Native Silver (4 page)

“He must be almost sixteen hands high. He’s an
Anglo-Arab blend, isn’t he?”
 

David went on, and
Shawnee was sure he was wondering why she was
standing in front of her horse as though to keep him
away. But that was exactly what she wanted to do.
 

“
Yes,” she answered tensely, glancing through the trees to where David’s chestnut thoroughbred
stood calmly waiting for his rider. Thoroughbreds had replaced the Anglo-Arabs when the Santiago family took over Rancho Verde, and Miki was a descendant of that old herd, long since sold to a ranch in Northern California—sold when the Santiagos had stolen the Carringtons’ birthright away
from them.
Shawnee frowned and turned to put a
hand on Miki’s neck.

There hadn’t been many horses left by the time
Granpa Jim had lost the ranch, but those remaining we
re sold to Grandpa’s distant cousin, Murph Carrington, who was just starting a horse farm called Windways in
Marin County. When Shawnee had moved north f
ive years before, right after the death of her parents, she’d gone to visit that family, and
they’d invited her to come and ride any time she
pleased.

Miki had been her favorite horse from the first.
She’d only been allowed to ride him after her cre
dentials as a skilled rider were established, for
Miki was destined to be the first real champion that Windways
produced. The stallion moved like
a dancer and was proud, but thoroughly anxious to
please—the perfect champion. Shawnee spent every moment she could with him.
 

And then—tragedy. While one of the trainers was allowing him to wander out on the trail, Miki had run into a thorny thicket and injured both eyes. When the family had called Shawnee to tell her, she’d thought her heart would break in two. She could hardly stand it. She dashed over to the stables and for the next three days, she lived right there with her favorite horse, caring for him every moment.
 

The attempts to heal him were
desperate and anguished. They tried everything the veterinarian could suggest
, applying medication, soothing the big horse in any way they could.
But finally, they had to admit defeat. Miki was blind.
 

Shawnee had taken it hard. At one point, Murph’s son Kanyon had insisted on staying with her, worried that she was on the point of taking her own life in her agony. And she had to admit, there was something to that. She was a little worried herself. But suddenly she got a new focus, a new goal.
 

Murph and his crew talked about having Miki destroyed, and Shawnee quickly offered to buy him instead. The price was right. There wasn’t much
demand for a blind horse. Murph let Miki stay in his old stall and she worked with him every
day. At first it was just to give him exercise, but eventually she realized how well the horse re
sponded to her, that he could still do the complicated maneuvers he’d been trained for, and the
dream began to grow. Maybe—just maybe—the
two of them together could win the Californio Days
Horse Show. If they did, it would be the first time anyone had beat the Santiagos in forty years.

But no one must know Miki was blind. If the
officials found out, Shawnee knew he would be
disqualified. And here she was, showing her horse
to a Santiago on the first full day of her return. That
was a very bad sign.

David was looking him over with a practiced eye. “
I thought he was an Anglo-Arab, but I’ve never
seen any horse with such a silver sheen to his coat.” He reached beyond her and put his hand on Miki’s neck, murmuring softly when the big horse moved
beneath his touch. “With that black mane and tail, the contrast is really striking. What’s this fellow’s
name?”

She hesitated before going ahead and giving him the full, formal name Miki went by. “Native Silver.”

David nodded, his hand still on the horse.
Shawnee was surprised Miki was tolerating it. He
usually didn’t allow strangers to get that friendly.
But David obviously had a way with horses, having
lived around them all his life.
 

“Perfect name. That’s
exactly what he looks like.”

So far, so good, but she knew she’d better leave
before David got too inquisitive. Miki’s eyes were
clear and looked perfectly normal. The casual
observer wouldn’t see the blindness.
 

But David was
being more than casual. If he noticed Miki was
blind, she would be in big trouble, and Miki would be out of the horse show. A pulse began to beat in her throat, a simple warning. She had to be careful here. No one in the valley must
know, at least not until after Californio Days in
September.

“If you don’t mind,” she said a bit tersely, “I’d like
to get going.”

He didn’t move away from the horse, but he did turn his attention to her. Very slowly, his dark gaze
explored the length of her, taking in every curve,
every angle.

“You look pretty good dressed, too,” he said at last, almost as though the fact surprised him. “Though I must admit, I prefer the more natural version.”

To her utter humiliation, she felt the red heat of a
blush
creeping up from her neck until it covered
both cheeks, but at least he was examining her and not her horse.

“You don’t look so bad in the nude either,” she admitted
, hoping to get him with a bit of his own
medicine. But her attempt at a counter-attack
faltered as her gaze fell to his hard, muscular chest which was still nude, and even worse, so close, so disturbing. As she stared at him, the words stuck in
her throat.

“Where are you heading?” he asked softly.

“Home,” she answered, looking down at the twigs
beneath her feet.

“Would you join me for dinner tonight?”

She almost gasped aloud at that, her head snap
ping up, her eyes wide. Shawnee Carrington going out
on a date with David Santiago—didn’t he know how outrageous that would be? But no, he didn’t
know who she was. Soon he would find out, but
why confuse the poor man now?

“Thank you, but no.” She slipped by him and
swung up on to her horse. “I’m going to be busy.”

“
Don’t go yet.” He reached for the rein but she
pulled Miki away in time. He looked a bit forlorn,
standing there, looking after her. “Will I see you
again?” he asked, gazing at her levelly.

Suddenly she was laughing. “Oh yes,” she assured him. “You’re not going to be lucky enough to avoid
that.”

