Untamed (8 page)

“W
hose land are the mustangs on? Caleb Sawyer's?” Sam demanded. “I want to go out there right now.”

“That may be so,” Brynna replied, coolly, “but it's not going to happen.”

Brynna didn't deny it was the hermit's ranch, so Sam knew she'd guessed right.

“Why not? Why would you protect someone like him instead of the horses?”

“I'm not protecting him over the horses. If the horses were grazing on land he leased from BLM, it wouldn't matter. But this is his home ranch.” Brynna gave a one-shouldered shrug as if she were helpless. “Under law, wild horses must stay on government
land. It's my job to make sure they do.”

Brynna was really going now. She didn't stop and Sam stayed silent.

“Wild horses can't go eat ranchers out of house and home. Those ranchers have a right to expect us to take the horses away.”

“Away where?” Sam asked.

Brynna was speeding onto the freeway now, glancing back over her left shoulder for oncoming traffic.

“How do you think your dad would like it if mustangs were crowding our cattle?” she asked, ignoring Sam's question.

“Away
where
?” Sam demanded.

“I won't be shouted at,” Brynna said, settling into driving, eyes fixed on the road ahead. Sam knew she was being punished with silence.

It wouldn't work. She'd spent hours of her life waiting out Jake Ely. And Dad. Outlasting Brynna should be a piece of cake.

Sam passed the time by staring out the window, hoping Brynna would change her mind about visiting the hermit's ranch at Snake Head Peak. Sam pictured herself facing Caleb Sawyer. She'd ask him, point-blank, if he had quarreled with her mother.

His guilt would show and she'd know if he was telling the truth.

Or, Sam sighed, feeling the longing in her chest, even if they didn't go to the ranch, if they only drove
as far as Antelope Crossing, they might see the Phantom's herd.

She relived the moment when the powerful stallion had charged the shooter. He had sensed the man was a threat, but he went anyway, protecting his own.

Still staring out the window, pretending to be casual, Sam tried another strategy on her stepmother.

“Have you gone out to check for yourself that the mustangs are on his land?” Sam asked.

“They're there, Sam. You saw them. And, as far as removing the horses, well, helicopters are expensive,” Brynna said, as if it were a joke. When she noticed Sam wasn't laughing, she added, “We won't do anything drastic to begin.”

“To begin?”

“The mares are in foal, or have foals running alongside,” Brynna said patiently. “A gather would be too stressful. We'll just try to show them it's not a peaceful place, so they'll change grazing grounds.”

“What if they come back?”

“We make it unpleasant for them, Sam, and if that fails, we'll have no choice but to remove them from the range.”

Then they'd have to put them up for adoption, Sam thought. She remembered a bay colt with a patch of white over one eye. She'd spotted him in the Phantom's herd around Christmas. He'd be a lively yearling by now, but he'd be terrified by the BLM's helicopter roundup and the crush of neigh
ing horses trapped in a holding pen.

No harm to horses
, Mom's note had vowed. Sam knew she and Mom were of one heart on this. She wouldn't let Brynna, the BLM, or anyone else end the Phantom's freedom. But she kept that promise to herself.

“It's not his normal territory, anyway.”

“It wasn't his territory last summer,” Brynna corrected. “Before that, who knows? Horses look for bunch grass. After years of drought followed by this wet winter, the growth patterns—for grass and everything else—are bound to change.”

Brynna was probably right. What if the Phantom had returned his herd to a traditional grazing area? What if the Phantom's sire and grandsire had grazed there? Maybe their herd had been the one Mom had watched.

Still, Sam felt sure the man making the complaints was the one who'd sighted his rifle on the Phantom.

How could Brynna not see that?

“So, this report of trespassing horses is coming in at the same time that guy tried to shoot the Phantom. Doesn't that strike you as strange?” Sam asked.

Brynna frowned, then shook her head so hard that her red braid flipped over her shoulder.

