by Terri Farley
It turned out Rachel Slocum didn’t find Sam’s adventure worth talking about at school. For that, Sam was grateful.
Jake knew, of course, and Dad had insisted Sam describe the truck to Brynna, and Sam had told Jen.
Only one thing changed after that night of hiding. Sam wasn’t allowed to go anywhere alone.
That was why, on Tuesday afternoon, Sam stood talking with Jen instead of starting the mile-long walk home.
“You don’t have to wait with me,” Sam told Jen. “Gram will be picking me up any minute.”
“And miss all the excitement when the bad guys come?” Jen twirled the tail of one skinny white-blond braid and peered over the top of her dark-framed glasses. “Oh, no. I missed part one of this adventure. No way are you going to leave me out of part two.” Jen was almost over her cold, and her sharp sense of humor was back.
“I don’t think there’ll be a part two,” Sam said. “Rangers are looking for the rustlers so they’d be dumb to come back here. Besides, they just want Dark Sunshine, not me.”
“So you’re really not scared?” Jen asked.
Sam stood quiet for a minute, taking inventory of how she felt. The terror she’d felt hiding with the horses had faded.
“Not really,” Sam said, and it was the truth, until Jen’s emphatic nod.
“Good.”
“Why ‘good’?” Sam asked.
“Thursday we have a half day because of teacher meetings, right?” Jen reminded her. “So, unless you’re a lousy friend who doesn’t care anything about my feelings or the expert tutoring I’m giving you in math…”
“Take a breath, then get to the point,” Sam said.
“…you’ll take me up to the rustlers’ trap.”
Sam didn’t ask why. Jen’s curiosity mirrored her own, and Sam knew that if the situation had been reversed, she would want to ride up and see the site of all the excitement.
Sam had no reason not to go, but she offered a deterrent. “The federal rangers have already been up there, you know.”
Jen rubbed her hands together in anticipation. “Suppose they left yellow crime scene tape, or some of that magic dust they use to lift fingerprints?”
“I don’t know if they do that. Besides, you want to be a vet, not a cop.”
“I’m keeping my options open,” Jen said. “So you’ll do it?”
“I’ll do it, but…” Sam lowered her voice as if she might be overheard. “If they’ll let me, I want to start gentling Dark Sunshine.”
“I hope you keep her,” Jen said. “Then Silly won’t be the only neurotic horse in the neighborhood.”
Jen joked about Silk Stockings, her high-strung palomino, but she loved her as much as Sam loved Ace. Jen had come over after school yesterday to see Popcorn and Dark Sunshine, and she and Sam had been analyzing the mustangs’ behavior ever since.
“You’ve got a lot to undo with the mare, and she’s going to be unpredictable for a long time. Miss Olson’s smart to use Popcorn with the HARP program. He looks like he has some draft blood.”
“So he should be calmer,” Sam agreed, “once he lets us get near him. And he doesn’t have that haunted look.”
Unlike Dark Sunshine. Sam didn’t say the words, just pushed her bangs back and tried not to recall how the buckskin had wanted to follow the other horses into the trailer. She hadn’t cared where they were going, she just hadn’t wanted to be left behind.
“Besides,” Sam said, “Popcorn wasn’t abused on purpose. They told Brynna they tried to break him just like they’d seen in movies. The day after they got him, they snubbed him to a post, saddled him, and climbed on. He bucked. He ran through a fence. He was impossible to catch, so after a while they just ignored him.”
“Hi, nice to meet you,” Jen said, pretending to be Popcorn’s owner. “I know you’ve lived free all your life, but let me tie your head at a weird angle, throw something heavy on your back, yank something tight around your middle, and oh, yeah, now I’m going to jump on you! What are people thinking?”
“You’re going to be a good vet,” Sam told her friend. “You think like a horse. But Brynna says Popcorn didn’t hurt anyone, in spite of all that. In fact, BLM didn’t take him away from the adopters—they returned him.”
“Like shoes that didn’t fit.” Jen made a growling noise.
“Here comes Gram.” Sam waved at the boatlike Buick coming toward them, but Jen wasn’t finished grumbling.
