The Mystery of The Disappearing Horses

Chapter One

Cheryl Marsh gathered small sticks of wood from around the camp and stacked them in a teepee-like shape. She took a match from her jacket pocket and lit the moss and bark underneath the pile of sticks on fire. The small flame lingered at the end of a leaf, then ran up the stem and quickly spread to the rest of the pile.

It was late in a nightof early July and a small chill was setting in. Cherly was up on a mountain, herding cattle from her family's ranch. She had already been gone four days but it would be another week before Cheryl and her best friend, Laura, got all one hundred and twenty head of cattle. An old corral stood in the meadow just down from their camp on a ridge. Fourty head of cattle were already standing penned in it, waiting to be driven home when all the other hands and owners of the ranch would come and collect them in two weeks..

Cheryl's Quarter Horse gelding, Moondance, was tied to a tree just outside the clearing. His black coat shone like silk in the moonlight.

Cherly sat cross-legged next to the campfire on her saddle pad. Her gun barrel, strapped in her holster held to her hip, reflected the light from the fire. The firelight flashed up and down the barrel.

Suddeny, a crackling sound came from the woods. Cheryl wasn't alarmed. She knew it was Laura coming in from the night check on the cattle. Cheryl stood and turned to see Laura riding in on her Quarter Horse mare, Starfire. She jukped down and tethered the chestnut mare next to Moondance.

"How's the cattle? All bedded down?" Cheryl questioned Laura as she stepped into the camp.

"Yes, they're all sleeping. oh, and that black bull that got away from the herd this afternoon, he came up to the corral so I chased him in," Laura unstrapped her own gun and stretched out in front of the fire.

"Good," Cheryl was pleased to hear that, " The way I figure it, where we picked up that group of seven at Catfish Creek, I only see leaders in that group, all the followers should be there by morning and that should be a group of thirty or fourty. And up over the next mountain there's a good grazing meadow we haven't checked yet. There's probably a big herd staying there."

"Sounds good. Hey, do you have any of that jerky left?"

Cheryl handed Laura the bag of food and a water canteen. She looked up at the stars. She just loved it when her father, Daniel, sent her up in the mountains or in the meadows to retreive herds of cattle or check the lakes and creeks for flooding.

Cheryl was seventeen years old and Laura was fifteen. Laura's last name was Cane and her and her father, Phil, lived on the Marsh's ranch with Cheryl and her family, plus all the ranch hands. Laura's mother died when she was four so she never knew her.

The ranch was named Wolverine Ranch. It got it's name when Cheryl's great-great-grandfather was out trapping and he saw a wolverine so he chased it and on that chase he found the valley where the ranch now stood.

CHeryl broke away from her dreams when she heard a high-peirced scream of a horse echo through the forest. It wasn't from Moondance or Starfire but all the cattle jumped up suddenly and there was an uproar of bawling.

She quickly turned and saw a large, yellow cougar in mid air, pouncing off a rock.Cheryl rolled out of the way and less than a second later the cougar was onthe ground exactly where Cheryl had been laying. It was snarling and hissing and it looked mighty hungry. It got low and crept towards Cheryl in a stocking motion. She grabbed her pistol from her holster and shot the cougar when it was just inches from her. It lay dead at her feet, a crumpled yellow and red heap.

Laura ran to check the startled horses as Cheryl got her wind back. She walked over to them and ran a hand along Moondance's withers after the terror left her mind.

"Good shot, where'd that whinny come from?" Laura asked, shakily.

"I don't know," Cheryl glanced down at the dead cougar," Drag that cat away, I'm going to do a little tracking."

"In the middle of the night? Cheryl! It's one o'clock in the morning!"

Cheryl knew Laura wasn't worried about the darkness, but she knew she was scared to be left alone in the camp." Don't worry, I'll be back as soon as I can. I'll leave the rifle and the horses here."

"Where do you want me to drag that cat?"

"Just over that ledge over there. Remember, bears can smell blood from miles and miles..." her voice cut off, not wanting to scare her even more."Kick some dirt over the blood trail you're going to make, too. I'll skin the cat when I get back." Laura nodded.

