Desert Dancer (12 page)

The mare plodded into Ace's pen. She didn't shy when the gelding slid his barrel along hers. Instead, Queen stood still. The muscles bunched on her right side and she held her injured hoof just clear of the ground. When Ace sniffed her with great interest, she allowed it. She only flinched once or twice, when his attention grew too rough.

The lead mare made no protest when Ace stood beside her.

Queen slung her head over his withers and closed her eyes, glad to have a friend.

“W
yatt's first aid stuff in the tack room?” Jake asked. “Yes,” Sam said. “What do you need?”

“Something for pain until we can get Dr. Scott here.”

Sam didn't want to tell him, but she did. “He can't come.” She almost flinched at the hard look Jake flashed her. “I called earlier tonight and his answering machine said he was stuck at Deerpath Ranch.”

With a quick shake of his head, Jake disappeared into the tack room.

Like it's my fault
, Sam thought. But she didn't say it. She didn't even stick her tongue out at Jake's back, although she wanted to do it. Jake was like Dad. Both turned hard and silent when they felt powerless.

“I'll go inside and call, anyway,” she told him. “He said he'd be checking his messages.”

Sam heard the muffled rattle of pills inside a plastic bottle, then Jake finally answered her.

“Instead of that, how 'bout rubbing Tank down? Check his legs. He slid bad a couple times. If you find any swelling, deal with it.”

Gee, what a genius suggestion
, Sam thought. Yelling at Jake for being bossy wouldn't help now, so she didn't. But Sam really wished there was someone around to appreciate her maturity.

She took care of Tank. The Quarter horse seemed sound, only eager to get back to his friends. When she returned from turning him out with the other saddle horses, she found Jake squirting a pain-medicine paste into the corner of Queen's mouth.

The mare shook her head in weary resistance, but she was done fighting.

Sam could hardly believe it when Jake finished tidying up and started toward his truck. He hadn't said another word since ordering her to care for Tank.

Sam went after him, lengthening her strides to keep up. She wasn't sure what to say, but she knew she had to say something.

“Jake, it's not your fault.”

“You got that right,” he snapped, but he kept walking.

“It's nobody's fault,” she insisted. “It was all an accident.”

“An
accident
you didn't tell me she was the Phantom's lead mare, so she sure as heck wouldn't go where she was led?”

“I didn't think it mattered. You were only taking her a few yards!”

Jake brushed her words aside like a pesky bug.

“And I s'pose you just forgot to tell me she was already injured?”

“She has a sand crack,” Sam began, but Jake countered her soothing tone by yanking open the truck door and climbing inside.

“Please don't insult me by sounding patient,” he said. Then he closed the door in Sam's face.

“I could strangle you, Jake Ely!” she shouted. How dare he cut her off in mid-sentence?

Sam paced two steps away. She hadn't done one thing to make him act this way. She'd been handling things just fine until he showed up!

Sam turned on her heel and came back, yelling, “BLM wasn't too worried about that crack. Dr. Scott—”

Sam jumped back as she heard Jake put the truck into reverse.

“Some friend you are!” she hollered, then slapped the truck fender as he passed. “Ow, ow, ow!” Sam drew back her stinging hand and shook it.

As she stalked toward the porch light, cradling her hand against her chest, she saw the curtain on the kitchen window drop back into place.

 

Again, Sam dreamed of falling. Circus music played as she tumbled through a star-strewn sky. Wind whistled past her ears.

In the dream, it was both summer and winter. She cartwheeled toward Earth. Below her, Dad was shirtless and perspiring as he mowed a lawn. She spun round and round, light as a snowflake, sure she was about to hit the ground and melt, but Dad was deaf to her screams.

Sam sat up in the darkness. Heart pounding, she listened.

Cougar was asleep on the quilt covering her feet. He made a tiny mew of complaint, but he didn't jump off the bed, just merely rearranged himself.

Sam stared at each corner of her room and saw nothing but the normal jumble of shelves and clothes and posters.

It was only a dream,
she told herself, but the ugly sensation persisted. She reached around and touched the space between her shoulder blades. It wasn't sore. In her dream, someone she loved had pushed her.

She hadn't seen the person's face, but as she was falling and begging Dad for help, she'd been choked with a feeling of loss.

