by Terri Farley
“Because of all that tracking I do,” Jake said, shrugging, “Witch is pretty much okay. And Jen’s horse is parade trained.”
“Great,” Sam said, amazed that Jake had jumped into the planning so wholeheartedly.
“Jake, I’m surprised you’re not on the posse,” Mrs. Allen said.
Jake looked down. Sam couldn’t read his expression.
“He calls me for tracking, sometimes,” Jake said, and Sam could almost read his mind. Although Jake loved tracking and was considered a local expert, he was working hard to earn college scholarships. Jake was always good at putting what was most important, first.
“Well, then, that explains it,” Mrs. Allen said. “I guess I should get started on this truly bizarre shopping list. Oh! But what about your horse?”
Sam knew Mrs. Allen wasn’t talking about Ace or the Phantom, but something about the question stirred up a vague worry.
“The palomino?” Sam asked, stalling.
“Yes, dear,” Mrs. Allen said.
“I’ll just stay with her for a while before I ride home. Then tomorrow, when I come back for the desensitization thing, I’ll check on her.”
“And this is supposed to stay hush-hush?” Mrs. Allen asked.
“Well, yeah, if that’s okay,” Sam said.
“For a few days,” Mrs. Allen said pointedly, “but it means I’ll definitely skip that mixer your Gram wants me to go to—”
“Oh, no, you can still do that,” Sam said.
“No, ma’am,” Mrs. Allen said. “No matter how hard I try, somehow it’d get out that I’m hiding this horse. One lesson I’ve learned over the years, Sam, is nothing travels faster than secrets at a church social.”
Since Mrs. Allen’s shopping list required a drive into Darton, she took a quick shower. While they waited, Sam and Jake stood at the living room window that overlooked the pasture of unadoptable wild horses.
Sam spotted a black mare with a bright bay colt, Licorice and Windfall, then a yellow dun named Fourteen. He had been named that because Mrs. Allen had joked that she had to round out her adopted herd so she wouldn’t have an unlucky thirteen wild horses.
“I don’t see Faith,” Sam told Jake, just as Mrs. Allen returned dressed in a clean skirt and blouse.
“She’s at a difficult age—not grown up and not a baby, so she spends a lot of time off on her own,” Mrs. Allen said, then added, “I never did give you two lunch. The least I can do is drop you off at home.”
“I have Ace,” Sam rushed to explain, and Jake flashed her a strained look.
Jake was afoot. Three Ponies was at least five miles away. Also, the temperature kept climbing. Those facts would have made the choice to ride in a vehicle instead of walk a snap decision for most people.
But when the driver was Mrs. Allen, it wasn’t an easy offer to accept.
Mrs. Allen’s driving had improved briefly after her grandson Gabe had been injured in a car accident, but lately she’d reverted to her old habits. Her tangerine-colored truck careened around the county as if launched in a giant pinball machine.
“Speaking of Ace,” Mrs. Allen said, “I called Sheriff Ballard from my bedroom phone and he said that since Dallas is coming anyway—”
“Dallas is going to be on the volunteer posse?” Sam asked, surprised.
“So he says, and I figured Ace could ride along in the trailer with Dallas’ horse. He said we’d only need three or four people, and so I asked if I could help and with Jake’s friend, your Jen and this out-of-state expert, there’s no problem.”
“Mrs. Allen, you are just the best!” Sam said, giving the woman’s forearm a squeeze.
“Well now, I don’t know about that,” she said, looking flustered. Then she pointed her index finger at Sam. “Just see that you get here in time to unload all this strange gear.”
“I will,” Sam said, then crossed her heart. “I promise.”
Sam hummed with happiness while Jake weighed the odds of getting home in one piece if he rode in the tangerine-colored truck. Mrs. Allen added tennis balls, floating pool noodles, and maracas to her list.
She’d just stuffed her list into her big black purse when Imp and Angel gave a volley of alarmed barks, then dove under the kitchen table and shivered in silence.
“Now, what do you suppose?” Mrs. Allen said. “They only act like that, I’m ashamed to say, when Dr. Scott comes over, and I surely haven’t called him for anything.”
