Dog Gone by Cynthia Chapman Willis Page B

went after those poor sheep? What if we’re protecting a killer?”
    What if this and what if that. “He’s not a killer.” I release the girth, and slip the fleece pad and saddle off of Crossfire’s back. Cub puts the pie down on a hay bale to take them from me. As he returns everything to the tack room, I work a brush over Crossfire’s flanks, wishing I could flick off the what if s as easily as dust from the horse’s coat.
    â€œI can’t stop thinking about that blood.” Cub steps out of the room, wipes pie crumbs off his mouth with his knuckles. “Or those killed sheep.”
    The humidity, which is making me cranky, is keeping most people from riding. This leaves the stable quiet except for the muffled stomp of hooves on the straw-covered stall floors, the tinkling of halters, and Cub—who is also making me cranky. “I need a plan on how to find Dead End. That’s all. Once he’s home, everything will be great.”
    Riding boots clack slow and steady on the concrete aisle. “What’s this about blood and killed sheep?”
    I stop brushing. Cub, who has picked up the pie and taken another bite, doesn’t chew. We look at each other with wide eyes, all words sucked out of us for a stunned moment. Skeeter Thornburn comes around a corner box stall, smacking his riding whip against his boots.
    â€œListenin’ in again, Thorn-butt?” Cub eyes Skeeter’s new T-shirt, so white it would probably glow in the dark, and his tailored, black riding pants. Cub has never owned anything new or tailored. Skeeter has never owned anything handed down. “Get a life.” Cub spits apple and raisins. “And get lost.”
    Skeeter saunters toward us, his blond hair too neat, the part ruler-straight and begging to be messed with. “People who pay for their lessons and board their horses here go where they want, when they want. Not like you—the low-life hired help.”
    We’re all in the same grade, but Skeeter goes to some fancy private school. Cub heard he doesn’t have any friends there, either, which is not even close to surprising. The kid is too annoying and too mean to deal with, plain and simple.
    â€œ Low-life help ?” Cub puffs himself up, clenches his fists. “I’ll give you low-life.”
    I jump in front of him. Even though my being a head taller than Dameon (and a head and shoulders above Cub) makes me bold, and also makes me itch to wipe the sneer off the Mosquito’s face, Cub and I don’t need Skeeter’s trouble. He does everything possible to get us mad, then squeals like a scared piglet when either of us gets within a foot of him. Mom used to feel sorry for Skeeter. She knew he could be sneaky and mean, but to her, he was more of a hyena pup without a pack than a mosquito or a piglet. And she’d always remind me that even the nastiest animals needed others, which is why, she’d said, Cub and I should try to include him in our fun. I still said that Cub and I should just rub his nose in dirt.
    â€œLook, Cub.” I point at the whip in Skeeter’s grip. “The silver-handled crop. Didn’t he whine about how it went missing? Didn’t he about accuse you and me of stealing it?”
    Cub squints at the engraved silver. “D.B.T.,” he growls low. “Dameon-the-Bloodsucking-Tick. Yep, that’s his crop.”
    Skeeter’s knuckles go white on the whip. “At least I have a crop. You going to borrow one from Ms. Hunter for the show, Dill? You going to borrow clothes from her, too? Or is riding her horse enough grubbing for you?”
    I’d pound Skeeter for this if Stubs—the big, gray stable cat missing most of her tail—wasn’t creeping along the top edge of the box stall, balancing on mitten paws. Focused on Skeeter, she comes slinking up behind his head, low and slow, stalking. She hates Skeeter, Cub often says. Smells the rat in