The Renegade (3 page)

Sam was afraid to ask why Slocum hadn’t sold Champ to Karla Starr, but he must have read her frown.

“I would’ve thrown Champ into the deal, but he just won’t buck no matter what you do to him.”

The words made Sam sick. So how had he convinced the stock contractor to take a chance on his untrained bulls? She had to know.

Sam thought of a fancy tea party with china cups and white gloves, and made her voice polite enough to match.

“Gosh, Mr. Slocum, so how
did
you ‘sweeten the deal’?”

“We’re still working out the details, but Miz Starr won’t be disappointed.”

There it was again. Slocum’s sneaky half-smile hinted he was hiding a dark secret.

Sam tried to shake off her paranoia, but Slocum was worrying her.

“So, you’d sell Maniac?” she asked. “I thought he was going to be part of a breeding program.”

“He was,” Slocum agreed. “But breeding Brahmas
takes time. And, shoot, Maniac could be famous now.”

“But in the future--” Sam began.

“Samantha, let me tell you a fact of life. When you have money, the future takes care of itself.” Slocum gave her a pitying smile. “I could sell every Brahma I bought for the breeding program, then just get more of ’em before Ryan comes home, so we’d have some cows to play with. It’s simple.”

Just like buying Rachel off with a sports car so she wouldn’t sneak Champ away. Just like buying Jed Kenworthy’s ranch so Slocum had a place to play cowboy. Just like stripping all the old pine trees off the mountainside so he had a place to put his mansion.

“Mr. Slocum?” Jake shifted his weight toward Slocum’s Cadillac.

“That’s right. You’ll be wanting to get back to the River Bend and that colt you’re riding. Must be a lot of fun, showing a banker like Mr. Martinez what you can do.”

“Most fun work there is,” Jake agreed. “And college won’t come cheap, so it’s lucky I like it.”

“College? I thought you’d be saving for a fast car,” Slocum said as they climbed into his Cadillac. “When I was your age, that’s all I did--race when the cops weren’t watching.”

Slocum’s voice implied that Jake was a wimp if he wasn’t longing for a hot car.

“He wants a car, too,” Sam said, but Jake, sitting in front beside Slocum, stayed quiet.

As they pulled away from the Gold Dust Ranch, Sam looked back at the bare ridges behind Slocum’s mansion. According to Gram, the pi
on pines had been there for hundreds of years; they helped slow the snowmelt and kept the ranch from flooding.

Jen said that since Slocum had built his pretend plantation house, mud puddles and mosquitoes had marred the ranch until May.

Slocum probably didn’t understand why. He wouldn’t believe that he couldn’t buy off nature.

As they drove past War Drum Flats, Sam looked for the Phantom.

A dozen times, near dawn and dusk, she’d seen wild horses watering at the little lake down there. Now, in the heat of the day, nothing moved.

Suddenly, Slocum’s chuckle interrupted her thoughts.

“When they caught rodeo stock the old way, those range rats musta put on quite a show.”

It was probably coincidence, the way Slocum narrowed his eyes toward the water hole she was watching for the Phantom. But his words made Sam uneasy, just the same.

T
wo noisy horses and a barking dog competed for Sam’s attention as she climbed out of Linc Slocum’s car.

“Blaze, simmer down,” Dallas called from the bunkhouse porch. The border collie frisked around Sam’s legs a minute, then obeyed, but no one could quiet the horses.

Dark Sunshine whinnied from the big pasture. While most of the horses crowded into the shade beneath the big cottonwood tree, the tiny buckskin trotted along the fence. Her black mane and tail billowed around her and her eyes watched Sam.

“She sounds better, doesn’t she?” Sam asked Jake.

“Lots,” Jake agreed. “That sound she used to make gave me the creeps.”

Just weeks ago, the mare’s neigh had chilled them all. Mustangs were usually silent, but abuse and neglect had made Dark Sunshine’s neighs sound like screams.

Although Sunny was the wildest horse on the River Bend Ranch, she’d adopted the herd of saddle horses as her family. Only Popcorn matched her explosive energy as she ran laps around the ten-a
re corral, and she always outlasted the albino, showing how much she missed the open range.

To help calm her, Sam made time every day after school to pony the mare. She trotted alongside as Sam rode Ace, happy to stretch her legs.

Dad and Dallas were pretty sure Dark Sunshine was in foal to the Phantom, so it was important that she exercise and become gradually more accustomed to people.

Everyone understood this--except Ace.

The bay gelding paced along the barn corral fence. Every so often he halted, pawed impatiently, and aimed a summoning snort toward Sam.

“If I believed in such things, I’d say that gelding of yours is psychic,” Gram said as she walked toward them from turning Sweetheart into the pen with Ace. “He started fussing about five minutes before Blaze barked to tell us Linc’s car was coming.”

Sam smooched toward the corral. Ace stopped. He tossed his head so that his forelock flipped away from the white star on his forehead.

“Quit embarrassing him,” Jake said. “No working cow pony likes to be treated like a pet.”

