Mountain Mare (8 page)

“She looks great,” Lynn said. Then, as if she'd remembered she was afraid of horses, she added, “Has she bitten or kicked either of you?”

“Nope, she's sweet as pie,” Sam assured the reporter.

“Are you sure she didn't buck you into a water trough or something?” Lynn asked, looking at the drips still falling from Sam's clothing.

“It wasn't exactly her fault,” Sam said.

“Well, I brought her a treat so that she wouldn't do something ugly to me. I saw it in the cowgirl mall,” Lynn said, gesturing toward the events center. “And it even looked delicious to me. I've got it in my purse, but first, I want to get your reaction to something.” Lynn's eyes took in both girls. “What do you think of doing a short TV piece on this mystery mare?”

“Great idea,” Jen said. “Someone's bound to recognize her.”

“It's a great story, too,” Sam said. Her mind veered back to the idea of being a photojournalist. “She's photogenic. She came out of nowhere and joined up with the herd.” Sam nodded.

“I'd stay in the living room to watch the news if a story like that came on,” Jen said.

“And tune in for more details the next night, I bet,” Sam teased.

Then she saw Lynn watching her with a calculating look.

“What?” Sam said.

“Nothing bad,” Lynn assured her. “I don't know much about horses, and you told me last year, when we did that earthquake story, that you were on the school newspaper. Isn't that right?”

“Yeah,” Sam said slowly.

“What would you think of working with me for a couple days this week on this horse's story?”

Sam didn't know what to say, but when she noticed the mare posing for the cameraman who seemed to go everywhere with Lynn, she smiled.

“You mean investigative reporting?” Jen said. Then she elbowed Sam. “You've done that before. I mean, that picture you took of that stallion stealing mares when everyone else thought it was the Phantom. That was investigative reporting.”

Jen was always trying to push her. Sam thought about Ace and his comfort zone. The little mustang wasn't happy off the ranch and range. She wasn't
sure she could do something like this.

“I don't know,” Sam said. “You wouldn't have to know much about horses to do this story, Lynn.”

“Sam, why not?” Jen said.

“Did you forget the part where this is a real television station?” Sam asked, but part of her brain was thinking how cool it would be to help track down the mare's story.

“It wouldn't be official,” Lynn said. “We'd just put our heads together once or twice.”

“Sam,” Jen said in a wheedling tone.

“Would you like to help?” Lynn asked.

“Oh no,” Jen said, shaking her head. “Come see me when you need statistics. The only reason I pass English is because I've put together a writing formula my teachers haven't caught on to yet.”

“It'll be strictly for fun. I just think you have the instincts to help get this horse home,” Lynn said, smiling. “It's what my old journalism professor called a nose for news.”

Sam gave a short laugh. “Yeah, someone just told me an hour ago that I was nosy.”

“That's not the same thing at all,” Lynn said, and then she gasped.

The chocolate mare's head shot out toward Lynn. The horse dusted her lips over the reporter's neck and down to her purse. Lynn stood stiff and still as a tree trunk.

“She's looking for a place to bite me,” Lynn said with grim conviction.

“I doubt it,” Sam said. “I think she smells that treat you brought.”

The mare bumped her nose against the purse. She did it so hard, her forelock flopped up, then down.

Lynn took a step back as she fumbled with her purse.

The mare crowded forward.

“You're going to have to give me room to get it,” Lynn said. Eyes full of surprise, she glanced up at Sam. “Her mouth is kind of soft, except for the whiskers.”

“Uh-huh,” Sam and Jen said together.

Moving quickly, Lynn ripped the cellophane off the oats-and-honey treat.

“Okay, no horse spit,” Lynn warned the mare.

“Hand flat,” Sam ordered. “
Totally
flat.”

She didn't want to tell Lynn that the mare's teeth could accidentally bite through a finger as easily as they'd snap that cookie in two.

With the cookie in sight, the mare's left front leg bent at the knee.

“What's she doing?” Jen wondered.

Slowly, the mare knelt with her right leg extended.

It was a graceful and pretty trick, especially when she arched her neck and bobbed her head so that her forelock veiled her eyes and brushed the ground.

“She's bowing,” Lynn said incredulously.

Then, before she could turn to him, the cameraman said, “I've got it.”

“Someone's going to see this and know her,” Jen insisted.

Sam agreed. Who wouldn't recognize a chocolate-and-cream horse with such good manners?

“I
t has to be just window shopping, because I don't have any money,” Jen said.

Sam kissed Ace on the nose and told him good-bye before the girls headed toward what Lynn had called “the cowgirl mall” in the events center.

“Dad gave me this for expenses,” Sam said, pulling the bill partway out of her jeans pocket. “And I'll share.”

