Tracks in the Sand Read online

  Tracks in the Sand

  Mark Littleton

  © 2001 by Mark Littleton

  Published by Baker Books

  a division of Baker Publishing Group

  P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

  www.bakerbooks.com7

  Ebook edition created 2013

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  ISBN 978-1-4412-4399-7

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  The information on page 126 is taken from Outer Banks Magazine, 1991–92 Annual, P.O. Box 1938, Manteo, NC 27954

  To Nicole and Alisha Littleton,

  my favorite daughters.

  I hope you will read this

  someday

  (when you have time).

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Cast of Characters

  1 Stumbling over Trouble

  2 Something Isn’t Right

  3 “We Want to Go, Too”

  4 In the Crow’s Nest

  5 Advice from Mr. Tomoro

  6 Making a Plan

  7 Destination: the Unknown

  8 Waiting for Action

  9 No Rabbit Hunt

  10 Caught in the Act

  11 Molly Gets Away

  12 Tied and Gagged

  13 Ally Stays Close

  14 Stuck!

  15 The Flat Tire Trick

  16 Boys in Danger

  17 Molly’s Rescue Mission Stalls

  18 Nick and John Begin Their Escape

  19 Where Are the Keys?

  20 Molly Escapes

  21 The Crash

  22 Mustangs to the Rescue

  The Wild Horses of the Outer Banks

  About the Author

  Other books for youth by Mark Littleton

  Cast of Characters

  Ally O’Connor: A fun-spirited, fourteen-year-old eighth grader with a zest for life and a love for horses.

  Mr. O’Connor: Ally’s father, a tall, lean man with bright green eyes and a walruslike mustache.

  Mrs. O’Connor: Ally’s mom, who has the same blue eyes and auburn hair as her daughter.

  Nick Parker: Ally’s tall, strawberry blond, teasing friend, also fourteen and an eighth grader, who has an obvious crush on Ally.

  Molly Parker: Nick’s earnest little sister, an eleven-year-old blond with freckles and a pure heart.

  Mr. and Mrs. Parker: The fun-spirited parents of Nick and Molly.

  John Debarks: A smart, sarcastic twelve-year-old with light red hair who wants to be a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer.

  Kelly Debarks: A precocious ten-year-old with a mop of flaming red hair.

  Mr. and Mrs. Debarks: Parents of John and Kelly.

  Mr. Tomoro: A naturalized American citizen of Japanese descent who speaks with the accent of his parents; a widower and beloved neighborhood storyteller, who houses the largest shark tooth collection in the Outer Banks.

  Dunk: Mr. Tomoro’s playful and beloved black Labrador.

  Mrs. Newton: Known to the children of Outer Banks as “Widder Newton” because her husband passed away long ago. She lives at the end of the row of beach houses at Outer Banks on Pine Woods Lane and keeps a great garden.

  Pack: The short and squat follower of a criminal duo.

  Lug: The tall, lanky, muscular leader of the criminal twosome.

  One

  Stumbling over Trouble

  Ally O’Connor knelt in one of the valleys between the dunes of the Outer Banks. She studied the marks in the sand as June sunlight poured down, an avalanche of heat on her slender body. Mustang hoofprints etched the beach on these islands off the coast of North Carolina—but not one of the beautiful creatures was in sight. Ally breathed the hot air and sighed, wishing a breeze would kick up cool air off the ocean—for the horses’ sake, if nothing else.

  The Outer Banks offered mounds of dunes for miles, along with plenty of tourist shops, restaurants, and a wide shoreline with frisky waves to play in. Houses jutted up off the ground on stilts, crowded together in pockets and lazy-mazy streets, bending in all directions. Everywhere new houses were going up. Ally regretted the way the area had developed with building projects. The only place that hadn’t been disturbed was the wild horse sanctuary.

  The wild Mustangs had been brought to America, north on Chincoteague Island, by Spanish explorers in the 1600s. Somehow the horses migrated south and ended up on the Outer Banks. Over the centuries, they had almost been wiped out by long winters with little food. Sixteen had survived and were now protected by law. Legally, no one could attack, corral, or even touch them.

