The Wild One (8 page)

“N
O ONE LIKES
housework, young lady,” said Gram. “That's why TV commercials have singing scrub bubbles and dancing toilet brushes.”

Gram stood with her hands on her hips. She'd caught Sam trying to slip out the front door on cleaning day. That had not put Gram in a good mood.

Sam had no chance to offer an excuse. Gram kept talking.

“I'm giving you a choice. Stay indoors and help me, or hightail it out to the barn and clean out a winter's worth of straw and manure.”

Mentally, Sam compared the smell of ammonia and glass cleaner with the scents of a summer barn. Kind of a toss-up. Though it was cool indoors and hot outside, in the barn she'd have Buddy for company. She'd be in a better mood than Gram.

Sam rubbed her eyes. This would teach her to sleep in.

Each night since they'd been home from the drive, she'd crept out of bed about midnight and waited, watching by moonlight for the Phantom. If she'd awakened early, she'd have ridden out with the cowboys. Dad, Pepper, and Ross hated riding the fence line and mending breaks the cattle might escape through, but Sam knew it was more fun than housework.

Jake couldn't offer any distraction, either. He'd stayed home to help his dad with an irrigation problem. To Sam, even standing knee-deep in water sounded like heaven.

“Take your pick.” Gram tapped her foot.

“The barn,” Sam said and made a run for it.

 

Sam stabbed a pitchfork under a dusty layer of straw, and lifted.

Blaze, the ranch dog, lay in the shade of the barn watching. As Sam dropped the straw into the wheelbarrow, Blaze sneezed.

Sam stopped, pushing back the locks of hair that curved on her cheeks as her short cut began to grow out. She'd been working for an hour, and the chore wasn't as gross as she'd feared. Still, the most exciting part of ranching was over for this year.

The cattle drive had been the high point and this was, she hoped, the low point.

Once again, Sam filled the wheelbarrow and rolled it out into the sunshine. Buddy did her best to
make the job fun, frolicking beside Sam as she passed the corrals and dumped the dried straw and manure on a growing hill. Instead of buying garden fertilizer, Gram used this stuff.

After just a few days at the ranch, Buddy was peppy and healthy. She twirled her tail in a corkscrew, then made little hip-hop bucks. She was pretty happy for an orphan.

“And pretty lucky,” Sam told her. Slocum hadn't claimed Buddy and Dad hadn't mentioned turning the calf out with the beef cattle. “Stay runty and maybe you can spend your life as a pet,” Sam added.

Buddy spooked and ran around to Sam's other side, ears cupped toward the pasture. Blaze got to his feet. Ears alert, he made an inquiring noise deep in his throat. Ace and a few other horses stopped grazing. They stood statue-still, attention aimed toward the river.

Chills sprinkled over Sam's scalp and down her shoulders. The Phantom wouldn't come to the ranch in the daylight, but she'd never seen the other horses act this way, except when he did.

Sam scanned the wild side of the river, but saw nothing. She was imagining things. Why would the stallion come back again?

Sam rolled the wheelbarrow back to the barn and bent to her task. She didn't
want
to give up hope the stallion would return, that was all.

She kept after her work, back and forth from the
barn. All the while, she imagined the stallion watching. He wasn't, of course. The last time he'd come to her, Slocum had chased him day and night. Had his lungs burned? Had he wondered why one of his own kind joined a man to hunt him? And before that, when Slocum ripped his flesh with ropes and weights, what had the Phantom thought, under those crashing waves of panic?

Men had done nothing but hurt him.

Sam leaned the pitchfork against the barn wall and appreciated the clean barn and stall she'd tidied for Buddy. Then she heard a splash. Sam turned and looked out the wide barn doors. Against all logic, her horse had returned anyway.

Sam walked from the barn. She moved smoothly, reaching out to the stallion with her thoughts.
I'll never hurt you
.

The horse gleamed like polished ivory. His hide glimmered at each flex of muscles as he lifted his knees through the silver sluice of water. Even when Sam reached the bridge, he kept coming, fording the deepest part of the river with his broad chest.

Sam's heart threatened to beat free of her own chest.