“Things are awfully expensive here,” Jen grumbled. “But that ought to just about cover two sodas and two corn dogs. Thanks.”

Sam shot a last look down the row of stall doors. Three pairs of dark-brown eyes in palomino, bay, and
chocolate faces watched her.

“Don't you feel just a little weird about leaving Silly and Ace in unfamiliar stalls?” Sam asked.

“This place has better safety standards than home,” Jen said. “And look, the lights are on in the center hall between the stalls, so they can look in and see their neighbors. I refuse to feel guilty. Let's go.”

First, they stopped at a telephone booth and called River Bend Ranch.

When she talked with Gram, Sam discovered that Brynna had already called Dad. He planned to pick them up after the rodeo, with a trailer for Ace and Silly, at ten o'clock.

Delighted by the night of freedom, Sam shot a clenched fist toward the evening sky and still kept her grip on the phone.

“Samantha,” Gram cautioned as though she could see the small celebration. “If you're not waiting for him at Gate C at ten on the dot, I can't be responsible for what happens to the rest of your summer.”

“Jen and I will be there, Gram, with both horses ready to load,” she said. Then, just before she hung up, Sam added, “I promise.”

On their own and giddy, Sam and Jen clambered up the wide concrete stairs to the top of the events center and arrived breathless. A gabble of voices surrounded them. Colorful and crowded booths, full of wonderful things they couldn't afford, encircled
the top story and overlooked a small arena.

The soft plop of hooves came from down below. Loping in figure-eights, sliding to controlled stops, horses warmed up for the rodeo's opening performance. Almost all the riders were female.

With spangled shirts and long hair streaming from under new cowgirl hats, they would look high-spirited and pretty when they rode in front of the grandstands. Right now, though, the queen candidates, barrel racers, and flag girls concentrated. They rode with skillful grace, working the nerves out of horses that would perform in front of a huge audience tonight.

Breathing in the smell of new leather, Sam and Jen stared at hand-tooled saddles, headstalls, and belts in the first booth.

“Oh, look.” Jen grabbed Sam's arm and dragged her toward a display of glittering silver jewelry shaped like horses, stars, and coyotes.

“But look at that.” Sam pointed to a rack of scarves, skirts, and T-shirts fringed with suede and glass beads.

In every booth they filled out cards for contests and drawings, even when it seemed silly.

“What are you going to do with—” Jen broke off to read the entry blank Sam was writing on. “‘A rope made of weighted nylon in neon colors specially made to be visible in the dark'? Sam, if I roped like you—”

“Hush now,” said the booth's attendant. Not much older than they were, the guy wore a cowboy hat and sat astride a saddle on a stand. He spun one of the ropes in a perfect loop without even looking at it. “Pretty girls like you must have sweethearts that'd love one of these.”

“Of course we do,” Jen said seriously. “We just haven't met them yet.”

Trying not to giggle, Sam grabbed Jen's arm and towed her to the next display. By the time they were ready to leave, they'd entered drawings for a silver mounted saddle, rainbow saddle blanket, twenty pounds of beef jerky, and a truck.

“That popcorn smells really good,” Sam said as they passed by a snack bar. “We never ate lunch you know. I'm hungry.”

“Me, too, but I hear those corn dogs calling my name.”

“I think I hear them, too, and they're over in the carnival,” Sam said.

With thirty minutes left before the rodeo's grand entry, they headed toward the two acres of rides and junk food. There was no time to ride the Tilt-A-Whirl, Octopus, or bucking bull, but they could look.

Balloons popped and coins clinked as people threw darts and tossed quarters, trying to win huge stuffed animals.

“Can you imagine the expression on your dad's face
if we showed up at ten o'clock with both horses and one of those?” Jen mused as she stared after a guy who'd just won a purple bunny the size of a grizzly bear.

“He might take the horses home,” Sam said, “but he'd definitely leave us and our bunny behind.”

Looking for dinner, they passed up garlic fries and cotton candy for corn dogs and jumbo cups of freshly squeezed lemonade. By the time Jen had squirted a neat line of ketchup on her corn dog and Sam had painted hers with mustard, it was time to dig their rodeo tickets from their pockets and stand in line.

Sam sighed in contentment.

The day's heat had faded under a cool breeze. She had a fun evening ahead with her best friend. Ace was safe in a cozy stall, and after he'd acted up today, she could reasonably put off thoughts of selling him. Maybe Amelia's grandmother would never call.

She even knew the Phantom was all right. Sure, he'd been snubbed by the chocolate mare, and he'd kept his distance from Sam and Jen, but he'd shown no ill effects from the explosion that had robbed him of his hearing just two weeks ago.

