Rain Dance (4 page)

“Good timing,” Dad said. “I was just about to show her the cot.”

Dad lifted a brand-new folding bed from a box in the tack room.

“Since most mares foal a couple hours before dawn, I figured you'd be wanting to sleep out here,” Dad said.

“Helen Coley knows you have our permission,” Brynna put in.

“Might as well be comfortable,” Dad added.

Sam couldn't believe it. The halter, the vet bills, and now this. Dad was spending a lot of money on Sunny's foal.

Sam couldn't find the words to tell Dad how much this meant to her, so she tackled him with a hard hug.

He gave her back a flat-handed pat and didn't seem to mind talking to the top of her head.

“You be careful of that mare. Don't take anything for granted. If she gets a chance to skedaddle, I think she will. I'm not sure you'll ever get the wildness out of her. She just doesn't see the profit in it.”

Sam looked up. “I'm not sure what you mean.”

“Take Ace, for example,” Dad said. “He likes his regular meals and he likes you. But the mare's early days with people were nothing to brag about, and she still seems to expect the worst.”

 

While Dad and Brynna helped Gram load the last of the supplies into the white van, which had been converted into a modern-day chuck wagon, Sam
stood at the fence of the barn corral.

It was far too hot for an early summer evening. The fence boards still held warmth from the day's high temperatures and night felt more like a dark blanket than cool shade. No wind stirred the leaves on the cottonwood trees or blew Dark Sunshine's mane as she ripped at the grass, shaking her head when a bite had dirt clinging to it.

A mosquito whined past Sam's cheek. As she brushed it away, a movement caught her eye and she saw cookie-cutter-perfect wings against a bruise-colored sky. A bat.

“Help yourself to as many mosquitoes as you want,” Sam said, thinking about the nights she'd spend in the barn. “And bring your friends.”

Her voice didn't echo. It sounded dull, as if the low-hanging clouds could deaden sound.

Maybe this was the calm before the storm, Sam thought, but it didn't feel calm.

It felt as if the sky was holding its breath, waiting until she was all alone to cut loose.

“S
am, get up.” Brynna's voice cut through Sam's dream.

Sam lifted her wrist. She knew her watch's glowing numbers were right in front of her face, but it took a few seconds before she managed to open her eyes.

It was three-thirty on a summer morning. Actually, she was pretty sure three-thirty still counted as night.

“What?” Sam asked.

Then, before Brynna could answer, Sam's legs pedaled beneath the covers, trying to get going. What if Dark Sunshine was foaling?

“I want to see you ride Popcorn.”

“What?” Sam asked again, but this time she was sitting up, rubbing her eyes.

“Since Ace is already out at Red Rock, and you'll want to ride this week, I thought you'd want to try Popcorn instead of one of the older horses.”

“Yeah.” Sam rested her feet on the floor and stood. She looked down at what she'd worn to bed, wondering if Popcorn would object to her T-shirt and boxer-style shorts.

“We're driving out of the yard in twenty-two minutes.” Brynna's voice sharpened and Sam knew it was meant to spur her along. “Show me you can catch, saddle, and ride him now, and you have permission to ride him while we're gone. If not, I'm telling Helen Coley you can only ride Sweetheart.”

Brynna's feet were tapping down the staircase by the time Sam opened a dresser drawer.

Oh right, like Brynna's going to call Helen Coley now
, Sam thought. But she'd been aching to ride Popcorn, so she'd do it. Still, couldn't Brynna have had this brainstorm yesterday afternoon?

Sam pulled on some jeans and made her way downstairs to find Gram and Dad standing in the kitchen with cups of coffee, watching Blaze. The Border collie's muzzle lay on his crossed paws and no matter what they said or did, his plumy tail barely moved.

“He knows you're leaving without him,” Sam said through a yawn.

Gram nodded and Dad looked pointedly at the kitchen clock.

“I'm hurrying,” Sam insisted.

In spite of the front porch light, she couldn't see horses in the ten-acre pasture. It was that dark.

Gradually, Popcorn's pale body took shape and so did the light patches on Sweetheart's pinto coat.

And there was Brynna. She'd decided to speed things up by gathering tack and a can of grain. All of the horses stood at the gate, ears pricked forward with interest.

“Thanks,” Sam said as she took the halter and grain.

In minutes, she had the big albino tied at the hitching rail. Except for three pulls toward Dark Sunshine's corral, he stood quietly.

