The Wildest Heart

by Terri Farley

  “We got trouble,” Luke Ely shouted toward the nearest firefighters.

  Sam moved with the men as they fought for a better view of the area where Luke had assigned Nate.

  She saw wild horses on the run.

  Led by a young bay galloping full out, the horses stampeded down from the hills. What could they be running from? Had wind-borne sparks blown and started a fire they couldn’t see from here? Was a fire already burning into the canyon?

  When the bay tossed his head, showing a patch of white over one eye, Sam recognized Pirate. Just behind him ran the red roan filly she thought of as Sugar. The horses bumped shoulders and faltered. For a second, the filly veered off course as if the smoke stung her eyes. But then she must have heard the golden-brown mare, trying to keep up, because Sugar’s roan legs stretched as she pursued Pirate.

  The golden-brown horse was the Phantom’s lead mare. Usually, she controlled the herd while the silver stallion watched from above, or hung back where he could see his entire band. But where was he now?

  While Sam stood transfixed by the horses’ hasty and clumsy descent, Jake and Quinn bolted back toward the other firefighters, who were already hefting the hose. It was then that Sam heard the sound of a cyclone, a tornado, some wild storm rushing their way. Only it wasn’t a storm; it was a freakish gale created by the fire.

  When Sam turned back to look for the Phantom once more, she could barely see the herd. Dark smoke reduced the mustangs to shadows darting and stumbling in the direction of the captive horses.

  Sam squinted and used her hand to shade her eyes, as if that could keep them from tearing up from the smoke.

  Something moved, far out in the pasture. Did the wild herd think the other horses were running to safety?

  That could be it, Sam decided.

  Once, Dark Sunshine had been a decoy, luring other horses into a trap. Sometimes BLM loosed a domestic horse just ahead of wild ones as they fled a hovering helicopter, and they followed the “Judas horse” into a camouflaged corral. Maybe the same thing was happening now.

  Pirate reached the pasture fence and raced up and down, looking for a way in. From where she stood, Sam thought he was near the gate, where she’d been painting. What if she ran down and let the wild mustangs into the pasture? Once the horses were confined, the firefighters could protect them.

  But if she ran down there, the mustangs would flee. She had to make this decision alone. Jake and the other firefighters were busy. Callie was gone.

  Only the fire would help her make this decision.

  Red flames danced like tightrope walkers along the top rail of the fence, burning closer and closer to Pirate. He circled away from the fence, looking as if he’d backed up to jump.

  She’d heard of fear-maddened horses breaking free of those leading them out of burning barns, to run back to stalls because they were home. But those were domestic horses.

  Pirate’s determination to run through flames, into the sanctuary pasture, made no sense.

  The lead mare wanted to force him back, but clanging metal, the huff from the fire truck’s engine, the shouting men, and a dark shroud of smoke turned her trot into a shambles of confusion.

  Suddenly a whirlwind of movement swept through the milling herd.

  Glinting brightly through the smoke, the Phantom galloped downhill. He ignored the worn path, leaping in sharp turns to make his way through the brush, to take charge of his band.

  Chapter Seven

  Sam didn’t know whether she felt relieved or terrified as she watched the stallion rush down with ears so flat they were hidden by his swirling silver mane.

  His mares’ turbulent shifting turned to calm as the stallion’s presence settled them. The honey-colored mare’s uncertainty had caused chaos. The Phantom was hurried, but sure.

  Sam pictured the stallion’s actions.

  Brandishing teeth and hooves, he’d push the herd away from here, back to their secret valley, and leave Pirate to tag along.

  But he didn’t. Instead of turning his band toward the mountains, the Phantom passed through, then lowered his head into a herding posture.

  Pirate was probably a yearling, but the Phantom’s body language was clear. Act like a baby and I’ll treat you like one.

  The roan filly saw her sire coming and fled. Swiveling on her heels like a cutting horse, she returned to the herd, leaving Pirate to face his father alone.

  Pirate was clearly nervous. He saw the Phantom bearing down on him, but the colt didn’t run away. He skittered sideways, head swinging to view everything around him, but whatever had drawn him to the pasture kept him there.

