Dark Sunshine (7 page)

“Maybe he doesn't,” Sam said.

“What?” Mikki sneered.

“He broke down a fence at the place he used to live,” Sam began, then she told Mikki about the
snubbing post, the bucking, and the weeks of being ignored.

Mikki listened intently until Sam finished. Then the girl looked frustrated. “So when can I ride him?”

“Not this year,” Jake said.

“What?” Again, Mikki's shrill words made Popcorn bolt around the corral. She glanced his way with regret, then plucked at her feathery blond hair. “I can't ride him? Are you afraid I'll screw him up worse?”

“No, we need him to trust someone.”

“Like you,” Mikki said to Sam. “You're the one reading his mind.”

“I'm not reading his mind, just guessing.”

“And what do you
guess
it means that he won't let me look into his eyes?” Mikki wagged her head mockingly.

“I think…” Sam swallowed and cast a nervous glance at Jake.

This was all his fault. When the Phantom was a foal, Jake had helped Sam think like a horse. She'd never expected to do it aloud.

“I think,” Sam said, “that he got everything wrong with people the first time, right after he was captured. Then, instead of trying to understand, they scared him, hurt him, and then shut him out. He wonders why he should try again.”

For just an instant, Mikki looked sympathetic,
but then she noticed Jake waiting for her response.

“The reason he should try it
again
”—Mikki pronounced each word slowly, as if Sam weren't very smart—“is because he's a horse. That's what horseys
do
. They give people rides.”

“Not wild horses,” Sam said.

“He could learn.” Mikki flipped her hand toward the corral. “I bet he could learn in a week. You're just teasing me so I'll be a good girl. I've played this game before.”

It was quiet for a minute, except for the faraway drone of a small plane overhead. Sam noticed Jake watching it, too.

“See that plane?” Jake nodded toward the cloudless sky and the white trail stretching behind the aircraft.

“Yeah. Why, are you sending me away on one?”

Jake almost smiled. “No,” he answered. “Can you fly one?”

“Of course not. Are you crazy?”

“But there's a person flying that plane—”

“A
pilot
,” Mikki said in a singsong voice. “Duh.”

“A pilot's a human and you're a human.” Jake spread his hands out as if he'd explained something simple. “So, you could learn to fly the plane, right? People fly planes. How long do you think it would take you to learn? A week?”

“I'm only eleven years old—”

“Okay,” Jake conceded, “so we could give you two weeks.”

“I've never done anything like that. You have to learn about wind currents and flaps and—” Mikki stopped, breathless, then closed her eyes. “I get it.”

“Three weeks?” Jake teased.

“I said I
get it
, so quit it.” Mikki's face flushed.

Sam thought Jake had broken through the girl's cockiness, until Mikki squinted up at him.

“How long till I can ride him?”

Sam gestured toward the sky. “Jake,” she muttered, “if I ever,
ever
criticize your patience, remind me of this.”

“How long?” Mikki asked again, and Jake recognized the dare.

“When he trusts you,” Jake said.

“How will you be able to tell?”

“When he eats out of your hand,” Jake began, then shook his head. “No, when he comes to you instead of running away, but you're
not
carrying food.” He numbered the first condition off on his index finger, then added, “And when he lets you pet him on the face and neck. Then we can try you on him. Bareback. In this corral.”

The gray van that had delivered Mikki just over an hour ago had come to pick her up. As it rolled slowly over the River Bend bridge, Mikki's shoulders sagged.

Before the van parked, though, Mikki started toward it. She didn't say good-bye or thanks or anything, but just before she reached the van she turned back, pointed at Jake and shouted, “You got yourself a deal, cowboy.”

“I
'
D LIKE
M
IKKI
, if she weren't such a brat.” Sam watched the gray county van cross the River Bend bridge.

“You would,” Jake said, and it wasn't a question.

Sam thought of the way Mikki's shoulders had drooped when she saw the gray van. What was the place like, where the van was taking her? Probably halfway between school and the orphanage in
Annie
, Sam figured, where you didn't get to decide when to study, what to eat, or if you should go for a walk.

It would be a controlled, structured place. Sam wished she could creep inside with her camera and a roll of black-and-white film and show what the girls inside were really like.

