Walker: Secrets

Chapter 5

‘Maddie, can I come in?’ Bonham questioned as he knocked on her bedroom door.

‘Just a moment.’ She replied as she finished doing up her shirt buttons. ‘Okay, you can come in now.’

He opened the door as she put her boots on. ‘Your mare is missing.’

Maddie’s head shot up. ‘What? She was there last night when I checked on her before going to bed.’

‘Looks like she jumped the fence in the middle of the night.’ He replied. ‘I’ve already got the hands tacking up and spreading out to find her.’

‘Let’s hope she hasn’t gotten too far then…’ Slapping her work hat on she followed him out to the kitchen, Abeline handing them both a sandwich to take. Liam was there at the island eating breakfast and she exchanged a brief hello and goodbye to him as they headed out the door.

Cordell, Stella and August were coming up to the house as they left, Bonham stopping to fill them in on what had happened but Maddie hurried on her way to the quarantine yards. As she got closer she realized that Bonham was right. The mare was nowhere in sight. 

The hoofprints in the sand told her exactly what had happened. With the gate to the shelter being open it had given the mare just a little extra run up to jump the fence. Jump the fence she had, for the hoofprints continued on the grass outside the yard. Without knowing how long the mare had been out for, there was no telling how far she had gotten. 

Bonham soon joined her, leading two horses. ‘You can borrow Chopper, he’ll look after you.’

She nodded as he handed her the reins. ‘Where do we start looking?’

‘The ranch hands are covering the ranch-’ He pulled a map from his pocket and the two of them looked at it closely. ‘Hopefully they’ll find her on our land but I doubt it. Marcus followed the trail as far as he could, he lost it just inside the front pasture.’

‘So you’re saying Bel could be out on the highway by now?’

‘Fraid so, if she kept moving as fast as she was. Cordell’s going to alert the police to keep a look out and report her as missing so if anyone spots her, we’ll find out.’ He paused for a moment, not liking what he had to say next. ‘There’s a chance she might have gone onto the Davidson property where that fence is down in between our place and theirs. I don’t think our new neighbors will appreciate a mustang running rogue on their land.’

‘In other words-’ She quickly figured out what he meant. If Bel was on their land causing trouble, they had every right to shoot her. ‘We better find her asap.’ Tossing the reins over the gelding’s neck she mounted up as Bonham folded the map away before mounting Ace. ‘If that’s the case, I’ll take the Davidson side and you search going out to the highway.’

He nodded. ‘There’s a radio in your saddlebag, check in regularly.’

‘Understood.’

The two of them went their separate ways, Maddie urging her gelding into a canter towards the Davidson property. If Bel had crossed onto their land, it would be where the fence was down in the creek on the boundary line. They had been intending to get it fixed but since they didn’t have any horses or cattle in that pasture it had been forgotten amongst the other things that needed to be done on the ranch.

It wasn’t long before Maddie picked up Bel’s trail again, a few hoof prints here and there in the packed earth. Bel wasn’t shod which made it easy to tell she was on the right trail but at the same time made it harder to track her. After checking in with Bonham and the ranch hands to update them, she kept following the tracks right to where the fence was down.