The Wildest Heart (3 page)

“The doctor says January seventeenth,” Brynna told her. “But I've done some reading. That date can be very approximate, especially with first babies.”

Trust Brynna to research this like the biologist she was.

Sam smiled. Brynna would learn every fact she could in preparation for such an event. Not Gram, though.

Gram leaned both arms on the table. “You'll love being a big sister, Sam, even though it's a lot of work….”

Work? Wait just a minute. This hadn't been her decision. Why was Gram mentioning “big sister” and “work” in the same sentence?

“—worth every second when you hold that soft, sweet-smelling bundle—”

Oh, right. From what she'd heard of diapers, “sweet-smelling” did not describe a baby's aroma.

“—in your arms and they look up into your face with utter trust.”

Gram looked like she might cry.

Dad's mouth was set in a stubborn smile, but his eyes searched Sam's, like Brynna's had.

Sam knew she didn't have to worry about Dad asking her to lay her feelings out for everyone to examine. Dad was a cowboy. Cowboys did what had to be done, no matter how they felt about it. He seemed to feel happy. Whether she was happy or not, he'd expect her to process this announcement, and accept it.

I can do that
, Sam thought. She gave Dad a nod as Clara arrived, juggling the hot platters while Millie followed with Sam's salad and a cracker basket.

The baby conversation was edged aside by eating. Then, Brynna brought up the BLM's efforts to publicize the mustang auction online, and Sam was struck by an awful thought.

“After the baby's born, you won't stop working at Willow Springs, will you?” Sam asked.

In northern Nevada, Brynna was the best protector the wild horses had within the Bureau of Land Management. She wouldn't desert them for a baby, would she?

“I plan to go back, Sam,” Brynna said, but there was something qualified and careful in her voice.

“You have to,” Sam insisted. “You're the only one who really understands what the horses need.”

“Thanks, Sam, that's sweet.”

Not sweet
, Sam thought, panicked. It was a fact that made the difference between life and death for the mustangs.

Sam took a long drink of lemonade. She pulled the glass away when she felt the urge to grit her teeth on it.

Norman White had been the BLM official determined to destroy the horses Mrs. Allen had adopted. Twice, he'd taken over at Willow Springs when Brynna traveled.

Norman White thought of the horses as useless animals. No, even that wasn't true. For him, the horses represented numbers. In his equation, mustangs equaled an unneeded expense for the federal government. Taxpayers shouldn't waste money on saving wild horses.

“Oh my gosh, if Mr. White came back—”

“He won't,” Brynna said. She broke a cracker in half with a satisfied snap. “He's been promoted.”

“Figures,” Dad grumbled.

“He's working full time in D.C. now, Sam. That means he won't be in charge of Willow Springs. At least not directly.”

“That's all well and good, for now,” Dad said, slicing off a bite of his fried shrimp. “But if they've moved him up the line, he'll be makin' decisions. Then you'll have to abide by them and so will we.” Dad nodded at Gram and Sam. “And Norman White
doesn't know or care what it means to be a rancher fightin' to make a livin'.”

“In fairness, that's not what they pay him for,” Gram said. “He's not particularly interested. And I guess he doesn't see the value in letting wild horses run the range.” Gram sighed and looked down at her plate. “I guess some folks can't appreciate anything without checking its price tag.”

“We need a troop of women like Trudy Allen in Washington,” Brynna said, picking up her soup spoon for the first time.

Remembering Mrs. Allen's battle with Norman White, Sam stabbed a piece of cheddar cheese in her salad, then a piece of ham, and ate them both. Norman White hadn't stood a chance. The wild horses couldn't have a better advocate.

But that was another subject. Right now, she wanted Brynna's promise to stay at Willow Springs where she could protect the mustangs.

Just then, the door to Clara's jangled open.

“Why, Trudy,” Gram said, rising to her feet.

Dad pushed back from the table to stand as Mrs. Allen entered the coffee shop.

Her black skirt blew forward as if she'd been pushed through the door by the hot desert wind that spit sand around her, spattering the linoleum floor.

She struggled to close the screen door against the
wind until Clara came to help. Then Mrs. Allen continued toward them.

