Run Away Home (12 page)

Cowgirl up.

Sam reminded herself she was in charge whether she wanted to be or not. At least it wasn't dark. It was the middle of the day. Things only looked strange because she was sideways in the bus, just like the creepy bus in the ravine.

“Are all buses basically unstable?” Sam wondered aloud.

“Sure they are,” Darby said as if she really knew. “That's why it's illogical that they don't have seat belts, but for fish-cal reasons they don't. They want to shove in as many kids as possible.”

Darby had sounded a lot like Jen, until she got to that one word.

Sam asked, “What's fish-cal?”

“Maybe that's not how you say it,” Darby said, sounding embarrassed. “It's spelled f-i-s-c-a-l. I'm not sure. It's just…” Darby's voice hushed softer with each word. “I read more than I talk.”

The girl sounded like she might cry.

“Who cares?” Sam said. “Right now, I want you to think about all your body parts.”

“My
body
parts?” Darby's tone had shifted. Now she sounded like she might burst into giggles.

“Does anything hurt? Think,” Sam insisted.

It was quiet for a few seconds. Then, Darby said, “My knees.”

“Mine, too. I think we fell on them, against the floor of the bus, when it rolled.”

“Okay. That's why everything's”—Darby made a kind of hiccup—“sideways.”

“Yep, that's why,” Sam agreed, as she felt sensibility returning. “Now, I'm pretty sure Mr. Pinkerton's just unconscious, but we've got to check and see if we can help him. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“And then we'll get out of here. Can you—if you're sure you're not hurt—reach something and pull yourself off of me?”

“Yeah,” Darby said, and then, as simply as if Sam had told her to blink, she did it.

Sam sighed in relief. The girl was little, but still.

With a minimum of flailing around, Darby swarmed over the seat in front of them and disappeared.

Sam sat up and called after her, “What can you see?”

“Blood,” Darby gasped. “There's blood on the bus driver's head and he's not moving.”

I
t took Sam a few seconds to get her bearings.

Like a carnival fun house with furniture nailed to the ceiling to make you feel like your world has turned upside down, the rolled-over bus disoriented her. Sam found herself planting her feet sideways to climb the aisle between the seats. Only the seats kept her from falling back down to the windows that ran along the right side of the bus, and the gaps between the seats were scary.

Darby, though, scampered like a monkey, beating Sam down the aisle to Mr. Pinkerton by a full minute.

“He's alive,” Darby said, moving the hand she'd held in front of the man's nose and mouth.

“Just resting,” Mr. Pinkerton sighed, but his eyes didn't open.

Together, the girls looked up for the first-aid kit. It wasn't above the big front windshield where it had been before.

When Sam found it on the floor, she was relieved to see it hadn't opened and spilled the sterile gauze and bandages. She realized, though, looking at the cut on Mr. Pinkerton's head, that the first-aid kit had probably made the wound.

That was what her last year's English teacher, Miss Finch, would have called ironic, Sam thought. She remembered Mr. Pinkerton reaching up to unlatch the kit to get the hand-warming packets. He must have loosened it from its clamp.

Head wounds were supposed to bleed profusely, but only a trickle of blood streaked down from Mr. Pinkerton's receding hairline, and it took the girls just a few minutes to clean the cut and tape a gauze pad in place.

They covered him with the emergency blanket, then Sam stared into the first-aid kit, looking for anything else that could be useful. The scissors? Maybe. Antibacterial cream? No. What was that? She took out a roll of something that was as bright yellow as crime-scene tape, but spongy.

“Sports wrap,” Sam said, recognizing the stuff she'd used to bind an ankle she'd sprained playing basketball.

Mind spinning, Sam pocketed the big roll, thinking she might use it later. Once she got out of the bus,
she could tie it on bushes to attract attention. Or something like that.

“Thanks, girls,” Mr. Pinkerton said. “I can't seem to clear my head. Give me a minute.”

“Just rest and I'll go for help,” Sam told him. “Darby will stay here with you.” She waited for a response, but none came. “Mr. Pinkerton?”

“Keep drifting,” he apologized. “That helicopter should be back, though.”

