and Jamie had listened. And luckily so, yet, this time, not this time, something pulled her toward the distant mountain range and Ember. The coyotes she had spotted earlier crossed her mind, but they were headed due north not west as Jamie and Daisy were. Of course the animals could circle west, nothing except Daisy's nervous twitching told her anything was amiss. Jamie watched the ground for signs, signs of Ember's flight, signs of the coyotes, signs of the mountain lion that had been spotted in the valley lately harassing cattle—she didn't see anything. So why were the hairs at the nap of her neck bristling like a bug crawled among the roots. 

Daisy's ears moved independently of one another like a cats, or a rabbits listening for sound a human ear could never pick up. Jamie knew enough to watch the horses' body language for subtle hints hidden from her human self about her environment. Clearly, Daisy sensed or heard something, but Jamie's insides told her to press on. Whatever Ember's message was she needed to follow her, now. Daisy wasn't stubbornly refusing like she did before the avalanche. Jamie took this as a sign she should be cautious but not to abort her mission of following Ember.

She nearly lost her balance and fell off Daisy's back as she was leaning way over to try to 'read' the signs the ground might give up. The sound of a child crying caught Jamie off guard. A child, here, deep in these woods in the foothills of the LaPlata's? From the sounds of it, a very young child and the hurried mission of the coyotes suddenly spurred her own mission. Daisy snorted in protest, but moved toward the sound as Jamie guided her.

 "Always carry a rifle when you ride these hills." Her father's words echoed in her mind now. Jamie was of a mentality that there was nothing to fear in the settled west anymore. It was silly to borrow trouble. When James Two-Cloud saddled Daisy for Jamie the rifle scabbard was always present and loaded.

"If you ever get thrown from your horse, or run into trouble, you can summon help. You don't have to shoot any creature or human, just shoot the air."

Sage advice Jamie thought now as she urged Daisy forward toward the child's distress call. But, what possible dan—g—er—Jamie swallowed the lump in her throat that felt like her heart had leapt there. 

to be continued...