The Wild One Page 7

  Dad was offering her a chance to escape. Unlike the cowboys, Gram wouldn’t fix her with eyes that accused her of causing extra work. On the other hand, riding away seemed a lot like surrender.

  “Not unless you need me to go,” Sam said. “I’ll probably be living this down ’til I’m fifty years old, right?”

  “Possible,” Dad said. “But there’s always a chance they’ll forget. You might save Flick when he’s treed by a grizzly.”

  Sam savored the image a minute, then cocked her head to see her father’s face under his hat’s broad brim. “There aren’t any grizzlies around here,” Sam said.

  “You’re learning.” He laughed, then squinted toward a rider coming up from behind the herd.

  As he drew close, Sam saw Pepper’s dun horse was black with exertion.

  “Boss,” Pepper said, a little breathless himself, “we got some trouble.”

  Dad sent the herd on with the other hands, but Jake accompanied Sam and Dad as Pepper led them to the trouble.

  A tiny calf was trapped in a mire of quicksand. His bleating had turned gruff, as if he had a sore throat from calling his mother.

  “Where’s your mama, little guy?” Dad’s voice was gentle, but he kept his distance. “Sam, stay back.” Dad held out his arm as if stopping traffic. “This crust is thin.”

  Lunging to escape the quicksand, the calf had cleared an area big as a bathtub. If his struggles had done that, the desert floor certainly wouldn’t hold a horse.

  Dad’s rope whirred through the air and settled. The lariat looked huge around the calf’s neck.

  “Better make this quick,” Dad said, then spurred Banjo into a jump forward.

  Instead of letting himself be dragged free, the calf tried to swim. His flailing forelegs broke through the crust again and again.

  Dad backed Banjo and let the rope go slack.

  “If I could get a loop past his front legs, around his whole front end, he’d slide right out,” Dad said.

  But that wasn’t going to happen. They could all see that.

  Weak with fatigue, the calf gave a cranky bawl, then pillowed his head on the quicksand, sinking until his neck and the rope were submerged.

  Jake rode a wide circle around the calf. “It’s not like a mom to walk away, unless she thought he was—” Jake shrugged.

  Dead. Sam gazed at the calf’s closed eyelids and white eyelashes. The little animal was helpless.

  Both Jake and Dad looked as if they’d given up hope. She knew orphan calves required lots of time and trouble. Sam also knew the whole summer stretched ahead of her. She could help.

  “If we can get him out, I’ll bottle-feed him,” Sam offered.

  Dad gave her a sad smile. “Even then, he couldn’t keep up with the herd.”

  “I’ll carry him across my saddle.”

  “Honey, sometimes you lose one. It’s hard, but you’ll come to grips with it, living out here.”

  Looking thoughtful, but a little hesitant to offer advice to his boss, Pepper said, “I know what we’d do if he’d fallen through the ice.”

  Sam’s pulse pounded fast. Years of cold had made Pepper leave northern Idaho. She’d bet he knew all about ice rescues.

  “Go ahead,” Dad encouraged him.

  “The lightest one of us goes flat on the ice, or the crust, I guess, and kind of wiggles toward the opening. The idea is to keep the weight distributed over as broad an area as possible. You can’t do that on a horse, or walking, but spread-eagled on your belly, it works.” Pepper looked away from the calf to Sam. “We’d probably want a rope around her waist, just in case.”

  Her waist. Sam waited for Dad to protest that the scheme was too dangerous. When he didn’t, she felt a little dizzy.

  “Then,” Pepper continued, “she’d get a good grip on the calf and we’d pull ’em out.”

  Dusk and rain clouds grayed the desert all around. The quicksand looked thick and clammy. A coyote called, trying to gather friends to go hunting. Sam shivered at the lonely sound.

  “Let’s do it,” Sam said.

  Trying to look confident, she dismounted and tossed Ace’s reins toward Jake.

  He caught them, but flashed a questioning look at her dad. “Wyatt?”

  It was the first time she’d heard Jake address Dad by his first name. Some man-to-man protectiveness in Jake’s tone irritated Sam.

  “It’s up to Sam,” Dad said.

  Sam liked being her own boss. For the last year, she’d argued with Aunt Sue over whether she was mature enough to make her own decisions. Right this minute, though, she wished Dad had taken charge.

