by Terri Farley
Moonlight glinted pewter on his mane, silver on his back, white on the tail held straight out and fluttering as the stallion flashed by on her right.
The warmth from his body passed her, circled behind her, and then he slid to a sand-spitting stop a few yards to her left.
A chuckling nicker came from the stallion and Sam felt weak and deflated.
“You like scaring me?” she asked.
Looking past her, the stallion blew through his lips.
“You’re bored?”
Who would believe she stood out here on the open range in shorts and sneakers, joking with a wild horse in the moonlight?
Would he come to her? Would he let her ride him? Or even touch him?
Sam’s fingers ached to skim over the sterling spots glimmering beneath the stallion’s dusty hide.
She tried not to move, keeping even her breaths small and shallow, letting him remember he was safe.
The Phantom remembered. Just like anyone’s spoiled pet, he reached his lips toward her, seeking the peach.
Sam’s heart flew up, but she made the moment last. The stallion’s soft nose pushed at her fingers as she wondered how many humans had made friends with wild horses.
Not many. A Native American shaman, probably. A Celtic maiden worshipped as a goddess for her power to lure wild things. And Samantha Forster, who was too foolhardy for her own good. But look what it had earned her.
“Ow! Careful!” Sam yelped.
The stallion wanted the peach and he wasn’t feeling patient. Sam flattened her palm and let him take it.
“It’s my own fault,” she confessed.
Bobbing his head, chewing, and strewing bits of peach and saliva, the Phantom gave her a side glance that said he’d never considered any other possibility.
Sam kept her lips closed over a giggle. The stallion was so full of himself. She loved him for his royal attitude and she didn’t care that he’d splattered her with his snack.
Some girls might have shrunk away squealing, but she treasured the moment when he treated her like one of his herd.
Besides, she was creeping closer, scooting the soles of her sneakers ever nearer, without lifting her feet for a step.
The stallion wasn’t fooled or frightened when she grabbed a handful of his mane.
Before she could gather herself to swing up and mount, he simply sidestepped out of reach.
Amazed she didn’t fall and didn’t lose her grip on his ropy mane, Sam crooned to the horse, “C’mon, boy. I’d never hurt you.”
Peach juice dripped from his mouth. He considered her plea for a minute and walked away, but he didn’t shake her hand from his mane, just towed her along with him.
It was better than nothing, so Sam trotted to keep up.
“Where’re we going, big boy? Hmm?”
Lengthening his stride, he moved faster and Sam feared he’d break into a trot and leave her behind.
“Now or never,” she muttered and, hopping on one foot, she threw herself at the stallion, aiming for the glowing spot of moonlight on his back.
Chapter Twelve
The Phantom bolted.
Sam’s aim hadn’t taken his sudden rush into account. Her lips grazed his withers just before a hind hoof came down on her tennis-shoed toes.
Her yelp of pain must have sounded playful to the stallion, because he ducked his head and frolicked a few strides before swiveling a kick toward the stars.
Instinctively, Sam raised her arms to shield herself from his lashing hooves, but she’d only stumbled, not fallen. As the stallion trotted on, she followed him.
“I’m going with you,” she told him, but he headed toward a stand of tall weeds, crashed through them, and disappeared.
Splash!
She heard it and knew she’d been right. The stallion had been headed for the hot springs when he’d come upon her.
Favoring her right foot and wondering just how much the stallion weighed, Sam ran clumsily after him. This was no time for moaning and babying herself. She could look at her smashed toes later. Now she had a chance to ride the Phantom.
She’d mounted him for the first time in the river. Could he be reminding her how to do it right?
Ahead of her was a stand of reeds, not weeds. Tall and supple, they surrounded the hot springs then gave way to lower plants and the pool itself.
The stallion stood on the opposite side of the hot springs, drinking. Sam could hear him, but the shade from the reeds made him just a pale shape. She couldn’t see the angle of his ears or the expression in his eyes.
