by Terri Farley
“Sports wrap,” Sam said, recognizing the stuff she’d used to bind an ankle she’d sprained playing basketball.
Mind spinning, Sam pocketed the big roll, thinking she might use it later. Once she got out of the bus, she could tie it on bushes to attract attention. Or something like that.
“Thanks, girls,” Mr. Pinkerton said. “I can’t seem to clear my head. Give me a minute.”
“Just rest and I’ll go for help,” Sam told him. “Darby will stay here with you.” She waited for a response, but none came. “Mr. Pinkerton?”
“Keep drifting,” he apologized. “That helicopter should be back, though.”
If the pilot saw us crash, Sam thought.
If he looked back from chasing Spike.
If he hadn’t already landed at some remote capture site where he had other horses penned and ready to be trucked to Willow Springs Wild Horse Center.
“Yep,” Sam said in what she hoped was an upbeat tone, but she felt Darby watching her. Oh, well. Whether the younger girl could see her skepticism or not, Darby had a job to do while Sam hiked for help. “You’re supposed to keep people with head injuries awake, so talk to him. Okay?”
Darby swallowed and gave Mr. Pinkerton a sidelong glance.
“Okay?” Sam repeated, and Darby nodded.
Sam pulled her gloves out of her pocket, ignoring the shower of other stuff—bits of granola bar, a pencil, and general pocket fluff—that came with them. Then she put them on.
Sam considered her clothes and boots and decided she was already bundled up against the cold. This was as good as it was going to get. Now she was just wasting time.
“I’m out of here,” Sam said. “If you want, keep trying the radio.”
Darby nodded.
Sam wrapped her hands around the pole next to the front stairwell and started to climb down. The door was closed.
No problem. She’d seen Mr. Pinkerton open and close this door a thousand times.
Sam reached for the lever and pulled. The lever moved, but the door was jammed against a crust of snow. She pushed harder. She tried it six times, but some snow-covered rock or ridge of dirt blocked the door from opening more than a few inches.
Sam glanced at Darby, partly because the girl had begun breathing hard again, partly with a ridiculous hope that Darby was small enough to squeeze out. But there was no chance she could stick more than one skinny arm through that opening. Even if she could, once Darby got outside, she wouldn’t know where to go.
Staring through the slanted windshield, Sam realized she wasn’t even sure where they were.
“Okay.” Sam kept her voice level. “That’s why there’s a rear exit. We’ll be right back,” Sam told Mr. Pinkerton. His vague smile told Sam she’d better hurry and get him some help.
The girls made their way to the back of the bus. Sam didn’t waste a second hesitating. She leaned on the Open Only in Case of Emergency lever.
“It won’t open,” Darby said fatalistically.
“Don’t be silly. It’s just not used much,” Sam said, grunting with effort as she leaned on the lever. “It’s sticking, but—”
“No, look.” Darby pointed to a caved-in spot in the bus. Could a fender turn inside out? Sam thought of the scraping sound and the racket that had sounded like a garbage can blowing in the wind.
“Okay,” Sam said again. “It could be a lot worse. That could have folded in on us.”
“But how are we going to get out?” Darby whispered.
Sam’s sensible side said they could wait for help. They were trapped, but they were trapped inside a big yellow-orange bus, in the middle of a highway, with enough gasoline to keep the heater running for a while. It was unlikely they’d use up all the oxygen in here. Impossible, in fact, because this vehicle wasn’t exactly airtight. She remembered sitting next to Jen one day last year, with rain seeping in through the window next to them.
A smothered shriek came from the front of the bus. It didn’t sound human.
“What’s wrong?” Sam crab-stepped rapidly toward Mr. Pinkerton. It was like climbing Mount Everest sideways. Now she and Darby were both panting.
“The windows kick out,” Mr. Pinkerton said.
His eyes were open. They looked directly into Sam’s. He’d obviously been listening to them struggle to escape, and he had a solution. Had he made that frightening sound just to snag their attention?
“We’ll try that,” Sam said.
