by Terri Farley
Since they were only children, Sam and Jen had told Nicolas how much they envied him, but he’d laughed. “That’s because you don’t know my sister.”
Later, he’d shown them his camping permits, his backup plans for detours and delays, and explained how hard it would be on Lace if they encountered an autumn snowstorm.
Nicolas regretted spending two nights, instead of one, in this “mustang camp.” He’d hoped they’d be far enough south to avoid harsh weather when it came.
Sam glanced skyward. Mounded like white cotton candy, the clouds didn’t look threatening.
“I know my Gram will insist on feeding you,” Sam told Nicolas, “so plan on staying for lunch.”
“I don’t know,” Nicolas said. “I want to reach Darton tomorrow.”
“You’ll make up the time by not eating for the next two days,” Jen told Nicolas. “Believe me, I’ll be staying, too. Sam’s grandmother is the best cook in the county.”
“Well, maybe,” Nicolas began.
“And Brynna should take a look at the colt,” Jen said.
“Why?” Nicolas asked. Suddenly the line of suspicion above his left eyebrow was back. “Nothing’s wrong with him.”
Sam jumped in to explain. “It’s just that Brynna—my stepmother—works for the BLM—”
“That would be, the Bureau of something?” Nicolas asked.
“The Bureau of Land Management, and—”
“I have all my paperwork,” Nicolas broke in.
“Wait,” Sam said. Why was Nicolas being so prickly? “The Bureau of Land Management is in charge of wild horses, not just land.”
“Go on,” Nicolas said after a few seconds.
“And Brynna is the manager of Willow Springs Wild Horse Center. She’s a biologist and she wouldn’t care about your paperwork unless you were doing something destructive—”
“Which you’re not,” Jen put in.
“Right,” Sam said, “but Brynna is a wild horse expert. She might know what’s up with your little tagalong.”
Sam almost bit her tongue for sounding so cutesy, but the words had just come tumbling out as she tried to get Nicolas to settle down and trust her.
“I won’t let anything bad happen to that colt,” she added without thinking.
“Believe her,” Jen said, slinging an arm around Sam’s shoulders. “Ninety-nine point nine percent of the trouble Sam gets in is over wild horses. She loves them more than she loves her family and friends.”
Jen gave a tragic sigh and let her head plop down on her friend’s shoulder.
Sam rolled her eyes and Nicolas laughed, but then he said, “I’ve heard about the pens where they take wild horses they round up.”
Sam followed Nicolas’s gaze as he looked at the dun colt. Bored with all their talking, the colt had folded his legs and nodded into a nap.
“I know I can’t keep him, but I wish he could stay free.”
“Maybe that’s not what he wants,” Jen said, adjusting her glasses on the bridge of her nose. “After all, he joined up with you.”
“He joined up with Lace,” Nicolas corrected her. “He hasn’t let me touch him.”
Sam sighed. Each time she’d reached for the little dun, he’d skittered away, but she’d thought it was because he didn’t know her.
“He could belong to someone,” Sam suggested. “And Brynna knows how to look him over for brands, tattoos, microchips, and all that stuff.”
“Something could have happened to his mother and he just wandered off on his own.” Jen looked thoughtful for a moment. “Maybe his owner’s posted a reward for—”
“I don’t want a reward,” Nicolas interrupted.
“Okay, we’ll take it!” Jen said, but she shot a quick sideways glance at Nicolas.
“I don’t want anyone to be suspicious,” he explained. “I let him follow us because he wanted to, not because—”
“We’re not suspicious and Brynna won’t be, either,” Sam said flatly. “We’ve had lots of experience with horse thieves—”
“Oh, good,” Nicolas moaned.
“—and you’re not one,” Sam finished.
Nicolas fixed her with a look that said she couldn’t possibly know that for sure, but Sam held up her hand.
“I know what I know,” she insisted. Then she folded her arms and nodded.
“Forsters are notoriously stubborn,” Jen pretended to whisper to Nicolas. “We might as well mount up and go. If you try to talk her out of it, we’ll be here all day.”
