Untamed Page 9

  “She’ll have plenty of time to do that and have it ready when we get home from the range Saturday night,” Dad said.

  Sam felt her eyes widen. Dad had been acting nice tonight. Nicer than normal, even. So, he couldn’t mean what she thought he did.

  “You all are riding out…?” Sam began.

  “We’re going to need everyone spread out across the cows’ usual territory, making sure calving is going fine. Your gram wasn’t planning to go, but I asked her to take your place.” Dad glanced down at his hands. “Now, I’m going upstairs to wash up. You do the same and help your gram get dinner on the table.”

  Moving like a sleepwalker, Sam crossed to the kitchen sink and used the bar of white soap Gram kept there. She rubbed her palms together for a long time.

  “He doesn’t want you to make a habit of doing dangerous things and keeping them from us,” Gram said, handing Sam a clean towel.

  “I know,” Sam said, but she was angry all over again.

  It wasn’t fair. Everyone else would ride out in the cool May morning with saddlebags full of lunch. They’d stay on horseback all day long, checking hills and canyons, gulches and streamside pastures for cows and their babies. All day, they’d have the sun on their cheeks and the wind in their hair.

  She’d be left at home, and she’d done nothing wrong. She’d neglected to tell Dad something, but that wasn’t the same as actually doing something wrong.

  Sam stared at the recipe card sitting on the kitchen counter. Her mother had drawn an asterisk and written a footnote that said: “Chill knife thoroughly before chopping onions. Prevents tears!!!”

  Thanks, Mom, Sam thought as she hung the towel back over its rack, but I’ll be crying over more than onions.

  Chapter Twelve

  After dinner, Brynna helped Gram with the dishes while Dad took Sam into the living room. He turned on a lamp, but not the television, and asked Sam to sit down on the couch.

  Weak from all the trouble she was in, Sam sank into the couch cushions, on top of a book.

  Sam pulled it out from under herself. The thick scrapbook was covered in gold brocade. It looked vaguely familiar, but she didn’t recognize it until she turned it over. The lettering on the front said, “Our Wedding.”

  “Oh,” Sam said. She felt strange holding it. “I haven’t seen this in a long time.”

  “It’s been put away,” Dad said as he settled beside her. “I’ve been thinking, though, since you heard about the end of it all from Sheriff Ballard, you might like to see how our life together began.”

  Sam’s eyes filled with tears, but she refused to let them fall. When Dad put it that way, Mom’s life sounded so short. For a moment her hands stroked the book’s cover, and then she looked inside.

  The scrapbook was as energetic and disorganized as everything else of her mother’s. The first snapshots showed Mom before the wedding. Her hair looked perfectly styled. Glossy and woven with daisies, it fell in red waves to her elbows. Mom wore jeans. She was eating a sandwich and talking on the phone while she held out a placating hand to a very young Aunt Sue. Dressed in a long, pink gown, Mom’s sister must have been telling Mom to hurry. Gram stood beside them both, in a full-skirted blue dress, grinning.

  “Mom looks like a hippie,” Sam said.

  “I guess she was, in a way,” Dad replied.

  The only formal photograph covered an entire page. It showed the wedding ceremony itself, inside the Darton Methodist Church. Mom and Dad faced each other, holding hands. Sam couldn’t see their expressions, and probably no one else had, either. They were pledging to love each other forever, so why should they look at anyone else?

  Sam sniffed and blinked, telling herself the photograph only looked blurry because of the multicolored sunlight streaming down on them from stained-glass windows.

  A copy of the wedding invitation, a pressed daisy, and a silver-edged pink napkin bearing a lipsticked mouth print were stuck haphazardly under the plastic of the next page. A tiny slip of paper—half of one, really—that might have been from a fortune cookie, read, “and then there was you.”

  Sam glanced up to see if Dad was ready for her to turn the page, but he was staring off, not looking at her or the album.

  More pictures had been taken here at the ranch. Mom’s lacy white peasant dress matched Aunt Sue’s pink one, but while Mom was laughing in every picture, Aunt Sue seemed uncomfortable. Here, she adjusted the wreath of wild flowers on her hair. There, she frowned at the big dogs gamboling in Mom’s wake.

