Moonrise Read online

  When Slocum patted his saddlebags, Sam almost laughed. He must have more meat, and wasn’t that typical? Instead of learning to work with the dogs and earning their love and loyalty, he’d found a way to buy them off.

  I don’t care, as long as he leaves, Sam thought, and minutes later, he did.

  “Jen…” Sam began.

  “Can we not talk about him right now?” Jen said. “I’m nauseous from keeping in what I really think of that—”

  “Later,” Sam agreed. “There’s no way in the world I’m going to let him ruin this fantastic day on the range.”

  Jen still couldn’t manage a smile, but she gave Sam a hearty thumbs-up, and together they rode up the mountain in peace.

  It didn’t take long for the broad blue sky and calling birds to bring the girls back to the task at hand.

  “According to my dad, there are only two dangerous places where cattle might hide in this section,” Jen said.

  “Cow Killer Caldera?” Sam said, because Dallas had mentioned it to her.

  “That’s one,” Jen said, nodding, “although I have to tell you, I’m not convinced it’s really a caldera. Do those mountains look volcanic to you?”

  Sam considered the sand-colored peaks, then admitted, “Unless I saw lava and smoke boiling out of them, I don’t think I’d know, Jen.”

  “Most people wouldn’t,” Jen said generously. “But a caldera is formed when the center of a volcano collapses in, and it’s supposed to be way deep.” She shrugged. “I guess we’ll see when we get up there.”

  “What’s the other dangerous place?” Sam asked.

  “There’s a thorn thicket about level with that plateau, and it doesn’t even have a name, as far as I know.”

  As they rode on, Sam couldn’t help appreciating how smart Jen was.

  “You know that spiny thicket, though?” Jen mused. “I bet it’s just brush. Thorns don’t exactly flourish in northern Nevada. Sam, are you yawning?”

  “No,” Sam assured her, although the confrontation with Slocum had worn her out. “At least, not because you’re boring. Dad’s been working me hard these last couple of days. It’s like he said ‘yes,’ then made me pay for it.”

  “My dad, too,” Jen said, then her smile was back and Sam’s spirits perked up as Jen’s grin turned impish. “But our dads aren’t here now.”

  “No,” Sam said, “and do you know what I have in my saddlebags?”

  Jen let her head fall back on her neck in anticipation. “Something wonderful cooked by your grandmother?”

  “Chocolate chip cookies and brownies!”

  “Oh my gosh.” Jen sighed. “And my mom made a caramel pecan cake and gave me half.”

  “When we stop for lunch—” Sam began, and then she drew rein.

  Jen slowed Silly and looked back, brows raised, over her shoulder.

  “We don’t have to wait for lunch,” Sam said. “If we want to eat dessert at”—she glanced at her watch—“ten thirty-two, we can.”

  “Yeah,” Jen said, but her sensible side made one last demand. “How about if we just ride up to the plateau? Then we’ll be halfway to the top.”

  “Sounds good to me, partner,” Sam said, then she touched her heels to Ace and rode smiling into the morning.

  “You have chocolate all over your cheeks,” Jen said, later.

  “Have you checked your eyelashes lately?” Sam asked.

  With the horses ground-tied nearby, the friends leaned back on their elbows and closed their eyes. Through sun-struck eyelids, Sam wondered when they’d see the wild horses.

  In spite of the changes made by winter snows and spring rain, she’d recognized the area. They weren’t far from the Arroyo Azul shortcut to the Phantom’s hidden valley.

  Standing down below, the steep shelf overlooking the plateau was invisible. But the shelf was narrow, barely wide enough for a single horse, so they’d remained on the plateau for their picnic.

  It was probably a bad idea to let Ace and Silly wander, Sam thought, as the horses moved off a few steps. But both horses obeyed ground-tying, and she was feeling too full and drowsy to go after them.

  Then she heard the snort. It hadn’t come from Silly or Ace.

  “Jen,” she whispered.

  Jen opened her eyes, already alert.

  Sam turned her head slowly toward the sound.

  New Moon stood at the other side of the plateau.

  If a black jewel existed, something like a diamond but dark as night, that’s what Moon’s coat resembled.

