by Terri Farley
“What a striking rock formation,” Ryan commented. “The low outcroppings on each side make it a natural fortress, don’t you think?”
Sam glanced up. Ryan was right. From that crown of rocks above the cabin, you could hide out and look down on any visitors.
The peak cast a black shadow and they’d just moved into it, but Sam thought only of the barking dog chained beside the porch of the old cabin.
Her worry disappeared as she realized the dog, which seemed to be mostly Labrador, hadn’t even stood up. He was only barking out of duty.
“You can let me out here and I’ll walk up,” Sam told Ryan.
“It might be a good idea to sound the horn, first,” Jen advised him.
“Whatever for?” Ryan asked.
“Caleb Sawyer won’t recognize your truck, and since we know he has a rifle…”
“So many people out here do.” Ryan sounded puzzled.
“Yeah, and Dad says some of these old desert rats shoot first and ask what the heck you want, later.”
When Ryan honked, the dog turned more serious. It lurched to its feet and barked louder as a door creaked in the wind.
Sam draped the camera strap around her neck and patted the pocket where she’d stashed Mr. Blair’s mini tape recorder. She should have practiced with it on the way here, but now there was no time.
Sam reached for the truck door.
She’d go before she lost her nerve. Now. But her hand hesitated on the door as a slow-moving figure appeared on the porch.
“No rifle,” Jen said, sighing.
“And with that heartening farewell, I’m out of here,” Sam said.
She shoved open the door and slammed it behind her. She wanted to announce to Caleb Sawyer that she wasn’t sneaking up on him.
She’d only taken a few steps when Jen lowered the truck window.
“Psst,” Jen hissed. “Keep him outside to talk and take lots of pictures while you ask him stuff. That way he won’t feel cornered. You don’t want him to be stressed.”
Sam gave her friend a quelling look.
“And keep checking the tape to make sure it’s turning. This is probably your only chance to build a body of evidence.”
Why couldn’t Jen have offered advice when they were still inside the truck, out of Caleb Sawyer’s hearing? Still, “body of evidence” had a nice official ring to it. Sam squared her shoulders and walked.
Wind brought the smell of dog, cooking, and mildew. Sam looked at the battered tents gathered to one side of the cabin and wondered why they were there.
She was just wishing for a sweatshirt to pull on over her blue shirt when the man on the porch called out.
“Hey! Get outta here!”
“I’m Samantha Forster from Darton High School and—”
“Whattya want?”
So much for introductions, Sam thought. She reached into her pocket and pushed the start button on the tape recorder.
“I’m doing a story—”
“You’re that kid with the bay horse, ain’t ya?” he said, and gestured toward the range where he’d shot at the Phantom. “What’re you doin’ drivin’ Slocum’s truck?”
Chills rained over her. The gooseflesh on her arms wasn’t caused by the spring wind.
He knew Linc Slocum. He must have seen him recently, too. Linc had gotten this truck just months ago, when he was hunting cougars.
Slocum and Sawyer were up to no good. She just knew it. Still, she tried to act calm.
“I’m not driving the truck, sir. Mr. Slocum’s son, Ryan, brought me over to talk with you.”
Caleb Sawyer gave no sign he’d heard. Maybe the dog’s barking had drowned out her voice. Maybe he was studying her as intently as she was him.
Caleb Sawyer’s face wore a lifelong tan from working outdoors. Wrinkles around his eyes and mouth looked as if they’d been tightened with drawstrings.
Dressed in a flannel shirt rubbed thin as pajamas, and brown trousers, he shuffled along in boots bleached by alkali dust. His frizzled hair showed a mix of brown and gray and it hadn’t been cut in so long, he had to push it away from his eyes. Then he squinted as if Sam stood in full sunlight, instead of shadows.
“Jet!” he shouted, waving at the dog. It sat in silence, instantly.
“What did you say?” he asked.
“Linc Slocum’s son, Ryan, brought me out here to talk with you,” Sam repeated. “I’m doing a story about old Nevada for the school newspaper.”