“You're seeing coincidences because you found that note.” Brynna probably didn't know she gave a faint nod. “I am taking part of that note as a reminder, though.”

Sam didn't trust the way Brynna's voice had changed to a cheery lilt, so she just said, “Yeah?”

“Remember that part about shorts and sunsuits? You've grown since you got here, so you must need spring clothes. How about tomorrow, after school, we go to Crane Crossing Mall and get you a few things?”

I thought I was grounded
, Sam thought.

Sam didn't remind Brynna, but she didn't rush to agree.

“Come on. Tomorrow's Friday. It's been a long week and I've been craving some pizza from Rico's, that place in the food court.”

“That'd be fine,” Sam decided.

“Jen could come along,” Brynna offered.

“No, that's okay,” Sam said.

She was mad at Jen, too. In fact, she was irritated with everyone, but she couldn't quite hold a grudge.

It was just barely possible, she supposed, that her determination was making her impatient.

She stole a quick look at Brynna and couldn't help admiring her. Intelligent and strong, already a success in an important job, she'd fallen in love with Dad and married him—and his family.

She could have picked an easier man to love. Although horses had brought Dad and Brynna together, the fate of the mustangs often pulled them apart.

Dad was a cattleman. He'd never be anything else. Brynna was a biologist, and though she classi
fied both cattle and horses as intruders on the range, she worked to help them fit in where they could.

Sam's heart was opening just a crack, as the truck bumped across the River Bend bridge. Brynna might not be Mom, but she wasn't bad for a stepmother.

The horses in the ten-acre pasture raced along the fence when they drove into the ranch yard.

As Sam watched Buddy gallop along with the horses, she decided the calf didn't miss crossing the range with the slow-moving members of her own kind. She was happy here.

Sam climbed from the truck, feeling pretty happy herself. Then Brynna had to go and wreck it.

“Sam, be sensible,” Brynna said, as she started over to see Penny. “There's no telling what your mother's list meant. And honey, you'll probably never know.”

 

Sam considered stomping into the house to pout. Brynna was making her
that
crazy, but Dad and Dallas stood hands on hips, looking down and kicking at the dirt outside the new bunkhouse.

Their arrangement had all the earmarks of a cowboy conference, and Sam couldn't resist going to see what it was about.

Dad looked up with a welcoming expression.

“We're just talking about those yellow cows,” he said, shaking his head.

“Those yellow cows” went back to Sam's child
hood. Just as there'd always been a white stallion on this part of the range, there'd always been a line of Hereford cattle whose calves were born butterscotch yellow instead of brown.

The first one Sam could remember had been named Daffodil. Ranchers rarely named cattle destined for dinner tables, but this heifer had been an exception. So had her calves.

Sam remembered Daffodil had given birth to twin heifers named Petunia and Tulip, another set of twins called Iris and Poppy, and a single bull calf, Cactus. He had been sold to a rancher who'd admired him out on the range and offered to buy him.

“Buttercup's giving all the signs that she's ready to calve, but something's just not right,” Dallas said.

“We've lost fewer heifers and calves since we started breeding for May calving,” Dad told Sam. “The weather's better and they've eaten nutritious feed all winter, but no plan is perfect.”

Sam understood Dad's frustration. Each cow was worth over a thousand dollars. Those who had healthy calves each year contributed to River Bend's well-being. When a cow died along with her unborn calf, it hurt twice as much. So it would pay to watch Buttercup carefully.

Buddy was healthy and strong. She'd probably have lots of babies, Sam thought, and she was being selfish to want to keep her as a pet.

But Dad was still talking about Buttercup.

“Where'd you see her last?” he asked.

“Out with that bunch in Bitterbrush Canyon,” Dallas said. “I'm just afraid if she's not up to calving, the young one'll have trouble with coyotes.”

