by Terri Farley
When Ryan stayed quiet, the vet added, “Eat. Move. Eat again and move on to look for food, then eat some more.”
“I understood,” Ryan told him. “In fact, I was just thinking about his confinement and,” Ryan’s cheeks flushed slightly, “his eating schedule.” He shook his head. Then his hands spread wide as something else occurred to him. “But many horses are kept in stalls and fed on a schedule.”
“And lots of ’em have ulcers,” Dr. Scott said. “I read a study not long ago that said plenty of race-horses and performance horses have ulcers, and so do most orphaned foals.”
“Does he count as an orphan?” Sam asked.
“Yes and no,” Dr. Scott said. “Yes, because he can’t nurse every hour, getting nutrition the minute he needs it. No, because he was with his mother right after birth. In those first six to twelve hours, nursing babies don’t get milk—”
“They get colostrum,” Jen said proudly.
Ryan murmured in agreement.
“That’s right,” Dr. Scott said.
Sam raised her hand as if she were in class. “Excuse me. Since I’m the only one who doesn’t know what col—whatever—is, could someone please tell me?”
“Colostrum is a liquid that’s like fifty-fifty sugar and antibodies,” Jen explained.
“Something like that,” Dr. Scott agreed, smiling at Jen’s knowledge. “But the main thing is, it helps young animals fight off disease.”
“Fine then,” Ryan said. He sounded as if he were brushing aside his earlier worry.
“However,” Dr. Scott said in a cautioning tone, “first-time mothers don’t always give their young enough of it, and he’s reached the age when the positive effects start wearing off.” In the sudden silence, they all stared at the vulnerable colt. “But I don’t think we need to worry about that. My advice—” Dr. Scott paused to look at Ryan.
“Yes, please,” Ryan urged.
“—is to kill two birds with one stone. Put him on open pasture with another horse so he can do what horses do, moving around at will, nibbling at grass, staring at butterflies, and napping. He’ll avoid long periods of fasting—that’s tough on his tummy—and he’ll be feeding in the proper position, with his head down and throat”—Dr. Scott’s hand moved up his own neck—“extended. That’ll take care of his physical need for exercise and his emotional need for company.”
“Just a moment,” Ryan protested, then looked sort of sheepish. “I do spend quite a good deal of time with him.”
“I meant equine company,” the vet said. “And it would be best, ’til he shakes off his blues, if you limited human contact.”
“Why is that?” Jen asked.
“Sometimes it helps to let creatures return, as much as possible, to what they’ve been doing for millions of years,” Dr. Scott said. Then he shrugged, adding, “And it’s an easy step to try first.”
Ryan’s arms crossed hard across his middle. He looked cold-eyed and determined. He wanted to reject the idea of not spending time with the lonely colt, and Sam understood.
“But Shy Boots has imprinted on Ryan,” Sam said, remembering the days Ryan had refused to leave Hotspot and her colt. “Won’t that be hard for him?”
“Maybe at first,” Dr. Scott conceded, “but he needs the company of other horses, needs to learn what they do and how they respond to their world, if he’s not going to be a misfit.”
Ryan exhaled and his arms dropped to his sides. “Clearly, that’s not what I want.” He looked away from the vet and stared toward the pastures. “Now,” he said, and cleared his throat loudly, “our next chore is to select the perfect companion.”
“I already know,” Jen said.
“Not your Silly,” Ryan protested, referring to Silk Stockings, Jen’s beautiful but skittish palomino mare.
“No, not my Silly.” Jen stuck her tongue out at him. It was such an uncharacteristically childish gesture that Sam, Ryan, and even Dr. Scott laughed.
When Jen pointed to a pasture across the ranch, indicating the graceful sorrel grazing closest to them, Sam followed her gesture. But she wasn’t prepared when Jen said, “Princess Kitty.”
Chills rained down Sam’s arms.
Princess Kitty had once lived at River Bend Ranch. Sam’s ranch. The mare had been sold to the Kenworthys right after Sam’s accident because…Sam’s next breath caught, and she drew another one, despite the tightness in her chest. Because Dad couldn’t stand to look at Princess Kitty since she’d given birth to the horse who’d injured Sam. Princess Kitty was the Phantom’s mother.
