by Terri Farley
Poor Gabriel, who had just gotten his driver’s license, could be paralyzed.
Sam shuddered. He was only two years older than she was. Younger than Jake. What would it be like to never mount a horse, or run after a friend or stand on a chair to reach a high shelf again? But maybe the condition was temporary, like the Phantom’s.
One thing was sure: Gabriel’s accident had reduced the importance of her jealousy over Dad and Brynna’s baby to a speck of dust.
To be fair, it wasn’t Brynna she was mad at. If she was mad at anyone, it was Dad. She couldn’t blame Brynna for wanting a child of her own, but Dad already had one.
She was his child. They’d been family for thirteen years before he fell in love with Brynna. And hadn’t she been pretty tolerant of his new wife? Sam asked herself. Not perfect, maybe, but better than a lot of kids.
Why hadn’t he taken her aside and talked with her about this? Why hadn’t he let her get mad at him instead of spilling this big news, then sending her away? Of course he hadn’t planned this, but…
But he hadn’t.
And he probably had a perfectly good reason for not showing up to check on her, while she was surrounded by the towering flames of a wildfire.
“Act your age,” Sam mumbled.
She’d started worrying over Gabriel, and ended up feeling sorry for herself. If that wasn’t immature, what was?
Gram always said the quickest way to stop feeling sad was to quit thinking about how tough you had it, and do something nice for someone else.
And that someone had to be Brynna.
Even though she hadn’t said anything mean to her stepmother, Sam wanted to make up for her jealousy.
Picking one of Mrs. Allen’s flowers for her stepmother was lame.
Coffee, Sam thought. Brynna loved good coffee, and Sam was standing right in the middle of Mrs. Allen’s kitchen, so she’d make her a cup. Even though it was hot outside, it was cool enough inside that she’d appreciate it.
As she ran water into the kettle, Sam noticed her hands were black with grime from the fire. She finished setting up the drip coffeepot, then ducked into the downstairs bathroom to wash up.
Mirrored over the bathroom sink, she looked ready for Halloween. It was bad enough that soot and smoke smeared her face, but tears had channeled through the gray grunge. Her hair added to the look by sticking up in random clumps in a way Jake had once said made her look like a chrysanthemum.
Sam stuck out her tongue at her reflection, then set to work until the tea kettle whistled for attention.
Gently she poured the hot water over the ground coffee. She let it drip while she looked for some kind of snack. She was sure Mrs. Allen wouldn’t mind.
In one kitchen drawer, she found an opened package of chocolate sandwich cookies. Six were left, so she arranged them on a plate she found in a cupboard, next to a blue pottery mug with black speckles. She’d just poured coffee into the mug when Brynna came inside with the scent of smoke clinging to her clothes.
“I made you some coffee,” Sam said, extending the mug.
“I can’t drink it,” Brynna said. She took a long step back as if Sam had offered her poison. “It smells wonderful and I wish I could, but it’s bad for the baby.”
“Oh,” Sam said, looking into the dark-brown liquid.
“But I would love some ice water, and I’ll make some, right after I fix this up for you.” Brynna took the cup back to the kitchen counter. She opened Mrs. Allen’s refrigerator, surveyed the contents for a minute, then removed a short carton. “Real cream,” she said, then glanced at the date on its side, before pouring a silken stream into the cup. She added two heaping spoons of sugar, then handed Sam the cup. “See what you think.”
It was amazingly good.
“Wow,” Sam told Brynna. “You’re going to have to start making this for me every morning.”
“Dream on,” Brynna joked, but Sam could tell her stepmother was pleased.
From outside, there was a beeping sound, the kind of beep that says a truck is backing up and you’d better watch out or get run over. The fire trucks must be leaving the ranch.
“What did Luke say?” Sam asked.
“Luke told me the fire is ‘knocked down’ on this side of the river, so the horses can stay here,” Brynna said, once she held her glass of ice water.
“Good,” Sam said with a sigh.
“But the fire jumped the La Charla—”
It was a long, winding river, but one thought flashed through Sam’s mind.
“River Bend—!”
