Golden Ghost

by Terri Farley

  “For what?” Sam asked, but part of her question was smothered with a yawn.

  “There’s a photocopy machine in my office. We could take these up to Willow Springs, place each of your little fragments facedown, and—”

  “Great idea! Let’s go right now!” Sam clapped her hands together. “Why didn’t I think of that about two hours ago?”

  “You were busy,” Brynna said. “And that’s okay, because tonight is out. Get this put away and lay out your clothes for tomorrow. Warm clothes, because the temperature is supposed to drop down to six degrees tonight. And I’ll wake you at…” Brynna gazed at Sam’s bedside clock and then shivered. “Five thirty. That ought to give us plenty of time to drive up there and back to your school.”

  Sam yawned again. “Maybe five forty?”

  “You’re not going to be late your first day back,” Brynna sounded firm, but not impatient.

  “Okay,” Sam said, already planning to wear the great black sweater Aunt Sue had given her for Christmas. Jen hadn’t seen it yet. “But wait. What about Jen? She’ll be standing at the bus stop, wondering what happened to me.”

  “Which do you think she’d rather have, your company or an A project?” Brynna asked.

  Sam knew Jen could tolerate a lonely bus ride far easier than a low grade.

  “Five thirty,” Sam agreed. Then, as Brynna padded down the hall to her room, she called after her. “Thanks! And tomorrow? I’ll make you coffee while you warm up the truck.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Sam got to school in plenty of time for class. In fact, she was sitting on the freshly buffed linoleum floor outside her locked history classroom, trying to stay awake, when Mrs. Ely arrived.

  Sam tried to lift her eyelids, found it to be way too difficult, and tilted her entire head back against the wall instead.

  Dressed in a sage-colored wool suit with big brass buttons on the jacket, tiny blond Mrs. Ely looked entirely too energetic.

  “I never thought of you as an overachiever, Samantha,” she said.

  Sam searched for a clever response. First she’d have to decide whether Jake’s mother was complimenting or criticizing her. And that task was just too tricky for her sleep-deprived brain.

  “Hi,” she managed.

  Mrs. Ely’s keys jingled as she unlocked the classroom door and stood holding it open. “Up late?” she asked.

  “And early,” Sam said, pushing to her feet. “I think it’s the early part that’s messing me up, but wow, wait ’til you see our artifact!”

  Mrs. Ely’s smile gave Sam a sudden jolt of energy and she bounded into the classroom after her teacher and showed off the copy Brynna had made of the ghost-town newspaper.

  Ten minutes later, Mrs. Ely had cleared off a table and arranged the copy, the map, and Sam’s notes on top.

  “This will give everyone something to shoot for,” she said, then gave Sam a pat on the back. “Good work, girl. So far, you and Jen have an A.”

  Jen wasn’t enrolled in Sam’s history class, so she didn’t expect to see her. But she was supposed to be in second period P.E. and when she wasn’t, Sam couldn’t help worrying.

  By lunchtime, she still hadn’t seen Jen.

  Sipping a chocolate milk shake, which sort of counted as lunch, she spotted Jake.

  He wore a jean jacket open over a tee-shirt that matched the buckskin tie holding back his hair. He walked on the fringe of a group of five or six boys. She hated going over there to try to cut him out of his crowd, but she did it anyway.

  With slicked-back hair and baggy pants that threatened to slip to the floor, Jake’s friend Darrell noticed Sam first.

  “Hey, Samantha you little heartbreaker, that sweater is lookin’—”

  “Shut up, Darrell,” she snapped. “Jake, I need to talk with you.”

  For some reason, Jake always looked bigger and broader-shouldered indoors, but it didn’t matter. He was her only real friend besides Jen.

  She motioned him away from his group. Practically dragging his feet, Jake went.

  “Jen’s not at school today,” Sam said.

  Jake leaned against a locker. In spite of the whistles and whoops from his friends, he met Sam’s gaze. But he didn’t say anything.

  “She’s not here,” Sam repeated.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Listen, that might be no big deal for some kids. Lots of them are absent the first day back after a break, but Jen is never out on the day a project is due.” Sam slammed her hand against a metal locker. “Never!”

