by Terri Farley
“Go!” she yelled, whirling the rope.
The mare ran, and Sam pursued her all the way to the gate.
Only then did she hear the sirens. The Darton fire department, all three trucks, huffed down the road toward the River Bend entrance.
The first truck had already turned, maneuvering its huge bulk through the gate, when Dark Sunshine reached it.
Horror and smoke snatched Sam’s breath. She couldn’t get even a sip of oxygen. They were going to collide. The delicate buckskin mare was no match for tons of steel and iron.
Dark Sunshine leaped over the cattle guard, inches ahead of the truck’s bumper. She galloped on, turned golden by the next set of headlights, then swerved so quickly she seemed to have been brushed aside by a giant hand.
Even as the trucks passed her, Sam watched the mare. She was running wild now, catching Ross’s big horse, Tank, at the back of the herd, passing Sweetheart, then Strawberry, Ace, and even Popcorn.
Dark Sunshine was racing for the lead, and Sam was sure she’d never come back.
Chapter Fourteen
FIRE HOSES CRISSCROSSED the ranch yard. A young woman wearing head-to-toe firefighter gear paused, flipped up the visor on her helmet, and smiled at Sam.
“We’ll have this knocked down in a couple of minutes,” she said, jerking a thumb toward the barn. “No problem.”
“Thanks,” Sam mumbled, but the woman had already jogged on to join the others.
They turned on floodlights and worked together as a team. Sam didn’t look away until Buddy’s head butted into her palm and stayed there.
“Why didn’t you go with the horses, Buddy?” Sam knelt in front of the calf and hugged her neck. “You silly baby.”
As Sam’s hands moved over the calf’s body, she felt a few crispy places and smelled the acrid scent of burned hair, but Buddy didn’t flinch.
The calf settled beside Sam on the front porch. Together, they watched the flames shrink and the smoke turn white. The firefighters kept watering the barn and old bunkhouse, but their movements had turned from urgent to leisurely. The volunteers were packing to go home.
The horses had escaped, and though they might be tough to regather, they were safe. Dad coughed as he helped the Elys roll up the hose, but he hadn’t been burned. Gram looked fine, too.
In fact, she moved like a teenager, lean and quick in her jeans as she walked Brynna and Mikki back to the BLM truck. The car door slammed, sealing Mikki safely inside. Brynna stood waving as Gram walked away.
This night could have been a lot worse, Sam mused.
Somehow she missed the arrival of Jake and his mom until Jake’s shadow fell over her. Sam looked up at his broad shoulders and tipped-down Stetson, and she gave a tired smile.
“How ya doin’, Brat?” His voice rumbled with something like concern, and Sam jumped up to hug him. “I wish—I would’ve been here, but I went to a movie with my mom.” He talked over Sam’s shoulder, since she refused to budge. “She likes that mother-son stuff ’cause I’m her baby, y’know?”
Sam nodded but didn’t speak. Jake was no baby. He felt solid and dependable, and he was her best friend. She gave him one last squeeze, then stepped back.
She almost laughed when she noticed Jake rubbing the back of his neck. When Dad used that gesture, it meant he was thinking or embarrassed. Right now, Sam would bet on the latter.
“Must’ve, uh, been a pretty bad night,” Jake managed.
Sam sniffed, feeling a little sheepish.
“Don’t let a little hug go to your head,” Sam said. “I just hugged Buddy, too.”
Jake’s answer was half laugh, half groan, and Sam enjoyed his confusion until her eyes caught movement across the yard.
“I guess hugging is contagious.” Sam’s lips felt cold. She barely got the words out as she stared.
Jake looked over his shoulder. “Yeah, my mom’s like that after a fire. She thinks Dad should stick to ranching. She says that’s dangerous enough.”
Sam glanced at Jake’s parents, hugging beside the volunteer fire truck. She sighed. “I wasn’t looking at them.”
“Honest?” Jake looked around the yard.
Sam could tell when Jake saw what she did. He froze.
Dad was doing more than hugging Brynna Olson. He was kissing her.
Sam’s hand went to her pocket. The bill of sale still crinkled inside. She knew how to get Brynna away from her father.