  Sam recognized Jake’s parents, dancing together even though each held a wriggling toddler. And there was Helen Coley, who worked at the Slocum house now. But in this picture, she wore a spring-green pantsuit and rolled her eyes in delight over something she’d just eaten from a buffet plate. Lila and Jed Kenworthy stood shoulder to shoulder clapping, whether to music or Mom’s antics, Sam couldn’t tell.

  Even though the pictures had been taken fifteen years before, Dad didn’t look much different than he did now. His smile had been a little broader, without the lines that bracketed it now. But he looked like what he was, a cowboy, and in every picture he was touching Mom.

  No, Sam thought, as she checked each page, it was more like Dad was reaching for her, trying to keep in touch as she stood on her toes fixing a bell-shaped decoration, or squatted to talk with a toddler. He reached up for the reins as Mom, skirt hiked up and bare feet dangling, sat astride a spirited, half-rearing Sweetheart.

  Even in the last picture, where they were dancing, Mom had twirled out to the end of Dad’s arm. Her head was thrown back with giggles and the hem of her skirt was held up with one hand. The fingertips of the other hand were outstretched, just missing Dad’s grasp.

  “It shows, doesn’t it?” Dad studied the photo. “I could never really hold on to her.”

  “Sheriff Ballard said her VW bus was unstable,” Sam began.

  “It was, and she knew it.” Dad’s hands closed into fists, until he met Sam’s eyes. “Anytime she went somewhere with you, though, she took the Buick and strapped you into one of those baby car seats.”

  “Why did you let her drive it?” Sam heard her own beseeching tone.

  “Sam, I’ve asked myself that a million times. Truth is, there was no telling Louise what to do and what not to do. She knew her own mind.” Dad wore a lopsided smile as he added, “And sometimes, she just plain let her feelings run away with her.”

  “Or maybe she was thinking about something else. Like Caleb Sawyer,” Sam said. “Why did she put that stuff on her list?”

  “I’ve been thinking on that, and it’s like I said before. She had some idea he was hurting wild horses to keep them off his land.”

  “Do you think he was?”

  “I don’t know,” Dad said. “Caleb’s always been a loner. Rumor says he was a mustanger in the old days. Maybe that kind of talk got her going. And since his is just a little cow-calf operation, everyone’s always wondered how he pays the taxes on that ranch, and where he gets his money.”

  Money. Sam sat up straighter. One name came to her mind: Linc Slocum.

  And hadn’t Brynna said Caleb used Slocum’s name every time he called BLM to get the horses off his land? What were those two planning? Someone needed to question them both.

  “Sam.” Brynna’s tone was apologetic as she stuck her head into the living room. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but Jen’s on the phone. Grace said she called earlier, too.”

  In the minute that Sam hesitated, deciding just how mad she was at Jen, she noticed Brynna’s expression. Not since the first days after the honeymoon had Sam seen Brynna look so unsure.

  Brynna’s blue eyes flicked from Dad to Sam and back again. She cared about them both, and the horses, but then there was Mom, Dad’s first love. Sam didn’t enjoy Brynna’s suffering, but she wasn’t about to stop following the clues left in Mom’s note.

  “We’re done here,” Dad said, rising.

  “I’ll talk with Jen,” Sam said.
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  As she started for the kitchen, Sam heard Dad talking behind her.

  “We’ve still got some daylight left. How ’bout going for a ride? It’ll help Penny settle in and I’ll work some of the orneriness out of Strawberry.”

  “Oh,” Sam said, turning, “I forgot to tell you.” She hesitated, seeing Dad’s arm around Brynna’s shoulders. “Strawberry has been mean to Penny.” It seemed sort of useless to mention it now, but Sam added, “I saw her this morning.”

  “Thanks,” Brynna said, “I knew I could count on you to help with her.”

  Sam felt a little guilty as she picked up the telephone receiver from the kitchen counter.

  “Hello?” she said, but heard only dial tone. Sam hung up the phone. “I guess she got tired of waiting.”

  “Call her back,” Gram said.

  Sam’s hand was still on the receiver when the phone rang again. This time it was Jake.