So why hadn’t Dad sold Smoke, too? Dad’s gray mustang had been the Phantom’s father. Sam shook her head. Why should she try to unravel Dad’s emotions, when she couldn’t even figure out her own?
Right now, for instance, she felt totally protective of the mare as Dr. Scott and Ryan discussed her suitability as a companion for Shy Boots.
“She’s a pretty thing,” Ryan said, looking the horse over with considering eyes. “And I have heard them call to one another in sort of a conversational way.”
“Some people believe in something called breed recognition,” Dr. Scott said, “and I’d have to say that Kitty’s conformation is pretty close to Hotspot’s.”
Sam had never noticed before, but the vet was right. Although Princess Kitty was probably a full hand shorter than Hotspot, she had the same fine-legged, lean-bodied running Quarter Horse body.
“Will she know how to conduct herself around a foal, though?” Ryan asked. “That’s rather critical. If she should get short-tempered around Shy Boots—”
“She’s had a foal,” Sam interrupted. “She’s the Phantom’s mother.”
Dr. Scott gave a surprised sound and tilted his head.
“You don’t say?” Ryan said, incredulously. “Your fabled silver stallion has a little brown hen of a mother?”
“Ryan!” Jen wailed, and despite her bandages, she swatted him on the shoulder.
“I’m joking,” he assured her as he stepped out of reach. “Didn’t I just say she was pretty?”
But another thought made Jen turn toward Sam.
“Sam,” Jen said as if she’d suddenly remembered something, “she had another foal, too.”
“She did?” Sam yelped.
Her imagination sprang into action. She pictured a half-brother or sister to the Phantom, a silver shadow to run alongside him on the range.
“Where is he?” Sam blurted. “Or she?”
“Sold,” Jen said in gloomy certainty. “Gone away—somewhere…” Jen shrugged. “Kitty foaled when we were trying to hold onto the ranch by selling off everything that would bring us a dollar.” Jen blushed under Ryan’s stare. “It didn’t work, of course, and Kitty went as part of the ranch when we sold it.”
“But what about the foal? Who bought her? Or him?” Sam asked.
“My parents might remember, but I don’t. That year was…” Jen paused, searching for the right word. When she settled on one, Sam would bet it didn’t come close to describing the despair of losing a ranch you’d worked and sacrificed for. “It was kind of crazy around here. I just remember one day there was this little baby horse with floppy ears and the next day there wasn’t.”
Floppy ears? Sam thought of her beautiful ivory stallion with pricked ears delicate as a desert Arabian’s, but before she could grill Jen for more details, her friend added, “She was in foal a third time, too, to Sundance, but not for long.”
“What happened?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know,” Jen admitted.
“It just happens that way sometimes,” Dr. Scott said. “I wasn’t here, of course, but there could’ve been a serious birth defect in the foal or, if things were as stressful in her environment as Jen says, Princess Kitty might have just miscarried.”
In the moment of quiet, Sam realized this was her chance to get to know the Phantom’s mother. She’d bring Jen her homework every day and check on Shy Boots and Princess Kitty at the same time.
; But Ryan’s thoughts had veered in another direction.
“If I’m going to limit Boots’s human contact, I might as well go out and find his mother straight away,” Ryan said. “It will be safer than letting BLM bring her in, herding her with helicopters, running her over rough terrain with dozens of other horses.”
Ryan’s musing expression cleared as he shot a quick glance at Sam.
“You’re right,” Sam told him. Just because Brynna, her stepmother, worked for the Bureau of Land Management didn’t mean she was blind to the dangers of horses running, frightened and full-out.
“Someone will still need to keep an eye on him,” Dr. Scott said, nodding toward Shy Boots.
“If they both came to River Bend, Gram would be there during the day and I could work with them after school.” Sam’s words rushed out in excitement. “That would be incredibly cool. Boots could play with Tempest again and I bet Dark Sunshine would…” Sam’s voice trailed off as she wondered. “Well, she got along great with Hotspot, so she’d probably do fine with Kitty.”
