Mountain Mare

by Terri Farley

  Shaking her head, Jen called across the herd, “Doesn’t it seem like he mighta noticed the flags and horses and one hundred head of cattle?”

  A cream-colored calf bolted from the herd.

  Before Sam could react, Ace sprinted after it, hooves hammering the asphalt. Though the retrieval only took a few seconds, Ace felt better for it. He came trotting back to the herd, acting more like himself.

  “That’s what you do best, isn’t it, boy?” Sam crooned to her horse.

  Ahead, she noticed a lean woman with cameras slung bandolier-style over her shoulders. She sighted through a camera, shooting away as the press pass around her neck swayed. She must be a newspaper photographer, Sam thought, and couldn’t resist the envy that fizzed up in her.

  Sam pictured the cattle as they’d look through the camera’s viewfinder. Wild-eyed and doe-eyed. Tiny dancing hooves and big black cloven hooves. The contrasts were what she’d shoot. That would be a good idea for photographing the people, too. If she were doing this story for the school newspaper, her photo essay would investigate who’d signed up to relive this bit of the historical West and why.

  Could you major in photojournalism in college? It was a long way in the future, but Sam thought it could be exciting.

  Where was Lynn Cooper? She’d said she was covering the cattle drive, but then she’d been called away.

  Sam shivered at the memory of the black blazer Lynn had brought along “just in case” and wondered what she’d found when she’d arrived at the desolate piece of road where a truck had rolled over with a horse trailer.

  Still holding her reins, Sam crossed her fingers, hoping the trailer had been empty and the driver hadn’t been hurt.

  An air horn blatted from the sidewalk crowd, and Ace’s flat-footed stride faltered.

  “You’re doing fine, boy,” Sam said. “Humans can just be stupid. You’d think they’d be smart enough to find some other way to show they’re excited, wouldn’t you?”

  The fairgrounds were in sight when Sam heard Lynn Cooper’s voice and glanced over her shoulder to see the blond reporter with the KVDV cameraman.

  Keeping her distance from the horses, Lynn walked along quickly, calling out questions to the dudes. “So what would you bring next time that you forgot?” Lynn asked two middle-aged women who were riding together.

  “Mosquito repellent,” answered one.

  “Actually, I could have gotten away with less,” answered the other. “Chaps keep your jeans pretty clean.”

  “What did you like best about the trip?” Lynn asked a man Sam had spotted earlier. Even in cowboy gear, he looked like an accountant.

  “One thing that I really enjoyed was being able to zone out. I had a job to do, but no responsibilities beyond my horse and me.” He leaned down and patted the neck of a sturdy bay.

  A woman with the skinniest eyebrows Sam had ever seen reined her sorrel gelding over to talk with Lynn. The woman rode better than most of the dudes, and Sam could see a silk scarf tied over her hair, under her hat.

  “I read about this in the business news section of the paper, and in the city I only ride maybe once each month. So I signed up to have some quality time with my horse.

  “The first day, I couldn’t help looking at my watch every five minutes, but after I took it off and put it in my saddlebag, I found out Cheyenne here really likes my rendition of ‘I’m an Old Cow Hand.’”

  Lynn thanked her and glanced at the cameraman.

  “Got it?” Lynn asked. When he nodded, she suggested, “Why not go up where the cows turn into the parking lot? Catch the girls in front. They’re local and they look great.”

  Sam knew she was smiling when Lynn jogged toward her, not at all out of breath, and gave her a thumbs-up.

  “Hi,” Sam said. She wanted to say something clever and sociable, but all she could think about was the rollover.

  “It wasn’t old and blue, was it?” she asked hopefully, and Lynn knew exactly what she was talking about.

  “Nope,” Lynn said. “Old and yellow with Arizona license plates. It’s a”—she flipped back a page of her notebook—“restored 1968 Scout. And hard as it is to believe, there was hardly a scratch on it. According to the sheriff, the driver—a college student—said she was fine. She hitched a ride to town, where she planned to call her boyfriend to come get her.”

  Sam’s shoulders sagged and her chest deflated with her sigh.

  “That is so good,” she said. The words were mild compared to the relief she felt.