Dad smiled to see Sam listening so intently, but only half her mind was on the yellow cow. The Phantom and his herd often took a path through Bitterbrush Canyon, up the stair-step mesas, to the tunnel that led to their secret valley.

Dallas was saying something about Ross and Pepper taking turns riding out at night, but Sam was thinking mustang mares would have to be equally careful. Newborn foals would be just as vulnerable to coyotes.

Sam reminded herself it wasn't the coyotes' fault. They were always on the prowl for food, because they had to feed the puppies waiting at home.

Just then, Blaze whined from his post at the bunkhouse door. He wagged his tail and scratched to be let in.

Although the new bunkhouse that had been built for the HARP girls was more comfortable and modern, Sam preferred this old one, built when Dad was a boy. It had a potbellied stove the cowboys still used for warmth, though they usually heated Gram's dinner contributions in a modern microwave oven.

Dallas pushed the door open for the Border collie and Sam heard Pepper practicing his harmonica. Blaze paused in the doorway, head lifted to sniff.

Dad inhaled as loudly as the dog. “That's nothing
you
whipped up,” he teased Dallas.

“Crock-Pot beans and pork chops Grace left plugged in for us,” Dallas admitted, then he noticed Sam watching as he rubbed the arthritis-swollen thumb of one hand. “Your gram takes good care of us during calving time.”

“Did my mom used to bring you chili oil for your arthritis?” Sam asked.

“She did,” Dallas said, surprised. “I haven't thought of that for a long time. No sense to it, that's what she said, but it felt kinda good, rubbing it in. How'd you come to remember that?”

“She found a list Louise made,” Dad explained.

“That's nice,” Dallas said. “Real nice.”

But the worry in Dad's eyes reminded Sam that he hadn't talked with her since he'd given Sheriff Ballard permission to tell her everything.

 

Gram was serving beans and pork chops in the house, too, apologizing for a meal that had cooked all day while she planted green beans, peas, and lettuce in her garden.

“This weekend we'll make lasagna,” Gram insisted. “Here, Samantha, I want you to read this and start letting it settle into your mind.”

Sam took the index card. It had a red spatter on one corner. Lasagna sauce, she guessed. It was her mother's recipe, written in her mother's handwriting.
Serves ???
it said at the bottom, reminding Sam of the question marks Mom had drawn as she wrote out her list, wondering if Caleb Sawyer had a criminal record.

“Not that much to it, is there?” Brynna asked, glancing over Sam's shoulder.

“No,” Sam admitted. With its list of ingredients followed by assembly and cooking directions, it looked pretty simple, but Brynna's comment still annoyed her.

“I've found it helps to read the recipe over before you make it,” Gram said.

“She'll have plenty of time to do that and have it ready when we get home from the range Saturday night,” Dad said.

Sam felt her eyes widen. Dad had been acting nice tonight. Nicer than normal, even. So, he couldn't mean what she thought he did.

“You all are riding out…?” Sam began.

“We're going to need everyone spread out across the cows' usual territory, making sure calving is going fine. Your gram wasn't planning to go, but I asked her to take your place.” Dad glanced down at his hands. “Now, I'm going upstairs to wash up. You do the same and help your gram get dinner on the table.”

Moving like a sleepwalker, Sam crossed to the kitchen sink and used the bar of white soap Gram kept there. She rubbed her palms together for a long time.

“He doesn't want you to make a habit of doing dangerous things and keeping them from us,” Gram said, handing Sam a clean towel.

“I know,” Sam said, but she was angry all over again.

It wasn't fair. Everyone else would ride out in the cool May morning with saddlebags full of lunch. They'd stay on horseback all day long, checking hills and canyons, gulches and streamside pastures for cows and their babies. All day, they'd have the sun on their cheeks and the wind in their hair.

She'd be left at home, and she'd done nothing wrong. She'd neglected to tell Dad something, but that wasn't the same as actually
doing
something wrong.

