Mountain Mare (5 page)

“Ride 'em, cowgirl!” called one of the dudes.

Sam's spirits soared, but she stayed in the saddle.

She was ready for Ace's sassiness. Or anything else that might come.

A
ce was the first member of the Darton Rodeo cattle drive to set hoof on asphalt as they rode out of the mountains, onto the flat range, and finally into a rural neighborhood.

Though it was Friday afternoon, lots of people lined the street. Twin boys, holding leashes for identical barking puppies, stood beside a girl in a striped T-shirt with a skateboard tucked under her arm. Three mothers stood together. One held a baby perched on her hip, while another scooted a stroller back and forth as the baby inside bounced in excitement. The third mother held the hands of lunging toddlers mooing greetings to the cows.

“Good thinking,” Sam commented to Ace when
she saw that one enterprising girl had set up a lemonade stand.

Ace wasn't amused by all the excitement. He mouthed his bit nervously, even when Sam rubbed his withers.

He gave a worried snort as a boy flipped a Frisbee over the herd to his friend on the opposite sidewalk.

“Hey now,” Sam chided Ace. “You've put up with snowstorms, wild animals, and gunshots. This is nothing.”

“It's like a parade,” Jen called from her own position up front.

Since she could feel Ace growing more nervous with every step, Sam didn't shout back. She just nodded.

The closer they got to Darton, the more people crowded the sidewalks. As they left the first neighborhood, a police car cruised quietly ahead, leading them down a street that linked with Fairground Way.

The other streets were blocked off to traffic. Sawhorses and flapping signs directed drivers to detours.

The steer-wrestling cattle led the way, tossing their heads as if they were trying to look like Old West longhorns. As Hal Ryden had requested, Sam and Jen rode point, up front on each side.

It was about two o'clock and Sam was starving. It seemed like forever since breakfast. Now the aroma of popcorn and corn dogs wafted from the fair-
grounds and she smiled, remembering the money Dad had given her to cover “expenses” before he arrived to pick her up after the rodeo. Hal Ryden had said they could go as his guests.

The blare of a car horn sent Ace side stepping toward the herd.

“Idiot,” Sam muttered at the driver who must have ignored all of the detour signs. She hoped the police issued him a ticket.

Shaking her head, Jen called across the herd, “Doesn't it seem like he mighta noticed the flags and horses and one hundred head of cattle?”

A cream-colored calf bolted from the herd.

Before Sam could react, Ace sprinted after it, hooves hammering the asphalt. Though the retrieval only took a few seconds, Ace felt better for it. He came trotting back to the herd, acting more like himself.

“That's what you do best, isn't it, boy?” Sam crooned to her horse.

Ahead, she noticed a lean woman with cameras slung bandolier-style over her shoulders. She sighted through a camera, shooting away as the press pass around her neck swayed. She must be a newspaper photographer, Sam thought, and couldn't resist the envy that fizzed up in her.

Sam pictured the cattle as they'd look through the camera's viewfinder. Wild-eyed and doe-eyed. Tiny dancing hooves and big black cloven hooves. The contrasts were what she'd shoot. That would be a
good idea for photographing the people, too. If she were doing this story for the school newspaper, her photo essay would investigate who'd signed up to relive this bit of the historical West and why.

Could you major in photojournalism in college? It was a long way in the future, but Sam thought it could be exciting.

Where was Lynn Cooper? She'd said she was covering the cattle drive, but then she'd been called away.

Sam shivered at the memory of the black blazer Lynn had brought along “just in case” and wondered what she'd found when she'd arrived at the desolate piece of road where a truck had rolled over with a horse trailer.

Still holding her reins, Sam crossed her fingers, hoping the trailer had been empty and the driver hadn't been hurt.

An air horn blatted from the sidewalk crowd, and Ace's flat-footed stride faltered.

“You're doing fine, boy,” Sam said. “Humans can just be stupid. You'd think they'd be smart enough to find some other way to show they're excited, wouldn't you?”

The fairgrounds were in sight when Sam heard Lynn Cooper's voice and glanced over her shoulder to see the blond reporter with the KVDV cameraman.

