by Terri Farley
Dallas had left with Ace and Amigo. Sam, Jen, Darrell, and Jake were piling all the desensitization gear into boxes and the adults were talking nearby when Sam saw Mrs. Allen do something strange.
She released the balloons one by one and when they’d all floated away, colors dimmed to black dots in the sky, she looked sadly at Sam. Then she turned to Preston.
“I’ve got to show you something,” she said. “It’s in the barn.”
Sam felt as if red ants covered every inch of her body. Jen dropped the plastic pipe she’d been picking up and Jake slowly put his thumbs in his pockets. Only Darrell didn’t halt his movements and stare.
No! Sam wanted to leap the clutter between her and Mrs. Allen and clap her hand over the old lady’s mouth. But she trusted Mrs. Allen. She couldn’t be about to do what Sam’s paranoid mind was thinking.
Black skirts swishing back from her boots, Mrs. Allen led the way toward the barn. Preston, Dr. Scott, and Sheriff Ballard looked at each other, shrugged, and fell in behind her.
Finally, Sam grabbed Jen’s forearm and demanded, “Is this because she likes him?”
That got Darrell’s attention. Suddenly he noticed the tension around him.
“Is what because—?” Darrell began.
“He gave her the balloons,” Sam continued, “so she’s…”
Dizzy and confused, it took Sam a few seconds to realize Jake was talking to her.
“You’ve got to go,” he was saying, nodding toward the barn. “Tell your side of things.”
“He’s right,” Jen said.
Maybe because Sam had never heard Jen agree with Jake in her life, she ran.
Preston, Sheriff Ballard, and Dr. Scott were already inside the barn by the time Sam reached it. Panting from exertion, Sam looked back for her friends, then at Mrs. Allen.
With crossed arms and a mournful expression, Mrs. Allen waited at the door.
“How could you?” Sam demanded as soon as she had enough breath. The words hurt as if they’d been ripped from roots sunk deep inside her chest.
“How could I not, Sam?” Mrs. Allen asked.
“By keeping your word to me!”
Mrs. Allen winced, but she wore the look of an adult who’s done what’s best for a child as she said, “He’s searched two years for her. She belongs to him. I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
“Disappoint? You didn’t disappoint me.” Sam’s voice spiraled in a high-pitched sound that was almost out of control. She stopped. She swallowed. Then, she said, “How about betray? You betrayed me and the wild horses, and I don’t know how you could do it.”
Sam was still shaking her head as she squeezed into the barn. Dr. Scott and Sheriff Ballard looked at her with blame on their faces, but Preston didn’t even glance at her. For him, there was nothing but the horse.
“Honey,” he said on a sigh.
He moved closer, pressing against the box stall while the mare studied him.
Her golden ears tipped so far forward, she seemed to point at him. She looked away, gazing at Sam as if she couldn’t believe her eyes, but a heartbeat later, the palomino was staring at him again.
Moving like a man in a dream, Preston slid back the bolt on the stall door.
The mare didn’t retreat even a half step, but Preston changed his mind. He took a deep breath, slid the bolt closed again and turned on Sam.
She knew exactly what he was doing. She’d seen the reaction in Dad, Jake, Dallas, and every cowboy she knew. He might be a cop, not a cowboy, but he wasn’t about to show his feelings in front of them all. He’d keep his love and relief for later.
Right now, Preston dumped two years’ worth of frustration on her.
“That’s my horse. Her registered name is Cha Cha Marengo. At the time she was stolen she was serving as a police horse for Fairfield County.”
He said it like she hadn’t heard his story. He sounded like a robot, as if he’d rehearsed this moment so often, he couldn’t deviate from the script.
“I don’t think it’s her,” Sam began. “This horse has been running with a wild herd for a long time. Since before Christmas, for sure.”
“Two years,” he said, and his eyes accused her.
“Wait. You don’t think…” Sam sucked in more air. Still, she couldn’t seem to go on. Sure, she’d hidden the horse overnight, but that was all. “Even if it is her, and I don’t think it is—I didn’t steal her.”
