by Terri Farley
The first time she’d entered the house, heavy drapes had covered the tall windows. Now they were pushed back to show sunny views of sagebrush-covered range and the Calico Mountains. If Sam craned her neck just right, she could see green swathes of pasture dotted with captive mustangs.
That first day, the smell of medicine had permeated the rooms. Now, fragrance drifted from china bowls of rose petals, and the lingering salt and butter smell of popcorn had settled around the microwave oven.
There was another smell, too, Sam realized. Something like barbecue smoke.
“You used to have some scary paintings,” Gabe said. “Of flowers with teeth.”
“They’re not scary, just accurate,” Mrs. Allen said. She folded her arms, instantly defensive of her artwork, which depicted carnivorous plants. “And my agent said they’re unique, and enjoying quite a little popularity with some collectors.”
Gabe’s eyes swung to meet Sam’s. For one moment, Sam thought they’d both burst into laughter, but the feeling passed, and Sam helped Mrs. Allen get down saucers for the cinnamon rolls and glasses for milk.
Once they’d all exclaimed over the delicious rolls, they ate in silence.
Sam glanced toward the ivory-and-brass telephone on the round table draped with a gypsy-looking scarf. When she’d talked with Gabe that night when he was still in the hospital, they’d sort of understood each other. But not now.
“You probably want to know about my accident,” Gabe said in an accusing tone.
“It’s none of my business,” Sam said. “Besides, your grandmother was telling you the truth. I’m just here to help with the colt.”
“So you don’t want to know. You think it would gross you out?”
Then, before Sam could protest, he changed the subject. “If you know so much about horses, how come you’re calling that one a colt, when he’s practically grown up?” Gabe stopped for a breath and added, “Isn’t a colt a baby?”
Sam looked to Mrs. Allen, expecting her to take over, but maybe things were piling up on her, and Mrs. Allen was taking a break, because she appeared engrossed in unrolling her pastry to get to its tender center.
“I do want to know,” Sam said. “It was really awful when I was down painting your grandmother’s fence and she drove up to tell me you’d been in an accident and I could tell from her voice she didn’t even know if you’d live.”
Gabe turned to his grandmother and took a shuddering breath. Mrs. Allen didn’t look up from her fork, which was skimming white frosting from her roll.
“And a colt is a male horse under four years old,” Sam told him.
“Lecture me,” Gabe taunted. “I really like that from a younger kid.”
Sam ignored him and added, “That mustang is probably only a yearling. So he qualifies. And don’t you want to know his story?”
“I know it,” Gabe said, and his voice sounded nice, finally. “You told me, that night.”
Progress, Sam thought, as Gabe glanced toward his grandmother’s phone. He at least admits we’ve talked before.
“So, you were on a road trip?” Sam coaxed him to talk about it, not sure why she wanted to know.
“Yeah, three of us. We had this plan. We all play soccer and we’re all, like, C+ students, so we’ve been getting our grades up. Then all of us were going to just shine during our junior and senior seasons, and apply for college scholarships at the same school.” Gabe paused and rubbed his battered right knee. “We all have June birthdays, too, and we got our licenses just—bing, bing, bing. Three in a row. We were surprised when our parents said we could take off on our own for the weekend, but those good end-of-the year grades did it. The trip was like a reward.”
“But there were rules,” Mrs. Allen pointed out.
They both looked at her, but she still watched her fork. Now she pressed it down on crumbs, like she was seeing how many she could pick up.
“Yeah, like we were supposed to stay in a motel overnight,” Gabe said. “My dad made the reservation. But we weren’t tired, and so we took turns driving, thinking we could get to Salt Lake City by morning.”
“What were you going to do there?” Sam asked.
“Nothing,” Gabe said, shaking his head. “Go see a girl my friend Yogi met during spring break last year.”
“Yogi?” Sam asked, with a laugh.
Then she stopped. What if Yogi hadn’t survived the accident? Her mind raced, trying to remember if she knew what had happened to the other boys.