But he’d been playful just a second ago, so she approached, walking slowly around the rim of the hot springs.
“Don’t you need a bath, boy?” Sam coaxed. “If you go in, I’ll come with you.”
Jake had told her years ago that the point of water training was safety. Neither horse nor rider could be easily injured.
Looking across the mist that danced above the hot springs, Sam thought there’d be another benefit: tranquility. She imagined the warm water lapping around them as she sat astride the stallion.
“You need to cooperate,” she told him.
Slowly, regally, the stallion raised his head from the water.
“Well, you don’t exactly need to,” Sam said, since she didn’t dare give him anything that sounded like an order.
Sam caught a flicker of white as the Phantom’s eyes rolled toward the reeds.
“You’re okay. You’re not surrounded,” Sam assured him.
But the stallion seemed certain he was. Even though he could easily brush past the cattails and water grasses, Sam was crowding him. His tail swished and he sucked in a suspicious draft of air.
He flinched as she touched his mane. She weaved her fingers through the strong strands, but they nearly cut her fingers as he surged away.
“You’re telling me no, aren’t you?” Sam asked mournfully. She wanted to ride him so much. “Will it ever happen again?”
The Phantom’s wariness only increased. His neck jerked up so suddenly, she had to release her grip on his mane, and then he was backing. Three steps, four, and his ears flattened in anger.
“I’m sorry,” Sam said, but the stallion’s glare wasn’t for her.
He stared over her head, past the rocks that sheltered the hot springs. He couldn’t see through them, but he must have sensed something, because he was leaving, his mighty chest shoving through the reeds on the far side of the hot springs.
Sam sighed as she heard his hooves clatter on stone and cross hard-packed earth. No galloping strides shook the ground beneath her, but the night felt desolate. The Phantom had gone and she stood in the desert, alone.
Limping and biting her lip, Sam stared at the moon-washed ground before her as she made her way back to the ranch. Suddenly she was exhausted. It was two o’clock in the morning and she felt as if all her energy had been drained away.
What had she done wrong? She was pretty sure he hadn’t been reacting to her bossiness. The Phantom’s ego just let her orders bounce off.
No, he’d been alert to some noise or smell she couldn’t sense.
And then she heard something, too. A scuffing sound she almost recognized made her look up.
A figure slumped against the fence of the mustang pasture. Ice-blond hair and the glimmer of metal crutches told her it was Gabe.
Her heart thudded so hard, she wondered if it actually struck her breastbone. She and the silver stallion hadn’t been alone.
But…Sam released a sigh of relief. She’d walked a couple of miles in the last hour. He couldn’t have followed her. Terrible as the thought was, she was glad Gabe couldn’t have kept up.
“What are you doing here?” Sam asked. She tried to sound casual, as if teenage cowgirls always strolled around in the middle of the night.
He didn’t answer until she stopped right next to him. When she did, Sam knew something was wrong.
“Spying on you, I guess,” Gabe said. He touched the binocular
s around his neck.
Sam felt as if someone had grabbed her ankles and cracked her entire body like a whip. She drooped against the pasture fence.
She’d hidden her friendship with the stallion so well, for so long…
Her nose and fingers felt cold. Black dots frenzied in front of her eyes, crowding out the sight of the awful boy.
Is this what it felt like when you were about to faint?
“So that’s the horse you told me about on the phone,” Gabe said.
What should she do? What should she say? Was there any point in denying it?
“Yes.”
“The wild horse you’re friends with.” He pressed her to go on.
“Yes.” Her lips felt numb, but she blinked and she could see more clearly.
“So, is he wild or tame?”
Sam stared at Gabe. She didn’t know what to say. Even if she had the right words, she didn’t know if she could pronounce them. She felt weird and disconnected.
“Look,” he snapped. “I couldn’t see that much. You kept going past rocks and it’s really dark and then you went through that high foresty part. Quit holding your head like that. You’re freaking me out.”
