Saddle Up Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

A Dream Is a Wish

Rawhide Ranch, here I come!

Bridget Benedict perched on the edge of her seat. She wished for superpowers, wings . . . something! Anything to push this airplane and force it to fly faster. Another glance at the dragging time on her watch made Bridget groan. She was still an hour away from the place she’d dreamed about for months.

“Why aren’t we there yet? It’s taking forever.”

“We’ll get there,” Dad said from the seat beside her. Putting down the History Magazine he’d been reading, he glanced past Bridget’s window into cotton-puff clouds. “Just think, tomorrow at this time, you’ll be sitting high in the saddle.”

“I hope.” Bridget’s stomach gave a funny lurch. “ My first time at a real horse camp. I love horses!”

On the aisle seat next to Dad, Mom leaned forward. “Really? You do? Did we know that, John?” She gave Dad a teasing wink. “What was our first clue? Could it have been when she asked for a horse-shaped cake for her third birthday? Or . . . I know! It’s all those horse books she’s read. That gave it away right there. Bridget has horse fever.”

Although Bridget laughed along with her parents, she couldn’t stop the jumpy impatience of her cowboy-booted feet. Reading about horses was one thing. Actually getting up on one was another. “I wish we were there.”

Dad smiled and patted her arm. “Patience, sweetheart. I remember my weeks at Rawhide Ranch. It always seemed to take forever too, even though we just drove from Montana. Then the week went by in a blink.” He picked up his magazine and settled back to read. “Best summer memories ever.”

“It’s still taking forever,” Bridget mumbled, leaning back in the seat. How fast did a jet go, anyway? Only five hundred miles an hour? Come on! You can fly faster than that!

Staring out the window, Bridget sighed and tried to ignore another lurch in her stomach. Even though she was super excited and thrilled to be on her way to Rawhide Ranch, just the teeniest fragment of doubt crept into her thoughts.

How good a rider will I be? What if it’s harder than I think?

All her life—the last nine years anyway, since her third birthday—Bridget remembered loving horses. There was just one problem. She had never been on a real horse. Ever. The only riding she’d done was on the merry-go-round at King’s Island, a local amusement park.

Still, Bridget dreamed of the day she would ride whenever she wanted. And maybe one day her ultimate dream would come true: to own a horse. She knew just what she’d name the golden palomino: Stardust.

“She’s got it,” Grandpa teased when Bridget visited her grandparents on holidays. “Horse fever.” She always received horse gifts: books, DVDs, horse-shaped pillows, stuffed animals, Breyer horses, pj’s, a watch . . .

Bridget glanced at her wrist, where the brown-leather band held a watch with a palomino—her favorite—in full gallop across the face. Were the hands stuck?

She tapped the glass with a finger, earning herself another chuckle from behind Dad’s magazine. “Patience,” he muttered. “The ranch and the horses will be there when you arrive.”

Bridget squeezed her hands together and forced her restless self still. She imagined riding through a meadow, red curls bouncing behind her, the wind streaming in her face. Her palomino’s long legs galloping, touching the ground with precise thuds, little flecks of dirt shooting up at each hoof fall.

Although the daydream usually took her to a place of peace, Bridget fidgeted and sighed this time. Her thoughts darted instead to Grandma and Grandpa, the ones who’d given her the gift of a week at Rawhide Ranch.

“Write us as soon as you get there,” Grandma had said over the phone. “When your dad was a camper, he came home with all his stamped envelopes and blank notepaper.”

Bridget promised. After all, it was Grandpa who’d planted the Western bug in her mind all those years ago. When Mom was just starting her catering business and Dad took his first job teaching history at the University of Cincinnati, Bridget had spent her toddler afternoons with Dad’s parents.

Grandma and Grandpa picked her up every day. And every day after lunch, regular as clockwork, Grandpa retired to his study and the comfy leather lounger for an afternoon of his favorite reruns. Western reruns.

Bonanza. The Rifleman. Wagon Train. Maverick.

Sitting on Grandpa’s lap, Bridget watched and learned. “Never forget,” Grandpa would say. “If the spirit of the West were alive today, the world would be a better place. You learn real values, true values, from old Westerns.”