“Some people don’t understand horses have feelings,” Jen said.
“I guess not.” But all at once Sam thought not of Dark Sunshine but of Mikki. Mikki’s mother hadn’t exactly returned her, but she had sent her away.
The seventh grade troublemaker would arrive today for her first session with Popcorn and Jake. She deserved a little sympathy, Sam thought, so she’d give it to her. After all, how hard could that be?
Mikki’s hands perched on her hips. She wore tight jeans and a pink nylon top that bared her tummy. Someone should tell her it was too short, and that her blond hair was sticking out like wet feathers.
But Jake had already told the girl something, and she didn’t like it one bit.
“You want me to sit in the dirt inside that pen, just sit there, for an hour?” she demanded of Jake. “I hope you’re not getting paid for this.”
Jake didn’t wear chaps today. He wore clean jeans and a short-sleeved white shirt. He’d even removed his hat to talk with the girl. Now he pulled it on, covering the shiny black hair he tied back with a leather string.
“You’re not, are you?” Mikki said, but Jake only walked into the round corral, leaving Mikki outside.
Mikki whirled on Sam. “Why isn’t he saying anything?”
Mikki had just arrived, and already Sam was counting the minutes until the girl’s counselor came back to collect her.
“Huh?” Mikki said. “What’s his problem?”
“My guess is that he’s treating you like he would a colt putting up a fuss. He’s just waiting for you to finish, so he can go on with business.”
“Like a horse?” Mikki asked.
“Yeah, and I’d say you’re lucky. He almost never treats me that well. He really likes horses.”
“Are you joking?”
“Not really,” Sam admitted. “Jake and I grew up together, and he calls me Brat.”
Mikki’s lips twisted in a dubious expression. “So should I go in there?” She jerked her thumb toward the round pen.
“In a minute.” Sam held up her finger. What she had to say next would be awkward, but if she kept quiet, the girl could get in big trouble. “My dad’s pretty easygoing—”
“Yeah, they all start out that way,” Mikki scoffed.
“Well, he’s been like that for thirteen years I know of,” Sam snapped. “Anyway, there’s one thing he won’t put up with: smoking around the barn.”
“Why should I care? You don’t see me smoking.”
“No.” Sam tried to keep her hands from closing into fists. “I don’t see it, but you smell like cigarette smoke. If they don’t care what you do at that place you’re staying, fine, but the straw in our barn could go up like that.” Sam snapped her fingers under the girl’s nose. “If Dad catches you smoking, you’ll be out of here so fast it’ll make your head spin.”
The sparkle in Mikki’s eyes said she’d tried to provoke Sam into losing control. And she’d won.
Get a grip, Sam told herself as she opened the gate to the round pen. Popcorn sidestepped, eyes rolling. Mikki wasn’t the only one who was supposed to get something from HARP. She might not even be the most deserving one.
Popcorn was tall for a mustang, about fifteen hands, and he watched her with crystal-blue eyes. Built like a heavy Quarter horse, the gelding had already started growing a fuzzy winter coat that made Sam think of a stuffed toy. But when Sam leaned her head in to talk with Jake, who sat on the ground to her right, Popcorn backed away a few fearful steps, then banged his whole body against the fence as if to esc
ape.
“You comin’ in?” Jake asked.
“No.” Sam heard Mikki behind her, so she leaned down and whispered to Jake, “I’ll watch from outside and leave you in here with the wild things.”
Jake grunted and motioned Mikki in. Sam stepped aside, but as Mikki passed, she shot Sam an angry look. She didn’t like being left out.
Sam smiled as she withdrew from the corral and closed the gate. One of Jake’s horse strategies built on the fact that they were herd animals.
Maybe the technique worked with kids, too.
Sam peered through the slats of the round pen and watched Jake, Mikki, and Popcorn. As usual, Jake didn’t waste words.
“Sit there.” He nodded to a place midway between Popcorn and himself. “Lean back. You’re gonna be there a while.”
“A whole hour?” Mikki didn’t whine now that she was watching the mustang.
