Saddle Up

by Victoria Vane

  The horse suddenly reared and struck out with a foreleg, missing the man’s head by mere inches. It was only the inmate’s reflexive nosedive that saved him from the striking front hooves. Watching over his shoulder, he was quick to scramble back to safety.

  Jim heaved a sigh of frustration. “Least no one got hurt this time. You might as well just load him up and take ’im back with you to PVC. He’s a certified outlaw. Even if they take his balls outright, this horse is never gonna be adoptable.”

  Keith was struck by how similar those words matched what his family had once said of him—that he would never be good for anything. The school counselor had agreed, labeling him an intractable delinquent. When he left for the rez, his stepfather’s parting remark was “good riddance to the little bastard.”

  “What’s it gonna cost me?” Keith blurted.

  Jim scratched his jaw. “Whaddya mean?”

  “How much to take him off your hands? I want to adopt him.”

  “You’re kidding, right? That horse is gonna kill somebody.”

  “Then I’m dead serious,” he quipped.

  “You’d be crazy to take him on,” Jim insisted.

  “Maybe I am.” Keith shrugged. “Or maybe I just have a yen to own a sacred horse. We Injuns are kinda funny that way.”

  “You really want that renegade stud?”

  “Said so, didn’t I?” It was stupid as hell, but looking at the horse was like seeing himself, or who he would have been. He had no doubt that if he hadn’t left New York, he’d have ended up in juvenile detention. Only his grandfather’s patience, the freedom, and the wide-open spaces of Wyoming had saved him from that fate.

  “It’s your neck, I s’pose.” Jim shook his head with a sigh. “Minimum adoption fee is a hundred twenty-five.”

  “Will you take cash?”

  “Sure ’nuff. Cash is real money.”

  “What are you doing?” Miranda asked.

  “Buying the horse,” Keith replied with a shrug.

  “But why? Haven’t you said all along that you don’t believe in mustang adoption? What are you going to do with him?”

  “Dunno yet. Maybe I’ll gift him to my grandfather.”

  “Why?” Miranda asked. “Is black and white so uncommon?”

  “It’s not so much the color combination as his markings. A horse like this is considered sacred in our culture. The dark place on the top of his head is called a medicine hat, and the splash of color on his chest is a war shield. These markings were highly prized by war chiefs and shaman,” Keith explained. “I have a few things to take care of,” he told Jim. “I’ll come back and pick him up in a couple of hours.”

  “Suits me. I’m just happy to have him out of here. C’mon.” He clapped Keith on the shoulder. “You’ve still gotta do the paperwork.”

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later, Keith and Miranda left the prison. Her boots felt more like lead the closer she got to her car. “Thank you for bringing me out here, Keith. It was very enlightening. This whole experience has been.”

  “Did you get everything you wanted?” he asked.

  She paused. Everything she wanted? No. No, she didn’t get nearly enough of what she really wanted. She wished she could voice even half of what was in her heart, but he referred only to the film. As far as that went, she’d accomplished all she’d set out to do, filming the horse gather, the processing, and had even recorded some of the inmates training the horses. She should be elated with her successes, but her heart was as heavy as her feet.

  “I think so,” she finally replied. “I have several weeks of editing work ahead of me to put this all together, but I’m pretty certain I know what I want to do with it. What about you?” she asked. “What will you do now?”

  “I’ll be here in Nevada for two or three more weeks,” he replied. “After we’ve finished this contract, I’ll be heading back to Wyoming for a couple more gathers there.”

  “Will you return to the reservation after that?”

  “I don’t know.” He looked sad but resigned. “Probably not. I might look for some full-time ranch work. I haven’t decided yet.”

  “If you want ranch work, maybe Jo-Jo would know of something?”

  “Jo-Jo?”

  “My grandmother. I told you she has a ranch. It’s my favorite place in the world…or always was.” Her smile faded.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “It’s been for sale for over a year, since my grandfather passed away. Jo-Jo really doesn’t want to sell it, but she can’t run it alone, not as a cattle outfit, anyway.”

