Golden Ghost (3 page)

It all happened in seconds, and then the horse was gone.

“Wait!” Jen pleaded, but she didn't wait to see if the horse stopped.

Together, the girls urged their mounts forward. The horses lunged with eagerness. Keen on following the palomino, they didn't seem to notice that their shoulders bumped as they took the turn around the schoolhouse.

Years of windblown dust hid stone paths through the schoolhouse garden. Ace's shod hooves slipped on rock. He didn't go down, but he slowed.

“The ravine!” Jen shouted, and sent Silly after the other palomino.

One closeup look at the ravine told Sam that Jen's pursuit wouldn't last long. Red-orange layers of earth had settled over purplish dirt. Though the place was barren, Sam heard the sound of water flowing around heaps of rocks.

Jen wasn't foolish enough to risk her horse's delicate legs in that boulder-strewn trap. No way.

But Jen kept riding. With tight-legged insistence, she pushed Silly on.

There must be a path through the rocks, Sam thought. She just couldn't see it from here. After all, the strange palomino had disappeared right through there, and she was no ghost.

Silly couldn't find a trail, at least not at a gallop. Her ears flicked in all directions and she squealed in frustration, trying to follow her rider's orders.

Jen looked frantically from one side of her mount's neck to the other, but then she seemed to give
up. She sagged back in the saddle. Obviously she couldn't find the path, either.

Sam was glad. She'd never seen Jen ride with such recklessness.

Silly gave a choked neigh. Was she caught? A hoof could easily lodge between rocks. But then Jen's voice came over the clatter of the mare's hooves.

“Okay,” Jen comforted. “Okay, girl. You did a great job, but she's gone.”

Looking over her shoulder, Jen backed Silly, step by step, out of the ravine. She didn't wheel the mare until she'd reached the almost-level schoolhouse garden. When Jen swung Silly around at last, Sam was amazed at her friend's joyous smile.

Wind clanged the school bell in noisy celebration. Silly pranced like a parade horse, and the braid hanging over Jen's shoulder, straight with a tassel on the end, looked like an exclamation mark.

“We found treasure after all,” Jen whooped. “And it's not some ordinary bag of gold. It's Rosa d'Oro, the lost Kenworthy palomino, alive as she can be!”

N
o wonder Jen had abandoned her usual good sense.

“That was her,” Jen insisted, as they dismounted in front of the sheriff's office to let the horses drink from a wooden trough of rainwater. “I'm positive.”

As Jen stared dreamily toward the ravine, Sam tried to recall what she'd heard about the Kenworthy palominos.

For decades, Jen's family had owned the Diamond K Ranch, and they'd been famous for their palominos. When years of drought had forced the Kenworthys to raise money or lose the ranch, they'd sold off the golden horses, one by one.

Even that hadn't been enough to save the Diamond K. When only five palominos remained, Jen's parents had had no choice but to sell the ranch. The buyer with the best offer had been Linc Slocum.

Linc Slocum had made a fortune through shady
deals and wild schemes that worked just often enough to keep him a millionaire. Since his arrival in Nevada, he'd used his money and toothpaste-commercial smile to buy the life of a Hollywood cowboy.

The Kenworthys' ranch had become part of his Wild West fantasy. And every ranch needed a weathered, no-nonsense foreman. Jed Kenworthy, a lifelong rancher with eyes that drooped like a bassett hound's, fit Linc Slocum's image of a foreman. So, even though Slocum had changed Diamond K into the Gold Dust Ranch, he'd kept Jed Kenworthy on to boss the cattle and cowboys.

That was what made Slocum's offer the best, Sam figured. Jen's family had stayed right at home.

But Sam didn't remember hearing any stories of a horse with a Spanish name.

“Tell me what happened again,” Sam urged. “And what was the horse's name?”

“Rosa d'Oro. ‘Golden Rose' is the translation. But there's not much to tell,” Jen said.

“How can you say that? If this really is her—”

“Yeah, I know,” Jen said. Her face lit up and she hugged her ribs with delight. “But no one knows what happened, exactly.” Jen shook her head, then launched into a story. “Dad kept five horses—Golden Champagne, Sonora Sundance, Silk Stockings, Mantilla, and Golden Rose—two stallions and three mares, just in case he could get the breeding farm up and running again. But his idea fizzled, big time. He
knew Mom's mare, Mantilla, might not make a brood mare, because she was too old, but Silly was a disappointment,” Jen's voice softened and she petted her palomino as the mare rubbed her damp muzzle on Jen's shoulder.

Sam tried to think of Silly as Silk Stockings. The sixteen-hand palomino Quarter horse had flashy white stockings and near-perfect conformation. How could she be a disappointment?

“She's infertile,” Jen explained. “Even though she's been bred a dozen times, she never gets pregnant. And then when Linc bought Champ, he insisted on having him gelded, so that put him out of the breeding program.”