  When she’d seen the young stallion by moonlight at River Bend, she’d known he was beautiful. Now, his shining, satiny coat made him magnificent.

  Did he recognize her? The delicate trembling of his ear tips made Sam imagine he did, until Jen brought her back to reality.

  “Our horses,” Jen hissed.

  Of course, Sam thought. Why else would Moon venture so near to humans? He was recruiting for his tiny herd.

  Behind him, a red bay swished her tail. A bald-faced mare with blue eyes and a black foal stamped a hoof.

  Moon nickered an offer that brought both domestic horses’ heads up.

  Silly’s nostrils vibrated. Her head tilted to one side so that her forelock fell away from her brown eyes. Fascinated by the mustangs, the palomino broke into a trot. Reins trailing, she went to investigate the wild ones.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Oh no. Sam didn’t gasp aloud.

  Trying not to spook Ace and Silly, she joined Jen in a scrabble across the bare rock.

  “Oof!” Both girls knocked the wind from themselves as they tackled the trailing reins before either horse got very far.

  Moon’s head rose, showing the long line of his midnight throat. He neighed his disappointment and Silly whinnied back.

  “No you don’t,” Jen snapped, as she stood up.

  Then, for better control, Jen gripped the reins just beneath the palomino’s chin.

  All the wild horses startled at Jen’s sudden height.

  The bald-faced mare nipped the bay, herding her.

  So, you’re the lead mare, Sam thought. With the delicate black foal tucked against her side and Moon at her heels, the bald-faced bay took her few followers away.

  “That could have been bad,” Jen sighed.

  “Losing our horses on the morning of our first day?” Sam joked. “Naw, I’m sure our dads would understand.”

  They laughed, promised each other they wouldn’t make that mistake again, then got serious about searching for cattle.

  As they rode, staring in opposite directions so that they missed nothing, Sam thought about the black foal. It had been older than Tempest, with a blockier head and bigger bones.

  Moon couldn’t have fathered it, because he’d had no herd of his own last year. And she didn’t remember seeing the bald-faced, blue-eyed mare in the Phantom’s band.

  For a minute, Sam concentrated on whose mare Moon had stolen, but then she smiled. There was a more important, more exciting aspect to the wild black colt.

  He wasn’t Moon’s, but Moon had obviously adopted him.

  “Yeah!” Sam muttered under her breath.

  “See one?” Jen asked. The lenses of her glasses looked cloudy with dust as she peered past Sam.

  Then, before Sam could explain Brynna’s awful lecture on murderous stallions, Sam saw the cattle.

  Just yards away, two big white faces rose above a stand of sagebrush. Jaws suddenly still, the Herefords quit chewing and stared. Just below the cows’ chins, two tiny white faces did the same.

  Oh my gosh! Sam thought, but she mouthed the words, “Right there.”

  Afraid the wild cattle would stampede, Sam didn’t raise her arm to point. She hardly breathed.

  They were River Bend cows. Somehow, Sam recognized them from a winter hay drop, even before the cows’ ears, tagged in blue, flickered her way.

  Their pink-rimmed eyes looked bloodshot. Brush and stickers had snagged in their coats, but they were R
iver Bend cows, and their calves were worth at least a thousand dollars apiece.

  Now what? Sam knew she and Jen had decided to gather all the cattle they could, pen them with the plastic fencing, then brand them tomorrow afternoon.

  But the reality of these cautious cattle made her wonder if that was possible.

  The cattle she’d driven before had already been milling in a herd. Now, staring into eyes that were not only wild, but fierce, Sam wasn’t sure how the “gather” part would work.

  “Hey there, bossy,” Jen crooned to the cows.

  Sam stared at her friend. Jen’s voice was as melodic as birdsong.

  A quick bawling moo came from one cow. The others shuffled in place, but Jen kept talking. The cattle seemed fascinated and finally Sam realized Jen wasn’t just babbling bovine flattery.

  The cows must remember the winter hay drops that had kept them nourished when snow covered the sparse grass. To them, human voices meant food.

