Gift Horse Read online

Sam gazed at the horse once more. Under the lights, he stood alone in the corral. He surveyed things with great interest while a wisp of hay dangled from the corner of his mouth.

  Inside Mr. Fairchild’s office, Dad called Gram to let her know they were just leaving Mineral and would be late for dinner. Meanwhile, Mr. Fairchild wrote out a check for Tinkerbell’s expenses.

  Sam felt the weight of her new responsibility as she tucked the check into her front right pocket.

  “I’ll have a driver bring the horse out tomorrow. He’s comfy where he is for tonight, and there’s no use disturbing everyone at your place.

  “What time do you get off school?” Mr. Fairchild asked Sam as they all walked to the truck. “About three?”

  “That’s right,” Sam said. She couldn’t believe how nice Mr. Fairchild was being. She wished she could find the words to tell him so, but she barely knew him.

  That made his trust even more satisfying.

  Just before she climbed into Dad’s truck, Sam looked back toward the corral. It was too dark to see him, but the big horse must have been watching her. When he uttered a long rasping neigh, Sam wanted to go hug him.

  Mr. Fairchild must have felt the same, because his lips wore a pained smile.

  “Thanks so much, Mr. Fairchild,” Sam managed. “I just know he’ll turn out great.”

  “I think so, too. I wouldn’t be doing this, otherwise. After all, I am a businessman,” he reminded her. As he went on, though, his tone didn’t sound very businesslike. “I don’t let it get to me, but my place is the end of the trail for so many animals. People, too, sometimes. Ranchers don’t sell off stock this way unless they need the money.

  “So,” he said, running a hand over his silver-gray hair, “once in a while, I like to give a fresh start to a deserving creature like that one.”

  Dad shuffled his boots in embarrassment until Mr. Fairchild added, “Of course, I’ll deny that silly, softhearted talk if you ever mention it again.”

  Then he and Dad both laughed.

  It was the last time Dad looked happy for a while.

  Nothing Sam said seemed to cheer him.

  “I think this will teach me a lot of responsibility, don’t you?” she asked.

  “If all your chores around the ranch aren’t doing that, maybe I’d better give you more,” Dad grumped.

  “Yeah—I mean, of course they are. Teaching me, that is,” Sam sputtered. “You don’t need to give me any more.”

  Sam let another ten miles roll past before she tried again. “I think it’s so mean they named him Tinkerbell.”

  From the corner of her eye, Sam saw Dad nod. Most cowboys gave horses short, efficient names. Dad was no different. After all, he’d named Ace and Smoke, Kitty and Tank.

  “Should I change his name?” she asked. “He could be Coffee or Spice.”

  Sam thought Mahogany would be a good name for the big horse. Once his coat was clean, it would look like rich, polished wood.

  “Or I could pick a name that suits his size, like Goliath or Emperor.” Sam looked sidelong at Dad. “And Mr. Fairchild called him a brute. What do you think of calling him Brute?”

  “You’d be silly to name him at all. We don’t name cattle because we’re gonna sell them. No matter what you think, Samantha, that horse isn’t staying any longer than it takes you to get rid of him.”

  Sam’s heart beat hard as she waited. Something in Dad’s movements as he steered around a low spot in the road told her that he hadn’t finished talking.

  “If I were you,” he said finally, “I’d just call him Horse.”

  Sam rode along in silence. She felt melancholy, even though she knew Tinkerbell was safe.

  Melancholy turned to uneasiness as she pressed her cheek to the cold glass of the truck’s window. Her eyes scanned the vast, dark range. Danger seemed to fill every shadow.

  How can I think such a thing? Sam wondered.

  She loved the high desert, even though most people never gave it a thought. City dwellers, driving past on the freeway on their way west to San Francisco or south to Las Vegas, rarely noticed the rabbits, antelope, mustangs, and vivid wildflowers no bigger than the nail of her little finger.

  She loved the desert’s colors. By night, its stark beauty was painted in shades of black and charcoal gray. Silver-tipped curves of sand, rock, and sagebrush rolled to the Calico Mountains.

  So why had she been thinking of danger? She wasn’t a mouse, cowering from a silent-winged owl. There was nothing to fear, when she was safe inside her Dad’s truck with the heater blowing warm air and home was just minutes away.