He didn't want to accept the snaffle, but Sam nudged the toothless bar of his jaw with her finger and he opened his mouth to accept the bit. While she lifted the bridle up, gently bent his white ears beneath the headstall, and adjusted the throat latch, he watched her with trusting blue eyes.

“You're a good boy,” Sam told him.

Once she'd saddled Popcorn, she mounted slowly, giving the mustang time to feel her weight in the stirrup before she swung aboard and settled on his back.

“He's perfect,” Sam said as she guided the gelding in a wide circle around Brynna. “See?”

“Ride him out to the bridge and back,” Brynna instructed. “I'm going to surprise him, so be ready.”

“Got it,” Sam said. She swallowed hard, but she didn't ask what kind of surprise.

Popcorn's head jerked up. His ears flicked forward, back, and sideways, showing he wasn't quite sure about all this. Still, he obeyed.

Sam knew why Brynna wanted to surprise the gelding while he was carrying her.

“It's to test me, not you,” she told the horse.

Popcorn still responded better to plow reining than neck reining, so she pulled her right hand out, away from her body, and he followed it, turning back toward the ranch house.

Instantly Sam noticed Brynna seemed to have vanished.

Where was she? Was Brynna going to hide and pop out waving her hands and yelling?

No. Brynna's single step was enough to scare the albino.

She'd been standing right next to one of the porch posts. As she moved away from it, Popcorn saw a thing that had seemed solid, suddenly divide.

He shied, but Sam used her legs to drive him forward.

“C'mon boy, no big deal.”

Popcorn tried to sidestep, but she tightened her legs even more and he went on. Sam only let him slow when he came even with Brynna. He swung his head
to study her, then sneezed and swished his tail, seeming almost embarrassed.

“Great,” Brynna said. She looked away as the kitchen door opened and Dad and Gram emerged. “I think she's good to go.”

“Never doubted it,” Dad said, but the way Brynna regarded him, hands on hips, said otherwise.

“Come on down so I can hug you good-bye, honey,” Gram said.

Popcorn hung at the end of the reins, wary as he watched the flurry of arms and kisses.

Red taillights were bobbing across the bridge, growing smaller, disappearing, by the time Sam realized she was one day past fourteen years old and in charge of an entire ranch.

She turned Popcorn back into his pasture to be nosed by Sweetheart and Amigo. Then she fed the horses and checked their water. She hadn't heard a peep from the chickens, so she didn't disturb them.

When the glossy-feathered Rhode Island Red rooster came out crowing, it would be time to gather eggs.

“Until then,” Sam said to Blaze, who leaned against her legs as if trying to trip her, “why don't we go inside for a little breakfast?”

Sam meant to make something sweet and unwholesome for breakfast, but once Blaze was consoling himself with a dog cookie, she thought of an even more forbidden treat. A nap.

She'd lie down on the couch for a few minutes, before it started getting hot outside. As soon as she stretched out, Cougar appeared. With a mew, he asked permission, then vaulted onto her stomach. With precise steps, he walked up to collapse on her chest.

To the sound of Cougar's purring, Sam fell back to sleep.

 

Someone was knocking on the kitchen door.

Blaze was barking.

Hazy light at the living room windows gave Sam no clue to time. It could have been six in the morning or six at night.

It was nearly eight, Sam saw when she glanced at the clock as she rushed through the kitchen toward the door. She could see Mrs. Coley's shiny gray hair through the door window.

“Hi,” Sam said, sounding groggy.

A gust of hot wind came in along with Mrs. Coley.

“Don't wear that guilty expression for me,” Mrs. Coley said.

Sam rubbed a hand over her sleep-mashed hair and straightened her T-shirt.

“I could see the horses had been fed. And the hens looked happy chasing grasshoppers out of Grace's garden. That's good enough for me.”

“Sunny—” Sam began.

“The little buckskin?” Mrs. Coley set a covered
plate on the table and turned toward the refrigerator. “She hasn't foaled yet, if that's what you're wondering.

“Grace told me she was due,” Mrs. Coley explained. “But to tell you the truth, Samantha, I've never known a mare to foal during daylight hours. Actually, it's a good thing you had a little nap so you'll be more alert tonight. Now, before you go out and get busy, why don't we have some cookies and milk?”

Mrs. Coley had made big soft oatmeal cookies full of nuts and dried cranberries. They made a perfect breakfast.