Minutes later, two riders, one caravan wagon, and a skipping foal trotted out into the autumn morning. The crunch and thud of hooves crossing orange and yellow leaves made their passage a celebration.
This was a lot better than lying in the dry grass waiting for vultures to swoop down for a peek, Sam thought, and she was pretty sure she didn’t have any Sunday night homework.
When the horses settled into a walk, Nicolas took out his violin and played a jig he called traveling music.
Once, from the corner of her eye, Sam thought she caught movement. She halted Ace and swung him around, backtracking in case the Phantom had followed, but she didn’t spot the stallion.
Surely his instincts would keep him away during the daylight, no matter how much he liked Nicolas’s songs. Especially if someone was firing a gun.
Sam reined Ace back onto the path. In a few steps he’d caught up with Silly and Jen.
They’d been on the trail for almost an hour when they heard another shot.
Sam and Jen drew rein. Lace snorted and stopped. She reached her chin over the colt’s crest, pulling him close.
“Definitely a gunshot,” Jen said.
“But what’s that?” Nicolas asked.
Dry grass crackled as something crashed through it.
An animal, Sam thought. Was it fleeing the gunman?
“It’s the coydog,” Nicolas said.
Sam’s breath caught. She twisted in the saddle and noticed Nicolas, sitting high on the wagon’s driver’s seat, had a better view. Could he really see—
The horses shied as a patchwork coat of coyote gray and white showed through the brush. The pup streaked closer, then sensed the horses and humans, and changed course.
Sam stood in her stirrups, searching for more swaying grasses that would show her that the female coyote and Blaze were with the pup, but she saw nothing.
The pup was doing okay on his own. Fleet and determined, he kept running. For a baby, he was doing a great job. He’d outdistance whatever followed him.
But why was he alone?
Chapter Seven
Cracking through the sunny morning came another gunshot. Then a yelp.
The dun colt bolted and Sam gathered her reins, ready to send Ace galloping after him until Nicolas shouted, “Let him go. He’ll come back to Lace.”
When she heard a volley of barks, Sam knew she couldn’t have set off after the colt anyway.
“Blaze!” Sam screamed.
“Stay here,” Jen ordered, but Sam didn’t listen.
Galloping toward gunfire was a stupid thing to do, but she had to help Blaze. Shouting as she rode, Sam hoped whoever held that rifle would hear her human commotion and stop firing.
When she rode into the clearing, the damage was already done.
Sam’s heart almost broke when she saw Blaze on his belly, ears back and mouth open in a submissive grin, begging the shooter to stop.
Her dog was alive, but his mate wasn’t.
Blaze didn’t notice she was there. His eyes watched Linc Slocum.
Mounted on his sturdy palomino, Linc held his rifle butt snug against his shoulder, but the barrel drooped. Done shooting, he wore a satisfied smile.
Hadn’t he noticed the grieving Border collie pulling himself across the ground toward the coyote?
She was dead. Sam didn’t have to look twice to know the female coyote would never move again. Sprawled so that her soft belly showed, with her shoulder wrenched to one side, Blaze
’s mate lay where the bullet had spun her back and killed her.
Nostrils flaring at the blood smell, Ace swung his head away, but stayed where Sam had stopped him. Silly gave a low, worried neigh. Hooves struck wood somewhere behind her, making Sam wonder if Lace was kicking at the cart. Maybe she wanted to run away and Nicolas wouldn’t let her.
Blaze whined. Poor sweet, smart dog, Sam thought. Instead of attacking the armed man, he acted submissive. Blaze knew guns were loud. Maybe he sensed they were deadly, too, because his front paws dragged him closer to his mate, but he didn’t growl.
Sam wasn’t half as careful.
“What’s wrong with you?” she shouted.
The smug grin slipped off Linc Slocum’s face.
Jen said something. Nicolas did, too, but their voices were whispers next to the raging in her mind.
“Why do you have to kill things?” Sam yelled at Linc.
What if she rode straight at him, crashing Ace into Champ, knocking Linc to the ground so he’d know how it felt to be helpless?