Sam stared at the recipe card sitting on the kitchen counter. Her mother had drawn an asterisk and written a footnote that said: “Chill knife thoroughly before chopping onions. Prevents tears!!!”

Thanks, Mom
, Sam thought as she hung the towel back over its rack,
but I'll be crying over more than onions
.

A
fter dinner, Brynna helped Gram with the dishes while Dad took Sam into the living room. He turned on a lamp, but not the television, and asked Sam to sit down on the couch.

Weak from all the trouble she was in, Sam sank into the couch cushions, on top of a book.

Sam pulled it out from under herself. The thick scrapbook was covered in gold brocade. It looked vaguely familiar, but she didn't recognize it until she turned it over. The lettering on the front said, “Our Wedding.”

“Oh,” Sam said. She felt strange holding it. “I haven't seen this in a long time.”

“It's been put away,” Dad said as he settled beside
her. “I've been thinking, though, since you heard about the end of it all from Sheriff Ballard, you might like to see how our life together began.”

Sam's eyes filled with tears, but she refused to let them fall. When Dad put it that way, Mom's life sounded so short. For a moment her hands stroked the book's cover, and then she looked inside.

The scrapbook was as energetic and disorganized as everything else of her mother's. The first snapshots showed Mom before the wedding. Her hair looked perfectly styled. Glossy and woven with daisies, it fell in red waves to her elbows. Mom wore jeans. She was eating a sandwich and talking on the phone while she held out a placating hand to a very young Aunt Sue. Dressed in a long, pink gown, Mom's sister must have been telling Mom to hurry. Gram stood beside them both, in a full-skirted blue dress, grinning.

“Mom looks like a hippie,” Sam said.

“I guess she was, in a way,” Dad replied.

The only formal photograph covered an entire page. It showed the wedding ceremony itself, inside the Darton Methodist Church. Mom and Dad faced each other, holding hands. Sam couldn't see their expressions, and probably no one else had, either. They were pledging to love each other forever, so why should they look at anyone else?

Sam sniffed and blinked, telling herself the photograph only looked blurry because of the multicol
ored sunlight streaming down on them from stained-glass windows.

A copy of the wedding invitation, a pressed daisy, and a silver-edged pink napkin bearing a lipsticked mouth print were stuck haphazardly under the plastic of the next page. A tiny slip of paper—half of one, really—that might have been from a fortune cookie, read, “and then there was you.”

Sam glanced up to see if Dad was ready for her to turn the page, but he was staring off, not looking at her or the album.

More pictures had been taken here at the ranch. Mom's lacy white peasant dress matched Aunt Sue's pink one, but while Mom was laughing in every picture, Aunt Sue seemed uncomfortable. Here, she adjusted the wreath of wild flowers on her hair. There, she frowned at the big dogs gamboling in Mom's wake.

Sam recognized Jake's parents, dancing together even though each held a wriggling toddler. And there was Helen Coley, who worked at the Slocum house now. But in this picture, she wore a spring-green pantsuit and rolled her eyes in delight over something she'd just eaten from a buffet plate. Lila and Jed Kenworthy stood shoulder to shoulder clapping, whether to music or Mom's antics, Sam couldn't tell.

Even though the pictures had been taken fifteen years before, Dad didn't look much different than he did now. His smile had been a little broader, without
the lines that bracketed it now. But he looked like what he was, a cowboy, and in every picture he was touching Mom.

No, Sam thought, as she checked each page, it was more like Dad was reaching for her, trying to keep in touch as she stood on her toes fixing a bell-shaped decoration, or squatted to talk with a toddler. He reached up for the reins as Mom, skirt hiked up and bare feet dangling, sat astride a spirited, half-rearing Sweetheart.

Even in the last picture, where they were dancing, Mom had twirled out to the end of Dad's arm. Her head was thrown back with giggles and the hem of her skirt was held up with one hand. The fingertips of the other hand were outstretched, just missing Dad's grasp.

