Wild Honey (17 page)

“It's okay that you told Mrs. Ely,” Ally said, then, sounding embarrassed, “but, I…”

Sam waited.

“Last night when my dad fell asleep—”

“He didn't leave?” Sam asked.

“No, he was here all night, but because it was so windy, he couldn't hear me. I went through all his stuff. Like, where he empties out his pockets on top of his chest of drawers,” Ally said, sounding amazed at her own daring. “But that wasn't where I found—wait a second. I've got to call you back.”

“Found what?” Sam shouted.

“Right back,” Ally promised quietly.

Sam's mind was spinning and she hoped Ally's father hadn't come in and caught her telling whatever it was she'd been about to confide.

Sam grabbed the phone before the first ring ended.

“He went down to the church, just now. A branch fell in the storm and cracked one of the stained glass windows, so—”

“What did you find?” Sam demanded.

“Not drugs or anything,” Ally said with a sigh, “but out in his car, under the front seat, there was this flyer about a rooster fight. It was all misspelled and stuff. Mr. Blair would hate it….”

Ally sounded strange. Sam wondered if a person could be quietly hysterical.

“A rooster fight?” Sam repeated.

“Yes, and it had a timetable that said betting starts at ten and fights start at midnight.”

It took a few seconds for Ally's information to sink in, but then it made complete sense. People in town were betting on the fighting roosters Darrell had discovered. He'd said some of the faces looked familiar. Although Sam didn't want to believe it, she supposed the church choir director could be one of them.

“Sam?”

“So, you think your dad was using your money for gambling?”

“It makes sense, doesn't it? Maybe he was losing, but then he turned up with all that stuff last night, like maybe he won?”

“It does make sense,” Sam confirmed.

“I've read it can be an addiction like drugs, haven't you?” Ally asked.

“Yeah,” Sam said. Then, tensing because she was afraid Ally would say everything was okay again, when it clearly wasn't, she asked, “What are you going to do?”

Ally was quiet for a few seconds, but she sounded determined when she said, “I think I should call the sheriff.”

“Do it,” Sam said. “Right now.”

She didn't tell Ally that Sheriff Ballard would be out of the office for much of the day. That might give her an excuse not to call.

“Have you ever heard of anything like this?” Ally asked. Then, in morbid fascination, she read from the flyer, “‘Blood Fest of the Year, Saturday at midnight.' Is that gross, or what? My dad doesn't hate animals or anything, Sam. I just…”

“You were right, Ally, it's probably an addiction. You're just lucky you found out in time to do something, before he bet your car or house or—” Sam broke off.

Had she gone too far? She was talking about Ally's father, after all. Sam closed her eyes and held her breath, waiting.

“I'll talk to you later. I'm calling Sheriff Ballard right now.”

Sam let her breath out in a rush, then she said, “Let me give you his number. It's sad, but I've got it memorized.”

 

Sam's spirits lifted after that.

She helped vaccinate all the horses except Tempest. The filly would have to wait until she was six months old to receive her injection, and Sam
couldn't help thinking how unfair it was that Tempest would get her first shot at the same age she'd be taken away from her mother.

Sam tried not to imagine Jen at the parade, watching Linc do whatever skullduggery he was doing, while she was stuck at home. Strawberry helped keep Sam's mind on her work by nipping the seat of her jeans. Hard.

Once all the injections had been given, the cowboys rode out to repair a windmill that had been damaged in the wind. Ross had noticed it when he'd driven back from town, but he hadn't paused to inspect it because he'd been carrying the chilled vaccine.

All alone again, Sam paced and flopped down on the couch to read a mystery novel. It was nice to have the leisure time to read, but Sam hated being grounded. She wanted to be out doing things, not waiting for Jen to call from Apple Mills.

And then, she did.

“I've only got a few minutes,” Jen said. “The horses were great during the parade, but the wind has them acting up. I'm not sure Golden Rose will load at all, so I'm staying out of Mom's way.”

“Did anyone come meet Linc?” Sam asked.

“No,” Jen said.

“Oh, man,” Sam moaned. “I thought we'd have the whole horse theft thing wound up and I'd be off the hook with Preston, and—”

“Wait,” Jen told her. “It's almost that good.”

