Gypsy Gold Page 3

  The mare’s eyelashes were black on one side and white on the other. She looked like she was winking at them.

  The musician retrieved his fallen instrument from the dirt, then stood, holding his violin and bow against his side, as he greeted them.

  “Welcome to my camp.”

  When he spoke, he looked younger.

  Maybe eighteen or nineteen, Sam thought as she and Jen led their horses into the clearing.

  “Hi,” she and Jen said together.

  The guy watched with a calm smile that seemed more like his usual expression rather than anything to do with them.

  He was medium height and had black hair that was mostly smooth with random curls behind his ears, brown-gold skin, and dark eyes with the longest lashes Sam had ever seen.

  How much would he have been teased about that in school? Sam wondered.

  Stop smiling, Sam told herself. Remember the warnings pounded into your brain cells during Stranger Danger classes in elementary school.

  Or take a lesson from Jen. She was acting polite but cautious.

  But all Sam had to do was swing into Ace’s saddle and she’d be out of here. Sure, they were out in the middle of Nevada late at night, but the guy’s attention had already wandered back to his violin, checking it for scratches.

  He cradled it like a baby before looking up at them to say, “I wondered when you would get here.”

  “You knew we were coming?” Sam asked.

  “Of course,” he said, inclining his head toward Ace and Silly.

  “Two saddled and bridled horses?” Jen said, and now she did smile. “I guess it makes sense that someone would be coming after them.”

  “Oh yeah,” Sam said, laughing at herself.

  Then they just stood there: two girls with two horses, one guy with two horses.

  Moving quickly to slip his violin inside his cart, the young man gestured for them to make themselves at home.

  “My name is Nicolas Raykov,” he said, shaking each girl’s hand. “I’m driving from Seattle to Sacramento with my partner Lace.”

  Nicolas had no accent, but Sam heard a formal cadence in his words. She didn’t take time to analyze it.

  “That must be seven hundred miles,” Jen said, before she introduced herself.

  “Eight hundred, if you don’t count detours,” Nicolas said.

  “The weather’s going to be changing soon,” Sam warned.

  Lots of people thought Nevada’s high desert was hot all the time. In fact, it was so changeable, she’d learned not to assume the seasons meant anything.

  “It already is,” Nicolas said. “But I’ve planned for it. We’ll be in Sacramento before the snows fly.” He gave his mare’s neck a hearty pat. “I’ve promised Lace.”

  Then, just after Sam and Jen had introduced themselves and their horses, Ace raked his teeth across the feed pack tied on behind Silly’s saddle.

  With an offended squeal, Silly raised a hind leg, swished her tail, and bared her teeth at the bay gelding.

  “Ace!” Sam tugged at the reins, pulling her horse’s head away.

  Amazed at Silly’s short-tempered response, Jen apologized to Nicolas. “They’re hungry. We’d better feed them before they get into a real squabble.”

  “Please, help yourself to some hay. Lace is quite generous,” Nicolas said, “and I have plenty of food to share with you, as well.”

  “They carried their own food,” Jen explained as she unpacked. “And we have dinner with us.”

  It wasn’t much of a dinner, but Sam didn’t say so.

  Jen had insisted on bringing a canned meal of beans with hot dogs cut up in them and she wanted to eat them cold, right out of the can, accompanied only by soda crackers. The idea grossed Sam out, but Jen had said it was what she’d eaten with her dad when they’d gone on pack trips into the mountains. She’d insisted it was a meal fit for real cowgirls. Sam couldn’t make herself agree, but before they’d left, she’d had a stern talk with herself. Since it was only one dinner out of her entire life, she could go along with her best friend.

  Jen was uncharacteristically clumsy with the can opener, probably because she was watching Nicolas while she fumbled with it. Sam couldn’t stop glancing at him, either. Something about Nicolas and Lace made Sam imagine they’d come into this clearing out of another time.

  Finally, Jen got the can open, and Sam was hungry enough that the beans tasted fine. Afterward, Nicolas boiled water and served them hot mint tea. Sipping it as she sat on a rock near the campfire, Sam felt almost at home.

