by Terri Farley
Sam’s hand flew up to cover her lips. Her pulse beat in her wrists and ankles, even behind her knees, as her heart pounded out a warning. Jen looked suddenly pale, but joked through her fear.
She shaded her eyes and squinted at Slocum’s car. “As my daddy would say, ‘There’s a man mad enough to kick a hog.’”
Sam tried to answer in kind. “I can’t repeat what my dad would say if he saw Slocum cutting off a school bus.”
If only Dad were here.
The bus pulled up beside the Cadillac as Slocum climbed out and rounded the front of his car. The bus driver opened the bus door and shouted, but Slocum paid no attention. He stormed toward the girls, shaking his fist.
In the instant before she understood Slocum’s words, Sam saw faces press against the bus window, watching.
“That renegade, that mongrel, that mutt of a horse has trespassed—” Slocum took a loud breath, as if the morning air held too little oxygen for his ranting “—on my property. That menace has ruined my investment—”
He must be talking about the Phantom. Had the mustang destroyed a fence or some rosebushes? What was Slocum yelling about? And why was his shirt buttoned crooked and his jeans hanging over bare ankles and bedroom slippers?
“Mr. Slocum,” Jen said quietly. “We don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Slocum kept his back to Jen. He loomed over Sam. She saw sweat beaded on his upper lip, and she heard bus windows slamming open so everyone could listen. Oh, great.
With his fingers formed like a child pretending he held a gun, Slocum yelled, “You know what I’m talking about. This time it’s not some cow pony your silver menace stole. Apache Hotspot is the cornerstone of my new breeding program.” Slocum’s fist struck his chest when he said my. “That mare’s the investment of a lifetime!”
Finally, Sam understood. Slocum hadn’t just purchased the sweet chocolate-and-white Appaloosa as a gift for Rachel. The mare was an investment. And she was gone.
“I want you to call that stud! Call the Phantom!”
Past Slocum, Sam saw Jen’s jaw drop in amazement.
Good. Let everyone on the bus see how insane Slocum was. She couldn’t call the Phantom. Not really.
“Mr. Slocum, I’m really sorry your horse is—”
“Don’t give me that,” he snarled. “I want that mustang down here, now!” Slocum’s face was twisted with rage. Any second now, he was going to burst a blood vessel.
Sam shrugged out of her backpack and let it drop. There was no place to hide, but she was darn sure she could outrun Slocum. She’d done it before.
From inside the bus, there came a sound like a telephone receiver slamming down. The bus driver tramped down the stairs, and the sound of his approach made Slocum glance back.
“Thank goodness,” Jen whispered.
“Sir? I’ve radioed the sheriff,” said the driver. “I think you’d better get back in your car and wait for him.”
“The sheriff? Of all the idiotic—” Slocum stopped blustering and took a breath. “Guess I did get a little loco, didn’t I? Shucks, when a man works hard and sinks his money into a fine piece of horseflesh, it’s just downright disappointing to lose it.”
Sam shivered. Slocum was talking like a Hollywood cowpoke. The sudden change was spookier than his clenched fist.
The bus driver looked confused, but he motioned the girls toward the safety of the bus and held his other arm out, barring Slocum from following.
The bus swayed as students returned to seats on the opposite side of the bus. Both Sam and Jen noticed and met each other’s eyes. Sam hesitated before stepping up.
“There are at least twenty kids on that bus,” Sam whispered wildly to Jen. “If each of them gets off at school and tells one person what they saw, that’s forty people who know, and if each of them goes to class and tells—”
“I can do the math, Sam. You’re right, they’ll gossip. But we didn’t do anything wrong. We’re the victims—or, nearly were—of Rachel’s nutty father.” Jen flinched as Slocum’s car door slammed. “The man doesn’t do well when he doesn’t get his way.”
Sam remembered Slocum’s rage when Brynna wouldn’t allow him to adopt the Phantom. Jen was right.
They spotted an empty seat about eight rows back from the front of the bus. Jen and Sam took it. For a minute, all was quiet. The bus doors closed. The driver put the vehicle into gear and pulled back onto the road.