“How long ya got?” Jake asked. “He can’t trust you if you’re never around.”
“Don’t I know it,” Mikki said, then plopped cross-legged in the dirt.
Sam glanced at her watch. She’d bet Mikki couldn’t sit for five minutes without wiggling or talking.
Two minutes later, Mikki blurted, “What am I supposed to be doing?” Popcorn bolted at her voice, and Mikki made a soft sound of regret. “I’m not doing it right, but I don’t know how. Tell me.”
“Not much you can do wrong,” Jake said. “Just watch him. See what he does with his ears, eyes, feet, everything.”
“Okay. I can do that.”
This time, she did.
Sam watched for about twenty minutes. She skipped the snack Gram offered and hurried through her chores. When she returned to the corral, Jake and Mikki were coming out.
Mikki stretched, then shoved her hands in her pockets and looked away from Jake.
“Okay, what did you see?” he asked.
Mikki shrugged.
“Don’t interpret, just say what you noticed.”
“What’s the point, if I don’t know what it means?” Mikki shrugged again. “He just stood there.”
Sam wished she had a video camera so she could show Mikki herself “just standing there.” Besides shrugging and jamming her hands in her pockets, the girl kept her gaze focused over Jake’s shoulder. She looked worried, not sassy.
Sam would bet Mikki didn’t venture a description because she didn’t want to be wrong. She was acting just like the troubled horse inside the corral.
“What about his eyes?” Jake asked.
“Okay,” Mikki almost shouted. “He had lines over his eyes, like he was worried, and he didn’t like it when I looked right at him.” Mikki licked her lips. “He looked away if he caught me staring. Then, when I looked at something else and checked back, he’d be watching me. Then the whole thing started over again.” Mikki rattled off the words, daring Jake to contradict her. “So what?”
“Anything else?”
“When I moved my hands or feet, just trying to keep them from getting all pins and needly, he scooted away.” Mikki looked down. “And that’s dumb. He knows he can’t get out of there.”
“Maybe he doesn’t,” Sam said.
“What?” Mikki sneered.
“He broke down a fence at the place he used to live,” Sam began, then she told Mikki about the snubbing post, the bucking, and the weeks of being ignored.
Mikki listened intently until Sam finished. Then the girl looked frustrated. “So when can I ride him?”
“Not this year,” Jake said.
“What?” Again, Mikki’s shrill words made Popcorn bolt around the corral. She glanced his way with regret, then plucked at her feathery blond hair. “I can’t ride him? Are you afraid I’ll screw him up worse?”
“No, we need him to trust someone.”
“Like you,” Mikki said to Sam. “You’re the one reading his mind.”
“I’m not reading his mind, just guessing.”
“And what do you guess it means that he won’t let me look into his eyes?” Mikki wagged her head mockingly.
“I think…” Sam swallowed and cast a nervous glance at Jake.
This was all his fault. When the Phantom was a foal, Jake had helped Sam think like a horse. She’d never expected to do it aloud.
“I think,” Sam said, “that he got everything wrong with people the first time, right after he was captured. Then, instead of trying to understand, they scared him, hurt him, and then shut him out. He wonders why he should try again.”
For just an instant, Mikki looked sympathetic, but then she noticed Jake waiting for her response.
“The reason he should try it again”—Mikki pronounced each word slowly, as if Sam weren’t very smart—“is because he’s a horse. That’s what horseys do. They give people rides.”
“Not wild horses,” Sam said.
“He could learn.” Mikki flipped her hand toward the corral. “I bet he could learn in a week. You’re just teasing me so I’ll be a good girl. I’ve played this game before.”
It was quiet for a minute, except for the faraway drone of a small plane overhead. Sam noticed Jake watching it, too.
“See that plane?” Jake nodded toward the cloudless sky and the white trail stretching behind the aircraft.
“Yeah. Why, are you sending me away on one?”
Jake almost smiled. “No,” he answered. “Can you fly one?”
“Of course not. Are you crazy?”
“But there’s a person flying that plane—”
“A pilot,” Mikki said in a singsong voice. “Duh.”