“—is okay as far as I know,” Brynna said. “I couldn’t get an answer on my cell phone,” Brynna said, “but that’s no big surprise.”
Sam nodded. Not only were Gram and Dad out of the house as often as they were in, but telephone reception was unpredictable. It rarely mattered, but it could be maddening in an emergency.
“Should you leave? I can check the horses myself,” Sam offered.
“There’s no point in it,” Brynna said. “Luke says Heck Ballard’s moved his road block and he’s only allowing emergency vehicles through.” Brynna shrugged as if it didn’t matter, but Sam saw her concern. “Luke called it a crown fire. I guess sparks blew as far as Aspen Creek and burned from treetop to treetop. He says it’s an unpredictable kind of fire, but not nearly as serious here as it would be lots of places.”
“’Cause we don’t have that many trees,” Sam agreed, but she thought of the cottonwoods’ shade along the river, and the few in their ranch yard. “I guess it’s a good thing Dad stayed home.”
And it explained why Dad still hadn’t shown up.
Brynna cleared her throat and gave a decisive nod, almost as if she didn’t want to talk. Was she afraid her voice would come out sounding shaky and worried?
Twenty minutes later, Ace and Judge were saddled. Sam and Brynna were ready to ride out and see if any of the mustangs needed treatment.
“This’ll be fun,” Brynna said with a hint of sarcasm, as she swung aboard Judge. Mrs. Allen’s elderly bay had fought each step of being saddled. Now he stood with nostrils distended, sucking in smoky air. After each breath he gave a high-pitched whinny.
“Want me to ride him?” Sam asked, though she was already mounted on Ace.
“Of course not,” Brynna said. She leaned forward to give the old gelding’s neck a pat. “We’ll do fine. Won’t we, Judge?”
Brynna reined the bay away from Ace, and jogged toward the big open pasture. As Sam followed, she found herself worrying about the baby again.
Brynna was an excellent rider and she knew the nature of horses, but accidents could happen. If Judge surprised her, and she fell, would she hurt the baby?
Sam blew her cheeks full of air, impatient with herself. If she kept up this paranoia, she’d be a basket case by January.
“Efficient guys,” Brynna said, nodding toward the sound of pounding hammers.
The truck she’d heard leaving must have been the one from Darton, because the volunteer fire truck, and firefighters, were still there.
Dressed in fireman’s yellow, Jake and Quinn nailed up boards to replace the fire scene tape they’d wound around the fence posts. Sam wondered, just for a minute, where they’d found the scrap lumber to do the job.
When she remembered the woodpile behind the barn, Sam thought of the snakes they’d had in their woodpile at River Bend. What if snakes fleeing the fire had taken refuge in Mrs. Allen’s woodpile?
Sam shuddered and vowed to keep her eyes open. She liked snakes fine, if they stayed far away from her.
Just now, though, she had other things to worry over.
Sam sucked her stomach in so hard it ached as they passed through the pasture gate. There must be fear in this smoke, she thought, because it had been months since she’d remembered her accident as she rode through a gate.
Now she imagined falling, impact against her skull, and the sound of fading hoofbeats.
“Quit dawdling, Ace.” She
scolded the bay gelding, and tightened her legs so he moved to catch up with Judge.
“Look who’s coming to see us,” Brynna said.
Sleek and swift as a Thoroughbred, the cocoa-brown horse was easy to recognize.
Apache Hotspot, Linc Slocum’s blue-blooded Appaloosa mare, had been stolen by the Phantom just a few weeks ago. Now she loped toward them, as if she’d had enough of freedom.
Ace’s head flew up and Sam felt exhilaration course through the gelding. If she didn’t keep Ace reined in, he’d bolt to greet Hotspot. A glance told Sam that Brynna was gathering Judge’s reins tighter as well.
Just yards away, Hotspot swerved away, but she looked over her shoulder, past her milky body and white tail, watching the riders come closer.
“She’s still wearing her halter,” Sam noticed.
“Yes, I think she’s all dressed up to go home,” Brynna said.
Brynna was joking, but Hotspot’s solitary greeting gave Sam a bad feeling.
