by Terri Farley
Even worse than that, what if she scared him so much he abandoned her forever?
Sam’s shoulders sagged. Her knees buckled. She lowered herself to the ground. It was cold, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t have stood another minute.
The weakness was from the attack. She’d had the scare of her life. But the tears filling her eyes were from indecision. More than anything, she wanted to believe the stallion had forgiven her for what other men had done.
“You have to tell me, boy.” She smooched, and his ears swiveled to her voice again. “Do you trust me? You can, you know. And if you carry me out of here on some secret wild horse path, I’ll never tell anyone. Not in a million years.”
He splashed closer. One hoof pawed the bank, then he thrust his nose at her, lifting her arm with a sharp jerk. Sam reached out her hand and the stallion touched it with his nose.
His muzzle felt like velvet.
He was telling her she could do it, but should she? Had he learned to trust only her and not other humans who’d harm him? The stallion nuzzled her hand, seeking more of her touch.
He’d learned. He knew she was the only one.
“Zanzibar,” Sam whispered. Her voice was growing rusty again, but the stallion’s silver ears flicked to catch every word. “It might only happen once, here in this arroyo. I’m going to do it.”
She wobbled to her feet. The stallion walked in slow steps away from her, but he kept looking back to be sure she followed. Finally, he stopped and Sam saw two flat rocks. They formed stepping stones between her and the stallion.
Stream water rushed over them, making them slippery, but she wouldn’t have to wade. One long step took her to the first rock and a shorter step took her to the next one.
“The only thing, boy, is that you’re facing the wrong way.”
Sam laughed. She rubbed her forehead in frustration, then stared at the small smear of blood on her hand.
“Okay, pretty horse,” Sam said, moving into position. “I can’t expect you to do everything.”
The Phantom tossed his head in a nod. How could she keep him happy? Months ago, when he’d first come to her, she’d sung “Silent Night” and he’d loved it.
“Well, the season’s right,” Sam told him. “If I sing, will you put up with my clumsiness?”
Sam sang and the river accompanied her, but the song was jerky and the rock too slippery. When Sam tried to fling her belly over his back, the Phantom skittered away two steps and she nearly crashed into the icy water.
Both arms out for balance, she watched the horse.
“All right,” she said, panting from the exertion. “It’s okay.”
The stallion’s ears flicked at her breathless voice. His silver hide shivered and his tail switched with impatience. She had one more chance to get it right.
“I’ve got to remember how Jake taught me to do this, and I’ve got to remind you.” Sam closed her eyes, turned her face up to the pale sun and remembered.
In memory, summer banished the river’s snowmelt. Eyes still closed, Sam stood as she should have the first time. Shoulder to shoulder with the stallion, she faced his tail, with her left palm tented over his warm withers.
Think summer, Sam told herself, and the cramped muscles in her legs seemed to stretch. She lifted her sodden right boot from the water and swung it toward the horse, then away. When he didn’t shy, she did it again.
“This is what it looks like, remember? I throw this leg over and the other one lifts off, and—” Sam’s voice caught. How could she have forgotten this part? “And I kiss the far side of your neck before I straighten up and ride you away.”
She opened her eyes, breaking the trance of memory.
This couldn’t be done in a tangle of arms and legs. It had to be a single movement, fluid and graceful.
She let her fingers move on his withers. That left hand wasn’t meant to lever her up. It was there to steady them both.
The Phantom’s muzzle nudged her spine. He was ready.
Sam swung her right leg. Its arc cleared the stallion’s back and lifted her left leg from the river water. Momentum made her right leg hit the stallion’s far side. Her stomach rested on his neck and—there!—she kissed the right side of his neck, then pushed herself, trembling, upright.
“Oh, my gosh, boy,” Sam said through chattering teeth. “It’s really happening. I love you, Zanzibar.”
Gooseflesh raced up her arms and down again. She was cold and confused, and more excited than she’d ever been before.