  “What about your father? Why doesn’t he help her?”

  “My dad passed away when I was four. It was a stupid accident on a tractor.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know what it’s like. I lost my father too.”

  “I barely recall it anymore,” she said “But what makes me sadder is that I hardly even remember him now, just a few fuzzy memories. He was an only son. His sister, my aunt Judith, couldn’t wait to get away from the ranch. They managed to get by with part-time help until Gramps died. But now Jo-Jo can’t afford to pay for more help, so she’s selling out. You know, this entire experience has me wondering what it would require to take on some of these BLM horses. Do ranchers get reimbursed for keeping them?” Miranda asked.

  “Yes. They get paid a per diem for each head.” Keith’s gaze narrowed. “Why are you asking?”

  “Maybe this is another option for her to consider? It seems to me these horses wouldn’t need anywhere near the time and care as cattle ranching, right? If the government offers a subsidy, maybe she could still keep the ranch?”

  “C’mon, Miranda. Do you really think an old lady is capable of managing a herd of wild horses?”

  “Old lady?” Miranda laughed. “You’ve never met Jo-Jo. She may be my grandma, but she’s anything but old. She can still rope and ride with the best of them.”

  “She still couldn’t do it alone. It’s nothing like running cattle. She’d need full-time help from someone who knows these horses.”

  “You know these horses,” Miranda said. “And you just told me you were going to look for ranch work.”

  He raised a hand. “Hold it right there. This is crazy talk. I never said anything about mustangs.”

  “But why not? You just adopted one, didn’t you?”

  “One horse isn’t the same as taking on a herd of them, Miranda.”

  “Maybe not,” she said. “But I just can’t help wanting to do something.”

  “Isn’t that the purpose of your film?”

  “I thought so before I understood the complexity of the problem. Until now I even thought gathering the horses was the solution. But that’s not really the case at all, is it?”

  “No.” He leaned back against his truck, arms crossed over his chest. “Gathering is not the right answer, and neither is turning your grandmother’s ranch into a mustang sanctuary.”

  “It was only a thought,” she replied, disappointed at his dismissive answer. Why had she expected more? Maybe it was all just wishful thinking that she could maintain some kind of connection with him. A long silence followed. He suddenly seemed so unreadable.

  “Keith?” she began again.

  “Yes?”

  “Um, what if I have questions? You know, pertaining to the film? Is there a number or email I can reach you at?”

  “In case you have questions?” His mouth curved subtly at one corner, as if he saw through her subterfuge. “You have Mitch’s number, right?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. I programmed it.”

  “If you need anything more, he knows how to reach me.”

  He wouldn’t even give her his number? Her heart sank all the way into her stomach.

  “I don’t have a phone or email to give you,” he explained. “I don’t even have a permanent address. If you need me, call Mitch.”

  “Oh. Okay then,” she said softly. Sadly. What was left to say?
r />   The moment she’d dreaded had come at last. She was leaving, returning to her work, to her world. Would he at least kiss her good-bye? Their gazes met and held. His eyes flickered as if he was asking himself the same question. Her pulse sped. For a moment she thought he would kiss her, but then he seemed to change his mind. She waited a few more agonizing seconds, but he made no move, just stood there watching her, his expression impassive, his hands by his sides.

  Her throat tightened as she turned to her car and reached for the door.

  “Good-bye, Keith,” she whispered. “Thanks for…well…everything.”

  Did he feel nothing? Did this whole thing mean nothing? “Good-bye, Aiwattsi. Be well.”

  Be well? Was that all? The end? Their final good-bye? Her chest gave a painful squeeze. She’d never dreamed that in going out into the desert she’d end up leaving a piece of herself behind. But she had—a great big chunk of her heart.