  She’d been listening so intently to Lynn, though, she hadn’t heard Ace’s hooves skittering on the asphalt. Now she did, and lifted her reins a little, making contact with his mouth.

  “I’m still here, boy,” she said, then she glanced across the herd. She had to tell Jen it hadn’t been Jake’s truck.

  Jen had drawn rein to let a few girls pet Silly’s shoulder. While the palomino basked in the attention, Sam caught Jen’s eye. At once, Jen took in Lynn, then Jen tilted her head to one side. Sam gave her an okay sign.

  Jen’s smile flashed across the herd. She lifted her Stetson above her hair and whirled it around one finger as if she’d throw it skyward.

  That’s the sign of a good friend, Sam thought. She’s celebrating for me, even though she never really shared my fears.

  “Her horse seems pretty laid-back about all this,” Lynn said.

  Sam heard the comparison in Lynn’s words, even though it wasn’t exactly criticism.

  “All the Kenworthy palominos have been in parades before,” Sam said. “Sometimes they ride together as a family.”

  “And your horse never has,” Lynn said.

  “He’s a mustang,” Sam explained. “First he lived on the range and now he lives at River Bend, our ranch. As far as I know, this is the most civilization he’s ever seen.”

  Lynn cast a glance around them and gave a “not bad” nod, then fell back a few yards when Ace side stepped toward her.

  “You’re doing fine,” Sam said, but then, as if to test her words, a little boy, maybe a fourth grader, scampered into Ace’s path.

  Apparently the boy had pulled away from his mother. From the corner of her eye, Sam saw a woman elbowing out of the crowd, running after her child as he approached Ace, hand outstretched.

  His hand wasn’t empty. In fact, it didn’t take Sam or Ace long to realize the child was holding a snake.

  “Don’t—” Sam tried not to shout. Ace needed her to stay calm.

  “It’s just a garter snake. It won’t bite,” the boy insisted. “That flickery thing is just his tongue. His mouth isn’t even open. It’s his ola-olafactory—”

  The boy’s mother grabbed him around the middle and lifted him off his feet. Blushing and apologizing, she carried him, snake and all, back to the sidewalk.

  Sam started to lean forward to rub Ace’s neck, then changed her mind. Instead, she gave him the sort of atta-boy pat Jake or Dad would use. Ace wouldn’t expect it, and the surprise might keep his attention focused on her.

  “You’re a good horse,” Sam told him.

  Snorting and rumbling, Ace veered closer to the cattle. He knew what they were all about.

  Sam couldn’t wait to reach the fairgrounds. Ace had had enough.

  A disturbance came from the back of the herd, but Sam didn’t even look. Ace felt tense beneath her. They were riding on asphalt. He could bolt and slip. Anything could happen. There was no way she’d risk a disaster because Linc Slocum was causing trouble as usual.

  That probably wasn’t fair, Sam thought. In fact, when she considered the calm dun he’d been riding, she guessed she was wrong.

  One quick glance over the stream of curly-headed calves behind her showed Sam that Hal Ryden was standing in his stirrups.

  “He’s got it under control,” Sam told Ace, but her horse’s ears didn’t even flick back to catch her voice.

  Ace was definitely out of his comfort zone. Sam only hoped she’d progressed enough as a rider to keep
him together.

  As they took a turn toward the parking lot, Sam smelled deep-fried carnival food amid the scents of hay and livestock. Perhaps Ace was comforted by the smell of other horses or maybe he just realized lots of eyes were watching him with admiration, because he blew through his lips and pranced.

  Men with walkie-talkies waved them by a sign that said MUST SHOW PASS.

  “Almost there, boy,” Sam told her horse.

  Hal had said to herd the cattle into the arena. From there, the animals would be sorted into the appropriate corrals by his staff. Most of the corrals and one entire barn were reserved for rodeo stock, and Hal had offered to let Jen and Sam strip the tack from their horses, cool them out, and keep them in his stalls until Dad arrived to trailer them home.

  Sam tried to slam a mental door on thoughts of home. Amelia’s grandmother had been in a hurry for her answer about Ace. What if she’d called back and talked with Gram? What if the decision had already been made for her?

