by Terri Farley
“I think she’ll be fine,” Sam said, glancing over her shoulder as they left the pasture.
“So do I,” Brynna said. Still, her tone was hesitant until she added, “But you have good equine instincts, that’s why I want your help.”
Sam draped her loaded saddlebags on the front porch rail. Mom’s note rustled in her pocket. When she straightened, Sam noticed Brynna was still staring at her.
“No problem,” she assured her stepmother, and she meant it, as far as Penny was concerned.
She glanced back at the pasture as she lifted Ace’s tack.
She’ll be fine, Sam told herself, and when Dad approached smiling as she hefted the saddle and kept walking toward the barn, she decided there was no reason to wait.
“Nice little horse, isn’t she?” Dad asked.
“Yeah,” Sam said. “But Dad, there’s something we need to talk about before dinner. Something serious.”
Chapter Six
Hurrying, Sam hung her saddle on its rack in the tack room. She shook out her saddle blanket and draped it over the cantle to air. Next, she wiped her bit and bridle and put them away, then she hesitated in the doorway.
Overhead, wild pigeons cooed as they strolled the big wooden beams. Sweetheart, Gram’s aged pinto, made careful chewing noises, using worn, old teeth to grind her grain.
Dad sat on a hay bale in the middle of the barn, waiting. Dad was rarely still. There was always work to do, he said, but Sam remembered how Dallas, their foreman, had described Dad when he was polishing leather to a high sheen. Peaceful as a church, Dal had said. That was how her father looked right now.
Dad hadn’t turned on the overhead light in the barn. He just sat there, face shaded by his gray Stetson, hands linked and hanging between his knees, as he watched Sweetheart enjoy her feed. He looked so contented, Sam regretted what she had to do.
Maybe she wouldn’t tell him. At least not everything. She’d show him the note, but not mention the gunman.
That thought made her stomach tighten. Not mention a man with a gun?
But Jen could be right. The hermit at Snake Head Peak might be poor and hungry, just hunting his dinner instead of buying it at the supermarket.
“What’s on your mind, honey?” Dad said when he spotted her. He patted a space beside him on the hay bale. “Come sit down and tell me.”
Sam reached into her pocket, withdrew the note, and handed it to him. Dad took it. He blinked, then his eyebrows rose in reaction. He must have recognized the stationery, Sam thought, because he removed his hat and ran one hand over his hair before he unfolded it.
Sam held her breath as Dad read it then released it when he looked up.
He left the paper open on his knees, then smoothed it out with a lingering pass of his palm.
Sam fidgeted with impatience.
Why didn’t Dad slap his forehead and wonder aloud why he hadn’t seen, long ago, that Mom’s death was linked with the fate of the wild horses?
Instead, his gaze dropped, and he read the list over again with a faint smile.
Finally, he asked, “Where’d you find this?”
“In the button box,” Sam answered, though it wasn’t what she’d expected him to say.
Dad nodded, not as if he’d put it there or anything; but more as if he wasn’t surprised.
“So, what do you think?” she asked.
“It’ll make a nice keepsake. That part about her tryin’ sunsuits on you, and getting ham and Swiss cheese. That’s my favorite sandwich, you know, and that Darton Deli has long since gone out of business.”
“But Dad!” The words came out like a cry. “What about the horses? Mom was worried about the mustangs.”
“Sure. She always was,” he admitted. “Some hunters thought horses were pushy and ran off the game. Louise read up on it and saw it was almost never so.” He nodded slowly. “I think that’s what this is about. She’d been doin’ some reading and just wanted to remember to tell me about it.”
Sam stared at her father’s calm brown eyes. Above them, she noticed the strip of white skin on his forehead, where his cowboy hat blocked the sun.
“Dad, I don’t think that’s all it was,” Sam insisted.
He started to speak, then stopped and considered her with a pitying expression.
“Maybe not,” he said.
He was no help at all! Dad knew more about Mom than anyone else in the world, but he was blind to the conspiracy she’d uncovered.