She leaned forward, rested her cheek on the stallion’s mane, and the confusion faded away. Her arms hung and her hands trailed like rain on his silken neck. The Phantom shivered, but he didn’t move until Sam sat tall.
The stallion’s head came up as she straightened.
“We’ve done this before, boy.”
Sam balanced and held a lock of mane in her left hand. Her trembling right hand rested on her thigh. She sighted ahead, through the stallion’s curved silver ears.
“Here we go, boy.”
Before she tightened her legs, the Phantom took a step, testing, then stopped. Sam kept her fingers wound in his mane, but she smoothed her other hand over his shoulder.
“I remember this, don’t you?” Sam said, and then she leaned forward.
The stallion moved down the stream. A few curious nickers followed them, but the Phantom trembled with the memories. Strength coursed through every muscle. It was clear to Sam that the great stallion was letting her command him. For now.
He lurched left. Sam grabbed his mane with both hands as the stallion vaulted onto the bank and leaped into a lope.
Ohmygosh, ohmygosh, don’t gallop. Every inch of her body trembled. She was not a good bareback rider. She didn’t want to fall. Something black showed in the rock wall ahead.
The stallion entered a tunnel. She ducked her head, but then the Phantom slowed to a walk and her head snapped back.
Sam took a shuddering breath. I’m okay. We’re fine. This might never happen again. I’m not afraid. I’m in heaven.
This tunnel wasn’t as dark as the one that led to the stallion’s hideaway in the Calico Mountains. Could it be part of the same passageway? Excitement made it hard to think.
The ceiling was so low, the stallion dropped his head to the level of his chest. Sam flattened on the stallion’s neck and still the rock grated against her back.
Light flickered through cracks in the stone walls. It gave their journey a strange underwater feel, until Sam’s eyes focused on the wall on her right.
Horses. Drawings of rust-red horses marked the wall. They looked like they’d been drawn by a second grader. And then Sam realized what they were. Petroglyphs. The drawings had been made by ancient tribes. Maybe they’d been daubed by Paiutes or Shoshones, or by families before there even were tribes.
Sam knew one thing for sure: Horses and people had lived together in this valley many, many years ago.
Sam felt a warmth in her chest. She must be the only person alive who knew this tunnel. By the time she tried to tie the drawings into some sort of story, they were gone.
The light at the end of the tunnel grew bright.
“Thank you, boy,” she whispered to the stallion.
He stopped. Then, to Sam’s horror, his back legs lashed out.
“Easy, boy.”
The stallion gave a snort and kicked out again. This time, his legs twisted, loosening the grip of her legs. He wanted her off. Now.
“Zanzibar, I understand.”
Holding tight to his mane, she slipped from his back. Her feet had just reached the stone floor when the stallion began backing away. His head bowed. His mane rushed forward to veil his face. He was going…
Suddenly dizzy, Sam braced her hands against the side of the tunnel. Silence claimed the air around her. When her senses stopped spinning, she focused on the spot where the Phantom had been. There was nothing but blackness.
Now she began to shiver serious
ly. She rubbed her hands up and down her parka arms, hearing the skid of her abraded palms on the nylon. She turned her back on the dark tunnel.
“Walk,” she ordered herself. Then she heard another voice.
She jogged toward the light as fast as she could without falling. She didn’t know where this tunnel ended and she didn’t care, because somewhere ahead, she heard Jake calling her name.
The mouth of the tunnel opened behind a rock. Sam had to climb, pulling herself up with painfully cold hands. This couldn’t be the way the horses exited. Following the light must have led her away from the mustangs’ path.
Her heart vaulted up, rejoicing. She wouldn’t give away their secret.
“Good! Oh, good!” Sam chuckled as she lowered herself toward a gravelly path. Her feet shot out from under her, and she rode a dirt slide down the face of a foothill.
Jake was sitting on Witch, holding Strawberry’s reins, gawking at her.
Sam staggered to her feet. She brushed at the seat of her jeans and looked over her shoulder.
“I think I slid through the denim,” she said, giggling.