“Tell me,” Sam begged.

“Here's what happened,” Jen said, then her tone changed completely. “Yes, ma'am, I'm afraid I am going to be on the phone for a few minutes.”

Sam listened to the drone of another voice, but she couldn't make out the words.

“I know,” Jen said sympathetically. “That's what people think, but you see, it's a fallacy. Not all teenagers have cell phones. Some of us are at the mercy of the phone company. It's true. We just carry tons of quarters and pray we'll see a pay phone. It is hard to believe, but—you have a nice day, now!” Jen shouted, then drew in a loud breath. “Okay, where was I?”

“About to tell me what happened,” Sam reminded her.

“Sheriff Ballard was riding Jinx all around the parade route and Darrell was copying down every license number in the parking lot—”

“Darrell was there, too?” Sam couldn't believe it. Wasn't it bad enough that Jen had been included and she hadn't?

“Don't panic. He was just writing down numbers. You would've hated it, but then he recognized a personalized license plate he'd seen at the rooster fights—”

“You know about them?” Sam gasped. What was going on around here?

“Well, I do now,” Jen said, “and I think it's totally
disgusting. So does Sheriff Ballard, but he's got to look up some local statutes or something to see if it's illegal.”

“Of course it is,” Sam insisted.

“Hmm, usually I'd defer to your legal expertise, but the sheriff's not so sure,” Jen teased. “The betting part is illegal.”

“I'm calling the Humane Society,” Sam muttered.

“Anyway—Sam, I've got to hurry, my mom's looking around for me and I can only hide in this phone booth a little longer. Oxygen deprivation, you know? Plus, it smells like someone—”

“Tell me what else happened,” Sam said.

“I saw Karl Mannix! He was dressed like a street sweeper, cleaning up manure behind the horses in the parade. There were these guys in vaquero costumes riding in front of us, and then there he was, just sweeping away.”

Talk about hiding in plain sight, Sam thought. He would be invisible, doing that kind of work, but he could also be on the lookout for Linc.

“So, how did Linc and he get together?”

“They didn't,” Jen said.

“What?”

“We talked to Linc later, and he told Sheriff Ballard that someone—not Karl Mannix—phoned him and called off the meeting, that they couldn't go through with the transaction because he'd spotted the sheriff. The guy must have been really mad, too,
because Linc looked terrified. And then, somehow, Karl slipped away and escaped without moving a vehicle from the parking lot, because they were all there, but—”

“This is terrible,” Sam moaned.

“Not really,” Jen said, “because the call to Linc was made from a cell phone with a global positioning system, and they're tracking the guy down! How cool is that?”

“And Ballard says police work is nothing like it is on TV.”

Sam recognized the scoffing male voice instantly.

“That's Darrell, isn't it? Let me talk to him!”

Sam's heart was pounding and the movie screen in her mind was painted with dripping red letters spelling out
BLOOD FEST
. If Darrell had already told the sheriff about the rooster fights, he could tell her where they were happening. The roosters could be rescued before they died in awful combat.

“Okay, catch you later,” Jen said. “Hey, Darrell! Come here. Some smitten gal wants to talk to you!”

“Hello, darlin',” Darrell said.

He was so sure of himself, Sam wanted to hang up. But she didn't. In fact, she tried her hardest to be nice. After all, he knew something she wanted to find out.

“Hello…” Sam bit her lip and managed, “dude.”

Darrell laughed at her attempt to be cool.

“I hear you've really been helping the sheriff,”
Sam said, buttering him up. “Jen told me all about it.”

“Yeah, he's about to mark this one ‘case closed,' all because of me,” Darrell bragged, but Sam heard the humor in his voice.

“So, since you told him all about Fluffy's secret, how about letting me in on it?”

“What do you mean?” Darrell asked. “You knew before anybody, except me. And Fluffy.”

“Yeah, but you never told me where they were keeping those poor roosters.”

“I still won't,” Darrell said. “I don't trust you not to go do something stupid.”

“Thanks a lot,” Sam said. She blew her cheeks full of air. “Just give me a hint, and then if I figure it out, it's not your fault.”