Sam kept her eyes focused on the seat back in front of her, until a boy across the aisle poked her arm.
“Hey, what was wrong with him?”
Sam shrugged. “I guess he lost his horse.”
From the corner of her eye, Sam saw Jen smile, but then an avalanche of questions began.
“Was he crazy?”
“Was he talking about the Phantom?”
“Did he think the Phantom stole something?”
“Yeah, like a ghost cares about mortal mares.” That speaker wore glasses and pushed them back up his nose in a superior fashion.
Sam’s relief froze. Did everyone know the legend? She racked her brain for a clever answer.
“I don’t know,” she said.
A girl with a pierced nostril turned in the seat just ahead. Sam searched her mind for the girl’s name. Callie, that was it. The girl was in her Spanish class.
“It sounded like he thought you were a witch,” Callie said. “Like you could conjure the stallion to come to you.”
“Now that’s crazy talk,” Jen said.
“But she is from San Francisco,” Callie pointed out.
Jen laughed. “They carry briefcases there, Callie, not magic wands.”
The remark got a laugh. As the tension around her evaporated, Sam looked at her watch. She shook her wrist. Sam couldn’t believe it was only eight o’clock.
Sam took the glass of lemonade Gram handed her as she walked into the kitchen after school. She felt light-headed and weird after the long hot walk home but not so weird she didn’t notice four unbaked pies and six pans of lasagna crowded side by side on the kitchen counter. Oddest of all was Gram’s expression.
“What’s wrong?” Sam asked. She held the glass against her cheek instead of drinking.
“The check Dallas brought home for the cattle wasn’t much,” Gram said. “We barely broke even.”
Sam sipped the lemonade.
“What does that mean?” she asked. “That we can’t pay back the loans from last year?”
Gram nodded. “We’ll talk tonight. Your dad’s doing that last cutting of alfalfa with the hands. He left a message on the Elys’ phone, too, hoping Jake and his brothers can help. Wyatt’s worried it will start pouring and hurt the hay.”
“Pouring? It’s like an oven out there,” Sam said. “Dad wanted a one-hundred-degree day and this is it.”
“Look at that sky, young lady.” Gram pointed toward the window. “It’s tight as the head of a drum. The weather stations say this is a window between two storms.”
“If it starts to rain now, is the hay ruined?”
“Not necessarily. Once the hay is cut and baled, a single hot day can dry it,” Gram said. “Your dad’s got it cut. If they can get it baled today, we might be all right.”
Gram sipped her own lemonade before adding, “I just hope my old granny wasn’t right. She said when hens left off laying for no good reason, they were predicting hailstorms.”
Sam rubbed her hand across her eyes. She’d really wanted to tell Gram what had happened this morning.
The halls had been abuzz before Sam even reached her first period class. By second period, people were outright staring at her and Jen. When Rachel Slocum had left school “sick,” everyone pitied poor Rachel, whose father was a lunatic. By the time her last class began, Sam had heard gossip saying he’d run the school bus off the road into a ditch.
With rumors flying, Sam longed to tell Gram the truth before she heard something worse. But Gram and Dad were fretting over money and weather an
d saving the hay crop. This might not be the best time to mention she hadn’t had such a great day either.
“If I don’t put on shorts, I’ll pass out.” Sam stood up and headed toward her bedroom, but stopped before she reached the stairs. “I bet there’s something I should be doing to help.”
“See to the animals, then come help me cook.” Gram gestured toward the pans of lasagna. “The cowboys will eat here tonight, and if the Elys come, that makes seven extra men for dinner. Even with a small cutting, they’ll work up an appetite.” Gram fanned herself with a dish towel.
Sam had jogged halfway up the stairs when she heard Gram mutter, “And I don’t know where I’ll find the strength to turn on that oven.”
Buddy didn’t seem to think the storm would hold off another day. Or maybe she’d picked up on Sam’s worry over the branding.
The calf mooed and pressed against the fence rails, trying to follow Sam as she did chores. When the skies darkened and a tumbleweed skittered across the yard, Buddy bucked and bawled, certain the weed had blown in off the range to devour her.
