by Terri Farley
“That’s ridiculous,” Jen said before Sam could tell her about that morning. “He thinks you’re a fine rider, but he’s paranoid like every other father.”
“More than most fathers,” Sam insisted.
“I’m the one whose parents wouldn’t let her go to school because of bad influences, so don’t tell me about protective.” She sighed and looked serious. “You know he’s afraid you’ll get hurt like you did before.”
Sam finished saddling Ace in silence. Jen hadn’t changed her mind about Dad, but she didn’t feel like arguing.
“Wait, we were talking about you riding with Ryan. How did we get off on this tangent about me?”
“Because it’s your kind of race,” Jen said. “You connect with your horse. If I understand what Mrs. Allen has in mind, that’s what half this race is about.”
“Maybe,” Sam said, shrugging.
But Jen was right. She might not be dynamite in the saddle, but she could usually communicate with horses.
Ace’s head swung around to face her. His black forelock parted over the white star on his forehead and his big brown eyes studied her.
Sam leaned forward and kissed his nose before bridling him. Maybe it was Ace, not her, who was psychic. Of course, she had stayed in touch with the Phantom.
Sam stared past the ranch gates, toward the Calico Mountains. It was spring. He should be nearby. If she could beckon him to the river tonight, she’d do it.
Ace’s back hooves danced, eager to be off. Witch flattened her ears and lashed her tail in annoyance.
“Where’s Jake, do you think?”
“He’s out there, working on the bunkhouse, see?” Jen nodded toward the half-finished structure.
Of course he was. She’d heard all the racket and dismissed it as the carpenters pounding on the barn.
But Jake wasn’t hammering. Using a handsaw, he was cutting lumber. His black hair had worked loose from its rawhide tie. Now, it swung forward with each stroke of the saw. As they watched, he dropped the saw, shrugged off his plaid flannel shirt, and tossed it toward a stump. It missed and hit the ground, but he kept working, oblivious to the fact that he only wore a plain white tee shirt over jeans.
The sight of Jake’s bare arms made Sam shiver. The sun was out, but it was not warm.
If Dad had asked him to come over and work, why hadn’t he mentioned it?
Sam knew Dad hadn’t. The insurance company was paying the carpenters repairing the barn. They would move on to the bunkhouse as soon as they’d finished. Dad wouldn’t ask Jake to work without paying him. And Dad couldn’t afford to pay Jake when he already had a crew drawing wages from the insurance company.
Besides that, Jake was on the school track team. Once the season had started, he used every spare minute to train for his long-distance events.
Jake’s saw rasped through the lumber, and sawdust flew. He could have used Dad’s electric saw, but he seemed to welcome the exertion.
He didn’t look over at her and Jen even once.
Was he just concentrating or was he angry?
Sam took Ace’s bridle reins and backed him away from Silly and Witch.
“I don’t think I want to talk with him,” she said to Jen.
Sam stepped into her stirrup, swung into the saddle, and turned Ace toward the ranch entrance.
“He’s sawing like he’s taking someone’s head off,” Jen said as she mounted, too. “So, I’m sure not going over there.”
“How ’bout later?” Sam asked.
“Okay,” Jen said. “We’ll take care of everything after our ride, for sure.”
But after their ride, Jen chickened out.
“It’s getting too cold to work with the horses,” she said. “And Jake hates me even when he’s in a good mood.”
“He doesn’t hate you,” Sam said, but Jen had a point. She and Jake were too much alike to get along.
So, Sam waved as Jen turned south, leaving her to ride back to River Bend Ranch alone.
Gram would be there when she arrived, though. She and Jen had seen the big yellow Buick go by on the highway.
“I saw Gram’s shopping list before she left,” Sam told Ace as she rubbed his damp neck. “And if you’re very good, I’ll bring you a sugar cube for a treat. She doesn’t mind spoiling you.”
Ace lifted his head a little higher. The little mustang’s vocabulary couldn’t include the word “sugar,” but he sure seemed to understand.
Even before she’d finished crossing the bridge, Sam spotted Gram.
