Wild Honey (13 page)

Since she was concentrating on her work, it was several minutes before Sam turned to look Ally full in her face. Of course the red photo lights cast an eerie glow, but Ally's expression was strained and anxious.

“You said you had a terrible weekend, too,” Sam began. She didn't get a chance to finish.

“He took my money,” Ally whispered. “I was saving to buy a mandolin. I've always wanted one. That's why I started making money of my own—because there never seems to be any extra…”

Sam's mind raced, trying to make sense of the torrent of words pouring from Ally's mouth, but she didn't want to interrupt her.

“…started babysitting and playing my guitar at parties where they actually paid me to entertain. Of course I wanted to help out with family finances, and I know a church choir director doesn't make much money and it's not easy being a single parent, but I wanted something of my own, too, the mandolin…”

So Ally was talking about her father. Mr. McClintock was a tall, thin man. Secretly, Sam had always thought he looked like a mortician, but he was
a talented musician who devoted his life to the church choir, even though she'd heard people say it was a case of “pearls before swine,” because he was so good, few in the congregation appreciated him.

“…but then he stopped asking permission. He just took my money!” Outrage had made Ally's voice rise to a normal tone and Sam watched the darkroom door, too. “It made me mad that he was sneaking, so I kept moving it—first in my guitar case, then in the can the tennis balls came in for my P.E. class last year. That worked for a long time,” Ally said proudly. “Remember last year in English, we read ‘The Purloined Letter'? And in it, that secret letter everyone was looking for was framed on the wall or something like that? Well, I tried it and it worked! I hid my money in plain sight. For months that can rolled around on my bedroom floor, but then I made the mistake of putting a handful of quarters in it and I guess he must have bumped it with his foot, and…”

Sam tried not to let her shock and disillusionment show on her face.

The church choir director was stealing from his own daughter. Couldn't he just ask for a raise?

“Ally,” Sam said, “that's not right.”

“I know, and—” Ally glanced wide-eyed toward the darkroom door when someone bumped a desk outside, but no one came in. “That's not the worst of it.” Ally took a deep breath. “I shouldn't tell you, but I have to tell someone.”

Dread made Sam shiver, but she told Ally, “Go ahead.”

“You promise you won't tell?” Ally stared at her with beseeching eyes.

“Believe me, you couldn't have picked a better person or a better day to ask that,” Sam insisted.

“Okay, if you promise.”

“Absolutely,” Sam said.

“Saturday, when I called you, he'd been acting weird, and then he said there was a special choir practice and I knew that wasn't true, and when he came home late…” Ally glanced at the darkroom door again and lowered her voice to a whisper. “He smelled like cigarette smoke and no one's allowed to smoke inside the church! I was scared and I asked him where he'd really been, and he…” Ally pushed up the sleeves of her blouse. Even in the red darkroom light, Sam could see twin bruises on Ally's forearms. “Shook me. Really hard.”

“Oh, Ally,” Sam said.

“He apologized Sunday morning before church,” Ally said, “but—”

“That's not enough. No way. Something's wrong. Ally, you've got to talk to someone,” Sam insisted.

As she watched, Ally's face was transformed from scared to watchful.

“I'm talking to
you
,” she said.

“Sure,” Sam told her, “but I mean, someone who can help. The minister, Mr. Blair, or maybe your
counselor. Wait, do you know Mrs. Ely?”

Sam paused.

Ally held a hand over her mouth as if she regretted opening it in the first place.
You've got to do better than this,
Sam told herself, then softened her tone and tried to sound more convincing. “Mrs. Ely is really nice, and so smart. Or, like I said, maybe Mr. Blair?”

“No.” Ally's voice was strangely level.

“If you want,” Sam said, quickly, “I'll ask Mr. Blair what we should do.”

“You can't talk about this to anyone,” Ally hissed, glancing at the door a third time.

Was Zeke playing drums in the other room? Was Rjay hitting his fist against the classroom wall for order? He did that sometimes, but Sam was pretty sure what she heard was the sound of her own blood pounding through her veins, fast and hard and panicked.