Preston’s eyes said he’d heard it all before. Criminals didn’t confess on the spot. They tried denial first.
Sam studied him. “That’s not what you’re thinking, is it?”
“Uh-huh,” he said.
Sam couldn’t look away. Like a mouse hypnotized by a cobra, she knew she shouldn’t let him gaze at her this way, but his pale blue eyes were mesmerizing. They didn’t quite agree with her, but they didn’t disagree, either. They implored her to keep talking.
“I rescued her,” Sam insisted. She had evidence. She could prove what she was saying. “Take a look at that front right leg,” she said, pointing. “Under the bandages.”
Preston started to look, but that would have meant lowering his magnetic stare.
“That could have happened in transit,” Preston suggested, but he didn’t say outright that she was lying. Then, in case she wasn’t smart enough to know what he meant by in transit, he added, “When you were moving her from wherever to this ranch.”
“No! Go ahead and look her over.” Sam’s arms flew out in a be-my-guest motion, and she finally broke away from his stare. “Or have Dr. Scott look her over.”
Sam turned to the vet. He looked so disappointed.
When she tried to explain what Jake had said about the mare’s injuries, she couldn’t.
She cleared her throat, but nothing physical kept her silent. For most of her life, Jake had protected her. Now it was her turn to protect Jake.
If things kept going downhill, if everyone believed Preston instead of her, she didn’t want Jake involved. Being arrested as an accessory to grand theft probably wouldn’t help his chances of getting into college.
“Dr. Scott,” Sam said formally, “the palomino has a bruise on her chest from a fight with another mare. I saw that happen last week.”
“And the cut? When did that happen?” Through his glasses, Dr. Scott’s eyes accused her of knowing about the wound when he’d been there yesterday.
When she didn’t answer, the vet moved to the stall door.
“I’ll have a look at her,” he said.
“Check under her top lip for a tattoo identifying her as a police horse. It’ll be there,” Preston said.
The vet nodded.
He believes me, Sam thought as he opened the door cautiously, and braced for the territorial charge of a wild horse. He sighed when it didn’t come, when the mare just watched him with curiosity and lifted her front hoof a bit higher.
Sheriff Ballard moved to stand beside Preston.
Straw rustled behind Sam and she didn’t have to look to feel Jake and Jen supporting her. Darrell was probably standing back there, too. Like an invisible net, her friends’ support held her up.
“Preston, do you know what could have happened to her if I’d left her out there without her herd?” Sam asked, but she didn’t let him answer. “Start with coyotes, I guess that would be the most likely, but this time last year there was a cougar and her year-old kitten out there. What do you think they’d do to a horse who couldn’t run away?”
“What about bears?” he asked sarcastically.
It took Sam a few second to understand, and then her mind chorused, “Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!” from The Wizard of Oz. Preston thought she was making excuses, and not very good ones.
“I saw the cougars last year at Aspen Creek,” Jen said.
“Aspen Creek is where I found her yesterday morning,” Sam said, realizing she’d just admitted she’d had the horse for twenty-four hours without reporting it.
Not that it mattered,
Sam thought. Mrs. Allen would have told them if she hadn’t.
“Trees up there are still marked,” Jake offered. “And there’s a coyote den upstream from where the mare was, with signs they’re feeding pups.” He paused, but when Preston remained unconvinced, Jake added, “Take a look for yourself. There are tracks so clear your granny could read ’em without her glasses.”
Preston stiffened at Jake’s sarcasm. You could tell the retired cop was used to dealing with guys who used humor to cover their emotions or to fight without throwing a punch. For a minute, he squinted at Jake, sizing him up.
“Are all you kids in on this?” he asked.
“There’s no ‘this’ to be in on!” Sam kept her voice just short of a shout. “I’ve seen her running with a wild herd since last year. She was the lead mare. That’s how she got in the fight. I don’t know how she got cut, but I didn’t see it until yesterday morning. I brought her here because it was the closest place to get help.” Sam stopped to draw a breath. All the fight seemed to have drained out of her. “And if you don’t believe the truth, I can’t force you.”
