Wild Honey (5 page)

“Whoa! The what?” Sam asked.

“It's what they call the first three hours after an injury,” Jen explained. “After that, the chance of complete recovery starts declining.”

Sam had no trouble understanding that, and hope wilted.

“So, here's what you do,” Jen said. “Clean it up. Trim back the hair. Remove any dead tissue—”

“Remove it how?”

“Just clip it off with scissors and—What's that sound?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you moaning?”

“A little,” Sam admitted.

“Maybe Jake or Mrs. Allen can do it without being sick,” Jen teased.

“I won't be sick. I just feel sorry for her. She's been through a lot,” Sam said.

“If you don't want her to have to go through any more, take care of her. And don't be fatalistic. Just because it's been more than three hours doesn't mean
there can't be a complete recovery. Mustangs are tough. You tell me so all the time. Now hustle on out there and get started and I'll try to work out a way to come see her tomorrow, unless you give in and let Dr. Scott check her out.”

“I won't,” Sam said, but she wasn't as sure as she sounded.

Sam took about two minutes to rinse the empty ice cube trays Mrs. Allen had left in her sink. She refilled them with water and stuck them in her freezer. Then she headed for the door and the decision waiting for her in the box stall.

She felt like a human scale, and imagined herself standing with arms outstretched. In one hand, she held the lead mare's freedom. In the other, the mare's physical well-being. In Sam's imagination, her arms were exactly level.

Maybe, she thought grimly, when they cleaned up the mare's wound, they'd see she was in danger and needed a vet's care to survive. Survival outweighed freedom, didn't it?

Or maybe, under all that dirt and old blood, they'd see the mare's injury was no big deal.

“Sure, she's just been faking,” Sam grumbled as she closed Mrs. Allen's door and walked past flowerbeds where limp stalks had replaced the straight stems of orange day lilies. “And any minute now, she'll suddenly burst into the wild horse boogie and just dance right on out of here. That'd tip the scales, all right.”

But with my luck,
Sam thought,
neither of those things will happen.

The horse couldn't choose for herself, and so far no one had stepped forward and wrested the choice away from Sam.

Right then, she almost wished someone would.

“N
ot one of us is going to crouch down inside that box stall with a wild mare,” Mrs. Allen warned as she dropped an armload of alfalfa in the corner.

Sam nodded in grudging agreement. Being next to those hooves on the hillside above the creek, where she could roll away if she had to, had been risky enough.

Mrs. Allen formulated a plan as she watched the mare. The palomino sniffed the alfalfa, then sidestepped away, as if it were unsafe to do even that much.

“Now what was it we did when we worked on Belle right after we got her?” Mrs. Allen mused. “Oh yes, we improvised a squeeze chute by using an air
mattress. You know, the kind you slip under your sleeping bag so that your back won't kink up while you're camping?” Mrs. Allen shrugged when Jake looked skeptical. “We brought Belle out of the stall and led her next to the barn wall, then used the air mattress against her body to give the impression of being contained.”

Jake's hands rested on his hips and Sam could tell that if he'd been wearing jeans instead of shorts from Darton High's green and white cross-country uniform, he'd be hanging his thumbs in his pockets. He wasn't sold on Mrs. Allen's plan.

“Do you have any other ideas, Jake?” Sam asked, and it must not have sounded sarcastic, because he thought for a few seconds, then shook his head.

“Not a one,” he said.

The mare seemed to go on tiptoe as they led her out of the box stall and tied her to a ring in the barn wall.

“I know you're not supposed to tie a wild horse,” Mrs. Allen said, “but how else are we going to get this done?”

The mare didn't shy or bolt, just remained cautious as Mrs. Allen sorted through her first aid box and Sam and Jake took turns blowing up the air mattress.

The mare's curiosity was a sign the doctoring could be accomplished, but it didn't do anything to bolster Sam's insistence that the horse was wild.

Even though their hands and brains were busy, Sam caught Mrs. Allen and Jake giving her confused looks. It made her feel weird because their expressions were really easy to read and said they couldn't believe someone with her horse savvy really thought the mare was wild. But she'd seen it with her own eyes!

When the air mattress was inflated and the mare had been given a chance to sniff it and bump it with her nose, Sam suggested drawing straws for the task of working on the wound. Mrs. Allen and Jake believed Jake should do it.

“I've known her longer. I don't see why it should be you,” Sam said.

“If anyone's gonna squat down there and get his brains kicked out, it might as well be me,” Jake said in a long-suffering tone.

“Oh, all right.” Sam pretended to go along. “I guess that makes sense. No one will notice the difference afterward.”

“Samantha!” Mrs. Allen's voice soared on the middle syllable just like Gram's did when she was acting appalled.

“Don't feel sorry for him,” Sam said. “Believe me, you don't know what he's capable of, Mrs. Allen. Jake Ely is not all good deeds and helping hands.”

From the corner of her eye, Sam saw that though Jake's expression stayed cool, humor sparked in his eyes as he got down to work.

