A Stormy Night

Nancy gasped as Pepper Pot headed for the steep wall of the wash. Wildly, he scrambled up the slope, barely managing to reach the top before he stopped, his sides heaving violently.

Had the horse hesitated a moment longer, Nancy knew, they both would have been carried along in the flood!

Trembling, she leaned her cheek against the horse’s hot, wet neck and hugged him. He turned back to sniff at her knee, then began picking his way slowly along the ridge above the wash. Since she had no idea which way would take them back to the resort buildings, Nancy simply left the reins loose on his neck, trusting him to take them home through the stormy night.

She rode for what seemed an age before the rain ended as abruptly as it had begun. Once the pounding drops stopped, she straightened up and looked around. The wind, chilling since she was soaked to the skin, was already herding the clouds across the sky, leaving behind them black velvet sparkling with stars.

Almost at once, Nancy saw car lights ahead. They were coming in her direction and proved to be those of the battered resort jeep. It slithered to a stop beside her.

“Nancy! ” George shouted, leaping out. “Thank heavens we’ve found you. We’ve been frantic. Where have you been? What happened? ”

Nancy found herself lifted down from the saddle by Chuck. Once she was steady on her feet, he knotted the reins high on Pepper Pot’s neck, then turned the horse loose with a slap on the haunch. “Go home, old boy, ” he said to him. “We’ll be there to put you into your stall.”

The gelding trotted off as Nancy began telling everyone exactly what had happened. “I don’t know where Ngyun and Cochise could have gone, ” she finished. “They just weren’t in the wash when I got to the end of it.”

Heather frowned. “Ngyun is back at the house, Nancy, ” she said. “He’s been there all evening. And Cochise is in the stable. Pepper Pot was the only horse missing when we went down there looking for you.”

“But I saw a rider on a pinto trotting away from the stable, ” Nancy protested. “And they were ahead of me in that wash. I’d never have gone so far from the house in the rain if I hadn’t been following them. ”

“Did you really see Ngyun? ” Chuck asked.

“Well, no, but...” Nancy stopped, then swallowed hard. “It was a trap, wasn’t it? ” she asked. “But how could the intruder have known that I’d follow him? ”

“Maybe it didn’t matter, ” George suggested. “I mean, maybe he just wanted you to see the pinto leaving the stable and believe that Ngyun was riding him.”

Nancy nodded, her mind working feverishly. “When I followed, whoever it was must have decided it was a perfect opportunity to get rid of me. If it hadn’t been for Pepper Pot, I’d have been trapped in the flood. ”

“You definitely picked the right horse to ride tonight, ” Chuck told her as he helped her into the crowded jeep. “He’s saved me a couple of times.”

No one said much as they bounced over the wet ground on the way back to the well-lit, stone house. However, by the time Chuck stopped by the rear garden to let the girls out before going down to the stable to take care of Pepper Pot, Nancy had already come to a conclusion.

“Do you suppose the rider on the pinto was going to start a fire or cause some other kind of trouble? ” she asked. “I mean, since I saw the horse leaving the stable, I had to believe that it was Cochise, and that would mean Ngyun could be blamed again.”

“That would explain all the times someone has seen a rider on a pinto near trouble, wouldn’t it? ” George commented. “It’s too bad you didn’t get a closer look at your mystery rider.”

“I will next time, ” Nancy promised with a sturdy smile. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go take a nice, hot bath and get into some dry clothes.”

“You come out and join us for some hot chocolate afterwards, ” Heather ordered gently. “I think we have some talking to do.”

Nancy nodded, aware from the girl’s tone that she would be asked once more to discontinue her investigation. But she couldn’t stop now, the young detective realized, not when she was so close to clearing Ngyun of all the ugly accusations!

Later, however, as they sipped their hot chocolate, it took all her powers of persuasion to convince both Chuck and Heather that she had to go on with her sleuthing.

The morning dawned beautifully clear and sunny as though there’d been no storm at all. Nancy awoke, more than ready to go to work on the mystery of Ngyun’s persecution. Heather offered to help by volunteering to call the nearby ranches and ask them about black-and-white pintos. By the time breakfast was over, she had a list of six possibilities to contact.