Dad stood up, slowly. He braced his hands against the small of his back and stretched. She knew he was tired, but Dad was always tired. This was important.
“Let’s ask your gram what she thinks,” he said.
Sam’s spirits rose. Gram and Mom hadn’t just been mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. They’d been close friends. One reason Gram wanted to teach Sam to bake lasagna was because it was Mom’s special dish.
And it was on this list. Gram would like that. The list might trigger Gram’s memory of something Mom was worried about, too. Sam had noticed that a lot of talking went on when women spent time together in a kitchen.
“Okay,” Sam agreed. She was ready to do it right now. She stood abruptly.
“We’ll ask Brynna about the wild horse part of it,” Dad added.
Sam drew a deep breath and turned to face Dad. For a minute, he didn’t look sympathetic. He looked skinny, tanned, and stubborn.
Sam was equally stubborn. “Why should we ask her? She didn’t know Mom.”
“As a biologist, I’d say she knows a fair amount about wildlife.”
Sam crossed her arms. Dad’s understatement was meant to make her feel dumb. Of course she knew Brynna was a biologist, and she admired her knowledge about animals. She’d never forget Brynna’s calm interest when she’d observed a young cougar atop Linc Slocum’s buffet table.
But Sam was pretty sure Dad was pointing out that if Sam wasn’t satisfied with his opinion of the list, they had an in-house wildlife expert.
She and Dad faced each other, neither willing to break off their locked stares.
Sam heard a rustling, flapping sound from outside. Dad must have heard it, too.
“Before we go up to the house for dinner, I want you to fix that blue tarp I’ve got covering the extra lumber. Weight it down around the edges with rocks or something. We don’t want it blowing away and we sure don’t want that wood getting rained on and ruined.”
Sam nodded absently. A light breeze blew through the ranch yard, but there’d only been a few wispy clouds all day and it didn’t smell like rain was waiting in the sky. Dad was just assigning extra work to distract her.
“Okay, I will,” she agreed anyway.
Dad folded the list along its creases, but he didn’t hand it over right away.
He held it loosely, and his chest rose higher than usual, with each breath. Was it sappy to think Dad was realizing Mom had touched the list? That some molecule from her hand still lingered there?
Okay, Sam told the critical half of her brain, then I’m sappy.
She wanted Dad to remember Mom and tell her everything.
“You know why she made lists?” Dad asked suddenly.
Sam shook her head.
“She loved this place.” Dad’s arms spread wide, taking in the ranch, desert, and mountains. “She’d go out to run some errand and get so distracted, she’d come back empty-handed.” Dad looked down, chuckling and shaking his head. “I got frustrated with her, I’ll admit. But she didn’t care. She’d toss her hair and inform me that she was making up for lost time, for all the years she didn’t know the high desert existed.”
Dad pulled his hat back on. He tugged it so low on his brow, Sam couldn’t see his eyes at all. She was pretty sure he did it on purpose. Dad was hiding tears. That’s probably why his voice turned harsh, too.
“I’ll check Penny before I go in,” he snapped. “That’s just what we need around here. A blind mustang. Another useless mouth to feed. Tell your gram I’ll be up in ti
me for dinner.”
For a second, Dad was outlined in the barn door and his shoulders looked stiff. Sam watched him go.
She should go look for that flapping tarp. She could still hear it. Instead, she thought about the saddlebags she’d dumped on the front porch, with the shell casing inside. What if someone stepped on it and crushed it?
A careful analyst could probably still lift a finger-print, but why take a chance?
Sam darted toward the house. She’d take the saddlebags and baggie upstairs before dinner and worry about that tarp later.
“Lands,” Gram said, as she read Mom’s list after dinner. “I’d forgotten Dallas went through a stage with his arthritis where he rubbed chili oil on his joints. Louise knew it didn’t do any good, but she bought it for him and all the while harassed him to go see a doctor.”
Sam glanced at the faces around the table. Gram and Dad looked soft-eyed and nostalgic. Brynna looked worried.