“He’s okay except for a broken finger,” Gabe told her. “So is Luis, my other friend. He dislocated his shoulder, but they mainly got cuts and bruises. That’s what would’ve happened to me if I’d been driving or sitting in the backseat, but I had to call shotgun.”
Sam pictured the teenage boys piling into the car and Gabe taking the front passenger’s seat.
“And even that would’ve been okay if I’d stayed awake and reached for the CD that Yogi wanted, but I fell asleep and he…”
Sam imagined the boy trying to drive and reach for something, too. She didn’t drive yet, but she could imagine veering off the road if you tried to do both at the same time.
“It sounds like it was his fault,” Sam said.
“You don’t even know him,” Gabe snapped.
“You’re right.” Sam hurried to say it. She knew better than to criticize people’s friends. If Jen had done something wrong, Sam knew she’d stand up for her to other people.
“But then…” Gabe’s eyes took on a faraway expression before he recited the next part and Mrs. Allen finally looked up, as if she couldn’t not pay attention, although she had to know what had happened. “Yogi veered over into the other lane, and overcorrected, and the car rolled. My seat got the worst of it. The front of the car crushed against my legs, but that was kind of good, because they were bleeding and the metal actually sort of acted like a tourniquet, so I didn’t bleed to death, but it also did something to my spine. And like your horse doctor said, you really don’t want to be messing with the spine.”
Gabe’s hands covered his face, then moved as if he were washing it. Maybe he was, Sam thought, washing away memories of being trapped.
“So, they cut open the car with the ‘jaws of life’—like a chain saw that’ll cut through cars—and told me how lucky I was to be alive. They took me to the hospital and I don’t remember a couple days, except when I woke up, everyone started in with the ‘lucky’ stuff again. I’m lucky to have the upper body strength to go on crutches instead of be in a wheelchair, lucky they could fix this leg with a steel rod,” he said, knocking on the plaster cast, “and lucky that I might not lose the use of this other leg, the beat-up one, because there’s still some mobility—”
He broke off, and when he resumed talking, he sounded almost robotic. “It’s a waiting game, like my grandmother said. We just wait until the swelling goes down and if I’m lucky again, I’ll be able to use both legs like before. If it turns out I’ve used up all my freakin’ good luck—” Gabe held his hands palm up, one to each side. “What ya see is what I’ve got.”
“He’s perfectly stable, otherwise.” Mrs. Allen tried to sound cheery, but her hands were pressed palm down on the table, flanking the plate with the unrolled but uneaten cinnamon roll. “And the doctor’s encouraged him to be up and around and active.”
“Don’t think I don’t know why,” Gabe said. “The doctor was cool. She told me everything.”
Mrs. Allen gave a nod of agreement. “The doctor said she wished she could tell him everything would be okay, and she really seems to believe it will,” Mrs. Allen said adamantly. “But she can’t promise. And she did mention that with a chronic condition like this, even the sweetest people in the world can’t help but be angry.”
“And I wasn’t sweet to begin with,” Gabe said. He sat back with his arms crossed, trying to look tough, but Sam could see his hands shaking.
“Of course you were. When you were training for soccer and going to school and
falling into bed exhausted, you were perfectly sweet.” Mrs. Allen’s chin lifted and her eyes narrowed. She looked as if she’d had enough.
She stood up, cleared the dishes to the kitchen sink, and continued, “Now, I’m going to get things settled in your room. Whether you realize it or not, you need a rest.”
“Look,” Gabe said, turning his anger on his grandmother.
Mrs. Allen was ready for it.
“You look,” Mrs. Allen snapped, with the nerve Sam had always admired. “I know very well you agreed to come visit not because you wanted to be with me, or be around horses, like you said, but because you wanted to get away from your friends. They’re getting ready for school and soccer, and—at least in your mind—pitying you because you’ll miss this season, entirely.”
“Grandma!” Gabe’s mouth stayed open as if he couldn’t go on.