“Could you watch Buddy for a minute?” she asked Jake.
“I’ll put her back in the pasture. She’ll be lonely, but no fire truck will back over her.”
“Thanks,” she said. Sam felt like she was striding through a cold and narrow tunnel as she headed across the yard. She ignored Dad’s embarrassment and faced Brynna.
The redhead’s expression was so understanding, Sam wanted to scream. Save your sympathy, she wanted to say. I can take care of myself. But she didn’t scream, only shoved the piece of yellow paper toward Brynna’s hand.
“I think you’ll want to look at this,” she said.
“Sam, what is it?”
“Just look at it,” Sam said.
She watched Brynna’s expression turn professional, as if nothing had happened. Suddenly she couldn’t stand watching them together for another second. She darted across the yard past Jake and into the house.
Once inside, she took the stairs two at a time, then growled with frustration when she cranked on the shower only to have water dribble out in teaspoons.
Sam returned to her room and buried her face in her hands. She really needed a shower. She smelled awful. The odor was more like toxic waste than wood smoke. She was polluting her own bedroom. She looked at Jingles, perched on her pillow, and nearly apologized.
“And I know they’ll make me go to school tomorrow,” she moaned to the plush horse. “Who cares if my house almost burned down, my horse is gone, Dark Sunshine belongs to a criminal, and my father has chosen this as a great time to get a crush on Brynna Olson?”
Gram had loved Louise, her mother. Maybe Gram could talk some sense into Dad.
Sam set her alarm clock for five-thirty instead of six. It would take her that long to scrub the stink from her hair and skin.
She plopped into bed. She resolved to stay awake and talk to Gram when she came up, but she never heard a thing.
The next day turned out to be Sunday.
When Sam ran downstairs freshly showered and hungry for breakfast, she was alone. It took her only a few minutes to realize her mistake, but she decided not to waste her early start.
Since she couldn’t go ride, Sam made herself toast and jam and sat at the kitchen table reading a story she’d been assigned for English class.
It was really a pretty good story. Sam was stretching and smiling, thinking she could spend more time on homework now that Mikki wouldn’t be coming over. Certainly, HARP would get rid of a kid that destructive.
Sam was pouring herself more juice when she heard something hit the front porch. Weird, she thought as the heavy thing struck again.
When the sound continued and Blaze began barking, curiosity pulled Sam to the kitchen window. A horse stood with his front hooves on the porch. One of those hooves pawed at the porch for attention.
“Ace!” Sam burst through the door and let it slam.
Her horse was dusty. Clumps of burrs studded his tail, and his deep neigh probably wasn’t a greeting but a demand for breakfast. Still, he was home.
Sweetheart had come back with him. She circled, tossing her head for attention, near the ten-acre pasture where Dallas, Ross, and Pepper were just crawling out of sleeping bags.
Sam could imagine how smokey and unpleasant it had been inside the bunkhouse, and she couldn’t blame them for sleeping outside.
She had fed and brushed both horses, checked out the fire and water damage to the barn, and searched—unsuccessfully—for the hens when Jake and Jen rode into the yard.
Sam’s heart swelled at the sight of her fr
iends. Jake sat loosely in the saddle on Witch and Jen rode her palomino. Because she’d brought another horse for Sam to ride, Sam knew they’d come to help search for the scattered horses.
“I didn’t think your horses would be back,” Jen started.
“They’re not—just Ace and Sweetheart, and they look like they’ve been running half the night.”
“It’s a good thing I brought Kitty, then,” Jen said. “She’s not as skittish as she looks.”
Jen held up reins leading to an alert sorrel whose nostrils worked constantly as she took in the smells of smoke and charred wood.
“You guys are great.” Sam smiled at Jake and walked toward Jen. She stroked the shoulder of the wary sorrel. “And Kitty, pretty Kitty, can act however she likes, because she’s my Blackie’s mom.”
“You make her behave once you mount up,” Jake ordered.
Sam started to ask Jake who the heck he thought he was, but the worry lines around his eyes stopped her.
“Thanks, Jen,” she said. “I’d like to give Ace a rest.”
By mid-afternoon, all the horses except Dark Sunshine were headed for home.