  Jen swept a few twigs and leaves aside to clear a seat on the ground and leaned her back against a boulder. Nicolas sat across from them, on the other side of the fire. Lace wandered loose around the camp, touching noses with Ace and Silly.

  “She is so friendly,” Sam marveled.

  “Good old Lace,” Nicolas said proudly. At once, the mare’s head swung to look at him. “You like the company, don’t you, girl?” To Sam and Jen, he added, “It’s been just the two of us for over a month.”

  “Don’t you mean three?” Jen asked. She pointed to the colt peering from under Lace’s neck.

  “Him? That little one’s not an official member of our caravan. He fell in with us about two weeks ago, between—” Nicolas paused. He seemed to be mentally retracing their journey. “Good Thunder Meadows and Susanville.”

  Good Thunder Meadows had a familiar ring to it, but Sam couldn’t decide why.

  “He’s awfully young to be on his own,” Jen said.

  “We searched for his mother,” Nicolas said. “There’d been a lightning storm and I feared…”

  Nicolas glanced toward the colt, then shrugged. Sam and Jen understood his hint that the foal’s mother might have been killed by lightning.

  “Hmm,” Jen said, and Sam guessed her scowl was for whoever had failed to keep track of the vulnerable young animal.

  “I talked with a sheepherder, two days north of here, who called him a ‘bummer’ foal. He suggested the colt was orphaned and had fallen in with some mustangs and just sneaked meals from whichever mares would have him.”

  Sam had heard of bummer calves and lambs, but never a bummer colt.

  “From what we just saw,” Jen said, gesturing to the spot where the Phantom’s herd had been, “that seems unlikely.”

  “I don’t know,” Sam said, trying to take the sting out of Jen’s remark. “Those wild mares wouldn’t make it easy for an outsider because he’s old enough to be weaned. But when he was younger, they might have fed him. Remember Mistress Mayhem?”

  Jen had picked up a twig and she took her time examining the autumn leaves that still clung to it before she nodded.

  “A friend of ours has a colt that was temporarily adopted by a burro,” Sam explained to Nicolas, but there was something else about the dun colt, all alone on the range, that started a niggling thought in her brain.

  “Lace is tolerant when he noses around her flank, but he was very disappointed to find she couldn’t be his nursemaid. Still, he seems to have found enough food to get by.”

  Sam wanted a good look at the colt, but he stayed flat against the paint’s black-and-white barrel. No matter where she wandered, he pressed to the side farthest from the people.

  Jen tossed the twig she’d been twirling toward the fire.

  “What do you call him?” Jen asked.

  “He’s not mine to name.” Nicolas sounded surprised. “I hope he’ll go back to the wild ones, because soon we’ll be trotting along the roadside, with traffic buzzing by.”

  Recalling the colt’s heedless rush across the clearing, Sam hoped so, too.

  “You’re right. We’re not far from the highway,” Sam said.

  “Or home,” Jen added pointedly.

  “Yeah,” Sam said, but she wasn’t sure she had enough energy to ride the rest of the way tonight.

  While Jen explained the purpose of their trip and the unplanned “adventure” of the last eight hours, she picked up a
nother stick and poked the leafy twig the rest of the way into the campfire.

  The leaves burned with a hiss while Sam thought of cuddling down in her own bed.

  Nicolas seemed as interested in turkey vultures as Jen, until a coyote’s howl nearby made him turn away.

  Jen shot Sam a questioning look, but then Nicolas turned back.

  “Were you planning to make the rest of your ride tonight?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Jen answered.

  “No,” Sam said at the same time.

  Nicolas chuckled.

  “You’re welcome to roll out your sleeping bags at my fireside,” he invited.

  Sam scooted forward on the boulder and tilted her head to see Jen’s face.

  “Do you really want to keep going?” Sam asked.

  “We’ve probably seen the last of the turkey vultures,” Jen pointed out.

  “But Jen, the horses are tired and no one’s expecting us until tomorrow.”

  Jen shot Sam a glare.

  Sam sighed. “Okay, I don’t want to get in trouble again.”

  Sam wished she hadn’t said that, either. She sounded like a little kid. Still, it was the truth. She couldn’t stand being grounded.

