by Terri Farley
Not a cougar, bear, or bad guy, but a dog. Battling her relief, Sam made out a shape in the shadows just as the stallion and the coydog touched noses.
Blaze’s boy, Sam thought crazily. Clearly the two creatures had met, so that growl had been for her. She couldn’t blame the coydog. What he knew of humans was horrible.
Blinking, Sam had the impression of gray-black fur over a pale and fuzzy undercoat. Along his spine, a strip of hair rose up like a Mohawk haircut. More fur bristled on the coydog’s shoulders.
A sudden lapping sound told Sam the pup had turned his attention from her. His tongue licked the pads on his feet, soothing paws that had traveled a long way. But she must have made some sound, because he stopped and raised his head. Clouds must have parted outside and unmasked the sun, because faint light showed more than the coydog’s outline now. His eyes shone amber and Sam’s concern for the pup turned back to fear.
Food, Sam thought. Although she knew humans should rarely offer food to wild creatures, the coydog was curled up between her and the way out. Winning him over with food was her best bet.
Feeling the Phantom beside her, Sam tried talking to the pup, even though she knew she wouldn’t sound like a member of his pack.
“Yes, I’m going for the jerky in my pocket.” Sam’s coaxing tone and movement made the coydog’s ears prick toward her. “You’ll like it. I promise. Then you’ll follow me outside and soon your dad will show up with—”
Jake! He would have kept his promise to meet her at the ranch at dawn. And it was getting light outside.
Sensing her uneasiness, the coydog yapped.
“It’s okay, baby. I just did something stupid.”
How long had Jake waited before banging on the ranch house door? No, he would have waited in Dad’s truck with Blaze, then thrown pebbles at her window to wake her. When she hadn’t responded, then what?
She couldn’t worry about that now. She had to escape the tunnel while the coydog was calm.
Sam flipped an inch-long chunk of jerky toward the pup. He came to his feet before it fell. With a crack of sharp teeth, he caught the jerky in midair and gulped it down.
“You’re hungry, aren’t you?” Sam asked. She kept her voice relaxed, but this snapping hunger scared her.
The Phantom’s shoulder bumped Sam out of the way. Then his head lowered to give the pup a hard nosing.
“Zanzibar, my hero,” Sam crooned, suddenly amazed by the scene before her.
She thought of Linc calling Nicolas a gypsy thief. She thought of Nicolas’s quirked eyebrow and constant suspicion. Neither of them had half as much reason to distrust each other as the stallion and this coydog.
But these two were getting along.
Even though the pup was a predator who could one day bring down a mustang foal, the Phantom treated the pup as a friend.
The Phantom’s nicker filled the tunnel with echoes as he backed away from Sam and the coydog. If a mare’s call had beckoned him from the secret valley, Sam hadn’t heard it. But something had summoned the stallion. His sleek body bent almost in half and then he turned to go.
Zanzibar? Sam kept the melancholy sound to herself. It was time for him to return to his herd and time for her to try her luck back in the real world. But Sam couldn’t help peering after him. She glimpsed his silver waterfall of a tail, but it moved off, fading to a faint haze of gray, before that, too, was erased by the tunnel’s darkness.
In a single minute, there was no sight, sound, or smell that indicated the wild horse had ever been there.
But then a whimper as faint as her own breath came from the pup. He’d turned his head to one side. If she could get the coydog outside, Blaze would tell him what to do. If only Jake had brought him.
Then, with solid certainty, she knew that Jake had followed her. Cowboys said Jake could track a bumblebee in a snowstorm. He wouldn’t have a moment of trouble following the Phantom’s hoofprints on muddy ground.
Half of Sam hoped the deluge of hail had battered away the stallion’s tracks. The other half of her hoped Jake was outside, waiting to help her save this misfit puppy.
Sam walked backward. She dropped bits of jerky and the coydog followed. She didn’t take her eyes from him and he watched her just as closely as they emerged into the morning light. And the rain.
Gasping at the sudden chill, Sam pulled up the hood of her poncho, but gusting wind jerked it off again and the pup growled each time she reached for it.