“Ally, you've got to get him some help. Maybe your dad's sick, or…”

Drugs, Sam thought. Doesn't it sound like drugs? Stealing money, acting weird…

Without warning, Ally buried her face in her hands.

“What have I done?” she whispered.

Sam had never heard anyone say that in real life. Ally was so overwhelmed, her hands shook and her teeth chattered as if she were cold.

“It's okay,” Sam said, patting Ally's shoulder.

“I shouldn't have told,” Ally said. She shook her
head repeatedly. The lab light turned her hair crimson as fire. “It isn't that bad. It was just hard to keep inside, but I should have. I thought I could trust you.”

“You can,” Sam said dully. She hated traitors. She couldn't become one. “I won't tell. We'll think of something.”

“Really?” Ally said, looking up at Sam. “He could lose his job if you tell, and he's never hurt me before. I bet he won't do it again. I think he's just—”

The bell to end class rang and Ally didn't finish.

“We'll think of something,” Sam repeated as Ally left the darkroom. The door slid closed behind her, shutting out the light. “But I don't know what.”

 

After a long, quiet ride home, Sam and Jen climbed the steps down from the school bus.

“Cheer up. They won't be so mad when you get home,” Jen said.

“Oh, it's not—” Sam pressed her lips closed. She'd almost told Jen what she was really twisted in knots over. “It's not that bad. I've got lots of reading in English this week.”

Jen nodded in understanding. “And I've got loads of physics! Yeah!” She gave an excited thumbs-up and Sam thought, again, that her best friend was definitely one of a kind.

The afternoon weather couldn't have been better and Sam tried to push aside her worries and be glad of that.

It was warm, but a cool breeze scudded clouds around overhead, keeping the
playa
from radiating heat waves up to sizzle through her shoes on her walk home.

Now that Sam was alone, this new secret crowded out other thoughts. She'd tried to block Ally from her mind while she was around Jen. It was hard not to ask for her best friend's help, but she had promised not to tell.

Sam stared skyward, searching for a giant puppeteer in the fat white clouds.

“Is this a little joke?” Sam whispered. “Something to teach me a lesson?”

Sam didn't hear an answer.

“Hello?” Sam called.

Gram had told her that unanswered prayers were really answers. She hadn't quite puzzled that out, yet, and she hadn't really been praying, but anyone who knew what had happened yesterday and then what had happened today, would agree Samantha Anne Forster was being teased by something bigger than herself.

Maybe if Ally hadn't told her this secret on the very same day she'd gotten in Dad's face about Mrs. Allen breaking her word, Sam wouldn't have noticed, but this was just too much of a coincidence. She'd sworn not to be like Mrs. Allen, but Ally had bruises!

Sam knew she'd have to tell, but shouldn't she try to convince Ally it was the right thing to do before she told anyone else?

Or at least before she told another person. Sam smiled. No one could blame her for telling Ace when she got home. And Dad couldn't get mad. She wasn't allowed to ride or leave the ranch, but Dad hadn't said anything about hanging out with her horses.

Thoughts of Tempest stirred in Sam's mind and she wondered why the Phantom had come so near the corral in the middle of Friday night.

Sam stopped walking. Her backpack weighed heavy against her shoulders, but she had to think. She turned the silver horsehair bracelet around and around her wrist, staring toward the Calico Mountain range until her eyes lost focus.

She shook her head.

What if…

No, it was too big a “what if.”

But what if the Phantom had known the honey-colored mare was too injured to rejoin the herd? Could he have come for Dark Sunshine to take her place?

Sam walked a little faster. She loved the Phantom, but he couldn't have Dark Sunshine and Tempest.

She'd call Mrs. Allen and ask if the Phantom was hanging around Deerpath Ranch, waiting for Honey's recovery. And what about Preston? He loved Honey. He'd probably keep her at Mrs. Allen's while she recovered. That meant he'd be hanging around, and Sam didn't want Preston to see the stallion.

Sam's eyes wandered toward the Calico Mountains again.

