Untamed Read online

  “Now, let’s see what I can help you with,” he said, handing her the cup.

  “Okay, what do you think of my mom’s note?”

  “I think, if you want to know your mom’s state of mind, you need to talk with Wyatt.”

  State of mind? Sam squirmed in the straight-backed chair. She was probably feeling paranoid because of the stuff Rachel was saying, but that phrase sounded suspicious.

  “That part about the antelope, and horses—” Sam broke off.

  “Louise had a habit of driving off-road to watch wildlife.” The sheriff shook his head. “I told her to be careful out there.”

  “Why? Was someone after her?”

  The sheriff made a halt sign with one hand.

  “That VW bus was unstable. I didn’t trust its emergency handling and neither did Wyatt. A sudden swerve, for instance, could make it overturn. And probably did.”

  Sam imagined stampeding horses or antelope. They’d part to go around a car. But she could also imagine a driver, someone softhearted like Mom was supposed to have been, swerving instinctively, to miss them.

  “I’ll run a copy of this,” the sheriff said, raising the note, “if you don’t mind.”

  He took the note to the copy machine. Was he just humoring her, or did he really think it was worth investigating?

  Mom, I’m doing my best, Sam thought.

  Then she asked the hardest question of all. “Everyone always says my mother died instantly.”

  Though he had his back to her, facing the copy machine, Sam saw the sheriff’s spine stiffen inside his gray uniform.

  “But what does that mean? What killed her?”

  The sheriff turned. “You’re thirteen. I’m not saying you don’t have a right to know, but I think you should ask your father.”

  It was too late for that, Sam thought. If Dad had wanted to tell her, he would have.

  “What if you call my dad?” Sam asked.

  She watched the sheriff, but it was impossible to figure out what he was thinking.

  “Okay,” the sheriff agreed. “I’ll just step into another office and call.”

  He left her alone, wondering if Dad would even be home. Sam didn’t see a clock in the office. There were no exterior windows to check daylight or darkness.

  And cows were starting to calve on the range, making Dad’s schedule unpredictable.

  Sam fidgeted. If Gram answered the phone, she’d refuse to let Sheriff Ballard tell her anything. Sam’s brain hated that possibility, but her heart thought it might not be so bad.

  “Your dad says ‘no secrets,’” Sheriff Ballard said as he reentered the office.

  He squatted to open the lowest drawer on a filing cabinet, seized a folder tab, and pulled.

  He slammed the drawer, then glared at the radio equipment that kept up a low-level chatter.

  Was he wishing he’d get called out on an emergency?

  “I don’t mind saying this is uncomfortable for me,” the sheriff told her, as he sat. “First, I’ll tell you straight up, there were no signs of foul play. None. We all cared about Louise. If we thought someone had caused her death, we would’ve gone after him.”

  Sam felt breathless for a minute.

  “What”—she felt as if something heavy compressed her chest, but she managed to get the question out—“made her die?”

  He read from the folder, snapped it closed, and crossed his arms on top of it.

  “The bus was upside down in a ditch running high with melted snow. It was a nice day and she had the windows rolled down. She drowned,” he said bluntly. “But since she was still wearing her seat belt, she was probably unconscious.”

  “Drowned. No one ever said that before.” Sam touched her forehead. She had the strangest falling sensation.

  “You’re not going to faint on me, are you?”

  “I’ve never fainted.”

  But the sheriff’s expression seemed to say there was always a first time. Sam didn’t know how, but she pulled herself together, straightening in the chair. She cleared her throat and went on.

  “Does Caleb Sawyer have a criminal record?” she asked.

  “Don’t worry about that,” he said. “There’s some minor stuff, but we’re not talking murder.”

  “Okay,” Sam said softly.

  Suddenly, that was enough. In fact, it was way too much.

  Sheriff Ballard went on talking. He’d investigate the possibility of antelope poaching and trespassing mustangs. BLM had federal marshals to deal with horse trouble.

  “I’ll go up and see Sawyer,” Sheriff Ballard said. When he went on, his words took on a warning tone. “This is nothing to be taking into your own hands.”