Darrell made a considering sound, then he gave a short bark of laughter.

“Okay, I've got it. I'll give you a hint, but this is like a really hard riddle. You'll never figure it out.”

“Tell me,” Sam said.

“Rusty old school bus,” Darrell said.

And then he hung up.

S
am didn't remember where she'd read that the thing you want to do least was usually the thing you should do first, but she believed it.

She was about to follow that rule, times three.

First, she'd break her word to Dad to stay home, grounded. She really didn't want to do that. There would be consequences and they wouldn't be pretty. That was for sure.

Next, if she wanted to save those roosters, she had to go through Lost Canyon and into a creepy ravine, looking for a bus that was not yellow and not a school bus, despite Darrell's hint. She didn't know what she'd do once she found them, and that was why she had to do the third thing.

She'd made a half promise to Sheriff Ballard, and though she really didn't want to call Preston, she knew he was the best help she could get.

Jake wouldn't ride up there with her because it could be dangerous. Pepper, Dallas, and Ross would be the perfect companions to break up that rooster-killing bunch, but they wouldn't defy Dad, and there'd be no question that helping Sam would be doing just that.

No, she had no choice. The man who disliked and mistrusted her was her best bet.

She couldn't wait for Sheriff Ballard to corner Karl Mannix and start looking for something else to do, and she wasn't foolhardy enough to go alone, but how could she allow something called “Blood Fest” to happen if she could stop it?

When she answered the phone, Mrs. Allen didn't sound cold and distant like she had before.

“Hello, Samantha,” she said, surprised. Maybe she wasn't angry anymore. Sam had to admit that she was glad, and maybe that was why Sam apologized again.

Then again, maybe it had something to do with Ally.

“Mrs. Allen, I know I didn't do a very good job of apologizing before, but I understand why you told Preston about the Phantom's lead mare. It was because, well, she belonged to Preston first, right?”

“Yes, dear. That is right. And don't—how do they
put it?—don't beat yourself up over it. I understand how much you love that stallion and I know that even though people will tell you it's too risky to love a wild thing like him, you can't help it.”

Sam shivered at Mrs. Allen's words, wondering where that had come from, but all she said was, “Thank you.”

“You're welcome.” Mrs. Allen cleared her throat. “Now, did you say you were calling for Preston?”

“Yes, ma'am,” Sam said.

Then, as Mrs. Allen's voice faded away, Sam could have sworn she heard the old lady summoning the retired policeman with some name like Finny. But that didn't make any sense at all.

 

Two hours later, Sam and Preston rode Ace and Honey side by side into Lost Canyon.

“She looks great,” Sam said, marveling at the palomino's sun-bright coat, her rippling ivory mane and tail and a gait that said she rejoiced in her rider. “I don't see any sign of a limp.”

Preston shook his head and clapped the mare on the neck. It was clear to see he loved the horse, but he didn't admit it. Instead, he said, “She can use this exercise. And I've got a little test in mind for her.”

“What kind of test?” Sam asked.

“I heard that gray stallion, the one she ran with, haunts this canyon about this time of year.”

Sam's mouth turned dry as cotton. It was nice
that Preston had finally accepted her as a horse rescuer instead of a thief, but did he mean he was setting Honey up to choose between him and the Phantom?

“Do you really want to take the chance of her seeing him?” Sam asked. “It's only been a few days and a herd stallion has a lot of control over his family—even the lead mare.”

“So I've been told,” Preston said, “but if I'm going to ride her in this territory, I'd better find out if I can trust her.”

“I don't know,” Sam muttered, but she was also wondering how long he planned to stay in this territory. Did he plan to marry Mrs. Allen?

“So, we're checking out a camp of fighting roosters,” Preston said, changing the subject. “I left a message for Heck, but he's busy chasing down the man he thinks is Christopher Mudge.”

“Why aren't you?” Sam blurted. “I mean, after all this time…”

“I know,” Preston said, nodding. “I've been asking myself the same question, but your friend Mrs. Allen asked me not to go. She thought it might involve some gunplay—which I doubt—so I decided Heck could handle it on his own, while I helped you out with these chickens. And, after all, I am retired.”