“It’s not my job to say whether you’re telling the truth,” Preston said in an offhand tone. “I’m just a private horse owner, not a judge. But I’m pressing charges, and the sheriff can take you away. Don’t think you’ll need handcuffs, do you?”
He joked in a dark way, but Sam could tell he really wanted her out of there. He wanted all of them gone so that he could be alone with his horse.
“She’s right about the coyotes and cougars,” Sheriff Ballard commented.
Preston didn’t seem to hear the sheriff. “Might as well tell me how you came into possession of her. Was it from Mudge directly, or one of his accomplices?” he asked. “Maybe the judge will go a little easier on you if you cooperate. Although,” his voice grew louder, “I wouldn’t count on it. There are more girls in juvenile detention facilities every day.”
Sam knew he was trying to scare her. It worked, but she tried not to react.
Preston sucked in a breath and shook his head. “But most females don’t get sent up. Those who do have generally committed violent offenses. It’d be a shame if a judge looked at all the stolen horses you’ve been associated with and tried to put you back on the straight and narrow path by locking you up.”
This time, Preston didn’t sound like he was joking.
Sam whirled toward Sheriff Ballard.
“You know the story behind Hotspot!”
“That’d be the Appaloosa, but wasn’t there an ownership question on a buckskin, too?”
Dark Sunshine. Sam remembered the hidden bill of sale proving the mustang mare belonged to Curtis Flickinger, the man who’d starved and whipped her and threatened to steal the Phantom.
“And now Honey?” Preston pretended to mull things over. “Quite a coincidence, you always being in the middle of this stuff.”
“She didn’t do anything wrong.” Jake’s voice was no more than a whisper. “Showed some bad judgment, but she’s fourteen years old.”
“Jake.” Mrs. Allen warned Jake to turn down the antagonism in his voice.
“Yeah?” Preston said. He looked willing to listen to Jake, but any hero worship Jake had felt toward the retired officer was long gone.
Jake’s lazy tomcat look hid a desire to fight. Sam wasn’t the only one who recognized it. Darrell grabbed Jake’s arm.
“C’mon, buddy,” Darrell coaxed.
“There’s no need to bully her,” Jake told Preston.
Sam didn’t feel bullied, exactly, and she was about to say so when Jen’s sensible voice sliced across Jake’s threatening one.
“You can’t browbeat and harass someone into a confession,” she said, shrugging. “We’ll testify that’s exactly what he did and it won’t hold up in court.”
“Everyone’s an expert on the criminal justice system as it appears on TV,” Preston joked. Then he looked around. Suddenly he seemed to realize where he was and who he was talking to. “But I can tell you guys aren’t hardened criminals.”
If that was supposed to be an apology, it didn’t work.
Jen couldn’t have lifted her chin much higher. She was insulted on Sam’s behalf. And Jake just stared at Preston as if he was waiting for an excuse to fight.
Dr. Scott stood up from examining the mare. He wiped his hands on the front of his jeans, then spread them as if pointing out the palomino’s quiet temperament.
She couldn’t possibly be a wild horse, the vet’s gesture said, and that’s when the sheriff turned to Sam.
“Why did you do it?” Sheriff Ballard asked.
Why did I? Sam thought, but she didn’t know. It was like trying to remember a dream. When you first woke, it was so clear and vivid that your muscles still shook from some marathon-across-the-moon you’d run, or the green horse you’d ridden. Then, as real life crowded in to fill up your mind, you couldn’t remember the story of your dream. In fact you might forget you even had one.
Why did I do it? She wondered again, and suddenly she remembered. In memory, she saw the palomino galloping across the range, veering around rocks and jumping sagebrush. Her creamy mane billowed and her golden legs matched the Phantom’s silver ones in a wild and beautiful race.
“I had a reason,” Sam said.
Then, Dr. Scott asked, “Couldn’t you have asked me for help?”