“The uphill ones,” Darby said, pointing. Then she bit her lip. “Don’t you think?”
“Yeah,” Sam said, and they did it together, bracing, and using the impact of their soles. It didn’t work the first time, or the second, but the third time they both gave tremendous shouts and thrust out with all the power in their legs. At last the window loosened at one corner.
Sam finished kicking it out. The blast of wind, laced with snowflakes, felt refreshing, but only for a minute. After that, she knew it would be a long, cold walk for help.
“You stay here,” Sam said.
“Please, just for a minute. I’ve got to get out, but I promise I’ll come back to him.”
Darby’s huge brown eyes pleaded and Sam gave in.
“Let’s stay here for a minute, so I can figure out exactly where we are,” Sam said, sitting on the freezing-cold side of the bus to look around.
Down the highway in front of them, she saw the turnoff to Willow Springs Wild Horse Center. She could walk that far, no problem, but there were miles of uphill, rutted road before it plunged down to the BLM offices. The way would be treacherous and icy and there was rarely traffic in and out.
Walking the other way, into Lost Canyon, wouldn’t help. There was a chance she’d encounter a truck full of captured horses driving toward Willow Springs, but her best bet was probably walking along the highway, toward Alkali.
It was about seven miles to Clara’s coffee shop, but somebody would have to drive past before then, wouldn’t they?
“Shouldn’t you stay with the bus?” Darby asked.
Sam didn’t answer. She wasn’t sure.
Together they slid down the side of the bus and Sam hoped Darby could get back up and through the window to check on Mr. Pinkerton.
She was reminding herself that the girl could climb like a monkey, when that awful strangled scream came again. Suddenly, Sam knew it hadn’t been Mr. Pinkerton.
The bus had hit Yellow Tail.
Hooves flayed against snow. A silken tail spread behind wet golden haunches.
“Oh!” Darby gasped.
Sam spared her a single glance and saw Darby’s arms wrapped around her chest.
“Stay back,” she ordered the younger girl, and Sam crept closer.
Please don’t let the tire be on him, Sam prayed. What will I do if he’s dying?
Don’t lose it, she told herself, then circled wide around the horse and the front of the bus. Looking carefully, analyzing with her head instead of her heart, she made out what had happened.
The bus had grazed the stallion, then veered right. The horse lay where he’d fallen. And though there were swooping marks in the snow where his legs had thrashed back and forth, she saw no blood.
Maybe the bus fender had hit his other side. The damage could be hidden.
Sam fought the pain in her heart. Except for his coloring, he looked just like the Phantom—fine-boned Arab head, full mane and tail, a wide chest that would deepen as he grew up. If he grew up.
Stop it. Check out his legs. None of them seemed to be broken. Long and fleet, they might have turned him away from the worst of the impact at the last moment.
Suddenly Sam realized why Yellow Tail looked more streamlined and smaller than he had before.
This horse wasn’t Yellow Tail. She was a filly with a white star on her chest.
“Help him,” Darby whimpered.
Her voice stirred the horse into a renewed effort to rise. She plunged her forelegs forward. Her head lashed around, teeth bared as she glared
through clumps of pale mane and forelock. Then she collapsed, head flat against the snow, panting openmouthed with nostrils red and distended.
Sam held her finger to her lips, then she whispered into Darby’s ear, “She’s wild. We scare her. Stay back and don’t talk.”
“I thought you said…” Darby’s whisper trailed off.
“I was wrong,” Sam admitted. “She’s a filly. A little girl horse, and she needs help, too.”
Darby obviously ached from knowing her voice had frightened the horse. She held both fists against her mouth, pressing so hard that her hands and face were white.
For a second, Sam was torn. If she stayed, she might help the horse, but how much? She needed a vet, and even then—She sighed. Touching was trauma to a wild creature. That’s what Dr. Scott had told her. Human hands could hurt rather than heal.
Sam looked at Darby. With the suddenness of a slap, she realized the younger girl looked faint. Her skin was not just pale; it was translucent, sort of watery. Her black hair, wet by falling snow, was flattened against her small head.