“Slocum doesn't deserve him,” Sam said.

Why had Jed Kenworthy sold Champ to Linc Slocum? The rich man wasn't much of a rider. Champ's temperament and training were wasted on him. Slocum saw the palomino as just another pretty toy.

“Dad knew that, but Slocum traded the house for Champ,” Jen explained. “We don't have to pay rent or anything. He traded us straight across.”

“Wow.” Sam gasped. A horse for a house. Was any horse worth that much money?

“So that left Sundance and Rose for breeding stock.” Jen held up her hand, folded down three fingers and left two upright. “Dad bought Rose from a ranch in Mexico. Her bloodlines went back
to conquistadors' horses brought from Spain hundreds of years ago. She was the Moorish type of palomino Queen Isabella liked. You know, Queen Isabella who gave Christopher Columbus his money?”

Sam nodded, but asked, “Moorish?”

“She had the black skin and delicate face of an Arabian and she was a golden butterscotch color.” Grinning, Jen pointed toward the ravine. “I didn't get a great look at her, but from what I remember, that horse could be her twin.

“Anyway, Dad got her just before things went bad. I remember Mom didn't want to spend the money because Rose was just a two-year-old and they had to wait for her to mature before they could show or breed her.”

“So, your family called her Rose. Not Rosa de…” Sam began.

“Rose was her stable name, but I wonder if she'd remember it.” Jen paused and tapped her index finger against lips that were becoming chapped from the high desert wind. “Mom and Dad used to joke that they'd owned Rose for such a short time, she still spoke Spanish.”

When Jen mentioned her parents, her face turned from thoughtful to worried.

Jed and Lila Kenworthy were quarreling. According to Jen, their fights had been going on for close to a year. Most were about staying on the ranch or moving to town.

Jen feared they were on the brink of a divorce.

“At least they had good memories of her,” Sam put in, though she knew it was a lame thing to say.

Jen shook her head. “Not really. Dad says Rose was his last hope, and when he woke up one morning to find her gone, he just lost heart. A week later he started looking for a buyer for the Diamond K.”

What could she say to help Jen? Sam bit her lower lip.

“While you and your mom were gone, these last few days, didn't your dad have a chance to rethink moving?”

“We thought it would help, having the house to himself,” Jen said. “But all these things that are worrying him—” Jen threw up her hands in frustration. “They're real problems, but they're not our problems, you know what I mean? He's worried about money. Okay, I get that, but do you know why? Because he thinks I want cooler clothes.”

Sam knew her astonishment must have shown, because Jen was nodding in agreement with her expression.

“Yeah, clothes for me, when I love getting my stuff from thrift stores.” Jen parted her jacket to look down at her outfit. “Where else could I find a hot-pink blouse to go with these cranberry-colored cords? And he thinks Mom wants a new computer. Mom doesn't care anything about computers. She'd rather have a new mop, and I'm not joking. But once,
just once, she mentioned something about it being slow logging on, when she was ordering a library book to be brought out on the bookmobile.”

“Haven't you told him—”

“Oh, we've told him,” Jen said. “And now his latest thing, last night, when we got home, isn't for me and Mom. He's been reading that weird little newspaper they hand out at the feed store, and he says everyone's trying to take advantage of the West anyway, so he might as well go to the city. The article that got him going was about European horse meat dealers coming to Nevada secretly, to buy wild horses.”

“What?” Sam felt chills like icy rain down her spine. “It's not true, is it?”

“Of course not,” Jen said.

Sam realized she'd closed her eyes against the nightmare images rushing into her mind. She opened her eyes wide. She could think about that later. Right now, she had to act like a best friend and help Jen.

“But Golden Rose could change everything, right?” Sam wanted to bite her tongue. False hope wasn't the kind of help Jen needed. But it was too late to take her words back.

“It
could
help! It really could!” Jen leaped up and hugged Sam's neck.

Jen jumped with joy, as far as her heavy coat allowed.

Sam smiled. She really hoped everything worked
out. But what if Jen pinned all her hopes on this horse and it wasn't Golden Rose?

“You promise you won't tell anyone,” Jen said, as they remounted and left the canyon.

“If you didn't believe me when I swore the first time, why should you believe me the tenth?” Sam asked, but Jen was too lost in daydreams to answer.

 

While Sam took notes on the ghost town of Nugget, Jen kept staring at the ravine.

“I don't want anyone to know, except you, until I can catch her,” Jen blurted.

“Hope you can rope better than I can, because—”

“Rope her? And traumatize her completely?” Jen gasped. “I'm not taking a chance on that. She'll just get used to me, and when she does, I'll show her to my dad.”

And we'll all live happily every after
, Jen's voice implied.

“You sound pretty sure that will end his plan to move,” Sam said.

“I am sure,” Jen snapped. “And I don't know why you're calling it a
plan
. It's more of a crazy idea. Don't you want me to stay?”

