Red Feather Filly

by Terri Farley

  “The chiefs believed that when the first searcher reached Dawnland, Moon would give them a sign, a star shower that could be seen far and wide. The sign would tell all people to stop. In the place where they saw the star shower, they would know they were home.

  “When the people set off, each tribe was determined to reach Dawnland first, but as Sun rose and set, and Moon rose and set, they realized it would take many days and they prepared to move slowly, but surely, toward their goal.

  “Now, White Woman—in some tribes she’s called White Shell Woman or Buffalo Calf Woman—was less patient than the rest. As she was crossing the playa, she stopped. Bending with Sun hot on her back, she scooped up three fingers full of moon-white alkali mud and molded it into a horse. It didn’t matter that it was the world’s first horse. She knew what to do. She vaulted instantly onto Horse’s back and galloped toward Dawnland.

  “When she reached it, far ahead of the others, stars showered down. Because all people were watching the sky, they saw a thousand silver flashes in the black sky. Each tribe saw the star shower. Each tribe stopped where it was meant to stop and made camp in its new home.

  “Of course, White Woman paid for her impatience by having to live where it was hottest by day and coldest by night, but she remained friends with Horse and all her descendants forever after.”

  “I love that story,” Sam said, clapping. “Is it Shoshone?”

  “My daughter-in-law would tell you no.”

  “Being a history teacher and all,” Jake said, “Mom has tried to research the roots of Grandfather’s stories and they’re kind of…elusive.”

  “If I borrow from many tribes’ stories and blend them,” Mac said, indifferently, “does it make them less true?”

  Jake narrowed his eyes against the glare gathering on the lake’s surface, and let Sam think about it.

  Newspaper reporters got different angles on a story from different sources they interviewed, Sam thought. So did the police, when they talked with different witnesses to an event. And Gram said different books of the Bible told the same stories over again from the perspectives of different writers.

  “I think it works,” Sam said, finally.

  “And you wouldn’t be swayed by the part where a woman discovers the horse,” Jake said, reasonably.

  “Of course not,” Sam said, though the story had her wondering more than ever why Mac had brought her along. Could he think she had a special connection with horses? When she got up her courage to ask, though, his eyes were closed. He leaned against the back of the sheltered area, dozing.

  Jake noticed at the same time. He stood quietly and motioned her to follow. They walked some distance past the fishermen and around the lake before either of them spoke.

  “Is he all right?” Sam asked first.

  Jake looked at her, amazed. “Mac? Of course he’s all right. Do you mean like crazy or—”

  “No,” Sam said. She tried to put enough meaning into the word so that she wouldn’t have to say exactly what she was thinking. “You know, yesterday, when he was asking if you, like, challenged yourself enough?”

  “Oh, I get it. You mean that ‘passing over’ stuff?” Jake laughed. “Don’t take that seriously. Mom told me he was saying that stuff on the day she met him and he was like forty. Not even that old. I think he just does it”—Jake paused and squinted toward the lake—“to remind us that nothing lasts forever and you know, someone could die before they get everything done.”

  Like mom, Sam thought, but she put the notion away for later.

  “So why did he bring me, do you think? And what was the point of that story?” Sam asked.

  “I’ll tell you what I think, but you’re not allowed to get mad until I’m finished talking, okay?”

  Jake would never make a salesman, Sam decided. He started off telling her that he was going to make her mad.

  “Okay,” she said. “Just out of curiosity, I’ll wait to bite your head off.”

  “Thanks.” Jake drew a deep breath. “The filly doesn’t need a good rider. She needs a good friend.”

  “And I’m going to be her friend?” Sam asked.

  “Hush,” Jake said. “I’m not sure I’ve got it straight. Don’t interrupt a minute.”

  “Don’t interrupt, don’t get mad…” Sam listed, rolling her eyes, but then she closed her lips and waited.

  “Mac thinks she might trust you. And if you trust me, it might be sort of like a character reference. Does that make sense?”