If the pilot saw us crash,
Sam thought.

If he looked back from chasing Spike.

If he hadn't already landed at some remote capture site where he had other horses penned and ready to be trucked to Willow Springs Wild Horse Center.

“Yep,” Sam said in what she hoped was an upbeat tone, but she felt Darby watching her. Oh, well. Whether the younger girl could see her skepticism or not, Darby had a job to do while Sam hiked for help. “You're supposed to keep people with head injuries awake, so talk to him. Okay?”

Darby swallowed and gave Mr. Pinkerton a sidelong glance.

“Okay?” Sam repeated, and Darby nodded.

Sam pulled her gloves out of her pocket, ignoring the shower of other stuff—bits of granola bar, a pencil, and general pocket fluff—that came with them. Then she put them on.

Sam considered her clothes and boots and decided she was already bundled up against the cold.
This was as good as it was going to get. Now she was just wasting time.

“I'm out of here,” Sam said. “If you want, keep trying the radio.”

Darby nodded.

Sam wrapped her hands around the pole next to the front stairwell and started to climb down. The door was closed.

No problem. She'd seen Mr. Pinkerton open and close this door a thousand times.

Sam reached for the lever and pulled. The lever moved, but the door was jammed against a crust of snow. She pushed harder. She tried it six times, but some snow-covered rock or ridge of dirt blocked the door from opening more than a few inches.

Sam glanced at Darby, partly because the girl had begun breathing hard again, partly with a ridiculous hope that Darby was small enough to squeeze out. But there was no chance she could stick more than one skinny arm through that opening. Even if she could, once Darby got outside, she wouldn't know where to go.

Staring through the slanted windshield, Sam realized she wasn't even sure where they were.

“Okay.” Sam kept her voice level. “That's why there's a rear exit. We'll be right back,” Sam told Mr. Pinkerton. His vague smile told Sam she'd better hurry and get him some help.

The girls made their way to the back of the bus.
Sam didn't waste a second hesitating. She leaned on the Open Only in Case of Emergency lever.

“It won't open,” Darby said fatalistically.

“Don't be silly. It's just not used much,” Sam said, grunting with effort as she leaned on the lever. “It's sticking, but—”

“No, look.” Darby pointed to a caved-in spot in the bus. Could a fender turn inside out? Sam thought of the scraping sound and the racket that had sounded like a garbage can blowing in the wind.

“Okay,” Sam said again. “It could be a lot worse. That could have folded in on us.”

“But how are we going to get out?” Darby whispered.

Sam's sensible side said they could wait for help. They were trapped, but they were trapped inside a big yellow-orange bus, in the middle of a highway, with enough gasoline to keep the heater running for a while. It was unlikely they'd use up all the oxygen in here. Impossible, in fact, because this vehicle wasn't exactly airtight. She remembered sitting next to Jen one day last year, with rain seeping in through the window next to them.

A smothered shriek came from the front of the bus. It didn't sound human.

“What's wrong?” Sam crab-stepped rapidly toward Mr. Pinkerton. It was like climbing Mount Everest sideways. Now she and Darby were both panting.

“The windows kick out,” Mr. Pinkerton said.

His eyes were open. They looked directly into Sam's. He'd obviously been listening to them struggle to escape, and he had a solution. Had he made that frightening sound just to snag their attention?

“We'll try that,” Sam said.

“The uphill ones,” Darby said, pointing. Then she bit her lip. “Don't you think?”

“Yeah,” Sam said, and they did it together, bracing, and using the impact of their soles. It didn't work the first time, or the second, but the third time they both gave tremendous shouts and thrust out with all the power in their legs. At last the window loosened at one corner.

Sam finished kicking it out. The blast of wind, laced with snowflakes, felt refreshing, but only for a minute. After that, she knew it would be a long, cold walk for help.

“You stay here,” Sam said.

“Please, just for a minute. I've got to get out, but I promise I'll come back to him.”

Darby's huge brown eyes pleaded and Sam gave in.

“Let's stay here for a minute, so I can figure out exactly where we are,” Sam said, sitting on the freezing-cold side of the bus to look around.