“She's got a great vocabulary for a seventh grader,” Sam said. “And sometimes she sounds really mature. Do you think that's because she's got a messed-up childhood?”

Jake shrugged.

“Well,
I
think she's intelligent.”

“Probably is,” Jake said. “But I'm going to tell Wyatt to watch her. She's dangerous.”

“Just because she's a smart mouth?”

“I don't think
you're
dangerous,” he said. “And you've never been anything but sassy.”

Sam stuck out her tongue at Jake, then asked, “But really, what don't you like about her?”

Jake shook his head. “Hard to say. I guess 'cause she's trying to make us think this is no big deal to her.” He gestured toward Popcorn. “When it's really the best thing that's happened to her for a long time. She might, I don't know, sort of sabotage herself, and one of the horses might get hurt.”

Sam brought Popcorn's food to the round pen while Jake retrieved Witch, his roach-maned black mare, from the barn.

Witch and Popcorn sniffed each other through the panels of the pen, and Witch gave a snorting whinny. Dark Sunshine answered from the barn corral. Sam longed to make the little horse happy.

“If Brynna says it's okay, I want to try everything you're doing with Popcorn on the buckskin.”

“Well, that's a fool idea,” Jake said.

“Why? I wouldn't do it in the round pen to begin,” Sam said. “In fact, I'd leave her where she is, but isolate her from Ace and Sweetheart. What do you think? Maybe she'd start to see me as her herd.”

“I won't be part of this,” Jake said. “That animal is half scared you're going to put her in the dark, and half scared you'll bring her into the light. You can't trust her to act like a normal horse.”

Jake was always too protective, so Sam changed the subject. “Are you going to tell Brynna what you think of Mikki?”

“Don't know. First impression could be wrong, but my gut says it's not.”

“They'd probably pull her from the program.” Sam heard herself almost defending Mikki, and she couldn't believe it.

“You don't know whether they would or not,” Jake scolded. “They didn't send her to another state because she was an angel.”

Jake tugged the front of his hat even lower, so Sam couldn't see his eyes. “Anyway, I want Wyatt watching her.”

“Since when did you get to be northern Nevada's leading psychologist for humans, too?” Sam was sick of Jake acting superior. Why did he think he was so smart? she wondered. Because he was older, or because he was a guy?

Sam started walking toward the barn corral, and Dark Sunshine must have seen her. The mare's high-pitched neigh split the late-afternoon quiet.

“It doesn't take an expert to diagnose that. Sam, look at her,” Jake's voice softened.

As they watched, the tiny mare moved down the
fence and back again, not quite sidestepping, always keeping her face away from them and toward the darkened barn.

“She's—” Jake searched for a word but came up empty.

“Tormented,” Sam said. “I'm going to sit with her now.”

Jake shook his head. “Do what you want.”

“She'll get used to me. She'll see I won't hurt her.”

Wordless, Jake gathered his reins, stabbed his boot into Witch's stirrup, and swung aboard. The black danced in place, eager to head for home, but Jake didn't go.

“Sam? Give this some thought. If no one claims that horse and she keeps acting crazy, BLM's going to put her down. I just—” Jake set his jaw as he always did when he'd talked too much, then added, “I don't want you gettin' your heart broke over it.”

 

Sam sat in the shady barn as she had before and studied the mustang. It wasn't easy, with Ace and Sweetheart jostling for Sam's attention.

Sweetheart gave up as soon as she saw Sam's hands were empty, but Ace gave Sam a hooded look meant to make her feel guilty. It did.

Dark Sunshine stayed still. She gazed into the darkness. Beneath her shaggy forelock, Dark Sunshine had a wide forehead and shining brown eyes that expected the worst. Her conformation
reminded Sam of Kiger mustangs she'd seen in magazines. Descended from Spanish Barbs, they ran wild in the rugged country surrounding the Kiger River in Oregon.

Brynna said the woman who'd adopted the mare was from Wyoming, but the freeze brand on her neck could say she'd been captured in Oregon.

“You're far from home, aren't you, pretty girl?”

