by Terri Farley
Sweat gathered on Sam’s forehead and dribbled down her temples and cheeks. She closed her eyes to keep the saltiness out, and wished she could flap her collar to cool her hot neck and throat. But the colt would probably think she was some weird, squatting bird of prey.
She’d been sitting in this cross-legged position so long that she was pretty sure the wrinkles in her jeans had made permanent indentations on her legs. The indigo dye had probably soaked into her skin cells, making her blue-legged forever.
Tiny wings whirred past her ear. Sam didn’t flinch, but she felt exposed. Because she was hatless, that dragonfly could dive-bomb her head, or—what was it they were rumored to do?—sew up her ears.
Crunch.
Sam lifted her eyelashes, millimeter by millimeter. Pirate had taken one step away from the corral fence, then another, then rushed to sling his head over Ginger’s back for comfort. The old mare flattened her ears, but she didn’t move away. She’d put up with the yearling, she seemed to say, if he’d just stay still.
Sam watched the colt and he watched her. She considered his white salved nose and eye area and wondered if the smooth pink skin underneath would ever grow hair again.
Hours later, when her patch of shade had moved with the traveling sun, Sam measured her progress by the colt’s hipshot stance. His head drooped and one rear hoof was cocked on its tip. She didn’t dare move, even when the iron gate creaked and she saw Mrs. Allen coming toward her.
The older woman had changed into a sleeveless blue dress and she wore something amazing on her head. It was sort of a cross between a vaquero’s flat brimmed hat and something a Southern belle would wear. It was as big as an extra, extra-large pizza. Sam had never seen anything like it.
Neither had Pirate. The yearling threw his head up and began backing, nostrils wide. When he bumped Judge, the old bay swiveled one ear toward the sight, heard nothing threatening, then gave an impatient swish of his tail as if the colt had wakened him for nothing.
Just the same, Pirate crowded past the other horses, getting as far from Mrs. Allen as he could.
Not Sam. She’d just noticed Mrs. Allen was carrying a frosty glass. With luck, it was for her.
“Oh honey,” Mrs. Allen said. She stopped beside Sam and looked down at her, tsking her tongue. “That colt’s not the only one that needs sunscreen. You should have put some on yourself.”
Why hadn’t she thought of that? Sam wondered. Her face did feel kind of hot and tight.
“You are sunburned red as a clown’s nose. Hope you’re all finished peeling by the time school starts up again.”
“Me too,” Sam said, and it seemed her lips cracked just from talking.
A meadow lark caroled from one of the fields and Calico plunged her nose into the watering trough, then made a breathy, splashing sound like a surfacing whale.
“How’s he doing?” Mrs. Allen asked, nodding at the colt.
Standing slowly, because her knees had locked and she had to work to straighten them, Sam drank the lemonade Mrs. Allen had brought her, while she explained what she’d observed.
After ten minutes of description, Sam summed it up. “He’s skittish, but not terrified. I think after we spend a little time together, he’ll be used to me.”
“Same could be said for me and Gabe.”
Sam looked away from the colt to make sure Mrs. Allen was joking.
“You can use him with the colt, can’t you?” Mrs. Allen asked.
“Gabe? Sure,” Sam said adamantly. “Just like we do with the HARP girls, before they ride. It’s all groundwork. I told him about it.”
“And?”
“He didn’t have much to say,” Sam told her.
“Well, I think the time for talking is done. Action’s what’s gonna make him well. If he can help heal that horse, he’ll feel better, too.”
“Sounds good to me,” Sam said.
“That’s how it is with men,” Mrs. Allen went on, as if Sam hadn’t spoken. “In fact, I’m thinking I might get that Jake Ely to come over if he has a minute between working for that father of his and that stepmother of yours.”
Sam sighed. Jake and Gabe were both guys, and they’d both been injured, but she couldn’t see the two bonding. She’d already told Mrs. Allen her opinion. Clearly, Gabe’s grandmother thought she knew best.
“Now, I’m not so sure that sleeping bag’s a good idea,” Mrs. Allen said, nodding at Sam’s bedroll. “Oh, it’ll be cooler, and you’ll be closer to the horses, and all,” she agreed when Sam started to protest. “Only thing is the snakes.”