  But why had Jen suddenly changed the plan?

  Was it because their families thought they were camping up the hill, instead of down in this grove with a stranger? But they’d just seen him ignore the crash of his prized violin to save an orphan foal from being burned. Didn’t that mean he was a good guy?

  Nicolas shifted his position across the fire. He’d been leaning back on two hands, staring into the flames as the girls talked.

  Now he leaned forward. The angle of firelight changed, making a mask of shadows from his brows down to his cheekbones.

  “Tell me honestly, Samantha and Jennifer,” he said. “Do you feel you must move on because I’m a gypsy?”

  Chapter Four

  “You’re a gypsy?” Both girls spoke at once.

  Sam looked down. She picked at a thread fraying from the stitchings on her jeans. Why had her voice squeaked like she was thrilled? And Jen had sounded startled.

  No wonder Nicolas looked confused.

  “What did you think?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” Sam said, but why hadn’t her brain picked up the clue from the song? The words had said horses were a gypsy’s gold.

  Still, she’d sung lots of songs that had nothing to do with her life. Take “Puff, the Magic Dragon,” for instance. But Nicolas looked truly interested and a little concerned over why they hadn’t known he was a gypsy.

  “I probably would have guessed you were Italian,” Jen said. “Or Basque. There are lots of Basque families around here.”

  Sam stared at Nicolas, but she didn’t notice anything exotic. In fact, the only thing exceptional about him was that on his otherwise smooth face, there was a wrinkle above his left eyebrow, as if he constantly raised it. What did that mean? That he was skeptical like Jen?

  “My ancestors were Greek,” Nicolas said, “and my family’s been in England for generations. Even though we picked up a Bulgarian last name, we’re still gypsies.”

  “I’ve never met a gypsy,” Sam said, and when Nicolas spread his arms as if he were on display, she blurted, “But you’re not from Egypt?”

  “Sam!” Jen gave an appalled gasp.

  “What?” Sam said, turning toward Jen. “I read somewhere that—well, it kind of makes sense, doesn’t it? I mean the words are alike—Egypt and gypsy.” When Jen shook her head, Sam looked back at Nicolas. “That’s not right?”

  “No, and I’m afraid I can’t read your palm, either,” Nicolas said, snapping his fingers in pretend disappointment. “And if you left any tea leaves in your cup…? I can’t tell your future.”

  Sam’s face went hot with embarrassment. Was he mad because she was ignorant?

  “Maybe you heard gypsies were pickpockets and con men, too.”

  Nicolas’s grin reminded Sam of some of the cowboys’ when she’d first moved back to River Bend Ranch. But she’d kind of understood those superior smiles. They’d known she’d lived in San Francisco, and they’d assumed the boss’s citified daughter didn’t know anything about ranch life and wouldn’t want to learn.

  Well, they’d been wrong, and whatever Nicolas was thinking was wrong, too.

  “I don’t even know what a con man is,” Sam said. Her face stung from the deepening blush, but she wasn’t about to shut up. “I just thought it was kind of cool, because I’ve heard gypsies are wizards with horses. That’s all.”

  She couldn’t go on with her voice shaking, so she stopped.

  “Wizards?” Nicolas asked.

  Embarrassment was a black hole. A bottomless black hole, and just when she thought she’d crashed into its floor, another level opened up and down she fell.

  Sam looked away from Nicolas and stared into the fire. The leafy twig Jen had fed the flames had charred into a bare stem.

  Sam turned toward the grove where the Phantom had stood just minutes ago.

  She’d give anything to have galloped away on the stallion’s silver back. He’d carry her to a haven where they’d be surrounded by black peaks and countless stars. But no. She was still here, facing a guy who smiled while he made fun of her.

  “Look,” she said.

  “Sam, don’t bother. You made a little mistake. Big deal. He’s the one who should apologize.” Jen flashed Nicolas a hostile look, and though Sam appreciated her friend standing up for her, Jen was making things worse.

  For a moment there was silence broken only by the whuffling of horses’ lips over the grass.

  “You think I owe you an apology?” Nicolas asked.

  “Yes!” Sam and Jen said together.

  Nicolas shrugged. “I was only teasing.”