  “Shoot, he’s half-dead already.” Jake sounded disgusted, but he looked troubled. And paler than she’d ever seen him. “There’s no branded mama around. Why, there’s no telling if he’s even a River Bend calf. He could be Slocum’s.”

  “Of course, I’ll do it.” Sam warmed her palms against the front of her jeans. Jake’s worry actually made her feel stronger.

  “You’re not going to let me drown,” she explained to Jake. “And the calf’s not going to hurt me. I’m going to hold onto that baby so tight that even if you have to drag me to San Francisco, he won’t get loose.”

  Jake looked away, fed up with her.

  Within five minutes, Dad’s rope was tight around her waist and Sam lay on the surprisingly warm desert floor. She inched her way toward the calf. He was wide awake, now, and bucking out of her reach.

  “It’s okay little guy. I won’t hurt you.”

  Sam was dimly aware of the men barking advice, but her world had narrowed to the calf bawling and bucking in front of her.

  “How about some nice warm milk,” she crooned.

  The calf’s ears fluttered her way. Then she pounced.

  Now. She hunched her shoulders forward. Keeping her legs still, Sam plunged her arms through the quicksand. It felt like cold oatmeal. She caught the calf in a bear hug.

  Maaaaa, maaaaa.

  She could swear the calf called for his mother, but Sam held tight. His front legs tap-danced against her chest. The rope jerked her middle up, then they began to slide backward. Fast.

  And then she stopped.

  “You can let go. Sam, let go!” Jake squatted beside her, prying loose the arms she’d locked around the calf.

  By the time Sam wriggled free of Dad’s rope, she noticed Jake had a smear of blood on his cheek.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “Your little buddy butted him in the nose,” Dad said. He gathered his rope in, fastening it in a loop on his saddle.

  Sam felt happy. She felt shaky. And when Pepper helped her balance the calf across her saddle to ride back into camp, she felt proud.

  That night, Sam shrugged off the cowboys’ jokes about the stampede. She was too busy trying to save the calf’s life.

  For a while the calf remained limp, then thrashed and fought as Sam introduced the bottle Gram had fixed.

  “Come on, little guy,” Sam grunted.

  She knew Pepper had stopped to watch her, but she didn’t look up, even when he said, “Maybe she’s mad ’cause you’re calling her a guy. That little critter’s a female.”

  Sam didn’t care. She only knew that for an animal no bigger than a dog, the calf was incredibly strong. The red rope-burn around Sam’s waist stung as she tried to drip milk past the calf’s tightly shut pink lips. By the time the calf figured out she wanted the milk, Sam’s arm muscles had stretched like rubber bands and her hands trembled.

  Once the calf fell asleep beside her, Sam slurped down the soup Gram made her eat. She sighed, feeling better, and looked around. The campfire crackled orange and bright against the darkness. Except for Gram, she was alone.

  “Time for bed.” Gram untied her apron and yawned.

  “I can’t leave her,” Sam said. “Can I sleep out here?”

  “It’s not good for either one of you, but your dad already said you could.” Gram tsked her tongue. “You’ll probably get sick,
but we’re almost home. You’ll be sleeping in your own bed tomorrow night.”

  Gram was doing a good job of talking herself into it, so Sam didn’t say a word except “thank you” when Gram brought out her sleeping bag.

  The calf lay beside Sam, exhausted. Her thin eyelids twitched. What did calves dream of?

  Sam knew that if she dozed, she’d dream of the Phantom.

  Today she’d had a rope around her middle. Through her clothes, it had sawed a sore abrasion, even though Dad had been quick and gentle. She thought of the Phantom, caught by a rope and that barrel of cement. There’d been no worry over his suffering and pain.

  Now Slocum was after him again.

  Sam stroked the calf’s fur and tried to think of something else. The little animal had grown used to her touch so quickly, she didn’t even wake.

  Sam stared into the satiny orange flames of the campfire. She thought back to how Pepper had suggested her for a dangerous job and Dad had let her make up her own mind. Sam looked down at her hands and wondered if she’d ever get the dirt out from under her fingernails.