“Sit back down, Grace. You, too, Wyatt,” Mrs. Allen said from halfway across the coffee shop. “I need some help, but you're going to want to think before you say ‘yes.'”

“W
hat's wrong?” Brynna whispered.

“Her grandson was in a car accident. A bad one,” Sam said quickly.

Brynna sucked in a breath. As she exhaled, the breath trembled.

Did Brynna already feel like a mother worrying over her child?

Dad had moved a chair over from another table. Mrs. Allen, her hands steadier than they'd been this afternoon, settled into it.

“Sam will have told you that Gabriel, my daughter Cynthia's boy, was in a car accident.” Mrs. Allen barely paused at Gram and Brynna's sympathetic sounds. “It's not as bad as it could be. There's no
spinal cord damage.”

“Thank God,” Brynna said, closing her eyes for an instant.

“At least they don't see any,” Mrs. Allen added. “They think it's some sort of bruising, maybe, that's keeping him from moving his legs…?” Mrs. Allen looked at Brynna, Dad, and Gram for their opinions, but they were too troubled to even guess.

“Heavens, I couldn't follow everything I heard. I didn't even talk with Cindy. It was a neighbor of hers that called me back and, I'm humiliated to say I only understood about half of what she told me.” Mrs. Allen shook her head. “But that's why I need to be there for my daughter,” she added to Sam and Brynna. “Be there for her while she's waiting.”

“The waiting is torture,” Gram agreed, “and it helps to have a hand to hold.”

“Tell us what we can do,” Brynna said.

Dad added, “You know you can count on us.”

Pride surged through Sam. All four members of her family wanted to help. In a land where help usually meant hard, physical labor, they were no idle offers, either.

“I have a flight out of Reno tomorrow morning. I don't plan to be gone long, a week at most, but I'm hoping that since Sam knows the place, she can take over.”

Even though she was startled by the suggestion, Sam realized she wanted to do it. Spending time with
Faith would be great and she wouldn't be away from Tempest long enough for the filly to forget her lessons. Best of all, she'd be right in the midst of the Phantom's territory.

“Trudy, Sam just turned fourteen years old,” Gram said.

“C'mon, Gracey, it only means feeding the horses and dogs.” Mrs. Allen's tone reminded Sam that Gram and Mrs. Allen were friends. “Doesn't she do that much at home?”

“Sure,” Dad said. “We left her to run the place during the cattle drive.”

“She couldn't stay alone,” Brynna said thoughtfully. “And didn't you say Jen was tied down this week, Sam?”

Sam nodded.

“Oh.” Mrs. Allen's voice seemed to run downhill. “I was counting on the two of them. Well, then.” Mrs. Allen stared at the coffee shop clock as if it held a solution.

“Wait, what about Callie?” Brynna said. She raised an eyebrow and looked at Dad.

Sam's excitement soared as Dad nodded.

Although she'd only been around Callie for a few weeks, she counted the quirky girl, who was as nuts over horses as she was, a friend.

Dad and Brynna had been on their honeymoon when she'd gotten to know Callie, but Aunt Sue,
who'd stayed with Sam, had given them a full report on the older girl.

“That would be great,” Sam said, “But Callie has a job.” Sam knew how much she needed it, too. Though Callie was only Jake's age, she lived on her own, supporting herself and the wild mare she'd adopted. “And she's gentling Queen. I don't know if she could leave.”

“She drives,” Dad pointed out. “No reason she couldn't work durin' the day and stay out with you at night.”

“And tell her she can bring her horse,” Mrs. Allen said. “There's plenty of room in the saddle horse corral, or she can turn her mare out with the mustangs. She can even borrow my horse trailer if she wants. Heaven knows those old beauties of mine haven't been inside it for a decade. I'm not sure Judge ever has.”

Mrs. Allen's tongue moistened her lips, as if she were trying to think of more incentives to lure Sam and Callie to Deerpath Ranch. Before she could, Gram leaned close enough to hug her shoulders.

“Trudy, all that's for us to worry over. Now, what time's that flight of yours?”

“Eight o'clock, which means I've got to leave home in the middle of the night. They want me checked in ninety minutes early. Can you believe that?”

“One of us can drive you in,” Dad said.