  Just yards away from Pirate, the Phantom slowed. Sam heard the beat of each hoof. His ears pricked forward, tips trembling as he strained to listen, but his head stayed low, as if the stallion were trying to ignore his misgivings.

  But then, he must have known something was terribly wrong.

  His front hooves skidded in a dust cloud. His eyes rolled white, but his head was still lifting as two hollow zip pops split the air. Like huge fireworks launched into the sky, the paint cans exploded. Blasting like bombs, they detonated right in front of the mustangs.

  “No!” Sam screamed.

  The horses screamed with her. Thunder rumbled from their hooves and overhead. Through roiling smoke, she saw horses fall. How many? Which ones?

  Sam couldn’t tell. Smoke stung her eyes and nose. Her chest burned as she ran, trying not to breathe in the thick gray air.

  Not the Phantom, oh please.

  But he was right there. It had to be him, falling. And Pirate. Their slender, delicate legs had been steps from the exploding cans.

  Holding her breath, Sam remembered how firmly she’d tamped down the lids. If they’d exploded off, they’d be like giant, flat bullets.

  Another explosion rocked through the air. Then another.

  Four cans. That had to be all of them.

  Were the horses down and helpless in the blast?

  Black timbers rocked apart. Half of the fence sagged toward the earth and the other jutted up like black fingers.

  The explosion, or maybe the fire, had destroyed a section of fence and the lead mare saw it as rescue. With bared teeth and slamming shoulders, the big mare herded the mustangs through the opening, away from the flames and smoke and noise, after the other horses, who were no more than silhouettes on the hazy horizon.

  Running after them, Sam’s whole world bounced around her. Her legs stretched in steps as long-reaching as her hip sockets would allow. Tears from the smoke blurred her vision as she searched for the Phantom. He wasn’t with his herd. Even as a smoky shadow she would have recognized him.

  “We’ve got two down. Call the vet!” Luke Ely shouted at someone. Her? Should she run back to the house? Confusion and desperation whirled through Sam, but she couldn’t go back. Not until she saw her horse.

  Two thoughts eased her mind. If Luke Ely thought the horses needed a vet, they weren’t dead. And the firefighters had radios. They could summon Dr. Scott in a fraction of the time it would take her to run back to the house and phone.

  Sam ran through a mist from the fire hose. Charred wet brush released a sour stench. Sizzling and steamy, waves of wet, white smoke rushed at her.

  The fire that had flared along the fence was out. Finally, Luke must have ordered the volunteers to turn their hoses on the tail of the fire rushing toward the mountains.

  Sirens wailed. Huge truck tires hit ruts and chugged on, passing her, but Sam barely noticed the commotion. She only saw Jake, ahead of her. Jake, holding his hands wide apart, palms toward her, warning her back.

  It wasn’t the stern gesture that frightened her. Far worse was his frown of pity.

  “Get out of my way!” Sam shouted, but Jake blocked her.

  Beyond Jake, Sam glimpsed Luke, shaking his head “no.”

  “Sam, stop fighting me.”

  She tried to run through Jake, to bull past him, but he was too strong.

>   She had to see. She didn’t want to, but desperation swelled within her chest until she felt it, too, would explode.

  Jake grabbed her forearms and gave them a shake.

  “Listen to me,” he said. “Sam, are you listening?”

  She couldn’t twist loose. She couldn’t see past him. So she listened.

  “It’s him,” Jake said, and though she’d wanted to know, the two words ripped like knives. “He’s down. He’s breathing, though. He’s alive.”

  Jake waited, staring at her until she nodded, before adding, “There’s a colt, too, with a white patch.”

  Sam realized she was nodding over and over again.

  Pirate and the Phantom. Both were down. Both were hurt or they wouldn’t still be there.

  “What wrong with them?”

  “Don’t know. They’re all splattered with red….”

  A moan arose and Sam only realized it was hers and that her hands had tried to fly up to cover her ears, to block the awful words, when Jake’s grip tightened on her arms.

