The Hex Witch of Seldom by Nancy Springer Read Free Book Online Page A

the way the horse had made a fool of him. He would not mind putting a twitch on the black mustang’s nose and making the animal stand still. But he couldn’t understand Bobbi. He would have thought, as moony as she had been about her mustang, she would have wanted to prepare Shane and make the operation as easy as she could for him.
    â€œAre you hoping he’ll get away from me?” he demanded.
    â€œNot really.”
    That was the truth. Bobbi knew her grandfather, and she knew better than to hope a horse could best him. Or even—something more, in a horse’s body. The thought made her eyes wince and shift, and the way her glance slid away from his convinced her grandfather that he had hit on the truth.
    â€œWell, he ain’t getting away from me,” he said in a hard voice. And because he felt a dare, he did not order her to gentle the horse. He only told her, “You put that mustang in the stall on Sunday night, and you make sure the door is latched, and you leave him there.”
    Bobbi nodded, got up and went out to tend to her chores. She didn’t look at Shane or speak to him.
    All that week Travis Dodd stopped by the Yandro place morning and evening, before and after school. The struggle inside Bobbi was wearing her out so that she did not have the energy to be rude to him. And because she did not want to be near the black horse for any longer than she had to—because she might see crazy things in those weird blue eyes again, or the mist-thin form hovering like a nimbus around the black shoulders, in the air—because of her problem, she nearly welcomed Travis. She let the neighbor boy help her carry hay and water to the mustangs in the corral. The water had to be hauled from the spring, bucket by bucket, and dumped into the wooden trough. Once the mustangs were tame enough to go out to pasture, they could drink from the run like the other horses, but as long as they stayed in the corral it was Bobbi’s job to provide them with water. With other mustangs in the past she had enjoyed it, pausing between trips to talk to the wild horses, coaxing them to come nearer to her. But as things were with Shane, she hurried through the job as quickly and silently as she could, actually grateful for Travis’s help, though of course she did not tell him so. She was so moody all week long that Travis sensed something wrong, and every day with clumsy questions he asked what it was, though he knew she would not answer.
    Thursday evening, as she was lugging her third bucket of water into the corral, eyes down and fixed on the ground, a pair of dandy-small black hooves invaded her view, and the straight, slim black legs above them, and a broad expanse of chest. Standing square and still as if for a showdown, Shane put himself in her way.
    Bobbi set down her bucket and made her eyes scan slowly upward, up the arrogant arch of the neck to the high head and the gunfighter-hard eyes looking down on her. Shane stood close enough for her to touch, if she had wanted to, which she did not.
    â€œWhat do you want?” she asked him.
    Travis, coming into the corral right behind her, shut the gate and set his bucket down by hers. He did not know much about horses, but he knew better than to try to walk through one that looked like Shane.
    â€œWhat do you want?” Bobbi asked again as the stallion made no move. Her inner misery gave her voice a peevish tone. She was seeing the form behind the form again, an unnatural, watery thickening in the air above the horse’s withers, and because Travis was there, pride would not let her turn away. She saw—a dim silhouette only, but still clearly enough to make her spine chill, she saw the man’s head and the wide brim of his hat, and his broad shoulders, his hands resting on his hips, his long legs set in a defiant stance, and his booted feet, standing where the horse’s front hooves stood. She blinked, but the man-form would not go