“It shows, doesn't it?” Dad studied the photo. “I could never really hold on to her.”

“Sheriff Ballard said her VW bus was unstable,” Sam began.

“It was, and she knew it.” Dad's hands closed into fists, until he met Sam's eyes. “Anytime she went somewhere with you, though, she took the Buick and strapped you into one of those baby car seats.”

“Why did you let her drive it?” Sam heard her own beseeching tone.

“Sam, I've asked myself that a million times. Truth is, there was no telling Louise what to do and what not to do. She knew her own mind.” Dad wore
a lopsided smile as he added, “And sometimes, she just plain let her feelings run away with her.”

“Or maybe she was thinking about something else. Like Caleb Sawyer,” Sam said. “Why did she put that stuff on her list?”

“I've been thinking on that, and it's like I said before. She had some idea he was hurting wild horses to keep them off his land.”

“Do you think he was?”

“I don't know,” Dad said. “Caleb's always been a loner. Rumor says he was a mustanger in the old days. Maybe that kind of talk got her going. And since his is just a little cow-calf operation, everyone's always wondered how he pays the taxes on that ranch, and where he gets his money.”

Money
. Sam sat up straighter. One name came to her mind: Linc Slocum.

And hadn't Brynna said Caleb used Slocum's name every time he called BLM to get the horses off his land? What were those two planning? Someone needed to question them both.

“Sam.” Brynna's tone was apologetic as she stuck her head into the living room. “I'm sorry to interrupt, but Jen's on the phone. Grace said she called earlier, too.”

In the minute that Sam hesitated, deciding just how mad she was at Jen, she noticed Brynna's expression. Not since the first days after the honeymoon had Sam seen Brynna look so unsure.

Brynna's blue eyes flicked from Dad to Sam and back again. She cared about them both, and the horses, but then there was Mom, Dad's first love. Sam didn't enjoy Brynna's suffering, but she wasn't about to stop following the clues left in Mom's note.

“We're done here,” Dad said, rising.

“I'll talk with Jen,” Sam said.

As she started for the kitchen, Sam heard Dad talking behind her.

“We've still got some daylight left. How 'bout going for a ride? It'll help Penny settle in and I'll work some of the orneriness out of Strawberry.”

“Oh,” Sam said, turning, “I forgot to tell you.” She hesitated, seeing Dad's arm around Brynna's shoulders. “Strawberry
has
been mean to Penny.” It seemed sort of useless to mention it now, but Sam added, “I saw her this morning.”

“Thanks,” Brynna said, “I knew I could count on you to help with her.”

Sam felt a little guilty as she picked up the telephone receiver from the kitchen counter.

“Hello?” she said, but heard only dial tone. Sam hung up the phone. “I guess she got tired of waiting.”

“Call her back,” Gram said.

Sam's hand was still on the receiver when the phone rang again. This time it was Jake.

“Hi,” she said in surprise. Sure, Jake had said he would call, but he rarely did. Face-to-face communication was tough enough for him. On the phone, she
had to imagine half of what he intended to say. “Did you call to tell me your idea about the horses?”

“Not mine, really.”

“Then whose?”

“Dad and Grandfather.”

Jake's grandfather, MacArthur Ely, was an elder in the Shoshone tribe, and he'd lived here all his life. If
he
was suspicious of Caleb Sawyer, there was definitely something to be suspicious about.

“Okay,” Sam said, making her tone encouraging. As she waited, Dad and Brynna passed through the kitchen. “What did they say?”

“Shan Stonerow and Sawyer used to be partners.”

Sam's pulse sped up. She'd never met either man, but Shan Stonerow was rumored to be a rough and unscrupulous horse tamer. “Quick and dirty” was the way Mac, Jake's grandfather, had described Stonerow's way of training unbroken horses.

“What did they do to the horses?” Sam asked.

“Don't know for sure, but they took out-of-state hunters after pronghorn during calving season.”