“No sir,” Mrs. Allen snapped back at him. “I'll come and go on my own schedule. Letting Sam help out is more than enough.”

“We really don't mind driving you,” Gram insisted.

“I know exactly what you're thinking, Grace, and you can stop worrying,” Mrs. Allen said as she pushed her chair away from the table and stood. “I'll drive careful. Real careful. I want to be there for my daughter, and this summer I'm getting Gabe up on a horse, no matter what.”

 

Since Gram had baked buttermilk shortcakes and left berries sweetening, they decided to have dessert at home. As she watched Dad climb into the BLM truck with Brynna, leaving Sam to ride with Gram in the Buick, Sam kicked herself for thinking Dad had chosen Brynna over her. How stupid. Still, the thought lingered.

“It's a lot to take in, isn't it?” Gram asked after they'd driven a few miles.

“I'm not that surprised,” Sam said. “I guess I should have congratulated them, but Mrs. Allen came in….”

“I'm sure they understood. Besides, this isn't a social occasion. It's a change in your life. They know that.”

It wasn't such a bad change, Sam thought. Her spirits perked up as she wondered if the baby would be a boy or a girl.

“We're all proud of you for wanting to help Trudy. After all, no one really asked you if you wanted to.”

“I do, though,” Sam said. “I just didn't say much because, you know, under the circumstances, it seemed awful to say it would be fun if Callie got to come over.”

“You handled it just right, dear,” Gram said.

Miles ahead on the dark highway, the red brake lights of Brynna's truck flashed on, then vanished as the truck turned left at the bridge over the La Charla River.

As they drove into the ranch yard, Sam thought she heard loud music, but when she climbed out of Gram's car, she realized Blaze sat near the hitching rail, howling.

“What on earth?” Gram said.

Brynna stood near the Border Collie, talking to him, but he only threw his head back further, showing his white throat and ruff. Brynna rubbed her arms, though it wasn't a bit cold.

“Isn't that the eeriest sound?” she asked as Sam approached.

“He looks okay,” Sam said, hesitantly.

“What has gotten into you, dog?” Gram asked, then shook her head. “I've seen him do that when he hears sirens.”

“That's what Wyatt said. He went in to phone Luke Ely.” Brynna shrugged.

Luke Ely, Jake's dad, was the chief of the volunteer fire department. If an emergency involving sirens had been called in, he'd know all about it. Still, the situation made Sam smile, then laugh.

“I love it that we're all wondering what he means,” she said. “In Aunt Sue's neighborhood in San Francisco, someone would just tell him to shut up.”

“Well, then, they might miss out on some kind of doggy forecast.” Gram's tone was only half joking. “There are lots of stories about animals predicting trouble, especially bad weather. Not that I believe all of them.”

Sam did. Sort of. She thought of how Tinkerbell, the draft horse that had lived briefly at the ranch, had acted up just before the earthquake a few months ago.

“How do they do it?” Sam asked.

Blaze stopped howling to take a breath and pace in a circle. Sam tried to rumple his ears, but he dodged away and kept walking.

“I know cattle will go around to the protected side of a hill to graze before it storms,” Brynna said. “Do you mean that sort of thing?”

“Yes, and field mice fill in the entrances to their burrows, bees hurry home to their hives when the sky turns cloudy, and stay there if a storm's brewing,” Gram added. “Oh, and cats are supposed to pay special attention to cleaning over their ears before a storm.”

“That sounds like they're feeling barometric pressure,” Brynna mused, but then the screen door creaked open, and everyone looked expectantly at Dad.

“False alarm,” he said. “No fire or reason for sirens anyplace between here and Reno. Although Luke agrees the weather's ripe for one.” Dad looked thoughtful for a minute, then turned to Sam. “Keep an eye out for fire over at Trudy's. She's got the brush cut well back from the house and that's good, but there's an old burn up there….”

“An old burn,” Sam repeated, trying to figure it out. “What does that mean?”

“It's a place where a fire has burned through,” Gram said. “Two—or was it three?—summers ago, someone threw a cigarette out of a car passing by on the highway. It started a brush fire that burned from the road, all the way to the foothills.”