Sam’s heart slammed against her ribs.
Dr. Scott, the vet. The BLM vet.
A wave of paranoia closed over her. She didn’t look at Jake or Mrs. Allen because she was afraid she’d accuse one of them—no, both of them—of calling the vet. After all, Jake had been alone in the house cleaning up after the quail, and Mrs. Allen had been in the house for some time, supposedly making lunch, before she and Jake came in. But Mrs. Allen hadn’t made lunch. Maybe she’d called the vet instead.
Wait a minute, Sam told herself. These people were her friends.
Jake had just encouraged her to do something she wanted, even though it meant more work for him. And Mrs. Allen had arranged for her to do it!
Besides, neither Jake nor Mrs. Allen were shy about speaking their minds or taking action. If they believed Sam was making a terrible mistake, they’d stop her.
“Maybe he was just in the neighborhood?” Sam asked. She glanced at Jake, but he’d helped himself to a big glass of water and now he was stretching out his legs as if warming up for another run.
“Sam,” Mrs. Allen said, “that poor young veterinarian is so overworked, he doesn’t have time for courtesy calls. At your place, maybe, where Grace will feed him—but here? All I’ve got to offer is blisters and bites. Oh, hush up, Angel,” Mrs. Allen added as a growl emerged from under the table. “Well, we might as well go out and see what he wants. I heard they had a case of West Nile virus over in Blackheel City. True, it’s a hundred miles away, but what’s distance to a mosquito?”
Sighing fatalistically, Mrs. Allen stood up.
Sam held her breath as the old woman turned and looked into her eyes. “Won’t change your mind about having him look at that mare, I suppose?”
“No…” Sam knew as the word passed her lips that she could be wrong, but she said it anyway and followed Mrs. Allen outside.
“Guess I’ll jog home,” Jake said.
“Jake, why don’t you stay and—” Sam started.
“’Cause I’m no good at this,” Jake said, and Sam closed her eyes. She didn’t have to ask what Jake meant, because she was no different. Neither of them were good at lying.
At first, when Dr. Scott climbed out of his truck, Sam thought he was wearing odd-patterned jeans because of their light-dark patchiness. But the young vet walked stiffly and when he got closer, Sam noticed his jeans were coated in dry mud, some of which had flaked off, and his blue eyes looked red-rimmed and rabbity behind his glasses.
“It appears to me you’ve had a tough day already, Glen,” Mrs. Allen teased, but Dr. Scott wasn’t in a joking mood.
“Irrigation system went haywire over in the pasture near Clara’s coffee shop. I noticed it last night on my way home because a blue roan colt had got himself stuck and half drowned. He was weak as a new-hatched chick. Each time I tried to let go of him and get back to my truck to radio for help, he’d fall flat down and his nostrils would fill up with mud. I knew he’d drown if I left him. So when the Slocum girl drove past at about two A.M. and her headlights hit us, I flagged her down.”
Sam couldn’t imagine high-fashion Rachel picking her way across a boggy field to help the veterinarian and a colt. She guessed she should stop always thinking the worst of Rachel.
“She didn’t come too close,” Dr. Scott went on, “just pulled to the side of the road and listened to me shout, but she promised—absolutely swore—she’d send someone.”
Held there by the vet’s story, even though he’d stretched his Achilles tendons in preparation for running home, Jake
crossed his arms and grunted as if he knew what was coming next.
“And she didn’t?” Sam asked.
“Sure she did,” the vet snarled, “just an hour ago, after the colt had already revived and I’d slogged back to my truck to hear a message from yesterday that I”—Dr. Scott’s voice grew louder with each word—“in my capacity as an inspector for the Humane Society—was supposed to pay a visit to Blind Faith Mustang Sanctuary on an abuse complaint!”
Jake had tried to slip away unnoticed, but they all turned at the sound of his running shoes hitting the sandy soil as he jogged toward home. He gave a vague wave. Sam could tell he was glad to escape what was coming next.
“An abuse complaint.” Mrs. Allen pronounced the syllables as if she could hardly stand them on her tongue. “Well, you needn’t have bothered.”