The Appaloosa mare had been running with the Phantom’s herd. Even though she was stable bred, shouldn’t she want to stick with the band now, when she’d just been through a frightening experience?
“Those blood bays are from his herd, too,” Brynna said as two grazing mustangs noticed the riders and galloped away.
Was the Phantom’s herd falling apart?
Sam gritted her teeth. Ace’s gait turned from a fluid jog to a jolting, uncomfortable trot, as if despair had telegraphed down the reins.
Sam tried not to lose hope, but she was afraid. These scattered horses might be telling her the Phantom’s power was gone.
Chapter Ten
It was a long time until they saw another horse.
Sam’s legs felt raw inside her jeans. It must’ve been droplets from the fire hoses that had made the old, soft denim chafe.
Her nose was stuffy and her sinuses, just above her eyebrows, hurt. She thought of Pirate’s swollen face. Breathing smoke was just plain bad for everyone and she didn’t know how firefighters lived with it.
As they splashed through puddles, Sam realized that the storm that Blaze’s howls and the spinning spider had predicted had just been a cloudburst, but it had changed everything.
They rode up a sagebrush slope, and Hotspot tagged along, refusing to be left behind.
“Do you suppose I should call Mrs. Allen and tell her everything’s all right?” Sam asked Brynna. “If she saw a report on television, she might worry.”
“I doubt it was big enough to be covered in Denver,” Brynna said. “It seems huge to us because it’s our home, but other people assume there’s nothing out here,” Brynna shrugged. “Trudy will be calling you soon, anyway.”
“She will?” Sam asked. She knew Mrs. Allen would ask about Imp and Angel, and Sam hoped they’d be back by then.
“Your gram talked with her early this morning. Nothing has changed with her grandson so far. They’re worried and waiting.”
Sam swallowed hard and looked at the range ahead. Dusk was coming. It was hard to tell through the lingering smoke.
“Let’s check the drop-off,” Brynna said.
Sam shivered at the reminder of the night they’d searched for Faith. Mrs. Allen had sent the adults looking in this direction, because of the dangerous terrain. During some ancient flood, the river had carved off a piece of land and left a steep drop-off down to the riverbank.
“That’s not so bad,” Sam said once they drew rein at the edge. A narrow path, wide enough for a single horse, led down the La Charla River. “Although, in a snowstorm—”
“You could blunder right off the edge,” Brynna finished. “Good thing she’s got a fence on the other side.”
Sam agreed. Now, the La Charla was running fairly high, but by late summer it would be no barrier to the horses.
“Looks like they’ve been here,” Brynna added, and Sam saw the fresh imprints of many hooves in the damp sandy soil around the base of a string of willow trees.
They rode on.
Ace shied when Brynna raised the left hand that had rested on her thigh as they rode. Judge shambled to a stop and Sam looked ahead.
Both mustang herds were in disarray.
Belle grazed alongside the mare Fourteen and her colt Windfall, but Faith had ventured away to extend her sniffing nose toward Sugar, the Phantom’s roan filly and a wild yellow dun. When the wild mustangs ignored her, Faith twitched her dark-gold ears toward a movement acres away.
The sightless filly had sensed the Phantom. He glowed moon silver, far to the left of most of the scattered horses. Flanked by Queen and his honey-brown lead mare, Sam wondered why he still looked so alone.
The stallion circled in a small area no bigger than a basketball court. His head swung from side to side, but he was on level ground. He couldn’t be on guard. In fact, he didn’t look at anything for more than a second.
“He couldn’t have gone blind, too. Could he?” Sam asked, horrified by the stallion’s vague, out-of-touch manner.
“He’s in shock,” Brynna whispered.
An ache spread from Sam’s breastbone. It wrapped around her chest to her spine, like a thick iron band.
Poor sweet Blackie, Sam thought. As a foal, he’d looked this lost on the day he’d been weaned. Something had been taken from him, and he couldn’t understand why.
All at once, he broke into a determined trot, crossing to greet one of Mrs. Allen’s horses, a sorrel filly with the twisted legs. She froze to attention, eyes wide, nostrils flared. The Phantom snorted his breath into her nostrils, and moved on to Licorice. The black mare trembled, but she stood still for the Phantom’s inspection, letting him sniff along her back before he moved on to Belle.