Mom often joked that Bridget knew the characters from Bonanza better than she knew the names of her cousins. While Bridget liked the shows more than she liked the silly cartoons other kids her age watched, what she loved best were the horses.

Such beautiful, magnificent creatures!

By her sixth birthday, Bridget could name them all in alphabetical order.

While other kids in kindergarten wanted stuffed cats, dogs, or even penguins, Bridget begged for horses. She still remembered a scuffle with Tabby Johnson. Tabby had brought a stuffed unicorn to kindergarten for show-and-tell.

“Those aren’t real,” Bridget insisted in spite of Tabby’s tears. “Not like Belgians or Paints or Morgans. A unicorn isn’t a real horse.”

She started daydreaming about riding horses shortly after her sixth birthday.

Bridget’s gift that year had been a complete cowgirl outfit: boots, hat, fringed vest, and a pink skirt with felt outlines of horses on it. In her dreams, she was the fastest, best, and most acrobatic rider. She could do tricks like standing on the saddle and turning somersaults.

Once she learned to read, Bridget gobbled up every book she could find on horses. All of her book reports had to be about horses. In third grade—just to be mean Bridget was sure—Miss Cline insisted that she read a mystery book instead of Misty of Chincoteague.

“How’s everyone doing?” the flight attendant asked the family behind Bridget’s seat.

“I’m going to see Mickey Mouse,” a little boy piped in shrill excitement. “After we visit my cousin in San Diego, we get to go to Disneyland.”

“That be fun!” The attendant clapped her hands. “But I hope you enjoy your stay in San Diego too.”

When the uniformed woman stopped at their seats, Mom and Dad answered her politely.

Bridget, however, couldn’t get a word out past the smile stretching across her face. Anticipation surged all the way to her toes. Ask me where I’m going! Ask me! The best camp ever! Who needs Disneyland when you can go to Rawhide?

Growing up, Dad and his brother had gone to Rawhide at least once every summer. Grandpa had shown Bridget pictures. Dad standing outside TeePee Village, where the boys slept. Dad astride a horse.

Dad holding a bow and arrow, wearing a proud grin.

“I loved Rawhide,” Dad liked to reminisce. “It taught me determination and how to be the best I could be. I would never have gone back to college to become a history teacher if not for the can-do attitude I learned at the Ranch.”

Bridget had never dreamed of going to the Ranch. Her family lived in Ohio, and Rawhide was way out in California. But this past Christmas, Bridget got another symptom of horse fever—an overpowering desire to go to camp.

Every holiday, Bridget’s family went to Florida, where Grandma and Grandpa had retired. One of the best things, as far as Bridget was concerned, was spending time with her favorite cousin in the entire world, Lisa. Lisa’s family lived in Montana, and she owned her own horse. After high school graduation last year, Lisa had found a job working with disabled children at a ranch called Horses of Hope.

Dad had grown up in Montana, but Bridget had never been to visit Aunt Stef, Uncle Ty, and Lisa. So Bridget cherished holidays when she and Lisa could talk the night away.

This year, Lisa had bubbled over with stories about her week at Rawhide Ranch. “Since Dad and Uncle John went when they were kids, Dad thought I’d like a week too.” The cousins spread sleeping bags on Grandma’s living room floor.

“Bridge, it’s fantastic,” Lisa gushed. “You’d love it. It’s like someone took a Western town right out of a movie and set it down in this perfect place. My age group slept in Fort Rawhide. It was so cool! There’s the Opera House and Stockman’s Hotel. They deliver mail by Pony Express.”

She hugged herself. “Oh, it’s just an awesome place! We had a horse show on Friday, and I won a blue ribbon. It was so much fun that I cried when the week was over.”

“It sounds perfect,” Bridget agreed, imagining it. Right then she knew. The seed had been planted. If she could just go to Rawhide it would be a dream come true.

After the New Year, Bridget’s main topic of conversation was the Ranch. She pestered Lisa—via email—and Dad for details. Mom complained Bridget “ate, slept, and dreamed Rawhide Ranch.”