Dressed in a denim skirt and a pale blue blouse with flowers embroidered across the yoke, Gram hefted a sack full of groceries from the Buick’s trunk.
Sam rode into the ranch yard, calling to Gram, “I’ll be right back and help you.”
Ace veered toward the water trough. Sam let him go, but drew rein and dismounted before he could drink.
“Don’t allow that horse more than a few mouthfuls, now,” Gram cautioned.
“Okay,” Sam said.
It was a good thing Gram was too far away to hear Sam’s irritated sigh. She hadn’t overwatered a hot horse since she was a child. She was pretty sure she hadn’t done it then.
“Enough, good boy,” Sam said, then walked Ace around for a few minutes before taking him to the hitching rail, slipping his bit and loosening his cinch.
“I got everything we’ll need for lasagna,” Gram said, as she and Sam filled their arms with sacks. “Pasta, cheese, Italian sausage, and all kinds of good things.”
Once they’d juggled their loads into the kitchen and put the bags down, Gram turned the conversation away from food. “I saw Jake working on the bunkhouse. Did you know he was coming over?”
“I had no idea,” Sam said. “And I’m sort of surprised he didn’t come help us carry the groceries.”
Gram gave a hum of agreement, then added, “I’m about to bake a yellow cake with brown sugar and toasted coconut icing. If that doesn’t bring him to the house, he’s not the Jake I know.”
Sam opened the fresh pink-and-white box of sugar cubes and took two before hurrying back to Ace.
“A promise is a promise,” she told the bay. His ears pricked up and his nostrils vibrated as she held her hand flat with the sugar cubes balanced on her palm.
His velvety lips lifted the sugar. His head bobbed, eyes closed, and he drooled a little as he savored the sweetness.
Sam petted the light patch of hair that showed where Ace had been freeze-branded. It had been years since he’d run free with the Phantom’s herd, and his life was much easier on River Bend Ranch, but thinking of the way Dark Sunshine had yearned toward the range this morning made her wonder if Ace remembered freedom.
“No more,” she said, when he sniffed her hand loudly. “Too much isn’t good for you.”
The gelding blew through his lips as if she were talking nonsense, but he went willingly back to the round corral and Sweetheart.
Sam grabbed the big bag of dog chow from Gram’s truck. Balancing it against her hip, she made it back into the house.
“Give that to me,” Gram said. “And you go see what’s up with Jake. Go on, shoo.”
“I don’t want to,” Sam protested. “He’s mad about something. Look.”
Sam and Gram stood in the doorway together. When Gram took a deep breath, Sam thought she was about to offer advice.
“I smell violets,” Gram said instead.
So did Sam. The tiny flowers bloomed in the shadows near the house.
“But what about Jake?”
Gram tilted her head to one side. She tucked a strand of gray hair back toward her neat bun.
“You’re right,” Gram said. “He’s working like a man trying to erase what’s on his mind. I imagine it has something to do with Mac.”
Quickly, Sam’s brain sorted through all the local names she knew. Her two-year stay in San Francisco, after her accident, sometimes made it hard to remember everyone.
“Who’s Mac?” she asked.
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br /> “MacArthur Ely, Jake’s grandfather. I ran into Helen Coley in town and she mentioned he was visiting at Three Ponies Ranch.”
“Ohhh,” Sam said. She’d heard rumors about Jake’s grandfather. Some said he was a shaman with special powers. Jake loudly denied that, saying his grandfather was just a Shoshone elder who respected the old ways. “But Jake likes his grandfather.”
“I’m sure he does,” Gram said, but her tone wavered.
“So why would he be mad that his grandfather’s visiting?”
Even as she asked, Sam had a feeling she knew.
Jake’s Dad was Shoshone and his mom wasn’t, but Jake took no note of that from day to day. One of the quickest ways to annoy him, in fact, was to ask about his Native American heritage.
Just a few weeks ago, when Mrs. Allen had looked at the blind foal she’d rescued and remarked on its Medicine Hat markings and their significance to some tribes, Jake had grumbled.
“Go talk to him,” Gram said pointedly.