  “Hi,” she said in surprise. Sure, Jake had said he would call, but he rarely did. Face-to-face communication was tough enough for him. On the phone, she had to imagine half of what he intended to say. “Did you call to tell me your idea about the horses?”

  “Not mine, really.”

  “Then whose?”

  “Dad and Grandfather.”

  Jake’s grandfather, MacArthur Ely, was an elder in the Shoshone tribe, and he’d lived here all his life. If he was suspicious of Caleb Sawyer, there was definitely something to be suspicious about.

  “Okay,” Sam said, making her tone encouraging. As she waited, Dad and Brynna passed through the kitchen. “What did they say?”

  “Shan Stonerow and Sawyer used to be partners.”

  Sam’s pulse sped up. She’d never met either man, but Shan Stonerow was rumored to be a rough and unscrupulous horse tamer. “Quick and dirty” was the way Mac, Jake’s grandfather, had described Stonerow’s way of training unbroken horses.

  “What did they do to the horses?” Sam asked.

  “Don’t know for sure, but they took out-of-state hunters after pronghorn during calving season.”

  “I thought baby pronghorn were called fawns.”

  “They are,” Jake said.

  “And Sheriff Ballard said pronghorn season was in the fall.”

  “It is. You gonna let me talk?”

  Sam wanted to snap that she’d been dragging every word out of him. But she didn’t.

  Instead, she said, “Go ahead, Jake. Sorry.”

  “I mean, while most ranchers were tending their stock, they made a fortune with illegal hunts.”

  Sam’s imagination filled in the details, picturing the brown and white pronghorn. They were incredibly fast and they could jump over every rock or clump of sagebrush, but some might still be pregnant in spring. Others would be slowed by newborns. They’d be easier targets than usual, local ranchers would be distracted by calving, so they wouldn’t notice the poaching, and the horses would just be in the way.

  It would be simple for dishonest men to charge lots of money for a guaranteed trophy, and never get caught.

  Except by Mom.

  “I’ve got to tell Sheriff Ballard.”

  “One problem,” Jake said.

  “Don’t look for a way to stop me, Jake Ely.”

  “Be sensible for once,” Jake said.

  Sam almost exploded. Twice tonight she’d been ordered to be sensible. As far as she could tell, she was the only one who was! How sensible were Brynna and Jake being, ignoring a crime taking place right under their noses?

  “…all hearsay,” Jake was going on. “It’s probably true, but it was a long time ago….”

  “I bet he’s still doing it,” Sam insisted. “I saw him try to shoot the Phantom!”

  “No witnesses. No evidence.”

  “I’m a witness!” she growled. “And I gave Sheriff Ballard some evidence.”

  The sheriff hadn’t been excited by her testimony or Mom’s note. If he had, he would have marched out and arrested Caleb Sawyer.

  She hated it, but the sheriff had to go by what he could prove. Then, all at once, she knew what to do.

  “I’ll tell Brynna!” Sam shouted.

  “That pierced my eardrum,” Jake complained.

  “Okay, but don’t you think that’s what I should do? She has the power of the federal government behind her, right? The horses are under government protection, so people can’t go around shooting them, or even at them. Besides—”

  “Take a breath, Brat.”

  “—she knows a bunch of Division of Wildlife guys and they could handle the poaching part of it and put Sawyer away!”

  “Maybe.” Jake sounded unconvinced. “But it’s been a long time.”

  “If he’s gotten away with it for a long time, wouldn’t arresting him be even more”—Sam fumbled for a word—“urgent?”

  “Maybe,” Jake repeated.

  Sam glanced around the kitchen. Gram had left.

  Just the same, Sam whispered as she said, “Well, if they don’t do anything about it—”

  “Don’t say it,” Jake interrupted. “Don’t even say something as stupid and pigheaded as that. You’re already grounded. Do you want them to send you back to San Francisco?”

  “What?”

  “I said, be smart, Samantha.”

  “That’s not what you said.” Sam swallowed. Jake had been gone when Dad said she’d been safer in San Francisco. “Who told you my dad—?”

  “Nobody,” Jake said. He let the word fall like a rock.

  But somehow he’d known. Sam drew a deep breath.

