by Terri Farley
Blaze’s toenails came clicking upstairs. He stood panting outside the bathroom door.
Blaze hadn’t let himself into the house, so Dallas must be downstairs waiting. She’d have to hurry if she didn’t want to make him even more annoyed.
In three minutes flat, Sam was dressed and downstairs with a towel wrapped turban-style around her hair. Her stomach was growling so loud, she wondered why Blaze didn’t answer it.
She brought a plate of cookies to the table. She had just put a cookie in her mouth when Dallas asked, “Was he there?”
Shocked, Sam stopped chewing. Dallas seemed to know exactly where she’d gone, and why.
“That’s all I’m going to ask.” He stared down at his folded hands. “And if you decide to tell me anything else I might have to call Wyatt. Otherwise, I’m thinking you went out riding this morning, got caught in a flash flood, but had the good judgment to try to take care of seven or eight head of cattle and wait for help.”
Sam’s tired brain sorted back through the list. Riding. Flash flood. Cattle.
“That’s right,” Sam said, and it was so. There wasn’t a single lie in Dallas’s list--if he didn’t ask where she’d ridden out from this morning. “But I--“
Dallas held a palm toward her and Sam stopped talking. The foreman knew the Phantom’s freedom, and maybe his life, were at stake. He cared, but he didn’t want her confession.
Sam fidgeted in her chair. Would any harm be caused by keeping where she’d slept a secret?
“No, he wasn’t there.” Sam circled back to Dallas’s question. “I think Karla Starr’s got him.”
“She might.”
“And since that’s against the law, and BLM is in charge of watching out for mustangs, I think I should call Brynna Olson and tell her that I saw the Phantom’s herd and he wasn’t with them.”
Dallas nodded.
“And then …” Sam wondered just how much of a buddy Dallas was willing to be. “And then, I thought I’d figure out which rodeo Karla Starr is supplying stock for this weekend”--Sam met Dai’s blue eyes; he hadn’t said no yet--”and have you, uh, drive me there?”
“Right now. During a major storm. Without Wyatt’s permission.”
“No, we could call Dad first. I have the phone number of the motel.”
“And you think he’d say it’s fine and dandy?”
“Well, if they weren’t too far away.” Sam counted three cookie crumbs on the table. “And if I was with you.” She used her finger to herd the crumbs together. “Yeah, I think he’d say it was all right.”
Dallas shook his head. “You know, I remember when you couldn’t hold up your head. Now you’re maneuverin’ me into running all over the countryside on a wild-goose chase.”
The electricity chose that moment to return. If the lights hadn’t flashed bright and the television clicked on with a chorus of recorded laughter, things might have been different.
But Sam took the sudden gaiety as a sign. And so, it seemed, did Dallas. Or maybe he was simply too tired to argue.
“Okay.” Dallas pushed back from the kitchen table. He took a green coffee can from the cupboard and ran water into a small tin coffeepot. “Get on the phone, sweet talker, and let’s see what you can work out.”
Chapter Fifteen
Of course, Gram and Dad weren’t in their motel room.
Even if they’d heard about the flash flood, it was Saturday. Gram would be frying chicken in her neat white apron. Dad would be riding Banjo in lazy figure eights, warming him up for the roping competition. So Sam left a message.
“Dad, Gram, please tell Brynna that the Phantom isn’t with his herd.” Sam’s voice stayed level. Since Dallas had agreed to help her, she felt strong.
“There’s a young black stallion who thinks he’s in charge. He must be the Phantom’s son, because he looks just like Blackie did.” Sam thought for a few seconds.
“That’s all, I guess. There was kind of a lot of flooding, but Dallas can tell you about that tonight. ‘Bye. I love you.”
Sam ran upstairs and rinsed her hair. Then, still hungry, Sam put a frying pan on the stove, turned on the burner, and made a grilled cheese sandwich.
“Are you sure you don’t want one?” she asked as butter sizzled on the hot pan.
“Not good for my old heart.” Dallas shook his head and sipped his fresh coffee. “And you seem dead-set on testing it.”
While the bread browned and the cheese melted, Sam called the number of the BLM corrals at Willow Springs. No one answered, since it was Saturday afternoon.