“That mare’s still pretty wild,” Dr. Scott said, and Sam knew the vet was being generous. Dark Sunshine was beautiful, but she’d been damaged by confinement and abuse.
Before Sam could make excuses for the buckskin mare, Jen interrupted.
“Same problem as before,” Jen insisted. “He’d just get settled and then he’d have to be separated from Tempest and Dark Sunshine. Unless Ryan is willing to give you Shy Boots.”
“Which, I am not,” Ryan put in.
A few minutes’ more discussion brought them all to the same conclusion. Jen and her mother Lila would look after Shy Boots while Ryan searched the range for Hotspot.
“That’s great,” Jen said, then asked the vet, “Is there any reason we can’t put Kitty and Boots together right now, in his paddock?”
“Other than the fact that you’re weak as a kitten and your mother will have my hide for keeping you out here?” Dr. Scott asked. “Not a one.”
“I feel fine,” Jen insisted, but Sam noticed her friend was leaning against the corral fence as if she needed it for support. “I’ve been in the house resting all day. I’m not going back in there until we try this experiment.” When she saw the vet hesitate, Jen pressed her advantage. “If I’m going to be supervising these horses, I want to make sure they get off to a good start.”
“Fair enough.” Dr. Scott sounded resigned, but he still shot a quick look at the house.
“I’ll get Kitty,” Sam volunteered, before he could change his mind.
She left the others and walked toward the barn. She’d already noticed the mare wore a sand-colored nylon halter, so Sam only grabbed a lead rope and a bucket from the barn. She poured in a scant scoop of grain that would shift around, making a tantalizing sound inside the bucket.
Princess Kitty guessed Sam was coming for her. As Sam opened the pasture gate and slipped inside, the mare’s delicate ears pricked in her direction. The sorrel didn’t lift her head, but her teeth stopped clipping grass and her brown eyes gazed through her flaxen forelock.
Sam stopped shaking the grain bucket and stood still.
That peekaboo look—more an acknowledgment than a greeting—made Sam’s breath catch. Many times, she’d seen the Phantom do the same thing. He let a veil of forelock shield his eyes while he thought things over.
“Hey beauty,” Sam said, taking a step closer. “I know your son.”
Of course the mare didn’t understand. She couldn’t. She was an animal, not a human mother, but Princess Kitty’s lips left the green grass. Her head rose, and her luminous brown eyes met Sam’s.
“He’s doing fine,” Sam told the mare, “in case you’ve been wondering.”
When the sorrel gave a faint nicker, Sam swallowed hard. She just smells the grain, Sam told herself, but she kept talking as she moved closer.
“He has colts of his own now.” Silently, Sam scolded herself for the pang of melancholy that tightened her throat.
Sam tried to tell herself it was nonsense. Princess Kitty had long since forgotten the black colt she’d lost.
“He lives in wonderful, wild places,” Sam said as the mare studied the lead rope.
Sam stood close enough now that she could have touched the horse, but she waited. She wouldn’t risk a grab. Not quite yet. With the lead rope in one hand and the bucket in the other, she wasn’t set up for a quick capture. One wrong move would make Kitty shy. Then, Sam would be trailing the mare all over the pasture. And she’d have an audience for her mistake.
“We’re getting this right the first time, girl,” Sam said.
She really was a pretty horse. Red-gold, but whereas Ace’s coat was red-gold over rich brown, Kitty’s was red-gold over copper.
“Let’s go see Shy Boots. He could use some company,” Sam said.
Princess Kitty’s cheek grazed Sam’s as she ducked her head, going for the bucket. She didn’t draw back when Sam clipped on the lead rope, but she did give a noisy snuffle, making sure she’d searched out all the grain.
Satisfied she’d eaten it all, Kitty walked quietly beside Sam to the gate. Sam was surprised at Kitty’s gentleness, but that surprise had barely registered when the mare sighted Shy Boots.
The colt spotted her at the same time. His high-pitched whinny brought a look of alarm into the mare’s eyes. Kitty burst from a standstill into a trot and Sam had to jog to keep up.
“Easy,” Sam called, but Princess Kitty ignored her, even when Sam gave a tug on the lead rope and scolded, “Slow down.”
