by Terri Farley
“Darton County’s taxpayers, that’s who,” the sheriff snapped.
Seeing that he wasn’t making any progress, Linc cleared his throat, took off his hat, and stared at it. Then he looked into the sheriff’s face for the first time.
“I’ve caused you trouble in the past, Sheriff, but I’m changin’ my ways. For my kids, like I said before. And the truth is, if I’m in physical danger from this polecat—” Linc shook his head. “Only reason I’m going to meet him at the Harvest Home parade is because I don’t want him coming to my house and being around my daughter.”
Wow, Sam thought. If Linc wasn’t being sincere, he’d fooled them all. Suddenly he had Sheriff Ballard’s cooperation.
The sheriff gave a quick nod. “I’ll be there.”
“Thanks, Sheriff; you don’t know how much this means to me. Now if we could just make some plans. You know”—Linc gave a short laugh—“synchronize our watches and stuff like that.”
“I’ll be in touch, Linc. Right now I have business with these ladies. Hard tellin’ what kind of trouble they’ll be in if they’re too late getting home.”
Sam flinched. He was right. How could she have forgotten Dad’s command to come straight home after school?
“I’ll give them a ride,” Linc offered.
Jen rushed in with an excuse before Sam realized they needed one.
“Thanks, but we’re on an exercise program for P.E.,” Jen said solemnly. “We’re supposed to walk at least a thousand steps each day.”
“We are?” Sam blurted.
Jen gave a long-suffering sigh. She smoothed a few loose strands of hair back from her temples, toward her tight braids, then straightened her glasses on her nose.
“You were standing right next to me in the gym when the teacher told us.” Jen patted Sam’s shoulder, turned toward the men, and added, “I guess I was paying closer attention. Because of my broken ribs, I can’t do much else but walk.” Jen pulled up the edge of her blouse to show a little plastic counter clipped to her jeans’ pocket. “See, this records each and every step.”
Before Jen went on, Linc backed away, nodding.
“I’ll be waiting for your call, Sheriff,” he said, and then he was gone.
“We’re riding in that parade!” Jen came out with the words as if she’d been about to explode, waiting for Linc to leave. “My family, I mean, with the Kenworthy palominos.”
“Is that what you said after you sank your fingers into my arm?” Sam asked.
“Are you, now?” Sheriff Ballard asked Jen.
“Sure, my dad’s riding Sundance and I’ll ride Silly. My mom’s been working with Golden Rose, and they want to try her out in this parade, because it’s so small, and we’ll kind of bracket her between us.” Jen’s breath caught. Then she blushed. “I could go undercover for you, if you want. I mean, I’d have a good vantage point, being on horseback.”
“Good vantage point for what?” Sam asked quietly.
“Watching whatever goes down,” Jen said, as if she were on a television crime show.
Sheriff Ballard smiled, but it didn’t look as if he’d completely dismissed what Jen said, and Sam was confused.
“Like, you’d be watching Linc to see who’s trying to get money from him?” she asked.
Jen took a deep breath and looked at both Sam and the sheriff.
“Okay, at the risk of sounding like I’m fantasizing, here’s what I’ve been thinking, ever since I heard Preston talk about the horse theft ring….” Jen’s voice trailed off and she blushed even redder.
“Go ahead,” the sheriff told her. His encouragement seemed to be the push that Jen needed.
“What if Linc arranged for Hotspot’s theft, with Karl Mannix, but he didn’t pay up because Karl made such a mess of it—letting Hotspot escape and leaving Shy Boots in a petting zoo. But maybe Karl was involved with that guy Cowboy and he thought Cowboy might shoot Shy Boots, so he just left the colt the first place he thought of.”
Sam gasped, but she remembered Preston saying that Cowboy had decreed any stolen horse a dead horse.
“Or maybe Linc’s deal was that Mannix was just supposed to make the foal disappear, but Hotspot was supposed to turn up right away.”
“But then the Phantom ruined everything,” Sam said, remembering the flurry of hoofprints in the dirt up in Cowkiller Caldera.
“Right,” Jen said, pointing at Sam, and then they both looked at Sheriff Ballard.