So it was no surprise when Bridget opened a birthday card from her grandparents in February and found the news that they were giving her a week at the Ranch.

She emailed Lisa right away. “I’m over the moon! I can’t wait.”

Those months of waiting were the hardest of all. She watched YouTube videos of the Ranch until she thought she could walk through it by heart. She crossed days off the calendar and saved money for “Pony Bucks,” the camp currency.

Her school friends grew so tired of Ranch talk that they made a sign for the lunch table in the cafeteria: Rawhide Ranch No-talking Zone.

Bridget didn’t care. Nobody could squash the enthusiasm bubbling up inside each time she crossed another day off the calendar. One day closer to Rawhide Ranch!

Despite her expectations, a smidgen of fear occasionally popped into Bridget’s thoughts. During one of her favorite YouTube videos, a group of girls vaulted on their horses—gymnastics on horseback!

In her imagination, Bridget was there too, swinging into the saddle, riding along, balancing on one knee, able to control the huge Belgians with a calm command.

“Wow! That’s a massive horse,” her little brother, Jarrod, commented one day when he watched the video. “What if you fell off a horse that size? Mr. Getty, my science teacher, used to ride. He got knocked off a horse. It ran away with him or something.”

Bridget’s stomach lurched. “What happened?”

“When he tried to catch it, the horse stepped on his foot and it broke. His foot, not the horse.” Jarrod went back to his Lego creation. “He was on crutches for months. After that, he didn’t want to ride again.”

“That’s too bad, but he probably didn’t know what he was doing. As long as you’re careful, a horse can’t step on your foot.”

Jarrod shrugged.

“I’m sure the horses at Rawhide are perfectly safe,” Bridget said. “Kids from all over the world go there to ride. They can’t have horses that are uncontrollable.”

Still, some of those fears and doubts lingered and came to haunt her in unsure moments.

It didn’t help when Mom started to express her own doubts as the time drew nearer to leaving. “You’ve never actually ridden a horse before, Bridget. What if you get there and find out you don’t enjoy it at all?”

“I love horses,” Bridget reminded her. “I’m sure it will be everything I’ve dreamed about. Horses are going to be my life’s work. I know it. Maybe someday I can even work with Lisa at Horses of Hope.”

“Just don’t be disappointed if riding is one of those things you’re enthusiastic about until you try it,” Mom said gently. “Remember how you wanted to roller skate, until you actually tried it? Or the year you were fired up to be in the spelling bee, until you had to learn the words? Or the art lessons?”

Bridget frowned, hoping to forget the unfortunate art episode. One of her friends had drawn an incredibly lifelike picture of a horse. Bridget hinted, then begged and pestered, until her parents signed her up for art lessons too. They bought the expensive supplies the teacher required and drove her to three lessons.

It was soon apparent, however, that Bridget’s talent was not in art. All her horses turned out looking like squashed hedgehogs.

“Riding isn’t like art lessons,” Bridget objected. “I’ve wanted to learn to ride most of my life.”

“Maybe not,” Mom agreed, sliding a cake into the oven. “But you do have a tendency to be overly enthusiastic about something until you actually try it. I’m reminding you not to be too disappointed if it doesn’t work out how you expect it to.”

The Fasten Seat Belt sign flashed on.

Almost there!

Bridget pushed the scary thoughts and fears out of her mind and snapped her seat belt in place. She closed her eyes and imagined walking down the Western street. She would learn to ride, maybe even win a ribbon in the horse show. Then everyone would take her dreams seriously.

A random chill ran up Bridget’s spine. She suddenly had trouble swallowing. What if I’m not any good? What if, after dreaming about this for so long, it’s like the art lessons? Or roller skating? What if I can’t ride?

“Almost there!” Dad interrupted the scary refrain in her mind. “Still excited?”

“Yes, but . . .” Bridget struggled to control the quaver in her voice. “A little nervous too.”

“That’s easily solved. Remember what the Duke would say?”

“You mean, John Wayne?”

Dad nodded.