“Snakes?” Sam’s legs molded together, her arms crossed so that her palms touched the tops of her shoulders and she looked at the ground beneath her feet and for yards around.
“Country girl like you shouldn’t be afraid of snakes,” Mrs. Allen chided.
This time last year, Sam would have agreed, but years of idle warnings had finally turned into reality in June. Sam had nearly stepped on a rattlesnake sunning itself outside their new bunkhouse. She’d seen a garter snake grab onto a girl’s hand and grind with its tiny serrated jaws, too.
She was in no rush to share her sleeping bag with any snake, venomous or not. So when Mrs. Allen offered her a hammock and helped her hang it between the two cottonwood trees next to the corral, she thought it was the best idea she’d heard in weeks and Sam was sure she’d sleep more soundly.
Gabe slept through dinner, and even though Sam romped Imp and Angel, who were crazy from being locked in Mrs. Allen’s studio all day, then watched television for an hour with Mrs. Allen, Gabe still hadn’t stirred.
“Think I should wake him up so he can eat something?” Mrs. Allen asked when Sam headed for the door.
Sam shrugged and opened the door. A heavy scent of roses flowed inside from the garden as Sam said, “I have no clue.”
“Probably tells you what kind of mother I was that I haven’t a clue either,” Mrs. Allen said.
“I bet you were lots of fun,” Sam told her.
“No, I wasn’t,” Mrs. Allen’s voice was flat. “But I’ve got a second chance to do things right and I won’t waste it.”
Just as Sam’s arms had acted without her permission when she gestured to the colt, they reached around Mrs. Allen’s thin shoulders and gave her a hug.
Where did that come from? Sam asked herself, but Mrs. Allen looked so pleased, Sam pretended she’d meant to do it.
“Well, now, isn’t that nice,” Mrs. Allen said, flustered. Then she looked around the kitchen and the living room. “One thing I do know about mothering is that the microwave pasta I gave you isn’t exactly packed with nutrition.”
“Oh, that’s okay. I get plenty of nutrition at home.”
Mrs. Allen laughed, and Sam grimaced. That hadn’t come out the way she’d meant it to.
“I want you to take a few of these,” Mrs. Allen said, taking a colander full of peaches from inside the refrigerator. “Some fella was selling them outta the back of his truck in Alkali. They’re good for you and they can count as dessert, too.”
Sam took the first peach she touched, though it felt kind of soft. It might have been around for a little while, Sam thought, but she didn’t care. It was cold enough that she could rub it on her sunburned cheeks, if nothing else.
“Now, my outside lights are on a timer,” Mrs. Allen said, touching Sam’s arm before she made it through the door. “And since I don’t keep hens anymore and don’t need those lights to keep away coyotes, they go off at midnight. Is that going to be okay with you?”
“Fine,” Sam said. “I like to be able to see the stars.”
“Nighty night, then,” Mrs. Allen said.
At last, Sam was ready to sleep. All the commotion she’d made climbing into the hammock disturbed the horses, and Pirate was trotting circles around and around the corral.
Knowing her voice probably wouldn’t soothe him, Sam just listened. She heard a cow with a hooting moo far off on the range, and the colt’s frantic hooves.
She heard the silken rustle of an owl swooping overhead, and circling hooves. She heard a lone coyote’s howl, followed by a chorus of yaps. Even the wildlife couldn’t sleep in this heat.
Then she realized the colt had stopped circling.
She tried to believe Pirate had just grown weary. She told herself it was silly to imagine the Phantom was near. But some instinct crackled like electricity through Sam’s veins. He was here. She just knew it.
The hammock rocked crazily as she sat up. With one hand on each side of the hammock, she balanced and listened. Nothing. She opened her eyes as wide as they could go, staring through the darkness toward the corral.
The moon didn’t lend much light, but she saw the colt’s dark outline and almost felt his trembling as he nickered toward the open range.
Chapter Eleven
Coyotes were still out romping. That meant mustangs could be, too.
