Dawn Runner

by Terri Farley

  Eight thirty-seven. Neither Jen’s family nor hers appreciated phone calls after nine o’clock, and she’d be riding for close to an hour. Even if it got her in trouble, Sam knew she had to call Jen the minute she got in.

  “Hey,” Pam said, her voice trailing off as her steps slowed. “I can tell you really need to get going. I’ll see if I can come to your school tomorrow,” she called. “If you don’t see me—”

  “I’ll ride back out here,” Sam shouted back, and then she waved.

  “Okay, boy,” Sam muttered to Ace as the distance grew between them and Pam, “we’re not doing anything stupid, but I know a little shortcut across the shallow end of the lake on War Drum Flats, and we’re going to take it.”

  Chapter Nine

  “Hey, knock that off!” Sam snapped at her horse.

  Frisky from his long rest at the O’Malleys’ camp, Ace humped his back up to buck.

  Dark rangelands stretched around her for what looked like hundreds of miles and now, as she twisted in her saddle, even the orange eye of the campfire had disappeared behind a rock outcropping.

  She did not want to get stranded out here. Sure, she could shout for help and maybe, if she was lucky, someone would hear, but rescue wasn’t in her plans for the night.

  For one thing, it would take too long, and she had to get home and call Jen. That’s why she was taking this shortcut Ace was protesting.

  “You like the water, remember?” she crooned to her horse.

  Sam felt him relax, responding to her gentle tone. She lowered her rein hand, rewarding him for his calm continuation into the lake.

  “Good boy,” she said as one hoof, then another plopped down, and they cut across the shallow end of the lake instead of following the half-moon-shaped shore.

  The problem with mustangs, Sam decided, was that they made their own decisions once they had full bellies. In the wild, they responded with speed to all the sights, sounds, and smells that signaled danger. But Ace didn’t understand that she had a good reason for asking him to get his feet wet, and he was letting her know it was a bad idea.

  A breeze blew over the lake, bringing the smell of hot rocks and damp vegetation. Sam shivered a little, wishing she’d tied a sweatshirt behind her cantle. It had been so hot this afternoon, she hadn’t thought of it, and that was stupid.

  While she was kicking herself for being unprepared, Ace stopped and stared toward the middle of the lake.

  His intent stare gave Sam chills that had nothing to do with the wind. All alone on the range, with Ace knee-deep in this desert lake, she thought of Water Babies.

  “Now I’m the one who needs to knock it off,” she said out loud to Ace. “I know this lake. It doesn’t have Water Babies. Besides, I’ve seen mustangs drinking and playing here.”

  Ace’s head bobbed and his mane flapped as he gave a loud snort.

  “That’s right,” she said, agreeing with her horse. “They don’t exist.”

  Sam drew in a shivery breath and blamed Dr. Mora’s ancient tales for turning her mind to horror stories out of the past.

  Water Babies sounded sweet and chubby, but the Native American legends were bloodcurdling, at least to her.

  The little lake dwellers swam unseen in the depths of desert lakes, only coming ashore to switch places with human babies left unattended. For the first time, Sam wondered what became of the real babies. All she knew was that the changelings surprised their unsuspecting parents with long, needlelike teeth.

  Dr. Mora said the Dawn Runner story was a mixture of truth and longing, but Sam would bet Water Babies had been made up as a cautionary tale to make parents keep watch over their babies while they were at the water’s edge.

  A coyote’s howl drifted from the foothills. Ace’s ears twitched, but he kept moving steadily toward the shore ahead.

  Could Water Babies scull along in the shallows, tummies touching the lake bottom, searching for something to bite? Sam looked around her. She knew those ripples were from Ace’s movements. Absolutely. But what if they weren’t? What if Water Babies liked to sink their sharp teeth into horses’ pasterns?

  You are scaring yourself, Sam thought.

  “We’re almost across,” Sam comforted Ace, but he must have heard something worrisome in her voice.

  The mustang’s head came up. He raised his knees in a high-stepping prance, leaving his hooves in the water as short a time as possible, and then he broke into a splashing trot.

  Sam didn’t stop him. In fact, she shifted her weight forward. They hit the shore at a solid lope that lasted all the way home.