“I think you’re hysterical.” Jake dropped Strawberry’s reins, ground-tying her, then moved to stand in front of Sam.
“Hey, you weren’t down there, were you?” she asked.
“Down where?”
“In Arroyo Azul?”
Jake shook his head.
“But then, who was?” Sam asked. “I was following the tracks of a single horse down through Lost Canyon, past the overlook, and down into the arroyo.”
“Sam, I called your house this morning and no one answered. Tell me what happened.”
She covered her mouth to keep from laughing. She was feeling giddy, which really didn’t make sense. What happened? It was kind of a lot to cover. She’d had the most terrifying moment of her life and the most wonderful. Part of it she’d never tell anyone, but she numbered off the three events on her fingers.
“First, I was following the horses. Then, the cougar attacked me. Last, Strawberry ran away.”
“The cougar—” Delicately, Jake turned her so that he could see her back.
“Jake, don’t look at my pants. I ripped the seat out—”
Jake’s hand fell away from her shoulder. He turned awfully quiet, even for him.
Feeling embarrassed, Sam looked up at Jake’s frozen face. Then she stared at his fingers, which held a tiny white feather.
“The goose down in your jacket is floating out through claw rips in the nylon,” he said softly.
“My parka’s wrecked?” Sam asked.
Jake stared at her as if she’d missed the point.
“Can you ride?” he asked.
“Of course I can ride.” Sam snatched Strawberry’s trailing reins, jammed her boot toe in the stirrup, and swung aboard. “If you only knew how I can ride,” she muttered to herself.
She kicked Strawberry into a gallop. Jake shouted and Witch came thundering after the other mare.
Sam hated to make Jake worry, and she hated to run away from the magical hour she’d had with the Phantom. Most of all, she hated going home, but that was why she had to hurry before she lost her nerve.
Once there, she would have to tell Brynna the truth about the young cougar. When she did, there was a very good chance someone would go to Lost Canyon and shoot him.
Chapter Twenty
Sam had managed to ease her aching body out of bed by noon on Sunday. Trying not to move more muscles than she had to, she dressed to go over to Jen’s house.
So far, she’d managed to get her underwear and socks on, but now came her jeans. She wasn’t sure she was up to the challenge.
Her muscles weren’t all that had suffered. Why were her memories of yesterday afternoon so blurry?
Before she went out in public, Sam thought she should try to remember what had happened after she’d met up with Jake.
She was pretty sure that she’d called Brynna the minute she got home. She’d confessed every detail of the cougar attack, but Brynna hadn’t even let her finish. She’d insisted on speaking to Jake. Then she’d talked Jake through an embarrassing evaluation of Sam’s physical condition.
Jake had checked her joints, the pupils of her eyes, and a bunch of other things, then Brynna had made him promise to stay with Sam until Wyatt and Gram came home. Brynna had given Jake ten minutes to put up the horses while she kept Sam on the phone.
The good news Brynna shared was that the cougar’s future might not be as bleak as Sam feared. The Division of Wildlife planned to transplant him to a remote area of the Ruby Mountains, far east of the Calicos.
After that conversation, Sam remembered eating the soup and toast Jake forced on her. Then she’d spent an hour in the bathtub. The warm water had soaked some of the soreness out of the muscles that had been smacked by the weight of the cougar.
At least, she’d thought they had.
Now, Sam held on to her bedpost. With one leg in her jeans, the next one should be easy, right?
What she’d really wanted yesterday was to take a nap. But Jake had made her rest on the couch, where he could shake her awake and check her pupils whenever she happened to doze.
Sam remembered Dad waking her when he returned home from Darton, to ask if she wanted Chinese food. She didn’t.
A few minutes later Brynna woke her and reminded her of the final fitting of their dresses at the Kenworthys’ house, just in case she’d forgotten. She had.
When the phone rang at what must have been seven o’clock, though it felt like midnight, Gram had made Sam talk to Jen. Sam had felt groggy, and probably hadn’t sounded excited when Jen revealed that Ryan, Rachel’s twin, had arrived at the Gold Dust Ranch and was “way cute.”