  She hadn’t seen Jake since they’d returned to camp. She remembered his gentle firmness, removing her arms from the calf’s neck. There’d been a smear of blood on Jake’s cheek.

  What was it Dad had said? Oh yeah, Your little buddy butted him in the nose.

  Sam petted the calf some more. “How about if I name you Buddy? I don’t see why it couldn’t be a girl’s name, do you?”

  Since the calf made no protest, Sam settled down to rest. The tendons holding her head up relaxed.

  She was almost asleep when she heard a disturbance at the corral. Hooves churned and horses nickered in greeting.

  At the edge of the firelight, a rider appeared.

  Slocum slumped on the brown Thoroughbred, looking around. Sam was pretty sure he didn’t see her, there in the shadow of the chuck wagon. Sam didn’t move, didn’t say a word.

  Slocum had returned empty-handed.

  Sam felt a quick surge of pleasure, until Slocum hauled on his reins, turning the Thoroughbred. In the firelight, Sam saw dried foam around the horse’s bit. Behind his cinch, long bloody gouges had been raked by Slocum’s spurs.

  Chapter Nine

  “NO ONE LIKES housework, young lady,” said Gram. “That’s why TV commercials have singing scrub bubbles and dancing toilet brushes.”

  Gram stood with her hands on her hips. She’d caught Sam trying to slip out the front door on cleaning day. That had not put Gram in a good mood.

  Sam had no chance to offer an excuse. Gram kept talking.

  “I’m giving you a choice. Stay indoors and help me, or hightail it out to the barn and clean out a winter’s worth of straw and manure.”

  Mentally, Sam compared the smell of ammonia and glass cleaner with the scents of a summer barn. Kind of a toss-up. Though it was cool indoors and hot outside, in the barn she’d have Buddy for company. She’d be in a better mood than Gram.

  Sam rubbed her eyes. This would teach her to sleep in.

  Each night since they’d been home from the drive, she’d crept out of bed about midnight and waited, watching by moonlight for the Phantom. If she’d awakened early, she’d have ridden out with the cowboys. Dad, Pepper, and Ross hated riding the fence line and mending breaks the cattle might escape through, but Sam knew it was more fun than housework.

  Jake couldn’t offer any distraction, either. He’d stayed home to help his dad with an irrigation problem. To Sam, even standing knee-deep in water sounded like heaven.

  “Take your pick.” Gram tapped her foot.

  “The barn,” Sam said and made a run for it.

  Sam stabbed a pitchfork under a dusty layer of straw, and lifted.

  Blaze, the ranch dog, lay in the shade of the barn watching. As Sam dropped the straw into the wheelbarrow, Blaze sneezed.

  Sam stopped, pushing back the locks of hair that curved on her cheeks as her short cut began to grow out. She’d been working for an hour, and the chore wasn’t as gross as she’d feared. Still, the most exciting part of ranching was over for this year.

  The cattle drive had been the high point and this was, she hoped, the low point.

  Once again, Sam filled the wheelbarrow and rolled it out into the sunshine. Buddy did her best to make the job fun, frolicking beside Sam as she passed the corrals and dumped the dried straw and manure on a growing hill. Instead of buying garden fertilizer, Gram used this stuff.

  After just a few days at the ranch, Buddy was peppy and healthy. She twirled her tail in a corkscrew, then made little hip-hop bucks. She was pretty happy for an orphan.

  “And pretty lucky,” Sam told her. Slocum hadn’t claimed Buddy and Dad hadn’t mentioned turning the calf out with the beef cattle. “Stay runty and maybe you can spend your life as a pet,” Sam added.

  Buddy spooked and ran around to Sam’s other side, ears cupped toward the pasture. Blaze got to his feet. Ears alert, he made an inquiring noise deep in his throat. Ace and a few other horses stopped grazing. They stood statue-still, attention aimed toward the river.

  Chills sprinkled over Sam’s scalp and down her shoulders. The Phantom wouldn’t come to the ranch in the daylight, but she’d never seen the other horses act this way, except when he did.

  Sam scanned the wild side of the river, but saw nothing. She was imagining things. Why would the stallion come back again?

  Sam rolled the wheelbarrow back to the barn and bent to her task. She didn’t want to give up hope the stallion would return, that was all.