Princess Kitty’s pace stayed the same, but she glanced back over her shoulder to regard Sam with a royal air that seemed to say, “No, you keep up.”
Sam couldn’t help smiling. She wasn’t pleased with the mare’s defiance, but it was nice to know that even though Princess Kitty was just one of Linc Slocum’s many possessions, she ha0dn’t lost the pride she’d passed on to her son.
It would do Shy Boots good to spend time with this horse. Ryan could teach him manners while Kitty taught him nerve.
At last, Sam turned Kitty into Shy Boots’s paddock.
Sam stood between Jen and Ryan, watching for the horses’ reactions to each other.
After ten minutes, Kitty and Shy Boots were still pretending to ignore each other. After twenty minutes, they’d moved a few steps closer together, but they still didn’t seem excited.
Ryan said, “Nothing’s happening.”
“Nothing we can see or hear,” Dr. Scott corrected. “But I think they’re going to do fine.
“You know, on some big horse ranches, where they have a dozen brood mares and foals in the same pasture, they wean by slowly removing one or two mothers and replacing them with old saddle horse mares.”
Sam wanted to protest. Kitty sure didn’t fit that description.
“Of course they notice the difference,” Dr. Scott said, “but it’s a good solution. The older mares comfort the little ones and teach them how to be around other horses.”
Thirty minutes after the horses had been together, just as Jen drooped against the fence and looked ready to give in to her weariness, Shy Boots released a heavy sigh.
“Look,” Jen said quietly.
The little Appaloosa lowered himself to the grass, then rested his head against his folded legs. He was down, but his whole attitude was different than before, Sam thought. Shy Boots was relaxed enough to close his eyes and doze.
Beside her, Sam heard Ryan sigh, too.
“I’ll be on my way,” Dr. Scott said quietly. He stretched his linked hands high over his head, rolled his head from side to side, loosening his neck muscles, and grinned. “This is the kind of house call I like best. I didn’t even have to take my bag out of the truck.”
“Oh,” Jen said suddenly, “how did things turn out with your last patient? Ryan said you were tending a tortoise who’d had a bad accident.”
Great, Jen, Sam thought. Why bring up a patient who might have died, when Shy Boots had made t
he vet happy?
But Jen wanted to be a vet when she grew up. She was probably just curious.
“Agnes, the desert tortoise,” the vet said, “is another of today’s success stories, although her cure was a little more high-tech.”
“Surgery?” Jen asked, eyes widening behind her glasses.
Sam wondered how you’d perform surgery beneath the tortoise’s shell.
“Epoxy,” Dr. Scott corrected.
“You mean glue?” Sam asked.
“Medical-grade glue,” Dr. Scott said, nodding. Then, looking excited, he added, “The shell did just what it was supposed to do, protecting Agnes’ soft body, and all the tender stuff inside.”
From the corner of her eye, Sam saw Ryan rub his hand across his forehead, shading his eyes as he did.
“The shell only had a little crack,” Dr. Scott went on. “I squeezed glue in a ring around the crack, layered in tiny fiberglass sheets, and she should be as good as new.”
Sam was glad for Agnes and Dr. Scott, but for some reason she couldn’t stop staring at Ryan. His lips pulled down into a frown. Maybe he wished someone could mend the crack Shy Boots had put in the shell he’d worn over his feelings and all the “tender stuff inside.”
Chapter Three
Ice cubes tinkled as Lila Kenworthy, Jen’s mom, placed a pitcher of pink lemonade on the camp table between Sam and Jen.
Lila had dragged the table and three chairs onto the porch of the foreman’s house. The girls had collapsed gratefully in the shade.
“This is great. Thank you,” Sam said. As she sipped, a red maraschino cherry bumped her lips. Sam would bet Lila had tinted the lemonade pink by adding the cherries and their juice. Gram did the same thing.
Fanning herself with one hand, Lila smiled and settled into the third chair.
Lemonade, the shady porch, and a plan in place to help Shy Boots would have made this the perfect time to ask Jen what she should do about Pam, except that she caught Jen shooting a quick look toward Ryan. He still lingered by Shy Boots’s paddock, but Jen’s expression said she’d hoped the third chair was for him.
Lila didn’t notice.