John Wayne was a long-ago movie star. Dad and Grandpa loved his movies and were always quoting him. Some of the kids at school laughed whenever Bridget quoted John Wayne. She got tired of being asked, “Who’s he? ”

“‘Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway,’” Dad quoted. “You’ll be fine, and you’ll have the time of your life.”

The plane touched down on the runway.

Just like that, Bridget’s fears vanished. Everything would be fine!

“Rawhide Ranch, here I come!”

CHAPTER TWO

Out Where the West Commences

“Hurry, hurry, hurry!”                     

Why did everyone have to move as if they were practicing to be snails? Bridget fidgeted and reined in her impatience. It took the passengers forever to file off the airplane and claim their luggage. Bridget’s bright-pink roll-on and sleeping bag might have walked from Ohio before they slid down onto the baggage carousel.

They wasted more time while the reservation clerk at the car-rental booth searched for Dad’s reservation.

After they had the keys and were on their way to the car lot, Mom held up a hand. They stopped, to Bridget’s annoyance.

“Look at that cute kiosk.” Mom pointed to an umbrella-covered cart in the airport terminal with Cupcakery written across the top. “I’ve just got to try those cupcakes.”

“Seriously, Mom? We’re never going to get to the Ranch.”

“I’ll only be a second,” Mom promised, but five long minutes passed before she came back with a pink-striped box. “The baker has a shop in town. She specializes in unique combinations. See if you can tell what flavoring’s in the icing.”

“Now?”

Mom broke off bites of the luscious-looking, pink-iced cupcake with raspberries on top. “Don’t be so impatient. We’ll get to the Ranch with time to spare. You never know what’s going to inspire me in my work.”

Mom was constantly searching out new recipes to try in her catering business.

Bridget sighed and dutifully tasted the cupcake. “Maybe milk-chocolate bits? Raspberry essence?”

“All I get is chocolate and raspberry,” Dad said, “but my tongue is still burnt from the coffee this morning. When someone was rushing me to get to the airport on time.”

“Sorry. I just can’t wait to get there!”

After more snail-walking, they found the car, stowed their luggage, and climbed in. Dad programmed the GPS. Bridget settled into the backseat, snapped her seat belt, and stared out the window. My first trip to California!

She saw palm trees and gorgeous pink flowers lining a fence along the road. Everything gleamed with sunshine.

Bright, eye-squinting sunshine.

While her parents talked, Bridget compared the streets of San Diego with those at home. Sooner than she expected, they turned onto a dusty road.

“There’s something you don’t see every day.” Mom pointed out the window. “An avocado grove. And look! An orange grove. Wouldn’t I love to pick fruit that fresh!”

We’re getting close now.

Tumbleweeds of doubt slammed Bridget. Even though she still couldn’t wait to get there, a queasy turmoil filled her stomach.

I won’t know anyone.

Rawhide would have been more fun if Lisa were coming, or even Jarrod. But Lisa’s week at camp began in July because June was the busiest season at Horses of Hope. Jarrod had already signed up months before to go to baseball camp with his friend “Corndog” Swenson.

I hope I make friends right away.

“You can stay awhile, can’t you?” Bridget interrupted the front-seat conversation. “To see my bunk and the Ranch? You don’t have to leave right away, do you?”

Mom glanced at her watch. “How long will it take to get to our hotel?”

“About two hours,” Dad said. They were combining Bridget’s week at camp with a weeklong seminar in LA, “Lessons from the Civil War.” “Let’s get you settled, look at your bunk, and hit the road. I’d like to get to the hotel in time for tonight’s speaker.”

That didn’t sound too promising, but surely once Bridget got there everything would feel okay. Surely, the sick feeling in her stomach would vanish.

They went around a bend and drove into a parking lot jam-packed with cars, mini-vans, and campers. Bridget craned her neck. There it was! A rugged brown sign on two tall posts.

Welcome to Rawhide Ranch.

The uneasy quiver in her stomach surged into flutters of excitement. I’m here!

There were people everywhere she looked—parents, kids, and grinning teens wearing Rawhide shirts. People stood by cars talking, laughing, and smiling, while other groups surged toward the Western town, past a real, old-fashioned covered wagon.