  Dad stood in the golden glow of the porch light. In jeans and an untucked shirt, he looked ready for bed and his voice was a little cranky.

  “’Bout time,” he said as Sam slowed Ace to a walk.

  She stopped the gelding in front of the porch.

  “I know,” Sam said. “Sorry.”

  Ace blew a loud breath through his nostrils.

  “Give that horse a good rubdown, then get yourself inside. Might as well phone Jen, too, before she calls and wakes up the whole house again.”

  “Okay, Dad,” Sam said, but she was wincing.

  Tonight’s tardiness could mess up her chances for hanging out with Pam while she was here, but Dad hadn’t said anything about that.

  “’Night, Dad,” she said, and he turned toward the front door, but then he stopped.

  “Have a good time talkin’ with Pam and her mom, did ya?”

  “I did! It was great to see them. Pam’s just the same and her mom is so cool.”

  Dad nodded. He didn’t say anything, but Sam wondered if he was thinking of the two years she’d spent in San Francisco with Aunt Sue and Pam and Dr. Mora. According to Brynna, those had been long, lonely months for Dad.

  “Sunrise is gonna come mighty early,” Dad said, and then he went inside.

  At last Ace was bedded down for the night. Sam’s boots felt heavy as she walked across the ranch yard. She kept sighing for no particular reason. She guessed she was just tired.

  She could almost feel her cheek settling against her pillow, but first she had to call Jen.

  Cougar jumped down from a kitchen chair where he’d been curled up, and rubbed against Sam’s leg. When she reached down to pet him, he reached up and hooked his front claws into her jeans and stretched the long striped length of his feline body.

  “Ow,” Sam complained, but the cat’s claws had barely pricked her, so she let him settle on her lap as she claimed the chair he’d been sleeping on. Sighing again, Sam muttered, “Please let Jen be sitting right by the phone.”

  She already knew it was late. She didn’t want to discuss how late with one of Jen’s parents.

  Jen picked up the phone in the middle of the first ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi. I am so sorry I got home late,” Sam apologized.

  “I guess you had a lot to talk about with your friend Pam from San Francisco,” Jen said.

  Her voice wasn’t mean or jealous. In fact, it was nearly expressionless.

  “How did you know?” Sam blurted.

  Wrong, wrong, wrong. Sam tilted her head back and stared toward the ceiling as if she could suck the words back into her mouth. That sounded like she’d been trying to keep Pam a secret.

  “Your Gram told me during one of our short but frequent conversations tonight,” Jen said. “I hope I didn’t get you in trouble by calling so much.”

  “No.” Sam stared toward the door to the living room as if she could see through it, up the stairs to Gram’s bedroom and into her sleeping mind. “At least, I don’t think so.” Sam sighed again. “I just found out Pam was going to be here. She and her mom are camped out by Lost Canyon, and her mom’s doing some research about Native American legends. I was going to tell you about everything this afternoon, but when I got there, you were asleep.”

  “I know,” Jen said. “I don’t really care.”

  “I’m sorry, though,” Sam said. She waited f
or Jen to say something else, but all she heard was the hum of the refrigerator and Cougar’s purr.

  “If I’m jealous at all,” Jen said, “it’s because I can’t go riding with you and Ryan.”

  “I hate that,” Sam said.

  “Good.” Jen sounded satisfied, until she added, “He hasn’t come back yet, by the way.”

  “Really? Well, he was still talking to Pam’s mom when I rode off,” Sam said.

  “To Pam’s mom,” Jen repeated.

  “Yeah, he seemed interested in the research she’s doing.”

  “Still, I wish you hadn’t left him there,” Jen said. “I know he’s a big boy…”

  Was Jen really blaming her for letting Ryan ride home alone? Or was Jen worried that Ryan would be distracted by a girl she didn’t even know?

  Sam only had a defense for the first part, so she used it.

  “Ryan’s an excellent rider,” Sam interrupted. “Lots better than me, and you know it.”

  “Except you know what you’re doing out on the range,” Jen pointed out. “And he doesn’t.”

  “Maybe,” Sam agreed, as she thought of Ryan being without water all day long.

