Rogue Star

1 House Call Steel Dawnfrom Vulcan's Forge out of Sunburstmeasured herself against the rolling meadow, her legs stretching and her hooves rapping the hard-packed trail with each stride. Mariesa van Huyten clapped her knees tight around the filly's barrel, holding her seat easily on the trim English saddle. Her body flowed with the horse's pistonlike movements, seeking that mystic oneness of steed and rider. Grasses and stubble whisked against her kneeboots and jodhpurs, and the musty odor of mown hay and sassafras enveloped her like a mist. The trail wound through the grasses toward the copse of trees at the base of Skunktown Mountain and Mariesa felt the filly's muscles bunch beneath her, anticipating the leap over Runamuck Creek. When Steel jumped, Mariesa's heart leapt with her. Small wonder that the ancients had given their horses wings! Her cell phone signaled at the rise of the leap, nearly breaking her concentration, so that she came down hard in the saddle when Steel hit the farther bank. Cell-phone calls did not impress Steel, who had more visceral concerns, but Mariesa pulled up on the reins. Steel resisted, trying to take the bit in her teeth. Yes, I'd just as soon keep playing, too. And the call might be nothing more than Harriet summoning her to dinner. Still...She played the reins, guiding her mount up the rising ground at the base of the ridge. Steel, taking the ascent, slowed to a canter, then to a walk. Finally, the filly whickered, shook her head, and bent to take some succulent morsel from the surrounding bushes. Mariesa dismounted and walked a few steps to take the kinks out. Her thighs felt like iron bands; her seat, like concrete.The penalties of not riding more often. Harriet was right: she spent too much of her life behind a desk.Riding a tiger, she thought with amusement. She doffed her cap and ran her left hand through tawny, shoulder-length hair before tugging it back in place. The entire estate spread out below her like a tabletop miniature. A toy house, plaster hills, shrubs made of lichen and toothpicks. A red-brick, neocolonial building perched atop a series of carefully landscaped mounds in the bowl valley at the base of the ridge. Silverpond was not the largest of her estates, but she had grown up here and she held it most dear. On the far side, trim, manicured lawn spread like an apron, enclosing the reflective pond that gave the estate its name, giving way slowly to a carpet of wild grasses and country flowers, and approaching finally the line of birch and hemlock that blocked the view of the wrought iron entry gate at Old Coppice Lane. Facing her, an ornamental garden and hedge-maze created geometric patterns of color and shape. There was movement among the rows of flowers: Harriet, her mother, tending to her roses, followed by the patient, ever-suffering Miss Whitmore. Mariesa pulled her cell phone from her belt pouch and thumbedreturn call. She put her left hand at the small of her back and stretched. It felt good to stand upright. "Yes, Sykes," she said when the butler had answered. "What is it?" "You have a call from the White House, miss; from the president's appointments secretary." Business or social, she wondered. "Very well. I'll return the call when I can use a secure line. Say, twenty minutes." "I took the liberty of so informing the caller." "Sykes, you are a marvel." She shut off her phone and returned it to its pouch. "Come on, Steel," she said, "time to go home. Make heap big smoke with White Father." Steel had moved off a few paces and was contentedly cropping the grass near the foot trail thaFlynn, Michael is the author of 'Rogue Star' with ISBN 9780812542998 and ISBN 0812542991.