“While you do that, Heather, I think I’d like to ride out to the wash and see if I can figure out how my mysterious rider escaped, ” Nancy said. “Maybe I’ll find a clue to his identity there.”

“It seems to me we should come with you, ” George spoke up. “Right, Bess? ”

“Just as long as we stay away from rattlesnakes and flooded washes, ” Bess answered.

“There’s not a cloud in the sky, ” Nancy assured her. “I don’t think we have to worry about floods.”

“How about arrows and rattlers? ” Bess asked.

“The only sure way to be safe is for me to find out who is pretending to be Ngyun—and why. Once we know that, we’ll all be safe.”

Riding along the wash in the bright sunlight was far different from the previous night, and Nancy found herself enjoying the fresh, morning air and the glimpses of all the desert creatures that seemed to be busy making their own repairs after the flood. The wash showed the marks of the racing waters, with gouges in the damp earth and the clutter of debris that had been dropped when the rain ended and the runoff slowed to a trickle.

As they rounded the bend near the end of the wash, Nancy stopped Pepper Pot and stared to her left. “I guess that’s the answer to my ghostly rider’s disappearance, ” she said, pointing to the rough trail that led from the floor of the wash to the rim. “In all the rain and confusion, I didn’t even see that last night.”

“Want to follow it? ” George asked.

“Might as well.” Nancy guided the obedient bay toward the narrow trail, then clung to the saddle as he made a rather bounding climb up it. George and Bess followed, sending a small hail of loose earth into the wash.

“It must have been someone who knows this area well, ” Nancy observed, looking around the open hills. “Whoever it was led me into that ravine on purpose, then got out of it just before the runoff from the surrounding hills turned it into a flood channel.”

“Now we know why they call them washes, ” Bess murmured, looking back.

“So where do we go from here? George asked.

Nancy considered, then pointed to a distant clump of trees. “If I’d just come out of that wash in the middle of a storm, I think I’d be looking for shelter, ” she said, “and those trees are the closest.”

George nodded. “Heather says those spring thunderstorms never last long, so whoever it was would know that, too.”

The shady ground beneath the trees was soft and still wet, since the strong Arizona sun couldn’t reach it to dry it out as it had the rest of the area. Nancy dismounted at once, handing her reins to Bess. It took her only a moment to locate a set of hoofprints.

“Looks as if you were right, ” George said, joining her on the ground.

“It’s too bad the area beyond here is so rocky, ” Nancy complained. “Otherwise, we could try some of Ngyun’s tracking.”

“The tracks lead that way, ” George said, following them to the edge of the trees and a few yards beyond. “Right into that loose shale.”

“Now what? ” Bess asked.

Nancy returned to the shade of the trees, walking under the low-hanging boughs till her eyes were caught by a flash of bright red color on the thorny tip of a mesquite bush. She went to pick up the piece of cloth, then smiled. “Now we have two things to look for, ” she said triumphantly. “Someone with a pinto horse, and a red shirt or jacket with a big tear in it.”

“Wonderful, ” George congratulated her. “Once everyone hears about this, Ngyun’s name will be cleared and Maria won’t have to worry about sending him to his mother.”

Nancy sobered. “He’ll be cleared when we find the person with the pinto horse and the torn clothes, ” she corrected, then added, “and maybe then we’ll also find out why he did all these things and arranged it so they’d be blamed on Ngyun.”

“It does seem strange, ” Bess and George agreed as the girls mounted again, and they all turned the horses toward the resort.

“Maybe Heather will have some answers for us when we get back, ” George suggested as they loped along.

They were feeling very pleased with their discoveries when they turned the horses loose in the corral after unsaddling them. “I hope you can get this settled so you can concentrate on the Kachina ghost, ” Bess told Nancy as they walked toward the rear garden.

To their surprise, no one came out to greet them, and when they entered the kitchen, neither Heather nor Maria even looked up. “Hey, Nancy found some clues, ” George called. “She can prove that it wasn’t Ngyun in the wash last night! ”

Maria turned to look at them, but there was no joy in her brown face, and Nancy could see the marks of tears on her cheeks. “What’s happened? ” she asked.

“It’s too late, ” Maria sobbed, then fled from the kitchen!