Katie and the Mustang, Book 3 Read Free

into straw.
    I smiled and waved at him, but then I dropped back a little. “Sometimes I wish you were plain as a mud hen,” I told the Mustang. “You always draw a question or two.”
    He shook his mane, probably to chase off a fly, but I laughed. It looked as though he had meant to argue with me. “Oh, I know. If you were less handsome, Midnight and Delia wouldn’t answer every time you neighed at them, would they?” I tapped his shoulder and he danced away from me, then sidled closer again. I laughed aloud.
    Then I noticed that the Kyler girls were all looking at me. Polly waved and I waved back, but then I blushed and lowered my eyes. I faced straight ahead for a while, feeling silly. Why should I care if the Kyler girls thought I was odd, talking to a horse? But I did. I did.
    The rutted road lay before us, disappearing in the distance. The sky was wide and light blue with only a few clouds visible to the north. The ground beneath my feet was smooth and soft—and chilly from the cold night.
    The sun would soon warm it, I was sure. It felt good to be up out of the valley and on the high ground. I could see all the way to forever in all four directions.
    I leaned close to the Mustang’s ear and whispered so low that the Kyler girls wouldn’t know I was talking to him again.
    â€œOregon!” I breathed. “We’re on our way.”

CHAPTER THREE

    It is so good to be away from the tangle of scents in
the valley. Here, when I am upwind of the two-leggeds,
I am content to walk with the little one, listening to
her make her soft sounds.
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    I t took almost two hours to get the wagons in a circle that first night. The drivers had botched it at our supper stop, and Mr. Teal was determined to get it done proper for the night. It sounds like a simple thing to do, but it isn’t.
    If one of the wagons is angled wrong, the next one can’t be placed right; then instead of a circle, it winds up looking like a misshapen egg with gaps between the wagons wide enough for any horse or ox to waltz right through.
    Mr. Teal made everyone start over three times, getting all the wagons back into a long line, then filing off in a curve. I walked the Mustang off to one side and let him graze while the men were popping their whips and shouting at the oxen.
    They came around one last time. The oxen were bawling with hunger by the time we finally got it done. The sun had almost gone down before anyone had the harnesses off their working stock.
    â€œTomorrow we will be stopping earlier,” Mr. Teal shouted, standing on the McMahons’ driver’s bench. “You need practice, but it’ll get easier.”
    â€œAmen to that,” someone answered, and everyone laughed.
    I kept the Mustang grazing until people had their campfires lit and their suppers started. Then, when things had quieted down, I led him back to the ring of wagons and guided him over Mr. and Mrs. Kyler’s wagon tongue.
    He lifted his front hooves high and hopped his back ones over the long oak pole that served as the anchor for all the harness straps. He was whinnying back and forth with Delia and Midnight the whole time we walked toward them.
    â€œGood thing no one else has a stallion,” Andrew Kyler said, watching the Mustang nudge the two mares to the edge of the herd. The horses and oxen would have the inside of the circle grazed flat by morning, and I was glad the Mustang had already gotten his fill.
    â€œHere, Katie,” Mrs. Kyler said, patting the ground beside her when I got back to her wagon. “Will you stir this while I get the biscuits?”
    I knelt beside the fire and smelled salt pork and beans heating in the pot—leftovers from last night’s supper.
    I dragged the long-handled ladle through the big pot, making sure the beans weren’t sticking to the cast iron and burning. Nothing tasted worse than burnt beans, and I didn’t want to be the one