  Ace broke out of his flat-footed walk and into a trot. He looked back over his left shoulder.

  You’re okay, boy, Sam thought. This time she told him with hands and legs, hoping that the silence a mustang depended on for safety was the right way.

  Ace looked back again with pricked ears and flared nostrils.

  Nothing back there that you haven’t seen before, she told him with her thoughts, hoping it was true.

  Finally Sam snugged her reins. Ace ignored her, so she tightened them until they ran in straight lines to his bit. The gelding shook his head from side to side, yanking in short jerks, quickening his pace before swerving left again.

  Was he trying to unseat her, or was there really something back there?

  With all the cars, pedestrians, and flapping posters stapled to bulletin boards, Sam knew she should be looking up ahead, but then Ace lifted his knees in a trot.

  Ignoring her, he only went faster, past rows of cars and horse trailers, gathering speed though he was mincing sideways.

  Finally, Sam followed his stare and saw what Ace was watching.

  The mountain mare had followed them. Sun shone on her chocolate coat, making pinkish flickers. She looked determined, as if she knew exactly where she was going and what she’d do when she got there. And yet the mare’s pace was unhurried and so smooth, her tawny mane barely ruffled and her tail drifted only at the tip.

  She’s coming along. Okay. No need to think about her, Sam thought.

  Then, for the hundredth time, Sam ordered herself to worry about what was in front of her.

  But she was too late.

  A creak sounded on their right and a car door burst open just a few feet away.

  Hands steady on Ace’s reins, Sam saw a flash of a sundress, watermelon pink and green. Then a little girl rushed into Ace’s path.

  With her hand extended toward Ace’s nose, the girl shouted, “Can I pet him?”

  As Ace slid to a cow-horse stop, his shoes grated on asphalt.

  He’d stopped in time to miss the child, and though Ace huffed with exertion, it seemed everything was okay until the child’s openmouthed father dashed after her.

  Ace rose in a half-rear and Sam heard a camera’s motor drive whirring through an endless series of photos, capturing Ace rearing over the little girl’s head.

  Chapter Six

  “It was no big deal,” Jen told Sam later as they unsaddled their horses outside the rodeo barn that would provide a home for Ryden Rodeo Productions horses for the next few days.

  The fairground had three double barns. Sam and Jen peeked inside theirs and saw that an interior corridor ran between rows of twelve stalls on each side, with a feed room at one end and a tack room at the other. The barn was airy and light, and the horses could look inside the barn or out to the activity of people and animals preparing for tonight’s rodeo performance.

  As Sam and Jen unsaddled Ace and Silly, a trio of glossy black horses—part of Hal Ryden’s arena remuda—stretched their necks over half doors to watch. Their muzzles dripped water, as if instinct had urged them to take greedy swallows from their buckets before the new arrivals could drink. The horses’ nostrils were dusted with cedar shavings and the scent of fresh bedding was all around.

  “It was, too, a big deal,” Sam insisted as she released Ace’s cinch, tossed it over the saddle seat, then grabbed the horn and cantle to slide the saddle from her horse’s sweating back.

  “Nonsense,” Jen said. “Just hustle, okay? I want to get back over to the arena. Hal said they’d let the mare stay there, with the other stock until we get there, but—”

  “I know.” Sam tried not to sound snappish as the saddle blanket, covered in Ace’s red-gold hairs, came off with the saddle and fell across her boot toes. Sam kicked it aside. Carefully.

  It would be just her luck to trip and fall flat on her face, now, when she had an audience.

  On their way to the “Last Roundup” barbecue, sponsored by the Darton Rodeo Association, many of the dudes had already come by to tell Sam how much they admired her dramatic riding. Some thought it had been a Hollywood-style trick. Others thought Ace had acted up and she’d ridden him to a standstill. No one but Jen seemed to see it for what it was: a mistake. All hers.

  If she’d been a better rider, she would have seen at a glance that the chocolate mare was following, then she would have shifted her attention forward where it belonged. She wouldn’t have been clawing to stay in the saddle. She wouldn’t have nearly fallen. Most of all, she wouldn’t have brought a range-bred mustang into town.

