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White's Stables

This was written for a writing class. It is my short story. Short stories are hard for me because I want to add so much to them. I lost points for my short story because it was too long. :P

White's Stables


        A white Pontiac Sunfire drove up the quarter mile drive to the parking lot of White’s Riding Stable. The car stopped next to one of the big white barns. The tall blond driver stepped out and went into the barn. Inside a rough, but handsome man was grooming a large gray gelding.
        “Excuse me,” said the female driver.
        “What can I do for you ma-am?” asked the groomer.
        “Do you know where I could find Mitchell Sanchez?”
        “I think he’s in the office.”
        “Thank you,” the young woman responded politely. She walked across the parking lot to the white ranch house which also served as the main office. A dark haired man sat inside doing paper work.
        “Hi, Mitch,” the woman said shyly.
        “Jessie!” Mitch stood up from the desk with a warm, friendly smile for the girl. Jessica walked around the desk to hug her friend. “How’ve you been?” Mitch asked.
        “I’ve been better,” Jessie responded sadly.
        Mitch wished there was something he could do to make Jessie feel better. Now was not the time to bring up the financial troubles of the ranch. Things were not going well, but he didn’t want to add to Jessie’s problems.
        Jessica’s mother died in a car accident when Jessica was little. She had been raised by her father and regarded as family a few of the stable hands. They taught her everything she knew about horses and running a business. Now, Jessie was home from college because her father had been thrown from a spooked horse . However, he died in the hospital before Jessie had the chance to get there.
        As a result of her father’s death, Jessie inherited White’s Riding Stable. The facility included 900 acres of land upon which sat four paddocks, fifty horses, four barns, a riding trail, a large wooded area, a creek, and a house. It took a lot of money to run a ranch of this size.
        After Mr. White’s funeral, Jessie decided to wait a semester before going back to college. She figured this way she could make sure the stables would run smoothly in her absence.
        For the next few days, the only time Jessie left the house was to go into town for needed supplies. She stayed inside dusting, sweeping, doing other general cleaning, and occasionally working in the office. As much as she loved her father, she had to admit, he wasn’t one of the tidiest people. When the housework was done Jessica primarily worked in the office, but left most of the business affairs for Mitch to handle. One day he entered the office to, as he put it, kidnap her from her isolated prison.
        “Why don’t you come outside for a while? It’ll be good for you and you can meet the new trail guide your father hired after you went back to college.” Jessie was about to decline his offer, then realized that refusing was futile when Mitchell Sanchez was involved, so she followed him to the indoor arena. A young man was riding a bay stallion around half of the large arena.
        “Hey, Eric, why don’t you give Dakota a rest and come meet someone,” Mitch called to the man. Eric turned the horse and walked him across the arena where Mitch and Jessie stood. “Eric, this is Jessica White. Jessie, this is Eric Jackson, our new trail guide.”
        “Hi.” Eric, still on the stallion, held out his hand.
        “Hello.” Jessie shook his hand.
        All of a sudden a brown-haired woman ran into the arena. “Mitch, the horses in paddocks one, two, and three have been let loose!”
        “How could that happen? Are all of the horses in paddock four still there, Marisa?”
        “Yes.”
        “Then get the bridles for Fire, Ghost, and Honey. We don’t have time to saddle them up. We’ll have to ride bareback.” With that order the woman was gone.
        Eric rode Dakota out to the second stallion paddock with Mitch and Jessie running closely behind. The woman was coming out of the tack room adjoining the stallion barn.
        “Marisa, take Honey; Jessie, you ride Fire,” Mitch instructed. “Where are the horses that got loose?”
        “In the back woods,” Marisa informed them.
        With the gates for the first three paddocks opened wide and paddock four securely closed, the four rode off to round up the horses. They first separated the stallions and herded them back into paddock three. Once the stallions were in, the small group cut the rest of the horses into mares with foals and mares without. Jess and Marisa herded the mares with foals back to the first paddock without a problem. However, one of the mares without a foal was reluctant to go peacefully. First she made a fuss by whinnying, then she split from the herd. With Marisa and Jessie back from the paddocks to help Mitch, Eric took off after the horse. He got his speed up, he cut her off, then skillfully kept her going in the direction that he wanted.
        After all of the horses were back in their paddocks, the people went to the house for a cold drink. Once inside the house, Marisa and Jessie made their official hello’s. Jessie had known Marisa for as long as she could remember. Her father had given Marisa a part-time job when she was sixteen and a full-time job when she turned twenty-one. Marisa and Jessie were like sisters. They were best friends.
        Jessie, Marisa, and Mitch sat around and reminisced, and shared some of their fondest memories with Eric. At eight o’clock everyone parted ways. Mitch went to a restaurant, while Eric and Marisa went home to their apartments, and Jessie went to bed.
        The next day, Marisa and Jessie tacked two horses, filled the saddlebags with food, put water in the canteens, and rode out for a picnic by the creek. They ate chicken and beef sandwiches. All the while the two horses munched on grass and drank the clear, creek water. With everyone else back at the ranch, Marisa finally felt comfortable in talking to Jessie about her suspicions. There had been several incidents at the ranch that could have put them out of business for good. The most recent one was the horses being let loose yesterday. Each time Eric had been close by, too close in Marisa’s mind.
