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to Deer Lake. If only Dan Stewart had continued fishing instead of stopping to tell them about the runaway horse … Her gaze drifted down from the mountaintops, across the dark-forested slopes, along the green ribbon of flat pasture land in the valley bottom to the red roofs of the ranch buildings. Finally, she fixed her attention on two tiny brown hummingbirds who came to sip sugar water from the clear plastic dish hanging in the porch.
    Lisa talked on to fill the silence. “According to Grandpa, horse flu has been bad news as far back as he can recall. Way back, before they invented a vaccine, a horse would get real sick with it. You got so much as a cough out of one of the cutters or reiners used by the old cowboys and, boy, that horse was off the ranch quicker than you could blink.”
    Kirstie closed her eyes and sighed.
Don’t give up, Moonshine!
    “Once a horse caught flu, he was no earthly use. A cowboy needs a strong, healthy horse he can rely on, not one with a breathing problem or a weak heart. And Grandpa said quarter horses didn’t cost a whole lot when he was young. A cowboy needed a good, well made saddle, but a horse could be bought and sold real cheap.”
    “What’s money got to do with it?” Kirstie murmured.
Fight this, Moonshine! Prove them wrong!
    “Oh sure, I agree. And sometimes, even in those days, a cowboy would love his horse. I mean, really love him!” Lisa hurried on. “I remember Grandpa told me once about a guy he knew here at Half Moon when your grandpa ran it as a cattle ranch. The guy’s name was Red Mitchell and he owned a black-and-white paint named Bandit. Red worked Bandit on roundups, spring and fall, for ten years or more. Then the horse got sick.”
    Gradually Kirstie tuned in to Lisa’s story. Mention of her grandfather, Chuck Glassner, made her recall the endless summer days when, as little kids, she and Matt had visited Half Moon Ranch. They would leave the choked, dusty streets of Denver where they used to live and drive out here for the summer with their mom and dad. That was before their dad had left them to start a new family with another woman, before their mom had sold the Denver house and moved them out to the ranch for good. “What did this Red Mitchell do about his sick horse?” she murmured, her gaze fixed on the darting, hovering hummingbirds.
    “He took Bandit west, deep into the Rockies, to see some special horse doctor. Red was part Native American. The horse doctor he knew out there had connections with an ancient tribe. He used cures dreamed up by the old medicine men, herbs and stuff.” Lisa hesitated as she saw Matt’s tall figure appear in the barn doorway and she felt Kirstie suddenly sit forward. But she went on trying to distract her friend as he walked slowly toward them.
    “The point is, Red Mitchell cared enough about his old ranch horse to take two weeks out of work to drive Bandit hundreds of miles looking for a cure …”
    Kirstie stood up with a jerk of the swing. She took a couple of hollow steps across the porch, raised her hand to shield her eyes from the sun. Matt’s face was in shadow, the brim of his Stetson pulled well down. But she knew without him having to say a word what had happened.
    He crossed the yard at snail’s pace, put one foot on the porch step, then stopped. Unable to meet Kirstie’s burning gaze, he grasped the handrail and let his head sink forward.
    “Moonshine,” Kirstie whispered. Not a question, a terrible statement of fact. “He didn’t make it.”
    There were a few things people always said when an animal you loved died.
    “Never mind, honey. It’s something you have to get used to.”
    “You did everything you could. He wouldn’t have suffered.”
    “Remember, it’s not the same as when a person dies.”
    “You’ll soon get over it.”
    It was the last one that Kirstie hated the most. She would yell at any person dumb enough to say that. In fact, after Lisa had left for Lone Elm, Kirstie had