She looks like a half-drowned kitten, Sam thought, but she’s a lot like me. Her heart is breaking for a horse. She would do anything to help her.
Leaning close to Darby once more, Sam whispered the only words she could think of to comfort her. “We have a really great vet. He works with wild horses and he travels this road all the time.”
Darby nodded frantically.
Leaving, Sam gestured toward the bus, but she didn’t watch to make sure Darby went back inside where it was warmer. She didn’t have time to force her, so what was the point?
Sam strode toward Alkali, keeping to the edge of the highway. Two, or maybe three lives depended on help getting here right away.
She only glanced back once, then shook her head. She wanted to shout for Darby to back away from the mustang, to go check on Mr. Pinkerton, but seeing the way the girl hung over the injured filly, drinking her in with her eyes, Sam knew it would do no good.
Chapter Fifteen
Sam glanced at her watch. It was two o’clock in the afternoon. She decided to jog for ten minutes, which would be a pain in these boots, but that should put her, even in the snow, about a mile past the bus. Or wait, no—she’d keep going until she reached that stand of five trees up ahead.
Then she’d stamp an SOS in the snow and roll out the yellow tape and weight it with rocks. She’d keep walking, but surely she’d see someone by then.
She didn’t. It was as if everyone between Oregon and California detoured around the state of Nevada.
Sam was muttering and puffing so loudly, at first she didn’t hear the horn. Then she looked back, as she’d been doing about every ten steps anyway, and there sat Mrs. Allen’s truck, like a tangerine-colored pup next to the orange bus.
Sam turned around and started jogging back.
She heard the helicopter and saw it hover over the crash.
Running and shouting at the same time, Sam yelled, “Get away!”
She heard other voices doing the same, ordering the helicopter to get away because it would terrify the injured horse. At least she hoped that was why, Sam thought, panting. She hoped they weren’t beckoning the helicopter to land and help Mr. Pinkerton or Darby.
The chopper pulled up and headed her way. As it swooped overhead, Sam saw someone give her a thumbs-up and she was really afraid it was Norman White.
Oh, please, she thought, let someone else come for the injured mustang. Not him.
The sun turned the snow the color of golden sand and the five trees cast blue shadows, pointing back toward the bus. Sam felt light-headed and she told herself off for being a tenderfoot.
She should have eaten something before setting out for Alkali, or at least had a sip of the bottled water that was shrink-wrapped in the back of the bus near the emergency door. She hadn’t even realized she’d seen it until now.
She swallowed and kept moving, but her ankles felt like rubber by the time Preston stomped out to meet her. Gray-haired and athletic, looking every inch a cop—and not a retired one, either—he called out, “Doin’ okay?”
“Fine,” Sam said, but she probably would have been more convincing if her right foot hadn’t crossed in front of her left and tripped her.
Gloves flat on the snow as if she were doing a push-up, Sam was struggling to her feet when Preston reached her.
“Rest a minute,” Preston said.
It was a good idea. Sam’s spinning head took a few seconds to return to normal. Eventually she pulled herself into a sitting position and asked, “Are they all okay?”
“Pinkerton and the kid are fine,” he said.
“The horse?”
Preston shook his head. “We need Dr. Scott to check her over. I don’t see why she’s not up and gone. Must be that girl….”
“Darby?” Sam coaxed.
“I know her name. It’s what she’s doing that’s got me stumped.” Preston stopped talking to let out a whoosh of air. “In police work, I’ve seen people who claimed to be psychics, who pretended to channel spirits—human and animal—but they were all frauds. This kid—Sam, what’s the deal with her?”
Okay. Now it was time to get up and see what was going on. Darby had been a little weird, but not outlandish enough to baffle an experienced cop.
Sam looked past him, but she couldn’t believe her eyes, so she walked closer, joining Mrs. Allen and Mr. Pinkerton, who were both keeping their distance from the filly.
The horse was still down. She was covered with a blanket that rose and fell with her breathing. So Darby had scrambled back inside to get the blanket. That was good thinking, but not strange.