Clearly uneasy, the paint mare swung her haunches to bump a curious foal away. Still, Belle recognized the Phantom as a superior, and she accepted his greeting and returned it with a snort of her own.
“That’s what would happen in the wild,” Brynna said softly, “if he came across mares without a herd stallion. Look at Roman. He can’t decide if he should challenge.”
The liver-chestnut gelding stood under a tall cottonwood tree, watching. From the first day the adopted mustangs had been herded from Willow Springs Wild Horse Center to Deerpath Ranch, he had been the boss.
With his long mane and untrimmed hair under his cheeks and chin, Roman looked primitive and fierce, but the Phantom was a tested range stallion and Roman seemed to know it.
Motionless, Roman watched the stallion examine each captive mustang. When a branch above him creaked in the hot wind, Roman shied. He’d been that intent.
Tension in the captive herd made the horses near the Phantom start to quarrel. Ears flattened. Teeth flashed. They were ready for this scrutiny to end.
Finally, Roman neighed a protest at the Phantom’s intrusion. The silver stallion didn’t notice. He continued sniffing Windfall’s ears.
“Oh no. He didn’t hear that,” Sam said, worried.
Brynna nodded, and her reddish eyebrows lowered in a frown.
The lack of a response made Roman brave. A forefoot struck out. His neck arched and he pranced toward the Phantom.
Though he hadn’t heard, the Phantom saw the movement. He shook his heavy mane, turned his tail to Roman, and moved away, slow as a sleepwalker.
“He’s not giving up,” Sam said.
“No, but Roman doesn’t—”
Before Brynna could finish, Roman charged toward the Phantom, stopping short in a half rear which raised his head above the stallion’s in a move to show his dominance.
The Phantom must have felt the earth shake from the gelding’s charge, because he swung around in time to see Roman’s rear.
At a weary trot, the Phantom returned to face the liver chestnut. Ears tilted forward, the silver stallion signaled he’d meant no harm. When Roman kept his ears pinned and rose in a second rear, the Phantom rumbled a low neigh, reared even higher, and came down hard on the gelding’s back.
Though Roman h
ad fallen to his knees, the Phantom didn’t continue the attack.
“He’s not even trying,” Sam said.
“I know,” Brynna answered.
They’d seen the Phantom battle other stallions before. This action was only a warning.
He had no interest in claiming Roman’s herd. The silver stallion proved it by wheeling and loping away, to stand alone with his head lowered.
“He might do all right on the range, even if he couldn’t hear,” Sam said, but she didn’t even convince herself.
The Phantom might rule inside pasture fences. Free, he wouldn’t face uncertain geldings like Roman. Last spring he’d beaten young stallions like New Moon and Yellow Tail, but as each day of summer passed, they grew stronger and smarter.
“That horse couldn’t have a better friend than you,” Brynna said suddenly.
“I don’t know,” Sam said. “I was just about to take back what I said. I’m not sure he would survive on the range.”
“That’s why I think you’re his best friend. Most of the time, people see something wild and beautiful and their impulse is to tame it. It never occurs to them that they’re taking away what makes it beautiful. But you don’t feel like that, do you?”
“No,” Sam said. “There’s like this magic connection between us—”
“Okay, stop right there,” Brynna said. “That’s what I wanted to talk with you about earlier. You and the Phantom do have a special relationship, but it’s a bond based on good horse handling, not magic.”
“I didn’t exactly mean—”
“Wyatt told me you slept in his stall on the night he was born. Today they’d call that imprinting. And you gentled him, rather than breaking him.”
“Jake had a lot to do with the way I trained him,” Sam said.
“Right, and I’ve read the literature, Sam. There’s nothing mystical about Native American horse training. It considers horses’ minds, the fact that they’re prey animals, herd animals…” Brynna paused to draw a breath, and she must have seen Sam’s surprise at her tirade.
“I’m sorry for going off like that, but I don’t want you to be taken in with Callie’s mystical nonsense.”