“A pilot’s a human and you’re a human.” Jake spread his hands out as if he’d explained something simple. “So, you could learn to fly the plane, right? People fly planes. How long do you think it would take you to learn? A week?”
“I’m only eleven years old—”
“Okay,” Jake conceded, “so we could give you two weeks.”
“I’ve never done anything like that. You have to learn about wind currents and flaps and—” Mikki stopped, breathless, then closed her eyes. “I get it.”
“Three weeks?” Jake teased.
“I said I get it, so quit it.” Mikki’s face flushed.
Sam thought Jake had broken through the girl’s cockiness, until Mikki squinted up at him.
“How long till I can ride him?”
Sam gestured toward the sky. “Jake,” she muttered, “if I ever, ever criticize your patience, remind me of this.”
“How long?” Mikki asked again, and Jake recognized the dare.
“When he trusts you,” Jake said.
“How will you be able to tell?”
“When he eats out of your hand,” Jake began, then shook his head. “No, when he comes to you instead of running away, but you’re not carrying food.” He numbered the first condition off on his index finger, then added, “And when he lets you pet him on the face and neck. Then we can try you on him. Bareback. In this corral.”
The gray van that had delivered Mikki just over an hour ago had come to pick her up. As it rolled slowly over the River Bend bridge, Mikki’s shoulders sagged.
Before the van parked, though, Mikki started toward it. She didn’t say good-bye or thanks or anything, but just before she reached the van she turned back, pointed at Jake and shouted, “You got yourself a deal, cowboy.”
Chapter Eight
“I’D LIKE MIKKI, if she weren’t such a brat.” Sam watched the gray county van cross the River Bend bridge.
“You would,” Jake said, and it wasn’t a question.
Sam thought of the way Mikki’s shoulders had drooped when she saw the gray van. What was the place like, where the van was taking her? Probably halfway between school and the orphanage in Annie, Sam figured, where you didn’t get to decide when to study, what to eat, or if you should go for a walk.
It would be a controlled, structured place. Sam wished she could creep inside with her camera and a roll of black-and-white film and show what the gi
rls inside were really like.
“She’s got a great vocabulary for a seventh grader,” Sam said. “And sometimes she sounds really mature. Do you think that’s because she’s got a messed-up childhood?”
Jake shrugged.
“Well, I think she’s intelligent.”
“Probably is,” Jake said. “But I’m going to tell Wyatt to watch her. She’s dangerous.”
“Just because she’s a smart mouth?”
“I don’t think you’re dangerous,” he said. “And you’ve never been anything but sassy.”
Sam stuck out her tongue at Jake, then asked, “But really, what don’t you like about her?”
Jake shook his head. “Hard to say. I guess ’cause she’s trying to make us think this is no big deal to her.” He gestured toward Popcorn. “When it’s really the best thing that’s happened to her for a long time. She might, I don’t know, sort of sabotage herself, and one of the horses might get hurt.”
Sam brought Popcorn’s food to the round pen while Jake retrieved Witch, his roach-maned black mare, from the barn.
Witch and Popcorn sniffed each other through the panels of the pen, and Witch gave a snorting whinny. Dark Sunshine answered from the barn corral. Sam longed to make the little horse happy.
“If Brynna says it’s okay, I want to try everything you’re doing with Popcorn on the buckskin.”
“Well, that’s a fool idea,” Jake said.
“Why? I wouldn’t do it in the round pen to begin,” Sam said. “In fact, I’d leave her where she is, but isolate her from Ace and Sweetheart. What do you think? Maybe she’d start to see me as her herd.”
“I won’t be part of this,” Jake said. “That animal is half scared you’re going to put her in the dark, and half scared you’ll bring her into the light. You can’t trust her to act like a normal horse.”
Jake was always too protective, so Sam changed the subject. “Are you going to tell Brynna what you think of Mikki?”
“Don’t know. First impression could be wrong, but my gut says it’s not.”
“They’d probably pull her from the program.” Sam heard herself almost defending Mikki, and she couldn’t believe it.
