Heartbreak Bronco
Page 15
Sam could hear the announcer’s voice but not what he was saying. When Linc Slocum, huffing and red-faced, elbowed through the clapping crowd to block the path before her, Sam’s spirits sank.
Please, not him.
“I’ve been robbed, and don’t tell me you had nothing to do with this, Samantha Forster!” Linc yelled.
Sam wanted to shout for joy. If Linc was unhappy, everything was all right.
Jinx’s ears flattened. Sam gathered her reins, but the gelding still bolted forward, narrowly missing Slocum’s shoulder.
“How was I supposed to know the deadline for bidding ended yesterday morning? How?” Linc roared. “Tell me that?”
“You could have read the rules like everyone else!” a small voice soared above the noisy crowd.
“Who said that!” Linc turned on his heel, but not quickly enough to see Amelia yanked back a step by her mother.
“Jinx!” Sam gasped.
As Slocum turned away, the gelding bared his teeth and would have grabbed the man’s shoulder if Sam hadn’t sat hard and backed the horse away.
“Get that animal under control or I’m calling the cops!” Slocum threatened.
“Already here, Linc,” Sheriff Ballard said.
Sam relaxed and she felt Jinx do the same.
The horse stopped pulling against the reins. He tossed his head one final time at Linc Slocum, then shook like a big dog.
“By rights,” Slocum said in a lecturing tone, “this animal should be mine. I was unfairly excluded from entering a bid and I want you to look into it.”
Sheriff Ballard probably sounded regretful to anyone who couldn’t see his face, but Sam could. Under his sandy mustache, the sheriff grinned.
“I’m sorry, Linc, but I’m afraid that would be a conflict of interest.”
“What? You’re refusing—?”
Jinx’s ears flattened once more. His hindquarters shifted and his tail lashed angrily.
“Linc, I’ll thank you to step back from my horse,” Sheriff Ballard said.
Grinning, Sam dismounted and handed Sheriff Ballard the reins.
Jinx looked between her and Sheriff Ballard, but the gelding didn’t protest when the sheriff rubbed the broken heart brand on his shoulder.
“Congratulations,” Sam said, and she meant it.
“I’m feeling pretty lucky for a man who just won a horse named Jinx,” he said. “And I want to thank you, Samantha. Looks like you took care of mending this horse inside and out.”
Sam took a few steps back from Jinx and his new owner, and stifled a sigh just before she noticed something she’d never seen before.
If she squinted her eyes just the right way while looking at Jinx, the dark markings on his shoulders looked like a wreath of winner’s roses.
By the time Sam and Dad started back to River Bend Ranch, dusk had colored the range many shades of blue.
Driving the Buick, Brynna and Gram had quickly outdistanced Dad’s truck. Just the same, Sam’s eyes searched the blue-gray ribbon of highway unrolling ahead.
Blue-black mountains jutted up on the edge of the playa, like plates on a dinosaur’s back. Sometime there might have been dinosaurs here. Their ancient bones must lie under the desert’s crust along with those of Jake’s Native American ancestors and the Phantom’s forebears.
Where are you? Sam wondered, sending her thoughts to the stallion who’d once been hers.
He must be out there. A wild white stallion had roamed this range for as long as anyone could remember, and he’d challenged Jinx just days ago.
As her eyes scanned the spaces between boulders and bushes, searching for the stallion, Sam remembered him running shoulder to shoulder with Jinx.
Each time the grulla had lengthened his strides, the Phantom had drawn ahead.
On a racetrack or in an arena, Jinx might have beaten the Phantom, but it couldn’t happen on the open range.
Sam’s eyes burned with searching. She rubbed them.
“Tired out?” Dad asked. With a smile, he glanced away from the road.
“A little,” Sam admitted. She sighed in weariness and told herself she wasn’t going to see the Phantom tonight. She should quit fighting to stay awake.
Then, just as her eyelids drooped, she saw him.
She’d been staring far off, and he was close, only yards off the freeway, loping alone through the juniper bushes.
“Dad, stop!” Sam shouted.
No one who’d seen a wild, rough-coated mustang by day would believe a bone and blood stallion could seem a creature spun of moonbeams.
He was right there and he was amazing. She couldn’t believe Dad was still driving. If he stopped, she just knew the Phantom would, too. How could he not want to see the stallion up close?
“Sam?” Dad’s voice might have been miles away instead of right beside her in the truck.
Sam tried to answer, but she was hypnotized by the stallion. He seemed to skim above the dirt, shoulders glowing like pearls.
“Samantha!” Dad said.
Finally he’d stopped the truck, but he’d missed his chance.
The skidding tires startled the stallion. He shied and leaped down the bank of earth edging the highway.
Only when Dad’s hand jostled her shoulder did Sam answer.
“Did you see him?” she whispered.
“See who?” Dad asked.
“The Phantom,” she said, and then she pushed open the truck door and stood listening.
Far away, the La Charla river rushed, but somewhere closer, rocks rattled against one another, falling away from the Phantom’s hooves.
“I hear something,” Dad said. “But you need to get back inside, honey.”
A summer breeze blew Sam’s hair into her eyes. She held it back with both hands, scanning the range once more, and this time it was worth it.
For just an instant more, she saw the Phantom.
Like a faint frost outline of a horse, he was there—and then he was gone.
Sighing, Sam got back into the truck. She closed the door, then settled back into the seat with a smile.
“I think you were about half dreamin’,” Dad said, as he began driving once more.
Sam took a deep breath, held it, then released it with a smile.
“Maybe,” Sam said, because Dad was right. For her, the Phantom stallion was a dream come true.
About the Author
Terri Farley has always loved horses. She left Los Angeles for the cowgirl state of Nevada after earning degrees in English and Journalism. Now she rides the range researching books and magazine articles on the West’s people and animals—especially Nevada’s controversial wild horses. She lives in a one-hundred-year-old house with her husband, children, and way too many pets.
Visit www.phantomstallion.com
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Read all the books about the
Phantom Stallion
1
THE WILD ONE
2
MUSTANG MOON
3
DARK SUNSHINE
4
THE RENEGADE
5
FREE AGAIN
6
THE CHALLENGER
7
DESERT DANCER
8
GOLDEN GHOST
9
GIFT HORSE
10
RED FEATHER FILLY
11
UNTAMED
12
RAIN DANCE
13
HEARTBREAK BRONCO
14
MOONRISE
Credits
Cover art © 2004 by Greg Call
Cover © 2004 by HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
Copyright
PHANTOM STALLION #13: HEARTBREAK BRONCO. Copyright © 2004 by Terri Sprenger-Farley. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have
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Adobe Digital Edition February 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-189060-4
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