Caleb Sawyer’s head tilted to one side. Maybe he didn’t like being part of “old” Nevada.
“What about Slocum’s car?” he asked, again, and suddenly Sam realized he was hard of hearing.
She moved closer and talked more loudly.
“Ryan Slocum drove me here.”
“The boy,” Caleb said, nodding.
Something wet made Sam gasp. She turned to find the gray-muzzled dog nudging her hand out of its clenched fist. She rubbed Jet’s sleek black head. It wasn’t the dog’s fault he had an evil master.
“Ain’t good for much anymore. Chases skunks, is why he’s chained up.”
“Our dog chases porcupines,” Sam said, before she thought better of sympathizing.
“Whose dog?” Sawyer scowled, still trying to make sense of her presence. “Who are you?”
Sam thought better of telling him her last name. If he knew Brynna, he’d know she worked for the BLM and he’d probably refuse to talk. If he knew Dad, he’d know Wyatt Forster took care of the land and didn’t approve of poaching. If Sawyer remembered Mom…
Sam decided not to take a chance.
“I’m a student at Darton High,” she said, then lifted the camera. “Can I take a picture of Jet?”
“Don’t know why you would,” he said, rubbing the dog’s ears. “Good for nothin’ old cur, but go on.”
She stared through the eyepiece, snapping pictures. She should ask her big questions, now, while he was pleased by her appreciation of Jet.
“I heard you could tell me about mustanging in the old days.”
Caleb’s head jerked up. “That was never nothin’ but a side job and legal in them days.”
Mustanging hadn’t been legal for over thirty years, but Sam didn’t say so.
“I’m a huntin’ guide, best in the county. I want in on that bison thing of his.” Sawyer nodded toward Linc Slocum’s truck. “I could take hunters out to find them big woolly critters. Antelope are harder than deer, and those mustangs?” he shook his head in grudging respect. “They’ll take you to where the trail ends, and just when you think they’re cornered, you’ll be all alone. Hardest critter to catch, even with water traps, snares, creasing…”
The old man lowered himself to sit on the porch step, then stared off into his memories, but any sympathy Sam had felt for him vanished.
One word he’d said had evoked a memory for her, too. It came with the smell of wood smoke.
Creasing. She’d been sitting around the campfire during the cattle drive after she’d first come home from San Francisco. Someone had mentioned creasing, but who? The memory wouldn’t focus, but it involved the Phantom.
“I’m not sure I know what you mean by creasing,” Sam said.
“What?”
“Creasing,” she repeated, then shrugged.
“It was a long time ago, little girl, so don’t get your back up. If a man was a good shot, creasin’ was the quickest way to catch one of them crowbaits and not have to spend all day chasin, wearin’ it down.”
Crowbait was another creepy term you didn’t hear everyday, Sam thought. She couldn’t imagine killing a wild horse and using his body to attract crows, which some ranchers considered pests.
Sam listened for the faint hum of Mr. Blair’s tape recorder to make sure she was getting every word, but Caleb was talking again.
“Yessir, you’d see one you liked and—bing!”
Caleb Sawyer made a sawing motion across the back of his own neck.
“Just ni
ck it, see? Between the mane and withers. Some kinda nerve’s there. Don’t hurt ’em a bit. Paralyzes ’em, though, and gives ya plenty of time to get ’em hog-tied. If you do it right.”
Sam recoiled. How often had it been done wrong?
She imagined a tangle of hooves and hide colliding with the desert floor. How many horses had died of broken necks? How many had lain with terrified eyes, unable to fight back?
“’Course, that was a lifetime ago.” Caleb’s gaze sharpened, but then he tantalized her with more. “Small planes, now, that’s the way to run ’em down. I told Slocum that.”
Slocum again. And they’d discussed catching wild horses! Please let that tape be turning, recording every ugly word.
“You mean the helicopters, like the BLM uses?”
Caleb shook his head and spat in the dust.
Sam stepped back, then checked to make sure Jen and Ryan hadn’t abandoned her. They hadn’t.
