Mustang Moon

by Terri Farley

  “Behind you,” she whispered.

  For a second, Jake turned to stone, then smoothly and slowly his head swiveled to look out the window.

  Down the trail from Lost Canyon came the Phantom’s herd, without him.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “IT’S THE PHANTOM’S herd, but where is he?”

  In the darkness outside Jake’s truck, Sam made out the lead mare with zebra-striped forelegs. She spotted one of the blood-bay mares, too, but the silver stallion was missing.

  “Relax.” Jake jiggled her arm in a way he must think was calming. “You’re breathing too fast for someone just sitting in a truck.”

  “Jake, a couple days ago, the Phantom was in a fight. He won, but he was injured.”

  Cautiously, always keeping a quarter mile between themselves and the truck, the mares made their way to level ground, headed for the pond. The wind blew from behind them. Their wild manes and tails streamed forward and the scent of humans hurried ahead of them.

  “Blackie’s been doing this for years, Sam. He knows how to take care of himself.”

  Sam nodded, a little surprised Jake still thought of the stallion as Blackie, the colt she’d loved and lost.

  Sam stayed quiet. She didn’t want to frighten the mares. Still, she worried about her horse. Injured, he’d be prey for another stallion or coyotes. His own herd might outrun him.

  “I’ve seen him up on the ridge,” Sam whispered to Jake. “He stands guard between those wind-twisted pines while the mares drink.”

  Together they watched for the Phantom. Jake didn’t approve of her obsession, but he knew that when she was worried about the stallion, nothing else mattered.

  Sam was about to suggest they douse the headlights, when suddenly the Phantom was there.

  Up on the ridge, moonlight struck his coat, turning it bright as liquid silver. The wind tossed his mane around his neck and shoulders.

  “He looks fine,” Jake said.

  “No, he doesn’t.”

  The stallion’s head wasn’t high flung and eager. He held it level with his shoulders. Though his ears pricked forward, alert, he rocked awkwardly as he took steps toward the path.

  “Left rear leg?” Jake asked, as the stallion came down the mountain.

  “Yes, just at the fetlock. I think some sagebrush stabbed him. Jake, he’s really hurting. Look at him.”

  Head angled toward the truck, the stallion hobbled toward the pond.

  Jake drew a breath, surprised that the stallion passed so much closer than the mares. Sam felt sure the Phantom had scented her.

  She wanted to get out of the truck and go to him, but she let him drink. The water was cooling his injury.

  “He’s favoring that leg, but I don’t think he’s sick, yet.” Jake leaned nearer the windshield. “I bet it could be swabbed clean, disinfected, and—oh no.” Jake’s head snapped Sam’s way as if he’d heard her thoughts.

  “Tell me, Jake. I’m going out there. You can help me or not, but I’m going.”

  “Don’t dare me, or I’ll drive away from here so fast it’ll make your head spin.”

  “You won’t,” she insisted, “because it’s not the right thing to do. Because you might be responsible for his death.”

  “Better his than yours.”

  “Will you get over that?” Sam didn’t mean to shout, but she must have. The stallion’s head left the water’s surface so quickly, moisture scattered like diamonds.

  “I am over it,” Jake said. “That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be careful.”

  “Of course I’ll be careful. I’ll get out of the truck, walk toward him, and if he wants my help—and he has before—I’ll look at his fetlock.”

  “And then what?”

  “If there’s, like, something sticking out, I’ll pull it loose.”

  “And leave him with an open wound? An invitation to infection? Great plan, Sam.”

  “No.” Sam pressed her hands palm down on the purple first aid kit. “I’ll use whatever you tell me to, from this.”

  Jake’s breath rushed out. He muttered, “No, no, no.” At the same time, he started assembling what she’d need.

  “Listen to every word, Sam.”

  “I will.” She watched him, knowing her mind had never been more alert. “But, remember, I can’t carry too much. He always watches my hands. And I don’t think he’ll like this coat.”

  As Sam shrugged out of her sheepskin coat, Jake rubbed his forehead, but he didn’t give in to frustration. He lifted the purple lid slowly, so the hinges wouldn’t creak.