And then she was off, riding Miki carefully down
the hillside, hoping David didn’t notice how much
of the work she was doing herself.

It didn’t take long to get back to the little twenty-
acre strip of land she’d grown up on. Actually, it
had once been a part of Rancho Verde. Now it was
all Granpa Jim had left.

Shawnee walked Miki down the dirt road that led
to the house. She noticed sadly, as she had the day
before, how ramshackle the little frame building was. The place probably hadn’t had a fresh coat of
paint in at least ten years. There was no lawn, only a
scruffy dirt area with patchy weeds. Surely there had been a lawn when she was a child!
 

She thought back and pictured the way things had been when she was young, when her parents were still alive. Her parents. It broke her heart every time she thought of how they’d died in the crash of a small plane on a trip to Las Vegas for a weekend of fun. They’d left her all alone when she was just eighteen.

Well, sort of. After all, Granpa Jim and her sister Lisa were still around. But Lisa had already married Brad and Granpa Jim mostly lived in the past. So at the time, she’d felt she had to go somewhere else, to begin to make her way in the world without being steeped in all this wretched background of pain and deception.
 

Now she was back and she looked around with fresh eyes. The trees
looked as apathetic as the house, and the bushes
around the front steps were grey with weeks of
accumulated dust. Her old home seemed to have
given up, just the way her grandfather had.

The stables were a little better. Although none of the old horses were still kept here, the structure had
been looked after and kept clean. Shawnee won
dered if her grandfather still puttered out here,
dreaming of old glories. She unsaddled Miki and
rubbed him down before leaving him to rest while
she went on to the house.

The screen door screamed a loud complaint as
she entered the familiar room, so full of old ghosts.
The same ancient mauve carpet flattened wearily under her feet. The same flowered wallpaper dis
tracted her eyes. The same cluttered, shadowed room opened up to welcome her.

“Who’s that? Betty? That you?” Her grandfather sat in a dim corner of the room. He seemed to be
waking from a nap.

“Hello, Granpa Jim.” She knew she looked a lot like her mother, especially in this light. “It’s me, Shawnee.”
 

He made the shift in time with no problem. “Where’ve you been all after
noon?”

He reached out with both hands and drew
her down for a sound kiss.

“I’ve been exercising Miki,” she told him. “But
I’m home now. Did you need me for something?”

^“
Course I need you. What do you think?” His old eye
s seemed to lose their focus again. “The work is really piling up. Those new boys from Tucson just d
on’t know the country. I can’t get out to the fences
like
I used to. I’ve been hoping you’d come back
and give me some help. Ride out and check on
those cow hands. They’ll get away with all they can
pocket if we don’t watch ‘em.”

Shawnee smiled tenderly. It had been a long time since the Carringtons had hired ranch workers. “Yes sir.
I’ll do that. But I want a chance to get a good look at
you first. It’s been a long time, and I’ve only had
one day to get used to being with you again.”

He snorted with something that seemed to be
humor. “Don’t look at me, girl. I’m just an old bag
of hides. Not much meat left on me. Plenty of spirit,
though!”

She grinned. “You bet. You look full of fire to me.”

“I am girl, I am. I gotta be, you know. That wiley
old fox, Dan Santiago, is still gunnin’ for me. He
wants Rancho Verde, always did. I gotta stay sharp
to keep ahead of that outlaw.”

Shawnee watched and listened, her heart full of
love. This old man, the father of her father, was
such a part of her. It was as though she’d never been
away.

He was surely older. And less well. In his mind, it
was forty years before, back when he, Jim Carrington,
had been the owner and operator of the largest
ranch in Destiny Valley. Others might find this
sad, this preference for living in the past, this inability to face the truth of the present. But
Shawnee didn’t. It was a past she’d been immersed
in from infancy, and it was almost as real to her as it
was to him.

Her parents had both worked hard. Her father,
Tom Carrington, had farmed their little twenty-acre
plot for what he could get from it, and also worked
a full-time job as an office manager in town. Her mother, Betty, had
been a secretary to a law firm in Solvang, a Danish
town in the neighbouring Santa Inez Valley—a long drive away.
Shawnee had been left to grow up at home with
Granpa Jim.

Granpa Jim created a special world for the two of
them that no one else seemed willing, or even able, to enter. All summer, Shawnee would tag
along behind him, helping him hoe down between the rows of sweet corn, sitting beside him as he
weeded among the tomatoes, handing him a
wrench to help make a delicate adjustment in the irrigation system. In the winter, she would dash
home from school to help him with the livestock.

And all the while, he was weaving the enchant
ment around her, telling her about the old days.
About spring roundup, when cowboys from all the
neighboring ranches joined in a huge fiesta and danced for three days straight with the ranchers’
daughters. About the lazy picnics by the Rio
Caliente which ran through Rancho Verde. About the long, hot days mending fences and looking for strays.
About the serenades, the love affairs, the
battles of honor.

And finally, about the Santiagos. The rich, arrogant, land-hungry Santiagos. They’d wanted Rancho Verde, and they’d got her in the end. As Granpa Jim always used to say, “If you see a Santiago coming, you’d better keep one hand on
your wallet and the other on your shirt.”

She listened while her grandfather talked on,
conjuring up the good old days again. If she could
give him just one day of that former glory, she
would feel she’d done her best for him. That was what she’d come home for. If she, a Carrington, could
win the horse show with a stallion descended from the old Rancho Verde stock, if she could defeat the Santiagos, Valley champions for the last forty years . … .