His injured tone underlined the question, and for a second Sam felt guilty. But then she looked at Mrs. Allen. She’d trusted her, too.
Sam shrugged.
“Samantha, I’d like you to go out and sit in my car,” Sheriff Ballard said.
“Are you arresting her?” Jen demanded.
“Of course not. You all can go with her.” The sheriff’s gesture took in Jen, Jake, and Darrell.
“Ballard?” Preston asked sharply.
“I’ve known this girl’s family since before she was born,” Sheriff Ballard said, “and I’ve come to know Sam pretty well lately.” The glance he shot her added, A little too well. “One thing I’ve learned is that Samantha Forster might not always be right, but she’s always kind. If she brought your horse in from the range, the mare needed help. And there’s no way on God’s green earth she was involved in a horse theft ring!”
“When you look at the timing and circumstances…” Preston began, but his voice tapered off and Sam could tell he didn’t even believe himself anymore.
“Preston, I know you’re used to makin’ snap decisions—right, wrong or good, bad—that’s part of the job. But give this a few seconds to play out. Take a minute to think. You won’t be sorry.”
Gently, Jen gripped Sam’s arm and nodded toward the barn door. Sam knew her friend was right. If Preston wanted to back down, he wouldn’t do it in front of an audience.
They were almost through the barn door when Preston’s few words told Sam he knew she hadn’t stolen Honey from a corral in California. He knew she’d been roaming the range and that Sam had wanted her to stay free.
“She didn’t belong out there, you know.”
Sam faced him. “If you could have seen her…”
Preston turned his back on Sam and looked at his horse. He mumbled a few more words. Sam wasn’t positive, but she thought Preston said, “I wish I had.”
Chapter Twelve
When Sam arrived home, she saw Fluffy the rooster and his River Bend counterpart play-fighting. From opposite sides of the fence Gram had erected, the roosters made flying feints at each other, then retired to take noisy, squawking dust baths with their hens.
Those were the last pleasant sounds Sam heard for hours.
Once Sam got inside the white ranch house, Dad told her he was disappointed in her.
Gram said Sam had let her down.
Brynna claimed she was sad and stunned, and wondered if Sam had considered that her actions could get Brynna fired.
Sam decided she’d rather have spent the night in one of the chicken coops.
She didn’t like Sun
day evenings, anyway. With the weekend over and homework to do, she always felt melancholy, but this was the worst Sunday night she could remember.
Preston had agreed not to press charges if Dad came to get her, so it was a good thing that Dallas had already taken Ace home with Amigo.
When Dad arrived, it was clear that Mrs. Allen had already told him something.
Face hard and unmoving as dark wood, Dad had banished her to the cab of his truck while he talked with Preston and Heck Ballard.
From there, she couldn’t hear anything. It was like watching television with the sound off, except that it was the drama of her life playing out, and she had a lot of interest in what was happening.
When she saw Dad shake hands with both men, Sam figured he was coming back to the truck to yell at her. Before he did, though, he took both of Mrs. Allen’s hands in his and leaned forward to speak in what might be regret that Sam was his daughter.
At last he stalked back to the truck, yanked open the driver’s door and, without a glance at Sam, climbed in.
“Dad? What did they tell you?” she had asked.
He’d started the truck as if he was inside it all alone.
“How was I supposed to know the mare wasn’t wild?”
Dad eased the gear shift into reverse and backed around to leave Deerpath Ranch. Once they were headed out the gate, he still didn’t respond.
“I would’ve told Brynna, but I knew she’d have to bring her in, and she’s the Phantom’s lead mare,” Sam explained.
The truck bounced over ruts and onto the smooth highway and still Dad said nothing.
“I trusted Mrs. Allen, and she didn’t tell me I was doing anything wrong. Then, out of the blue, she just told Lieutenant Preston the palomino was his. If he hadn’t shown up, no one would be mad at me and the horse would be out where she belongs.”
Her ears hurt. In the tight confinement of the truck cab, her own voice ricocheted off the windows and windshield and bounced back at her.
“You know I didn’t steal her, don’t you?”