“I thought baby pronghorn were called fawns.”

“They are,” Jake said.

“And Sheriff Ballard said pronghorn season was in the fall.”

“It is. You gonna let me talk?”

Sam wanted to snap that she'd been dragging every word out of him. But she didn't.

Instead, she said, “Go ahead, Jake. Sorry.”

“I mean, while most ranchers were tending their stock, they made a fortune with illegal hunts.”

Sam's imagination filled in the details, picturing the brown and white pronghorn. They were incredibly fast and they could jump over every rock or clump of sagebrush, but some might still be pregnant in spring. Others would be slowed by newborns. They'd be easier targets than usual, local ranchers would be distracted by calving, so they wouldn't notice the poaching, and the horses would just be in the way.

It would be simple for dishonest men to charge lots of money for a guaranteed trophy, and never get caught.

Except by Mom.

“I've got to tell Sheriff Ballard.”

“One problem,” Jake said.

“Don't look for a way to stop me, Jake Ely.”

“Be sensible for once,” Jake said.

Sam almost exploded. Twice tonight she'd been ordered to be sensible. As far as she could tell, she was the only one who was! How sensible were Brynna and Jake being, ignoring a crime taking place right under their noses?

“…all hearsay,” Jake was going on. “It's probably true, but it was a long time ago….”

“I bet he's still doing it,” Sam insisted. “I saw him try to shoot the Phantom!”

“No witnesses. No evidence.”

“
I'm
a witness!” she growled. “And I gave Sheriff Ballard some evidence.”

The sheriff hadn't been excited by her testimony or Mom's note. If he had, he would have marched out and arrested Caleb Sawyer.

She hated it, but the sheriff had to go by what he could prove. Then, all at once, she knew what to do.

“I'll tell Brynna!” Sam shouted.

“That pierced my eardrum,” Jake complained.

“Okay, but don't you think that's what I should do? She has the power of the federal government behind her, right? The horses are under government protection, so people can't go around shooting them, or even
at
them. Besides—”

“Take a breath, Brat.”

“—she knows a bunch of Division of Wildlife guys and they could handle the poaching part of it and put Sawyer away!”

“Maybe.” Jake sounded unconvinced. “But it's been a long time.”

“If he's gotten away with it for a long time, wouldn't arresting him be even more”—Sam fumbled for a word—“urgent?”

“Maybe,” Jake repeated.

Sam glanced around the kitchen. Gram had left.

Just the same, Sam whispered as she said, “Well, if
they
don't do anything about it—”

“Don't say it,” Jake interrupted. “Don't even say
something as stupid and pigheaded as that. You're already grounded. Do you want them to send you back to San Francisco?”

“What?”

“I said, be smart, Samantha.”

“That's not what you said.” Sam swallowed. Jake had been gone when Dad said she'd been safer in San Francisco. “Who told you my dad—?”

“Nobody,” Jake said. He let the word fall like a rock.

But somehow he'd known. Sam drew a deep breath.

In her mind, she looked from Aunt Sue's bay window and saw nothing but fog spangled with streetlights.

Nothing could be worse than being sent away from the ranch and Ace and the Phantom, but that would sure make life easier for Brynna and Dad and Gram, since they all wanted her out of harm's way.

The cowboys could take over her chores and Brynna could hire Jake and Jen to work with the HARP girls. Sam wondered if she'd be missed at all.

“I haven't heard anything,” Jake insisted. “That was just a ‘what if.'”

“Maybe,” Sam said, giving him a taste of his own brevity.

“Look, do you want a ride in to school tomorrow?” Jake asked. “I don't trust you to get there on your own.”

Where did he think she was going to go? And then she knew. Jake thought she'd go face Caleb Sawyer herself.

“I'll get there,” Sam said. “But first I need to talk with Jen. She owes me a big favor, and I've just figured out how she can pay me back.”