  “You’re not very good at it,” Jen said, and her sarcasm made all three of them laugh.

  “I’m sorry,” Nicolas said, still chuckling. Before he went on, Lace plodded up and nosed his shoulder so hard, he nearly tipped over. “You could have given me that hint a bit earlier,” Nicolas told the horse. Then he looked from Jen to Sam. “If we can start over, I’ll explain.”

  “Why not,” Sam said.

  “Sure.” Jen didn’t sound convinced, but Nicolas went on.

  “Mostly, I’m making this journey to discover what it means to be a gypsy. I’m just a middle-class college kid from Seattle, but my grandparents, who are traditional, old-school gypsies, say that the open road will reveal my heritage to me.”

  Nicolas said the last few words in a dramatic, almost mocking way.

  But, Sam thought, here he is.

  “My grandparents also said that ganjo—non-gypsies, like you,” he said apologetically, “would blame me for stuff like stealing chickens or laundry off clotheslines—”

  Jen gave a snort of disbelief, then said, “Sorry, but that’s ridiculous.”

  Nicolas shrugged.

  “Some places, gypsies have bad reputations based on old folktales. Grandfather remembers traveling in a vardo as a little kid and hiding when people came out of their towns to throw rocks and set dogs on the caravan.

  “Grandmother told me a man stole his neighbor’s horse and sold it, then blamed the gypsies. Her brother spent a week in jail until they found a witness to what had really happened.

  “They convinced me that some people have these stereotypes….” Nicolas’s voice trailed off. “So, uh, yeah.” He cleared his throat. “I guess I kind of misjudged you before you could do it to me. Sorry.”

  Sam thought it was one of the best apologies she’d ever heard.

  “We hang around with cowboys, so we can take a little joshing,” Sam said, even though that wasn’t exactly what Nicolas had done.

  “I’m glad,” he said. “I hardly knew I was a gypsy until my grandparents came to live with us a few years ago. I mean, my father runs a car-repair shop and my mom’s the bookkeeper. Neither of them have accents, unless American TV English
counts. And even though gypsies are known as Travelers some places, my parents only left England for the U.S. and since then, they’ve stayed put.

  “About the only gypsy tradition they follow,” Nicolas added, “is when someone in the family gets sick, they descend on him.”

  “Descend?” Jen asked.

  “Oh, yeah. They crowd the hospital room with aunts, stepbrothers, second cousins…”

  “That’s interesting,” Jen said.

  “It’s weird,” Nicolas corrected her. “When one of my uncles was in a motorcycle accident, the doctor had to elbow her way through the crowd and shout to be heard. But my dad told me we were all there to make sure he got the best of care.”

  A cricket chirred through the darkness. Otherwise, the clearing was still. It was getting late, but Sam had the feeling that she and Jen had both decided to camp out there.

  Nicolas’s kindness to the horses, his devotion to his quirky family, and his sincere apology to them had gone a long way toward making Sam feel he was trustworthy.

  “What do your parents think of you making this trip?” Jen asked.

  “They hate it,” Nicolas said. “They say the reason gypsies traveled was because they didn’t have a place of their own. They say it’s not about a love of the open road; it’s about prejudice.

  “Even though they’ve told me stories about prejudice, about people siccing their dogs on them, just because they’re gypsies and stuff like that, my grandparents gave me Lace for high school graduation and made me a deal.”

  “What was the deal?” Sam asked.

  “If I finished my first semester of college with a B average—” Nicolas broke off. As if he’d noticed a change in Jen’s expression, he pointed at her. “Go ahead. Ask.”

  Sam gave a surprised laugh, but Jen just nodded and asked, “Okay. How were your grades during your first semester of college?”

  “I earned a B plus average,” Nicolas announced. “It would’ve been higher, but I thought it would be fun to take a drama class and it turned out everyone in there had been on stage in a zillion high school productions, except for me.”

  “Okay,” Jen said, as if she’d allow such a miscalculation.

  “So, they bought me a vardo—a caravan wagon,” he explained, gesturing at the vehicle behind them, “and I spent all my free time from January until June planning my route, learning how to drive, and training Lace.”