With crossed arms, the sheriff leaned back against his car. He watched them carefully but he didn’t say a word. Finally, though, he nodded.
“Okay, so in this fantasy of mine,” Jen said in a self-mocking tone, “Karl has come back for his money. After all, Linc offered him ten thousand dollars for the job—‘the services rendered’—but Linc didn’t pay up.”
“If he didn’t pay Karl then, when it happened at the beginning of the summer, why would he pay him now?” Sam asked.
“He’s holding something over Linc’s head,” Jen said. “I’m positive.”
“Like what?” Sam asked.
“Blackmail,” Jen said ominously.
Sam whirled toward the sheriff so quickly, she had to push her auburn bangs back from her eyes. “When you talked with Ryan and Mrs. Coley yesterday, did they say anything about blackmail?”
“I can’t comment on that, Sam,” the sheriff said in a level tone.
Sam made a frustrated sound, but Jen just looked more convinced that she was right.
“My dad has always thought it was strange that Linc didn’t fight to get Hotspot. Dad offered to go after her, since we all knew she was running with the Phantom’s herd, but Linc said no, he wanted to leave it up to the BLM. Remember,” Jen said, turning toward Sam, “he really discouraged Ryan from catching her, too.”
“That’s right,” Sam said, turning toward the sheriff. “They had a huge fight about it. I bet he thought you’d discover something that would incriminate him and prove that he knew about the rest of the horse theft ring, the whole Bug Boy operation.”
The sheriff pushed away from his car, standing up straight with an indulgent smile. “Thanks for the suggestions.”
“So, what do you think?” Jen insisted.
“I think you have some good ideas and it can’t hurt for you to keep your eyes open while you’re riding in the parade.”
As Jen clapped her hands in delight, Sam protested, “What about me? Hey, since I’m Jen’s best friend, it would make total sense for me to ride with them.”
“Not going to happen, Miss Forster,” the sheriff said, smiling. “There’s no reason to put you in the middle of this.”
“If Jen’s riding Silly, Jed’s riding Sundance, and Lila’s riding Golden Rose, Mantilla will be left behind. There’s going to be an extra palomino,” Sam pointed out.
“I appreciate your offer,” the sheriff said, “but no.”
Sam squinted into the distance, then said, “I know. I won’t ride. I’ll impersonate a typical teenager. No one would recognize me if I dressed up in a short skirt and sunglasses and looked like…Rachel!”
“No kidding!”
Jen’s outburst only slowed Sam down for a second. She glared at her friend and kept talking. “Really, though, I always wear T-shirts and jeans and if I dressed in some kind of girly outfit, then walked around jabbering on a cell phone, I could stand right next to Karl Mannix and Linc and neither of them would recognize me.”
Sam knew she’d made a good case because now Jen was nodding along with her, but Sheriff Ballard wasn’t convinced.
“Again, I appreciate your willingness to sacrifice for the good of the community and its horses, but it’s my understanding that you’re grounded, Sam.”
Even the county sheriff knew when she was grounded, Sam thought in grouchy despair.
“When I grow up, I’m not living in a small town,” she complained.
“Of course you are,” Jen said. “You’re living right next door to me.”
; “Speaking of that, I’m driving you both home. Now.”
Sheriff Ballard held open the passenger-side door of the police cruiser.
Sam followed him around to that side of the car. Then she made one last try to be part of the action.
“If riding in the parade was official police business, even my dad couldn’t say no,” Sam said as she slid in and fastened the middle seat belt.
The sheriff waited for Jen to get in and close the door before he said, “I think we’ll have it covered.”
Sam sighed. Her argument had just fizzled out and she was lucky Sheriff Ballard hadn’t brought up the fact that just a couple of days ago, she’d been under suspicion of horse theft herself.
As Sheriff Ballard drove toward Gold Dust Ranch, Sam wondered what Linc had meant about not wanting the guy around Rachel. She believed Karl Mannix could be involved in stealing animals, but as far as people went, he seemed harmless.
But Linc’s concern had reminded her of something she should know. Sometime months ago, hadn’t someone told her Rachel had revealed some information about the Phantom? But who? She sighed. Maybe so many weird things were going on, everything seemed significant.