Sam wasn’t surprised. She’d known since daybreak that Brynna was her only hope. Brynna wanted the stallion left on the range to improve the mustangs of the Calico Mountains. And Brynna had the authority to notify rangers when something was wrong.
Dallas munched an apple while Sam ate, and together they listened to the radio. No flash flood or storm warnings were reported, and even the storm watch had ended. Dry and clear on Sunday, the weatherman said, with temperatures predicted to be around 68 degrees.
Outside the kitchen window, though, it was still windy and gray.
Sam started for the sink to wash her dishes.
“Leave those for now,” Dallas said.
“Really?” Sam backed away from the sink.
How cool of Dallas to let her relax. Maybe she’d kindle a blaze in the fireplace and start on that history project for real. It would be cozy, sipping hot chocolate and reading while the fire baked the rain chill from her bones.
“You can do dishes later.” Dal took his hat from the hook by the door. “We’ve got near three hours of daylight left. Before we go gallavantin’ off to rodeos, we gotta make those cattle as safe as possible. I’ll catch Strawberry and Jeeper. You be out front in five minutes.”
From the River Bend bridge, Sam saw that the river had receded faster than it had risen.
Sculpted by floodwater, the riverbank dirt wore ripply patterns. In low places, puddles shone. Sticks, rocks, and clumps of brush were strewn at the high-water mark.
The cottonwood tree was missing a few lower branches, but once more it stood beside the river, instead of in the middle. Two jays hopped on its branches, squawking.
Sam surveyed the ranch. If this flood had rushed through San Francisco, she and Aunt Sue would be staring out the apartment window looking down on cleanup efforts. Red and amber lights would flash, backup warnings would beep from emergency vehicles, and workers in hard hats would string cables everywhere.
Here, nature had started healing both animals and land.
Sam’s heart hurt as she remembered the Phantom wasn’t out there, tending his herd.
Hooves splashed, and for one soaring second Sam hoped the stallion had come to prove her wrong. Instead, she saw Pepper and Ross riding toward her and Dallas.
“Been upstream as far as Three Ponies?” Dallas asked.
Ross nodded. “Just--” He pointed at the debris left behind, indicating there was no more serious damage.
Sam pushed her damp bangs out of her eyelashes. If she hadn’t been so tired, she would have teased Ross. The shy cowboy never wasted a word when he could use a gesture.
Pepper, all red hair and energy, sat on a fretting Quarter horse named Nike. Pepper wasn’t much older than Jake, but he was a full-time cowboy and proud he’d bought the lanky horse he called a “ruby bay” with his own earnings. The animal suited him, Sam thought. Neither of them ever settled down.
Just now, though, Sam felt Pepper checking her out.
“Hey there, cowgirl, you look pretty done in.”
It was as close as Pepper would come to questioning Dallas’s judgment about making Sam work. Always the boss, Dallas just turned Jeeper downstream and rode on.
“‘Course, we don’t have Jake.” Pepper reined Nike into step with Strawberry. “I guess we can make do with you.”
Sam smiled. It was the kind of compliment only a cowboy would give, and she accepted it with pride.
&n
bsp; The four riders fanned out across the range on both sides of the river. Their eyes searched everywhere for cows in trouble.
They didn’t see many. After days of being herded to higher ground, most cattle had stayed in the upper valleys, even though it contradicted their usual grazing patterns.
Sam surprised five deer drinking from a puddle that a red-winged blackbird was using as a bathtub. The does raised their muzzles, judging Sam with gentle eyes before they pranced away. And then she saw the dead heifer.
Sam didn’t want to look. She tried to believe the bloated cow was something else. A rust-colored sofa, maybe, jammed there between a ripped-off branch and a boulder.
Was it her fault? Was this one of the two heifers who’d leaped ahead of her and Ace, then been snatched off their hooves and washed downriver? Why did she have to find this corpse?
It wasn’t fair. She wasn’t a cowboy, she was a kid. Then Sam reminded herself that this wasn’t punishment. It was part of ranching. Here, even a teenager had to pitch in and help.
Sam urged Strawberry forward, overriding the mare’s caution.