Until then, Sam hadn’t realized the heels of her hands were pressed against her temples and her fingers were buried in her hair. She dropped her hands to her sides and shook them, trying to get blood pulsing back through her fingers.
“You really surprised me,” she said, finally.
Once she sounded normal, Gabe’s expression made an ugly change.
“You’re not just surprised, either,” he said. “I bet you’re feeling totally guilty for matching the crippled kid with the wrecked horse.” He tilted his weight toward one crutch as he jerked a thumb back toward the ranch yard and Pirate. “While you have that really outstanding one.”
Wrecked horse? Sam pictured Pirate splashing in the lake at War Drum Flats, running across the playa, and protecting the little roan filly from Linc Slocum’s feral dogs.
“What did you say?” she hissed.
“You heard me,” Gabe sneered. “You and my grandma thought it would be cute or helpful or—whatever—to pair up the two losers.”
Sam could hear herself panting for breath.
I’m hyperventilating, she thought, but not from surprise or shock. She was wrestling for control of herself. She didn’t want to do the unforgivable. Not that she could imagine what that would be.
This guy deserved whatever she could dish out, Sam thought, but she’d be in big trouble if she strangled him.
Shoulders squared, chin up, and green eyes narrowed, Gabe looked like a guy who’d just thrown down a dare. While he waited for her to pick it up, Sam thought of Jake.
The Ely brothers had been known to fight—both each other and other guys. Though they were punished thoroughly for it, they still had a reputation as brawlers and Darrell, one of Jake’s best friends, had tipped Sam off, so she’d know when one of them was truly mad.
These Elys get quieter and quieter, the more they’re riled, Darrell had told her. Long about the time they’re quiet as a stone wall, that’s when you’d better take off runnin’.
It sounded like a good strategy to Sam.
Instead of yelling and trying to shake some sense into Gabe, she lowered her voice and spoke softly.
“That colt,” she said, “is no loser.”
“I notice you don’t include me,” he said sarcastically.
“That’s because this has nothing to do with you. Your grandmother”—Sam paused and raised both hands in frustration—“might not agree. And if letting you help is the price I have to pay to give that colt a place to stay this week, then I’ll put up with you. But I’m here to help him and you’d better stay out of my way while I do it.”
As soon as she’d uttered them, the words echoed in Sam’s mind. She would be kicked off this ranch for sure if Mrs. Allen heard about this conversation.
But Gabe wasn’t done fighting. He leaned toward her as if he had something more vicious to say.
“You think anyone’s going to want him with those burns?”
Sam closed her eyes for a second. Gabe must be taking out his own unhappiness on her. The HARP girls had taught her that that happened a lot, but how could he be so mean?
Sam wet her lips. She wanted to give herself time to calm down, but since that probably would have taken until January, she did her best.
“Those burns already look better. They’re pink and blistered in places where they looked like…” Sam searched for words to describe Pirate’s face on that awful day. “Bubbles of charcoal,” she said finally.
“I still say—”
“I don’t care what you say,” Sam told him in a level voice. “If you could have seen that colt, running across the range, leading all the other young mustangs—” Sam’s voice broke. She was too close to crying to continue.
“Yeah, and if you could have seen me before—” Gabe’s mouth pulled into a deep frown. Then, he threw both his crutches down into the dirt.
Neither of them could help staring at the fallen crutches.
Shocked by what Gabe had done, Sam almost bent to pick them up. Didn’t he need those crutches to walk?
Sam knew she was in way over her head.
What would Gabe do next? Was this like, some kind of symbolic gesture? Was he so afraid he would need them, forever, that he was trying to throw them away?
Sam didn’t know.
All she knew was that Gabe should be talking with an expert, someone who understood what he was going through.
But right now, in the middle of the night, he only had her.
She was still angry. She hated what he’d said about Pirate, but something kept coming back to her.