Why could she still see the moon, smudged silver white against the blue sky? Chills raised gooseflesh on her arms. She rubbed them, looking around for bobbing rabbit brush or pinion pine swaying in the wind, but there was no wind. No cloud had slid over the sun, either.

The Phantom's distant call floated across the range.

Sam stared hard at the Calico Mountains, but she didn't see him. She wheeled around, back in the direction of the bus stop. Nothing moved there or on the alkali flats. And the trail toward Lost Canyon lay empty.

She'd turned in a complete circle by the time she spotted the Phantom right where she'd looked in the first place, far ahead on a rocky ridge.

Only his coat's silver glimmer told her it was him. Only the familiar sound told her how he'd look if she stood close enough to see.

Head high and level, forelock blowing back and mouth open, the stallion summoned her as if she were a wandering herd member. White movement against the red-gray rocks might mean he'd dipped his head, stopping for a breath.

Then he neighed again, and the cry entreated her to gather together with the others.

Was she right? Is that what the great stallion was
saying? Sam strained to understand, but then the truth came to her: if she was right, he wasn't calling her.

He could be summoning Honey or Dark Sunshine, even Tempest, but the Phantom knew she couldn't run to him like a wild filly.

Sam's eyes were still straining to make out his form. She was still staring at the same red-gray rocks when the mustang vanished.

She drew in a breath. When the stallion did that—just appeared and disappeared as if he were no flesh-and-blood horse, but a ghost—she knew how he'd earned his name.

Sam was almost home when she recognized the connection between Hotspot and the horse theft ring. Maybe all she'd needed was the Phantom's appearance to jiggle her thoughts into order.

The connection was blackmail.

There hadn't been a ransom note, but the word that had been ringing in her mind since yesterday was
blackmail
.

The day Sam had driven out toward Cowkiller Caldera with Ryan to hide Hotspot and her foal Shy Boots, they'd glimpsed Karl Mannix. Ryan had said he didn't think the man his father had hired was really a cowboy, but he was supposed to be a cattle expert who raised black Angus cattle.

Then Ryan had said he'd overhead Jen's dad and Mrs. Coley, the Slocums' housekeeper, saying that
the relationship between Karl Mannix and Linc Slocum had less to do with black Angus and more to do with black
mail
.

Sam began sprinting toward home. She had to phone Mrs. Allen anyway and apologize. She might as well ask if the old lady would have Preston call when he came to visit Honey, and give her a description on the man he'd called Chris Mudge.

She'd always assumed Karl Mannix spelled his name with a
K
, but she'd never seen it written down. What if he spelled his first name with a
C
?

Carl Mannix and Chris Mudge had the same initials. Both had been around stolen horses, and those horses had been freed in nearby open space. Maybe that wasn't a coincidence, either.

What if Linc Slocum had received a ransom note, but hadn't told anyone?

Sam ran even faster. She didn't care if her backpack hammered her spine, because she'd just remembered the man called Cowboy. If Mannix had been around here, Cowboy might have been, too.

He was probably no more a cowboy than the ex-jockey was a bug boy, but what if he was? What if Cowboy looked and acted like a real cowboy? It would be easy for him to fit into life in Darton County, where he'd spot horses whose owners might pay fat ransoms.

Although Linc Slocum was the only horse owner Sam would classify as rich, Katie Sterling's farm
looked pretty prosperous. Glossy Morgans grazed in its emerald pastures and Tinkerbell was already gaining a reputation as a show jumper.

Sam pictured Blue Wings. Dad's beautiful new mustang moved with the grace and style of a champion Paso Fino, and River Bend Ranch was large and well cared for. Dad wouldn't pay a ransom for a horse any more than Preston would, but it wouldn't be solely because it was wrong.

An outsider wouldn't guess they were one more flood or drought or fire away from losing everything.

Sam gritted her teeth in resignation.

She didn't like Preston and he didn't like her, but if they worked together with Sheriff Ballard, they might unravel the secrets of the horse theft ring before it was too late.

A
fter a hurried apology to Mrs. Allen, Sam asked if Preston was still hanging around Deerpath Ranch.

“He is,” Mrs. Allen replied. “But he and Heck Ballard are on their way over to talk to you.”