Cheryl reloaded her gun and set off. She was the best tracker on the ranch so she knew where to start. Cheryl cautiously walked around the over-hanging rock of the camp which the cougar had jumped off of. His tracks led away from the camp so Cheryl started in the other direction around the camp to pick up any sign of the mysterious horse. She walked down to the cattle pen and sure enough, solid hoof prints were clearly visible, galloping away in the darkness. Cheryl climbed up and the rails to the corral and checked the cattle over. They had calmed down somewhat but the smaller calves nestled clost to their mothers.

Cheryl ran back to the camp and the cougar was no where in sight and neither was Laura.

The fire was starting to die so Cheryl threw a few more sticks of wood on. By the position of the moon, Cheryl guessed it was at least two in the morning.

She laid next to the fire and rested her head against her saddle. Minutes later, Laura came in and saw Cheryl so she asked if she found sign of the horse.

"Yes, I did, tracks gallop away from the corral down there, I'll track them tomarrow."

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Cheryl awoke some hours later. Looking at the fire, only a few small coals remained active. She laid more branches on it and soon t was blazing again. Cheryl reached over and tapped Laura's shoulder. She sat as Cheryl moved the coffee pot from the dirt where it had been placed the night before to the hot coals.

"As soonas we've finished eating,the sun should be up and I'm going to track that horse," Cheryl informed Laura.

"I wonder where it came from? As soon as it warned us about that lion, it disappeared." Cheryl nodded.

As soon as they had eaten, gotten the horses saddled and mounted up, the sun was peaking over the mountain. Cheryl looked back at the now deserted camp to make sure they didn't leave anything behind. All the coals from the fire had been buried in sand so they couldn't catch back up in a flame.

Laura glanced over at Cheryl and asked," Maybe I should come with you. In case you get in to some trouble. we have almost two weeks before all the cattle need to be in. They can wait an extra hour or two."

Cheryl thought about Laura's proposal and she knew that she was scared to ride out to the lost herds of cattle all by herself, but Cheryl didn't want to make her admit it. "All right. Come on," Cheryl gave in and dug her heels into her horse and they were off, galloping a meadow onthe side of a mountain. After several hundred yards away from the corral, Cheryl slowed her horse to a trot to get a better view of the tracks they were following. Suddenly, the tracks swerved to the right, directly into Elk River, the large river that ran down Wolverine Mountain and through the ranch.

Cheryl motioned for Laura to stop and she pulled up beside her older friend and asked," Is there a bridge anywhere in this part of the river?"

"No, we'll just have to walk through it. It's not deep, two feet at the most,"Cheryl answered, heading downthe steep back, Laura close behind.

As Cheryl had said, the river was only knee-deep for the horses. She had little trouble finding the tracks once they arrived on the other side. They were sunken in the muddy back several inches, with pools of water standing in them. Once Cheryl, Laura and the horses were atop the bank, they saw a narrow path leading into the trees, straight ahead of them, the tracks leading in. It only took a few seconds to canter to the edge of the trees.

"Well, here they go. The path is too small to for us to ride the horses in or even to lead them in. We'll have to leave them here." Cheryl quickly wrapped Moondance's reins around a tree and grabbed her rifle out of the scabard while Laura did the same with Starfire. The two girls walked in the forest.

"How far are we going?" Laura asked, glancing up in the trees, knowing that's where cougars hide.

"Until we find what we're looking for," Cheryl answered, casually.

The trail continued until a rock wall appeared, stretching at least twenty feet high, on the left side. the horse's tracks disappeared suddenly. The path followed on but soon came to a dead end, thick vines winding into each other. Not one opening or hole were in those vines.

"Dead end. Well a horse can't go through here. Let's go back to that wall." Cheryl had a pretty good idea what happened to the mysterious horse's tracks.

They walked back to the rock formations. Cheryl carefully examined the rocks and in a dark corner, a deep crevice, a good two feet wide, went straight through the rocks. Cheryl turned to Laura and told her firmly, "Stay here. I got a great idea I'm getting into alot of trouble."