“There’s no point in us lying to each other,” Mrs. Allen said. She held Gabe’s gym bag in one hand and a backpack bulging with square shapes that must be books in the other. Even though the strap of a pair of binoculars was wrapped around her wrist, too, she looked balanced and in control.
“It’s the truth. Now that you’re here, though, you’re going to get better. I’m going to make you get better!” Mrs. Allen leaned toward him, voice lowered. “Your upper body works just fine and so does your brain. You’re a young athlete who’s had some bad luck, just like that horse. You know what he’s going through, and you’ll help Samantha bring him back to what he should be.”
Sam sat very still. Mrs. Allen’s quiet voice was scarier than her shouting. Sam didn’t want to attract Mrs. Allen’s attention, but Sam couldn’t let her hope for something that was practically a miracle.
“Mrs. Allen?” Sam began cautiously.
Mrs. Allen’s silver concho earrings flashed like lightning. She whirled so quickly, a lock of black hair came loose and fell over one eye.
“You can hush, too, Samantha. I took that colt in when I already had way too much on my plate. You knew it, so did your whole family and young Dr. Scott. Well, this is how I’m going to make everything work. This is the price you’ll pay to save him!”
“Wait—”
“But—”
Mrs. Allen refused to listen to either of them.
“Both of you sit quietly and see if you can wrap your minds around this: For the next five days you’ll work together on that colt or all three of you are out of here.”
As if she’d been pounding on a piano and suddenly stopped, vibration hung in the room. Mrs. Allen cleared her throat and flashed a smile too bright and giddy for a seventy-something lady.
“Now.” Mrs. Allen’s voice was barely audible. “If there are no questions, I think I’ll go make up the bed in the guest room.”
Sam took a deep breath and stared after her, listening until she no longer heard the swishing skirts and thumping boot heels.
If Brynna and Dr. Scott thought Pirate was crazy, they should come spend some time with Mrs. Allen. Next to her, the loco little horse seemed absolutely serene.
Chapter Ten
“I’m going to go outside and sit with the colt,” Sam told Gabe once Mrs. Allen was busy in the other room.
“Sure, leave me in here with her.”
“She’s your grandmother,” Sam said, smiling. “Mine just cooks too much.”
“You think this is funny?” Gabe asked, rubbing one hand over his spiky hair.
“A little bit,” she admitted. Now that Mrs. Allen was out of the room, it all made sense. Sam had seen the tension building in the older woman since she climbed down from her tangerine-colored truck. “I think she’s just worried about you, and this is how she’s showing it.”
“By acting crazy? What about creating a secure environment for the invalid?” Gabe asked, then lowered his voice. “I haven’t been around her that much. We were just getting to know each other before this happened. I—”
Gabe broke off. Then, looking thoughtful, he reached up and turned the gold stud in his earlobe. “If I’d come out here to visit when she wanted me to, two weeks ago, I wouldn’t have been on that road trip.”
Sam remembered the long list of “ifs” from her own accident. If she’d paid closer attention to her horse, to the weather, to Jake’s technique of riding through the gate, to any of those things, she might not have fallen and the horse she loved wouldn’t have escaped.
But it didn’t matter how many “ifs” she listed. She’d made a mistake that had caused her to fall. The stallion’s hoof had grazed her head. He’d run for the mountains, leaving her on the ground, where she heard his hooves retreating into silence.
Even if she could count off ten thousand ways she might have changed that day, it was too late. But she sure wasn’t going to lecture Gabe about the lessons she’d learned. Sooner or later, he’d learn them for himself.
“So, do you want to learn to ride?” Sam asked.
Gabe’s expression said she didn’t deserve an answer, so Sam didn’t wait for one.
“The first step to horsemanship is always done on the ground anyway. You need to get to know the horse. They’re individuals just like people, in how they think, how they understand the world, and how they express themselves.”
Gabe still didn’t say anything. Given the way he sagged against his forearms, which lay on the mahogany table, Sam guessed his silence wasn’t all resentment. Part of it was weariness. Just the same, he was listening.
