by Terri Farley
Then he coiled the lead rope before taking long strides that forced the buckskin to keep up.
It’s okay, Sam thought, but Tempest squealed. She protested her desertion, though her mother moved just steps ahead. The filly dashed forward and the lead was already slipping through Sam’s fingers when her hands closed tight.
Just then, Tempest reached the end of the rope. The sudden tension spun her around to face Sam.
“I’m sorry, baby, I’m sorry,” Sam soothed.
“Don’t be,” Dallas corrected. “You’re only showing her what you want.”
Tempest reared. Ears flattened and eyes narrowed, she reminded Sam she was a mustang.
Front hooves pawing the air, the filly might have been saying, Do you know who my father is?
But suddenly the foal faltered. Off balance, she fell forward and Sam felt a flash of pain.
As Tempest managed to get all four hooves beneath her, Sam touched her cheek. It felt hot where Tempest’s right hoof had struck.
It hurt. A lot. Enough to make her cry, usually, but right now she had something to prove and crying wouldn’t help.
Sam couldn’t help glancing toward Dallas.
“You okay?” He sounded worried.
As soon as she nodded, Dallas turned angry.
“You tried bein’ gentle, but her mustang blood is boilin’. If you don’t show her who’s boss, you’ll wreck her.”
Chapter Two
“I won’t wreck her,” Sam insisted.
She wanted to face Dallas. And she wanted to see who’d driven over the bridge and into the ranch yard, but Sam didn’t take her eyes off Tempest.
“You’re a good, sweet girl,” Sam murmured.
The black filly listened and changed tactics. Her tantrum turned into determined sidestepping toward her mother.
“You want to go see your mama?” Sam asked. From across the pen, she heard Dark Sunshine pawing. “Then we have to walk there together.”
Holding her breath, Sam gripped the rope and walked toward the mare.
This time, it was Sam who hit the end of the rope with a jerk. Tempest’s weight acted like an anchor. The filly refused to be led anywhere.
Tempest whinnied and shook her head. She reared again, hooves pawing at the halter.
“Oh, baby,” Sam sighed.
Settling back on all fours, the filly snorted hard. She did it three times, head lowered, as if she could sneeze the halter off.
Then she glanced away.
Sam didn’t turn to follow the filly’s eyes. From the corner of her eye, though, Sam saw a champagne-colored Jeep Cherokee pulling a matching horse trailer.
Ryan was here.
“You got company,” Dallas said.
“I know,” Sam said.
The Jeep’s door opened, then shut.
“You done for the day?” Dallas’s question sounded like a dare.
“No,” Sam snapped back.
Of course she was curious about Ryan’s favor, and eager to see his colt, but she’d already messed up the beginning of Tempest’s training. Sam would not stop now.
Feeling Sam’s distraction, Tempest sidestepped toward her mother.
“I’m going with you,” Sam told the filly. “And you’re going to keep looking at me until you figure out what’s going on.”
As clearly as if she’d said, “No, I’m not,” Tempest turned around.
“Put a loop around her hindquarters and tug her along,” Dallas said.
Sam shook her head.
“If you did, she couldn’t pull that on you,” Dallas chuckled, amused that Sam found herself staring at Tempest’s tail instead of watching the filly’s face.
“I know.” Sam tried to sound patient.
“And your friend wouldn’t—”
“He can wait!” Sam interrupted.
“Of course,” Ryan’s voice, with its British accent, sounded cool and so polite, Sam felt her face heat with a blush.
But Ryan was a horseman. Surely he’d understand.
She refused to force the filly. Popcorn, Penny, and Dark Sunshine were all proof that forcing mustangs, instead of teaching them, created problems.
Holding the rope snug, but not pulling, Sam worked her way around so that she could see Tempest’s face again.
The filly blew through her lips. Then, maybe by accident, she took a step forward.
“Good girl.” Sam sang the words. Since she couldn’t reward the filly with her secret name, Sam allowed a little slack in the rope.
That captured Tempest’s full attention. Brown eyes glistening, the little black mustang studied Sam as if she were trying to read her mind.
Give me one teeny, tiny sign you know what I’m asking you for, and we’re done, Sam thought.