  “Yeah. I used to think that if Ace could just talk to Blackie for me, he’d know it was okay to trust me, even though he’d been hurt by other people.”

  “Right,” Jake nodded vigorously. “So this is what I think. We start meeting every minute we have time between now and next Friday, to make a plan on how to catch her.”

  “Next Friday? Jake, we only have two weeks. We can’t throw away one of them.”

  “We won’t. We’re going to plan. Think about it, Sam. Once we have her, we need to spend every waking moment—cancel that. Every moment, waking or sleeping, with her. You know, that’s how warriors did it. They let their war ponies sleep in their tents. And sheikhs in the desert? Their war mares slept in their tents and their kids cuddled up and slept with them. Imagine, hundreds of pounds of potentially dangerous horse, and they let their little kids sleep by those hooves. It’s gotta be the way to win.”

  Sam nodded. Jake was probably right.

  “So will you help me?” Jake asked.

  Help him. Sam turned the words over in her mind. That didn’t exactly mean ride with him, as his partner. How could she weasel it out of him?

  “Okay,” she said. “Until race day, I guess.”

  Jake looked as if he’d been kicked in the head. “Why—why just until race day?”

  “Well, you know, I’ll have to get my own stuff ready.”

  “Yeah…,” Jake said. He stared at her as if she weren’t too bright. Then, all at once his expression changed to anger. “But you’re riding with me, right?”

  “Riding with you…?”

  “As my partner,” he said in a forced calm, “in the race.”

  “What makes you so sure?” Sam asked.

  “Are you teasing, or what?”

  “No, I’m just asking you, what makes you so sure I’ll be riding as your partner? Have we talked about it? Have you asked if I think Ace is up to it? Have you wondered for just a second if I made plans to ride with someone else?”

  It was quiet for a full minute.

  A flock of seagulls passed overhead, checked out the humans below, and prepared to land and see if they’d dropped any food.

  “Like who?” Jake shouted suddenly, and the flock gave a few scattered cries, banked away from the shore and flew away.

  “Like anybody,” Sam yelled back. “Dad or Ryan or Pepper…”

  “Ride with me, Sam,” Jake said, “and you won’t have idiot people—like me—thinking you’re a less-than-great rider. Especially your dad. I saw the way you flinched when Wyatt told you to be careful.”

  “Oh, like you’ve gotten over my accident?”

  “I’m trying, but—”

  “But, if I fell or something, would you decide the very day before the race that it was just too dangerous for poor little Samantha?”

  Ever since she’d come home, Jake had been protective of her. He still felt guilty over her accident years ago, because he’d been with her, because he’d felt responsible.

  “I am trying,” Jake repeated. He drew himself up to his full height, crossed his arms, and looked down at her.

  Sam stared right back. Jake couldn’t intimidate her into being his partner.

  “You’re going to have to come up with something better than that,” Sam told him.

  Jake took a deep breath and looked at her again. This time he raised one eyebrow and smiled. “Be my partner and I promise we’ll win.”

  Chapter Nine

  When Sam arrived home and announce
d that she and Jake would be riding as partners in Mrs. Allen’s Super Bowl of Horsemanship, she thought the hard part was behind her.

  She was wrong.

  Dad didn’t stop what he was doing. He kept using a heavy rasp to smooth something on Tank’s hoof.

  Ross stood at the big Quarter horse’s head, looking as if he’d rather be anywhere else, but Sam couldn’t figure out why.

  “Dad, did you hear me?” Sam asked. “Jake and I are going to be partners in the race.”

  Dad lowered Tank’s hoof, gave the horse a shoulder pat, then slowly straightened. He pressed both hands to the small of his back and made a small noise of pain. Then, instead of answering, he glanced at Ross.

  “You and Pepper want to finish this up?”

  Sam stiffened. Dad was turning his chore over to the cowboys. If that was because he wanted to give her his full attention, she wasn’t sure she wanted it.