“Fine,” she muttered. “I’ll leave it down and get pneumonia.”
Sam put the toe of one boot behind the heel of the other. If she kept the treeless north face of the hillside across from the mouth of the tunnel, on her right, she should reach the steep downward path in a few minutes.
The rain had to stop soon. Already the light was hazy, as if it had been strained through peach-colored cloth; and though rivulets of rainwater snaked over the dirt, making the path slippery, the thirsty ground would soon soak them up.
“What happens when I run out of jerky?” Sam asked the pup, but that wasn’t her worst problem. She couldn’t go backward down the hillside covered with shale the size of china plates. It would be safer to turn her back on the coydog and hope he didn’t attack.
Sam stopped and stared at the pup. Oversized ears cupped toward her and the coydog yapped his impatience for more food. Sam drew a deep breath, threw him about one-third of her last piece of jerky, then turned around and started down the hillside.
He whined, but he didn’t follow. Sam listened between each footstep. Though his cries continued, they didn’t come closer.
At least she knew where he was now. And she’d bet he’d return to the tunnel, where he’d made his own den. Besides, if he wanted more easy food, he’d track her.
The thought of tracking made Sam lift her gaze from the trail. She spotted Dad’s blue truck. Some distance closer, next to an outcropping of black rock, Jake waited for her in the rain.
Chills covered Sam’s arms inside her shirt. For a second, she told herself it was just a reaction to the rain dripping down the neck of her poncho, off her sodden hair, but she knew it was more than that.
Jake had tracked her headlong gallop on the Phantom this far. He could have pursued her the rest of the way to the hidden tunnel and the secret valley of wild horses, but he hadn’t. Sam drew a deep breath and held it.
She didn’t know what to think. Ever since the accident—no, ever since her return home after the accident—Jake had been protective beyond belief. He’d vowed to stick to her like glue, and he had. But now he stood down there, soaking wet and waiting, instead of barging after her.
What would he say when she reached him? What would she say? It struck Sam that the phrase “Don’t ask and don’t tell” was perfect for a situation like this.
A scrabble of claws and a panting whine told Sam that the pup was following. When she turned around, he sat, turned his head to one side, and gave a complaining whine.
“Here you go, greedy guts,” Sam whispered.
He caught the tossed sliver of jerky, licked his lips, gave a doggish tail wag, and Sam told herself she had no more time to ponder the mysteries of Jake Ely’s brain. She had to keep walking, leading this pup toward his new home.
Jake’s black oiled cotton duster hung near to the ground and rain dripped off the brim of his black Stetson. He should have looked sinister, but he didn’t.
Not to Sam, at least, but the coydog had stopped a few hundred yards behind her to race back and forth, too afraid to come nearer, too hungry to flee.
“Want to get in outta the rain?” Jake asked.
“You mean get in the truck?” Sam asked. “I can’t. The coy—”
“I see him. So does Blaze.”
Dad’s blue truck vibrated with barks and seemed to shift from side to side as Blaze pounced at the windows.
“He’s spotted his pup,” Sam said.
Jake nodded, but then a blast of wind blew Sam’s hood off again.
/> “Take this, at least, if you won’t get inside.”
Jake took off his black hat and settled it on her head and for a minute Sam smiled, but then the hat dropped past her ears and blocked her view of everything around.
“It’s too big, but thanks.” She handed it back, then crossed her fingers, hoping Jake wouldn’t ask about the Phantom or her wild ride through the hailstorm. “What if we let him out?”
Jake sighed. “Worth a try,” he said, then strode away from Sam to the truck and flung open the door.
Blaze leaped from the truck and hit the ground running. Frantic with joy, the little coydog ran to meet him, letting himself be bowled over before he jumped up and ran circles around his father.
Their joyous reunion continued until Jake took a few steps toward the animals. Then, the coydog froze, lowered his head, and growled. Blaze ran away from the pup, back toward Sam, and the coydog stood barking, unsure if he should obey his wild nature or domesticated one.