The filly kept staring.
Even though Dark Sunshine nickered, Tempest’s eyes stayed on Sam’s.
Slowly and deliberately, Tempest lifted a front hoof and placed it ahead of the others. She rocked forward, testing. Her gleaming black head tilted to one side.
It wasn’t quite a step, but Tempest had created her own slack in the rope, and that was a good start.
“You got it.” Sam came down the rope to touch Tempest’s back.
The filly lifted her head, then ducked it, looking like a black swan as she asked for the sound of her secret name. This time, Sam moved close enough to answer. Closing her eyes, Sam stroked the filly’s neck in long, smooth movements, then whispered, “Xanadu.”
She’d first heard the word in a mystical poem read to the class by her English teacher. Instantly, Sam had heard how it echoed the Phantom’s secret name.
Even when she’d discovered that Xanadu only sounded like it began with a Z, like Zanzibar, it had remained in her mind as the perfect secret name for the Phantom’s foal with Dark Sunshine.
“Xanadu,” Sam whispered once more, and the filly relaxed against her.
Let Dallas and Ryan think she spoke nonsense to the filly. This was magic only she and Tempest knew.
Sam slipped off Tempest’s halter. She wouldn’t take a chance that Tempest would rear and paw at it again. If she caught a hoof through the cheek strap, she could fall and break one of her slender legs.
Before Sam could move away and tell the filly she was free, Tempest began sniffing her sleeve.
“It’s me,” Sam told her. “I’m the one asking you to understand all this crazy stuff.”
Tempest gave a huff of milky breath, then trotted off to her mother, just as Dallas set the mare loose.
As Sam turned toward Dallas, her legs felt soft as noodles. She wasn’t sure they’d hold her up.
Dallas stared at her cheek.
“What?” Sam said, hands on hips. But she sounded so rude, she tried to amend her snappish question. “I’ll put ice on it later, okay?”
“Fine,” Dallas said, then turned to go.
“Wait. Dallas? Thanks for helping me. I’m sorry—”
He gave a “go on” gesture.
“I just want to try training her the way I did Blackie,” Sam said.
Was Dallas looking pointedly toward the range, indicating her technique had resulted in losing Blackie? After all, he had escaped to become the powerful stallion known as the Phantom. No. Sam realized Dallas was focused on the sounds coming from the horse trailer.
“Ryan brought his colt over to play with Tempest,” Sam explained. “Do you think that’d be all right?”
Dallas nodded slowly. “If you keep the mares quiet, I don’t see what it can hurt.”
“Thanks,” Sam said on a sigh, and then she turned to Ryan.
Linc Slocum’s son was as smooth and reserved as his father was lumpy and loud.
Dressed in a tan polo shirt and jeans, Ryan had sleek coffee-colored hair that he wore a little long. He looked European, rich and, right now, relieved.
“Did Jennifer tell you what I had in mind?” Ryan asked.
“About the colts,” Sam said.
“Ah.” He soun
ded disappointed, but just for a second. Had he expected Jen to ask the favor for him? Apparently not, because Ryan’s eyes brightened as he asked, “Would you like a look at him, then?”
Sam guessed her grin was answer enough, because Ryan moved to open the back of the trailer.
The seconds it took Ryan to work the trailer latch free cranked up Sam’s eagerness until she wanted to jump in and help.
Would the colt be an Appaloosa like his sweet-tempered mother or a stocky, heavy-headed animal like his sire?
The thick-maned stallion had been named Diablo by his owner, Rosa Perez. That was Spanish for “devil,” but Rosa had claimed the stallion was “mild as a dove” with her.
Two horses backed from the trailer as one. The mare curved around the foal with such tenderness, Sam could barely see him.
She had forgotten Apache Hotspot was so beautiful. The young mare showed the best of her Thoroughbred and Appaloosa heritage. Her cocoa-brown head, neck, mane, and front legs flowed into a snow-white body sprinkled with brown.
“Hotspot looks wonderful,” Sam said, recalling what she’d heard of the foal’s difficult birth and the mare’s anxiety afterward. “But she sure doesn’t want me to see—”
Sam broke off, hoping Ryan would supply the colt’s name.