  * * *

  He’d almost kissed her. He still wanted to. It was all he could do to hold back, but he’d never have been able to stop kissing her once he started. So he hadn’t. But he still wanted her. He hadn’t stopped wanting her. The scent of her still teased him. He ached to feel himself surrounded in her warmth. There was so much he would like to have said, but what was the point? She’d come only to do a job, just as he had. Now the job was finished. She was driving back to L.A. The good-bye hurt, but a swift, clean break was for the best. This couldn’t go anywhere. She had plans, a future. He had nothing. Absolutely. Nothing. A fact that gnawed at his insides when she’d asked about his plans. So instead of kissing her, he’d watched her drive away, but letting her go still left him with a huge ache in his chest.

  Keith left the prison an hour later with the horse on his trailer, bound for Tuscarora, where he’d be joining Mitch’s crew. He still didn’t know what had prompted him to take the horse, or what the hell he was going to do with it. At first he’d thought the medicine hat stallion might make a good peace offering, but it might be interpreted as trying to buy his way back into his grandfather’s good graces. He couldn’t chance the risk and humiliation of a rejection. Keeping the horse for himself was impossible, even if he was inclined to train it—which he absolutely wasn’t.

  He was still mulling over his dilemma when he reached the fork in the highway at Winnemucca. But instead of continuing east on Interstate 80, he turned the wheel northward onto Highway 95 with no real destination in mind. Seventy miles later, just inside the tribal lands, he spotted several bands of horses. Pulling onto the shoulder of the deserted highway, Keith cut the engine.

  Nostrils flaring blood red, the horse snorted at him through the slats as he rounded the stock trailer, where he unlatched the door and flung it open. Instead of instantly springing out, as he’d expected, the stallion eyed him with suspicion.

  “No tricks, ol’ man.” Keith turned his palms up. “Go now. You’re free.”

  Throwing his head back and his tail in the air, the stallion lunged out of the trailer and bolted toward the same mountains that were his prior home. Watching the horse disappear in the distance, Keith whispered in warning, “You’d be wise to make yourself very scarce next time.”

  Chapter 15

  Los Angeles, California

  “Good morning, bright eyes,” Lexi greeted Miranda cheerily. “I didn’t hear you come in last night.”

  “It was really late,” Miranda replied. “I drove all the way from Reno.”

  “Reno?” Lexi looked puzzled. “I thought you went to the mountains to film wild horses? What the hell were you doing in Reno?”

  “I stopped there overnight on the way back and then drove home from there.” A drive that was far too long and lonely. As hard as she’d tried, she couldn’t stop thinking about Keith and how it had ended. She understood his aloofness at their parting; he was trying to make it easier, but it wasn’t easier. And like a fresh cut, it still hurt.

  “You drove nine hours straight through? No wonder you look like death warmed over.”

  “Thanks a bunch, Lex.”

  “Here, you need this more than I do.” She handed Miranda a steaming cup of coffee and then poured another, set the cup down, and plopped onto the stool beside her. “So, how was this desert adventure of yours?”

  “The whole thing was so surreal. I went there thinking I was just going to film this wild-horse roundup, but then things went awry, and I ended up trekking into the mountains with one of the wranglers.”

  Lexi’s jaw dropped. “Oh. My. God. Please tell me he was smoking hot.”

  Miranda broke into a reluctant grin. “He was straight out of your wildest fantasies, Lexi.”

  Lexi laid a hand on her knee. “So this actually gets good? Or maybe you have no idea just how wild my fantasies are.”

  Miranda laughed. “Picture a cross between Romancing the Stone and Tarzan of the Apes, except we were in the desert instead of the jungle. For a while I even felt a bit like Jane must have, but I suppose Tarzan would have wrestled the lion.”

  “A lion? What lion?”

  “We were attacked by a mountain lion. It attacked one of the horses, but all that happened after Keith killed a rattlesnake with his knife.”

  “All right,” Lexi scoffed. “You are totally punking me. You had me going for a while, but I’m not believing a word of this anymore.”

  “I swear to God it’s true! All of it,” Miranda insisted. “Do you remember that horse-whisperer guy?”

  Lexi rolled her eyes. “As if I could ever forget. Are you saying this wrangler was like him?”