“She's still mad at me,” Sam had said when she'd hung up the phone.

Gram hadn't been surprised. “Samantha, that was not the most heartfelt request for forgiveness I've ever heard.”

Gram wasn't as angry as she'd been the night before. She just continued rolling out pie dough, then sprinkled it with flour from the tips of her fingers.

“Well, I'm not really sorry,” Sam said, holding her reddish-brown hair up off her neck. “Preston-whoever-
he-is has his horse back, but now the Phantom doesn't have a lead mare.”

Gram stared at Sam aghast. “You've regressed.”

“What does that mean?” Sam asked.

“In this case,” Gram said as she settled the bottom pie crust into a pan, “it means you're not acting your age. Instead of growing up, you're acting like a child.”

Dad had said the same thing that morning, asking if she was fourteen or four. Either Dad and Gram had discussed this, or she really was acting immature.

Sam watched Gram mound sugared blackberries into the pie crust, and tried to explain.

“Here's the thing. Preston—and don't you think it's kind of weird that he only goes by one name?—anyway, Preston has lived without his palomino for two years. He's used to being without her,” Sam said, “and the Phantom isn't. Before long, he'll be moving his herd for winter, and he needs her.”

Gram held her breath as she moved the top pie crust onto the fruit. After she'd crimped the edge with her fingers, she looked up at Sam, blew a wayward lock of gray hair out of her eyes, and asked, “How long were you in San Francisco?”

Sam blinked. It was kind of a random question and she didn't know why Gram was asking until she said, “Two years.”

“And this horse you call the Phantom, the one you can't live without, the one you make so much trouble over—”

“Okay,” Sam said. “I know, I was away from him for two years.”

“Would it be fine with you if someone kept him from you on purpose? Maybe forever?”

Sam froze. It was an awful thought.

“No, Gram,” Sam said. “You win.”

Gram smiled. “Oh, good. I'll just put this in the oven so we have fresh pie when your visitors arrive.”

 

The men didn't come in for pie. Gram was a little offended, but Sam knew it was her fault. They weren't mad at her, but they wanted to make the point that Sam was not part of the investigation. They'd ask her some questions and listen to her ideas, but that was all.

Sam hadn't really expected to go out with them, searching for clues, but she had hoped that if they hung around long enough, she'd figure out a way, over pie and coffee, to ask questions that would help Ally.

But they didn't come inside and she couldn't just blurt out Ally's secret the way Mrs. Allen had hers.

Standing in the ranch yard, the three of them watched the horses in the ten-acre pasture while Sam explained the similarities she'd found between Mannix and Mudge. At first, she thought both Preston and Sheriff Ballard appreciated her ideas.

“Crooks usually stay with what they're good at,” Preston said. “If he successfully stole horses in other
states, Chris Mudge could be trying his hand at it here in Nevada as Carl Mannix.”

“Using the same initials for each alias is a pretty common memory device,” Sheriff Ballard said.

“But we're no farther along than we were after talking to Sawyer, Fairchild, and Baldy Harris,” Preston said, frustrated.

Admiration at the man's thoroughness—after all, he'd talked to an old mustanger, a livestock sales expert, and a disgusting buyer of horses for meat—flashed through Sam's mind before Preston snapped his fingers.

“Do you have a photo of him?” Preston asked Sam.

“No,” Sam said. “Someone at Gold Dust Ranch might, but I doubt it.”

“So we're pretty much back where we started,” Preston said.

His remark told Sam that the men had already come to the same conclusion she had. They were just hoping she'd have more evidence.

“We've got casts of his truck tires, and several of us, including Sam, have seen him. If he's around we'll recognize him,” the sheriff said.

“For sure,” Sam said. “I've never met anyone else who looked like a praying mantis.”

A flicker of interest showed in Preston's eyes.

“Do you want me to describe him for you?” Sam asked.

Preston shrugged and pulled a notebook from his pocket. “Couldn't hurt.”

Sam closed her eyes, “looking” at the man in her mind's eye as she described him. “He's got a big parrot-beak nose, thick glasses, and watery blue eyes. Like I said, he's built kind of geeky, like a praying mantis.”