The impulse evaporated as she stared at the black eye of the gun’s barrel. She couldn’t risk her horse. Or his.
A buzz like ten million killer bees droned in Sam’s ears as she slid down from the saddle. Her knees didn’t lock. She staggered a step before flinging her reins down, making sure Ace understood her order to stay ground-tied.
Blowing the horrible scents from his nostrils, the gelding stayed, but he didn’t like it.
“That coyote attacked your dog!” Linc yelled defensively.
“No—” Sam began.
“She couldn’t have. They were playing together last night,” Jen snapped.
Jen had a lot to lose by confronting Linc Slocum, Sam thought. But she stood up for what was right.
Sam sank to the ground beside Blaze.
“Poor boy,” she said. Her hands skimmed over his glossy fur. She saw no blood, but her fingers searched for hidden wounds.
Blaze lurched forward, crawling to the coyote’s side, and Sam moved along with him.
A quick look showed a pink tongue hanging from the corner of the coyote’s blood-flecked muzzle. Her teeth shone white. Her eyes stared brown and surprised.
Sam buried her face in Blaze’s fur. She couldn’t cry. She couldn’t look weak when she stood up to Linc Slocum.
“I don’t care what you say,” Linc spoke in a lofty tone. “I was just plinkin’ at coyotes and I saw that one”—he gestured with his gun barrel—“set on your dog. Savin’ him was the neighborly thing to do.”
“She was his mate.” Nicolas’s voice was quiet but bitter.
Sniffing, Sam looked at him. So did Jen and Linc.
For a second, Nicolas looked down at the reins in his hands, but then his chin lifted and he took them all in with a single look.
“It attacked your dog,” Linc insisted. He jammed his rifle into his saddle scabbard, and cleared his throat.
When no one else spoke, he tried to shift their accusing stares away from him, to Nicolas. “I don’t know who in heck you are. His ‘mate’? You, with your fancy pony cart, you don’t know nothin’ about dogs and coyotes, tellin’ a tall tale like that.”
Lace couldn’t have understood Linc’s words, but she sensed their emotion. Her mighty front hooves lifted free of the earth. Her ears pressed back, disappearing into the thickness of her mane. Mouth opened wide, she threatened Linc with her teeth.
Nicolas drew back on the reins and murmured foreign, sweet-sounding words to her.
Sam felt a yell swelling her chest, but she tried to keep it from getting out by petting Blaze’s head over and over again. He was panting now, uncomforted by her touch.
Without a chance to protect his family, his training had kicked in. Blaze knew he wasn’t supposed to attack humans, but when his eyes rolled up to meet Sam’s, they were filled with confusion.
She gave his head a final kiss and stood up. Before she uttered a word, Linc straightened in the saddle, trying to make himself taller.
“You jumped to a conclusion instead of seeing what was right in front of you,” Sam said, doing her best to get through to him. “Jen’s right. We saw Blaze and the coyote playing. You couldn’t have mistaken that for an attack.”
“They weren’t playing,” Linc said. “They heard me and took off running.”
Pride filled his voice. Was Linc glad the animals feared him?
Sam swallowed hard. Fighting to keep her voice level, she must have made a faint sound Blaze took for a growl, because the dog scrambled to his feet. Lowering his head, he began to snarl.
Sam grabbed his collar. Linc deserved the punishment Blaze could inflict, but the man’s hand hovered near the saddle scabbard, keeping his rifle within reach.
Linc hadn’t snuffed out the coyote’s life for food or because he was in danger. She didn’t think he’d been afraid of the animal, either. Linc had killed the coyote simply because he could.
Linc stared at Nicolas, eyes darting from the brightly painted wagon to the beautiful horse. Then he shook his head. Sam didn’t know what he was thinking, and she didn’t care.
Jen urged her mare forward and looked down on the coyote. Last night, playing with her pup, the coyote’s coat had shone like stardust. Not anymore.
“It was a clean shot,” Jen said, but her voice quavered.
Sam could tell the words were all Jen could offer to comfort her, but they both knew they weren’t enough.