The palomino pretended to ignore the air mattress as Sam and Mrs. Allen closed in on her. She looked up, down, past them, then jerked her muzzle toward the rafters.

“Yes, girl, I'm afraid it is coming at you,” Sam crooned to the horse. “But it won't hurt, I promise.”

Sam's voice must have comforted the mare. As they gently pressed the air mattress to hold her in place against the barn wall, she stayed put.

The only thing wrong with their arrangement was that Sam had agreed that since Mrs. Allen knew more about doctoring animals, she could stand closest to Jake, get a better view of the injury, and offer advice if she thought he could do something differently.

But Mrs. Allen only nodded in approval and Sam had to crane her neck to see past the old lady as Jake's hands moved gently over the horse before he began washing her.

Even though he was crouched in an exposed position that could be tough to scramble out of if the horse acted up, Sam saw Jake paid attention to the mare's face, not the path his hands were taking.

“Shouldn't you watch her hooves? Or look where you're touching her?” Sam whispered, finally.

“If her eyelid twitches, her lips jerk back from her teeth, or she gives me any other sign it hurts, I'll check where I am,” Jake said.

Once, when his hands pressed the swelling high on the mare's injured leg, she bucked back against the
rope and Jake had to scuttle out of the way. Jake nodded to himself a few times. It was then that he lowered his gaze to stare at his hands as if his fingers had memories and could report where the mare was sore.

Finally he squeezed spongefuls of warm water over the dirt and blood, turning the palomino's leg clean and butterscotch gold again.

“Look at that,” Mrs. Allen said approvingly. “He's gentle as he'd be with a newborn babe.”

Jake sucked in a breath as if the description were sissified, but he didn't contradict Mrs. Allen, even when Sam added, “Oh Jake, that's so sweet.”

By the time he'd finished sponging the dirt and caked blood away, the cut didn't look so bad.

Jake sat back on his bootheels for a few quiet seconds and stared at the cut. Then he gave a quiet laugh of surprise. When Sam leaned to get a better view around Mrs. Allen, she was in time to see Jake looking up at her.

“It's already healing,” Jake said with a shrug. “I don't think the cut's bothering her much. She did something up here between her forearm and chest. That's where it's swollen.”

“Does it feel hot?” Mrs. Allen asked.

Jake shook his head “no.”

“It would if there was an infection,” Mrs. Allen said, then shrugged. “It could be that she has a bruise from the kick and that, plus the cut, have combined
to make her favor that leg. How does that sound to you?”

Sam didn't bother answering, since Mrs. Allen was obviously talking to Jake.

He nodded, as if that was exactly what his gentle exploration of the mare's legs had told him.

“Maybe Jen was right,” Sam said, nodding slowly.

“About what, Samantha?” Mrs. Allen asked. The lines around her lips made a drawstring effect. Clearly she doubted that Jen could have made a diagnosis over the phone.

“By my description, Jen wasn't convinced the cut came from Hotspot's kick, because when I heard it, it sounded meaty.”

“Meaty,” Jake muttered, under his breath. “How poetic.”

As it turned out, the bandages, scissors, gauze, adhesive wrap, and antibacterial ointment in the first aid kit were all Jake needed to tend the horse.

At last he stood, holding all the supplies his arms would carry, and stepped back from the horse. The mare's head swung around as far as the rope would allow, to watch him. Jake nodded that Mrs. Allen and Sam could remove the air mattress.

They stepped back and the mare blew through her lips in relief as they led her back into the stall.

“I think she deserves a snack,” Sam said.

“You know where I keep the feed,” Mrs. Allen said, then turned the watch on her wrist so that she
could read it. “It's after noon. I'll go up to the house and see if I can get us a little something.”

“No need,” Jake said.

“I'm not hungry, either,” Sam said, remembering Mrs. Allen had greeted them with a warning that they shouldn't expect lunch.

“Nonsense,” Mrs. Allen snapped. “Come up when you're ready and I will have found something to feed us. For the first time in days, I'm feeling a bit peckish, myself.”

Together, Sam and Jake watched the palomino lower her head to the clean straw bedding. She lipped at it, snorted, then nosed the alfalfa with more interest than she had before.

Don't get too comfy, girl,
Sam thought.

“So all she needs is to rest, and then I can turn her out,” Sam said. For some reason she didn't feel satisfied. It had to be Jake's fault, but she wasn't sure why. “Right?”

Jake shrugged.

Then, centering his weight between his running shoes so he could bolt if he had to, Jake laid one palm against the mare's withers. Her golden hide shivered, but she didn't move away. Even when he leaned against his hand, like Sam would if she were trying to move Ace, the mare just shifted her weight instead of shying or snapping at him.

Without lecturing, Jake was telling Sam she was about to break the law. If this mare belonged to
someone else, she wasn't allowed to roam free on the public lands.

“You think she's been domesticated,” Sam said.

Jake shrugged, but he kept looking at the mare as if her gentleness spoke for itself.