  Snowcaps marked the far peaks. Looking at them, Sam shivered, but not because she was cold.

  An eerie sensation skittered across her shoulders and down her back. Now she knew what “spine-chilling” really meant. But she didn’t believe in premonitions, so what was going on?

  Something moved, far out on the playa. Or maybe not. Perhaps a cloud had swept over the face of the moon, changing the light.

  A second later, she saw the mustangs.

  Night made them all the same color, but Sam recognized them as easily as if they’d been her own herd. Backs frosted with moonlight, bodies dark as tarnished silver, the Phantom’s band galloped along the base of the foothills.

  “Where could they be going?” Sam murmured. Her excitement waned as she wondered—had they felt the same nameless warning she had?

  “Something’s got ’em runnin’,” Dad said.

  He must have been staring after the wild horses as she was, but Sam didn’t look away from the mustangs. The last time she’d seen the horses, they’d been in the Phantom’s secret valley. If some predator was pursuing the horses, she wanted to know.

  “A man used to be able to count on wild things to tell him the first day of spring, but now he needs a calendar,” Dad went on. “Used to be, you wouldn’t see a single mustang between November and April. This year, I see ’em every time I turn around.”

  Dad was right. This had been an unsettled winter for the wild ones.

  Sam kept staring at the herd, trying to identify individuals among them. Those two leggy ones looked like the blood bay mares she’d seen so often. And there, maybe, was the colt with the pirate patch spot over one eye.

  Where is he?

  Sam knew she was searching, most of all, for the Phantom. If this was his herd, he’d be with them.

  There! Ice-white and sudden, the stallion surged from the rear of the herd. Head high, he rushed through a windstorm of his own making. Torrents of mane and tail streamed straight back as he swerved through the band to take the lead. Ahead of them by a length, his head tossed to the right and his slim legs slanted. Showing the way to safety, the stallion swung away from the road, toward the foothills.

  The herd followed. Swift and silent, the horses faded into the night and vanished.

  Sam drew a breath. Spellbound, she’d nearly run out of oxygen while watching the mustangs.

  If Dad had felt their magic, he hid it well.

  “Wouldn’t be surprised if those cayuses were what’s got the cattle acting up,” he groused. “Every year before, I could count on our stock stayin’ on the flats near home, but the last couple weeks they’ve been on the move.”

  “Didn’t you tell me that cattle sometimes headed back to the last place they were happy?”

  Dad gave her a look that said she’d misinterpreted what he’d said.

  “Sure,” he said patiently, “but long as their calves are with them, ‘happy’ only means enough food and water. With La Charla running strong and the hay drops we’ve been making, there’s no reason for them to leave.”

  Sam didn’t suggest another explanation for the animals’ restlessness. Dad was a cattleman. Cows came first because they supported the ranch and every soul on it.

  When she didn’t pick a useless fight over the horses’ place on the range, Dad nodded. He thought he’d had the last word.

  They were nearly home when
she realized Dad couldn’t feel as negative about Tinkerbell as he was pretending. Once he knew none of the horses up for auction were mustangs being sold illegally, why had he stayed?

  Either he saw the big horse’s potential, or he just plain liked him.

  Sam crossed her arms, feeling pretty self-satisfied.

  That’s enough, she told herself. Knock it off.

  There was no logical reason to nag Dad into showing his true feelings. But she wasn’t feeling logical.

  “Wait a minute, Dad,” she said.

  “I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

  “About Tinkerbell…” Sam felt her thoughts line up like ducklings. “What I’m about to do with him isn’t any different from what you and Jake do.”

  “Samantha, it’s completely different. It’s the difference between a gamble and a sure thing.”

  “Not really,” Sam said. “You board people’s horses while you and Jake polish them and make them better riding horses. Then you get paid, if people think their horses have improved. The only difference is that I don’t know who’ll end up paying me. It’s no gamble, because Tinkerbell is a good investment of my time and Mr. Fairchild’s money.”

  “Think so, do ya?” Dad’s tone was sarcastic, but she couldn’t tell if he was amused or annoyed.