  Then she looked up. Someone upstairs was moving around. She might not be in trouble yet, but she had a feeling she was headed in that direction.

  “Did you have fun?” Jen asked.

  “I did,” Sam admitted. Then she began talking fast. “Mostly we listened to Dr. Mora—that’s Pam’s mom—talk about horse legends, and one of them—oh yeah, I need to tell you about this tomorrow.”

  “Why not now?” Jen moaned.

  “Because I think someone’s coming downstairs to yell at me.”

  “But Pam—” Jen started.

  “She’s really nice and you’ll get to meet her because she’s probably going to get a visitor’s pass and hang out with me at school.”

  Great. What a wonderful friend you are, Sam scolded herself. Is there anything else Jen wants more than to go back to school? And not only are you going, but your old best friend is going with you? Nice.

  “I hate her already,” Jen said, but she was clearly joking. “She’s probably gorgeous, too, and Ryan—”

  “—didn’t even look at her. She’s a jock and taller than he is,” Sam said.

  “Okay then, you’re saying I only have to worry about the mom?”

  “Jen!” Sam shrieked.

  It was then she heard a throat clearing from the stairs. It sounded like Brynna.

  “Jen,” Sam whispered. “They’re only here for a few days. You have nothing to worry about. Now, I have to get off. Really.”

  “Okay,” Jen said, and even though the word wavered with indecision, Sam gently hung up.

  “So she didn’t show up at school?” Jen asked the next day.

  Sam was still sitting in the backseat of the Slocums’ blue Mercedes when she heard Jen’s question through the open car window. She’d spotted her friend as soon as the car pulled through Gold Dust Ranch’s iron gates.

  She knew Jen was talking about Pam, but she hadn’t even gathered her books and Jen’s yet. She did that and unsnapped her seat belt. She drew a breath to answer as Jen opened the car door.

  “Did they refuse to let her visit this early in the year or what?” Jen chattered as if she’d been cut off from school for months instead of days.

  “I don’t think so,” Sam said, but Jen had switched her attention to Rachel.

  “Hi, Rachel,” Jen said.

  The rich girl’s lips, glossed a bright shade of nectarine, parted in disbelief. “Hello?”

  Sam didn’t know if Rachel was recoiling from Jen’s friendliness or the retina-searing green of her T-shirt and matching pom-poms holding the ends of her braids.

  “Don’t mind me,” Jen joked. “I have cabin fever. I’ll talk to anyone.”

  Sam couldn’t decide whether to gasp or laugh at Rachel’s expression. So she just slipped out of the backseat and followed Jen toward Shy Boots’s empty paddock.

  “Where are they?” Sam asked.

  “In the small pasture,” Jen said. “My dad decided to move them to where they’d have more room.”

  As they watched Princess Kitty and Shy Boots, Jen babbled.

  “My dad went over the pasture like a maniac this morning, making sure there’s nothing Boots could eat that could contribute to him feeling bad. I mean, having Kitty in there with him is starting to help, I think, but it hasn’t been like magic.”

  Even as she said that, Princess Kitty, gleaming red-gold in the September sun, approached the foal. Shy Boots raised his head and his ears flicked toward her.

  “Jen, you might not see it because you’ve been watching them so much, but to me, he already looks better. Watch—he’s trying to figure out what she wants.”

  Princess Kitty definitely wanted something. She faced the colt and looked into his eyes. He tossed his head, trying to avoid her gaze, but he didn’t move away from her.

  “Dad even ran the harrow over the pasture,” Jen said, “breaking up all the old horse manure that I somehow missed with my rake, and plowing it under in case there were parasites in it.”

  Together, they watched Princess Kitty move closer to Shy Boots until they stood neck to neck, facing opposite directions.

  “I get it,” Sam said quietly, nodding at the horses.

  A smile claimed Jen’s face as she understood, too. “She’s teaching him how horses groom each other.”

  Princess Kitty sniffed the colt’s cocoa-brown neck. When he trembled but didn’t move away, she nuzzled it with her lips. Wide-eyed, the little Appaloosa accepted the mare’s touch.

