The Wild One (14 page)

Slocum sputtered. “You can't—I'm gonna—When I—” He started three sentences and they all fizzled out. Finally, he shouted, “I have connections in Washington!”

“Do you?” Miss Olson looked bored. “The fact remains, you need to leave the premises, until you're more relaxed.”

“I'm not leaving.” Slocum paced up and down. He glanced at Bale Thrower with a little concern, then got his courage up. “You're not a cop, Olson, and you can't make me.”

Bale Thrower and Clipboard walked a step closer. Jake crossed his arms, looking ready for a fight.

“I could make a citizen's arrest.” Sam heard the words tumble from her lips and wondered where they'd come from.

When Slocum sneered, Miss Olson said, “I don't think that will be necessary, Samantha. Hugh, perhaps you'd give Mr. Slocum a ride back to his car.”

So, the big man Sam had been thinking of as “Bale Thrower” was really named Hugh. He stepped forward with a grin. He'd obviously enjoyed this showdown with Slocum.

Frustrated, Slocum swept off his cowboy hat and hit it against his leg, as he'd seen real cowboys do. Then he pointed at Sam.

“This isn't over, Samantha Forster.” He pulled his hat back on. “It is
not
over.”

I
F SHE DIDN'T COUNT
the time her first grade teacher had told her to stop reading storybooks during arithmetic
or else
, Sam had never been threatened by an adult.

Slocum's threat had scared her. She was safe now, with Jake and Miss Olson standing by, but what about later?

Sam's hands still shook after Miss Olson disappeared into her office with a promise of lunch.

“Citizen's arrest, huh?”

“Shut up, Jake. It worked, didn't it?” Sam gave him a shove.

Jake's broad shoulders barely moved.

“No kidding, Brat.
I
was terrified.”

Sam giggled. The laughter felt good, but it only lasted until Miss Olson came back. She balanced a cell phone between her cheek and shoulder and placed sodas and a box of crackers on the porch
between Jake and Sam.

Miss Olson broke off her conversation for a moment. “Is your dad home?” she asked.

“No,” Sam said.

Shaking her head, Miss Olson turned away, still talking.

Sam didn't mean to eavesdrop, but she heard words like “stallion,” “local girl,” and “restraining order.”

Sam ate one saltine, then another. When she'd eaten half a dozen and sipped down half of her sugary soda, she felt better.

With a beep, Miss Olson folded her cell phone, strolled back to the porch, and sat near Sam and Jake.

“You outsmarted him, Samantha,” Miss Olson sounded pleased, but a cautious tone lingered in her voice.

“Please call me Sam,” she said. “When you say Samantha, it sounds like I'm in trouble.”

“You may be, but not from me.” Miss Olson extended her arm for a handshake. “I'll call you Sam if you agree to call me Brynna.”

They shook. Brynna looked up at Jake's grunt of discomfort.

“Something wrong, Mr. Ely?”

“Naw,” Jake said. “I just want to hear what kind of trouble Sam's in.”

Brynna sighed. “Linc Slocum didn't like Sam
outsmarting him. He knows no one around here would take his part against her.”

“Unless he paid them,” Jake said. “Like he paid Flick.”

“Right,” Brynna said. “Wherever he came from, Slocum could buy what he wanted. In that way, he's different from folks around here. They work for what they want.”

“Besides that, he's sneaky,” Sam said.

“Right,” Brynna agreed. “Even though most Nevada ranchers can't stand the BLM”—Brynna held her hand palm out to Sam and Jake as they shifted—“and we won't discuss why—the fact remains they're straightforward about their complaints. Slocum lied about the horse. When that didn't work, he gave intimidation a try. And that failed, too.

“I don't think he'll hurt you, Sam, but I think it would be wise to make provisions for the stallion. Right away.”

Sam's mind spun. What would be best for the Phantom?

“I bet Wyatt would let you adopt him, if we told him what happened,” Jake said.

“It's a good thing he wasn't here,” Sam said. She'd never seen Dad hurt anyone, but Sam could imagine him slugging Slocum for threatening her.

“Slocum's approach would have been entirely different if Mr. Forster were here,” Brynna said, but she
refused to be led off the topic. “The afternoon's creeping away from us. We need to help that horse.”

Both Jake and Brynna stared at Sam, waiting. And that wasn't the worst of it. The Phantom yearned for the open range and his herd. By placing his head upon her shoulder, he'd said he trusted her to help. If only she knew how.

Jake rubbed the back of his neck, frowning, but Brynna looked eager.