You don’t punish fear.
Gabe was definitely afraid.
But wait. Dr. Scott had said that about the colt. Well shoot, Sam thought, maybe horse psychology was all she had to go on.
Gabe leaned rigid and defiant against the pasture fence.
No, she wouldn’t pick up those crutches and help him settle between their support. She’d bet almost anything that Gabe would rather spend all night out here than accept her help.
“You still say this has nothing to do with me?” Gabe demanded, but Sam heard a plea under the meanness.
“Yeah, I do,” Sam told him. “This time next month, you probably won’t need those.” Sam nodded at the fallen crutches. “This time next month, if he keeps having his crazy episodes, they’ll decide it’s more merciful to put that colt down.”
Gabe leaned the back of his head against the fence and looked up into the night sky.
“I came here to get away from trouble,” he said. Then he gave a short laugh. “Actually, I wanted to get away from my friends feeling sorry for me. I guess you’ve got that no-pity part handled.”
Sam laughed, too, but she really hoped he didn’t tell Mrs. Allen about all this. She put her hand on Gabe’s arm, carefully.
“Look, you’re not going to be here for long, and I really could use you as a spotter when I start working with the colt tomorrow. It won’t kill you to think about something besides yourself for just a few days, right?”
“It might even help,” he said sarcastically.
“Well, it might,” she insisted. “But don’t forget—”
“I know. You’re here for the horse.”
“Absolutely, and I’m going back to sleep next to his corral, right now.” Sam took a few steps away, worried about those crutches, but trying not to show it. “Good night.”
She didn’t look back, but she listened. She didn’t hear anything. He was clearly waiting until she was out of sight before he tried to get them and make it back to the house.
She’d given up hearing anything at all from him, when he called after her.
“Hey, Sam, were you trying to get on that wild horse?”
Oh my gosh, there went her thudding heart again. But he couldn’t have seen her very cl
early if he was asking. And a lot depended on this. The Phantom could be in danger if anyone discovered their bond was so strong, she could actually ride him.
So Sam decided to lie.
She turned around, hands on hips.
“No, Gabe, I didn’t try to get on him.” She shook her head, as if he weren’t very smart. “That stallion tried to bite me and I was shoving him away.”
“That’s what I thought,” Gabe said, and his voice trailed away.
The horses barely stirred as Sam finally got her shoes untied, then climbed back into the hammock. But this time, it wasn’t the horses she worried about.
Sam lay on her side, staring at the glowing numbers on her watch. Five minutes had passed since she’d left Gabe down by the wild horse pasture. Ten minutes. Eleven. At last, thirteen minutes later, she heard the plop-scuff of Gabe planting his crutch tips, then swinging up to them.
Sam released the breath she’d been holding and realized her hands had been fisted, too.
As her eyes closed, Sam heard the rusty hinges creak. Plop-scuff. Gabe moved down the garden path to the front door. It didn’t take long for him to get it open.
The dogs must have been asleep, because their staccato barks were halfhearted. So was Gabe’s grumble.
“Get out of my way, you little creeps,” he told Imp and Angel.
And from what Sam could hear, they did.
Chapter Thirteen
Sam’s first thought as she wakened was that she must be camping.
Campfire smoke had swirled through her dreams and she wasn’t sleeping in her own bed, that was for sure.
Then, she realized it was daybreak at Deerpath Ranch. Her back sagged with the curve of a hammock and her legs were bent at the knees, folded to one side. The twinge in her toes brought a smile and a warm feeling as she remembered the Phantom’s wild majesty, but her next morning thought made her groan.
You’d better stay out of my way…Would it kill you to think about somebody else?
Sam opened her eyes and stared at the blue bowl of sky overhead, wishing it would fall. Why had she said those things last night? She was basically a nice person, but no one who’d been listening to her last night would believe it. And there was no way to unsay words you’d blurted out, no matter how sorry you were.