“’Course not.” His bleary eyes seemed to focus. “Slocum wanted that white stud, the one you saw me scare the other day. All I did was spook him. No one can say different. You were there. You know that.”
Sam gave a grudging nod. Sawyer was probably right. If there’d been a drop of blood on the Phantom, she would have seen it.
“He come to me, Slocum did. Offered me enough money to tempt a saint, but I told him I was out of the wild horse huntin’ business. Then he asked all these same questions you are, like how it was done in the old days. And I told him.”
A flicker of emotion crossed the old man’s face. Disgust? Regret? Maybe he had a conscience, Sam thought.
“Heard he tried some of it. Fool city slicker. I got no use for him, ’cept maybe to save myself a trip to the bank, know what I mean?”
He laughed until he started coughing. “I’d like to fill those tents again,” he said, nodding at them. “Lead a huntin’ party after them buffalo.”
Sam had heard Slocum’s buffalo were headed for a preserve somewhere, but why should she tell the hermit?
“If you knew he was so incompetent, why did you tell him how to do those things?” Sam demanded. “You must have known he’d only hurt the horses.”
“You remind me of another sassy woman. ‘Harmin’ the horses,’ that’s what she accused me of when she come out here. Three or four times it was and leave here mad, every time.”
Sam’s heart thundered so hard it felt like her rib cage vibrated. It had been Mom. Absolutely.
“Still, I didn’t mind havin’ her come around.” Caleb Sawyer fell quiet.
Why hadn’t he shut up before uttering those last words? Everything had been black and white.
“It’s the honest truth, little girl, those were different days. I ain’t taken a horse in years.”
She had no reason to believe him, but she did. And this was not the ending she wanted. Old, deaf, kind to his dog, and, in a way, he’d admired Mom.
But she hated what he’d done to the mustangs. She couldn’t forgive him his past. What if his horse hunting days weren’t over?
“I don’t see any cattle.” Sam tried once more to trap him. “How do you make a living?”
“Saved some cash from the old days, if it’s any business of yours, which it ain’t. Now and then I still take hunters out for antelope. That’s why I was scarin’ off that herd. Why share the feed for my cash crop of pronghorn?”
“You could keep them out by—”
“Man shouldn’t have to fence his land,” he interrupted, gazing over her shoulder.
“But it’s against the law. Even if you don’t shoot the horses, it’s called harassment and—”
“I know about those fool laws,” he said, fluttering both hands her way, as if she were a pesky hen. “Before you go plannin’ my jail time, you ask that red-headed woman about statutes of limitations.”
Sam was trying to unravel the hermit’s words when a horn blasted behind her.
When she turned around, a white truck was pulling up beside Slocum’s. Its red-haired driver flung the door open, slipped out, then slammed it so hard, the BLM truck shuddered.
Sam had never been afraid of Brynna, but now she saw that was a mistake.
Chapter Fifteen
Caleb Sawyer greeted Brynna as if he knew her, then guffawed until he was out of breath as Brynna ordered Sam into her truck.
As if she were a child, Sam thought. As if she didn’t have this tape, which could get Caleb Sawyer thrown in jail!
Humiliated and angry, Sam did as she was told. At least Ryan and Jen had left when Brynna arrived. Given Jen’s level of curiosity, Sam thought, that proved once again that Jen was an amazing friend.
Brynna shifted into reverse, turned the truck around, then aimed it at each rut as if she welcomed the hammering impact.
“All the way over here I was kicking myself for not trusting you,” Brynna said. “Now I see why I came anyway. You lied to me.”
A click sounded from Sam’s pocket. Mr. Blair’s tape recorder had lasted long enough to record her disgrace.
“I didn’t,” Sam said, pointing out the camera around her neck as if it were a witness. “And you won’t believe all the stuff he told me.”
“Oh yes, I will, because I was already here today. And I probably asked him the same questions!” Brynna gave a self-mocking smile. “To think I was going to give you all my notes, just like a present, while we ate our pizza.”
If Brynna already knew everything, and she hadn’t had Caleb Sawyer arrested, that couldn’t be good.
“Don’t you think he’s guilty?” Sam asked quietly.