  “Don’t think it’s blood.” Jake was shaking his head. “It doesn’t look like blood.”

  Hope surged through her along with a possibility.

  “The paint? Could it be? Because…” Sam shook her head as her teeth started chattering. “The p-paint’s b-b-brownish red. Redwood. Jake, could it…?”

  “Yeah.” Jake looked relieved. “That must be why all those little spot fires flared up, too. It splattered, but we got ’em.”

  Beyond Jake, there was thrashing and a groan of effort.

  “Stay back,” Luke Ely said.

  Sam heard boot soles crunch against the ground. She smelled a charcoal scent stirred by movement.

  “Please let me go to him,” Sam begged.

  “Let ’im be, Sam,” Jake told her. “I know you love him, but he’s a wild thing. You’re only gonna add to his—” Jake broke off, knowing she’d fill in the awful blank.

  Pain? Confusion? Terror?

  The memory of the mighty stallion in the rodeo arena flashed through Sam’s mind. He’d sunk to his knees, then fallen on his side. If that’s what lay beyond Jake, she’d hate it, but she could take it.

  “Whatever’s goin’ on in his head, you can’t help. If he can get up, he’ll get outta here. If he can’t, Dr. Scott will be here soon,” Jake finished.

  She could take it, but her horse might not be comforted.

  A shuddering sigh shook Sam. She nodded.

  “Okay,” she said. “I won’t move a step closer. I promise, Jake. Just please, get out of my way so I can see him.”

  Jake’s fingers loosened, one by one, from her left forearm. Sam looked up into his eyes as he released her right arm, too.

  Jake stood with his hands raised for a second. Did he think she’d fall and he’d have to catch her? No, he stepped aside and Sam was almost sorry.

  War movies showed scenes like this.

  A pale horse spattered with scarlet lay on the blackened earth. Just feet away, another horse, face scorched, thrashed as if fighting to rise, but his eyes were closed, lids fluttering as if he were trapped in a nightmare.

  “What’s wrong with them?” Sam barely breathed the words.

  She and Jake stood about ten feet from the horses, but they’d hear, and she didn’t want to frighten them more.

  Far away, Sam heard the firefighters congratulating each other. The fire was out. But Jake had heard her. He shook his head, concentrating on the horses.

  Sam kept her promise. She moved no closer, but she squatted and stared.

  The Phantom’s rib cage rose with each breath. Dark-gray streaks marked his glossy hide and dots of paint spotted his head and ears.

  From lowering his head when he’d tried to herd Pirate out of danger, she thought.

  His head had been right there when the cans exploded from the fire’s heat. Now his fine-boned head lay on the blackened ground.

  How long ago had the rain stopped? When had the sun emerged from the clouds and smoke? Sam didn’t know the answers, but she knew the earth must be hot and the burned weeds must be prickling the delicate skin around the stallion’s eyes and lips. She wanted to pillow his head in her lap.

  But if he woke, lashing out in panic, he might hurt himself more.

  Strands of his mane and tail lifted on the breeze. Otherwise, he didn’t move. She ached to do something for him, but what?

  A tiny sound made Sam look down. Dark spots showed on the right knee of her jeans. Only then did she realize her face was wet with so many tears, they’d begun dripping off her chin.

  With the back of one wrist, Sam wiped her eyes and kept watching.

  She didn’t know how long the horses lay still. Five minutes? Fifty?

  At last, Jake’s dad squatted beside her.

  “Could be they’re just gatherin’ strength. Hard to believe, but those cans blowin’ all at once caused sort of a concussion. Did you feel it?”

  Sam shook her head “no,” but Jake had been closer and he nodded.

  “Kinda like a shock wave,” he said.

  Sam tried to think how that would affect horses. An explosion—or a concussion—would be something completely outside their experience. The only thing they could compare it to would be a storm. The thunder of the concussion, the lightning flash of the explosion. They knew how to react to predators, to drought and floods and intruders. They’d even learned to flee cars and motorcycles, but exploding paint cans in the midst of a brush fire?