“Shows how much you know,” Sam said.

She would have gone to Ace right away if Jake
hadn’t disappeared into the barn just as everyone else asked For details about the search for Rachel.

“Found her okay, I guess,” said Dallas. The gray-haired foreman sat on the front step. He looked tired.

That morning, Dad had confided to Gram that Dallas’s arthritis was acting up. Though Dallas would resist, Dad planned to ask him to do work that would keep him around the ranch.

Sam sat down beside him on the step. She tried not to be judgmental in telling how they’d found Rachel, but she couldn’t resist adding a few sentences about the surprising treatment Rachel had received when she reached home.

Dad, Gram, and Dallas all shook their heads.

Gram said, “In rough country like this, someone needs to know where you are.”

Sam agreed, for Rachel. But Gram and Dad wouldn’t have to worry about her. “If there was an emergency,” Sam began, “and I had to leave without--”

“No excuses,” Dad said. “Not now and not when you’re twenty-one. Never try a fool stunt like that.”

“I’m not like Rachel.”

Dad nodded, looking satisfied. He wouldn’t say anything bad about a neighbor, but she could tell he didn’t approve of bribing your child to make her behave.

“Good thing,” Dallas said, pulling himself to his feet. “Because you’ve got a chore that needs doing.
Before you went tearing off after Jake, I planned for you to check the feed room for mice. That means moving everything in there.”

“But Dallas, Sunny and Ace haven’t been out today. They need exercise.”

“That can wait. You’re taking tomorrow morning to ride out with the Kenworthy girl. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes, but--”

“I saw something out of the corner of my eye this morning in the tack room. We can’t have rodents eating the winter feed.”

“Dad,” Sam appealed to her father. Instantly, she saw it had been a mistake.

“Dallas is the foreman. You know that.”

“Yes, sir,” Sam said, but as she trudged toward the barn, Sam couldn’t help thinking everyone was happier when Dallas was out on the range, where he belonged.

One side of Ace’s corral allowed him inside the barn. He trotted in just as Sam entered, and she couldn’t resist giving him the hug he wanted.

Ace swung his head over the top fence rail, and Sam wrapped her arms around his sleek bay neck. Eyes closed, she let his coarse mane rub her cheek while his lips whuffled her shoulder.

“You are such a good horse. I’m sorry you’re bored.”

Ace drew a deep breath, inhaling her scent before
he relaxed against her.

“Tomorrow, we’ll go on a good long ride.” She tightened her hug for a minute, then gave him a pat and pulled back to look at his serious brown eyes. “Until then, you can watch me look for mice. How’s that for excitement?”

Sam gave Ace’s nose a kiss, then turned on the radio in the tack room and considered her job.

For as long as she could remember, Dad had talked about pouring a cement floor in the feed room. Until then, mice could burrow up from under the wooden floor in search of tasty grain.

Dad kept grain and corn in shiny aluminum garbage cans with tight-fitting tops. They should be mouseproof, but the mice remained hopeful some grain would be spilled or someone would be in a hurry and not wedge a lid on tightly.

While she worked, Sam’s mind gnawed on her own problem.

Where was the Phantom? What would Slocum do if the stallion he’d always wanted was nearby? She’d looked away from him so Rachel wouldn’t see him and tattle.

But looking away had worked too well. When she’d looked back, the Phantom had vanished. Was he still on the ridge trail above the Gold Dust? Would whatever lured Rachel up there in the first place make her return and notice him?

Sweating and troubled, Sam was trying to distract
herself by singing along with the radio when she heard footsteps.

Dallas stood in the doorway. Just behind him, stood Ace.

“Sam, you’re going to have him right in here with you if you let him wander like this. It’s a bad habit.” Dallas shooed Ace with a brush of his hand, and the gelding drew back, insulted. “If a lid’s ever left off one of these cans, he could get in here and eat himself to death.”

Sam knew it was true. Horses were grazing animals. Most would eat as long as there was food.

“But I didn’t let him out.”

“The inside corral gate is open and unlatched. And here he is,” Dallas said.

Sam approached Ace and touched his neck as if he had the answer. He probably did, but he just swished his tail and looked up at the rafters.

“I did hug him,” Sam admitted. “But I didn’t go inside the corral, so I couldn’t have left the gate open, even accidentally.”

Dallas gave her a frown full of disappointment.

“Well, who’m I supposed to believe, Samantha? You or my lyin’ eyes?”

Even if Dallas’s arthritis was making him cranky, he had a point.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and hustled Ace back into his pen.

Sweetheart gave them both a scolding look.

“Yes, you stayed in like a good girl,” Sam told Gram’s pinto. “But how did this bad boy get loose?”

She considered the inside latch. It was open, all right. She supposed Ace might have rubbed against it, scratching an itch, until the latch opened. Or it was barely possible Gram had forgotten to lock the pen when she put Sweetheart inside.

With both latches in place, Sam tugged at the gate from outside. It held.