Keeping her distance from the horses, Lynn walked along quickly, calling out questions to the
dudes. “So what would you bring next time that you forgot?” Lynn asked two middle-aged women who were riding together.

“Mosquito repellent,” answered one.

“Actually, I could have gotten away with less,” answered the other. “Chaps keep your jeans pretty clean.”

“What did you like best about the trip?” Lynn asked a man Sam had spotted earlier. Even in cowboy gear, he looked like an accountant.

“One thing that I really enjoyed was being able to zone out. I had a job to do, but no responsibilities beyond my horse and me.” He leaned down and patted the neck of a sturdy bay.

A woman with the skinniest eyebrows Sam had ever seen reined her sorrel gelding over to talk with Lynn. The woman rode better than most of the dudes, and Sam could see a silk scarf tied over her hair, under her hat.

“I read about this in the business news section of the paper, and in the city I only ride maybe once each month. So I signed up to have some quality time with my horse.

“The first day, I couldn't help looking at my watch every five minutes, but after I took it off and put it in my saddlebag, I found out Cheyenne here really likes my rendition of ‘I'm an Old Cow Hand.'”

Lynn thanked her and glanced at the cameraman.

“Got it?” Lynn asked. When he nodded, she suggested, “Why not go up where the cows turn into the parking lot? Catch the girls in front. They're local and they look great.”

Sam knew she was smiling when Lynn jogged toward her, not at all out of breath, and gave her a thumbs-up.

“Hi,” Sam said. She wanted to say something clever and sociable, but all she could think about was the rollover.

“It wasn't old and blue, was it?” she asked hopefully, and Lynn knew exactly what she was talking about.

“Nope,” Lynn said. “Old and yellow with Arizona license plates. It's a”—she flipped back a page of her notebook—“restored 1968 Scout. And hard as it is to believe, there was hardly a scratch on it. According to the sheriff, the driver—a college student—said she was fine. She hitched a ride to town, where she planned to call her boyfriend to come get her.”

Sam's shoulders sagged and her chest deflated with her sigh.

“That is so good,” she said. The words were mild compared to the relief she felt.

She'd been listening so intently to Lynn, though, she hadn't heard Ace's hooves skittering on the asphalt. Now she did, and lifted her reins a little, making contact with his mouth.

“I'm still here, boy,” she said, then she glanced across the herd. She had to tell Jen it hadn't been Jake's truck.

Jen had drawn rein to let a few girls pet Silly's shoulder. While the palomino basked in the attention, Sam caught Jen's eye. At once, Jen took in Lynn, then Jen tilted her head to one side. Sam gave her an okay sign.

Jen's smile flashed across the herd. She lifted her Stetson above her hair and whirled it around one finger as if she'd throw it skyward.

That's the sign of a good friend,
Sam thought. She's celebrating for me, even though she never really shared my fears.

“Her horse seems pretty laid-back about all this,” Lynn said.

Sam heard the comparison in Lynn's words, even though it wasn't exactly criticism.

“All the Kenworthy palominos have been in parades before,” Sam said. “Sometimes they ride together as a family.”

“And your horse never has,” Lynn said.

“He's a mustang,” Sam explained. “First he lived on the range and now he lives at River Bend, our ranch. As far as I know, this is the most civilization he's ever seen.”

Lynn cast a glance around them and gave a “not bad” nod, then fell back a few yards when Ace side stepped toward her.

“You're doing fine,” Sam said, but then, as if to test her words, a little boy, maybe a fourth grader, scampered into Ace's path.

Apparently the boy had pulled away from his mother. From the corner of her eye, Sam saw a woman elbowing out of the crowd, running after her child as he approached Ace, hand outstretched.

His hand wasn't empty. In fact, it didn't take Sam or Ace long to realize the child was holding a snake.

“Don't—” Sam tried not to shout. Ace needed her to stay calm.

“It's just a garter snake. It won't bite,” the boy insisted. “That flickery thing is just his tongue. His mouth isn't even open. It's his ola-olafactory—”

The boy's mother grabbed him around the middle and lifted him off his feet. Blushing and apologizing, she carried him, snake and all, back to the sidewalk.

