Читать книгу Dangerous Hilarity: The Great Adventures of the Jackson Twins, Their Family and the Dogs in Their Lives, A Novel for Teens and Young Adults and All Those Who are Young at Heart - Sioux Dallas - Страница 17

Chapter Ten

A Royal Canadian Mounted Police rode up to them on a proudly, prancing horse. The twins ran toward him talking at once. Catching up with them, Irene apologized. “I’m sorry. We’ve always loved movies about the Mounties and love your red coats.”

“That’s fine. My horse is well trained to deal with people and noises. Ordinarily I wouldn’t have this red uniform on. We wear brown and look much like many of your state police do. Today we had a visit from one of our superior officers and we wore the red uniform in honor of his visit. Too, we were on television and the yanks expect us to be wearing red,” he laughed.

“Yanks?” Tom looked questioningly.

“Americans. From the United States.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that you don’t wear the red uniforms normally,” Tom was disappointed.

The Mountie chuckled. “My name is Reginald Churchill, Lieutenant Churchill, but the people around here call me Officer Churchill.”

“Sir, would you please tell me how you train to be a Mountie and how your beautiful horse is trained,” Tim pleaded.

“It would take too long to tell all of it, so, I’ll just say we first train a lot like the military requires. Then we go through another training period of how to make an arrest without hurting the suspect more than absolutely necessary. And of course, keep ourselves safe. We even have pepper spray sprayed into our own eyes so that we can understand how a person being arrested feels and how to deal with it. It sure isn’t pleasant.”

“How is your horse trained?” Tim asked. “We met a Park Policeman in Washington, D.C. and he told us how his horse was trained. Your horse sure is gorgeous.”

“Gorgeous,” Tom teased. “You sound like a girl.”

“Whoa. I call her gorgeous frequently.” The Mountie’s blue eyes twinkled as he dismounted and patted the horse’s neck. When he removed the broad-brimed hat, his straw-colored hair stayed in place. The twins were impressed with his height.

“Wow! How tall are you?” Tom asked with wide eyes.

“I’m six three, but most of the men are six feet.”

“You called your horse her,” Tom said in astonishment. “I didn’t know you could use females.”

The Mountie laughed. “Sure. She’s a good ole girl. Many times my life has depended on her and she comes through.”

“Well, how was she trained,” Tim persisted.

“She was given a thorough training by professionals. Again it would take too long to tell the entire process. Just as some dogs don’t pass the test to be a K-9 dog, some of the horses don’t pass the test. When we’re introduced to our horse, they have no saddle or bridle.” He smiled at the children’s surprised faces. “We have an instructor who tells us what to do. We have to ride, as the old saying goes, by the seat of our pants. Bareback. We learn to guide the horse with our body movements, seat muscles, legs and voice. Then if we have to use a gun or rope, our hands are free to do so.”

“Don’t you ever fall off?” Tom asked in winder.

“Of course, at first. Fortunately I never got hurt more than bruises and a badly damaged ego. I grew up with horses, but, boy did I learn more. Some of the trainees have had broken arms, shoulders out of joint, one even had a broken jaw.”

“Cool,” Tim said softly at the same time that Irene said, “Good grief. Don’t either of you dare to ask to train to be a Mountie.”

The talked briefly, thanked the policeman for his time, and started to walk away. Irene whirled around. “Excuse me. Do you know where we can stay for the night? I haven’t seen a hotel or motel.”

“No,” the Mountie answered in a clipped Canadian accent. “You won’t find them here. You will find bed and breakfasts in homes. There are women, mostly widows, who will keep you for the night and even feed you. Follow me and I’ll show you one of the best.”

He left the reins on the horse’s neck and walked off with the horse following at his shoulder. They were on a short street where a white house with green shutters stood at the end. They walked through a white gate with a high arch over it, supposedly for flowers to trail across.. A clean, white fence stretched around a neatly clipped lawn with a flower bed beside the front porch. The wide porch had a swing and four rockers on it.

Officer Churchill knocked on the door, opened it and called, “Hello, Mrs. Storch. It’s Officer Churchill.”

A short, plump, pink-cheeked, white-haired lady hurried to the door. Anna smiled to herself thinking she looked like a sweet grandmother.

“Hello, love,” she said in surprise. “It’s my lucky day to have the most handsome man in town come calling.” Her head came to the middle of his chest as she put her arms around his waist to hug him, then turned twinkling blue eyes on the Jackson family. “Now who are these nice people?”

“Mrs. Storch, I’d like to introduce you to these nice people who have come all the way from the state of Virginia across the United States and are on their way to Alaska.”

“Saints alive,” she exclaimed.

“This is Mrs. Jackson, her daughter Anna, and her sons, Tim and Tom.”

“What a beautiful young girl and twins. How lovely. Such tall, handsome boys. How do you tell them apart?”

“I’m the oldest,” Tom boasted.

“Yeah, by four minutes,” Tim grumbled.

Irene hurried to speak before the boys could get into an embarrassing verbal battle. “When they were small it was sometimes difficult. Of course, their father and I knew which was which, but they pulled some stunts on teachers and friends. Now they dress differently. Tom’s face is more oval while Tim has a square jaw line.”

“Where is your mister?” Mrs. Storch asked as she led them into the living room, or as she called it, the parlor.

“I’ll leave you folks to get acquainted. I must leave because I am on duty,” Officer Churchill stated. He wished the family a pleasant trip, saluted and left. He whistled to the mare who had wandered a few feet away eating some flower tops on the outside of the fence. The twins ran to the window as the horse came trotting obediently to him.

“Gee whiz! Did you see that?” Tom yelped.

“Tom, none of us are deaf. Inside voice, please,” Irene glared at him.

Mrs. Storch chuckled. “I know how he feels. We, in this town, love to watch the Mounties and the horses. We never tire of seeing them. It’s unbelievable how those animals behave better than my wee ones ever did.”

She started walking out of the room. “I’ll show you the rooms. If you want to share by twos, it’ll be fifty-five dollars which includes breakfast. If you want dinner, I’ll have to have three dollars each. I hope you have Canadian money. It’s not always easy to change money by the rates.”

“Oh, yes,” Irene answered. “I changed when we first came across the border.”

Anna smiled at Mrs. Storch. “We’ve been lucky this entire trip to get a motel room with two double beds so that we could stay together. We also have a dog.”

“Have you kept the dog in your room each night?” Mrs. Storch asked in astonishment, “I didn’t think motels would allow animals,”

“Our dog is well trained and kept clean,” Tim stated proudly. “We take good care of her and think of her as one of the family.”