  “No, Lexi, it was him.”

  “You have got to be shittin’ me.”

  “Nope. And I have film to prove it. It’s mostly the horses, but there are several takes with Keith. He even put a sick foal on a helicopter. I can’t wait to get into the editing lab with this.”

  “And get your ass canned? You’d better think again. Bad enough you were out alone in the desert with the uber-hot guy Bibi was so desperate to shag. Now you want to use her lab to edit this? Do you not see the problem here if she finds out?”

  Miranda grimaced. “I guess you’re right. I suppose I’ll have to take it elsewhere.”

  “Enough about work,” Lexi said. “Tell me more about your wrangler. What happened while you were alone in the desert?”

  “Nothing…much.”

  Lexi huffed. “Don’t make me pull teeth, Miranda.”

  “It’s too personal. I really don’t like to talk about sex.”

  A slow grin spread over Lexi’s face. “So you did have sex?”

  Miranda flushed, wanting to kick herself at the slip of the tongue. “Um, well, yeah. Sort of.”

  “Sweetheart. Either you did or you didn’t. There is no ‘sort of’ when it comes to sex.”

  “All right,” she sighed. “We were intimate, and it was amazing. Better than I ever could have imagined.”

  “Really? Sounds promising. When are you going to rendezvous at your oasis again?”

  Miranda looked away. “We aren’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he has his life, and I have mine.”

  “So that’s it? You aren’t even going to text? Call? Nothing?”

  “No. I wish it could have been more, but we both knew it couldn’t go anywhere.”

  “Now that’s a surprise.”

  “What is?”

  “That you’d give up the goods like that.” Lexi grinned. “I didn’t take you for a hussy like me.”

  “I didn’t… I’m not… I mean it wasn’t like that. Honestly. It was weird, Lex, how it was between us. Like it was just meant to happen. Maybe I didn’t get to write my own Hollywood ending, but I’m still okay with it. I wouldn’t take it back.”

  “I wish I could say that about even half of my past relationships,” Lexi said dryly. “So what now?”

  “I’ll finish the film.” Miranda added her secret wish with a deprecating laugh. “Who knows? Maybe one day he’ll just sh
ow up, throw me on his horse, and take me off into the sunset.”

  * * *

  Three weeks later, Miranda was growing frustrated with her film. “Lexi, would you take a look at this? I’ve already spent countless hours on postproduction, and it’s just not working. I wish I could figure out why.”

  “Sure. I’m no film critic, but I’ll take a peek.” Lexi sat down in front of the laptop, where Miranda was studying the video clips.

  “Keep in mind it’s only the rough cut,” Miranda said. “In addition to being on that helicopter, I filmed the horses as they came into the traps, so I’d have dual perspective. I also have some great stills of wild horses that I’m going to edit in.”

  “You’ve got some gorgeous video here,” Lexi remarked. “Some of this desert scenery is breathtaking…but…”

  “I know.” Miranda grimaced. “It feels flat and passionless, doesn’t it? There’s nothing special here. Nothing to evoke any real emotion. Even the attempt to save the foal seems somehow lacking.”

  “If you wanted to tug on the heartstrings, why didn’t you follow that story through?” Lexi asked.

  “Because they wouldn’t let me. The pilot didn’t think I’d be strong enough to hold the horse. He said it was too dangerous, so I went out after the strays with Keith instead.”

  Lexi grinned. “Can’t blame you there. As a semiemployed actress, I have to ask what you’re going to do about narration?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. For the most part, I’d planned to use archived interviews with Wild Horse Annie. She’s the one who started the whole mustang conservation movement.”

  Lexi gave a big theatrical yawn. “Sounds dry as the desert. What about music? Maybe you can do something cool with that?”

  “I’m still looking for what I want, but haven’t found it yet.”

  “If you really want to stir emotion, you could use ‘Ride of the Valkyries.’ Start it right when that chopper pops up.”

  Miranda snorted. “And remind people of Apocalypse Now? I don’t think so. This whole topic is already controversial enough.”