“This should be pretty safe,” Sam said.

Preston bristled. Did he think she'd called him a coward?

Sam hadn't meant it that way. Before she could
explain, though, Preston gazed into the distance as if a pleasant memory had crossed his mind, and said, “Can't do much but get scratched and pecked, I hear.”

Wow, Sam thought, turning her attention to the trail as they passed through Lost Canyon. Preston must have the world's biggest crush on Mrs. Allen if he'd passed up the chance to arrest the thief who'd stolen his horse.

The stony path narrowed, but Sam didn't look off the edge, down to the turquoise ribbon of water in Arroyo Azul. She'd ridden the Phantom for the first time down there.

She didn't search the wide stone benches that made the arroyo look like the Roman coliseum, either. Sometimes the Phantom stood on one of them, watching over his herd as they drank down below.

Sam hoped the stallion was far away from here. Preston's test for his palomino wouldn't make anyone happy.

“Last September, this was a mustang trap,” Sam told Preston as they rode through a sunny area overgrown with pinion pine and sagebrush.

Preston took a good look at the broken and bleached boards that had been part of the trap. He allowed Honey to stop and sniff them. Sam wondered how much of the mustangs' story the mare could read there.

“I haven't heard a single rooster,” Preston said as they kept riding.

“Me either,” Sam said. “My friend said they crow almost constantly. He figured that's why the guys kept them out here, instead of in town.”

“We almost there?” Preston asked.

“Almost,” Sam said.

Ace's shoulders tensed and his front legs moved stiffly. He threw his forelock back from his eyes and snorted, but he moved on.

Sam knew her worry was telegraphed down the reins to her horse, but she couldn't help it. She felt a jolt of childish fear when she saw the bus.

There was no reason it should give her the creeps. This ravine was obviously deserted. The only sounds were chirring cicadas and sagebrush bobbing in the wind, scraping against the rusted metal of the bus.

The only other time she'd come here, she'd been with Jen and they'd hiked in.

Now, she and Preston rode. If there was trouble, escaping would be easy. They had two instantly responsive mounts. A single touch would send the horses whirling around to gallop out of the canyon.

Except, Sam thought, giving Preston a side glance, that wasn't what cops did when they encountered trouble. They rode toward it, not away from it.

Maybe that was why the sight of the narrow chasm with the faded blue bus jammed into it made her nervous. She didn't want to face down a clutch of criminals in such close quarters.

Not that she planned to go into the bus.
According to Darrell, the roosters were tethered outside by little A-shaped shelters. But where were they? And if they were here, why were they so quiet? Maybe her guess had been wrong.

“Think it rolled down there and just stuck?” Preston asked as he studied the bus. “It's all creased and rusty on this side, like it had a bad crash.”

“Maybe,” Sam said. “It's stuck tight, I know that. Once you get inside, you can touch the hillside through the windows on the driver's side.”

The breeze plucked at tattered cloth inside the bus, pulling it out for them to see.

“Clothes tucked into the windows in place of curtains,” Preston observed.

“It was a hideout,” Sam told him. “Not a very comfy one, though. Some of the seats are broken loose from the floor and others are split, with stuffing puffed out of them. And it stinks.”

In the quiet, both horses lifted their heads and stared at the steep hillside.

Maybe the Phantom was nearby, Sam thought.

But then she reconsidered. Ace wasn't acting like he did when he scented the stallion. He moved rigidly, as if he was only here because Sam had made him come.

“There,” Preston said quietly. He nodded instead of pointing, and Sam saw what he'd indicated. Hidden among the waving weeds, roosters were chained to small shelters.

“I wonder why they're being so quiet,” Sam mused.

“That's not normal?” Preston asked, and Sam remembered he hadn't worked in a rural area.

“No way,” Sam said, and then, as if he'd heard her, a small rooster with black-and-white feathers jumped atop his shelter and released an ear-splitting cock-a-doodle-do.

Sam was laughing when she felt Ace's stockinged hind feet strike with staccato uneasiness.

“You're not afraid of a mouthy little rooster,” Sam said, patting the gelding's neck, but then Preston shook his head with a quelling motion.