“Any suggestions?” Sam encouraged her.

“Just one, but I think it's a winner.” Brynna drew a deep breath. “BLM doesn't put all captured horses up for adoption. We release some because we think there's little chance they'd find a home. Others”—Brynna paused—“we release to enrich existing herds.”

Jake must be following Brynna's suggestion faster than she was, because Sam didn't understand why Jake began reciting Blackie's pedigree.

“His sire was pure mustang, but his dam is Princess Kitty, a running Quarter horse with Three Bars breeding on one side and King Leo on the other.”

Brynna and Jake stared at each other as if they were designing a conspiracy.

Slowly, Sam puzzled out Brynna's idea, aloud. “So, you're saying you—”

“The BLM,” Brynna corrected.

“Okay, the BLM could turn the Phantom loose?
Because his colts and fillies would improve the wild herds, they'd set him free? Just like that?”

“Just like that,” Brynna said. “I've already checked with one of our wild horse specialists, and verified the gray's herd is the only viable band in the Calico Mountains district. There are a few bachelor bands—young stallions who roam together without mares—but those stallions are small and scrubby. If they took over the gray's herd, we'd end up with fewer adoptable horses.”

“Let's do it,” Sam said. “Slocum won't have a chance to cause any more trouble.”

Brynna didn't look so sure, but she made a promise. “As long as I'm manager here, Slocum won't get a single wild horse.”

“I hate to rain on your parade,” Jake said. “But we can't just set him loose. Think of the fences between here and the mountains and,” he gestured, “the cars coming up that road.”

“It's a long truck ride back to the Calicos, but we could trailer him there and release him,” Brynna suggested.

Sam imagined the tight, moving world within a horse trailer. The Phantom had fought the corral as if locked in a death match. Would he survive hours in a trailer?

Jake must have thought the same thing.

“If you could get him as far as Thread the Needle,” he suggested, “I bet he'd head downhill
toward River Bend.”

In minutes, Brynna and Jake spun out a plan while Sam listened.

The stallion had been halterbroken as a foal. And the stallion trusted Ace.

After seeing Sam with the Phantom, Jake believed she could ride Ace and lead the stallion to Thread the Needle.

“I'll go back for Ace,” Jake said. “I need to move Gram's Buick, anyway.”

As Sam worked the coiled car part out of her pocket and handed it to Jake, Brynna stared at it, confused.

“I don't want to know,” Brynna said, when Sam started to explain.

“Wyatt's sure to be back with the trailer by the time I get there,” Jake said. “Do we need anything besides Ace and a lead rope?”

“I've got plenty of rope,” Brynna said. “It'd be best if Sam started working him with the halter, right now.”

Things were moving too fast. Sam wasn't sure the stallion would recall his halter training. Even if he did, why should he obey?

Sam watched Jake leave. Then, gingerly, she touched her cheekbone. It hurt. And her brain felt like mush. She was probably just tired. Once she slipped back into the Phantom's pen, she'd probably remember how to think like a horse.

There was only one way to find out.

With a soft rope halter and lead, Sam walked to the Phantom's pen. The stallion stood opposite the gate, body hugging the fence. His ears flicked at the sound of the gate opening. Otherwise, he didn't move.

Sam entered the corral. He ignored her.

“Hey boy,” she crooned, but for each step she took closer, the stallion moved a step away. He must have listened for each footfall, because he never looked at Sam.

Sam talked and talked. After a while, she spoke not to the stallion, but to Brynna.

“You're an expert. Tell me, why do people want wild horses?”

“Some want to help them, of course—”

“No, I mean, you've read all the old West stories,” Sam said. “For hundreds of years, people have wanted wild horses.”

“They look at a wild horse and see beauty, spirit—”

“And they can't wait to take it away,” Sam interrupted.

She saw the new rope burns on the stallion's neck and realized he wouldn't willingly let her halter him. But what else could she do?

For two hours, Sam followed the stallion around the enclosure. He never broke into a run, never battered the rails as he had before, and never gave a sign that he heard her speak his secret name.

At last, Sam sat down with her back against the fence. The position was dangerous and she knew it. If the stallion decided to charge, she couldn't move fast enough to escape. But trust must run two ways. Maybe he'd come to her.

A shiver ran over the stallion's body. Keeping his head turned her way, he edged toward the water bucket, lowered his head and drank deeply. His eyes remained fixed on Sam and she realized they weren't brown and lively, now, but black and questioning.

The stallion hadn't given up hope. He was waiting for her to understand.

