Blue Moon by Marilyn Halvorson Page B

At first he just wanted to die. But he’s startin’ to care a little now. Comin’ to see Blue Moon was the first time he’s gone out amongst people since we got here. I guess I’d talked about her so much his curiosity finally got the best of him.” Cole grinned. “He sure took to that horse. Talked about her more than he’s talked about anything since the accident.”
    Suddenly, the smile faded and I knew something else was wrong. “Tell me the rest, Cole,” I said, glancing at his face in the glow of the instrument panel.
    He wouldn’t look at me. “That’s all there is to tell about my family,” he said in a low voice.
    â€œBut there’s something else you’ve got to tell me, isn’t there? You’ve been tryingto get up the nerve to tell me all week, Cole. Get it over with.” I turned the corner into our lane and pulled to a stop in front of the barn. In a minute, my family would be out here wanting to know how everything went. I wanted an answer first.
    Cole slowly reached into the front pocket of his jean jacket and brought out a folded piece of paper. I opened it and turned on the overhead light.
    It was a poster.

    I sat there staring at the paper. Then I stared at Cole. “Where…?” I began. “How…?” There were so many questions I didn’t know where to start.
    Cole answered some of them. “Like I said, Dad couldn’t get the mare off his mind. He kept saying she reminded him of something. Finally he got out a bunch of papers and dug through them. The poster was put out by a friend of his in Kamloops. He sent Dad a copy just in case he ever ran across a clue to where the mare had gone.”
    â€œBut the wagon wheel brand…”
    â€œYeah, the sloppy wagon wheel with the spokes that don’t line up. You know how easy it would be to change the rising sun to a wagon wheel? Look.” He took a pen, sketched a rising sun onto the back of the poster, added a few lines and came up with a wagon wheel.
    For a minute, I just sat there in silence. I tried to think of all the reasons why it couldn’t be. But they all turned into reasons why it could. Champion cutting horse.I remembered that first morning when Dad had found Blue Moon out there rounding up cows all by herself.
    â€œDad says it’s up to you what you do about the horse. He’s not gonna do anything. He just figured you had a right to know, that’s all.”
    Before I could answer there was a loud tap on the window. I opened the door. There stood Sara. “You guys steamin’ up the windows in there or what?” she asked with a sly grin.
    â€œGet lost, rodent,” I said. I would have said more, but Mom and Dad were right behind her. They spotted the trophy and got all excited and proud the way parents are supposed to. I did my best to act excited and proud, too. But it was all I could do to keep it together long enough to look after Blue Moon and drive Cole home. Then I shut myself in my room and cried myself to sleep.
    But I didn’t stay asleep. I kept waking up and asking myself what I was going to do. Blue Moon was mine, wasn’t she? After all, if I hadn’t bought her, she’d be dead bynow. But what if I’d been the one she’d been stolen from? What if somebody had her and knew she belonged to me but wouldn’t even let me know she was still alive?
    First thing in the morning, I phoned Frank Conway in Kamloops. I think I got the guy out of bed. I forgot that it was an hour earlier in B.C.
    I told him the whole story. It took a while. Not only was I going to lose my horse, I’d be broke for a year paying off this phone call. At first, Conway wasn’t convinced. But the more I told him, the more I could sense he was listening.
    He asked directions to our place. He had business in Alberta the next week, he said. He’d come by and have a look at her. “Okay, that’ll