She scooted to the end of her bed and polished an opening in the frost covering her window. She looked through. She stared until multicolored dots frenzied in front of her eyes, but saw nothing out of the ordinary.
No ghostly horses galloped on the wild side of the river. No Phantom waited for her in the shallows of La Charla. A pair of headlights appeared on the highway. They moved slowly until a second set of lights materialized. Then, the first pair sped on and the second set slowed and turned in.

The sound of the pickup truck bumping over the River Bend bridge told her Dallas had finally come home. But it was the dream, not Dallas, that had wakened her.

The dream had seemed so real, but maybe her mind was just recycling the feel of falling from Ace. Maybe she was sick of making adult decisions, and needed Dad's help.

Sam sighed. She wasn't a psychiatrist or a psychic, so she'd probably never know.

Just then, a high-pitched neigh of longing rang from the barn. Sam closed her eyes, trying to block the sound of Queen calling to her herd.

Sam heard the scuff of Aunt Sue's slippers and smelled the scent of orange spice tea from the hall outside her room.

“She sounds lonely, doesn't she?” Aunt Sue's voice came from the darkness.

“Yes,” Sam answered, surprised the sound had woken Aunt Sue, who slept to the hooting of foghorns and the metallic rumble of cable cars. Or maybe she hadn't been to bed yet.

“She'd be suffering even worse out in the, you
know, terrain,” Aunt Sue said.

“Uh-huh,” Sam said. In spite of her melancholy, she smiled.

Aunt Sue had a long way to go to be a ranch woman, but she was trying.

 

Sam woke out of a sound sleep to the knowledge someone was standing beside her bed.

“There's a man in the yard, walking toward the barn.”

“Huh?” Sam sat up.

Her room was filled with sunlight and Aunt Sue looked down at her. Sam shoved her auburn hair back from her face and rubbed her fingers on her cheeks. Did improved circulation wake you up?

“I said…”

“What's he look like?” Sam swung her legs from beneath the covers.

“He's a young man with glasses and a very purposeful walk.”

“Dr. Scott,” Sam said. She replaced her nightgown with jeans, a thermal undershirt and sweater, thick socks, and boots. “He's a good guy,” she explained. “He did such a great job at a rodeo, once, that Brynna put him on retainer for Willow Springs.”

“The place we went to get the wild horse,” Aunt Sue clarified.

“Yeah, but everyone around here uses him when they can,” Sam said. Then she ran down the stairs,
wishing Callie was here to listen to Dr. Scott's assessment of her mare.

“I suppose it's futile to ask you to eat breakfast first,” Aunt Sue called after her.

“Well.” Sam tried to be polite. “I shouldn't be too long.”

“Would you be tempted by cinnamon rolls?” Aunt Sue asked as she padded after her in fuzzy pink slippers.

“Oh yum,” Sam said. “With white icing you squeeze out of a plastic packet?”

“None other,” Aunt Sue's voice teased, as if baiting a trap.

“Then I really won't be long,” Sam said. She bolted from the house with Blaze close behind.

The Border collie was glad to escape from the house. Aunt Sue had heard a radio report detailing the number of household pets eaten by coyotes each year. She insisted she was keeping Blaze safe, even when Sam pointed out that Blaze was a pretty big dog to be eaten and had, in fact, scared off more than his share of coyotes.

Aunt Sue didn't want to hear it.

When they reached the barn door, Blaze paused. He whined, wanting to enter the barn for a look at Queen. But a familiar scent stopped him. Since Dr. Scott had given him his annual shots, Blaze had kept his distance from the young vet.

Blaze circled twice, scratched the cold ground,
then settled with a grunt.

Dallas and Dr. Scott had turned Ace into the outside corral and improvised a squeeze chute in his pen inside the warm barn, so they could examine and doctor Queen.

The dun's red coat was stiff with old sweat that needed to be brushed out. It was also wet with new sweat that said she was unhappy again.

Queen's head turned and her dark eyes glared at Sam.

She'd charge right at me
, Sam thought,
if she could get loose
.

Sam welcomed Queen's anger. The mare looked a lot healthier than the exhausted, hurting horse she'd seen last night.

“Mornin',” Dallas said when Sam's attention stayed fixed on the mare.

“Good morning,” she said, but when she saw Dallas's expression, she wondered if he had purposely left the “good” off his greeting.