  “Hey, Sam, remember that box canyon Linc mentioned? Oh, yes, you sweet-smelling, bug-eyed beauty, I see that brindle baby. Wow, mama cow, how did you ever come up with that Halloween peanut-butter swirl coat and that pure white face for your baby? Well, I’m thinking, Sam, I’m talking to you now. Sammy, pal, stay with me.”

  “Mm-hm?” Sam hummed, trying not to distract the hypnotized Herefords.

  “If we can ease this bunch back down to the box canyon, we can put the plastic fencing across the mouth of it. Then we’ll have a perfect place to hold them and brand them—Oh no, mama cow, I didn’t say brand. No, no, no. Easy. Okay, you want to start back that way? What a good idea.”

  Jen’s eyebrows lifted above her glasses as the cows shuffled out of the sagebrush and headed downhill.

  Ace trembled with excitement, eager to chase after the cattle, but Sam held him in.

  Jen let the cattle get well ahead, so they wouldn’t feel pressured. Silly must have forgotten the mustangs, because she followed calmly at an uncharacteristic, flat-footed walk.

  The trail was more than a deer path. It was about two horse widths wide and flanked with sagebrush.

  Jen moved to the right of the trail, so Sam aimed Ace toward the left.

  The cow with the brindle calf looked back over her shoulder with a cautious moo. When she took a few steps left, Ace mirrored her movements. Even though they were half a football field behind, the cows and calves returned to the center of the road.

  “Good work,” Sam whispered, but she’d known this would happen. She wasn’t the cattle expert; Ace was.

  Hazing the cattle into the box canyon was easy. Three of the four animals trotted in as if they’d been headed this way all day, but the brindle calf looked up, startled, as if the canyon walls were closing in on her.

  With a cry, she sprinted past Jen.

  “Hold ’em.” Jen snapped. Silly pivoted and set off after the calf.

  Three anxious faces, one bawling to the brindle calf, looked after the runaway.

  Lowering himself into his cutting horse stance, Ace advanced on the cattle and they backed away.

  Ears flattened and head lowered, Ace held the cattle until the brindle calf galloped past. Headed for her mom, the calf kicked her heels, lashed her tail in a corkscrew, then straightened it, as if it propelled her dash.

  Sam and Jen didn’t take time for celebration. They unrolled the plastic fence and erected it across the mouth of the box canyon.

  “Okay!” Jen cheered once the cattle had raced for the far end of the canyon, away from the commotion of fencing. “Time to find some Gold Dust cows.”

  “I guess we’ll have to take turns,” Sam said as they both took long drinks from their canteens.

  “Yeah, they’d probably be okay if we left them,” Jen said slowly. “But if those hounds returned, they’d run right through that fencing.”

  “So, one of us stays with the herd here, while the other goes out brush-poppin’?”

  Jen nodded. “But we both have to promise, absolutely, to go where we say we will. Like if I tell you I’ll ride to the top of that ridge and stay between that big black rock and that deformed-looking pinion pine? I’ll stay there.”

  “Okay,” Sam agreed.

  “That way, if Silly comes running down without me because she saw a rabid butterfly or something, you’ll know where to come looking.”

  “What about my herd?” Sam asked. “You know, my dad says the ranch comes first and those cows—”

  “Sam!” Jen stretched the word out in surprise. “I’m more important than—yeah, very funny,” she said as Sam began laughing.

  Jen swung Silly’s head to face the trail. “Just for that, I go first and you have guard duty. Adios,” she called over her shoulder, and then she was gone.

  The day seemed to get hotter every minute that Jen was gone.

  Sam stared up the hill. She knew where Jen had gone, but they hadn’t agreed upon how long she’d be there.

  Sam took a packet of jerky from her saddlebag and munched on it as a horseback lunch. After all that cake, she really didn’t want much else.

  After nursing their calves, the River Bend cattle had folded their legs and lay dozing. Sam relaxed with them, hoping Slocum had gotten his hounds safely home. If dogs were trained to chase a buck as big as the one they’d seen, they’d have no qualms about tackling Moon’s little black colt. To herself, Sam had already named the colt Night.

  Ace snorted and looked up the hill. Sam followed his glance. Two cows with purple ear tags trotted down the trail. One had a calf.