“Shy Boots,” Ryan announced.
It suited him, Sam thought, as Hotspot danced restlessly aside.
Gangly and timid, the colt ducked his head, then peered up at Sam through impossibly long eyelashes.
“Ohhh.” Sam felt an instant tug at her heart.
Cocoa-brown like his dam, Shy Boots had a perfect white blanket over his hips. It was marked with spatters that looked like chocolate snowflakes. Pure white stockings reached from his faintly striped hooves to his knees.
“Ryan, he’s darling.”
“He’d rather be called ‘magnificent,’” Ryan said. “But I suppose that will come with time.”
Sam laughed. Sophisticated Ryan was actually speaking for his horse. Sam did it all the time, but this was the first time she’d heard it from him.
A squeaking snort came from the barn corral. Sam turned to see Tempest pressing against the fence, watching Shy Boots.
“She wants to play with him,” Sam said.
“Then we won’t keep the lady waiting,” Ryan said.
He led Hotspot toward the corral, and Sam opened the gate. Shy Boots stayed so close to his mother, their burnished coats seemed to merge.
Until he saw Tempest.
Then, the colt frisked a few brave steps away.
Dark Sunshine flattened her ears, warning the newcomers from across the pen.
“Dallas said we should keep hold of the mares, at least ’til we see how they do together,” Sam said.
“Very well,” Ryan said.
The foals wasted no time inspecting each other.
Black muzzle touched brown before two exploring nickers erupted. Tempest made loud snuffling noises as she sniffed the colt’s face. Shy Boots flicked his ears back and rolled his eyes. Tempest’s ears sagged to each side, showing the colt she meant no harm by her curiosity.
Both foals raised their heads. Each tried to reach higher, until Shy Boots reared and Tempest snapped her teeth at his front legs.
Sam glanced at Dark Sunshine, but the mare had fallen to grazing. That must mean she wasn’t worried.
As they reached some equine agreement, both foals’ tiny brushlike tails flicked up and they burst into a run. Circling the corral, Tempest chased Shy Boots, nipping at his tail. Shy Boots zigzagged past his mother, nearly rammed Dark Sunshine, then wheeled to confront Tempest. They were off again, this time with Tempest in retreat.
Their joy was contagious. Across the ranch yard, the saddle herd began galloping around the ten-acre pasture, too.
“Last year your dad said Hotspot’s foal might be ‘fast as a caged squirrel,’” Sam told Ryan.
“He does manage those long legs rather well.” Ryan sounded like a parent trying to be modest.
Ryan looked so proud and so fond of Shy Boots, she decided not to mention that Linc had also said she could have the foal.
Something in Shy Boots cut through Ryan’s cold reserve and made him happy. She wouldn’t think of holding Linc to his offer.
The foals returned to their mothers and nursed so briefly, it seemed they were checking in, rather than seeking meals.
Dark Sunshine rested her chin on Tempest’s back. Hotspot grazed and Shy Boots imitated her, spreading his front legs wide as he tried to nibble the sparse grass.
“Is he eating solid food already?” Sam asked.
“Trying,” Ryan said. “Each day he chews more and nurses less.”
Dark Sunshine was more watchful of Tempest than Hotspot was of Shy Boots. As Sam and Ryan eased out of the pen, Sam saw Dallas and mentioned the difference between the two mares.
“That’s the way of it,” Dallas said. “While they’re little, filly foals are closer to their mamas. Once they’re yearlings, though, the moms show more attachment to the colts.”
Sam mulled that over, trying to make sense of it. Since young mares and young stallions were both driven from the herds by their sires, what were the mares thinking?
Tired out, Shy Boots flung himself down for a nap beside his grazing mother. As his tiny brown head scrubbed back and forth in the grass, trying to find a comfortable position, Sam decided his delicate bone structure showed no sign of his hammerhead father.
Tempest watched her playmate doze, but when she turned to bite the area above her tail, scratching an itch, she did it loudly. Then she used a hind hoof to scratch behind her ear. Fighting for balance, Tempest squealed, then looked at Shy Boots to see if he’d noticed.
The colt’s long eyelashes stayed closed.