  Some people laughed at horses when they shied at scraps of paper or odd-shaped rocks, but horses judged every unfamiliar thing a threat and it had helped them survive centuries of change.

  Thinking like a horse, Sam guessed that explained why the horses had bolted through the opening in the fence. It had been the quickest escape and they saw the others running to safety.

  Sighing, Sam forgot all about Jake and his dad. Her world shrank to the few yards of earth around the fallen horses. She was dimly aware of truck tires and voices, but she paid no attention.

  She wanted to scoot close enough to whisper the Phantom’s secret name. Even in his unconscious state, it might soothe him.

  Zanzibar. With tenderness, she thought the name toward the stallion. And hoped.

  Sam jumped when a hand touched her shoulder. She looked up to see Dr. Scott. Young and blond, the veterinarian wore black-rimmed glasses. The lenses were grimy with smoke. The first time she’d met him, even though he’d been tending the Phantom’s reaction to a drug overdose, Dr. Scott had also worn a hopeful expression. He didn’t wear one now.

  Behind him, the volunteer firefighters sprayed water on tiny tongues of flame as they flared up here and there. Beyond them, the Darton fire truck prowled the perimeter of the blaze flickering up the mountain.

  The storm had moved on, leaving behind destruction and the good, clean smell of storm-hammered sage.

  With a strange detachment, Sam wondered if the sky would have dropped the same lightning bolt, even if horses and people had never settled here. Probably so. Nature wasn’t out to get them. Storms happened whether living things were helped or hurt by them.

  Sam could still see grass all around. It looked as if there was still plenty of graze for the horses. That was good.

  It seemed weird to her that there were suddenly so many people around and no one had spoken to her.

  Weird, until she realized, with a sickening certainty, that they’d seen her crouched near the mustangs and left her alone to grieve.

  But she wasn’t grieving! The horses weren’t dead. Any minute they’d stand up, kick their heels, and gallop for home.

  As if he’d seen in his mind what she had in hers, the Phantom’s eyes opened.

  “Hey, boy,” Sam whispered.

  Even before he raised his head off the ground, the stallion’s eyes flashed brown and fierce. They might have been the eyes of an eagle.

  His nostrils flared as his muzzle lifted. His head rose away from the ground, crinkl
ing his dappled neck. For an instant, the stallion’s eyes met hers and he gave a soft nicker.

  He must have felt safe, because once he scrambled to his feet and faced away from her, he didn’t bolt. He must be trying to recover from his shock.

  Forelegs braced apart, head hanging, the stallion winced. Something hurt. A pulled muscle from his fall, Sam hoped, or a scrape so small she couldn’t see it.

  But why were his ears twitching forward, then back and forward again, with such crazy energy?

  Then the stallion shook his head.

  At first Sam thought the Phantom was only sending his forelock out of his eyes, but he shook his head again. Standing behind him as she was, Sam noticed he shook so vigorously, his entire tail swung with the movement.

  The stallion’s neck curved. His head jerked toward his shoulder. Then his front leg struck out, but it didn’t come near his head. Still, his gestures reminded her of Blaze trying to get a foxtail out of his ear.

  “Did you see that?” Sam asked the vet.

  When he didn’t answer, she glanced at Dr. Scott. His fingertip pressed against the nosepiece of his glasses and he gave a curt nod.

  “What’s he doing?” she asked.

  The stallion snorted. This time he shook his head so hard his ears made a faint flutter.

  “He could have something in his ears,” Dr. Scott suggested. “Debris from the explosion.”

  The vet didn’t sound convinced, and Sam found herself snatching looks at him, trying to read his expression, while she watched the Phantom.

  When the stallion’s gaze shifted to the pasture and he uttered a longing neigh, Dr. Scott slammed his hands together in a loud clap.

  Sam jumped, touching her chest at the sudden stampeding of her heart, but the silver stallion didn’t shy or even look back over his shoulder.

  Despite the nearby fire, Sam felt cold.

  The Phantom should have bolted or even wheeled around to charge. She’d seen him do that to Jake under much less stressful conditions. But the stallion had given no sign of fear, rage, or even annoyance.