  Smaller than racing thoroughbreds or the Budweiser Clydesdales seen on TV, these horses were majestic. This Mustang herd, led by a gallant black stallion, was like those found on the Great Plains, sporting several colors, but mostly ebony black, rusty brown, and dappled white with gray. What mattered most to Ally was that these horses were wild. No one had ever ridden them. To her they were exotic and mysterious.

  She had drawn pictures of the stallion several times from the magazine photos plastered all over her room at home. Now, as she bent over to touch the surface of the hoofprint-dappled beach, Ally heard footsteps crunching behind her. She glanced back and smiled.

  “Hey. Goofing off, as usual?” Her friend Nick Parker waved. Nick was the oldest of the kids whose families vacationed together each year on the Outer Banks. He trudged toward Ally in his blue-and-white surf trunks.

  “Any sign of them?” Nick shouted.

  Ally peered at the hoofprints, wisps of auburn hair sticking to her sweaty face. “I think I’ve found tracks,” she said. “They came out of the grass up there.” Ally pointed to a spot about one hundred feet away.

  The two fourteen-year-old kids had wandered far from the beach houses onto a lonely strip of sand that was part of the horse sanctuary. Nick stooped next to Ally. He was tall for his age, like her. “So they went surfing?” he suggested.

  “Yeah, or maybe they’ve been playing beach Frisbee!”

  Nick laughed at Ally’s comeback and checked out the round pockmarks scarring the dunes. “I’d say they were hanging ten,” he grinned.

  “In your dreams.”

  Ally squinted down the beach, watching the heat billow off the sand in waves. She knew Nick had a crush on her, but she wasn’t about to encourage it. After all, Ally thought, I have goals. Like…like? Well, becoming a concert violinist. Drawing pictures of every animal I’ve ever seen. Becoming a world-class veterinarian. Things like that don’t allow much time for boys, not even Nick.

  But if Nick could help me find the Mustangs, she mused, maybe he wouldn’t be such a distraction.

  Ally noticed the horse tracks were mixed up, shooting off in different directions. Some were small, others large and gashed deep into the sand. Some looked as though they’d been punched by a cookie cutter. Between the tangle of tracks were two lines of human footprints, one made by work boots, the other by running shoes.

  Nick exhaled solemnly. “It’s them,” he said definitively. He closed his eyes like a magician reading minds. “This one is Snoop Horsey Horse. And this one is Poof Daddy. This one—let’s see, I smell a waft of fragrance in the air. What is it? Ah, something new and dashing. Should I tell John Klein?”

  Ally gave Nick a push. “You mean Calvin!”

  Ally had always wanted to see the
wild horses. “What about these human tracks?” she asked, worry in her voice.

  “Maybe somebody’s trying to capture them for the circus. The ringmaster will announce, ‘And now our lovely Lady Ally and her seven hundred Spanish Mustangs. Come out and take a gallop, girls!’”

  “You’re cracked. Besides, there are only sixteen Mustangs left in the herd.”

  “Lady Ally and her sixteen…” Then Nick was suddenly serious. “Somebody’s tracking them,” he offered. “Work boots, right?”

  Ally read a twinge of concern in Nick’s gray eyes. The boy’s sun-bleached strawberry hair looked salty in the searing light. He ran his hand through it, throwing the tousled strands back like a cool surf-jockey. “Let’s see where they go.”

  The two friends plodded off. The horses apparently had meandered, several darting toward the crashing surf. Nick stopped and pointed. “Looks like one of them went swimming.”

  “Wouldn’t it be awesome to see that?” Ally said, staring toward the frothy waters. “Like that scene in Black Stallion where the horse goes splashing through waves like he owns the ocean.”

  “You’ll see it,” Nick said confidently. “I ordered it up for the show tonight when I and my new love will be having a dinner of steak and Cheez Whiz. Want to come?”