        On their way back to the barn, Jessie exclaimed, “I had forgotten how much fun we used to have hiding-out back there! We’ll have to do it again after we take care of business.”
        When Jessie and Marisa returned, they found two groomers preparing four mares for a trail ride with Eric as their guide.
        “Hi, Casey. Hi Anya,” Jessie greeted.
        “Hello,” the girls answered in unison.
        “Isn’t Billy helping?”
        “He and Buck are tacking three of the stallions.” Casey informed them.
        “Buck?” Jessie had a confused look on her face.
        “Oh, that’s right. You haven’t met Buck.” Marisa remembered. “Lets go. We’ll be back in a minute to untack.”
        “That’s OK. If we get done, we’ll untack,” said Anya.
        On the way to the stallion barn Marisa warned Jessica, “Buck looks rough and tough, but he’s like a big teddy bear once you get to know him. In fact, he could charm his way out of anything, but he doesn’t.”
        Once inside, Jessie saw the same man she had seen in the barn her first day back.
        “Hey, Buck.” Marisa called.
        “Hey, Risa.” Jessie was surprised to hear this man call Marisa by her nick name.
        “Buck, this is Jessica. Jess, this is Buckley. But don’t call him that, he hates it.”
        “So we meet again,” Buck said flashing Jess a charming grin.
        “How many riders are coming?” Jess asked curiously.
        “Well, supposedly five, but three will probably show up.” Billy said from one of the stalls across the isle.
        “Do no-shows happen a lot?”
        “Usually, we have three to four riders who don’t show up,” Buck told Jess.
        “They don’t bother to call either,” added Marisa.
        “Not only that, but the groups that come aren’t big enough to make the money from the not shows,” came a voice from the other end of the barn. There stood Mitch watching them all.
        “Why didn’t you say something earlier?” questioned Jessie.
        “I didn’t want you to worry. Your daddy had fallen on some hard times.”
        “But only since he hired Eric,” Buck piped up. “Marisa and I noticed that all of these things that have been happening started after Eric came here. And this morning I overheard him on the phone talking about cancellations. He didn’t know I was anywhere around. When he was done, I hit re-dial on the phone. The person that answered the phone said, “Brady residence.” It just so happens that the Brady family had scheduled a trail ride for four people, but received a phone call from someone here canceling the ride. It was Eric.”
        “But why?” Jessica wondered.
        “Well, after the phone call, I did a little digging. It turns out that Eric is the grandson of Bill Metcalf, you know, the guy that’s trying to start up the ol’ Calhoun Riding Stables in the next county. It appears that he is trying to sabotage our operation. On a hunch, I called Calhoun’s and pretending to be a concerned relative, asked if the Brady family had gotten back from their trail ride yet. The guy said they weren’t scheduled to go until three o’clock today.”
        “Well!” Jessie exclaimed. “I’ll handle this one.” Jessie found Eric in the paddock saddling his horse. She confronted him with the details. Eric sheepishly admitted to the scam then hopped in his pick up and tore down the driveway, throwing gravel as he spun his tires.
        Jessie went back to the others. “If you had told me sooner we could have saved ourselves some trouble. Now what do we do?”
        “You’re right we should have told you sooner,” Buck admitted.
        “But that doesn’t matter now,” Mitch said. “That’s water over the dam.”
        “Why?”
        “Because if we don’t start catching up on our debts next month, we are going to have to start selling things off, starting with some of the horses.”
        Jessica’s eyes grew wide. “We can’t get rid of the horses first. Start selling off some of the land.”
        “If we sell the land, we loose the trails.”
        Even though she knew Mitch was right, Jessica hated to admit it. “Then we can’t let it come to that,” she told him. She immediately went inside and started making phone calls. She called the newspaper and the local radio and television stations. She had a big ad put in the paper. She paid for radio ads with her own money and she had a quick little commercial made for the television stations which Buck and Marisa helped pay for.
        After a week of the same small groups of four to six people, Jessica began to lose hope. Then one Tuesday afternoon, while she was working in the office, the phone rang.
        “Good afternoon, White’s Ridding Stable, How may I help you?”
        “My name is Celina Carpenter. I’m a fifth grade teacher at Lincoln Elementary. I was wondering if you allow field trips to your stables?”
        “Yes we do. Would you like to schedule one?”
        “Well, first I’d like to know how much it costs.”
        “That depends on the size of the group.”
        “We would have about twenty students and five chaperones.”
        “The cost would be nine dollars per student and ten per adult. If you want to come for the whole day, you can bring food to eat by the creek that runs through the property.”
        “That would be wonderful. Would a week from Friday be all right?”
        “That would be fine,. I just need to know what time to expect you.”
        “About nine.”
        “OK. See you then.”
        When she hung up the phone, Jessie screamed with delight. She ran outside to find Mitch and Marisa and tell them her good news. She told them the advertising had paid off and they would soon be able to start paying off some of their debts.
        Within a few weeks, word of mouth had spread about the tremendous experiences had by the elementary students. Bookings were coming in left and right. Jessie now had enough money to pay off the debts, run the ranch at a profit, and return to college for her classes. She hated leaving the ranch and all of her friends. But she knew the ranch was in good hands as she drove off waving good-bye to her friends.


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