  Jake looked calm and patient as he considered the locker she’d just pounded.

  “Brat, it’s January,” Jake said. “You’ve known Jennifer Kenworthy since September. Five months. So, what’s with never?”

  He’d made a good point, but she didn’t like it.

  Sam shifted her backpack to a more comfortable position. Her back ached from yesterday’s tunnel trauma. She imagined Strawberry was pretty sore, too.

  “Okay, you’ve known Jen longer,” she said to Jake. “Do you think this is normal for her?”

  Jake darted a look over her shoulder, then he moaned. “I don’t know.”

  “Fine,” Sam snapped and walked away, toward her journalism class.

  “Glad we got that settled,” Jake said to her retreating back.

  Sam sighed. For a relatively smart guy, Jake was hopeless. He didn’t even know when “fine” meant just the opposite.

  The bus ride home was miserable. It was supposed to be a time to go over the high and low points of the day with Jen. Instead, Sam stared out the window, watching the beige landscape slip past.

  The walk home would have been endless, worrying about Jen every step, but it was cut short when Gram picked her up.

  The yellow Buick was waiting when Sam stepped off the bus.

  “I had to run in to Alkali for chicken wire, so I thought I’d give you a lift on my way home,” Gram said.

  She didn’t mention the fact that Jen was missing, and Sam guessed it was because she was so involved in her plan to foil the hungry ground squirrels that had invaded her garden.

  “I’m going to lay chicken wire on top of the flowerbed where I planted my tulips, then put mulch on top. I know those squirrels are hungry in winter, but they’ll have to find something to munch on besides my tulip bulbs.”

  Sam was only half listening, but the mention of ground squirrels reminded her of the little corpse she and Jen had spotted next to the stream running down the ravine behind the abandoned schoolhouse.

  Sam closed her eyes, but that only allowed the horse skeleton with its dark, empty eyes to make another dancing gallop through her brain.

  It was probably stupid to try to make a connection between the plague that had killed those long-ago schoolchildren and the dead squirrel, but she couldn’t help trying.

  “Did you hear from Brynna about what killed that pinto mare?” Sam asked Gram as the car bumped over River Bend’s bridge and into the ranch yard.

  “As a matter of fact, I did, dear,” Gram said.

  Sam’s heart pounded as she waited for Gram to go on.

  “She said they found signs of arsenic poisoning.”

  “Like rat poison?”

  “No, the naturally occurring sort. It’s quite common in mining areas and there’s a good deal of it in the water.”

  Dizzied by the news, Sam closed her eyes. Those children! All those little coffins had been made for students at the school and the school backed up to the ravine where Jen had found the horse skeletons.

  But maybe she was wrong. Golden Rose had been with the paint mare in Nugget and she was alive.

  She had to talk with Jen. Now.

  Sam shoved open the car door as soon as the Buick came to a stop.

  “Gotta call Jen!” Sam shouted. As she bounded for the house, Blaze frolicked around her ankles, barking.

  Sam’s hands shook as she dialed Jen’s number.

  “Hello?” the voice was Lila Kenworthy’
s and she didn’t sound a bit concerned.

  “Hi, may I please speak to Jen?”

  “Sam, she’s not home yet. You made awfully good time.” Lila paused as if she were glancing at a clock.

  Not home yet. It sounded as if Lila thought Jen had taken the bus home. Where was she?

  “I got a ride home with my gram,” Sam said.

  “That explains it. I’m sure she’ll be here soon. I’ll have her call when she gets in.”

  “Thanks,” Sam said slowly.

  Just because Jen wasn’t there, didn’t mean she was at Nugget. Maybe Jen had a doctor’s appointment. Or an adjustment to her glasses prescription. Maybe her mother knew she hadn’t gone to school.

  “Oh, wait,” Lila said, just as Sam started to hang up. “I’ll ask Jen when she walks in the door, but I’m so eager to hear. How did Mrs. Ely like the project you two have been working on?”

  Sam tried to think how to answer.