  “Sure,” Ross said. He looked pleased to be left out of their discussion.

  Dad dusted his hands off on his jeans and motioned for Sam to walk beside him back to the house. She did, but with each step, she tried to interpret Dad’s silence.

  “I thought you’d be excited,” she said after about ten steps.

  “That’s one way of puttin’ it.”

  Sam looked sideways at him. Dad didn’t seem mad, exactly, but he sure wasn’t overjoyed.

  “We’ll be careful,” she offered.

  “Yeah,” Dad said, but that didn’t count as permission.

  As soon as they walked into the house, Dad called a family meeting.

  Sam crossed her arms and pressed her lips together, waiting as everyone stopped what they were doing to assemble at the kitchen table.

  “It’s not that big a deal,” she said softly, but no one paid attention.

  Gram folded up the order blank she’d been filling out for a seed catalog.

  Dad called up the stairs to Brynna.

  “I was ready for a break,” Brynna said. “My end-of-winter range condition report has got to get finished, but I was dying for a glass of water.”

  She got her water and sat at the kitchen table, rubbing her eyes.

  “Tell them what you told me,” Dad instructed Sam.

  Sam took a deep breath. “Jake and I are going to be partners in Mrs. Allen’s race.”

  Gram and Brynna looked as baffled as she felt, but Dad’s hands were folded together on the table in one big fist.

  Sam filled the silence as best she could.

  “I’m thirteen years old. I’ve been raised to be a cowgirl, right?” she asked.

  Dad gave a grudging nod.

  “And the entire point of Mrs. Allen having coed teams is that things will be safe,” Sam added.

  Her English teacher had told the class that three good points was enough to persuade a normal person to believe what you were saying, but Sam decided Dad just might not be normal.

  So she added one more.

  “I’ll be riding Ace. I know him and I know the terrain. He’s a good horse and I can depend on him.”

  Brynna and Gram both looked at Dad.

  They’re on my side, Sam thought. So why don’t they jump in and say something? And then, Gram did.

  “Samantha, did it ever occur to you to ask permission, rather than coming home and declaring what you were going to do?”

  “Umm…no.”

  “And I wonder if you’ve decided how you’ll pay the entry fee?” Brynna added.

  “Don’t be looking at me,” Dad said, when she did. “If I had a hundred-dollar bill I’d be giving it to the power company.”

  Sam didn’t bury her face in her hands, but that’s just what she felt like doing. Not asking permission wasn’t a big thing. She could take care of that in a single minute. But why hadn’t she remembered the money?

  “I was thinking that I could use the money I earned from selling Tinkerbell,” Sam said.

  After saving the big brown draft horse from slaughter, Sam had sold him to Sterling Stables. But she knew exactly what Brynna would say, and she did.

  “That’s an exciting idea,” Brynna said, “but we agreed that would go into your college fund.”

  Sam nodded. She’d felt as if she were soaring and reality had deflated her. Her spirits sank lower and lower.

  Brynna wasn’t done talking, though, and she sounded way too cheery.

  “If it’s all right with your Gram and Dad, I say we should check out the details of this race. If it’s unsafe, you and Jake won’t waste time trying to find the money. On the other hand, if it sounds all right and you and Jake somehow strike it rich, you’ll be good to go.”

  Brynna leaned back in her chair and waited.

  “I guess that would be okay,” Dad said.

  Sam sighed. It wasn’t the best news in the world, but it was a start.

  For the rest of the evening, Gram and Brynna made phone calls to Mrs. Allen and Dr. Scott, the veterinarian.

  With their directions, Gram sketched out the course. She and Dad knew every gulch and gully, each cliff and shaley sidehill.

  “There’s that thorn thicket that’ll rip right through those lightweight chinks of yours,” Dad said, tapping Gram’s map.

  All the while, Sam felt Brynna watching her. Her stepmother’s elbow was on the table. Her chin rested in her palm and her red braid dangled to one side.