All at once, Blaze raced back toward the pup, pinned him, and stood snarling above him.
“What’s he doing?” Sam gasped.
“Just showing him who’s top dog,” Jake said.
And then it became clear the pup wasn’t a bit worried. He looked away from Blaze, then closed his eyes and thumped his tail. He looked peaceful, Sam thought, as if he’d come home.
“How should we get him home?” Sam asked.
“Put Blaze in the truck bed with me. I’ll rope the young one if I have to, bundle him in a blanket so he doesn’t bite me, and haul him that way to River Bend. Then I guess you can pen him up.”
“That all makes sense except for the part where the truck won’t haul you back to River Bend because you won’t be driving,” Sam said.
“You will,” Jake said.
“What? I don’t know how to drive! I’m not old enough, I’m—”
“Scared?” Jake asked. He pretended to roll stiffness out of his shoulders, but Sam saw the smile playing on his lips as he watched Blaze and the pup flop down side by side, panting. Jake must be teasing her.
“Big joke,” Sam said. “What are we really going to do?”
“Got a better plan?”
“You’re serious?” Sam asked.
“Leave them be a minute and let me show you. It’s easy.”
Hands shaking, Sam followed Jake toward the truck, but she wasn’t resigned to what he was asking. Not by a long shot.
As Jake pulled open the driver’s door, a bit of heat greeted Sam. Okay, that part of driving would be better than riding in the back with the dogs.
Jake climbed into the truck and settled into the driver’s seat.
“I can’t—” Sam began, and he clamped his hand on her shoulder.
“Stand right here and watch,” Jake said.
Sam watched. Starting the truck looked easy. Putting it in neutral—the wiggly middle position—didn’t look very hard either, but pushing in the floor pedal to shift into first gear looked like it took some coordination.
“If you grind the gears a little, it doesn’t matter,” Jake told her. “If you kill the engine—”
“What’s that mean? If I kill anything about this truck I might as well run away from home!”
“It’s no big deal. Now,” Jake said, sliding out of the truck, “just hop up here.”
“Why are you so excited about this?” Sam asked.
“Because driving is fun. You’ll love it, and you’ll always remember I taught you—”
Jake broke off, shaking his head. He seemed embarrassed to have admitted such a thing, and Sam might have gone along with him for that reason alone, except for one thing.
What if she crashed? Suddenly she thought of the car accident that had killed her mother and the morning chill turned icy. Jake and Blaze and the pup would be in the back of the truck without seat belts, without a roof to protect them. If the truck rolled…
Sam grabbed the doorframe as Jake nudged her to get into the driver’s seat.
“Jake, I can’t do it.”
“Yeah, you can.” Jake lifted her off her feet.
“What are you—?” Sam gasped, and though her fingers released their grip on the doorframe her hands were shaking as Jake deposited her into the driver’s seat.
“Hands on the wheel,” Jake ordered, but then his voice softened. “I know what you’re thinkin’.”
“You do?” Sam asked.
“Yep, but you’ll be goin’ so slow that anything—including a ladybug—can get outta your way. And you’ll stop before you get to the bridge over the La Charla.”
“Well,” Sam began, not at all sure he knew she was thinking about Mom’s accident.
Jake looked down at her with the mustang eyes Sam remembered from childhood and said, “I won’t let you get hurt this time.”
Jake was wrong about what she was thinking, but she couldn’t correct him. If he thought she was afraid to drive because she was remembering her accident with the Phantom when he’d been a two-year-old horse, the accident Jake felt responsible for, well, Sam knew she owed it to Jake to do her best.
“I’ll give it a try,” she surrendered.
“Ride ’em, cowgirl,” Jake said, and then he released a buckaroo yell that not only made the hair on the back of Sam’s neck stand up, it had both dogs on their feet and barking, too.
Chapter Eighteen
Twenty minutes later, Jake had roped the coydog and bundled him into a blanket.
“I won’t hurt him,” Jake told Sam.
“I know you won’t,” Sam said, but she was still amazed at Jake’s gentleness.