Dallas's reproachful look told Sam a vet bill could have been avoided if she'd left the mustang in the pen, as he'd told her to do. Sam just knew that any minute Dallas would rattle off his “no hoof, no horse” platitude.

“Hey there,” Dr. Scott said from where he squatted in the straw. “Sorry I'm so late, but the roads were lousy.” He glanced up, peered at Sam through his black-rimmed glasses, then returned to his
examination of Queen's hoof.

Dr. Scott hummed some horse-soothing tune under his breath. When he began talking softly, it took Sam a few seconds to figure out he was addressing her, not singing.

“Your message made me think we were going to lose her,” he said.

“She was in bad shape last night,” Sam insisted. “First Jake and I thought she was freezing and then she seemed to be in a lot of pain.”

Dr. Scott nodded. “Sometimes they can turn around real fast. She's in good health and putting her in with other horses was a real smart move. Not that she's healed, by any means,” Dr. Scott continued. “But a good night's sleep with her buddy Ace seems to have improved her physical state, if not her attitude.”

He must have touched a tender place, because the mare's tail whistled in a horizontal swipe.

“Jeez, girl, you can draw blood with that thing,” Dr. Scott protested.

Queen's lip curled in a threat, warning Dr. Scott the flick of her tail was nothing compared to the good hard bite he'd get if she could reach him.

Dr. Scott wasn't intimidated. He stood, wiped his palms on his jeans, and turned to Dallas. “Fish oil,” he said.

“Don't tell me,” Dallas muttered, then jerked a thumb toward Sam.

“Well, she's not mine, either. But since Callie isn't here, uh, what do you mean by saying fish oil?”

“I want you to try that before we do any serious repair work or hoof sealing,” he said.

“That oughta smell just dandy,” Dallas grumbled, shaking his head.

“If it works, it'll help maintain the moisture the hoof wall needs to be healthy,” Dr. Scott explained.

“No hoof, no horse,” Dallas said.

Silently, Sam congratulated herself on her prediction.

“Like I said, she's basically healthy, but lots of mustangs have vitamin-poor diets and they're dehydrated for days at a time. That's not good for the hooves. I swabbed some dirt out that was building up in that crack, too. In captivity,” Dr. Scott said, “we can probably keep this from turning into permanent lameness. Out on the range she wouldn't have been so lucky.”

Sam looked at the beautiful mare. Queen had lucked out. She'd already been left behind by her herd when the BLM wranglers found her. She might have found shelter from the weather, but prowling predators would have discovered her and flushed her from her hiding place.

Fierce and smart as she was, Queen wouldn't have been able to outrun them for long.

“So, do you think she'll be all right?” Sam asked.

“Probably. There are lots of things to try, these
days. Besides sealing, we can limit concussion—”

“Keep her off it, you mean?” Sam asked. She thought of the mare's headlong run into the darkness last night and cringed.

“Yeah, or at least limit overuse on hard footing. Some folks put in staple kinda things or fill the crack with stuff like Super Glue for hooves….”

“The little girl who owns her won't be able to afford that,” Dallas grumbled.

“But fish oil,” Dr. Scott said, smiling and holding up his index finger, “is a real bargain, and I just happen to have some in my bag.”

“Fish oil?”

They all turned as a pair of female voices questioned from the doorway.

Callie and Aunt Sue stood framed in the barn door. Callie wore a pale yellow smock over jeans. She must have just come from class. Aunt Sue carried a blue pottery platter loaded with cinnamon rolls. Wisps of steam rose toward the rafters.

“Wash my mouth out with soap,” Dr. Scott said. “I shouldn't have said ‘fish oil' in the vicinity of that heavenly aroma!”

Aunt Sue laughed. She looked the same way Gram did when she fed Dr. Scott. The young vet seemed eternally hungry. Aunt Sue separated two rolls and slipped them onto a paper plate for him. Dr. Scott moaned in delight.

Sam and Callie each took one. The rolls smelled
so good, Sam took a bite and licked her fingers before saying to Callie, “Wow, you got off early.”

Callie popped the rest of her roll in her mouth, then twisted her watch around on her wrist and shook her head. “I made good time driving out here, but it's nearly one o'clock.”

Aghast, Sam looked at Aunt Sue.

“I let you sleep in a little,” Aunt Sue said, as if it weren't a luxury.

“So, you're the young lady who adopted this beast?” Dr. Scott asked.