“I’m quite certain he is guilty,” Brynna snapped. “But it will take a while to prove it.”
“I’ve got him saying a lot of stuff on tape,” Sam offered. “If it would help.”
“That’s not what you should be worrying about,” Brynna said. “You’ve gone too far this time, Sam, and I don’t know what we’re going to do. Obviously grounding doesn’t hold any great terror for you.”
Sam braced her elbows on her thighs and put her face in her hands. Maybe she could think of some punishment awful enough that they wouldn’t send her away.
“You’re not even sorry, are you?” Brynna demanded.
“Let me play this tape for you. Then you’ll see—”
“That’s not the point, Samantha. You’re not listening to me.”
“Professional journalists do it and it stands up in court,” Sam insisted.
“You won’t even use the sense an animal does, to keep itself safe,” Brynna said. “Didn’t you feel creepy walking toward his cabin? I know you did, but you kept going.”
Once they were back on a paved road, the windstorm Ryan had mentioned materialized.
Wispy dust devils swept across the range, carrying sand and small pieces of brush.
“Whatever we do will be for your own good,” Brynna said.
She sounded hard and final, and Sam didn’t know what to do.
Peering from the truck, she saw the sky overhead was still blue, but more clouds had rolled in. Once, a violent patter of raindrops almost obscured vision through the windshield. Next, there was a rumble of thunder, but the storm passed in minutes, leaving only the wind behind.
“We don’t know if Caleb Sawyer is dangerous,” Brynna burst out. She’d kept brooding, Sam guessed, as they drove along. “It’s not the lie as much as a total lack of judgment. Why couldn’t you wait?”
Sam shook her head. She’d wanted to save the day, to identify and catch the bad guy Mom had been after. Why couldn’t they see that?
“You have to listen to this tape,” Sam said again. “He mentions my mom. He said…”
Brynna’s sigh rocked her whole body. Her mouth was downturned and sad. “You’re just not getting it, Sam. We’re talking about two different things, and one of them is your safety.”
Was it babyish to wish someone would comfort, not punish her? Sam wondered. All she wanted to do was put her arms around Ace’s neck and cry.
At the hitching rail, Dad was unsaddling Strawberry. He raised his forearm to shield his eyes from the blowing sand.
He didn’t smile or wave.
It figured. Dad had already had a difficult day and it was about to get worse.
Please don’t send me away. I can’t stand it. Half of her wanted to run to Dad and beg. The other half wanted to rage that it was unfair. The words tumbled through her mind again and again. Please, don’t make me go.
Stubbornness kept her from begging, but how long would pride last against the soaring Calico Mountains, the hawks floating lazily over ridges, the horses, Jen and Jake?
Sam swallowed hard. It felt like a bone had wedged in her throat.
Just when she thought the whirlwind had gone, it was back, carrying something blue.
“What in the world…?” Brynna said, but Sam knew instantly.
The tarp. Dad had told her to weight down the tarp with rocks, so it wouldn’t blow away. She’d meant to…She was going to…
And there it went.
“Oh no!” Brynna gasped and slammed on the brakes. She was out of the truck and running by the time Sam realized the tarp, crackling and snapping in the wind, was swooping like a giant blue bat over Penny’s corral.
All of the horses heard the tarp. When they saw it, they fled for the far end of the ten-acre pasture. Penny could only hear it, but she tried to follow the others.
“Stop, oh stop,” Sam stood next to the truck, arms raised as if she could snag it from the air or will it back to earth.
Penny’s neigh of terror cut Sam like a knife. The blind sorrel fled after the sound of the stampeding hooves, but her corral was small and made of pipe.
Metal rang with the impact of the mare’s front legs. She stumbled backward and fell.
Instantly, she struggled to her feet. Her head swung between Brynna’s voice and the running hooves. Then the tarp rustled again, as it drifted to the ground, and Penny tried to batter her way through the fence.
“Brynna, stop!” Dad’s voice was louder than the mare’s screams. The fringe on his chaps swirled as he threw himself over the fence and into the pipe corral ahead of Brynna.