“What's so wrong with letting her go back to the herd? No one will even know she's been away. No humans, I mean, except for you, me, and Mrs. Allen,” Sam said, but Jake still didn't look convinced.

“She's the Phantom's lead mare. You know a lead mare picks good grazing, and disciplines the young bachelor stallions who get too uppity, and…” Her voice trailed off, but then she thought of something Brynna had said. “More wild horses die during winter than any other time. They die of exposure, or get so cold they don't paw snow off the brush underneath and eat it. And there's a harsh winter coming. Everyone says so. If the lead mare's not there to find shelter they could wander into a blind canyon and get snowed in.”

Sam stopped talking.

The Phantom was an experienced herd stallion now. He could think for his herd. And there were few enough that he could watch out for them. Besides, he'd probably lead them back to his hidden valley, where there was shelter and food year-round.

Sam swallowed. Then she gritted her teeth in frustration. Why was her brain refuting its own arguments?

“I'm not sayin' it's wrong…” Jake began.

“What
are
you saying, Jake?” Sam snapped. She could have bitten her tongue off. Her tone was sarcastic, and that never worked with him. “No, really, I want to know.”

But Jake's warm, brown eyes had turned as blank as the barn wall.

“Nothin',” he said, and then he left.

As he walked away, Jake's form was silhouetted in the barn door. He moved like a cowboy even when he wasn't dressed like one.

Sam kicked at the straw in frustration. After fourteen years, she should have learned how to handle Jake Ely.

Then, for just the slightest second, his footsteps paused.

Turn around and tell me I'm doing the right thing,
Sam begged silently.

But he didn't. Jake kept walking.

Sam sighed and turned her attention back to the mare.

The palomino had a mouthful of alfalfa. She chewed loudly, taking such pleasure in it, her lips were covered with greenish foam. She was probably comparing the hay to the dry, end-of-summer cheatgrass and weeds the wild horses had been living on.

“Well, shoot, girl,” Sam whispered to the mare. “No one makes this easy, do they?”

Sam caught up with Jake before he went inside.
Or maybe he'd waited for her because he was about to be set upon by Mrs. Allen's Boston bull terriers. When they'd been little kids, she and Jake had called them devil dogs.

They probably weren't the original devil dogs, Sam thought, as Imp and Angel announced them as intruders even before they touched the doorknob, but their yapping pandemonium was the same.

“Go,” Sam said. She led the quick entrance into the house and slipped through the barely opened door, careful to not let the dogs escape.

The two little black-and-white dogs bounced off the floor as if it were a hot griddle.

It was crazy, loud, and annoying. Jake stood redwood-tree still, thinking this would discourage them. Sam let the dogs ricochet off her legs and take flying licks at her fingers, but neither strategy really worked. Imp and Angel acted like jumping beans until they were good and ready to stop.

Usually, Mrs. Allen gave them totally ineffectual orders to behave, but now she sat as if she didn't hear the dogs' racket.

For a second, noticing the way Mrs. Allen's hands sat, fingertips touching, atop the kitchen table, Sam thought that the old lady was praying. Sam squirmed in embarrassment at the rude way they'd crashed Mrs. Allen's devotions.

But maybe not. Mrs. Allen's hands were cupped, as though she'd caught something delicate.

Sam heard Jake swallow. He rubbed the back of his neck in discomfort, and Sam agreed with his unspoken embarrassment. She was less at ease with this quiet Mrs. Allen than the cranky one.

“The phone was ringing when I got up here,” Mrs. Allen said.

“Not Gabe—” Sam blurted.

“No, Gabe's fine. In fact, everything's fine. Out of the blue, I just got an offer to make a nice little chunk of money.”

“That's great!” Sam said. Again, though, she felt too loud. “Isn't it?”

“It is if I can get you kids to help me,” Mrs. Allen said.

Sam hesitated for a minute. Since school had started, she had tons of homework. She hadn't done a single one of her Saturday chores before riding out at dawn, either, and Gram wanted her to clean the oven. Sam shuddered. She didn't know why she had to do it. It wasn't like she'd let an apricot pie boil over, or a pork roast spatter, but Gram pointed out that since she had no trouble eating what came out of the oven, she could help clean it.

So, yeah, she had a lot to do, but if Mrs. Allen needed her…

“'Course,” Jake said.

“Of course,” Sam echoed, wishing he hadn't beaten her to agreeing. “What do you need?”

Mrs. Allen opened her hands and smoothed out a
page from a tablet. It was covered in her erratic handwriting. Since she'd had it rolled into a tight tube, it took a couple tries to make it lay flat.

“Well, to start out with, we'll need a fire truck,” Mrs. Allen said, “and a nine-by-twelve-foot tarp, a baby stroller, an umbrella, enough scrap wood to make something like railroad tracks—that's no problem—” Mrs. Allen interrupted herself, then went on, “I'm not sure where we'll get one of those big foam ‘we're number one' fingers people wave around at sports events, but—” Mrs. Allen broke off again and gave Jake an appraising look. “I don't suppose you'd be willing to dress up as a clown and ride a unicycle if I could find one?”