  “Okay,” Sam said again.

  There was more that she wanted to ask, but she felt worn out from emotion.

  “Your dad said Brynna would wait out front for you,” the sheriff said, standing. “You go along with her, and I’ll call if I uncover anything you’d find interesting.”

  Sam stood.

  Good manners must have been stamped on her brain cells, because she remembered to shake his hand and say thank you.

  “By the way,” Sheriff Ballard added when she was almost to the door, “good idea, picking up the shell casing.”

  Sam smiled. The compliment made her feel a little better. She waved and managed to find her way down the maze of buffed hallways to the front of the office building.

  Brynna’s white BLM truck was parked in front of the building, engine idling. Late afternoon sun glazed the windows, so Sam couldn’t see Brynna.

  She hoped her stepmother wasn’t in a chatty mood.

  Sam’s mind felt stuffed full. She wanted to go home and sleep.

  But Brynna didn’t even wait until Sam had climbed up into the truck to announce her bad news.

  Wearing her uniform and sunglasses, Brynna looked like the cold, unemotional bureaucrat Sam had thought she was on the first day they’d met at Willow Springs.

  Brynna’s pale pink lips were set in a line. Her chin raised high above her perfectly pressed collar.

  “The Phantom’s herd has settled down on private land.” Brynna kept her tone aloof and unfeeling, as if she was talking about a sudden growth of weeds.

  Sam struggled for an excuse, but then Brynna added, “One way or another, they’ll have to be removed.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Whose land are the mustangs on? Caleb Sawyer’s?” Sam demanded. “I want to go out there right now.”

  “That may be so,” Brynna replied, coolly, “but it’s not going to happen.”

  Brynna didn’t deny it was the hermit’s ranch, so Sam knew she’d guessed right.

  “Why not? Why would you protect someone like him instead of the horses?”

  “I’m not protecting him over the horses. If the horses were grazing on land he leased from BLM, it wouldn’t matter. But this is his home ranch.” Brynna gave a one-shouldered shrug as if she were helpless. “Under law, wild horses must stay on government land. It’s my job to make sure they do.”

  Brynna was really going now. She didn’t stop and Sam stayed silent.

  “Wild horses can’t go eat ranchers out of house and home. Those ranchers have a right to expect us to take the horses away.”

  “Away where?” Sam asked.

  Brynna was speeding onto the freeway now, glancing back over her left shoulder for oncoming traffic.

  “How do you think your dad would like it if mustangs were crowding our cattle?” she asked, ignoring Sam’s question.

  “Away where?” Sam demanded.

  “I won’t be shouted at,” Brynna said, settling into driving, eyes fixed on the road ahead. Sam knew she was being punished with silence.

  It wouldn’t work. She’d spent hours of her life waiting out Jake Ely. And Dad. Outlasting Brynna should be a piece of cake.

  Sam passed the time by staring out the window, hoping Brynna would change her mind about visiting the hermit’s ranch at Snake He
ad Peak. Sam pictured herself facing Caleb Sawyer. She’d ask him, point-blank, if he had quarreled with her mother.

  His guilt would show and she’d know if he was telling the truth.

  Or, Sam sighed, feeling the longing in her chest, even if they didn’t go to the ranch, if they only drove as far as Antelope Crossing, they might see the Phantom’s herd.

  She relived the moment when the powerful stallion had charged the shooter. He had sensed the man was a threat, but he went anyway, protecting his own.

  Still staring out the window, pretending to be casual, Sam tried another strategy on her stepmother.

  “Have you gone out to check for yourself that the mustangs are on his land?” Sam asked.

  “They’re there, Sam. You saw them. And, as far as removing the horses, well, helicopters are expensive,” Brynna said, as if it were a joke. When she noticed Sam wasn’t laughing, she added, “We won’t do anything drastic to begin.”

  “To begin?”

  “The mares are in foal, or have foals running alongside,” Brynna said patiently. “A gather would be too stressful. We’ll just try to show them it’s not a peaceful place, so they’ll change grazing grounds.”