  “Mrs. Ely thought it was great,” Sam said. “She put it on a table, alone, as an example to everyone else.”

  After she’d accepted Lila’s congratulations, Sam hung up and stared out the kitchen window.

  The day had turned bright with winter sun. That was a good thing, because she had a feeling Jen was in a place of death and shadows. She’d need all the sunshine she could get.

  Sam whirled through her chores and saddled Ace. Once they were over the bridge, she put the mustang into a lope.

  She tried to tamp down her panic. It wasn’t like Jen would drink out of that stream. And if she’d taken Silly with her, she’d tie her down on the main street, away from the ravine. And Golden Rose must have a natural immunity. Or maybe she could smell something wrong with the water.

  Or maybe the paint mare had found the arsenic water somewhere else entirely.

  Sam drew a deep breath. She could feel Ace’s uneasiness. It wasn’t his fault any of this was happening, so she talked to soothe him.

  “You like this wet going, don’t you?” she asked the gelding as they traveled in a balanced, swinging gait. “If you were a racehorse, you’d be a mudder.”

  Every inch of the week’s snow and ice had melted under today’s warm sun. The sagebrush was brighter green and the madrone branches up on the hillside were the red of dark chili powder. The earth was soft and spongy, turning to chocolate-colored mud at the touch of Ace’s hooves.

  Her spirits lifted, hoping the entrance to the Phantom’s valley would unseal itself. She pictured the wall of snow at the end of the tunnel melting, and foals playing in the resulting mud puddle.

  And then she thought of the Phantom with Golden Rose. She wouldn’t take him back to the ravine, would she? If he drank there…

  All at once, Ace flung his head higher. His lope stayed smooth, but he swerved to one side. And then Sam saw the rider, too.

  She recognized Ryan Slocum on the brown Thoroughbred named Sky. They were covering ground in an effortless run, coming straight at her.

  Ace lifted his forefeet from the ground in excitement.

  “Not you, too,” Sam scolded him. “Only Jen has permission to be ridiculous over Ryan Slocum.”

  They’d probably caught the mare together, Sam thought. They’d probably haltered her, led her around for a few minutes, then popped a saddle on her. Jen was probably getting ready to ride her home. And they’d done it all without her.

  Sam’s imagination ground to a halt when she saw Ryan. He wore a close-fitting black leather jacket zipped closed over an oatmeal-colored sweater. He looked like a sophisticated model for an equestrian catalog. He also looked frantic.

  “Can you possibly talk sense to Jennifer, because I’ve failed miserably, and I think she could actually be in danger.”

  “Why?” Sam could barely get the breath to make the word audible.

  “She’s fencing off the ravine. She has some sort of entrenching tool—one of those little collapsible shovels—and she’s fenced off the low end of the ravine to form a trap.”

  “She doesn’t know how to do that,” Sam said. And she shouldn’t, Sam thought. If she penned the mare in with only a contaminated stream for water, she’d kill her.

  “A point that’s escaped her, but which is obvious to anyone observing the blood on her hands.” Ryan’s lips pressed together in a firm line. His voice stayed level as he added, “I tried to talk her into accepting my help, but she refused.”

  In spite of Ryan’s agitation, he stayed in control of his voice, his body, and his horse. Sky stood quiet. He bobbed his head at Ace’s friendly nicker, then returned to statue stillness, wearing the focused look of a horse awaiting his rider’s instructions.

  “Why doesn’t she just lead her home?” Sam wondered.

  “A question I asked. After all, I wasn’t holding Rose against her will. I fed and curried her until she forgot why it was she wanted to run away. She may have forgotten where home is, but I believe she’s willing to return.”

  Ryan made sense. Even mustangs could be won over with kindness and dependable meals. It should be much easier with Golden Rose. Generations of her ancestors had known the comfort of stalls.

  “Did you tell Jen all that?”

  “She wouldn’t listen. Her trap is made, so she’s waiting for the palomino to return. She’s adamant about that.”

  “If you mean she’s being stubborn, you’re right. Jen can be the queen of stubborn.”