Cheryl slipped through the crack and squeezed through. She burst out the other side.

The sun, she noticed, was brighter than she had even seen it before. A lush, green meadow stretched out for miles with one patchof trees to the side. A beautiful, glistening lake stood in the middle of it all.

Cheryl walked back to the crack and called through, " Laura, I think you need to see this."

Laura slithered through the hole and her jaw dropped. She squinted across the meadow and asked," What's that? Way across the hill." She gaped over all of it.

"It looks like a...a herd of horses!" Cheryl hadn't expected this at all!

"It is! And look, their headed right toward us!"

The girls dodged out of sight behind the rocks once again. A herd of fifty or sixty horses galloped within feet of the girls. The leader, a bay mare, held her head high, nostrils flaring. All the horses were different colors and sizes. Suddenly, the leader stared in Cheryl and Laura's direction and tore away, all the horses following her, disappearing into the patch of trees. After the last horse vanished, not a trace of them,except the tracks, of course, was left of the wild, magnificent animals.

The girls unjammed themselves from the crammed opening they were in and stared in awe. Cheryl was the first to speak. "Amazing. Simply amazing. I wonder how they got here?"

" I have no idea, but...wow!" Laura exclaimed.

Cheryl began looking at the rocks and of the mountain above them. "Laura, go get Starfire. Moondance is small, but she's smaller so she'll have a better chance of sqeezing through." Cheryl had something in mind that might solve all this. It took some effort getting Starfire through the crack but she did make it. Cheryl told Laura she'd only be about ten minutes. She tossed the rifle down to Laura and rode away.

Starfire seemed uneasy and scared the whole time, which was expected with the strange horses and land. Cheryl rode along the border of the field and up ahead, she saw a black thing laying on the ground next to a pile of rocks. Starfire trotted up next to it and saw it was the ruins of a house and fireplace. The rocks were blackened and everything was burnt. Cheryl jumped down and led Starfire behind her. She kicked around a bit in the ashes and her foot struck something. She bent down and pulled a metal plaque out that looked like it was attached to wood before it was burnt. Cheryl wiped it with her sleeve and found the words 'John Duhn' engraved in it's face. She kicked around some more and plenty of bits of chard wood and metal came up, including a metal lunchbox. Cheryl lifted it and could easily tell it was filled with something very heavy, but it was also locked. Cheryl pounded a rock against the clamped-shut lock but it didn't budge.

Starfire was rearing and whinnying so Cheryl decided it was time to go. She took the plaque and the lunch box with her.

When she got back to the rocks, Laura was nowhere in sight.

"Laura, Laura!" she called. A faint voice from above yelled down,"Up here!"

Cheryl glanced up and saw Laura sitting atop the rocks. She came sliding down when she saw the box Cheryl carried.

"I got something to tell you but you go first!" Laura said, as she curiously eyed the metal object. Cheryk explained all about the ruins and the box. "But I can't open it. Unless..." she grabbed her gun from the holster, set the box on the ground and pointed the barrel at the lock. She pulled the trigger and surprisingly, the lock blew apart. Cheryl looked at Laura and Laura nodded. Slowly, the lid opened and both girls dropped to their knees and stared at it. Inside the box, it glittered and sparkled and shined like rubies and diamonds. But it was better than rubies and diamonds! The box was filled with gold! Pure gold! A tiny peice of paper stuck out of one corner so Cheryl pulled on it. A newspaper appeared and in the headline she found the words, " Duhn Makes Breathtaking Facts!" and below it, an article stretched out for pages about it. The girls silently read the faded words and suddenly Laura exclaimed, "Listen to this! John Duhn, owner of the Falcon Ranch, located in the Wolverine Mountains, struck gold while digging a well for his horses. He now lives alone in those mountains with only his horses for company. He came to town asking if it was real and it is! John Duhn is certainly a wealthy man!"

"I don't understand it. If he was suddenly so rich, then why did he have to lock away all this gold? and when did his house burn down? Is there a date on this?" Cheryl questioned.

"Let's see. Yes, right here. June 7th, 1932! That's over seventy-five years ago!" Laura shouted.