“She’s doing everything she can to get his attention,” Sam said as Tempest bolted into another lap around the corral. “I wish he and Hotspot could stay.”
“So do I.” Ryan spoke up quickly, as if Sam’s words were the go-ahead he’d needed. “That’s what I intended to ask of you.”
So this was why Jen had said she couldn’t give Ryan the permission he needed. Sam swallowed hard. There was no way in the universe Dad would allow more horses at the ranch.
“Then, as I drove over here,” Ryan went on, “I realized my father would find them at River Bend.”
“Find them?” Sam asked.
Ryan drew a breath. His explanation was probably going to be a long one.
“A few days ago, my father had Hotspot trailered over to Sterling Stables to be bred to Cloud Cap, a stallion of good bloodlines,” Ryan began.
Sam nodded.
“Shy Boots went along, since he’s still nursing,” Ryan said. “And, according to everyone watching, that’s why, when Cloud Cap was loosed to Hotspot, she attacked him. She thought she needed to protect Shy Boots from the stallion.”
She might have been right, Sam thought. In mustang herds, stallions sometimes killed foals that weren’t their own.
“When Mr. Sterling opened the gate, Cloud Cap didn’t have to be coaxed away from Hotspot. He fled.” Ryan’s shoulders lifted in a slight shrug. “Mr. Sterling suggested a second try after Shy Boots was weaned. He was polite about it, saying it happened now and then, but when my father returned home, he condemned Boots as a mongrel that had ruined everything.”
“You can’t let him think that way,” Sam warned Ryan. She’d seen Linc Slocum’s cruelty. The Phantom wore a scar from it.
“I did my best,” Ryan said. “I reminded him of Hotspot’s bloodlines and Diablo’s stamina. Eventually, he calmed down. He agreed—at least I thought he had—to merely wean Boots early.”
“He’s only a few weeks old,” Sam protested.
“I know. I’m afraid he’ll be perpetually timid.” Ryan stared away from the corral, past River Bend’s bridge. “Hotspot is his only family. Take him away too young and he’ll have no one but me.” Ryan gave a short, mocking laugh. “And I’m
the last one who could teach him what it means to be a Western horse.”
“Ryan…” Sam began, but Ryan motioned her to wait.
“All the same, I agreed to early weaning, because it seemed the safest route.”
Safest? Sam didn’t like the sound of that.
“This morning, I was supposed to take Hotspot back to Sterling Stables without Boots.”
Ryan cleared his throat, then he gripped both of Sam’s shoulders.
She would have twisted away if he hadn’t looked down into her eyes with desperation.
“This morning, before I left, my father was on the telephone telling someone that the easiest way to ‘wean’ Boots was to cull him.”
“What did he mean by that?” Sam asked, but her heart was already plummeting.
Linc Slocum had scarred the Phantom’s neck and caused much of the stallion’s dislike for humans. What would he do to a “mongrel” foal like Shy Boots?
“He wants to have Boots destroyed.”
Horror slashed through Sam’s imagination. She thought of bullets, syringes full of poison…. But when her eyes settled on Shy Boots, she realized it wouldn’t take much to end his new life.
“Please,” Ryan said, when Sam stayed silent. “Help me hide them where my father won’t think to look. I wouldn’t ask, Samantha, but you’re my only hope.”
Chapter Three
Hiding horses wasn’t the same as stealing them, but would her dad see the difference? Sam didn’t think so.
“Won’t that just delay the problem?” she asked Ryan.
“I think not,” Ryan said with sudden confidence. “For two reasons. First, the time for breeding Hotspot will be past. Second, my father is certain to lose interest.” Ryan’s lips twisted into a mocking smile. “You may have noticed Father’s passion for projects is rather short-lived.”
Ryan was right.
“It might work,” Sam agreed. “But you don’t need me—”
“Ah, but I do. I can’t find the box canyon you and Jennifer discovered. Not alone.”
“I don’t know,” Sam said, stalling.
“She told me it has shade and water, everything they’d need to wait this out.”
“Yeah,” Sam said. She and Jen had found a shady box canyon big enough to hold a few cattle, and it was silly to feel jealous over Jen telling him about it. “It’s up near High Grass Canyon, halfway to Cowkiller Caldera, but…”