She watched every twitch of muscle, every movement of his lips, every shifting of his weight from leg to leg. Even when Dad and Jake arrived, she didn't stop.

“I do not believe what I'm seeing,” Dad's voice was low and furious. “Tell me that is not my daughter in a pen—
sitting
in a pen with a wild stallion.”

Brynna answered, but Sam blocked out their conversation. She kept watching the Phantom. It seemed the water had revitalized him.

“Okay,” she said softly to the stallion. “Okay, I'm getting it.”

And then he made sure she understood.

Tossing his mane and forelock in fanfare, the stallion lifted his muzzle and pranced toward the fence. He gazed toward the mountains and uttered a neigh of longing.

Hooves stamped in the confinement of the River Bend horse trailer and Ace answered with a short burst of whinnies.

In spite of the danger, in spite of what Dad and Jake and Brynna might say, Sam knew what she must do. She walked toward the gate.

“Our idea's not going to work,” Sam said, closing the corral gate behind her.

“You are testing my patience, Sam,” Dad said, but his arm draped over her like a bird's sheltering wing.

Sam hugged him back, but didn't let the warmth of Dad's welcome slow her down.

“When Flick and the other guy dragged the Phantom in here, cross-tied, they—I don't know, traumatized him, I think. He's not going to let me halter him or pony him with Ace. And he won't go into the trailer. But I know what
will
work.”

“I'm listening,” Jake said, but his thumbs were in his jeans pockets and he looked at the dirt, not her.

Sam's stomach dropped away, as if she were rising in a fast elevator, before she said, “We wait until dark.”

“Oh, no,” Dad crossed his arms.

“I don't know why, but he trusts me more in the dark,” she said. “Then Ace and I run toward Thread the Needle, and start down the hillside toward River Bend. Just like we were going to, only—”

“Only you don't pony him, you use Ace like a
Judas horse.” Brynna spoke with a kind of dread, but she understood.

“Yes.”

Sam had read how the BLM trapped wild horses, using a keyhole-shaped corral. The mustangs came running, herded by a helicopter, and then, at the last minute, just as the horses might sense the opening to the trap, a domestic horse, who knew a bucket of grain awaited inside, was released. As he ran for his treat, the mustangs followed and the gate closed behind them.

“Only Ace isn't a Judas horse,” Sam said. “He's the Phantom's guardian angel, because he's going to lead him out of here.”

“And you'll be riding Ace,” Jake said.

“Yeah,” she admitted.

“That's all fine, but let's go back to the part where you gallop downhill in the dark and break your fool neck!” Jake kept his voice level, until he turned toward Dad. “Wyatt, are you going to let her do this?”

“Dad, I'll only run him there,” Sam pointed at the straight road, smoothed by car traffic. “When we reach the hillside, I won't gallop. I'll leave the pace up to Ace.

“Remember what you taught me? He doesn't want to fall. He wants to keep his four legs underneath him. Isn't that what you've always said, Dad?”

Sam crossed her arms. Dad crossed his.

To Brynna, Dad must look more intimidating. With her hacked-off hair, black eye, sunburned arms, and legs dirty from sitting in a dusty horse corral, Sam knew she didn't look as determined as she felt.

But Jake knew her. He walked away, reached a hand into the horse trailer toward Ace, and left the standoff to the two Forsters.

In the deepening dusk, Sam saw Dad shake his head.

“You could get hurt again,” he said.

Sam heard his fear. It made her feel selfish, but she had to do this for her horse.

“Dad, I don't want to get hurt. I don't want to go back to the hospital or to San Francisco. I want to stay here, with you and Gram.” She looked toward the horse trailer. “And Jake. But I want to do what's right.”

Dad glanced through the fence rails. The stallion looked weary and harmless in the gray failing light.

“I haven't told you this before, Sam, but when you're absolutely sure of something, you look a lot like your mom. She'd get convinced she knew what to do, and usually, she turned out convincing me, too. Like keeping the ranch,” Dad said quietly. “Like having a child.”

A sweet warmth enveloped Sam. The sun had vanished behind the mountains and the sky had turned dark blue.

“I say it's close enough to dark,” Dad said. “Jake, bring Ace out.”

 

On the high road overlooking Willow Springs, Sam crouched in the saddle while Ace danced beneath her.

Down below, metal slammed as Brynna opened a series of interconnecting gates, funneling the stallion toward the road. At first, the Phantom was slow and cautious.

Then he understood. His legs moved more quickly, picking up speed, trotting faster, until his hooves hammered like gunfire as he came closer and closer.