“Pepper!” Sam yelled to him, since he was nearest. “Want to give me a hand?”
Coming at a jog, Pepper limbered up his rope. He’d already seen the cow. He didn’t offer Sam a word of sympathy, but she heard it in the respect he gave the dead animal.
“I’ll just put a loop on this old girl and bring her back where she belongs.” Pepper sent his rope flying.
Though it took several tries, a loop finally tightened around two stiff hind legs. Eyes rolling, nostrils fluttering in disgust, Nike pulled the awful burden to shore.
By dusk the cowboys had dragged home three dead Herefords wearing River Bend brands.
Standing in the ranch yard at last, Sam’s arms felt too limp to lift the saddle from Strawberry’s back. She did it anyway.
“It’s a sad business,” Dallas admitted. He looked out to the far pasture, where Ross was using their beat-up bulldozer to bury the dead cattle. “But we didn’t find that calico-faced heifer you mentioned. Maybe she grew fins.”
Sam managed a smile just before she heard the phone.
Thinking of the Phantom, she ran for it.
“‘Bout time you got in.” Dad sounded mad. “What’s all this about a flood and how is it you’re not sitting home studying so you can answer the phone?”
“They needed me--Pepper, Dallas, and Ross did--and I--” Sam shrugged out of her slicker and let it fall on the kitchen floor. “Some of our cows drowned, Dad, and--Ace did his best, you know? We tried to keep them from jumping in, but--”
“You were out there on Ace?” Dad’s voice shook.
“--there were pieces of fence and branches and whirlpools.” Sam kept talking, trying to make him understand. “They couldn’t swim because the water was going so fast, even where it was only a few inches deep. It looked like chocolate milk, all churned up, and it snatched their feet right out from under them.”
Dad had stayed quiet too long. Sam picked up the slicker from the floor and hung it, as if he were watching. Had Dad figured out from her message that she’d ridden alone to the Phantom’s valley?
The long-distance line crackled with static.
“Did you and Gram win?” she asked weakly.
“Samantha, you’re not making one bit of sense. Let me talk with Dal, if he’s there.”
“Yes sir, he’s just outside. I’ll get him.”
I’m dead. Sam lay the receiver down and shuffled outside.
She felt dizzy. Pepper and Dallas looked like a black-and-white photo of the Old West. Standing in the dusk, they looked at her over the backs of tired horses.
“Dad wants to talk with you.”
Both Blaze and Dallas followed Sam inside, and Sam kept walking. She sat on the living room floor in front of the television. She stared at the screen without noticing what she was watching, and petted Blaze’s head until he fell asleep.
Something in Dallas’s tone changed, attracting her attention.
“Three. She was right,” Dallas said. “Yeah, she got a good scare, but … Naw, she’s fine. Could use some sleep.
“The thing is …” Dallas’s voice dropped almost to a whisper for what seemed like a long time. “… Sweetwater, Riverton, and someplace near Salt Lake. ‘Course, that one’s out.”
As Sam pushed off the floor and tried to stand, her knees stuck. Her leg muscles trembled, too. Without thinking, she must have clamped them hard around Ace to keep from falling into the raging waters. Poor Ace.
She wobbled toward the kitchen and braced in the door frame. Why pretend she wasn’t eavesdropping? Dal knew she was, or he wouldn’t have whispered.
Water had dripped off Dal’s slicker and made a pool around his boots. He must have been concentrating awfully hard not to have noticed.
“Weather station says it’s passed on through.” Dallas was nodding. “Nothing the boys can’t handle. Okay, you have yourself a nice evening, now. Eat some of that fettuccine alfredo for me, and don’t worry about a thing. I’ll send her off to bed early and see you all sometime tomorrow night.”
Dallas hung up.
Sam waited.
Then, all the wrinkles on Dallas’s tanned face lifted and he gave Sam a thumbs-up and a smile that made her whoop for joy.
Dad had said they could go.
She crossed all her fingers on both hands. This time tomorrow, the Phantom could be home, safe and sound.