Finally, Sam put Buddy inside the barn. Sam was scattering extra straw in the box stall when she heard a truck.
Sam sprinted outside. Jake was alone in the truck. Maybe he’d already dropped his brothers at the hay field. It didn’t matter. All week she’d wanted to ask Jake if he’d rope Buddy tomorrow for the branding. Not only was he skillful with the lariat, Jake would be gentle.
If she said that, he’d be embarassed.
Jake reached inside the truck for his Stetson. Ready for hot-weather work, he wore a sleeveless white undershirt and jeans. As he pulled his Stetson down low, Sam saw the wind catch the long hair he’d tamed with a leather thong. He slammed the door of the pickup and glanced toward the house but kept walking her way.
Sam swallowed hard. This was really stupid. She shouldn’t be so glad to see Jake. Or so uneasy. When he got close enough to take her in a one-armed bear hug and walk her back inside the barn, she was happier than she’d been all week.
Jake bumped up the brim of his hat to get a better look at her. “So, how was your mornin’, Brat?”
“You heard?” she asked, though she doubted anyone at Darton High hadn’t.
“Do I have ears?” Jake waited, thumbs hooked in his belt loops.
“Linc Slocum is not a healthy man,” she said.
“He’s a real self-centered son of a gun.” Jake stared at the barn floor as he spoke. “I know that for a fact, but don’t tell me he laid a hand on you or Jen.”
When Jake looked up, his eyes were hard.
“He didn’t,” Sam said quickly.
“Good thing.”
Sam didn’t ask why. She could figure it out for herself. Though their parents didn’t approve, the Ely boys had reputations for settling disputes with their fists.
With a yap of greeting, Blaze bounded into the barn. He stood next to Jake, bumping against his leg, inviting a pat. Jake slid his hand down the dog’s back, then straightened.
“My brothers are helping your dad. My dad will be along soon. I better hightail it down there.” Jake didn’t move, though his boot heels creaked as his weight shifted.
“I’ve got to help Gram make garlic biscuits to go with the lasagna.” Sam didn’t know what she was waiting for. Then, she blurted, “We’re supposed to brand Buddy tomorrow.”
“There’s no cause to be sentimental over that.” Jake squared his shoulders and looked down on her like he had since she was five years old.
“It’s not that I’m sentimental over Buddy,” she tried to explain. “It’s all this other stuff.”
Jake brushed her off with a single word, “Yeah,” he said. “Gotta go.”
He did.
Sam held Blaze’s collar to keep him from following. As he started the truck and drove off, Sam sent a frown after Jake.
“Thanks for nothing, you turkey.” Sam released the dog’s collar, made sure Buddy’s stall was latched, and headed for the house.
Hot wind spun the dust from Jake’s tires in a whirlwind. It danced across the ranch yard, causing horses to pin back their ears in warning.
Chapter Ten
THE HAILSTORM STARTED and ended before dark.
While Gram showered, Sam put two pans of biscuits in to bake. First, she heard a pinging sound, then a tapping, next a rattling like machine-gun fire in a movie.
Sam hurried to the window. In the ten-acre pasture, the horses galloped like a wild herd. Heads and tails flung high, they raced around the pasture as if trying to outrun the hail. For five minutes, ice pellets showered from the sky, bouncing like Ping-Pong balls as they hit the ground. Minutes later, the storm stopped, leaving the evening sky blue-gold and scoured clean.
“Is something burning?” Gram called from upstairs.
Sam jerked the biscuits from the oven, then waited for Gram to tell her what the hailstorm would mean for the hay.
“Not good.” Gram rushed into the kitchen in a pink gingham blouse and fresh jeans. She tugged one end of the kitchen table and added another leaf to make it longer. “Not good at all, but Wyatt should have it baled by now, and he’s got tarps to cover the hay. It won’t dry out there now. He’ll just have to bring it in and feed it. Or sell it right away.”
With company coming for dinner, Sam wanted to change out of the red tank top and white shorts she’d put on after school. But there was no time.
All of a sudden, trucks came roaring in, and men in cowboy hats were everywhere.