“There’s no way you’re going to let me out of this, is there?”
“Honey, you’re Jake’s friend,” Gram said, then disappeared toward the pantry.
Jake sat on a stump, gazing at the horses in the ten-acre corral, as Sam walked across the ranch yard.
She knew exactly how to cheer him up. He’d like being one of the first three to know about Mrs. Allen’s race and he wouldn’t be able to resist the lure of the grand prize.
Sam walked a little faster. She thought Jake made a jerking movement, as if he considered escaping. Maybe she was wrong, though, because he was still sitting there when she walked up.
But before she told him about the race, she’d try to find out what he was upset about. Jake hated being coddled, so Sam decided to be direct.
“What’s wrong with you today?”
“Nothin’,” Jake said, looking up from half-lidded eyes.
“You decided to come over and finish half the bunkhouse reconstruction all alone for no reason?”
“Just bein’ neighborly,” he said.
“If you were being neighborly, you would’ve yelled ‘hi’ at me and Jen.”
“Didn’t know you’d taken to being so sensitive,” Jake began, but then a long breath whooshed between his lips. “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”
Wow. That had happened faster than she’d expected. Deciding she had nothing to lose, she asked, “Does it have to do with your grandfather?”
The look Jake flashed her made Sam think she should duck, but it faded. Jake shook his head and stared toward the mountains.
“He wants me to do some kind of a manhood initiation thing,” Jake said.
A frown contracted Sam’s forehead. She thought about fighting a grizzly bear, one-on-one. No. That stereotype was hundreds of years old. The instant she felt the frown, she lifted her eyebrows to erase it.
Jake couldn’t mean something like that.
“Really?” she said.
Most people would take that as a cue to explain. With Jake, you never knew. She didn’t get her hopes up. Living with Dad, who had the same I’ll-take-care-of-it-myself personality as Jake, had prepared her for disappointment.
“Really,” Jake said. “He doesn’t care that I don’t have time, getting ready for track season, either.”
Laughter came from the carpenters who were taking their lunch break. The back door of the empty bunkhouse swung creaking in a gust of wind. Sam wished she’d grabbed her jacket when she’d come back outside. If she stayed long enough to get something out of Jake, she could be here until sundown.
“What kind of initiation thing are you talking about?”
“Grandfather doesn’t care what we do. Like, it doesn’t have to be Shoshone, but he says we shouldn’t turn our backs on the old ways. We should master just one thing.”
We. That sounded like Jake wasn’t the only one. His brothers must be included, too. That sounded reasonable to Sam. Gram wanted her to learn to cook her mom’s favorite recipe. Wasn’t that sort of the same thing?
“So, your brothers have to do something with you?”
Jake’s expression stayed blank as he said, “They’ve already done their stuff.”
“Oh.” Sam gritted her teeth together to keep from begging for more information. To her, this family custom sounded incredibly cool, but Jake still didn’t want to tell her.
“You’re dying for details, aren’t you?” Jake said.
Sam nodded.
He sighed as if he were weary of the recitation before he’d even begun.
“Kit went on, like, an old school vision quest. Surviving in the wild, living off the land. That sort of thing.”
Sam didn’t interrupt, but she wanted to know more about Kit. She knew he was Jake’s oldest brother, but she’d never met him. Where did he live? How old was he? Why had he left Darton County? She knew enough to keep quiet, though.
“Nate learned to be a fancy dancer and he performed at a powwow in Reno. Adam built a canoe the old way and he still hauls it out to Monument Lake sometimes. Bryan built a sweat lodge. Dad calls it our Indian sauna. We all use it once in a while. And Quinn learned to drum. Grandfather had him play at some ceremony last fall. And then there’s me.
“Mom says it’s important to do something, because it will make Dad and Grandfather happy. But she can’t fool me. The history teacher part of her thinks it’s great.