Bridget couldn’t look fast enough. There was so much to see! She kept turning her head until she got a crick in her neck.

So many kids! Boys and girls of every age and description wore cowboy hats ranging in color from black to hot pink. She heard shouts in English.

“You’re back!”

“Over here, Sharma!”

“Levi, you came!” Smatterings of foreign languages floated on the air too—Spanish, Chinese, Italian, and others that she couldn’t recognize. A horse’s whinny sent chills up her spine.

I’m here, and there are horses! Real, live horses! I’m going to ride . . . I hope.

A dark-haired teenaged boy wearing a cream-colored cowboy hat with a brown band, jeans, and worn cowboy boots walked toward them. His bright-blue shirt had Rawhide Ranch Staff stitched on front.

“Howdy, folks. I’m Ryan. Toss your luggage on the gator up there and I’ll take them to the Hotel.”

The gator—an opened-backed, golf cart-like wagon with one seat—stood off to the side. Already it was heaped with dozens of sleeping bags, backpacks, suitcases, pillows, and unidentified bundles. A stuffed grizzly bear perched on the top, wearing a pink bandanna around its neck.

“Thanks.” Dad picked up Bridget’s gear and took charge. “Where do we go from here?”

“Camp check-in’s at the Hotel,” Ryan said. “Just follow Main Street.”

After Bridget’s luggage and sleeping bag were loaded onto the cart, the family headed down the hard-packed dirt street, following other groups walking past a white picket fence.

Bridget smiled at the girls who glanced curiously at her.

One boy with red hair and freckles, dressed in stiff, new jeans and a shirt with a cowboy on front, yelled, “Yee-haw!”

Another boy ran up behind him, shoved him on the shoulder, and shouted back, “Yee-haw yourself, John Wayne!”

Laughing, the boys raced off.

Another boy yelled, “Buffalo bones and rattlesnake fangs! That’s my hat!”

While the campers looked friendly enough, Bridget was glad to follow her parents’ familiar backs into this unknown adventure. The Western town—the whole atmosphere of the Ranch—took her breath away.

It was more thrilling than her favorite roller-coaster ride. Or the time she’d won a trophy for singing “Happy Trails” at the school talent show.

The town’s buildings were even better than they’d looked in the YouTube videos. It was like stepping inside one of the Western reruns she’d watched with Grandpa.

Along Main Street stood the Stockman’s Hotel and the Diamond Horseshoe Saloon and Café, just as if they’d been plucked from a movie set. The wooden buildings displayed false fronts higher than the first floor. Bridget laughed at the sign on the hotel: Miss Kitty’s Single Rooms for Single Girls. With Baths 25 cents.

Bridget let her imagination soar for a minute and pictured herself in a long, old-fashioned, calico dress. She’d come to town to do the marketing while Pa worked on the ranch. Suddenly, she noticed the bank being robbed! Whistling for Stardust, her palomino, she threw down the marketing basket and swung into the saddle. Off she rode, red curls bouncing along her back—

“Bridget!” Mom sounded a bit out of breath and impatient. “Quit dawdling.”

“Coming!”

“Here’s the place.” Mom pointed to a sign by the hotel: Camp Check-in. “Let’s go inside.”

They pulled open the door to the hotel and walked into a wood-paneled room filled with chattering campers. Boots clattered on the wood floor. Rays of dust-filtered light beamed in the windows.

“Hi. Welcome to Rawhide Ranch.” A friendly, teenaged girl stood behind a wooden check-in counter. She had a scrumptious tan and the whitest teeth Bridget had ever seen. A real California girl. “I’m Judy, a counselor in Wagon Train. And your name is?”

“Bridget Benedict.”

The girl paged through her forms until she found the one with Bridget’s information. “Looks like we’ve got all your paperwork here. You’re in the Olde Schoolhouse. You’ll have Christa for a co-counselor. She’s terrific. Be warned, though: She loves to take pictures. Let me call her, and she’ll walk you to your cabin.”