  “What if they come back?”

  “We make it unpleasant for them, Sam, and if that fails, we’ll have no choice but to remove them from the range.”

  Then they’d have to put them up for adoption, Sam thought. She remembered a bay colt with a patch of white over one eye. She’d spotted him in the Phantom’s herd around Christmas. He’d be a lively yearling by now, but he’d be terrified by the BLM’s helicopter roundup and the crush of neighing horses trapped in a holding pen.

  No harm to horses, Mom’s note had vowed. Sam knew she and Mom were of one heart on this. She wouldn’t let Brynna, the BLM, or anyone else end the Phantom’s freedom. But she kept that promise to herself.

  “It’s not his normal territory, anyway.”

  “It wasn’t his territory last summer,” Brynna corrected. “Before that, who knows? Horses look for bunch grass. After years of drought followed by this wet winter, the growth patterns—for grass and everything else—are bound to change.”

  Brynna was probably right. What if the Phantom had returned his herd to a traditional grazing area? What if the Phantom’s sire and grandsire had grazed there? Maybe their herd had been the one Mom had watched.

  Still, Sam felt sure the man making the complaints was the one who’d sighted his rifle on the Phantom.

  How could Brynna not see that?

  “So, this report of trespassing horses is coming in at the same time that guy tried to shoot the Phantom. Doesn’t that strike you as strange?” Sam asked.

  Brynna frowned, then shook her head so hard that her red braid flipped over her shoulder.

  “You’re seeing coincidences because you found that note.” Brynna probably didn’t know she gave a faint nod. “I am taking part of that note as a reminder, though.”

  Sam didn’t trust the way Brynna’s voice had changed to a cheery lilt, so she just said, “Yeah?”

  “Remember that part about shorts and sunsuits? You’ve grown since you got here, so you must need spring clothes. How about tomorrow, after school, we go to Crane Crossing Mall and get you a few things?”

  I thought I was grounded, Sam thought.

  Sam didn’t remind Brynna, but she didn’t rush to agree.

  “Come on. Tomorrow’s Friday. It’s been a long week and I’ve been craving some pizza from Rico’s, that place in the food court.”

  “That’d be fine,” Sam decided.

  “Jen could come along,” Brynna offered.

  “No, that’s okay,” Sam said.

  She was mad at Jen, too. In fact, she was irritated with everyone, but she couldn’t quite hold a grudge.

  It was just barely possible, she supposed, that her determination was making her impatient.

  She stole a quick look at Brynna and couldn’t help admiring her. Intelligent and strong, already a success in an important job, she’d fallen in love with Dad and married him—and his family.

  She could have picked an easier man to love. Although horses had brought Dad and Brynna together, the fate of the mustangs often pulled them apart.

  Dad was a cattleman. He’d never be anything else. Brynna was a biologist, and though she classified both cattle and horses as intruders on the range, she worked to help them fit in where they could.

  Sam’s heart was opening just a crack, as the truck bumped across the River Bend bridge. Brynna might not be Mom, but she wasn’t bad for a stepmother.

  The horses in the ten-acre pasture raced along the fence when they drove into the ranch yard.

  As Sam watched Buddy gallop along with the horses, she decided the calf didn’t miss crossing the range with the slow-moving members of her own kind. She was happy here.

  Sam climbed from the truck, feeling pretty happy herself. Then Brynna had to go and wreck it.

  “Sam, be sensible,” Brynna said, as she started over to see Penny. “There’s no telling what your mother’s list meant. And honey, you’ll probably never know.”

  Sam considered stomping into the house to pout. Brynna was making her that crazy, but Dad and Dallas stood hands on hips, looking down and kicking at the dirt outside the new bunkhouse.

  Their arrangement had all the earmarks of a cowboy conference, and Sam couldn’t resist going to see what it was about.

  Dad looked up with a welcoming expression.

  “We’re just talking about those yellow cows,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Those yellow cows” went back to Sam’s childhood. Just as there’d always been a white stallion on this part of the range, there’d always been a line of Hereford cattle whose calves were born butterscotch yellow instead of brown.