“Trudy, I didn’t have a choice,” Dr. Scott said, flatly. “Even if I wanted to draw my own conclusions without driving out here, I couldn’t. A rural vet just starting out is glad for extra contracts like I have with BLM and the Humane Society. I take the extra training, do the extra work, and bank the salaries. That means I can take time to do a few things for free—like care for…” The vet snapped his fingers twice, as if the animal’s name would magically come to him. “What did your grandson name our favorite mustang?”
“Firefly,” Mrs. Allen said, and her affection for the bay colt with the white patch over his eye showed in her smile.
“Right,” he said. Dr. Scott looked satisfied and relaxed, then his jaw dropped and his eyes closed in a yawn.
Dr. Scott had lavished weeks of care on the burned and traumatized colt and Firefly had responded to the kindness by bonding with Mrs. Allen’s grandson and helping him pass through the bitterness that followed his terrible injury.
But Dr. Scott’s enjoyment of the memory lasted only a few seconds.
“So, I’ve got this complaint of abuse and neglect, and I need to take a quick walk around now. All your horses are in that pen and the pasture, right?” Dr. Scott asked.
Mrs. Allen gave a wooden nod. Sam wondered if Mrs. Allen was insulted, or covering for the hidden horse which wasn’t, technically, hers.
“Ace is in with Judge, and—”
The vet made a curt gesture to cut off her explanation.
“I saw him. I noticed most of the wild horses are close in, on this end of the pasture. That’s good.” He gave a loud sigh. “Look, I don’t mean to be abrupt, but I’d like to get home, clean up, and grab a nap before the next crisis explodes.” Dr. Scott yawned again, then a corner of his mouth quirked up. “Truthfully, I don’t think this will take long. I don’t expect the complaint to pan out.”
“Go right ahead,” Mrs. Allen said, but the vet was already striding toward the pen where her three saddle horses dozed in the shade.
After a few minutes, Mrs. Allen asked Sam, “Do you want to go back inside? It’s cooler there.”
She had to keep her eyes on that barn. She had to be ready to explain—she wasn’t sure how—why she’d hidden a wild horse if Dr. Scott happened to find it.
“I can’t,” Sam said.
“Neither can I,” Mrs. Allen replied, and the strain on her face told Sam the old woman had more at stake here than she did.
This time last year, Mrs. Allen’s ranch had been a clutter of sagging fences, flapping shingles, and wandering horses. Depression had made her so rude and reclusive, word had spread through the ranching community that the artist-rancher had gone from being eccentric to downright peculiar.
“All we need now is for that stallion of yours to come sniffing around,” Mrs. Allen whispered.
“What?” Sam gasped.
“I don’t expect he will, not during daylight, but many nights when I look out the window, he’s down at the pasture gate, wandering back and forth as if he’s lost something.”
“He did,” Sam said, thinking of Firefly. Then she shivered, imagining the stallion moving pale through the moonlight like a restless ghost.
“If you’re thinking of Firefly, we both know he would have kicked that youngster out of the band before long. It’s what herd stallions do with the young males.”
“But then why is he hanging around?” Sam asked.
“Samantha, why on earth would you ask me? I’m not the one who can read that stallion’s mind.”
If only that were true, Sam thought.
They remained in silence for so long, Sam’s mind veered toward home. She really should phone and explain what was going on. She hadn’t looked at the clock when they’d been indoors, but Mrs. Allen had said it was nearly noon when they’d finished doctoring the palomino. That must have been at least an hour ago. Someone would be wondering where she was.
“Do you think that mare is Firefly’s mother?” Mrs. Allen asked.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Sam admitted. “I keep going over the times I saw him with the Phantom’s herd, but I never saw him paired up. Mainly, he was just fooling around with the other colts.”
Gloom settled over Sam. As they waited, sweating, Sam longed to be the horse psychic that people thought she was.
If the Phantom returned to Deerpath Ranch looking for one of his colts, what would he do for a lead mare?
He’d left the palomino when he knew she’d slow down the rest of the herd, but what if he came back without the others?
Hooves thudded and a sharp neigh cut across the hot afternoon. Sam and Mrs. Allen turned to see Dr. Scott being pursued by Roman, the liver-chestnut gelding who’d appointed himself leader of the adopted herd.