  That made three, Sam thought. There were three calves to vaccinate, earmark, and brand.

  Sam’s hand closed as if she were squeezing the earmarking gun. Not ’til tomorrow, she told herself. That was soon enough.

  The cows Jen was herding stopped when they saw Sam. She backed Ace. Step by grudging step, he moved away from the entrance to the box canyon, but he didn’t like it.

  Head lowered, Ace kept an eye on the cattle inside, even though they gave no sign of rising to their feet when Sam jumped down and opened the plastic fence.

  “Amazing,” Jen sighed once the fence was fastened back in place. “How’s that for a Father’s Day present?”

  “Better than a card and a box of peanut brittle!” Sam crowed.

  Until dusk turned the range purple-gray, the girls took turns riding out and searching. Their good luck had peaked early, though, because they found no more strays.

  The two River Bend cows, two Gold Dust cows, and three calves milled uneasily in their box canyon corral while Sam and Jen built a campfire for warmth.

  “They’re sure noisy,” Sam said as the cattle bawled at each other.

  “Dad told me when they haven’t run together, cattle aren’t always friendly to each other,” Jen said.

  The girls ate bread, cheese, and salami, not bothering to assemble sandwiches, as they watched the two Brangus stare and moo at the River Bend Herefords.

  “I hope they stop grouching at each other before we bed down for the night,” Jen said.

  “I bet they’ll be friends by tomorrow,” Sam said. “I hope we can find some more.”

  “It’s Slocum’s section,” Jen reminded her. “You might not find any more from River Bend.”

  “I know,” Sam said as she unrolled her sleeping bag. “I’ll be satisfied with what we’ve got.”

  “But not happy?” Jen asked, untying the knots on her bedroll.

  A cricket’s chirp interrupted their conversation and Sam smiled. “I’m happy already, just because we got to do this.”

  “Me too,” Jen said.

  Once they’d wiggled into their sleeping bags, the cows limited their complaints to loud snuffles. The fire crackled from inside the circle of rocks they’d built to contain it.

  Staring into the star-studded darkness overhead, Sam decided to ride back to the plateau tomorrow. She wanted to see Moon again, but more than that, she hoped to see the Phantom.

  With luck, the two stallions
would keep their bands apart, but she’d still get to see them.

  The stars were blurring in her sleepy gaze when Sam gradually became aware of howling.

  “They don’t sound like coyotes,” Sam said.

  She raised up on one elbow and looked at Jen.

  Jen’s face looked strangely bare without her glasses.

  “They’re not,” Jen said, sounding wide awake.

  “Could we hear those hounds from here if they were at the Gold Dust?”

  “I don’t know,” Jen said. “Sound travels in weird ways.”

  The hounds stopped howling. For a minute, Sam heard only the hobbled horses, pawing and chewing grass.

  Sam lay back down. She stared at the sky again, not turning to face Jen as she asked, “How do you stand him? Living there on that ranch and seeing him every day…. You’re a stronger, nicer person than I am. I’d go crazy.”

  She didn’t tell Jen her ugly hope, that somehow Linc Slocum would fall into a situation he couldn’t buy his way out of.

  “I think of how I felt when I thought we were moving back into town,” Jen said.

  Sam shivered and wiggled farther down into her sleeping bag until her toes touched the bottom. She took a deep breath of high desert air perfumed with sagebrush and pine.

  A city campout would be scented with car exhaust and the contents of the nearest Dumpster.

  “That’d work for me, too,” Sam said.

  When Jen said nothing else, she thought her best friend had fallen asleep.

  Sam was drowsing, too, when Jen whispered, “Sam?”

  “What?” She jumped.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you, but do you want any dessert?”

  “We didn’t have much dinner,” Sam said, yawning. “But no, I think that the cake and the salami pretty much filled me up.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Jen said. “But those chocolate chip cookies have walnuts, right? And nuts have lots of protein.”

  “I see what you’re saying.” Sam giggled. “They’re good for us. We really should have just one before we fall asleep.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Clouds lay like snow on the plateau as Sam rode up the cattle path the next morning.