Sam told him about the HARP program, going over the days of groundwork that preceded actually mounting the mustangs. She talked about the program’s success with girls like Mikki Small and the failures that had come before the successes.
“You let them burn down your barn, get bitten by snakes, and commit, like, Internet fraud. Then, instead of suing them,” Gabe asked, “you talk about them being scared and getting over it? That’s lame.”
Shaking his head, Gabe leaned forward until his chin rested on his folded arms.
“Maybe,” Sam said. “But it works.”
Gabe’s eyelids were drooping. Careful that her chair didn’t squeak as she pushed back from the table, Sam slipped out of the kitchen, through the door, and onto the rose-flanked walk.
Bees zipped between flowers. Sunbeams highlighted small bodies the color of orange marmalade and striped with black. No sultry breeze hinted of rain or rocked the roses on their thorned stems. It was still and silent except for the bees’ droning.
Sam hoped the horses were dozing in the pen, feeling relaxed and accepting. She tried to open the iron gate soundlessly, but one glance across the ranch yard told her she needn’t have bothered.
The colt was already watching her. The saddle horses were ranged against the far fence, in the shade of the cottonwood tree. Judge and Ginger stood head to tail, dozing. Calico’s chin pointed up as she rubbed her neck against the fence, scratching an itch on the top board.
If Pirate backed a single step, his tail would brush one of the other horses. Even in the security of this small herd, though, his body was tense and his ears pricked to catch each of her footfalls.
“Hey, baby,” Sam crooned when she was still halfway across the yard from the corral. “I bet you had me the minute I opened the door, didn’t you?”
The colt’s head bowed, then jerked up. He was probably dodging a fly, but his black mane swayed forward on his glossy neck and he looked like he was agreeing.
“You’d be long gone if not for those fences. Is that what you’re thinking?” Sam asked him, but as she did, she reached one hand out.
Hooves stuttered, kicking up sand as the yearling threw himself sideways to escape. His bay hide slammed against the other horses, earning him flattened ears and bared teeth. Eyes rolling, he skittered off a few steps, then turned his tail to her, still trembling and completely aware of her movements.
No! She’d already committed two mistakes—reaching out and talking.
How had she forgotten that the mustang’s world had nothing—at le
ast nothing friendly—with arms. Cougars had long, clutching arms that ended in claws. Men had arms that ended in snaking ropes. Yes, Dr. Scott had reached out to pet and heal the colt, but Sam was new and strange. The colt had relied on his wild instincts to assess her.
Crooning to the colt as she approached so that he wasn’t surprised by her sudden appearance would have been fine, except he’d already known she was coming. He’d been watching her, so she should have stayed silent.
Wild horses were prey. Safety meant communicating with widened eyes, flicking ears, and flared nostrils. Translated into human terms, she’d just bounded into someone’s house bellowing an offer to mug them.
And I have an unparalleled knack with horses, Sam thought. Yeah, right.
Since she’d already disrupted naptime, Sam circled to the far side of the corral. All of the horses moved away until she sat on the ground, cross-legged in the shade. Then Mrs. Allen’s three horses returned. Calico sniffed along the bottom rail. She turned her head sideways and fluttered her lips over Sam’s hand.
“Good girl,” Sam whispered. She used her knuckles to stroke the velvety skin between the mare’s nostrils.
Calico enjoyed the caress for a few seconds, then snorted, hinting that a treat would be appropriate about now. But Sam had nothing to offer the pinto mare, so Calico huffed, moved off a few dragging steps, and closed her blond eyelashes for a nap.
Pirate stood as far from Sam as he could, with his shoulder, barrel, and hip pressed against the fence rail. But his neck wrinkled, showing amber-red glints, as his head turned to watch her.
If only he could read her mind, the colt would know he had nothing to fear. But, Sam thought, probably every kind human who’d ever worked with a frightened horse had made the same wish.
The best she could hope for was that Pirate believed the endorsement of the other horses. They stood nearby and though she knew their presence had more to do with the change than companionship, Calico had asked for her touch. The colt must have noticed.