“Zanzibar,” she whispered as the stallion looked left and right, as if he'd cross the river and walk right up to her.

He shouldn't. She wouldn't hurt him, of course, but she was human. Humans would always want to
capture and cage an animal as beautiful as Zanzibar. He shouldn't trust her.

And yet he swam. Head surging forward, nostrils distended to show pink inside, he came to her. Sam thought of a myth she'd studied in English class. Poseidon the ocean god had driven horses whose white manes blew back on the wave crests.

River Bend might be just a small ranch in a desert state, but Zanzibar was a stallion fit for a god.

His hooves grazed river rock and he stopped, still knee-deep in water. For a minute, he looked away, but one ear turned in Sam's direction. Each second, she thought he'd bolt, but he didn't. He blew through his lips, opening his mouth as if to speak, then closing it, as if he were too shy.

Sam tried to understand. Instead of reaching out to the stallion with her mind, she used her heart. He remembered the ranch, but how did his equine mind remember her?

The stallion lowered his muzzle almost to the water. Instead of drinking, he uttered a low rumble that begged her to reply.

“I took care of you, Zanzibar. When you were a foal and just weaned from your mom, I stayed with you, didn't I, boy?”

The stallion kept his head low, but the angle of his ears told Sam to keep talking.

“Remember that thunderstorm when you were a yearling? It shook the barn walls and Dad let me stay,
petting you all night until my fingers were stiff. I fell asleep and missed the school bus. Dad said when he came into the barn, you were standing over me like a big guard dog. So, I guess you took care of me, too.”

He was a stallion now, an adult. What help could she give, that he couldn't get from his herd?

Her silence broke the spell. Zanzibar had become the Phantom once more. The stallion backed three splashing steps away, then lowered into the current, silver dapples glinting as he struck out for the other shore.

What did the stallion want? He had a lush valley full of mares and foals. They were his family. She could offer him nothing but captivity. Even if Jake helped her use gentle ways to bring the stallion in, he'd hate her for it.

Sam stared at the hills long after the horse vanished. Half of her wanted to hug this secret close. Half of her wanted to tell Jake.

Buddy nuzzled her hand, then licked her palm with a long tongue, reminding her it was time to eat.

They returned to the barn where Sam had stowed a full bottle. The calf tugged at the nipple. Her eyes rolled back and her tail switched in pure delight. Sam remembered when helping Zanzibar had been this simple.

Things had changed so much in two years. Now Sam didn't know what to do.

 

The next morning Sam ran out to the barn before breakfast. She fed Buddy and turned her into a pasture adjoining the barn. The calf had the grassy enclosure to herself. Though she looked small out there alone, the calf would have a good time until it was time to go back to the barn for a midday bottle.

Sam went back to the house and washed her hands.

“Can I help you with anything, Gram?” she asked.

If Gram answered, Sam didn't notice. What she did hear was Jake's spurs chiming before he sauntered through the kitchen door.

“You're in for the time of your life, Samantha.” Jake took his hat from fresh-washed hair and snatched a piece of bacon from the plate Gram placed on the table. “Wyatt's going to let me drive his truck up to the mustang corrals at Willow Springs.”

“The mustang corrals?” Sam felt excited and worried all at once.

“Willow Springs is where the BLM holds wild horses until they're adopted,” Jake explained. “And you,” Jake used his bacon like a scepter, “get to come along.”

“Lucky me,” Sam said. She wasn't sure she liked the BLM, because they took wild horses off the range, and she was half afraid Jake would act over-protective around even captive mustangs.

Jake ignored her sarcasm and added, “'Course,
Wyatt's coming, too, since I only have my learner's permit.”

Sam drained the rest of her orange juice and watched Jake. Should she tell him about the Phantom? Maybe when no one else was around.

“You are lucky,” Gram told her. “Wyatt doesn't have much use for the Bureau of Land Management.” Gram glanced over as the door opened to show Dad stamping off his boots. “You'd think visiting their corrals was paying a call on the Devil himself.”

“Them talking about raising grazing fees again isn't improving my attitude,” Dad said. He looked over Gram's shoulder as she flipped two pancakes at once. He licked his lips, then added, “I can rein in my tongue long enough to take Sam up there. She's been a big help at home, while we've been riding fence.”