Once the three friends got them past the road to the BLM corrals and the pond at War Drum Flats, the horses broke into a rolling lope toward River Bend Ranch.
All except Popcorn. River Bend hadn’t been his home for long, and the albino was so jumpy they’d had to herd him most of the way. Now, within sight of the ranch, he seemed to remember the shelter and grain, and trotted along without being pushed.
If only Dark Sunshine was trotting beside him, Sam thought. Jen must have understood her sigh.
“I bet the buckskin’s joined up with a wild herd,” Jen said. Their horses fell back to a walk, with Sam riding in the middle.
Sam imagined the Phantom rounding the mare up and adding her to his harem. She’d be so much happier, knee-deep in grass in a wild horse canyon, with soaring red rock walls to hide her from cruel men.
Sam’s mind wandered from that happy image, to the bill of sale, to the revelation Dad had made just a few nights ago.
“Oh, my gosh,” Sam gasped. “What does the government do to you if you lose a foster horse and it’s a horse that maybe shouldn’t have been fostered by the BLM in the first place?”
Jen cocked her head to one side, thinking, and a white-blond braid swung free. “Give me a minute to unravel that one,” she said, frowning.
Jake wasn’t half as sympathetic.
“Why do I get the feeling,” he said, eyes fixed forward as he trotted beside Sam, “that this is the start of something I don’t want to hear?”
“Is this about the B.O.S.?” Jen asked cryptically.
Bill of sale. Sam nodded.
“It is,” Sam said, ignoring Jake’s irritation. “And it’s not really a secret anymore.”
“What do you mean?” Jen looked rather sickly. Sam couldn’t blame her for not wanting to be implicated in a federal crime.
“The cat’s out of the bag,” Sam said. “I decided to give the bill of sale to Brynna.”
“Bill of sale for what?” Jake demanded.
“I told you not to tell him.” Jen’s singsong voice made Jake shoot her a glare.
“For Dark Sunshine,” Sam mumbled, but there was no doubt Jake heard.
“Where did you get a bill of sale for—” Jake broke off. “If you were tampering with a crime scene—” He stopped and glanced from Sam to Jen, then back to Sam. “I know you weren’t doing that. Even a couple of featherbrains like you two would know better than—”
Jen leaned forward in her saddle, arguing past Sam.
“That’s just where we found it, Jake Ely. Right where you and those federal officers couldn’t.” Jen gathered her reins and eased her palomino into a fluid lope.
Sam turned toward Jake. A dozen sarcastic responses showed in his expression, but he didn’t allow even one to escape. Good. Maybe if he was finished bickering with Jen, he could help figure things out.
Instead, Jake spoke very patiently.
“Are you saying,” Jake began, “that you let Brynna award you foster care of that mare when you knew she belonged to someone else, and you even knew who?”
“Of course not,” Sam said. “We didn’t find the bill of sale until two days afterward.”
“So, who does she belong to?”
“Curtis…” Sam began, but the couldn’t remember the rest.
“Flickinger,” Jen supplied.
Jake’s lower lip poked out a little as he considered the name. “Not from around here,” he said. “But maybe Brynna can put him in some government database and see what she comes up with.”
“Except he didn’t adopt the horse,” Sam said. “He bought her from Rose Bloom, the lady who adopted Dark Sunshine just over a year ago and got title to her.” Sam paused for a breath. “So she could legally sell her to this guy.”
“Curtis Flickinger,” Jen repeated, slowly. She wet her lips, glanced back toward the pond with a considering look, then shook her head. “Sam? I—wow, I almost know that name.”
“Wishful thinking,” Jake dismissed her. “Didn’t Brynna say the horse was from out of state?”
“Captured in Oregon and taken to Idaho, then Wyoming,” Sam admitted.
Jake leaned forward again, and flashed Jen a satisfied look.
But Jen wouldn’t be silenced. “Yeah, like cowboys don’t move around a lot.”
“Who said the guy was a cowboy?” Jake snapped back. “Because he’s a rustler, he has to be a cowboy?”
Sam hated being in the middle. This had to stop.