  Guilt stabbed through her as she touched Ace’s wet coat. The little horse was stressed, and she couldn’t even give him the comfort of a good brushing. She didn’t have a curry comb or dandy brush, and it seemed rude to ask a stranger if she could borrow grooming gear.

  Sam unknotted the flannel she’d tied around her waist when it grew too hot, and used it to rub Ace down.

  The gelding stared back over his shoulder. His brown eyes looked almost apologetic. His ribs heaved as if he’d run hard.

  “It’s not your fault, boy. It’s mine,” she told him.

  “Sam, no matter how many times you apologize to him, Ace won’t understand,” Jen said.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Sure I do. Just watch. In a few minutes, he’ll be drinking water, standing in one of these huge box stalls filled with cedar shavings, and he’ll have forgotten all about it.”

  Jen was probably right. Ace rarely held a grudge. But today her mistake had been lots worse than usual.

  “How can you be sure?” Sam asked, watching Jen lead her horse down the barn row to cool off. Silly looked curious and alert, not exhausted like Ace.

  “Because it wasn’t a traumatic event.” Jen’s voice floated back to Sam. Then she returned. “He was distracted by the mare, just like you were. When he turned back and saw that girl in his path, he spooked. That’s all. Next time he’s in a parade or someplace congested like this, he’ll know what to expect.”

  There won’t be a next time, Sam thought. This is one cow pony who’ll be staying home.

  Her hands were cold and shaky, despite the temperature. She pressed her palms against Ace’s warm hide, feeling comforted even if he didn’t.

  She led Ace after Silly, and the gelding took easy strides. He’d begun relaxing.

  “Samantha Forster, please report to the first aid station.”

  Both girls stopped. Silly kept walking and only halted when she realized Jen wasn’t coming with her.

  Sam stared at Jen. Then, slowly, half afraid she’d imagined the official-sounding voice, Sam asked, “Did they just say what it sounded like? My name?”

  Jen stared at the public address system as if she’d glimpse a face behind the speaker. Then she nodded.

  “Samantha Forster, if you’re on the grounds, please report to the first aid station.”

  “Why would they want me?” Sam asked.

  Jen mulled that over as she opened a stall an
d turned Silly in.

  “Obviously you’re okay,” Jen said then.

  “Obviously,” Sam answered. “But maybe someone thought I was hurt in that horrible display of non-horsemanship in the parking lot,” Sam said.

  “Shut up,” Jen requested in a sensible tone.

  “Or—” Sam felt her stomach dip with fear. “What if that little girl was hurt after all?”

  “Will you quit being so paranoid?” Jen scolded. “If she was hurt at all, it was from her dad scooping her up and clamping her in that bear hug against his chest.”

  “But maybe after he took a closer look at her,” Sam began.

  “Sam! Snap out of it!” Jen sounded as if she was out of patience.

  Sam turned Ace into the stall next to Silly’s as Jen kept talking.

  “In case you didn’t hear him, that father thanked you for ‘keeping your horse under control,’ remember?”

  “Then what is it?”

  “Wouldn’t it be faster to quit guessing and go see?”

  Sam threw down her flannel. Of course, Jen was right.

  Sam pretended she didn’t see Jen retrieve the flannel shirt and begin folding it. “I don’t even know where I’m going,” she muttered.

  Ace neighed longingly after her.

  Horses sure do forgive more easily than people, she thought.

  She headed toward a trailer that looked like it had been set up as an office. Could that be the first aid station?

  Everyone she passed wore some kind of pass around their neck, or a fluorescent wristband. Clearly she should have one, too. She was hurrying between barns, threading her way past pens packed with Brahma bucking bulls, and there were plenty of men standing around with walkie-talkies, scrutinizing each passerby.

  Why didn’t anyone stop her?

  Had they already circulated her description? Had she been deemed mounted and dangerous?

  No, wait. Maybe no one questioned her because she still wore Hal Ryden’s black and blue-green trappings. Did they think she belonged here? After all, she had helped bring in a hundred head of rodeo cattle and twenty-two riders.