  She kept after her work, back and forth from the barn. All the while, she imagined the stallion watching. He wasn’t, of course. The last time he’d come to her, Slocum had chased him day and night. Had his lungs burned? Had he wondered why one of his own kind joined a man to hunt him? And before that, when Slocum ripped his flesh with ropes and weights, what had the Phantom thought, under those crashing waves of panic?

  Men had done nothing but hurt him.

  Sam leaned the pitchfork against the barn wall and appreciated the clean barn and stall she’d tidied for Buddy. Then she heard a splash. Sam turned and looked out the wide barn doors. Against all logic, her horse had returned anyway.

  Sam walked from the barn. She moved smoothly, reaching out to the stallion with her thoughts. I’ll never hurt you.

  The horse gleamed like polished ivory. His hide glimmered at each flex of muscles as he lifted his knees through the silver sluice of water. Even when Sam reached the bridge, he kept coming, fording the deepest part of the river with his broad chest.

  Sam’s heart threatened to beat free of her own chest.

  “Zanzibar,” she whispered as the stallion looked left and right, as if he’d cross the river and walk right up to her.

  He shouldn’t. She wouldn’t hurt him, of course, but she was human. Humans would always want to capture and cage an animal as beautiful as Zanzibar. He shouldn’t trust her.

  And yet he swam. Head surging forward, nostrils distended to show pink inside, he came to her. Sam thought of a myth she’d studied in English class. Poseidon the ocean god had driven horses whose white manes blew back on the wave crests.

  River Bend might be just a small ranch in a desert state, but Zanzibar was a stallion fit for a god.

  His hooves grazed river rock and he stopped, still knee-deep in water. For a minute, he looked away, but one ear turned in Sam’s direction. Each second, she thought he’d bolt, but he didn’t. He blew through his lips, opening his mouth as if to speak, then closing it, as if he were too shy.

  Sam tried to understand. Instead of reaching out to the stallion with her mind, she used her heart. He remembered the ranch, but how did his equine mind remember her?

  The stallion lowered his muzzle almost to the water. Instead of drinking, he uttered a low rumble that begged her to reply.

  “I took care of you, Zanzibar. When you were a foal and just weaned from your mom, I stayed with you, didn’t I, boy?”

 
; The stallion kept his head low, but the angle of his ears told Sam to keep talking.

  “Remember that thunderstorm when you were a yearling? It shook the barn walls and Dad let me stay, petting you all night until my fingers were stiff. I fell asleep and missed the school bus. Dad said when he came into the barn, you were standing over me like a big guard dog. So, I guess you took care of me, too.”

  He was a stallion now, an adult. What help could she give, that he couldn’t get from his herd?

  Her silence broke the spell. Zanzibar had become the Phantom once more. The stallion backed three splashing steps away, then lowered into the current, silver dapples glinting as he struck out for the other shore.

  What did the stallion want? He had a lush valley full of mares and foals. They were his family. She could offer him nothing but captivity. Even if Jake helped her use gentle ways to bring the stallion in, he’d hate her for it.

  Sam stared at the hills long after the horse vanished. Half of her wanted to hug this secret close. Half of her wanted to tell Jake.

  Buddy nuzzled her hand, then licked her palm with a long tongue, reminding her it was time to eat.

  They returned to the barn where Sam had stowed a full bottle. The calf tugged at the nipple. Her eyes rolled back and her tail switched in pure delight. Sam remembered when helping Zanzibar had been this simple.

  Things had changed so much in two years. Now Sam didn’t know what to do.

  The next morning Sam ran out to the barn before breakfast. She fed Buddy and turned her into a pasture adjoining the barn. The calf had the grassy enclosure to herself. Though she looked small out there alone, the calf would have a good time until it was time to go back to the barn for a midday bottle.

  Sam went back to the house and washed her hands.

  “Can I help you with anything, Gram?” she asked.

  If Gram answered, Sam didn’t notice. What she did hear was Jake’s spurs chiming before he sauntered through the kitchen door.

  “You’re in for the time of your life, Samantha.” Jake took his hat from fresh-washed hair and snatched a piece of bacon from the plate Gram placed on the table. “Wyatt’s going to let me drive his truck up to the mustang corrals at Willow Springs.”