Preston frowned at the repetition. Maybe he wasn't familiar with insects, Sam thought, but she continued. “When he worked for Linc, he wore outdoor clothes that fit but didn't look right on him. You know, like he wasn't really the outdoorsy type. After I looked at his soft little hands, I really didn't think he was. Oh, and he always had a cold, or else hay fever.”

Preston looked up from his notebook with grim satisfaction.

“You mean allergies?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Sam answered.

For the first time, his mouth almost formed a smile.

Preston snapped his notebook closed and his expression turned into a grin so wide, Sam would have thought his team had won.

“What is it?” Sheriff Ballard asked.

“Just something Bug Boy recalled from his phone conversations with Mudge. He said Mudge was always sniffing and sneezing. Bug Boy couldn't figure out why a man who blew his nose so much around fur-bearing animals would choose to make a living with horses and hay.”

This was so cool, Sam thought. If she wasn't having too much fun to wander off for even a few minutes, she'd call Jake to tell him how great things were going. Despite yesterday.

But then the men got ready to go.

“Thanks for your help.” Preston shook Sam's hand so quickly that his hand seemed to just slide by.

“What will we do next?” Sam asked.

“We”—Preston gestured to include Sam—“won't do anything.”

“I know,” Sam said softly. Why did he have to make such a big deal of it?

“But we”—Preston pointed back and forth between himself and Sheriff Ballard—“will take a drive over to Gold Dust Ranch to interview…” He glanced at his notebook again. “Ryan Slocum and Helen Coley.”

Sam felt a pulse of satisfaction. Even if they'd already come up with the idea, so had she.

“What about Linc?” Sam asked.

Sheriff Ballard looked at Preston. Was this something they hadn't quite firmed up yet? Or were they trying to keep her in the dark about some scheme involving Linc? Sam didn't blame them, really, but she couldn't help being curious.

“I'll have to get back to you on that, Sam,” Sheriff Ballard said.

“But I, uh…” Sam began. Was she letting a chance to help Ally get away?

But she'd promised not to tell, and if there was one thing she despised, it was someone who went back on her word. So, she kept quiet, but she promised herself that she'd harass Ally until she gave in and allowed someone to help her.

 

Later that night, Sam had a second chance to tell.

She usually slept well on school nights, but tonight she was listening for the Phantom to return. And worrying about Ally. When Sam had called the McClintock house after dinner, Ally had said in an airy voice that she was fine, but Sam knew the girl's words didn't mean anything.

Frustrated by the way she kept half waking again and again, Sam finally got up and went downstairs.

She heard a clink. Someone was in the kitchen, and she'd bet that someone was eating blackberry pie.

Sam lifted the hem of her nightgown as she descended the stairs, and Cougar followed one step behind. When she pushed open the swinging door between the living room and kitchen, she saw Brynna sitting sideways on one chair with her feet up on another. Her stepmother's red hair streamed loose around her shoulders and her nightgown was pulled up short by her pregnancy, but she was working.

On the kitchen table, a small triangle of pie and a glass of milk sat amid the clutter of maps and markers.

“I felt restless and had leg cramps,” Brynna confessed as Sam came in.

“Are you still working with those maps?” Sam asked. It was a dumb question, she thought, since Brynna was surrounded by them.

“These wild horse problems won't stop,” Brynna mused as she stared at the biggest map. “Domestic horses keep showing up mixed in with wild herds.”

Brynna said it as if it happened all the time, but Sam didn't think it did.

“First there was Hotspot, then Lass, and now Honey—”

“Wait,” Sam said, “not Lass.”

Sam had seen the chocolate-brown Rocky Mountain mare with the Phantom, but Lass sure hadn't joined his herd. In fact, she'd snubbed him worse than any mare Sam had ever seen with the Phantom.

“I agree,” Brynna said, “I just hope the BLM doesn't—” Brynna broke off, and for a woman who hadn't blinked at wearing a gun to corner horse rustlers last September, she looked awfully nervous.

“Doesn't what?” Sam asked.