  “We’ll drench this gauze with water,” Jake said, reaching to the truck floor to shake a plastic water bottle. “Good thing you didn’t finish yours. If he lets you close enough, go to his near side and face back, toward his tail, to clean that wound.”

  “Facing back? Are you sure?”

  “I’m—” Jake hesitated. One other time he’d been sure, and caused her accident. “I think his kick would have the least strength from that position.”

  “I’ll do it. What next?”

  Sam listened, shoving gauze and a needleless syringe of betadine into her pockets. Last, she tucked a disposable diaper—a perfect lightweight bandage—into her jeans’ waistband.

  Before she could climb out, the Phantom summoned her.

  “Jake, look.”

  The Phantom limped toward the truck. He left the mares behind and halted about four car lengths away to stand in the headlights’ beam. He tossed his head in three quick jerks and stood, ears swiveled toward her. Then, looking right at her, he nickered.

  “If I get out now, he won’t run.” Sam put her hand on the truck door, then stopped. The Phantom trusted her to do what was right. “Is this all I need, Jake?”

  “I’m trying to think—” Jake rubbed the back of his neck. “Aw shoot, it can’t hurt. Here.”

  Confused, Sam watched as Jake reached into their sandwich sack and sorted out a small piece of plain bread. “My grandfather used to make bread poultices for horses. To draw out infection, he said.”

  “Bread,” Sam repeated.

  As Jake dampened the bread with water, Sam listened to his directions, but she kept watching the Phantom.

  “Do you know what’s going to happen to me, if you get hurt?” Jake muttered.

  His words wrenched her attention away from the stallion.

  Sam bristled with anger. “I know I’m getting really sick of you expecting me to fail,” she said and scooted toward the door.

  “No, I don’t think you’ll fail, or I wouldn’t let you go,” Jake snarled. Sam saw Jake really didn’t care if they kept fighting. “Now, get him back in the water.”

  “What?” Sam barely got the word out. Jake couldn’t change the rules at the last minute.

  “You tamed him in the water. He trusts you in the water.” Jake’s voice was level and calm. “Get him back in the water or the deal is off.”

  Forget it, Sam thought. She opened the truck door as silently as she could. Then she glanced back.

  “My hand’s going to be on the horn,” Jake said, demonstrating. “If the safest thing for you is to scare him away, I’ll lean on this horn with everything I’ve got.”

  Jake and his idiot caution.

  Sam moved toward the pond. The mares scattered further up the hillside, but the Phantom stayed quiet. As she passed, his head bobbed, scattering his mane and forelock free of his brown eyes. His weight rested on his three good legs. Maybe that, and pain, made it hard for Sam to read his body language.

  Would he follow? He hadn’t since he was a colt.

  The sound of following hooves did not come. Sam glanced back over her shoulder. Every line of the stallion’s body showed his puzzlement. Whenever he’d come to her before, she’d met him. Now, she was walking away.

  “Come on, boy.” Sam swung along at a casual pace.

  Icy water slapped over her tennis shoes and soaked her socks. She waded out three steps, four, five…and heard the s
plash of hooves behind her.

  Yes. Sam felt a smile lift her lips. This stallion was the most wonderful horse in the world. Sam wanted to throw her arms around his satiny neck, but when she turned the night wind pierced her tee shirt. The chill was like a splash of cold water, awakening her to the fact that this was no dream.

  The stallion was curious but cautious. He whuffled his lips, switched his tail, then stamped a forefoot. When he stamped, his balance shifted and he stumbled a step.

  “Poor boy.”

  The stallion sighed as Sam edged closer. She held her hands out to him. Up the hillside, the clustered mares raised their heads. The stallion sniffed her hands, then turned his attention to her pockets and waistband. Maybe he couldn’t see the supplies she’d hidden, but he knew they were there.

  “We haven’t done this in a long time, boy.” Sam walked past the horse’s front legs, dragging her hand along his sleek hide. “I’m going back here, okay? I’ll pet you as I go, so you know right where I am. Full hand, okay, boy? No tickly stuff.”

  He kept the injured leg clear of the water. Sam half squatted and he allowed it. “Good, good boy.”