Sam lifted the kitchen curtain just enough to watch them wash up outside and use a big purple first aid kit from the Elys’ truck to bandage one of Jake’s brother’s hand. Their voices drifted through the open window.
“Whoee, that thing’s so purple, it could blind a man,” Dallas joked.
“Yeah,” said Luke, Jake’s father. “But if a man needs a first aid kit, he doesn’t want to spend all day looking for it.”
When the men began stomping mud off their boots on the front porch, Sam moved away from the window just in time. All at once a cluster of men followed Dad inside. Each hung his hat on the hat rack, until it was full. Then they used the coat rack.
Sam hustled between the stove and the table, carrying the full platters Gram handed her. She slipped into her chair just before Dad said grace, but her eyes were only half closed. Dad’s forehead furrowed as he thanked God for the food and the safety of the men who’d helped with haying. While Dad prayed, Dallas rubbed his temples and sighed.
Then, like a scene from a movie, the subdued meal was devoured to the clatter of knives and forks. In those movies, the farm wife didn’t sit down and eat, but Gram pulled up a chair long before the meal ended.
Sam wanted to catch Jake’s eye and get a feel for just how serious things were, but each time she tried, Jake’s brothers noticed. So did his father.
Luke was a handsome but harsh-looking man. He didn’t say a word during dinner, but Sam couldn’t help studying him. The smooth sheen of his skin made Sam aware of the clean shelf of his cheekbones and smooth length of his jaw. He had more sharp edges than Jake, but when Sam brought him pie and coffee, Luke’s smile made her grin right back.
As if the smile loosened his long-boned jaw, Luke said, “I could use some of that hay if you come up with extra.”
Dad’s mouth lifted at one corner, but the expression wasn’t a smile. Why not? Sam wondered. Dad needed to use or sell the hay before it spoiled.
“Thanks, Luke.” Dad sounded as if Luke had offered a favor.
“I haven’t shipped my herd yet. You raise high-protein feed. I could use some,” Luke repeated.
One of Jake’s brothers, the one with the bandaged hand, spoke next. “I have a friend who trains jumpers up at Lake Tahoe. She’s always looking for high-quality hay. I could drive some up to her, if you can spare it.”
“Go ahead and call her,” Dad said. He held a fork, but he hadn’t yet cracked the crust of his pie. “If the flatbed can make it up there,
that’d be fine.”
Dad flushed. While the other men talked, he stayed quiet. Sam didn’t understand, until the Elys rose to leave.
Sam blinked at all the tall browned men. It was as if a redwood forest had sprouted in the kitchen.
The boys walked ahead, but Dad paused in the doorway and shook Luke Ely’s hand.
“It’s not so humiliatin’ when you’re bailed out by good friends,” Dad said.
Luke shrugged. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, Wyatt. You’re the one doin’ me a favor.”
It was easy to see Luke’s generosity and know that when the time came, Dad would help the Elys, too.
The brothers clambered into the truck bed, haggling for the best seats, and Sam hoped only Jake would hear her.
“Jake?” She tried to call quietly, but all the Elys looked.
Even though there were no lights in the ranch yard, Sam’s white shorts made her all too visible. Jake’s brothers elbowed him, joshed him, and one mimicked Sam, calling his name in a high voice. All the same, Jake walked with solid steps back to meet her.
“Yeah?” he said, holding his hat and looking at her sideways, as if she’d scold him.
“Could I ask you a favor, please?”
He nodded with long-suffering patience.
“I’ve been thinking about this all evening, kind of rehearsing, so I don’t do anything dumb like cry,” Sam said. “Tomorrow, when we brand Buddy, could you—do you mind—?” Sam stopped, made a smoothing motion with her hands as if steadying her mind was that easy. “Would you please be the one to rope Buddy?”
Sam remembered the way a rider roped the calf’s two hind legs, then dragged her the short distance to the branding fire. Done correctly, it was quick. But Sam had seen ropers catch only one hoof or lasso the calf’s tail along with a leg. Often, horses took a while to get into position, and cowboys ended up chasing the calf until it was terrified.
But not Witch and Jake. Together, they were a synchronized roping team. She trusted them.