Sam started to lean forward to rub Ace's neck, then changed her mind. Instead, she gave him the sort of atta-boy pat Jake or Dad would use. Ace wouldn't expect it, and the surprise might keep his attention focused on her.

“You're a good horse,” Sam told him.

Snorting and rumbling, Ace veered closer to the cattle. He knew what
they
were all about.

Sam couldn't wait to reach the fairgrounds. Ace had had enough.

A disturbance came from the back of the herd,
but Sam didn't even look. Ace felt tense beneath her. They were riding on asphalt. He could bolt and slip. Anything could happen. There was no way she'd risk a disaster because Linc Slocum was causing trouble as usual.

That probably wasn't fair,
Sam thought. In fact, when she considered the calm dun he'd been riding, she guessed she was wrong.

One quick glance over the stream of curly-headed calves behind her showed Sam that Hal Ryden was standing in his stirrups.

“He's got it under control,” Sam told Ace, but her horse's ears didn't even flick back to catch her voice.

Ace was definitely out of his comfort zone. Sam only hoped she'd progressed enough as a rider to keep him together.

As they took a turn toward the parking lot, Sam smelled deep-fried carnival food amid the scents of hay and livestock. Perhaps Ace was comforted by the smell of other horses or maybe he just realized lots of eyes were watching him with admiration, because he blew through his lips and pranced.

Men with walkie-talkies waved them by a sign that said
MUST SHOW PASS
.

“Almost there, boy,” Sam told her horse.

Hal had said to herd the cattle into the arena. From there, the animals would be sorted into the appropriate corrals by his staff. Most of the corrals
and one entire barn were reserved for rodeo stock, and Hal had offered to let Jen and Sam strip the tack from their horses, cool them out, and keep them in his stalls until Dad arrived to trailer them home.

Sam tried to slam a mental door on thoughts of home. Amelia's grandmother had been in a hurry for her answer about Ace. What if she'd called back and talked with Gram? What if the decision had already been made for her?

Ace broke out of his flat-footed walk and into a trot. He looked back over his left shoulder.

You're okay, boy,
Sam thought. This time she told him with hands and legs, hoping that the silence a mustang depended on for safety was the right way.

Ace looked back again with pricked ears and flared nostrils.

Nothing back there that you haven't seen before,
she told him with her thoughts, hoping it was true.

Finally Sam snugged her reins. Ace ignored her, so she tightened them until they ran in straight lines to his bit. The gelding shook his head from side to side, yanking in short jerks, quickening his pace before swerving left again.

Was he trying to unseat her, or was there really something back there?

With all the cars, pedestrians, and flapping posters stapled to bulletin boards, Sam knew she should be looking up ahead, but then Ace lifted his
knees in a trot.

Ignoring her, he only went faster, past rows of cars and horse trailers, gathering speed though he was mincing sideways.

Finally, Sam followed his stare and saw what Ace was watching.

The mountain mare had followed them. Sun shone on her chocolate coat, making pinkish flickers. She looked determined, as if she knew exactly where she was going and what she'd do when she got there. And yet the mare's pace was unhurried and so smooth, her tawny mane barely ruffled and her tail drifted only at the tip.

She's coming along. Okay. No need to think about her,
Sam thought.

Then, for the hundredth time, Sam ordered herself to worry about what was in front of her.

But she was too late.

A creak sounded on their right and a car door burst open just a few feet away.

Hands steady on Ace's reins, Sam saw a flash of a sundress, watermelon pink and green. Then a little girl rushed into Ace's path.

With her hand extended toward Ace's nose, the girl shouted, “Can I pet him?”

As Ace slid to a cow-horse stop, his shoes grated on asphalt.

He'd stopped in time to miss the child, and though
Ace huffed with exertion, it seemed everything was okay until the child's openmouthed father dashed after her.

Ace rose in a half-rear and Sam heard a camera's motor drive whirring through an endless series of photos, capturing Ace rearing over the little girl's head.