Dr. Scott vaulted over the pasture fence and walked toward them. When he came near enough that his voice could be heard, he called out, “Trudy, we’d better have a talk.”
Chapter Seven
“You know, there’s an odd glare on those cottonwood leaves that’s making me a little dizzy,” Mrs. Allen whispered to Sam as the vet approached.
Sam steadied the old woman’s arm, then retrieved the maroon baseball cap from Mrs. Allen’s back pocket. She shook out the crumpled cap until it was pretty much its original shape, then handed it to her.
While Mrs. Allen hooked the cap over the back of her head, then tugged it down to shade her eyes, Sam looked up at the trees. She searched for sunbeams of unusual brightness. She didn’t see any. Maybe overwork had made Mrs. Allen light-headed.
“You wouldn’t have to work so hard if we could get some kids to volunteer help with the horses,” Sam said. “They’d love it, you’d—”
“Need liability insurance,” Mrs. Allen muttered.
“That doesn’t matter,” Sam said, though she didn’t know what liability insurance was.
“It does if someone got hurt and her parents sued me. I’d lose everything.”
Sam couldn’t believe anyone would sue Mrs. Allen. She was spending her nights, days, and money taking care of wild horses. If you were going to sue someone, wouldn’t you go after someone who deserved it?
“Well, no one can do all this work alone,” Sam said.
“Probably won’t matter, once Glen gets done with me.” Mrs. Allen hurried the end of her sentence as the vet reached them.
Looking hot and frustrated, Dr. Scott wiped his wrist over his forehead.
“I’ve done nothing to deserve the looks you two are giving me,” the young vet said. “You’re shrinking away from me like I’m—I don’t know what. A hooded executioner holding an axe?”
“No…” Sam drew the word out as if he were being silly.
“Of course not,” Mrs. Allen added.
“Here’s what my inspection report will say,” Dr. Scott began. “Your horses have enough food and water. I saw no sunken backs, protruding hip bones, or ribs indicating they’re starving or malnourished, and no potbellies indicating worms.”
Sam smiled, but she was so afraid the vet would start toward the barn, her lips kind of jerked.
Dr. Scott took a breath and held up his hand to stall off interruptions. “Most of thei
r coats look okay, not dull with hunks of hair coming out, indicating mineral deficiencies.”
Mrs. Allen gave a quick nod as if she’d never had a single doubt.
“However,” the vet raised his voice and eyebrows, “they’re wandering around a soft pasture, not galloping over lava beds, so their feet could use some work. I’m guessing half of ’em need their teeth floated, too, but this was just a quick visual inspection. I haven’t done a hands-on exam for any of them since just before you adopted them from Willow Springs.”
“But the bottom line,” Mrs. Allen said, “is that you’re not going to recommend the Humane Society close me down.”
“No, but I will suggest that any time you take in a horse, you get a photo of it on day one, and a letter from the vet on scene testifying to the condition of the animal,” Dr. Scott said. “If I hadn’t seen those horses before you adopted them, I might have some questions.”
“I get it,” Sam said. “If Mrs. Allen takes in a horse in bad condition—”
“Someone could say she’s to blame. In fact, I bet that’s how the complaint came about. Someone who’s used to seeing blanketed, stabled horses thought this bunch had been neglected.
“And one more recommendation,” Dr. Scott continued. “It would make my job, and the farrier’s, a lot easier if you’d try to handle those horses once in a while. Brush ’em and pick up their feet or do something to convince them it’s okay to be touched.”
Mrs. Allen nodded adamantly, but Sam heard the defeated tsk of her tongue. When Dr. Scott put it that way, it made perfect sense, but where would the extra time come from? And was Mrs. Allen really in shape to hand-gentle wild horses?
“Maybe, after tomorrow’s hoopla…” Mrs. Allen’s voice trailed off.
“The police horse desensitization?” Dr. Scott asked.
Sam flinched. How could he know?
“Why, yes,” Mrs. Allen said. Then she shook her head. “I will never get over what a small town this is. I just found out about it this morning and I’m—how would you put it?—hostessing it.”