“Pick up a pattern of wild horse problems and ask me to do something about it,” Brynna finished.

Then, Brynna leaned forward and reentered her world of maps.

She'd missed her chance, Sam thought. She'd been about to ask Brynna some vague but important
questions about helping Ally.

Should she give up and go to bed, Sam wondered, or have some pie? She watched Brynna sigh and rearrange the maps, then hold her index finger in place on one map and stretch to check something on another.

One of the nice things about her stepmother was that she hadn't murmured a single word about why Sam was awake so late.

“I think I'll have a piece of pie,” Sam said. Brynna just nodded.

Sam had sliced a piece a little bigger than Brynna's and was carrying it back to the table when muffled steps sounded on the stairs. Seconds later, Gram peeked into the kitchen. She wore a red corduroy robe and smelled of baby powder. Her eyebrows arched in surprise.

“I guess that pie was better than I thought,” she said, but she settled into her chair between Brynna's and Sam's without cutting a slice for herself.

Sam concentrated. How could she ask something about Ally without telling her secret?

Gram's arrival tore Brynna away from her maps. She grabbed her pie and took a bite.

“I didn't mean to disturb your work,” Gram said, but Brynna waved her hand.

“Don't be silly,” Brynna said. “I've been meaning to ask you something, anyway. How old is Trudy?”

“Too old,” Sam blurted, but she could have bitten
her tongue a second later.

“As a matter of fact, we're the same age,” Gram said flatly.

“I didn't mean too old for anything,” Sam said. “Just…”

On her very first day back on River Bend Ranch, Dad had told her she'd just missed a good chance to keep her mouth shut. Sam remedied the mistake and pressed her lips together.

“Too old for a boyfriend?” Gram asked.

“That's what I was getting at, too!” Brynna giggled.

“Trudy and I are both sixty-two,” Gram said, and though Sam tried to keep a straight face, she must have reacted, because Gram added, “Lands, Samantha. That's not ancient, you know.” But she smirked a little when she said, “Even if that Preston is only a lad of fifty-five.”

“Yuck,” Sam moaned.

“Preston and Trudy,” Brynna announced. “Tell me that doesn't sound like a soap opera.”

“Oh, hush,” Gram said. “They're both single, both devoted to horses—”

“And he just won the lottery,” Sam said. “That should help.”

For a second, it was so quiet Sam heard the grandfather clock's pendulum swing in the living room.

“What?” she said. “I was just thinking about
keeping Blind Faith Sanctuary open. That's all.”

Gram tsked her tongue. “If money is your prime objective, I guess we don't have to worry about you falling for any local boys. Ranchers' sons don't drive Ferraris and wear designer clothes—except for one.”

“And he likes her best friend,” Brynna teased.

Insulted by their not-so-subtle hints, Sam gave a huff.

“Money is so far down my list of things I'd look for in a boyfriend,” Sam said.

“Go on,” Brynna said. She scooted closer to the table and rubbed her hands together as if she could hardly wait to hear Sam's list.

Actually, she didn't have one. And she wouldn't share it if she did.

“I don't think so,” Sam said. Pushing back from the table, she carried her empty plate to the sink and rinsed it off. “I'm going to bed.”

Gossiping with Jen was one thing, but gossiping with her grandma and stepmother was just plain weird.

“Nighty-night,” Brynna called.

“Sweet dreams,” Gram said.

They were still laughing as Sam trotted upstairs to bed. Just the same, as she was falling asleep, an ugly thought intruded. The pattern Brynna hadn't wanted to put into words came to Sam. Three domestic horses, all mares, had been found running with the Phantom's herd. What if the BLM questioned
Brynna's judgment in leaving the Phantom out on the range where he seemed to be stealing mare after mare? Once Sam fell asleep, she still tossed and turned and wondered.

 

The next day at school, Sam panicked. Ally wasn't in English.

“I hope Ally's okay,” Sam said to Jen at lunchtime.

“It's a beautiful Indian summer day,” Jen said, gesturing at the trees edging the lunch area. “She's probably sunbathing and reading a book.”