“She brought up all these examples of family traditions, like joining your parents’ church or the fraternity your dad was in at college, stuff that’s a lot more of a commitment than this.” Jake stopped, shaking his head. “She actually suggested I make a teepee. Can you believe it? Like Darrell—”
Jake bit off the end of the sentence, but Sam could guess what he’d been about to say. Jake’s best friend Darrell didn’t have to make a teepee or a canoe or a sweat lodge. Was Jake just afraid of being different?
“You wear your hair long,” Sam said. Maybe pointing it out would remind him he didn’t care that much if he stood out from the crowd.
“Other guys have long hair.”
Not like yours, she wanted to say.
Instead, Sam turned her face skyward. The wind had vanished and the sun shone from between the clouds.
She didn’t pin Jake down and ask what he was going to do. He’d already told her more than she’d expected. She was satisfied and a little flattered that he’d confided in her.
“Hey,” she said. “Gram’s making a cake and she wants you to come eat some of it. Think you can hang around that long?”
Jake nodded. Then, at the sound of hooves, he looked toward the rear of the ranch, past the broken barn, beyond the corrals to the path that led up the hillside and eventually to Aspen Creek.
Brynna and Dad were coming home. Their voices sounded relaxed and happy. Sam was glad, but their arrival meant an end to her talk with Jake.
Her eyes turned back to his. For a second, before he brought down the shutters of his eyelids, she saw his confusion.
She didn’t say anything, of course, but something in Jake’s dark-brown eyes had reminded her of this morning, and the geese she’d seen, trying to decide whether to fly with the flock or split off on their own.
Chapter Four
Before Sam could tell Jake about Mrs. Allen’s race, Brynna and Dad trotted up, talking.
“Strawberry looks like a different horse when Dad rides her,” Sam muttered to Jake.
The roan approached in a classic cow-horse jog. Usually, she looked like a plump, pouty mare who’d do anything to escape exertion. With Dad astride, Strawberry’s Quarter horse breeding showed in every muscle.
“She knows he won’t put up with any nonsense,” Jake said. “That takes a burden off a horse, knowin’ she can’t be in charge.”
Brynna rode River Bend’s only Appaloosa. Maybe because he was shedding his winter coat, the spots on Jeepers-Creepers’ gray body looked especially clear, as if he’d been splattered with black paint. He arched his
neck as he approached.
Both horses seemed to be having as good a time as their riders. Seeing Brynna and Dad together, Sam couldn’t stay irritated that Dad had lectured her about her inept riding. How could she complain when Dad and Brynna looked so happy?
Brynna wore a long-sleeved white blouse and her red hair was clipped into a low ponytail instead of her workday French braid. She swayed in the polished Western saddle and the one hand that didn’t hold her reins fluttered in the air, punctuating her conversation.
In a pearl-snapped shirt so faded that Sam couldn’t tell if it had originally been green or blue, Dad looked like his usual self. He was a cowboy through and through, tough and lean as a strip of beef jerky, with a face marked by sun and weather. But since he’d married Brynna, just before Christmas, Dad looked content most of the time.
Right now, Dad was considering the saw in Jake’s hands. He looked surprised, but he didn’t have a chance to ask questions.
“It seems we’re having company,” Brynna said as she halted the Appaloosa and swung down to the ground.
“We are?” Sam felt a little lurch of excitement. “When?”
“Few hours from now,” Dad said.
Brynna laughed, holding her hands palm up as if she couldn’t explain how it had happened. “I guess because it’s the first nice day in a while, everyone was out for a ride. Once we’d invited the Kenworthys and Slocums, we couldn’t wait to ask your family, too, Jake.”
“We’ll double the number of places you need at the table,” Jake said.
Sam did a quick calculation. She might be weak in algebra, but she could add three Kenworthys, plus two Slocums—Rachel was in France on a two-week exchange program—and eight Elys. Oh, and she should probably count Jake’s grandfather.
Before she reached a total, Dad changed the equation.
“Might as well see if Trudy and Helen wanna come, too,” Dad said.
It took Sam a second to realize he meant Mrs. Allen and Helen Coley, Gram’s friend who worked as a housekeeper for the Slocums. With those two, she was up to seventeen. With the River Bend cowboys and the Forster family, where would they put everyone?