  In her mind, she looked from Aunt Sue’s bay window and saw nothing but fog spangled with streetlights.

  Nothing could be worse than being sent away from the ranch and Ace and the Phantom, but that would sure make life easier for Brynna and Dad and Gram, since they all wanted her out of harm’s way.

  The cowboys could take over her chores and Brynna could hire Jake and Jen to work with the HARP girls. Sam wondered if she’d be missed at all.

  “I haven’t heard anything,” Jake insisted. “That was just a ‘what if.’”

  “Maybe,” Sam said, giving him a taste of his own brevity.

  “Look, do you want a ride in to school tomorrow?” Jake asked. “I don’t trust you to get there on your own.”

  Where did he think she was going to go? And then she knew. Jake thought she’d go face Caleb Sawyer herself.

  “I’ll get there,” Sam said. “But first I need to talk with Jen. She owes me a big favor, and I’ve just figured out how she can pay me back.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sam didn’t know whether it was excitement or fear that kept her from eating the next morning.

  Her mind had assembled, scattered, and reassembled jigsaw puzzle pieces of information all night long.

  The homemade cinnamon rolls had smelled so good that she’d given in to Gram’s urging to take one, carefully wrapped, in her backpack, but she wasn’t sure she’d be able to swallow it.

  Gram had just paused to let her off at the bus stop and Sam had barely opened the Buick door when Jen, wearing new pink corduroy pants and a short-sleeved fuchsia turtleneck, descended on Sam.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Don’t be mad at me,” Jen said, pulling Sam by the arm when she drew back. “As a good friend, I know I owe you a crazy spell after the way I was acting when my parents were messed up!”

  Jen wouldn’t let Sam escape. She wrapped her in a hug.

  “And I know that this is a much bigger deal than the stuff with Golden Rose because it’s your mom. So just don’t say anything.”

  “Can I breathe, if I promise not to say anything?”

  “I guess,” Jen said. “And actually, you’re allowed to talk, if you promise not to yell at me.”

  “I won’t yell, but I have a question and a favor to ask,” Sam said.

  She told Jen about Jake’s theory and noticed her friend was nodding.

  “Oh, and here’s the best part. I thin
k someone’s trying to keep us away from there. Someone called the sheriff and reported us!”

  “What do you mean?” Jen asked.

  “That afternoon when we saw the guy with the gun? Someone called the sheriff anonymously from Crane Crossing Mall—”

  “He traced the call?” Jen’s voice was faint.

  “—and reported…” Sam’s voice trailed off as Jen’s face turned milky and her eyes grew round behind her glasses.

  “It was me,” Jen confessed. “I didn’t want whoever it was to get away with it, and I was afraid, with the stuff Rachel was saying about you, well, they wouldn’t take you seriously, but am I in trouble?”

  It was Sam’s turn to hug Jen. Her best friend had tried to protect her, even though she knew it might get her in trouble.

  “He doesn’t care who it was,” Sam said once she’d released Jen. “He said it wasn’t important, just someone being a good citizen.”

  “He’s right,” Jen said. Then, after she’d caught her breath, Jen agreed the pronghorn-poaching scheme sounded just like something Linc Slocum would be involved in.

  “It’s just his kind of skullduggery, but he wasn’t around back then. He didn’t come to Nevada until about two years ago.”

  “I thought of that,” Sam said. “But—”

  “But it’s exactly his kind of creepy, money-making scheme,” Jen agreed. Then she looked faintly confused. “Hey, do you have something delicious in your backpack, or is that new perfume?”

  “Not perfume,” Sam said, brushing her friend’s curiosity aside. “But listen, I told Brynna about Jake’s theory, and she says if Sawyer was leading illegal hunts on public lands or harming mustangs, he’s dead meat.”

  “She said that?” Jen gasped.

  “Not exactly,” Sam admitted, “but she had that look in her eye.”

  Jen didn’t speak. Instead, she very pointedly stuck out her tongue and pretended to bite it.

  Sam smiled. Jen was trying not to lecture Sam about Brynna’s value as a stepmother again.

  “You don’t have to tell me. I know Dad could have married a person who was a lot worse,” Sam said.