  “Get off it,” Ally said, giving Nick an annoyed look. “Come on, I have a feeling we’re going to see the horses any minute.”

  But something about the human tracks worried Ally. “Most people walking this beach were barefooted or wearing sandals,” she wondered out loud. “Why would someone wear boots on such a hot day?”

  “Oh, probably it’s the people who take care of the area,” Nick said. “Maybe a clean-up crew or something. Or maybe a chain gang!”

  “A chain gang of two guys?”

  “The jail down here only holds two,” Nick countered.

  “And where are the men with rifles guarding the chain gang?” Ally asked.

  “Ah, that is the mystery!” Nick joked. “They float above the surface on anti-gravity boots.”

  Ally glanced at the trees above the beach. “Look,” she said suddenly, “the tracks go off into the brush up there.”

  Ally followed them, running.

  Nick caught up. “So when will you be my girlfriend, Ally?”

  “When the stars fall from heaven.”

  “Aw, that’s no fun.”

  “Best I can do. After all, we’re only in eighth grade, Nick, and my dad won’t let me go out with a boy until I’m in tenth.”

  “So you’re saying…?”

  “Bug off!”

  “Thanks a lot!”

  The kids followed the tracks into the tinder-dry bushes. Small scrub pines, poplars, brambles, and lush dune grass were everywhere. Ally noticed a trail carved through the trees. Inside the overgrowth, dragonflies and horseflies buzzed about in crazy arcs. “Why did they go in there?” Ally asked, setting her hands on slender hips.

  “Maybe it’s a girl and a boy horse,” Nick said. “Maybe he wants to kiss her, but they’re hiding out here because, after all, they’re only fourteen.”

  Ally rolled her eyes at Nick.

  “Do you want to follow them in?” Nick asked, the enthusiasm suddenly drained from his voice.

  “Yes, a little way, at least,” Ally replied. “There’re brambles all over the place in there. But let’s just check it out.”

  Ally thought about the devotional time she’d had with her mom and dad the night before. They’d been talking about trusting God. Was this a situation where she could trust him? Would he give her courage enough to plod ahead and be the first to spot them?

  “Oh, wow,” she thought aloud.

  “What?” Nick asked.

  “Nothing,” she said, snapping out of her daydream.

  Nick and Ally crept into the woods, greenery growing above them like a tunnel. It was rough going. More than once, Ally stopped to pluck a thorn stabbing the sole of her foot. Around a turn in the trail, the two suddenly heard voices. Both crouched down.

  It sounded like two men arguing. A single dune sloped between the men and the two kids.

  Ally and Nick started up the dune in a crouch, stopping just below the crest. Poking their heads over the top, they saw a couple of rough-looking guys wearing dirty short-sleeve shirts and talking crude. The taller man had on a greasy red baseball cap. The other wore a bandanna over his stringy hair.

  His back to the kids, the short man gestured toward a clearing. “They ain’t here, Lug,” he said.

  “I tell you,” the tall man replied, “we’ll find ’em sooner or later. One shot is all we need, and they’re gone.”

  Ally glanced at Nick, worry creasing her brow. “Do you think the horses are in danger?” she whispered.

  The tall man turned around.

  Both kids gasped.

  He was holding a rifle.

  Two

  Something Isn’t Right

  “I think we’d better get out of here,” Nick whispered. “These guys don’t exactly look like lifeguards.”

  “Hey, you, stay where you are!” one of the men called.

  Nick’s heart began pounding. He grabbed for Ally’s hand and missed, slid down the dune crab style, and hit bottom ready to run. When he turned around, Ally was still on the slope.

  “We’re just looking around!” she said bravely, standing up tall.

  Nick knew he couldn’t desert Ally.

  “Hey,” the tall man said, grinning through gapped teeth. He hadn’t shaved, and his lean, withered face gave him a starved look. “Seen any rabbits?” He cradled the rifle like an old walking stick.

  “Using a rifle so close to the beach?” Ally asked. Her hands were shaking.

  “It’s just a pellet gun,” the tall man said. “We’re huntin’ rabbits.”