“It took out all the plants and grasses, but most of it's come back. Especially the cheatgrass. But if another fire should come through, it'd burn fast. It acts like kindling when fire reaches it,” Dad said. “First thing to do when there's a fire is get the cattle out of those little gullies….”

Sam pictured the gullies and ravines off the path leading up to the Phantom's secret valley. The mustangs grazed in them because they were hidden. But they were also steep-sided and green at the bottom. Could that grass be fuel for flames?

She missed part of what Dad said, but what she had heard was scary enough.

“If a fire starts on the flat and gets a western wind behind it, it'll race over the range and those canyons will act like chimneys.”

Sam thought of Mrs. Allen's pastured mustangs. Would they be trapped by the fences meant to protect them?

“There's a lot of dry yellow grass next to where I've been painting the fence,” Sam began. “I think it's cheatgrass.”

“Don't worry, Sam,” Brynna said, reading her mind. “The horses in the sanctuary will be fine. They're not like people, who hang around and gawk when they see fire. They run, and they've got lots of room to get away.”

Sam pictured the rolling pastures that had once held the beef cattle of Deerpath Ranch. Picturing the open space made her relax. There were hundreds of acres in which the horses could hide.

“Can I call Callie?” Sam blurted.

“Go ahead,” Dad said. “I guess we can spare you for a couple days.”

It took her a while to figure out how to contact Callie.

Although Callie Thorson was only seventeen, she was an emancipated minor. As Sam had learned last Christmas from Aunt Sue, that meant her parents
had given her permission to live alone and do as she pleased, when they moved away.

Callie had taken a high school equivalency test and graduated early from Darton High. Then, she'd earned a scholarship and work-study job at a Darton beauty college. Although Callie—whose real first name was Calliope—was different from most northern Nevadans with her pierced nose, ever-changing hair color, and interest in the supernatural—she was the sort of hard worker ranch folks admired.

Word got around if you were lazy or didn't pay your bills. Sam remembered Callie explaining that she'd saved most of a cash gift from her grandmother. By scrimping on her own meals and buying a Jeep that had been stuck nose-down in a ditch during a flash flood instead of the new car her grandmother had hoped she'd buy, Callie had saved enough money to adopt Queen.

The beautiful red dun mustang had been the Phantom's lead mare until a split hoof had forced BLM to take her off the range. Callie had even managed to get Queen the corrective shoeing she needed, by bartering her beautician's skills with the farrier's wife.

Sam paged through the telephone book, but found no listing for Callie Thorson.

Next, she tried dialing the phone number for information, but that was a dead end, too.

“Do you think it's possible,” Sam asked Gram and
Brynna, “that Callie doesn't have a phone?”

“When you're living on your own and paying your own bills,” Brynna said, “it's amazing what you can do without.”

“She said she was living on noodles and oranges while she was saving money to adopt Queen,” Sam recalled.

“Oh my goodness. We can't have that,” Gram said, and Sam could almost see Gram was dreaming up nutritious casseroles. “Let me check what I have in the freezer for you to take to Trudy's place.” Gram gave a disapproving tsk of her tongue. “She likes those convenience foods.”

“I know,” Sam said. She'd eaten her share of TV dinners and frozen pizza at Deerpath Ranch while she was helping Mrs. Allen with Faith.

“You might try calling Callie's parents,” Brynna suggested.

Sam knew Callie's parents had moved out of the area to open a new store, but she didn't remember where. She told Brynna, then added, “I think Callie said she was living in someone's garage, but it had been converted into an apartment.”

“And they have room for her horse? Oh, I bet she's living with the Monroes.” Gram began digging in a drawer for the church phone directory. One minute later she was dialing. A minute after that, Gram wore a satisfied smile as she handed Sam the phone.

“They're calling Callie to the phone,” Gram told her.

Waiting, Sam realized she didn't feel a bit awkward about talking with Callie, even though she hadn't talked with her for two months. Then, Callie had called because she'd learned, to her disappointment, that Queen wasn't in foal to Phantom, after all. Before that, Callie had answered Sam's plea for a school fund-raiser to benefit the winterbound mustangs.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Callie? This is Sam For—”

“Sam, I recognize your voice,” Callie said. “What's up?”