Ace nudged the finger she shook at him. He knew she was joking. “No kidding, Ace. Don’t go getting us both in trouble.”

Just after midnight, a horse woke Sam. She sat up in bed, fingers curled into her quilt, waiting for the sound to come again.

A joyous whinny drifted through the night. She knew it was Dark Sunshine because she’d heard that sound before. When the mare first came home from running with the mustangs, she’d used that same greeting to Popcorn.

But Popcorn and Dark Sunshine were both in the ten-acre pasture.

Sam’s heart thudded. It was him.

Cautious not to make a sound, she slipped from bed and tiptoed downstairs. The stove clock and refrigerator hummed in the dark kitchen as Sam let herself out into the night.

Across the ranch yard, Blaze stood and shook.
Then he decided he was too sleepy to come along, and flopped back down.

Good. Sunny’s racket was enough to wake Dad and Gram, but they might roll over and go back to sleep. If Blaze started barking when he saw the Phantom, they’d both be up and notice she wasn’t in bed.

The moon was a smudged thumbprint, offering little light, but Sam had made this midnight expedition to the river often enough that she knew where to place her bare feet to avoid rocks. The dirt underfoot felt powdery and warm, and though it made for easy walking, it felt wrong.

Not wrong, she told herself, just bad weather for ranching.

Even though she couldn’t see the Phantom, she knew he was there. When she reached the bank, Sam stopped and waited.

She could hear cattle lowing not too far away.

River Bend’s white-faced Herefords had made their way out of the sage-covered foothills, closer to the main ranch and the river. Beyond the mooing cattle, Sam heard nothing. And there was no sign of the Phantom.

For a minute, she watched stars sparkle on the river’s rills. Then she closed her eyes. If her sight adjusted to the darkness, she might see him.

When her eyes opened, Sam saw a flicker on the far riverbank. Like a pure, white wing, the Phantom’s mane flared away from his neck.

Sam held her breath until it hurt. Tonight, he was magical. The moon emerged just for him, making the stallion’s coat shimmer with silver light.

Gone was the mischievous horse who’d played hide-and-seek with her on the ridge trail that afternoon. Tonight the Phantom hadn’t uttered a sound, yet he’d pulled her to the river.

Only one thing puzzled Sam. Why wasn’t he wading toward her?

She grabbed a handful of nightgown in one hand, held it clear of the water, and started forward.

Usually, the stallion met her halfway. The first time she’d mounted him, as a colt, she’d done it in this river. She believed that memory made him return here. But tonight, he made her come to him.

Sam was shocked by the shallow water. Halfway across, it barely reached the middle of her shin, and it was tepid, warmed through by the day’s sun.

That’s when she knew she could wade all the way across. La Charla was only about a city block wide, and tonight the current was sluggish and slow.

Now she heard the thud of his hooves, trotting down the bank, wheeling, and trotting back.

Sam slogged closer. She should feel dumb, wandering so far from home in her white nightgown. What if she fell and broke her leg? But she didn’t feel dumb, just entranced, like a sleepwalker called from bed to do something important.

Sam didn’t look back. If the porch light was on
and Dad or Gram was watching, she was already sunk. Better to have time with her horse than get in trouble and not even get a chance to touch him.

She didn’t slip on the rocks underfoot. When she reached the other shore, the Phantom stood off and watched her. Sam lowered her eyes, wringing out the hem of her nightgown, even though she’d have to wet it again going home. As she twisted the water out in a splatter on the parched ground, she heard the stallion come closer.

Warm breath sighed over the nape of her neck. Sam shivered as gooseflesh raced down her arms.

Veiled by a thick forelock that parted only over his eyes, the stallion settled back as Sam straightened.

“Hey, boy,” she crooned to him. “C’mere boy.”

The stallion blinked but didn’t come within reach.

“Do you think I was ignoring you this afternoon, hmmm? Is that why I’m getting the cold shoulder?”

The stallion stretched out his nose, then jerked it back, shaking his head.

“I was trying to keep Rachel from seeing you, that’s all. She’s kind of a nutcase’, boy, and if she knew you were right there on their ranch, who knows what would happen.”

Sam remembered Linc Slocum’s voice, bragging about his deal with a rodeo stock contractor. For one ugly instant, she imagined the Phantom exploding out of a bucking horse chute into an arena filled with cheers and music.

That would be illegal, of course. The Phantom was a free-roaming mustang, and it would be against the law for Slocum to capture, sell, or trade him to Karla Starr. But Slocum had proven before that he placed his own desires above the law.

As the image of a high-spurring cowboy faded from her imagination, Sam noticed that the Phantom stood beside a boulder just the perfect height for a mounting block.

The Phantom didn’t belong to her, either. But once he had. And tonight he seemed lonely and almost tame. Temptation told her the stallion might let her ride him into the night.

“One day, a long time ago, you let me on your back, boy.” Sam edged closer. “You know I wouldn’t hurt you.”

The stallion flicked his ears but trusted her to come closer.