First the Phantom had shown up at River Bend. Then Blind Faith Mustang Sanctuary had been investigated. The Phantom’s lead mare had turned out to be Cha Cha Marengo the police horse, now all this stuff about a ten-thousand-dollar standing offer…
Oh, and she couldn’t forget Fluffy the fighting rooster and Ally’s dad! No wonder she was imagining things about Rachel.
“Did you moan?” Jen whispered to Sam.
“Probably,” Sam answered. “One small brain can only hold so much stuff.”
Jen scooted a little closer and said, “After the parade, I’ll call and tell you everything.”
Sam sighed. That would help. “From a pay phone, though,” she insisted. “Don’t wait until you get home or you might forget something.”
“Promise,” Jen said.
“Pinky swear,” Sam said.
Laughing, she and Jen linked little fingers and were about to repeat their vow when something else crossed Sam’s mind. She swiveled in her seat to address Sheriff Ballard.
“What if it’s not Karl Mannix who wrote the letter?”
“Good point,” Jen said. “That’s why I said it was sort of a fantasy, except for one thing…”
Jen’s voice trailed off and she looked meaningfully at Sam, but Sheriff Ballard was answering her question.
“Just because it would tie up a few loose ends doesn’t mean it’s the solution,” Sheriff Ballard agreed as the electronic gates of Gold Dust Ranch swung open to let him drive through. “In police work, you can make lots of wrong turns and go down lots of blind alleys before you find the truth. It’s just part of the job.”
When the sheriff braked in front of the foreman’s house and gave a wave to surprised-looking Lila Kenworthy as she came onto the porch, Jen climbed out.
“It’s okay, Mom,” Jen laughed.
“Jen, wait,” Sam said before her friend started explaining her arrival in a police car. “What’s the one thing that makes you think it’s not a fantasy?”
Jen squared her shoulders and prepared to answer.
“Let me guess,” Sheriff Ballard cut in. He leaned forward in the driver’s seat to peer out at Jen. “It was when he said, ‘In the old days they used to hang—’”
“‘Horse thieves,’” Jen finished for him. She gave a decisive nod.
“Nice working with you, Miss Kenworthy. If high school doesn’t work out, maybe we can find a place for you in the sheriff’s department,” Sheriff Ballard joked.
“Jennifer Marie Kenworthy,” Lila said in despair, “what have you been up to?”
As they drove away, Sam and the sheriff were smiling, but as they turned left toward River Bend Ranch, Heck Ballard’s grin vanished.
He adjusted a knob on his police car radio, then glanced at her.
“Guess I should explain why I was waiting for you at the bus stop,” he said.
Suddenly, Sam felt as if there weren’t enough oxygen molecules in the police car. She took two deep breaths before speaking.
“You didn’t just pull over because Linc was following you?”
“No.” Sheriff Ballard swallowed so hard that Sam heard him.
“What’s wrong?” she asked in a small voice.
“Sam, there’s been an emergency at River Bend Ranch and your Gram wanted me to come get you and explain what’s happened.”
Chapter Fifteen
Frightening images appeared, like framed pictures on the wall, in Sam’s memory. She saw dogs attacking Jeepers-Creepers and Dad falling. She saw Brynna’s revolver, shiny and cleaned, slipped into a holster she seldom wore and never used. She saw red-haired Pepper laughing as he rode with risky abandon, trying to prove he was a real buckaroo. And Gram…but Sheriff Ballard had just said Gram had asked him to help out, hadn’t he?
“What happened?” Sam asked.
“No one’s dead,” Sheriff Ballard said.
“That’s good,” Sam said, blinking as she grappled with the sheriff’s bluntness.
“Your stepmom’s pregnant,” he began.
“I know,” Sam replied. Why would the sheriff say something so obvious?
“I mean, she’s still pregnant,” he amended.
Brynna had stayed healthy and strong by continuing to work outside with the horses during her pregnancy, but she’d been warned not to climb on the catwalks above the loading chutes at Willow Springs Wild Horse Center. She’d gotten dizzy up there.