“There, y’see?” Linc gloated. “I been plinkin’ at coyotes since I moved here. I’m no beginner at gunplay.” Linc puffed out his chest with pride. “Jennifer means she didn’t suffer.”
“I know what Jen means,” Sam said. “But that coyote was just taking care of her family. You killed her for no reason.”
Linc dismounted in a series of clumsy movements. He swung one heavy leg over Champ’s back. His body wobbled, the saddle shifted, and his left stirrup creaked at the sudden weight before Linc made it to the ground.
“They’re vermin,” he said, slightly out of breath. “I’ll skin this one out and hang its carcass on my barbed-wire fence to warn off the rest of his kind.”
“Her,” Nicolas said softly. He looked…not sick, exactly, but appalled. And interested.
Morbid fascination, Sam thought. Wasn’t that the term people used when they didn’t want to stare at something awful, but couldn’t look away?
Even though he was a college guy, he lived in the city. He’d probably never seen anything like this.
“Are coyotes preying on your livestock?” Nicolas asked.
“Not that you got any right to interrogate me,” Linc said, “but they could be. It’s better to be safe than sorry.”
Linc didn’t keep track of ranch affairs. He left that to his foreman, Jen’s dad.
Sam’s quick side glance caught Jen shaking her head.
“There haven’t been any calf kills by coyotes,” Jen said.
Linc cleared his throat impatiently.
“If the sheriff hears about this—” Sam began.
“I’d have to pay a piddly little fine,” Linc scoffed, then he shook his head with pity, as if Sam just didn’t understand. “I’ve got enough money to burn a wet mule, if you get my meaning. And I don’t have to put up with accusations from a bunch of kids. I think I’ll call the sheriff myself and tell him you all are trespassing on my land.”
Sam didn’t think they were, but the range was a patchwork of ranches and public lands. In these leafy woods, without landmarks, she couldn’t be sure.
She didn’t contradict Slocum, but she sure wanted to get to the sheriff first.
Nicolas had turned his attention back to Lace and Sam could see why. The mare’s black-and-white tail swished with edgy energy. She launched a backward kick that struck the wagon, and Nicolas murmured to her.
“Who is that kid, anyway?” Linc aimed his question toward Jen. “And what kind of jibber-jabber is he talking?”
“I couldn’t say,” Jen told him
, and Sam shrugged.
“I don’t like his looks,” Linc told them, as if Nicolas couldn’t hear. Then he called out, “That’s some horse.”
“Thank you,” Nicolas said.
“Where’d you get her?”
“She was a gift,” Nicolas said.
Linc snorted, then focused on Nicolas’s frayed jeans and dark skin before he said, “Yeah, I bet.”
Sam wished Gram were here. Gram said you should try to love everyone, but Linc Slocum made that impossible. With three words and a look, he’d accused Nicolas of being a liar and a thief.
“Come, Blaze,” Sam said. She patted her leg, trying to attract the dog’s attention before he noticed Linc had squatted next to the coyote’s body.
She didn’t know what Slocum had in mind, but the fur bristled on Blaze’s back.
She’d better get Blaze out of there, Sam thought.
“Let’s go,” Jen said, backing Silly alongside Ace. She looked down at Blaze. “He’ll come with us, won’t he?”
“I hope so,” Sam said, then hesitated. “Don’t you think we should stick around and hope the colt comes back? And”—she lowered her voice to a whisper—“what about the pup?”
“Stick around? I told you,” Linc said, “you’re trespassing and you can by God expect a visit from the sheriff.”
Linc looked annoyed that she didn’t tremble at his threat.
“The sooner we get away from this spot, the sooner the colt will return to Lace. This is what scared him,” Nicolas said. He lifted his chin in a gesture that included the clearing, Slocum, and his gun.
“Okay,” Sam said. “He’ll probably catch up.”
As they moved off, she glanced back and saw Linc pick up the coyote. Her limp body looked nothing like the light, dancing creature from last night. She flopped like a rag in his hands.
Sam turned her attention to the trail leading home.