Down the highway in front of them, she saw the turnoff to Willow Springs Wild Horse Center. She could walk that far, no problem, but there were miles of uphill, rutted road before it plunged down to the
BLM offices. The way would be treacherous and icy and there was rarely traffic in and out.

Walking the other way, into Lost Canyon, wouldn't help. There was a chance she'd encounter a truck full of captured horses driving toward Willow Springs, but her best bet was probably walking along the highway, toward Alkali.

It was about seven miles to Clara's coffee shop, but somebody would have to drive past before then, wouldn't they?

“Shouldn't you stay with the bus?” Darby asked.

Sam didn't answer. She wasn't sure.

Together they slid down the side of the bus and Sam hoped Darby could get back up and through the window to check on Mr. Pinkerton.

She was reminding herself that the girl could climb like a monkey, when that awful strangled scream came again. Suddenly, Sam knew it hadn't been Mr. Pinkerton.

The bus had hit Yellow Tail.

Hooves flayed against snow. A silken tail spread behind wet golden haunches.

“Oh!” Darby gasped.

Sam spared her a single glance and saw Darby's arms wrapped around her chest.

“Stay back,” she ordered the younger girl, and Sam crept closer.

Please don't let the tire be on him,
Sam prayed.
What will I do if he's dying?

Don't lose it,
she told herself, then circled wide around the horse and the front of the bus. Looking carefully, analyzing with her head instead of her heart, she made out what had happened.

The bus had grazed the stallion, then veered right. The horse lay where he'd fallen. And though there were swooping marks in the snow where his legs had thrashed back and forth, she saw no blood.

Maybe the bus fender had hit his other side. The damage could be hidden.

Sam fought the pain in her heart. Except for his coloring, he looked just like the Phantom—fine-boned Arab head, full mane and tail, a wide chest that would deepen as he grew up.
If
he grew up.

Stop it. Check out his legs.
None of them seemed to be broken. Long and fleet, they might have turned him away from the worst of the impact at the last moment.

Suddenly Sam realized why Yellow Tail looked more streamlined and smaller than he had before.

This horse wasn't Yellow Tail. She was a filly with a white star on her chest.

“Help him,” Darby whimpered.

Her voice stirred the horse into a renewed effort to rise. She plunged her forelegs forward. Her head lashed around, teeth bared as she glared through clumps of pale mane and forelock. Then she collapsed, head flat against the snow, panting openmouthed with nostrils red and distended.

Sam held her finger to her lips, then she whispered into Darby's ear, “She's wild. We scare her. Stay back and don't talk.”

“I thought you said…” Darby's whisper trailed off.

“I was wrong,” Sam admitted. “She's a filly. A little girl horse, and she needs help, too.”

Darby obviously ached from knowing her voice had frightened the horse. She held both fists against her mouth, pressing so hard that her hands and face were white.

For a second, Sam was torn. If she stayed, she might help the horse, but how much? She needed a vet, and even then—She sighed. Touching was trauma to a wild creature. That's what Dr. Scott had told her. Human hands could hurt rather than heal.

Sam looked at Darby. With the suddenness of a slap, she realized the younger girl looked faint. Her skin was not just pale; it was translucent, sort of watery. Her black hair, wet by falling snow, was flattened against her small head.

She looks like a half-drowned kitten,
Sam thought,
but she's a lot like me. Her heart is breaking for a horse. She would do anything to help her.

Leaning close to Darby once more, Sam whispered the only words she could think of to comfort her. “We have a really great vet. He works with wild horses and he travels this road all the time.”

Darby nodded frantically.

Leaving, Sam gestured toward the bus, but she
didn't watch to make sure Darby went back inside where it was warmer. She didn't have time to force her, so what was the point?

Sam strode toward Alkali, keeping to the edge of the highway. Two, or maybe three lives depended on help getting here right away.

She only glanced back once, then shook her head. She wanted to shout for Darby to back away from the mustang, to go check on Mr. Pinkerton, but seeing the way the girl hung over the injured filly, drinking her in with her eyes, Sam knew it would do no good.