Sam shook her head and looked around, scanning the area for Darby.
“I don’t understand,” Sam said as Preston moved to stand beside her, but then her mind registered what she’d seen.
Sam looked back.
The blanket was spread over the horse, but at the very edge of it, she’d glimpsed something else.
Lying in the snow beside the stallion, barely covered with an edge of blanket, lay Darby.
“Is she okay?” Sam asked Preston without looking away.
“Fine, except that she pretty much growled at the rest of us to get back.”
Growled, Sam thought. It was a strong word, but she thought of the Phantom, unconscious and burned in a range fire. Jake had been forced to drag her away from him.
“It’s been a while since my kids were that age, and I haven’t done much work with abnormal juveniles,” Preston went on, “but I’m pretty sure she’s…” Preston shook his head and Sam wondered if he was reconsidering the pitfalls of the Dream Catcher program.
“Different?” Sam put in.
Preston answered, but Sam had stopped listening. All her attention focused on Darby.
The twelve-year-old was curled up, knees to chest, no more than five feet from the mustang’s head.
No, she must be even closer, Sam thought, because one of Darby’s small hands was outflung toward the filly, and vapor fogged the inches between the hand and the chestnut filly’s nostrils. The horse breathed in and out, learning her scent, eyes watching her with something other than fear.
Would I try that with the Phantom? Sam asked herself. Maybe, but he’s my horse.
Darby’s weird jabbering about a Hawaiian horse charmer in her family tree hadn’t made any sense, but neither did the bizarre scene before her.
“Did she say she’d had some kind of, shoot, I don’t know, experience working with a vet or, uh, there was nothing in her application, but has she worked with abused animals?” Preston asked.
“She didn’t talk much,” Sam admitted, “but she told me she’d never ridden a horse in her life, only read about them. I think she reads a lot.”
“Hope she’s read about hypothermia, because that’s what we’ll be treating her for, soon as we can get her up and out of here,” Preston muttered.
He stared across the snow, rippled now fro
m the afternoon winds, as a white BLM truck came toward them.
“Norman White?” he asked Sam, and when she nodded, his mouth quirked in a half-smile. “Let’s see if Trudy can handle him as well as she said she could.”
It turned out Mrs. Allen handled Norman White just fine. She persuaded him to have the filly sedated and trucked to Deerpath Ranch, with the understanding that she’d be getting two orphan foals as well.
“We take all the care we can,” she’d heard Norman say nervously, “but the herd we just brought in, well, some of the foals didn’t mother up.”
“Which herd?” Sam had asked. “What did they look like?”
“Not your precious white stallion’s bunch,” Norman had said, patting her shoulder.
Not the Phantom, but more wild horses had been taken from their homes and shoved into crowded corrals.
Sam began shivering, then edged away from Norman White and squatted close enough to talk to Darby. The girl was half turned away, using her inhaler, but when she was finished, she started whispering to Sam.
“All I could think to do was tell her stories, because I didn’t want to sound like I was being all sorry for her, you know? So I told her some of the Hawaiian tales from my mom and she seemed to like them, as long as I didn’t try to touch her head.”
It was on the tip of Sam’s tongue to ask Darby if she was loony or magical, but she was too humbled to do either.
“You did great,” Sam said.
The mustang tossed her head at the sound of Sam’s voice. Golden lips pulled back, she bared her teeth until Sam retreated a few steps. Then the filly let her head fall and she huffed loudly until Darby returned and lay quietly beside her once more.
Unbelievable, Sam thought. After everything settled down, she couldn’t wait to go over to the ranch, sit down with Darby, and hear how she’d done it.
Because there wasn’t room for her in the tangerine truck, Sam waited with Norman White and Mr. Pinkerton until a huge tow truck arrived that winched the bus out of the ditch and back onto the highway.
Mr. Pinkerton turned down Norman’s offer of a ride to the county hospital in favor of sitting next to the tow truck driver who promised to drop him off for a late lunch at Clara’s coffee shop.