“Ta da!” Sam gave herself a fanfare as she zipped her jeans, but when her gaze shifted to the sweater waiting on her bed, she bit her lip.
“Honey, would you like some help with that?” Gram asked, poking her head around the corner of Sam’s door.
“I feel like a baby. But yes, please,” Sam said.
Gram was quick and gentle, but Sam gasped at the contortions required to get the sweater on.
“I can’t figure out why I’m so sore.” She groaned.
“That cougar hit you with over a hundred hungry pounds! Then he pulled you backward by your neck and you fell from the height of a horse!” Gram’s hands shook as she arranged Sam’s sweater. “’Sakes, Samantha, of course you’re sore.”
Sam nodded, then looked in the mirror. The idea of lifting a hairbrush made her wince. Her hair didn’t look too bad. Maybe she’d just leave it as it was.
“Can you come downstairs and take some aspirin?” Dad asked from the doorway.
“Sure, I can.”
“And have some breakfast before we leave for the Kenworthys’,” Gram added. “If you don’t feel better after that, we’re going to see the doctor.”
“But—” Sam began.
“No argument.” Dad’s voice rolled behind him as he started downstairs. “And if you two get over there and need some help getting home, call me.”
“Of course, Wyatt,” Gram said, following him down the stairs.
They left Sam so she could try her legs without an audience.
Walking like she was ninety-three instead of thirteen, Sam made it to the kitchen. Hot oatmeal with brown sugar and cream slid down her abused throat and warmed her from the inside out.
“Gram, this is great.” She sighed.
She drained her orange juice glass and asked for a refill. When that was gone, Sam couldn’t wait to get over to Jen’s house.
Something was going on at the Gold Dust Ranch.
A teal-and-white-striped tent fluttered in the open area leading up to the Slocums’ mansion.
“Has the circus come to town?” Sam asked.
“You might say that.” Gram parked in front of the Kenworthys’ cabin, next to Brynna’s white truck. “Helen said that Linc came home from New York with big pla
ns. He’s entertaining ‘investors’ with a Western-style dinner in that heated tent.”
Inch by inch, Sam climbed out of the car, and she stood for a moment before walking to the house.
“Yum,” she said, taking a breath. The crisp air held more than the scent of sagebrush. Could that be barbecuing chicken inside that tent?
“Linc told Helen he couldn’t trust this dinner to local cooks, so he flew in a team of chefs. I bet that’s them.” Gram nodded at a pair of white-coated men scurrying from the tent to the mansion. “Last I heard, the menu included smoked quail on nests of shoestring potatoes.”
“It smells good,” Sam admitted, but the word investors stuck in her mind. Linc Slocum’s schemes had a way of turning sour in a hurry.
The door to the cabin swung open and Jen stood in the doorway.
“I won’t give you a hug,” she said, eyeing Sam.
“She’s doing fine.” Gram steadied Sam’s elbow as they went inside.
The cozy living room was strewn with material and clothes and platters of food. Brynna stood in the midst of it, grinning.
“I thought that since we’re an all-girl crew today,” she said, “we could test recipes as well as model clothes.”
Though she’d just finished breakfast, Sam thought it sounded like a great idea.
“Jed’s out riding the fence line,” Lila said, gesturing toward the mountains. “With the gourmet hoopla outside and the pinning and primping inside, he thought he’d just be in the way.”
“Try one of these,” Brynna encouraged, holding a plate of pastries toward Sam. “Better yet, take them with you to Jen’s room. She can help you try on your dress. Tell me if you like the brown sugar or blueberry tarts best.”
Jen grabbed the plate before Sam could, then guided her down the hall.
“I know how to find your room,” Sam muttered.
“I’m not going to let you fall or something,” Jen grumbled. “It’s just like you to get attacked by a wild animal while I’m not around to watch.”
“Sorry,” Sam said. She knew Jen was covering her concern with sarcasm.