  “I do,” Sam said. “It shouldn’t be too hard to make him worth more than eight hundred dollars.”

  “What he’s worth and what you’ll get could be two different things,” Dad said. “But take your best shot, honey. That’s all anyone can do.”

  Sam nodded, smiling as she looked across the range. The lights of River Bend Ranch glimmered in the darkness.

  “Fried chicken tonight,” Dad said. His words sounded like a truce. “Your gram said she’d save us plenty of biscuits and honey, too.”

  “I can hardly wait,” Sam said, and then she sighed.

  Home always looked good at the end of a long day, especially when you’d won.

  River Bend’s lights looked brighter than usual, she realized. Was she imagining it?

  Sam’s thoughts slowed. Too bright. Yellow beams shone from the barn and bunkhouse, though only the porch lights should have been on.

  Dad sucked in a breath.

  “Guess we’d better slow down.” He downshifted and drove over the bridge at half speed. “And I wouldn’t hold your breath about that fried chicken bein’ hot by the time we get to it. If I’m not mistaken, every horse on the place is milling around just outside the kitchen.”

  Chapter Five

  Dad was mistaken. Not all the horses were loose in the ranch yard, but none should have been.

  Gram and Brynna stood guard between the horses and the bridge.

  “It looks like they’re ready to wave their arms and spook them back if they try to make a break for it,” Sam said.

  “Looks like it,” Dad agreed.

  He slowed the truck to a crawl. The tires clunked across each board on the bridge. As the truck passed under the tall wooden rectangle marking the ranch entrance, its headlights spotlighted the horses. Ace and Sweetheart, Gram’s paint mare, stood with legs braced wide apart, but Sam worried most about Ace.

  Dark patches of sweat marked his glossy bay coat. His eyes glowed red in the headlights. As he turned toward the familiar sound of Dad’s truck, he seemed to peer inside. Sam would bet Ace was looking for her.

  Ace was her horse, and she didn’t believe a better-mannered, more willing horse existed. Nothing fazed the little gelding, but now he looked more frightened than she’d seen him since a fire had broken out in the old bunkhouse last summer.

  Sam leaned against her seat belt until her nose almost touched the windshield. She stared past the horses and focused on home. The white, two-story ranch house was lit so brightly, inside and out, that the green shutters and ruffled curtains showed as well as if it had been daylight.

  But there was no orange glow. When she rolled down the truck window, she didn’t smell smoke or hear the crackle of flames, either. Fire was unmistakable. This wasn’t it, so what was going on?

  Popcorn was out, too, and that was really weird. The albino mustang was only green-broke. He belonged in the ten-acre pasture. Instead, he moved in a stiff-legged walk, eyes rolling. The way he kept approaching, then shying from Gram and Brynna, told Sam he was eager to escape.

  As Dad eased the truck past, Brynna gave them a worried but welcoming smile. She didn’t wave and Sam knew she was trying not to make any move that would startle the horses. In spite of that, all three snorted, wreathing their heads with their own hot breath.

  Dad coasted into his usual parking place, then turned the key off. He pulled the emergency brake on slowly, instead of giving it his usual loud yank.

  “Look at that,” Sam said, as she slipped out of the truck. She nodded toward the ten-acre pasture.

  “Saw ’em,” Dad said.

  In the big pasture—where Popcorn should have been—the other horses crowded against the fence, watching Dad. Tank’s white-splotched face and Strawberry’s roan one jerked skyward, but their eyes stayed fixed on Dad, acknowledging him as their leader.

  “Could the mountain lion be back?” Sam whispered.

  “No,” Dad said quietly. “Look at Amigo.”

  Amigo belonged to Dallas, foreman of the River Bend for as long as Sam could remember. His aged sorrel gelding was the horse he’d ridden when she was a kid. Now, Amigo nickered gently, sounding as if he had things under control. Nike and Jeepers-Creepers, younger saddle horses, jostled past Tank and Strawberry until the fence creaked from the pressure of their chests.

  “Get back, now,” Dad told the horses, and though they stayed close, watching him, they quit pushing.