"Laura, you mentioned news of your own. What is it?" Cheryl asked, quickly skimming the article.

She pointed above where she had been sitting. "On that over-hanging mountain, you can see a large piece of it's side is gone. About the same size as the rocks we crawled through and and the same shape."

"Your right. this is all too weird. The mysterious horse, the lion, the gold, the horses. Say, I wonder why that horse ran away after it warned us about the cat?" Oh well, I guess we'll have to look into it after we get the cattle back home. Let's go!"

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A week and three later, all one hundred and twenty head of cattle stood penned in the corral after everyone had driven them home. Cheryl's thirteen-year-old, red-headed sister, Stevie, her best friend, Chloe and Chloe's sister, Maggie, had gone upstream and had collected eighty head while Daniel, Phil and Justin, Chloe and Maggie's father, had gone to the flat meadows and got one hundred and ten head. Three ranch hands had also gotten seventy. They still had twenty odd head of strays to find. All together, the ranch owned four hundred pairs and half a dozen bulls, and about twenty horses.

Cheryl, Laura, Maggie, Chloe, Daniel, Phil and Justin all walked together to the house where a huge feast cokked by Belinda, Cheryl and Stevie's mother, and Megan, Chloe and Maggie's mother, was waiting. Sure enough, the dining table, coffee table and all the cupboards were loaded to the fullest with bowls and plates and dishes and platters. They were heaped with potatoes, carrots, turnips, eggs of every kind, cakes, cookies, several types of bread. A pumpkin pie, a blueberry pie and two apple pies were sittign at the side of the cook stove. The stove was wood fed and very old. Along with that, chicken legs, turkey, canned moose, roast beef, and the biggest platter held almost a whole pig. Cheryl's mouth watered at the sight of it all. After everyone had finished washing their hands, five of the ranch hands came in, dusty and dirty from tagging and branding and of the calves that had been born on range or had lost their tag. Almost half of them needed new tags.

Everyone told everyone about their trip on the drive with their herd. Stevie had seen a pack of wolves and Daniel had seen a grizzly bear with cubs. Cheryl and Laura hadn't told anyone about the cougar, horses or gold yet. They both looked at each other. It was time.

Cheryl stood and tapped her glass and everybody fell silent. Taking a deep breath, she began at the beginning, which was the night of the cougar. She had the heavy box hidden in her coat. When she came to that part she walked over and picked it up.

"And when I stopped by the ruins, I found this plaque," handing it to Daniel, " and this box. It's full of...well, maybe it's be best if I showed you." She opened the box and everybody gasped. She handed the newspaper around for everyone to read. When she was finished, she sat down.

"How intresting. Fifty or sixty horses you say?" Stevie asked. Cheryl answered,"At least."

"It just seems I've heard that name before! But where?" Justin wondered," John Duhn. Yes, I know it. But where did I see it?" Nobody could tell him.

After they had finished eating and talked for a couple hours, the ranch hands went back to work and Belinda and Megan started cleaning up.

Cheryl and Laura stood and said they were going to do research on the computer. Justin jumped up quickly and asked," Can I look with you? Maybe if I see it, I'll know where I saw the name."

"Sure," Laura added.

For the next hour they stared at the computer screen. They found the birthdate and deathdate, which was Octobar 8th, 1933. Something caught Cheryl's eye and she shouted," Look here, inthis article it says he had a wife and a son. But in the newspaper it said he lived alone." It was all so puzzling!

They found many articles and newspaper clippings about the gold but nothing helpful.

Ever since he hit gold, Duhn's acted like he's had a secret and comes to town less and less. His wife and child no longer come to town and he no longer buys supplies. People are starting to wonder. Could it be Duhn has found something more than gold? Or is he afraid of something? We may never know, Cheryl silently read. What was the secret? Why had he locked away so much gold? And why did one thing say he had a wife and child while another said he didn't?

Cheryl logged off the computer. It was bedtime, lots of tagginf, branding, and finding strays tomarrow. When Cheryl got in bed, she hoped she would wake up and it was all a dream.