“Jen, you're my best friend in the world,” Sam said. She swallowed hard and tried to keep her voice relaxed, but each time she thought of Jen moving, tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. “I hated it when you were gone for a few days. What
do you think would happen to me if you actually moved?”

Jen gave a lopsided smile. “I think you'd be hanging around with Rachel and Daisy inside a week.”

Rachel was Linc Slocum's beautiful, stuck-up daughter and Daisy was her pretty but airheaded friend.

“Oh, right. There's as much chance of that as—” Sam broke off. She'd just seen something almost as unlikely. “Tell me that's another mirage and I'll believe you.”

Jen followed Sam's gaze across the range.

A sleek brown Thoroughbred came toward them at a gentle trot.

His rider rose in short stirrups. Posting.

“Who, around here, rides English?” Jen asked.

“Don't you recognize the horse?” Sam asked.

The animal's chocolate-colored neck and front legs gleamed in the winter sun. His body lined out like that of a greyhound.

“Oh my gosh,” Jen murmured. “It's Sky and Ryan.”

Ryan Slocum was Rachel's brother. He'd lived with their mother in Nottingham, England, until about two months ago. Sky Ranger was a Thoroughbred that Linc Slocum used for endurance work. Like chasing mustangs.

The first time Sam had seen the gelding, Linc had been using him to pursue the Phantom.

“You both live on the same ranch and you didn't know he rode English?” Sam asked. She looked over at Jen in time to see her friend push her glasses firmly up on her nose.

“Since he's been home, I've seen him around the horses,” Jen said, lifting one shoulder. “But I haven't seen him ride.”

“He's coming this way,” Sam said.

Ryan didn't wear fancy jodhpurs, and Sam was glad. Her first impressions of the guy had been positive, and she wouldn't like it if people made fun of him. Around here, English riding gear would guarantee it.

Not that Jen looked like
she'd
mock him. She took in Ryan's jeans, glossy brown boots, and the open-necked white shirt that showed above his burgundy sweater as if she were memorizing them.

Ryan lifted a hand. They returned his wave, but he was still too far off for conversation.

“Don't—” Jen began.

“I won't tell him you saw Golden Rose.” Sam sighed in frustration.

“Well, good,” Jen said as Silly and Ace neighed a greeting. “But I was going to say, don't give him a hard time about riding Sky.”

Sam mulled that over. Why should she? Unless he was getting Sky in shape for something she wouldn't approve of.

“Hallo,” Ryan said.

His British accent made Sam smile. She just couldn't help it.

He didn't look like the guys from Darton High and he didn't act like them. He wore his coffee-brown hair a little long and didn't try to hide his intelligence.

“Hi,” Sam said. “Why are you riding Sky way out here? Training for something?”

Jen groaned and shot Sam a scolding look, but Ryan didn't seem to take offense.

“Not really,” he said. “The horse is rarely ridden and needed some work. Why? Is there an event coming up?”

Sam shrugged.

“In any case, I've taken him on as a project. Him and that lovely little Appaloosa, Hotspot. I must say, I don't understand why my father isn't keen on keeping the foal. What could he possibly have against that beautiful mare?”

“I think it's more what he has against the stallion. The father,” Jen said.

“Yes?” Ryan looked intrigued and his tone coaxed them to go on.

“Didn't he tell you?” Sam asked.

“Actually, no.” Ryan looked embarrassed. Because his father wouldn't talk with him? Or maybe because he was altogether ashamed of having Linc Slocum for a father.

“Was it one of your wild mustangs?” Ryan guessed.

“Probably not,” Sam said. “She was stolen right out of a Gold Dust Ranch pasture by a stallion who turned out to be an endurance champion named Diablo.”

Ryan rubbed Sky's neck as if assuring him Diablo would be a weak opponent. He mulled over the information for so long, Jen shifted in her saddle and Sam studied Sky.

The gelding hadn't broken a sweat and wasn't breathing hard. If Ryan was training for something, his horse appeared to be in top form.

“My father can be rather eccentric,” Ryan said, finally.

Although the urge to applaud Ryan's conclusion was strong, Sam didn't. Saying something critical about your father was one thing. Listening to someone else say he was a nutcase was something else again.

Sam stuck to a safe topic. “How far are you taking him?”

For the first time, Ryan looked uncomfortable, and Sam felt instantly suspicious. Slocums were not to be trusted, even cute ones with accents.

“Not far,” he said. “Actually, I often let him go where he likes.”

A flush colored Ryan's skin and Sam glanced at Jen to see if she'd noticed. Probably so. Jen wouldn't meet Sam's eyes, but she was blushing, too.

Once more, Ryan held up his hand, this time in farewell.

“What's he's hiding?” Sam asked as soon as he'd ridden out of earshot.

“Nothing,” Jen said. “He's embarrassed that he lets the horse be the boss.”

“Think so?” Sam asked. “That really didn't seem like a very good explanation.”