  Something wasn’t right. Nick could feel it. The short man gazed at Ally with hard black eyes.

  “Why did you follow the horses then?” Nick asked, scurrying back to the top of the dune.

  The short man stared at Ally first, then Nick. His hair poked out from under the bandanna like dry corn silk.

  “We’re just playin’,” the tall one said, looking at his friend. When their eyes met, he nodded, as if getting the story straight. “Hoping to see them, like everyone else roun’ here.” He grinned.

  Nick pulled Ally away. “Well, we have to get back,” he called over his shoulder. Once on the other side of the dune, he whispered, “I don’t think these are the Bobbsey Twins.”

  “More like the Twins from Planet Trouble,” Ally replied.

  “Yeah,” Nick agreed. At the trail, he and Ally turned, looked back, then disappeared into the undergrowth.

  “I don’t like this,” Ally said, stepping onto the sand.

  “For good reason,” Nick replied, then asked, “Did you notice anything strange about that gun?”

  Ally shook her head.

  “That was no pellet gun,” he said somberly, thinking about his dad’s firearms and what he’d been taught about hunting. “It looked like a shotgun muzzle, or worse.”

  “Yeah, and I bet they weren’t hunting rabbits,” Ally added. Running alongside Nick, she shielded her eyes from the glare on the beach. She couldn’t stop worrying about the horses. “I have a bad feeling about those guys,” she said, “like when you’re watching a horror movie and the music gets dramatic. You know, like something bad is about to happen.”

  “Da-dah, da-dah, da-dah…” Nick made the sound from the movie Jaws.

  “Don’t joke, Nick. This is serious.”

  “Okay, but what do we do?”

  Ally thought again about trust. She’d learned to trust God in many situations, but wasn’t sure how to do it in this one. Should she ask Nick to pray with her?

  “Please, God,” Ally murmured. “Get in charge of this situation.”

  “What?” Nick said.

  “Just praying, Nick, that’s all.”

  “You’re always praying.”<
br />
  “It keeps my hair nice,” Ally said a little sarcastically. I can’t trust Nick to understand, she thought. But from the corner of her eye she saw Nick gaze at her, then shake his head. Can I? she wondered suddenly. “All right, I think this is serious,” she said.

  “And praying is what we should do about it?” Nick asked.

  “You know what my mom says,” Ally answered, stopping, a bit off-guard. “You can talk to God about any situation.”

  “Okay,” Nick said, running on, “but I think we should pray and run at the same time.”

  “Good idea,” Ally answered, catching up to him, and they sprinted off up the dunes.

  Three

  “We Want to Go, Too”

  When Ally and Nick came into sight of their summer home, their families were sitting on the beach under umbrellas. Like Nick and Ally, their parents had been friends since school days, along with another couple—the DeBarks, whose two kids were fighting at the moment. Ally, an only child, quickly grew tired of the constant feuding. But John and Kelly DeBarks were as competitive as two puppies fighting over a bone, bent on winning their father’s attention by besting one another at everything.

  “It’s my turn now!” Kelly, ten, cried. “Daddy said!”

  “You can’t hog it all the time,” John, twelve, retorted. His light red hair stuck out at odd angles.

  “Oh, go point your camera at a dead crab, John,” Ally shouted above their bickering. “You’ve been bragging that you’re going to win the Pulitzer Prize with it.”

  “I am going to win the Pulitzer,” John said, sidetracked. He let go of the video camera. It was the effect Ally intended.

  “I’m going to win the Nobel Prize!” Kelly retorted, her flaming red mop glimmering in the sunlight. She walked off with the video camera and fiddled with the controls.

  Nick and Ally plopped down on the blanket, out of breath and eager to tell their parents what they’d seen.

  “How was the hunting?” Ally’s mom asked. Her blue eyes sparkled like Ally’s, and she had the same auburn hair.

  “Well…,” Ally began.

  Nick stood behind her. “We didn’t see the horses,” he said, “but we think they might be in trouble.”