“You know what’s wrong with you two?” Sam interrupted. Jen and Jake glared at her. “You both have to be right.”
Jen shrugged. They rode in silence for a minute.
“I’m headed for home,” Jake said, as if Sam hadn’t said a thing. “I need to get Witch rubbed down, then help my dad with some fool thing he said he’d do for Slocum’s party.”
“Brahma-que,” Jen corrected.
“Yeah, well, just shoot me if I say that in public,” Jake answered. Then he reined his black mare away from them and jogged toward home.
“Give me a minute, Sam,” Jen said. “I’ll remember where I’ve heard that name.”
Kitty saw the white BLM truck first.
Sam had been surprised at how well she and the sorrel had been getting on, but now Kitty shied and threatened to bolt. Sam regained control in just a minute, but it was clear the truck had frightened the mare.
Sam leaned forward, petting Kitty’s neck. “It’s okay, girl. I’m getting pretty darn sick of seeing that truck myself.”
“I don’t know what you two are mumbling about, but Miss Olson’s slowing down,” Jen said.
Sam glanced back. If Brynna wanted to apologize for Mikki, she could save her breath. And if she wanted to talk about kissing Dad…she’d better keep driving.
Brynna stopped. As she lowered her truck window, Jen gasped.
“BLM,” she said. “That’s it.” Wide-eyed, she looked at Sam. “Flickinger. Flick. Remember?”
Sam felt her brain trying to catch up. She was almost there when Jen blurted her conclusion to Brynna.
“It’s him, isn’t it?” Jen asked. “Curtis Flickinger is Flick, that guy with the long droopy mustache who used to work for Slocum.”
Brynna nodded. “I checked BLM’s payroll records and it is him. He worked for us while he was working for Slocum,” she said.
Brynna stared at Sam. Then, just in case Sam had forgotten one of the worst days of her life, Brynna added, “Curtis Flickinger is the man who caught the Phantom.”
Chapter Fifteen
SAM GRABBED THE saddle horn.
On the cattle drive, Flick had made her miserable. It had been her first week back in Nevada, and he’d mocked her horsemanship and called her a dude. He’d teased Jake, saying he’d better take care of his “little girlfriend.” Flick also made a point of calling mustangs “range rats.”
<
br /> She might have forgiven it as “joshing” if he hadn’t captured the Phantom.
Flick was an incredible roper, on horseback or afoot. Yards of lariat flew and tightened at his whim. That’s why Slocum had hired him to rope the Phantom.
“It was Flick up there,” Sam realized. “He’d shaved off his mustache, but…” Sam saw the scene at Lost Canyon replaying in her mind. “It was his lazy way of tossing his loop, and he used the whip the same way. It’s him.”
In Lost Canyon, Flick had missed his throw for the Phantom. Instead of feeling hopeful, despair weighed Sam down. Flick was too good to miss a second time.
“Law enforcement has done casts of the tire tread from the truck and trailer in Lost Canyon,” Brynna said. “But they won’t do us much good until we have a real tire to compare with them.”
“So you’d have to impound a truck, then, see if they match, right?” Jen asked.
Brynna nodded. “I have a theory, which might hurry things up a little.”
Jen leaned forward in her saddle, listening. Sam was interested, but she straightened an edge of saddle blanket instead of looking into Brynna’s eyes.
“If they branded those horses the day they trapped them, the burns shouldn’t look fresh by now. Add that to the fact they’ve had time to fatten them up, and I think the rustlers will bring them to the Mineral auction yards this Tuesday.”
“And you’re going to be waiting for them,” Jen said.
“Right, with a brand inspector and two rangers. But it would help if I had a witness to verify they’re the right guys.”
Sam couldn’t help but look up then. She was the only witness.
“On Tuesday?” Sam asked.
“If I get Wyatt’s permission for you to miss school, would you ride along with me?”
Brynna’s expression was hopeful. Sam knew there was more at stake here than the rustlers. Brynna wanted Sam to like her, to approve of her affection for Dad.
Sam didn’t want to go, but how could she refuse? The rustlers were a danger to all horses. The Phantom, his herd, maybe Dark Sunshine, could be trapped and sold for dog meat.