“Did Brynna fall?” Sam asked.
“No. She’s okay, but she was moving some maps and files around—I guess her staff is painting her office over the weekend—and she started—” Sheriff Ballard broke off. “What they think is that she went into false labor.”
“False labor,” Sam repeated, but the words made no sense. Weren’t you either in labor, having a baby, or not in labor?
“The symptoms are the same, I guess, but it’s so early, they’re hoping it’s not premature labor.”
Okay. Premature labor made sense, but Sam counted the months on her fingers. The baby wasn’t due until December. If Brynna delivered her little sister or brother now, three months early, what would be missing? Which parts of a baby formed in the last three months?
“Don’t look at me like that, Sam. I’m no midwife. I can perform an emergency delivery. I’ve done two of them, but I don’t know about premature labor. All I know is, your grandmother said to tell you that plenty of six-month babies survive.”
Survive? That wasn’t the word Sam wanted to hear applied to their baby. Thrive, maybe, or flourish would be good, but survive was too much like exist. It just wasn’t good enough for a new member of the Forster family.
Sam looked around for the first time since Sheriff Ballard had left Gold Dust Ranch. They were headed for River Bend, away from Darton.
“Why aren’t we driving to the hospital? That’s where they took Brynna, isn’t it?”
“Yep,” the sheriff said. “Your dad and Gram are with her, but they won’t let anyone under sixteen in to see her—”
“That’s ridiculous!” Sam shouted. “What do they think I’m going to do? Jump rope in the elevator? Ride a skateboard down the halls?”
“Simmer down,” the sheriff said. “None of us made the rules.”
“Okay,” Sam said meekly. She really didn’t know what had gotten into her, so she bit her lip to stop any more outbursts.
“Your Gram hadn’t talked to a doctor yet when she called, but they’d been told Brynna would need to stay in the hospital for observation for at least twenty-four hours. That bein’ the case, they wanted you to go on home and hold down the fort.”
Sam nodded, though that old-time expression Gram and Dallas used grated on her nerves.
“Tomorrow, I guess you have some West Nile virus vaccinations coming in from Reno? Wyatt said you need to make sure that which
ever ranch hand picks it up has a cooler. That vaccine shouldn’t get warm on the way to your place. Does that all make sense to you?”
“Sure,” Sam said, though it sounded like busy work to her, something to keep her occupied while she waited in scared boredom at the ranch. “So, they didn’t know when they talked to you if it was false labor or premature?”
“They’re hoping for a false alarm,” the sheriff said, as his cruiser rumbled over the bridge over the La Charla River into the ranch yard.
The white house with green shutters, the cozy bunkhouse, and the big barn looked familiar, but also somehow threatened. When she scanned the ten-acre pasture, Sam saw the red gleam of Brynna’s blind mare Penny. The sorrel stood at the gate as if she was waiting for word of her mistress.
Suddenly Sam longed to get out of the car. She wanted to run into the house, up the stairs to her room, and slam the door against the trouble crowding toward her. Still, she tried to be polite.
“Thanks for the ride, and for telling me,” Sam said.
Before the car stopped, she grabbed for the backpack she’d slung into the backseat. She opened the car door, swung her feet onto the ground of home, and focused on the front porch.
“Hey, before I go, do you suppose I could see that filly of yours?” the sheriff asked.
His voice worked like a bungee cord, pulling her back.
“Tempest? Sure,” Sam said, then noticed all three hands, in from the range though it was only afternoon, standing near the bunkhouse.
She couldn’t read their expressions, but just in case they were watching her with pity, Sam squared her shoulders, bent to rumple Blaze’s ears, then led the sheriff toward the small pasture where Tempest and Dark Sunshine grazed.
The pasture was empty and her heart lurched.
“They must be inside the barn,” Sam said, and of course they were.
Sam heard the rustle of straw and the clump of hooves before she and the sheriff passed into the barn. As she did, though, for the first time in at least a month, Sam glanced back at the board nailed above the doorway. There it was, the little wooden horse Dallas had carved, stained with white shoe polish, then set there as a good luck charm.