Using a walkie-talkie, Judy paged her. “Christa, you’ve got a Ranch Hand at the Hotel.”

A static, garbled voice answered back. “Be there in a jiff.”

Judy pushed back a lock of sun-streaked hair and motioned to another girl who stood by the counter. She looked a little lost. “Zoey, here’s one of your bunkmates.”

Glad to meet someone, Bridget smiled at the tiny girl with a sleek cap of black hair. Everything about Zoey was petite, from her handkerchief-sized yellow T-shirt to her green-striped shorts. Her dark, almond-shaped eyes gazed back from a solemn face. A timid grin flickered across her face.

“Zoey Wu, this is Bridget Benedict from Ohio. Bridget, this is Zoey. She’s here all the way from China.”

Bridget’s eyes widened. “Wow! You came a long way. Hello.”

“Hello,” Zoey said in perfect English.

“Did your parents come with you?” Mom asked.

Zoey shook her head. “Oh, no. My father cannot leave his business in Shanghai so long. They will come on Friday for the show and barbecue.”

“You came all this way alone?” Mom’s blue eyes widened in disbelief. “A little girl like you? However did you hear about Rawhide in China?”

“We have lots of campers from China,” Judy answered. “In fact, six girls traveled together this week, so Zoey had company. They’re all older girls staying at the Fort.”

She searched for another camper’s papers. “Zoey’s mom is a Rawhide alumna. Oh, here’s Christa.”

A short, sturdy girl with a stubby, brown ponytail tucked under her Rawhide Ranch baseball cap bounced up the step. Everything about Christa seemed round and comforting, like one of Mom’s chocolate-chip muffins. Her jeans were well worn, just like the dirty-brown cowboy boots on her feet.

A bright-red T-shirt matched her rosy cheeks. “Hi, I’m Christa. Welcome to Rawhide Ranch.”

Dad introduced everyone, including Zoey.

Christa motioned them toward the mountain of luggage piled outside the hotel. “Glad to meet you all. Let’s grab your gear and head to the Olde Schoolhouse where you girls will bunk. Does anyone have any questions so far? Ask away.”

Bridget unearthed the pink roll-on and pointed out her sleeping bag. Dad yanked it from the pile and tucked it under one arm. Christa helped Zoey with her pillow and sleeping bag. Zoey grabbed the handle of a purple carry-on almost longer than her arms, and they trundled down Main Street.

“I was wondering about the food you serve,” Mom said, launching into her favorite subject.

Christa and Mom walked ahead, chattering away, while Bridget tugged her suitcase. She tried to stare at everything and keep from tripping into someone at the same time.

“So, your mom is a Ranch alumna.” Dad reached for Zoey’s bag. “So am I. I camped here from ’85 into the early ’90s. My brother, Ty, and I loved it here.”

“My mother also speaks highly of the experience,” Zoey said in precise English. “She learned to ride a horse and thought it would be good for me to do the same. Do you know how to ride, Bridget?”

“Oh, I . . .”

Before she could stumble out an explanation about her lack of riding ability, Dad patted her red curls and winked. “Bridget knows more about horses and horse lore than anyone I’ve ever known. She’s a regular Annie Oakley.”

Zoey’s dark eyes widened in awe. “Little Sure Shot! I have read of her. You must be excellent in horsemanship.”

“Not really.” Bridget didn’t have the heart to contradict the idea totally. Maybe she’d be excellent in horsemanship. How hard could it be?

Hundreds, probably millions of people had grown up learning to ride before they could walk. Grandpa told stories about his grandpa, who’d ridden a horse five miles to school and back home each day. Riding a horse wasn’t like learning to be an astronaut or splitting an atom. Or even art lessons.

Still . . . What if I can’t learn?

Main Street swarmed with campers and family members, young and old. Through the buildings, Bridget caught a glimpse of rugged wooden corral fences and . . . them.

Horses. Big, live horses.

A knot formed in her stomach. What if learning to ride isn’t the problem?

“Christa,” Bridget interrupted, unable to stand this gnawing uncertainty any longer. “Can we go see the horses?”

What if I’m afraid of the horses?