  “Normally, such obstinance wouldn’t be a problem, but the water running off the hillside, through the ravine, is rushing quite swiftly.”

  That’s good, Sam told herself. Standing water would have a higher concentration of arsenic. Snow runoff could dilute it.

  “Should I notify her father?” Ryan asked.

  “Not yet,” Sam said quickly. “Let me try to talk to her first.”

  But Sam knew it was a last try. She might be riding for help, if Jen stayed stubborn.

  “I’ll go on then, if you believe you can convince her.” Ryan didn’t look as if he wanted to leave Sam to deal with Jen on her own, but it was the right thing to do. Jen wouldn’t back down in front of him.

  “Of course I can convince her,” Sam promised. “I’m her best friend.”

  But as Sam gathered her reins and rode toward the ghost town, she wasn’t really so sure.

  When she saw Jen, Sam knew getting her to leave Nugget was a lost cause.

  Lightweight fence posts, the shovel, a staple gun, and plastic fencing were scattered around at the low end of the ravine. Jen had made a passable holding pen for Golden Rose, but that wasn’t what worried Sam.

  It was the other palomino she’d ridden past as she came down Nugget’s main street. Champ, Linc Slocum’s big gelding, was tethered to the hitching rail. Jen had not only cut school, she’d stolen a horse.

  She’d have to be careful the way she handled Jen. She couldn’t just blurt out the news about the arsenic, or Jen would be even more determined to stay and catch the mare. Sam shivered, feeling like a hostage negotiator. But Jen was only holding herself hostage.

  She left Ace with Champ for company, and started on foot toward the ravine. Jen saw her coming, and met her.

  Jen’s white-blond hair blew in messy disorder and a smear of blood marked her temple. Before Sam could ask what had happened, though, Jen disentangled a lock of hair from the frames of her glasses and Sam saw the burst blisters on her palms.

  Sam sighed. Blood showed on the denim covering Jen’s thighs, too, but only because she’d been wiping her hands on them.

  Arms crossed in stubborn firmness, Jen stood on the other side of the fence, waiting.

  “You giving up a career in veterinary medicine for a life of crime?” Sam called to her. “Suspension from school’s not so bad, but I don’t know what they do to horse thieves these days.”

  “They don’t hang them,” Jen said, and as she gave a weary laugh, Sam thought there might be hope after all.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sam walked through the schoolh
ouse garden, stepping carefully until she met Jen at the fence.

  “Have you told my parents I cut school?” Jen asked.

  Sam sighed in relief as Jen raised a canteen to her lips to drink. She’d brought her own water.

  And there were no horses in sight. She could quit worrying about the arsenic.

  “No, I didn’t tell. And I asked Ryan not to get them all stirred up, but they’re bound to be wondering. It’ll be dark in another two hours.” Sam paused to look back down at the horses. Champ and Ace had shifted to the ends of their reins. They looked restless and alert. “Are you hoping the surprise of Golden Rose will make them forget your, uh, mistakes?”

  “Yeah, and I think it will work.”

  Sam didn’t ask how, because it didn’t matter.

  Jen had to get home. Although the sun still shone, the temperature had dropped even lower than the predicted six degrees last night. Jen’s pink parka wouldn’t protect her overnight.

  She would freeze to death without shelter, and the town of Nugget would have one more ghost.

  “While you’ve been up here working, did you find any more skeletons?” Sam asked.

  Jen’s eyes got bigger and she wrapped her arms around herself. “There are all kinds of little bones up here. Rodents and birds, but only two horses. It’s not that they scare me, or gross me out,” Jen said solemnly. “After all, I am a scientist at heart. But it makes me sad. It’s the opposite of what I want this place to be. Don’t laugh, but I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. I want this to be a place for rebirth. You know? I’ll catch Golden Rose and my dad can start over with Kenworthy palominos.”

  They heard the first hoof as Jen screwed the top back on the canteen.

  They looked at each other, then up the ravine.

  Backlit by afternoon sun, the Phantom and Golden Rose stood together. Her palomino coat shone like flame against the cool silver of his. Their manes flowed to the left, pale and silken. Muscles bunched, they watched the humans.