“We're supposed to have dry lightning this afternoon and an absolute frog strangler of a storm tomorrow,” Mrs. Coley said.

“Storms don't scare me,” Sam said. “It will be a relief.”

Suddenly she was glad Brynna had insisted Mrs. Coley spend the nights with her. Sleeping in the barn with Sunny during a summer shower would be fun with Mrs. Coley in the house, for backup, ready to help or call Dr. Scott.

“It will be a relief,” Mrs. Coley agreed. “But that new barn”—Mrs. Coley gestured toward Gold Dust Ranch—“has gaps in the roof. My employer hired a Cincinnati builder who specialized in ‘architecturally unique structures,' but he'd never built a barn before,” Mrs. Coley explained. “It's a pretty building, but it has some flaws in terms of housing livestock.”

Sam wasn't surprised. Linc Slocum was rarely
willing to take advice from more experienced cattlemen, even though he'd kept Jed Kenworthy, Jen's dad, on as foreman after he bought his ranch.

“That Ryan is as broody as a mother hen about Hotspot,” Mrs. Coley said, smiling. “He's been calling Dr. Scott every day, because he's afraid Hotspot can't foal safely if the roof leaks.”

Until a few months ago, Linc Slocum's son Ryan had lived in England with his mother. Unlike Linc, Ryan was a horseman and he'd fallen in love with Apache Hotspot. The blue-blooded Appaloosa mare had arrived in an air-conditioned horse van at the end of last summer, but right away she'd been stolen by a hammerhead stallion.

Linc had promised to give Sam the foal, but if Ryan wanted it, there was no doubt in Sam's mind that it would belong to him.

I already have enough horses
, Sam told herself, though she didn't really believe it.

Ace was hers. Sunny's foal would be, too. And even though Sunny's role was to help girls in the HARP program, the mare had come closest to bonding with her.

“…taken it into his head to patch that roof himself since his father didn't hire it done before he left for the cattle drive,” Mrs. Coley was saying.

“What?” Sam asked. Her mind had wandered, wondering if she'd ever have
enough
horses.

“That's why I have to go back over to Gold Dust
for a little while,” Mrs. Coley said. “That boy's going up on the barn roof with shingles, and it's just not safe to do that alone.”

“Isn't Rachel home?” Sam asked.

“Well, yes,” Mrs. Coley began.

Ryan's twin, Rachel, was her daddy's princess. Model-sleek and pretty, Rachel pampered herself with the finest clothes and makeup and she despised horses and ranch life.

Sam would hate to have to depend on Rachel in an emergency.

“Forget I asked,” Sam said.

If Ryan fell from the roof, an ambulance would have to come all the way from Darton. It would be smart to call the volunteer fire department, too, because its members were trained first responders and lived within minutes of the ranch.

In an emergency, Mrs. Coley would know what to do. Rachel wouldn't have a clue.

“So I'll just run back over there,” Mrs. Coley said, standing. “But I'll be back here before dark. And don't worry about dinner. I'll bring something with me.”

“I'll be fine,” Sam said, following Mrs. Coley outside.

It would be great to have the ranch to herself. After her chores were finished, she might take Sunny down to wade in the river.

Mrs. Coley studied the sky, then looked west,
beyond the ridge that ran behind the Gold Dust, River Bend, and Three Ponies ranches. A metallic flicker showed faraway lightning.

Lightning could cause fires. Sunny had already had to run for her life once because of a fire.

What if the lightning signaled an approaching hailstorm? Sam had seen the damage their icy pounding could cause.

And Mrs. Coley had said the storm was supposed to be a “frog strangler.” A heavy downpour could cause the La Charla River to flood. The last time it had, a wall of water had rushed over the ranch, killing cattle, changing the landscape with huge rolling boulders, and nearly drowning Sam and Ace.

There'd been a power failure and the roads had been washed out, too.

If that happened this time, she'd be marooned on the ranch alone.

With a flurry of feathers, the red hens rushed away from Gram's garden. The hot wind plucked at their wings and they packed into their henhouse with worried clucks.

“It's a good thing you're not afraid of storms,” Mrs. Coley said, giving Sam a thumbs-up sign, “'cause I think this one is going to be a doozie.”

“Yep,” Sam said as Mrs. Coley got into the car and thunder rumbled overhead. “Good thing.”