  He let her touch his fetlock. Just as Sam realized it felt hot, he jerked away from her shaking hand. She tried again and he let her dab at the wound with the gauze.

  Sam had faced his tail, just as Jake ordered, but now she looked over her shoulder. The Phantom was watching. He blinked, looking nervous, but no more than a domestic horse would.

  Sam hurried. Once the hair was washed free of dirt, she noticed a nub of sagebrush protruding from the wound. Why hadn’t she brought tweezers?

  Sam’s knees shook, but she kept her hands steady. She knew what she had to do.

  “This is the test,” she crooned to the horse. “I’ll get it right the first time, but it’s going to hurt. Zanzibar, good boy, just let me do it and you’ll be better.”

  Using her fingernails like tweezers, she jerked the sagebrush free. Don’t honk, don’t honk, Sam thought, and Jake didn’t, though the stallion bolted a splashing step forward.

  The Phantom stopped, shuddering.

  “That was the hard part, boy.”

  Sam edged back into position. The stallion’s head swung back and nuzzled her shoulder. He didn’t want her facing away. She let him lip her shirt, hoping it would distract him when she squirted a stream of disinfectant on the wound.

  His skin shivered, but he didn’t move away.

  “The medicine’s just cold, right, boy?” Sam’s own teeth were about to chatter, but it had nothing to do with the temperature.

  Fingers flying, she molded the damp bread against the stallion’s fetlock, glad he held the hoof above the water. The Phantom seemed to relax.

  “You like that, boy? It’s supposed to draw out the infection. That’s what Jake’s grandpa said. You remember Jake, don’t you?”

  The stallion didn’t respond and he didn’t trust the disposable diaper. At the first crinkle of plastic, his ears flattened. He walked out of the water, and this time Sam followed. Jake had better not honk. The disposable diaper and the pond water were a lousy combination. He ought to have the sense to see that.

  Once out of the water, the stallion circled back. Clearly irritated, he swung his head in her direction and snapped his teeth.

  “‘Just get it over with,’ is that it, boy?” Sam kept her voice low and worked quickly.

  She pressed the bread poultice more firmly into place, wrapped the plastic diaper around the stallion’s leg and fastened the tapes.

  As her fingers left his leg, the stallion launched himself away. By the time Sam regained her feet, he was gone.

  Sam got the truck door open. She sat in the doorway, unlaced her shoes and poured out the water, and stripped off her socks. By the time she closed the door, Sam was shaking so hard, she couldn’t get arms into her coat sleeves. Once she quit struggling, she noticed Jake’s silence.

  “Didn’t you even watch?” she asked.

  “I watched.”

  Sam waited, excitement fading. “Wasn’t it incredible?”

  “He remembers you, I guess.”

  “Why are you talking like a robot?” Sam asked.

  “I’ll stop.” Jake started the truck and drove back toward the main road.

  Sam crossed her legs and wiggled one bare and freezing foot. It seemed unlikely that Jake was waiting for a compliment, but she gave one anyway. “Everything you told me to do worked.”

  Jake just kept driving.

  By the time the truck tires bounced off the dirt road and back onto the asphalt, Jake still hadn’t spoken.

  “Why are you acting so weird?” Sam demanded.

  Jake looked over. His expression mirrored the Phantom’s as he’d pinned his ears back and glared.

  “I hate feeling afraid,” Jake said as if she’d dragged the words out of him. “Half the time I’m around you—”

  He didn’t finish. He waved one hand in dismissal and leaned closer to the steering wheel.

  Sam let him drive. He’d only had his license a month and it was a bad idea to distract him.

  His reaction wasn’t a surprise. Her accident had changed their friendship.

  Sam tugged her coat cuffs down and pulled her fingers up into her sleeves. She didn’t want Jake to worry, but she wasn’t going to sit home playing Nintendo or doing her nails either.

  Facing forward, Sam rolled her eyes to peer at him. The dashboard lights glowed off the shelf of his cheekbones and lit his hard-set jaw.

  Let him sit there, Sam thought. She sure wouldn’t talk first.

  River Bend’s porch light was visible miles before they crossed the bridge and rolled into the ranch yard.