“Samantha, we’ll make lasagna this weekend, I promise,” Gram said. “Louise had such a knack for it. Especially the sauce. Anyone can just layer noodles, meat, and cheese, but she crushed the herbs with a mortar and pestle—” Gram broke off to look around the kitchen. “I have it here somewhere—and it gave the oregano and basil such zip.”
Sam shifted in her chair. Gram was pleased by the memory, and that was fine, but the kind of memories she’d hoped to stir up about her mother didn’t have much to do with lasagna.
“I want you to take a look, too,” Dad said, sliding the note toward Brynna.
Startled, Brynna touched her chest as if to ask, Me?
A faint satisfied smile touched her lips before she began reading.
“I know this guy! Caleb Sawyer,” she said, tapping the paper.
Sam rose from her chair and turned her head to read the words Brynna had pointed out. Someplace between number three and five, Sam thought, the parts about antelope season, the BLM, and Caleb’s criminal record.
“Caleb Sawyer,” Dad said, nodding with recognition.
“I haven’t thought of that scoundrel for years,” Gram said.
“Is he a criminal?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know about that,” Brynna said. “But he’s always complaining that his land is overrun with mustangs. He’s more of a nuisance than anything.”
Sam’s mind stampeded with possibilities. Was Caleb Sawyer making complaints about horses so he could shoot them? Or was he really trying to hunt the antelope grazing alongside the horses? What had Mom thought?
“His spread does border BLM land,” Dad said. “He’s been claiming horse trespass for as long as I can remember.”
Dad looked thoughtful for a few seconds, then his gaze swung back to Sam. “I want you to stay away from there.”
Sam sat back in her chair. Now she really couldn’t tell Dad about the rifle shots.
“I will,” she said. “But why?”
“He’s always been kind of an odd duck,” Dad said.
Gram and Brynna looked at each other, trying to wring more meaning out of Dad’s words.
“I don’t know what he’s done before, but I can tell you it’s Linc Slocum that keeps him stirred up, now,” Brynna said.
“Lands,” Gram muttered. “That Linc is never happy unless everyone around him is miserable.”
“How are they…” Sam searched for a suitable word. “Connected?”
Brynna bit her bottom lip for a minute. “I’ve never asked Linc about it, but Caleb always brings him up. As if Linc Slocum gives him credibility.”
Sam’s mind raced. Linc Slocum was always trying to put some unscrupulous plan in motion. His schemes were often cruel and dangerous. He’d tried to raise Brahma bulls and bison, and both plans had endangered people’s lives and left the animals miserable. And ever since he’d moved to northern Nevada with his millions of dollars, he’d longed to own the Phantom.
There’d been a wild white stallion on this range for as long as anyone could remember. The horse—or horses, to be sensible—had become a legend, and Linc Slocum, who was used to buying everything he wanted, couldn’t stand it that the stallion had no price.
Could Caleb Sawyer somehow fit into his obsession to have her horse?
“I don’t get it,” Sam said. “What do you mean, Linc gives him credibility?”
Brynna thought a minute. “You know, Caleb stays out there at Snake Head Peak all alone, but he brings up Linc as if he knows him. Like, ‘Linc says I have a legitimate gripe against BLM ’cause they put horses before people’ or ‘Linc says that white stud—’”
“What?” Sam gasped.
Both Gram and Dad stared at Brynna as if she’d made a mistake.
“It’s the Phantom he’s talking about,” Sam said.
“Not necessarily,” Gram began.
“Oh, yes it is,” Sam insisted.
She couldn’t explain why she was so sure. Only she, Jen, and the shooter had seen the Phantom at Antelope Crossing.
“It could be,” Brynna admitted, “but all he’s said to me is that the stallion is trespassing.”
“It would still be against the law to shoot him, wouldn’t it?” Sam said.
“Of course,” Brynna snapped. “But that’s not what Caleb has in mind. I’m sure he just wants compensation.” Brynna gave an angry smile. “In other words, money, for the free meals the horses have had on his land.”
Brynna was wrong.
But Sam couldn’t tell her so, if she ever wanted to go there again to investigate.
“So you’re not going to report him to the sheriff?” Sam asked.