The Ferris wheel turned to tinkling music, flashing its red, yellow, green, and orange lights against a lavender sky.

“It's a perfect summer night,” Sam said as she clomped across the wooden deck toward their lofty seats.

“You had to say that, didn't you?” Jen muttered.

“What's wrong with—”

Sam stopped. She looked down at the number on her ticket and up again. This couldn't be right.

“Just perfect,” Jen said in a sarcastic tone. “We're sitting directly in front of Linc Slocum and all his new friends.”

It turned out that Linc didn't want to talk with them any more than Sam and Jen wanted to talk with him. They were restless and aware of him, and worried about the empty seat beside Sam, until the bareback bronc riding started. Then they forgot everything else.

From the minute the horse in the chute below them started kicking, ready to escape her confinement and the rider on her back, Sam couldn't look away.

This was the event Jake had said his brother Kit competed in. As Sam looked down at the young men mounting the horses in the chute below them, she could see why he found it so exciting.

The rodeo announcer explained that bareback bronc riding was the most physically demanding of all the rodeo events. Suddenly, Sam saw why.

“Oh my gosh! They don't have a saddle or reins or anything except that little thing that looks like a suitcase handle.”

“It's called a rigging,” Jen said. “But you're right. It's the only thing they can touch. Even when their
free arm is flying around like that,” Jen said, pointing. “It can't touch the horse, rigging, or even the cowboy's hat, or they're disqualified.”

Sam grabbed her right hand with her left and grimaced. What would happen to the delicate bones inside if her body were slamming back, away from her fingers, while she tried to hang onto hundreds of pounds of plunging horse?

“I admire their riding,” Sam said, “but I still don't like the way they spur the horses. And that bucking strap—”

“Flank strap,” Jen corrected. “And weren't you listening to the announcer? Those horses are trained athletes. They're worth thousands of dollars, and cowboys can be thrown out of the rodeo if they do anything to hurt horses or bulls.”

“I heard him,” Sam said, and though she enjoyed watching the explosive contest between the men and horses, she still hadn't made up her mind as to what she really thought about it.

She did smile each time a pickup man swooped in and placed each rider safely on the ground.

“I can see Jake doing that,” Sam said. Jen nodded, but her eyes didn't leave the action in the arena.

Overly protective Jake would be great at riding to the rescue,
Sam thought,
but he'd probably want to ride broncs like Kit.

Jake never wanted to talk about Kit, so she didn't know much about him—just that he was the oldest Ely brother and Jake was the youngest. Kit had left home when Jake was a little boy and rarely returned unless he was badly injured.

Halfway into the next event, saddle bronc riding, Linc's voice boomed out. He sat directly behind Sam, and she could tell he was trying to sound like a real cowboy.

“Why, I been out in the desert so long, I know all the lizards by their first names,” Linc chuckled. Alone.

Sam cringed. He'd told that joke earlier today, and it hadn't been very funny the first time.

Most of the laughter during the events was for the rodeo announcer, who joked while he narrated the events.

“Son, I'm afraid you tied your hand onto somethin' the rest of you can't ride,” he said to the bronc rider who was flying off a horse named Volcano. “C'mon, now, folks. Your applause is all the reward this cowboy's gonna get.”

The announcer recited a list of rodeo superstitions, too. Even Jen had never heard that rodeo riders always shaved before a performance, but they never wore yellow because it was rumored to drain away bravery. They never put their cowboy hats on a bed, but sometimes they wore different colored
socks on each foot for luck.

The calf roping event was underway when Lynn Cooper, without her cameraman, slipped into the empty seat beside Sam.

“How're you two liking the show?” she leaned over to ask in a low voice.

“Great!” they responded together.

“I just watched our mystery mare piece on the TV in the media trailer, and it wasn't bad,” Lynn said modestly. “The station kept the footage of you two riding in with the herd, but cut away just before your horse lost it.”

“It was my fault—” Sam began, but Lynn brushed away her apology.

“You two looked mighty impressive!” the reporter said, then held out her hand. Sam and Jen took turns slapping it in congratulations, as a clown with two dogs wearing ruffled collars performed in the arena.

Jen's laughter blended in with that of those watching the clown and Sam guessed that was why Lynn picked that moment to ask, “If you were investigating that mystery horse, where would you start?”

Lynn couldn't have guessed the laughter around them would stop so abruptly, or that her last few words would fall into the suddenly quiet air.

Worse than that, Lynn couldn't have guessed Linc Slocum would care about any investigation involving Sam.

But Sam realized he cared a lot when Linc pretended to drop something between his boots. Then he leaned forward and, speaking so softly no one else heard, muttered,

“Don't forget: Curiosity killed the cat.”