He lowered his hand from the reins, toward his…what? His stirrup?

Sam didn't know what he was doing, but all at once she wished they had walkie-talkies. She wanted to notify Sheriff Ballard what they'd found. They couldn't move the roosters on horseback, and there was no time to waste. Besides, she suddenly felt way too isolated and alone.

If men like Ally's dad were winning enough to buy mandolins and formal dresses, a lot was at stake here. The criminals probably wouldn't give up without a fight.

Except there really didn't seem to be anyone here. That creaking sound she'd just heard had come from the bus door, folded almost closed but hanging from a single hinge so that it stirred in the wind.

“Wonder what it was used for before it crashed?” Preston said, still staring at the bus.

“My friend Jen says it shuttled prisoners between court and jail,” Sam suggested.

“Could be,” Preston agreed. “Want to take a look inside?”

“You go ahead,” Sam said. “I've been in there. It's not just smelly—there are mice and bugs everywhere. Probably snakes, too, there to eat the mice.”

“And you don't like that,” Preston pointed out, as if that was just what he'd expected.

“I'm not afraid of mice and snakes,” Sam said. “Or spiders. But I'd prefer they didn't surprise me.”

She remembered the shiny-coated mouse that had run up her leg when she'd been sneaking around inside the bus with Jen.

“Amen to that,” Preston said. He glanced at her from the corner of his eyes. “It was never spiders and snakes that kept me from enjoying my female partners, come to think of it.”

Sam couldn't tell if he was joking. If he wasn't, she didn't want to talk about Preston's bias against female officers. She'd seen Brynna in action, and no male officer could do better, but the retired policeman seemed determined to tell her why he preferred male cops as partners.

“Naw, the reason I didn't like having a female partner is they get to have all the fun.”

Sam hadn't expected him to say that.

“They do?” Sam asked.

“Sure. Most bad guys are stupid. They dismiss the female in uniform as weaker, and focus on the male partner. So, while the bad guys were busy facing off with me, my female partner would slink around behind 'em, take 'em down to the ground, and handcuff 'em.”

“And that's fun?” Sam asked.

Preston chuckled, and for the first time Sam found herself liking him.

Her pleasure only lasted a few seconds.

A bullet struck the boulder between the horses, peppering them with shards of granite.

“Go!” Preston shouted.

Sam had already leaned to her right. Ace gathered himself to run, but then a voice cut through the whining sound still hanging in the air from the shot, and that voice stopped her.

“Don't you do it or I'll gut-shoot that mare right out from under you, and nail that bay before he can make two jumps up the trail.”

Gathering in her reins, Sam turned.

The man coming through the yellow weeds held a rifle against his shoulder, and though he wasn't sighting down the barrel, he'd only have to lift it an inch to do it.

Tall and broad-shouldered, about Dad's age, he wore piggin' strings, the leather strips used to tie calves, dangling from his belt. Even though he was hatless and walked with a limp, he moved like a seasoned buckaroo. That was how Sam recognized him.

He was Flick.

Curtis Flickinger wasn't carrying his coiled bullwhip this time, but he was the same man who'd taught Dark Sunshine to scream, the same man who'd scarred the Phantom's neck and threatened to leave Sam hog-tied on the hillside over-looking Arroyo Azul.

Who would have thought he'd return to his old hideout? It made sense, though, Sam thought. Only she and Jake had seen him here.

He was Cowboy, too. She just knew it.

Don't no one want to cross Cowboy
—isn't that what Bug Boy had told Preston? Sam could see why. And Cowboy had decreed that any stolen horse was a dead horse, because it was safer that way. That would fit Flick, too.

She knew it was him and she wondered if Sheriff Ballard had checked to see if he'd been released from prison. Maybe he'd escaped.

Crowing from the top of his shelter, the black-and-white rooster seemed to be doing his best to act as a watchdog.

Flick gave the rooster an annoyed glance. Then, calm and cocky, Flick kept walking toward them.

“Swear to God I'll shoot that mare right out from under you if you don't stop reaching for your boot,” Flick said.

Preston dropped his reins and raised his hands.

“I'm not going for anything in my boot,” he assured Flick.