Sam had turned off her reading light. Her eyes were closed and her mind drifting, when the telephone rang. She stared stupidly at the numbers on her watch. Nine o’clock. She peered toward the dark outside her window. Nine o’clock at night. She really had conked out early.
Oh, ow! Sam tottered across her bedroom floor and into the hall, but her leg muscles were so stiff she had to cling to the banister to make it downstairs.
The phone was still ringing when she entered the kitchen, so the call must be important.
“Hello?”
“You sound outta breath.” Jake’s lazy voice made Sam sure he’d taken all those naps she’d only dreamed of today. “Were you in the barn?”
“No, I was in bed.”
“Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself in the flood?”
“Did I hurt … myself?” Sam’s fingers clamped hard on telephone receiver. “Let me think.”
She thought of shale sliding on slick mud, of cattle rocketing against Ace so he nearly stumbled into the wild river, of wind and rain that might have added up to hypothermia.
“No, I didn’t hurt myself. Thanks for asking.”
“Whew, you’ve sure got your cranky pants on tonight.”
“My, my--what?”
Jake laughed at Sam’s outrage. Then he used an adult voice meant to put her in her place. “I only called to see how Teddy’s doing.”
Sam winced. She should have thought of the Curly Bashkir colt Jake was schooling sooner. The two-year-old was at a critical stage in his training, and no one had ridden him since Jake’s accident.
“He’s fine. We put him in the ten-acre pasture and he’s getting along with the other horses. In fact, he and Jeepers are sort of palling around together.”
“That’s good. I was thinking …” Jake’s voice trailed off. He cleared his throat.
“My alarm is set for four A.M.,” she said, “so if this is going to take long--”
“Zip it, Sam. You know I’m bad at asking for favors. What I was thinking, though, is that Monday, if I can get Nate or somebody to drive me over, you could work Teddy while I tell you what to do.”
“Like that would be a new experience.”
“Forget I asked.”
“No, I won’t.” Sam wondered if she could use this as an excuse to put off Rachel’s lesson. “Of course I’ll do it. I’m flattered you asked.”
“Who else is there?”
Sam laughed in spite of herself. “You’re a great guy, Ely, but I’m going back to bed. Good night.”
The receiver was almost down when she heard him ask, “Where are you going at four A.M.?”
For some reason of its own, Sam’s brain flashed a picture of Rachel’s arms linked around Jake’s waist as they rode double.
“To my friend Duncan’s house,” Sam said.
“Duncan? Duncan who?”
Sam hung up the phone. She didn’t go back and answer its ring as she walked upstairs, either.
Of course, she didn’t have a friend named Duncan, but that didn’t matter. It served Jake right.
Ahh. Sam’s shaky muscles unfurled as she got back into bed. When her head touched the pillow, she was in heaven.
Even though her alarm was set for four A.M., Sam’s lips curved in the biggest grin she’d worn all day.
Chapter Sixteen
Sam came downstairs before dawn and found Dallas hunched over road maps of California, Nevada, and Utah.
“Last night I called the stock manager at Karla Starr’s ranch. I told him we had animals she might be interested in--which is true.”
Sam nodded. If Dark Sunshine hadn’t been in foal, she knew Karla Starr would have made an offer. She also knew that had nothing to do with Dallas’s call.
“Her manager says Karla moves around a lot--one step ahead of the law, I’m guessing.”
Dallas’s guess brought Sam fully awake. If Karla Starr had the Phantom, he’d be stolen property.
“In any case, the manager doesn’t keep close tabs on her. Just feeds broncs and bulls, but he had a few hunches where she might be this weekend.”
Dallas positioned a map so Sam could see.
“We’ll be checking the Sweetwater Rodeo first,” he said, “since it’s closest.”
The next closest was a hundred miles beyond Sweetwater, at the Wild West Days rodeo in Riverton, California.
“Third place is a college rodeo in Tower Mountain, Utah, but that’s too far to check and still be back in time for school Monday morning.”
Dallas folded the Utah map, put it away, and ten minutes later they were on the road.
Sam had never seen a more beautiful sunrise than the one over the rodeo grounds in Sweetwater, Nevada. The glitter of sun on windshields in the contestants’ parking lot made yesterday’s storm seem like nothing but a bad dream.