  Kitty stood beside Shy Boots for several minutes. While Jen kept talking about her dad, Kitty seemed to be waiting for the tension to leave the muscles holding up the colt’s high-flung head.

  Finally, he lowered his head and the mare gave Shy Boots a series of short, firm bites on his neck. He didn’t move off. In fact, the colt looked mesmerized. His eyelids drooped as if he were receiving a massage.

  “He’s learning,” Sam said. “Soon, I bet he’ll be grooming her back.”

  “I hope so,” Jen said. “But wait, you have to keep listening about my dad, because after he cleaned that entire pasture, he had this long talk with Linc about hiring at least one permanent hand, and well—here’s what I’m trying to figure out.” Jen stopped and watched Sam.

  “Yeah?” Sam prompted.

  “Is he feeling guilty over seeing Princess Kitty with Shy Boots? You know, because she lost that one foal and he sold the other? Or is he trying to get the ranch in good shape for some reason, like it’s going to be sold? Or is he just avoiding me and Mom so we won’t harass him about school?”

  “I’m totally mixed up,” Sam admitted. “What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t know,” Jen said. “Watching my dad and trying to figure out what he’s thinking about school is driving me nuts.”

  Sam shrugged. “Maybe he’s not thinking about you or school at all. Maybe he’s just working as hard as he can because he doesn’t have much help, and that’s why he’s talking to Linc.”

  “Maybe,” Jen said.

  Gold Dust Ranch’s iron gate clanged open, and Gram’s yellow Buick drove in.

  “Were you expecting her so soon?” Jen asked.

  “No, she wasn’t supposed to leave until I called,” Sam said. Her heart raced. Was something wrong? What if Brynna had gone into premature labor, or—

  Just then, she noticed a flurry of curly hair in the passenger’s seat.

  “That’s Pam!” Sam said.

  “Cool,” Jen said, but she didn’t sound as if she meant it.

  Searching her mind for a way to make Jen feel better, Sam said, “I don’t know why Gram would just drop in with—”

  “You’re joking, right?” Jen asked. “This isn’t the most formal place in the world. No reservations required. Of course your grandmother can drop in with your friend. Get a grip, Sam.”

/>   “Thanks,” Sam said. She exhaled loudly.

  When Pam climbed out of Gram’s car, she wore a determined expression much like Jen’s.

  “Hi,” Pam said quietly. Her arms stayed at her sides, but one hand flipped back and forth in a wave.

  Even though she was nearly six feet tall and looked totally athletic in roomy black shorts and a trim jersey, Pam ducked her head, appearing shy.

  “Hi,” Jen responded.

  Sam was about to introduce the two, when Gram called to her from inside the car.

  “When Pam and her mom stopped by the ranch at the same time I was heading into Darton, I decided to bring her on by. I figured you wouldn’t mind spending some time together,” Gram called across the front seat. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

  “Thanks, Gram,” Sam said. Then, as Gram drove off, Sam said, “So, anyway…” She paused as her throat tightened.

  Was there an order in which you were supposed to introduce people? Like oldest first? But they were all the same age. And did it mean anything if she introduced Pam to Jen first? Or Jen to Pam?

  “I’m Jen Kenworthy—”

  “I’m Pam O’Malley—”

  The girls’ words collided. They laughed awkwardly. Then Jen leaned forward with her arm outstretched for a handshake.

  “I’m not always this thick around the middle. I broke a rib and I’m all wrapped up in bandages.”

  Pam answered, “That must be nice in this heat.”

  Pam was usually good at putting people at ease, but now all three of them just stood there.

  “So, my mom got everything worked out for a visitor’s pass to your school.” Pam’s gesture included both Jen and Sam. “And I was thinking maybe I’d drive tomorrow.”

  “What?” Sam yelped. “The driving age here is sixteen, just like it is in California.”

  “But I know how to drive,” Pam said. “And even though Mom doesn’t let me do it in the city, sometimes in desolate areas, she loans me the truck and I can go off on my own.”

  Desolate areas. When Pam said it, Sam felt a sting. She didn’t know why, but she could tell she wasn’t alone. Behind Jen’s glasses, she looked startled, too.