Sam felt a burst of pleasure at the compliment. Dad was taking a day off from ranch chores just for her.

“Thanks, Dad,” Sam said.

“You've earned it,” Dad's voice said he wouldn't tolerate any sentiment. “Let's just hope Jake gets us there in one piece.”

Gram handed him a cup of coffee. “I wondered if you were ever coming in,” she said. “I thought I was going to have to feed these pancakes to the dog.”

Outside, Blaze thumped his tail in appreciation, but Sam wondered why Gram sounded cranky. She'd just cooked those pancakes, so they weren't the real problem.

For two days in a row Gram had acted like this, and it was out of character. It had also made it impossible for Sam to ask Gram why Jake seemed to feel guilty over her accident.

“You be careful driving, Jake Ely, even backing out,” Gram said. “I love that Buick, and if you hit it, your folks are footing the bill.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Jake said.

Jake looked puzzled by Gram's mood, too, and her attachment to the long yellow car, which must be two decades old.

Jake grabbed a chair, turned its back to face the table and straddled it.

“For heaven's sake, if you come to my table, sit right,” Gram snapped.

“Yes, ma'am,” Jake said again, but this time he sounded humble. He switched the chair to its proper position.

As Gram walked away, Jake's eyes asked Sam what was going on. Sam shrugged.

“BLM is pretty much done gathering horses for the year,” Dad said. His sudden change of topic made Sam think he was trying to distract them from Gram's mood. “Those up at Willow Springs have been there a while.”

“I'm glad they're done,” Sam said. “But why?”

Dad sipped his coffee. “Usually, they won't gather when there are foals. Unless there's an emergency.” Dad gestured toward the range. “I expect that bunch
we saw them trying to round up the day you came home was in a real dry area and they didn't want 'em to go thirsty.”

Jake continued Dad's explanation. “They use helicopters to drive them into traps. Then they truck them off the range, vaccinate and worm them and give them some vitamin-laced feed while they're waiting for adoption.

“Expensive stuff,” Jake added. “Just putting a helicopter and pilot in the air has got to cost a thousand dollars.”

“See where my grazing fees are going?” Dad grumbled.

Sam stared out the kitchen window, but she wasn't thinking of money. She imagined herself one of those horses. She heard the helicopter's racket overhead, felt herself slam into a corral and then a truck with other mustangs.

It must be terrifying, and yet she'd read that fewer mustangs were injured with helicopter herding than when men chased them on horseback.

Once more, Sam imagined herself a horse. Mustangs had no flying predators, but they knew ground attacks, from coyotes or cougars, meant blood and pain. Maybe that's why they considered the helicopters more of an annoyance than a threat.

“I've read about it,” Sam said, slowly. “Does that mean we can just drive there, pick one out and bring it home?”

“Yep. If you've got a hundred and twenty-five dollars and a decent place to keep it,” Dad said. “But don't bring your allowance, Sam. We're just window shopping.”

Window shopping.
Did that mean Dad might allow her to adopt a mustang later? There was only one mustang she wanted and the prospect made her heart beat faster.

“Might want to bring a sweater,” Dad said, standing. “We might be back late.” He turned to Gram, and added, “I talked with Dallas. He and the boys will take care of the evening chores. You just enjoy your day.”

Sam didn't mention she had not been able to find her favorite black sweater since the cattle drive. That sounded careless. Now that Dad was treating her with respect, she didn't want him to change his mind.

As Dad followed Jake out the door, Sam hustled from table to sink, clearing plates. The curtains at the kitchen window moved in the early-morning breeze. Outside, Dad directed Jake in backing the truck.

“Come on back, come on,” Dad said, motioning.

Sam smiled. Soon, Jake would be testing for his driver's license and Dad didn't miss an opportunity to teach him.

“Honey?” Gram put a hand on Sam's shoulder.

Sam turned. Gram's concerned expression reminded Sam of Gram's bad mood, but Gram reached a gentle hand to brush Sam's hair back from her eyes.

“What do you do, when you leave the house so late at night?”

Relief rushed through Sam.