Grabbing each side of the hammock, Sam slung one leg over the edge, balanced, then dragged the leg out without falling.
Glad she’d gone to bed in shorts and a T-shirt but frustrated that she had to waste precious seconds putting on shoes, Sam grabbed the sneakers she’d stashed beneath the hammock. Mrs. Allen’s warning had made Sam nervous, but it was her own gruesome fantasy of stepping on a fangs-bared rattlesnake that kept her from rushing into the night barefooted.
As Sam sat down and pulled on the sneakers, she had a moment to think.
Where was the stallion? What kind of terrain would she have to sprint across to get to him? She didn’t know the anthills, rabbit brush, or dry, pebble-filled washes of Deerpath Ranch one tenth as well as she did the landscape of River Bend. She pulled the laces tight and double-knotted them.
Sam glanced over at the yearling.
The glowing half-moon showed everything in shades of gray. In silhouette, Pirate looked a lot like the Phantom. Loosed from the corral, Pirate could lead her to his home herd and she could ride behind him on Calico, or—
No. Sam couldn’t believe that selfish thought had even crossed her mind. She wanted to apologize to the colt as he stood, head held high, amid a cage of shadows from fence posts and cottonwood branches.
Because his lungs had been damaged by smoke inhalation, he wouldn’t survive the high desert winters. Letting him lead her back for just an hour or two would have been cruel.
The colt sniffed loudly, searching the still night air for clues to what he’d heard.
Shoes tied, Sam stood with hands on hips and wished she could ask him for a hint.
The mustang pasture seemed the most likely place to find the Phantom, but was the presence of other horses enough to make the silver stallion forget the fire, exploding paint cans, and a week of captivity?
Pirate was proof that horses could have bad memories, so maybe the Phantom wouldn’t return there. Where else could she find him?
Sam remembered the week she’d stayed on Deerpath Ranch watching over Faith, the blind filly. One night the Phantom had hidden in the overgrown brush flanking the road and charged Jake. But the tall weeds had been cut back long ago.
Sam tapped her fingertips against the shorts covering her thighs. If she didn’t hurry, he’d be gone.
The only other place she’d seen the stallion was the hot springs beyond the tree house. That had to be a mile away. She wasn’t certain she could find it. She’d ended up there in a snowstorm because Calico had been attracted by the stallion as he stood guard over Faith.
Now, darkness cloaked the landmarks she might remember.
“Do something,” Sam muttered to herself.
As she took a step, Sam caught a whiff of the peach from Mrs. Allen’s kitchen.
Did horses like peaches? She’d find out. If its sweet scent carried to the Phantom, maybe she wouldn’t have to know where to find him. Maybe he’d come to her.
Sam walked toward the mustang pasture, hoping they’d give her a sign. If the stallion had brought his entire herd, the captive horses would definitely be looking at them.
Dry grass crunched under Sam’s shoes. She hurried, jogging, walking, then jogging again. When she stopped to catch her breath, a crunch sounded nearby.
What was out here with her?
Nothing but her imagination indicated that the Phantom was nearby.
Maybe Pirate hadn’t heard horses at all. He was a prey animal. He could have heard a cougar, a bobcat, or even a lone coyote that had strayed from the pack she’d heard howling.
Mrs. Allen’s bluish yard lights were supposed to keep coyotes away, but they were off for the night. Sam strained, listening for canine pads moving over the dry grass.
Then Sam recalled the colt’s longing nicker and she almost laughed with relief. He wouldn’t signal a predator. He had to be calling to another horse.
What if the Phantom had come looking for Pirate? Sam drew a deep breath and released it in tiny increments. What if the silver-white stallion had been neighing across the fire-blackened range, looking for his son?
It made a pretty picture in her imagination, but Sam wouldn’t breathe a word of the idea to anyone who knew horses. Jen and Jake would gape at her as if she’d lost her mind. Brynna the biologist would regret the hours she’d wasted explaining everything she knew about wild horses to her mush-minded stepdaughter.
Don’t be silly, Sam lectured herself. No stallion would come searching for a young male. The Phantom would have driven the colt from the herd in a year or two, anyway, before he could make a challenge for supremacy.