“What in heaven’s name for?” Gram asked. “There’s plenty of greed to go around since Slocum moved in.”
“If greed were a jailin’ offense, Heck Ballard wouldn’t do much else,” Dad said.
If she mentioned the rifle, Sheriff Hector Ballard would be involved, Sam decided. And soon.
For tonight, she’d say no more. But she’d bet the sheriff would welcome her and Jen as witnesses. He’d take fingerprints from the shell casing, too. And then, when he read the evidence in her mother’s note, every puzzle piece would fit.
And Sheriff Ballard would arrest the hermit of Snake Head Peak.
Chapter Seven
Sam was finishing up washing the dinner dishes. For once, she had no homework, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Journalism.
She let the hot water run over her hands, remembering the burning blush she’d felt. She really wanted to be photo editor. Even more than that, she wanted to prove she deserved it.
She’d like to call Jen, but it was hard to have a private conversation when the only telephone was in the kitchen, next to the living room where Brynna, Dad, and Gram sat watching television. Still, she’d give it a try.
She had to convince Jen to stay quiet about the gunman. She might also confide what Rachel had said in class, before it became gossip.
And it would. Sam just knew it.
Rachel Slocum was not only her Daddy’s princess; she was one of the most popular girls at Darton High. Sam couldn’t figure that out.
Rachel was model-sleek. She pampered herself with the finest makeup and clothes. So, sure, she looked great. But Rachel also looked down on everyone.
After her cheerleader friend had dropped Journalism for the spring semester, Rachel had allowed Cammy, a freshman girl with blond ringlets, to be her follower.
Every day Rachel encouraged Cammy to sneak out of class and buy her a diet Coke from the machine in the teachers’ lunchroom. Cammy did it, though she’d been caught twice and punished.
It was a mystery why, but Rachel and her boyfriend Kris Cameron were popular. Even if they weren’t admired, they were cool. That made every word they uttered instantly important.
Sam was groaning in self-pity and Blaze the Border collie had answered her with a canine moan, when the phone rang.
Sam dried her hand and answered it.
“Like to talk to Brynna, Sam.”
Whe
n she heard the voice of Luke Ely, she knew something exciting was about to happen.
Luke was Jake’s dad. He was tall, handsome for a father, and he was chief of the volunteer fire department. But he wasn’t a sociable man.
“I’ll get her,” Sam said. But she couldn’t help asking, “Is something wrong?”
“Just got an odd phone call,” he said, and if a voice could hold a shrug, his did. “Nothing that you and Jake couldn’t handle, come to think of it, but it kinda falls in Brynna’s line of work, not mine.”
“Hang on,” Sam said, motioning to Brynna and handing over the receiver.
Sam stood next to Brynna, watching her with such intensity, Brynna finally turned her back so that she could concentrate while she talked with Jake’s dad.
“We were just talking about Caleb Sawyer,” Brynna said, at last.
Ohmygosh. Sam’s heartbeat quadrupled in speed.
“Some kids and mustangs?” Brynna asked as she turned to watch Sam’s reaction.
Sam felt herself frowning, but she hoped she didn’t look guilty.
She must not have, because right away, Brynna was talking again to Luke.
“So, basically, he’s complaining about trespassing again, and he called you because he couldn’t get any satisfaction from me?” Brynna listened a minute, then laughed. “So he expected you to squirt them with a fire hose? It doesn’t sound like anything that can’t wait for tomorrow,” Brynna began, then broke off to listen.
She looked at Sam, then glanced up at the kitchen clock.
“I do have a new horse I need to keep an eye on,” Brynna said, and Sam wondered why it sounded like Brynna was making an excuse. “Okay, Luke, thanks. I’ll have her ready when he gets here.”
Sam’s nerves thrummed with excitement. Brynna’s expression looked hesitant, but Sam was pretty sure she wasn’t in trouble.
“What?” she asked, impatiently.
“Wait here,” Brynna said, and walked into the living room.
Sam tiptoed close to the connecting door, trying to listen to whatever had Brynna checking with Dad.