Cradling the struggling young animal against his chest, Jake climbed into the back of the truck, sat, and wedged his back into a corner against the truck cab, where they’d be most sheltered from the cold wind.
Blaze stood alongside, panting with his ears back, wordlessly begging Jake for mercy.
“Don’t you”—Jake grunted; strong as he was, Jake still worked to keep the coydog from thrashing loose—“worry,” Jake told the Border collie as Sam prepared to make her first drive with passengers. “You either,” he told Sam.
Blaze threw himself down next to Jake and leaned against him. His nearness caused the pup to heave a loud sigh and finally he was still.
With her live cargo settled, Sam braced to do one of the bravest things she’d ever done—drive.
She turned away from Jake, but turned back again when she heard a weird warbling sound.
The coydog shoved his gray-black muzzle out of his blanket cocoon, tilted his mouth skyward, and burst into a long, mournful howl.
What was he doing? Coyotes howled to claim territory, to communicate across long distances, or celebrate a hunt, not like this, not mourning a loss of freedom.
Both Jake and Sam checked Blaze’s reaction.
The Border collie pricked his ears forward. Then he laid his head on his front paws. The dog was unconcerned, but Jake closed his eyes and pressed his face against the coydog as if he hated his part in this capture.
Jake cleared his throat. His voice was gruff as he said, “Don’t that about break your heart?”
Sam felt as if the entire world had gone still. She’d never seen Jake so touched. He’d be humiliated if he shed a single tear, so she didn’t let it happen.
“Naw,” Sam said, lifting her chin. “He’s singing.”
Jake didn’t release his hold on the pup as it grumbled, forced its muffled way between Jake and Blaze, then curled up.
“Think so?” Jake asked, unconvinced.
Sam didn’t, but she knew the coydog would be safer on the ranch, if only because he was no hunter. In the tunnel, he’d been famished. With winter coming on, he might starve. But she wasn’t about to talk to Jake about the tunnel. She stuck with the idea that the pup had been singing.
“Gosh, Jake, I hate it when I know more about Native American stuff than you do. Didn’t I read something about a coyote singing the world into being?”
He shrugged and the sleeping pup’s head moved on his arm, but his eyes stayed closed. “Grandfather calls coyotes ‘song dogs’ sometimes, but he makes stuff up when it suits him.” Jake cleared his throat once more. “You gonna stand here jawin’ all day or you gonna drive?”
The truck gave a terrible screech when Sam turned the key to start it, and found the engine already running, but that was her worst mistake.
Driving home, she killed the engine three times by going too slow. Two out of three times, the ground was so level, the truck just stopped. She caught herself glancing at the window behind her head, but Jake couldn’t see her and he didn’t make any comments she could hear.
The last time the engine died, though, the truck had almost reached the bridge over the La Charla River. This time, the truck rolled.
The opening that all vehicles passed through to reach the ranch seemed to have shrunk.
“I can’t do it,” Sam mumbled. Not now, maybe not ever. She stabbed her boot down on the brake and stopped so hard, Blaze started barking.
She turned the key to Off and set the parking brake as she’d seen Dad do. She’d gotten them this far and she was pretty sure Jake could hang on to the pup for the short time it would take him to walk across the bridge and into the tack room, where he planned to sit with Blaze and the pup.
Heart pounding, Sam slipped out of her seat and rushed around to see if everyone in the back of the truck was safe.
All three of them were fine, but if she hadn’t hurried she would have missed it.
Brynna would probably call it submissive behavior. Dad would say it didn’t amount to much since the critter was half dog, anyway, but as Sam came around to the truck bed, she saw the coydog lick Jake’s face.
Grinning so hard it hurt, Sam asked, “If someone with a dog was going away to college, what do you suppose would happen to the dog?”
Jake lifted his shoulder to wipe at the wet spot from the coydog’s lick.
“He might live in an apartment that took pets, instead of the dorm. Or, if he had a dog that needed room to run, who says he couldn’t set up a permanent camp and still go to class? I’ve heard some professors bring their own dogs in with ’em.”