  Sam scanned the pasture again. Where was Dark Sunshine? The buckskin mare was recovering from abuse at the hands of wild horse rustlers and she was in foal. Sam stared until her vision blurred shadows and trees into one dark mass, but still couldn’t spot the mare.

  “Dad,” Sam whispered urgently as they reached the front of the pasture and started toward Gram and Brynna. “Where’s—”

  “If you’re looking for the mare, she’s back in the shadows, near the run-in shed, but not under it.”

  Sighing, Sam realized Dad was right. Sunny’s chamois-colored coat was like candlelight in the far corner. She was safe, but even from here Sam could see she was trembling.

  Sam caught her breath as Ace bolted toward her. The gelding came at such a quick trot, Sam hoped he wouldn’t bowl her over. She got one hand up before he reached her.

  “Hey boy,” she said, but Ace moved past her hand and thrust his muzzle against her chest, rocking her back a step. She smoothed her hand down his damp neck. The night air was so cold, she wondered why he wasn’t frosted with ice crystals.

  Ace shifted his weight toward her hand as she rubbed under his mane.

  “What’s wrong, Ace?”

  In answer, he whisked his nostrils against her neck. He’d never done that before, and she didn’t know what it meant. But she stood still. If Ace took comfort in her scent, she’d let him sniff all night.

  As she stood there, Sam became aware of Blaze’s incessant barking from inside the bunkhouse. If the horses had been spooked by a cougar or some other animal, wouldn’t Dallas have set Blaze free?

  Blaze, the ranch’s watchdog, was protective and territorial. If another creature crossed the boundaries of the place he considered home, Blaze forgot he was only a shaggy black-and-brown Border collie and acted as if he had the size and strength of a lion.

  Dallas stood between the barn and the small pasture. He wore only a jean jacket over a white shirt, and must have been freezing.

  To the left, she saw River Bend’s two cowboys. They stood between the new bunkhouse and the old one, which smelled of fresh-sawed lumber and pine sawdust because it was being rebuilt. Pepper was hatless and Ross had his shirt-sleeves rolled up as if he’d been washing his hands for dinner. Together, they blocked the last avenue of escape
for the horses.

  So why, with five horse-savvy people standing around, hadn’t the loose horses been put back where they belonged? Ace tagged along, practically walking on Sam’s heels. She joined Dad as he spoke to Brynna and Gram.

  “What’s up?” Dad asked, quietly.

  “I wish I knew,” Brynna said, shivering. Sam noticed Brynna wore only jeans and a long-sleeved tee-shirt.

  Gram’s pink sweater, prettier than it was warm, hung open over a denim dress. Considering Gram ordered Sam to dress warmly even on summer nights, Sam guessed that Gram and Brynna, just like Pepper and Ross, had bolted out-of-doors in a hurry.

  “Seems like they all got crazy at once,” Gram said, not taking her eyes from Sweetheart and Popcorn. “You never heard such stamping and neighing.”

  “We ran to the barn and when we got there, the pigeons in the rafters were swooping and circling,” Brynna said. “Just in case something was in the hayloft, we turned Ace and Sweetheart out. When we got back out here, Popcorn was bashing his chest against the fence, so we let him join the others.”

  Brynna looked at Dad. She didn’t ask, but her raised brows seemed to be checking to see if he thought what they’d done was a good idea. It had been risky, Sam thought, since Popcorn had been running wild just two years ago.

  “He seems quiet enough, now,” Dad said, and it sounded like he approved.

  Ace’s chin bobbed over Sam’s left shoulder as if he agreed. When she turned to rub the white star under his forelock, Sam noticed Blaze had quit barking.

  As if the dog’s silence signaled that everything had returned to normal, Sweetheart blew through her lips and stared toward her cozy barn.

  Sam’s chest swelled with eagerness to announce her deal with Mr. Fairchild. Now that she was sure Ace and the other horses were safe, she had to tell everyone. And Jen would be next. How cool was it that she’d have another horse to work with? Tomorrow!

  “Guess what—” Sam began.

  “That’s my good girl,” Gram crooned as she reached up to grab Sweetheart’s halter. Gram’s eyes shifted to Sam, but when the pinto didn’t resist, Gram raised a finger, telling Sam she’d heard, but needed to keep Sweetheart moving back toward the barn.