  Sam had hopped down from the truck and started to close the door when Jake’s voice stopped her.

  “Here’s Mom’s camera.”

  He dangled it by a leather strap and Sam wanted to refuse. Why hadn’t he given it to her earlier, when they were on the range with the horses? That had been the plan.

  As she took the camera, Sam felt an odd satisfaction. Jake hadn’t forced it on her earlier, because he’d known she was watching for the Phantom.

  “See ya at school,” she said through a tight throat.

  “Yeah,” Jake sounded resigned. “I’ll see ya.”

  Sam was asleep when the telephone rang downstairs in the kitchen. With a half-formed idea that it was Jen, Sam swung her feet to the floor and raised her nightgown hem so she wouldn’t trip. She ran down the stairs, vaguely aware of Dad lumbering along behind her.

  Sam had reached the kitchen when Dad spoke. “I’ll get that,” he said. “Get on back to bed.”

  Sam let Dad lift the receiver.

  “Hello,” he said, but nothing in Dad’s expression told her who’d called so late. She moved slowly, listening. Near the top of the stairs, she heard half a sentence.

  “—businesswoman would have an answering machine.”

  Businesswoman? The only businesswomen she knew lived in San Francisco.

  Curiosity on the boil, Sam sat on the top step.

  “…wanted poster…stallion…” Dad’s voice rose, then faded. He had to be talking about Slocum and the Phantom.

  Like a latch clicking into place, she knew it must be Brynna Olson.

  Sam tiptoed back to her room, mulling over that possibility. Was Brynna back already? Did anyone go from Nevada to Washington, D. C. for a single day?

  No.

  And Washington’s time was three hours ahead of Nevada’s. Sam rolled back into bed. Why would Brynna call Dad so late at night?

  Brynna calling Dad. Sam stared at her bedroom ceiling until she saw a haze of spots, feathery horses and flying arrows.

  Brynna could be urging Dad to take that job. Dad might have left a message with the Willow Springs office about Slocum’s posters. Or maybe…

  Sam flopped over and buried her face in her pillow.

  Maybe she needed to go into Darton and see a movie before her imaginati
on ran away from her completely.

  Chapter Seventeen

  SAM’S HEAD SNAPPED back, and her eyelids sprung wide as Dad braked at the bus stop.

  “I don’t want you falling asleep in class now,” Dad cautioned.

  “I won’t,” Sam promised.

  She felt cranky. She’d asked Dad about his talk with Brynna, but Dad only said Brynna was gone for a week of meetings.

  Since Jen wasn’t at the bus stop yet and Sam didn’t want to wait alone, she tried once more to lever information out of him.

  “Exactly what did she say about Slocum’s posters?”

  Dad thought a minute, then recited, “Soon as someone at Willow Springs heard about the posters, they should’ve had a ranger call on Slocum to educate him about the Wild Horse and Burro Act.”

  Again, Sam thought. She’d been sitting next to Slocum when Brynna had explained it the first time.

  Slocum knew he was breaking the law. He just didn’t care.

  “Can they arrest him?” Sam asked.

  Dad didn’t sugarcoat the truth. “Nope, not until something happens to the animal.”

  As soon as Jen arrived at the bus stop, she told Sam the stallion had been sniffing around Gold Dust Ranch the night before.

  “My dad thinks he’s come back for Kitty,” Jen said as the bus arrived.

  Once they were seated, Sam looked at Jen and decided to trust her with the truth.

  “Jake and I saw the Phantom last night,” Sam whispered. “He’s hurt. So it couldn’t have been him.”

  Jen sat up so suddenly, her glasses slipped down her nose. If intelligence could show in someone’s expression, Jen’s blue eyes glittered with brainpower.

  “He’s hurt?” Jen whispered. “If you don’t want to call the BLM to take care of him, I could help.” Jen’s heart was set on becoming a veterinarian.

  “I wish you had been there last night,” Sam said. “But I think he’s going to be all right.”

  Sam’s mind churned. She had Mrs. Ely’s camera around her neck. If Hammer really had been at the Gold Dust Ranch, he might come back tonight. If she were there, she could prove her point right away.