  Sam was embarrassed. She rode the area between here, Deerpath Ranch, and War Drum Flats all the time. Just the same, she was willing to keep quiet, if they’d come to the right conclusion.

  It looked like that was just what would happen. Then, after they’d discussed the terrain, Dad called Dr. Scott for a description of the obstacle course.

  Sam realized Brynna was still watching her, tapping the fingers of one hand on the table. Sam tried not to notice. Instead, she listened intently, trying to decipher Dr. Scott’s side of the telephone conversation.

  “Balloons and whistles,” Dad mused, finally. “That’s not so bad. The things to step over and through don’t worry me. Ace is one range-smart pony.”

  Sam was smiling by the time Dad hung up.

  “You’ve got my permission,” Dad said, at last.

  “And mine,” Gram said.

  “Mine too,” Brynna echoed.

  Sam thanked her entire family with hugs. She was happy, enough to smile as she went up the stairs to bed.

  By the time she lay in bed, staring up at the plaster ceiling, she was wondering why her family couldn’t see that using money from her college fund to pay the entry fee would be an investment.

  Sam rolled over and closed her eyes. If she and Jake won the race, she’d have more money than before, even with one small deduction for a new saddle.

  On the way to the bus stop the next morning, Dad turned Sam’s entire day upside down.

  “I gave you my permission,” he said.

  Sam sucked in a breath. Dad expected her to know he was referring to the race, and she did. Had he been thinking about it all night? That couldn’t be good.

  “Yeah,” she said cautiously.

  “And you still have it,” he assured her. “But things could go wrong, things you can’t control. You’re still my baby, Samantha. When you were born, your mom and I vowed to protect your life with our own. Now, I don’t expect it to come to that…” Dad’s hand slashed through the air between them, as if he could cut off the possibility. “It’s a simple race. Trudy Allen’s takin’ every precaution to see it stays safe. Just to be sure, though, Brynna and I are entering, too. I’ll be there if you need me.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” she said as she climbed out of the truck. But she didn’t mean it. Not really.

  Sam walked with her head down, walking on the edge of the road where asphalt met scrubby range grass.

  It was no surprise that he and Brynna wanted to ride in the race. They could put the prize money toward replacing the old hay truck that kept belching black smoke and breaking down.

  But why didn’
t he say that?

  Why did he have to tell her which horse to ride? Why did he have to watch over her every minute? How could she prove she was capable if he wouldn’t let her do anything on her own?

  When she looked up, Jen was already at the bus stop. Sam smothered a surprised laugh. Jen’s appearance knocked the frustration right out of her head.

  Jen wore gray corduroy pants and a pink blouse. Those were normal enough, but her purple cardigan with some kind of multicolored bulges all over it was…bizarre.

  “Check out my latest purchase,” Jen said. She pulled the sweater closed with one hand and made an artistic gesture with the other.

  Jen loved to shop at thrift stores and her taste was what Brynna called “original.”

  “Nice,” Sam managed. She couldn’t help squinting a bit closer. “Are those pom-pom things…?”

  “Easter eggs,” Jen said with satisfaction. “Is this cool, or what?”

  “Cool,” Sam said, but now that Dad had driven away, the silence around them seemed brittle.

  A quail’s call came from somewhere nearby. And far off, there was a clunk-clang of Dad’s tires crossing a cattle guard.

  “So,” Jen said, “are you riding with Jake?”

  “Yeah,” Sam said, and her breath rushed out. She didn’t add that her Daddy would be watching every move she made. “How about you and Ryan?”

  “Yes!” Jen nodded so hard her braids flipped. “Can you believe it?”

  “Of course I can. You’re a great rider and he wants to win.”

  Jen waved away Sam’s compliments to rush on.

  “I tried to talk him out of that whole mustang-tamer idea, but if Jake’s doing it…” Jen trailed off, eyebrows raised so high that Sam could see them above Jen’s glasses.

  “He is,” she admitted.