Finally she stopped a hundred yards away and watched Ritz, eyes wary, ears pointed. Then she lowered her head to the grass.
“Why do you even bother calling her?” Jet taunted as she slung a leg over the gate to watch. “She never comes to you.”
Ritz forgot her friend and concentrated on coaxing the mare closer. Only when she finally got the reins and turned to yell in triumph, Jet was gone.
When she raced over to the gate, it was closed and locked. In a panic, Ritz tugged at the lock and rattled the gate. Then Buttercup pinned her ears back.
A tiny pulse pounded in Ritz’s throat. The horse needed water. Oats. There was no telling what the Blackstones might do to her mare if they found her.
Ritz was trapped inside the forbidden kingdom.
If his wide brown shoulders and lean torso had her in to a dither last night, what would happen if she came face-to-face with naked Roque Blackstone?
2
It had been a hellish hour. Ritz had pranced back and forth in front of the gate astride Buttercup, torn between abandoning the mare and staying with her. All her grand dreams of ending the feud were as nothing.
Oh, why couldn’t Mother or Ramón drive by and rescue her?
Ritz was hot and tired and thirsty. So was Buttercup.
Maybe just maybe, Ritz could get out of this trap if she rode all the way down to the beach.
Maybe. The beach was five miles away. Probably another fence would cut her off before she got there.
A red sun hung low in a rosy horizon. With a frown, she pushed her glasses up her nose and studied the caliche road and the oak mott atop the ancient dunes. Tangles of thick, thorny brush—mesquite, huisache and oak and prickly pear trailed down the sides of the dunes. Her gaze wandered over the greenery twisting across the flat pasture following the course of Keller Creek.
Surely Roque wouldn’t still be naked at that pond on the other side of those trees. Not that she’d risk going that far. She’d only go as far as the oak mott, to the edge of the creek, in the hopes that it might still be running even this late in the year.
She nudged Buttercup. Even if it was dry, at least she and Buttercup could rest and cool off in the shade.
As they made their way toward the trees, she couldn’t help remembering less anxious outings when she’d come here with her cousins and Uncle Buster, who had always said this was the prettiest pasture on the Triple K Ranch.
Blackstone Ranch now.
Oh, how she’d loved Uncle Buster. He’d been a lot like her daddy except way more fun.
A yowl from the brush pierced the silence. A little brown rabbit sprang up underfoot. Buttercup reared. Clenching her legs tight and seizing fistfuls of black mane, Ritz held on as the rabbit made a wild dash for it.
Letting out a war whoop, Ritz and Buttercup raced after it.
Crazed with fear, the rabbit dived into a hole.
Buttercup circled, pawing and snorting.
Then Ritz remembered where she was and glanced nervously toward the oak mott.
No sign of a cat…. Nor a tall, dark naked man-boy.
Pressing her calves tighter, she and Buttercup were soon inside the shade of the oak trees. The creek was no more than a narrow trickle of water spilling over rocks and sand and damp brown leaves. Four yellow birds fluttered in the sand near a clump of Spanish dagger, chirping.
The banks were stony, littered with sticks, and thorny with yellow-berried Granjeno, which made for dangerous riding, so Ritz dismounted Buttercup, because she was too precious to her to risk a leg injury.
Quietly, so as not to startle the birds, Ritz grounded the mare. The birds fluttered to the high green branches that arched above like a natural cathedral. Buttercup sunk her muzzle and guzzled sloppily from a little pool. Ritz knelt on the bank, dabbing cool water onto her red face and sunburned arms. She kept thinking about Roque Blackstone and wondering how she’d ever get out.
When she’d cooled off a bit, she just sat there, mesmerized by the guppies flashing in the dark waters. Wishing she had jars to catch them with, she forgot she was trapped in the forbidden kingdom with a naked boy.
Scooping up a handful of water and two guppies, she smiled as they wriggled their tails spraying wet pearls of sunlight. Releasing them, she saw Buttercup a good ways downstream nibbling mesquite beans.
Buttercup was not to be trusted, so Ritz got up to go after her. Then she spied a darling black spider curled up in a white flower. When she peeled back the petals, the spider curled up as small as a pill bug.
“Don’t be afraid, little spider.”
Little legs tickled her ankle. When she brushed at the bug, she saw an amber colored army of ants racing along a miniature highway in the tall brown grasses. Every ant returning to the mound carried a leaf bigger than it was. She fell to her knees to watch them. Every ant coming out of the mound bumped into every ant carrying a leaf.
“Why?” she wondered aloud, spellbound. “Do you have a secret language?”
For a long time, she was aware of nothing but the ants. Then a large animal sneezed. She jumped to her feet.
“Buttercup?”
The yellow birds weren’t singing anymore. The last of the red-gold sunlight flickered in the twisted, wind-skewered branches. An owl went, “whoo, whoo, whoo.”
Where was Buttercup?
Ritz ran in the direction where she’d last seen her. When she stopped to get her breath, she was in a part of the oak mott she’d never been in before. Shrouded eerily with mistletoe, the trees were like dancers frozen in some dark spell.
The owl hooted again.
Sometimes witches took the shape of owls and changed little girls into birds…at least, in one of Ritz’s favorite fairy tales. Ritz shivered.
The trees, the creek—all that had seemed so familiar and wondrous were suddenly strange and terrifying. She was all alone. Without the wind to rattle the palmetto fronds and stir the brown leaves that littered the ground, it was too quiet.
She stared up into the branches looking for cats. Then she remembered the No Trespassing signs, and a pulsebeat pounded in her temple.
This was Blackstone land. Why hadn’t she climbed the gate and run home? She had to get home—fast—really fast, before something really bad happened. She would have to end the feud some other day when she was bigger and braver.
“Buttercup? Where are you—”
There was no answering snicker. The sun went behind a cloud and the glade darkened. Branches moaned in the wind. Leaves rained down and scuttled at her feet.
Then a twig crackled behind her.
Sobbing