Sam approached the mustang corral with determined steps. Only a few horses were in sight. Just before she reached the pasture fence, she heard a squawk. It must be breezier than she’d thought, because that sounded like the creaky hinge on Mrs. Allen’s garden gate.
The sound worked like a lever to raise the grazing mustangs’ heads. They all came up at once and stared at her.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Sam told the horses. “I’m just out on a wild goose chase.”
Then she smiled to herself. Correction: a wild horse chase.
She had to start thinking like a horse. Now.
Sam closed her eyes to pretend she had four long legs and a tail that brushed the ground.
You’re a horse, she told herself. It’s been a long, hot day. Finally, the sun’s gone down. The earth is cooling beneath your hooves. It’s night and you can move about more freely. What do you do next?
Eat? Always.
Sleep? No, she’d feel frisky after dozing in brushy ravines during the heat of the day.
Drink? Yes!
That was it. Most times she’d seen the Phantom had been at the La Charla River as he led his herd to drink.
But the La Charla was behind her and Pirate had been looking in the opposite direction.
The hot springs?
Sam turned the idea over again in her mind. Maybe. She’d have to ask Brynna if wild horses drank warm water. Until she could, she’d head in that direction.
The smell of burned grass was bitter even to Sam’s human nostrils as she neared the rangeland scorched by the lightning-strike fire. Could the Phantom smell this peach over the black stench?
Something scurried nearby, but Sam didn’t see it. It might have been a mouse or a night bird leading her away from its nest. Sam kept walking, rolling the velvety fruit between her palms.
Wait, what about the pit? Sure, the stallion’s strong teeth could crush it, but she could accomplish two things at once if she took it out.
Cupping the peach in both hands, Sam bit through the skin, pushed her teeth toward the pit, then used her fingers to grab it and pull it out.
Now the sweet aroma should be strong enough for a horse to smell.
When he didn’t magically appear, she kept walking. She wasn’t sleepy, anyway, so she’d search a little longer.
Ahead, Sam saw a pale mesa so smooth and curved, it didn’t seem to be made of rock and dirt. Instead of being hardened by centuries of weather, it looked like it had been sculpted from ice cream, then
flattened on top and scooped smooth on each side.
Scalloped black wings tumbled toward Sam, then veered away and vanished. A bat searching for a bug dinner, she thought.
The howling hadn’t come again for some time. She heard nothing but her own footfalls, but she kept feeling as if she were being followed.
Sam looked back over her shoulder. She’d walked a long way from Deerpath Ranch and there was no porch light to guide her back. She hoped Mrs. Allen wasn’t a restless sleeper like Gram. If Mrs. Allen came outside and found the empty hammock, chaos would follow. She’d call out the sheriff’s mounted patrol, every cowboy in the county, and the volunteer fire department.
Sam winced. How would she explain she’d come wandering out here on the advice of a horse? A hallucinating horse.
She really should start back, but Sam stalled. She stared up into the night sky, looking for more bats. She saw a pair of darting birds that Gram called nighthawks and Dallas called goat suckers.
Her eyes picked out the Big Dipper and she’d just about located Orion when a neigh floated over the blackened fields.
Yes! That raspy call had come from an adult horse, probably a stallion.
A whinny answered from the ranch. Without meaning to, Sam gazed back over her shoulder, sighing in sympathy for Pirate.
Poor baby, she thought.
When she turned back, a blue-white form had materialized just yards away.
The Phantom stood in the charred field, legs braced and head lowered. Like an otherworldly beast ready to charge, his muscled shoulders swelled.
She knew it was the Phantom, though his fine-boned face and intelligent eyes were hidden by his overlong forelock. One front hoof struck over and over, as if he hated the ashy smell.
Come to me, beauty, Sam thought as the stallion stalked a few steps nearer. But then he leaped toward her.
Head level, ears flattened into a mane blown back by his lunge, the stallion’s body bridged half the distance between them.
It’s a mock charge. A play threat. It had to be. But as he came closer, the ground beneath Sam shuddered.
“You know me, Zanzibar,” Sam’s words were half whisper, half gasp, and way too late.