  The first one Sam could remember had been named Daffodil. Ranchers rarely named cattle destined for dinner tables, but this heifer had been an exception. So had her calves.

  Sam remembered Daffodil had given birth to twin heifers named Petunia and Tulip, another set of twins called Iris and Poppy, and a single bull calf, Cactus. He had been sold to a rancher who’d admired him out on the range and offered to buy him.

  “Buttercup’s giving all the signs that she’s ready to calve, but something’s just not right,” Dallas said.

  “We’ve lost fewer heifers and calves since we started breeding for May calving,” Dad told Sam. “The weather’s better and they’ve eaten nutritious feed all winter, but no plan is perfect.”

  Sam understood Dad’s frustration. Each cow was worth over a thousand dollars. Those who had healthy calves each year contributed to River Bend’s well-being. When a cow died along with her unborn calf, it hurt twice as much. So it would pay to watch Buttercup carefully.

  Buddy was healthy and strong. She’d probably have lots of babies, Sam thought, and she was being selfish to want to keep her as a pet.

  But Dad was still talking about Buttercup.

  “Where’d you see her last?” he asked.

  “Out with that bunch in Bitterbrush Canyon,” Dallas said. “I’m just afraid if she’s not up to calving, the young one’ll have trouble with coyotes.”

  Dad smiled to see Sam listening so intently, but only half her mind was on the yellow cow. The Phantom and his herd often took a path through Bitterbrush Canyon, up the stair-step mesas, to the tunnel that led to their secret valley.

  Dallas was saying something about Ross and Pepper taking turns riding out at night, but Sam was thinking mustang mares would have to be equally careful. Newborn foals would be just as vulnerable to coyotes.

  Sam reminded herself it wasn’t the coyotes’ fault. They were always on the prowl for food, because they had to feed the puppies waiting at home.

  Just then, Blaze whined from his post at the bunkhouse door. He wagged his tail and scratched to be let in.

  Although the new bunkhouse that had been built for the HARP girls was more comfortable and modern, Sam pr
eferred this old one, built when Dad was a boy. It had a potbellied stove the cowboys still used for warmth, though they usually heated Gram’s dinner contributions in a modern microwave oven.

  Dallas pushed the door open for the Border collie and Sam heard Pepper practicing his harmonica. Blaze paused in the doorway, head lifted to sniff.

  Dad inhaled as loudly as the dog. “That’s nothing you whipped up,” he teased Dallas.

  “Crock-Pot beans and pork chops Grace left plugged in for us,” Dallas admitted, then he noticed Sam watching as he rubbed the arthritis-swollen thumb of one hand. “Your gram takes good care of us during calving time.”

  “Did my mom used to bring you chili oil for your arthritis?” Sam asked.

  “She did,” Dallas said, surprised. “I haven’t thought of that for a long time. No sense to it, that’s what she said, but it felt kinda good, rubbing it in. How’d you come to remember that?”

  “She found a list Louise made,” Dad explained.

  “That’s nice,” Dallas said. “Real nice.”

  But the worry in Dad’s eyes reminded Sam that he hadn’t talked with her since he’d given Sheriff Ballard permission to tell her everything.

  Gram was serving beans and pork chops in the house, too, apologizing for a meal that had cooked all day while she planted green beans, peas, and lettuce in her garden.

  “This weekend we’ll make lasagna,” Gram insisted. “Here, Samantha, I want you to read this and start letting it settle into your mind.”

  Sam took the index card. It had a red spatter on one corner. Lasagna sauce, she guessed. It was her mother’s recipe, written in her mother’s handwriting. Serves ??? it said at the bottom, reminding Sam of the question marks Mom had drawn as she wrote out her list, wondering if Caleb Sawyer had a criminal record.

  “Not that much to it, is there?” Brynna asked, glancing over Sam’s shoulder.

  “No,” Sam admitted. With its list of ingredients followed by assembly and cooking directions, it looked pretty simple, but Brynna’s comment still annoyed her.

  “I’ve found it helps to read the recipe over before you make it,” Gram said.