The mare flinched as if Sam had tossed a handful of gravel her way, but she didn't leave. One ear swiveled, listening for trouble, but the other black-edged ear cupped forward to catch Sam's words.

Amazed, Sam kept talking.

“I've got another horse friend who likes it when I talk. His name used to be Blackie. He was my horse.” Sam took a breath, and the mare looked over her shoulder. “You saw him the other day, but you were busy having breakfast. You're eating well now, aren't you? And drinking, too. Except for all this crazy stuff, you're doing good, Sunny.”

She kept talking. Kigers were supposed to be friendly, but this mare had learned humans meant windowless stalls, whips, and blindfolds.

Those symbols tied Sunshine to men as surely as kindness and his secret name tied the Phantom to Sam.

Think
. Sam knew she could turn this mare around. It was too late for a secret name. Nothing could make this horse her sister, but maybe they
could be friends. Just as she'd won the Phantom's heart after he'd been roped and dragged back to captivity, just as she'd waited in just the right place for Hammer, Sam knew she'd discover the magic to win Dark Sunshine's trust.

 

“If only horses could give references,” Sam said to Jen as they entered the crowded halls of Darton High School the next morning.

“References?” Jen pushed her glasses up her nose and regarded Sam as if she'd lost her mind. “Like when you apply for a job?”

“Sort of.” Sam stopped outside her history class. Jen's classroom was right next door, so they could talk until the bell.

“More like a personal reference. If I could get Ace or the Phantom to write Dark Sunshine a letter, she'd understand I'm not going to hurt her.”

Jen pressed the back of her hand to Sam's brow. “I think you're coming down with something more serious than my cold, Samantha Anne.”

“And I've got the cure,” Mrs. Ely said, appearing at the classroom door.

“A healthy dose of history?” Jen asked.

Mrs. Ely laughed, and Sam envied Jen's easy way of balancing the fact that Mrs. Ely was not only a Darton High teacher but also Jake's mom.

Mrs. Ely had known both of them since they were little kids. She was also Sam's history teacher and a
talented photographer who encouraged Sam's work with a camera.

“Almost as good as history,” Mrs. Ely said. “A photo contest. Jen, you'd better run.” She shooed Jen away as the bell rang. “And Sam, talk to me after class.”

Sam moved toward her desk, but her way was blocked by Rachel Slocum. Darton High's reigning princess and student body treasurer, Rachel was duly qualified. As Linc Slocum's daughter, she was by far the richest girl in the school.

And the most stylish. Right now, Rachel smoothed a wing of coffee-brown hair away from her eyes, negotiating a deal for last night's homework with a bespectacled boy who could only swallow, hard, as she talked with him.

“I'd be so grateful.” Rachel leaned toward him.

One of the advantages of really expensive clothes was that they flowed over you like liquid. At least they did on Rachel. She was wearing some kind of beige outfit that would have looked like a feed sack on Sam, but Rachel looked like she'd stepped out of a fashion magazine.

Sam sat and looked over her shoulder in time to see Rachel leave empty-handed. The guy hadn't given in, and Sam almost applauded. Rachel caught her gloating expression, and Sam could see she was in for it. The last time Rachel had had it in for her, she'd broken the expensive camera signed out to Sam from
journalism class. What would she do this time?

Sam took a piece of lined paper from her binder and prepared to take notes. Before Mrs. Ely began talking, though, Sam wrote a note to herself. “Watch your back,” it said, and with everything else going on, she vowed to take her own advice.

 

After class, Sam approached Mrs. Ely's desk. The teacher was handing makeup work to one student and scolding another for gossiping in class, but she slipped Sam a flyer.

The first thing Sam noticed was that the contest wasn't limited to entrants under eighteen. It was open to professional photographers as well as amateurs. She must have looked dubious; because as soon as the others moved toward the door, Mrs. Ely said, “Samantha, that reward you won is as much as some photographers make in a year.”

She didn't want to contradict Mrs. Ely, but she sort of had to. “But I earned it under pretty unusual circumstances.”

“You did, but your work was fine, and look at the name of the contest. It's perfect for you.”

Night Magic, the contest was called. The subject could be anything shot at night, and Sam had once confided to Mrs. Ely that her dream was to photograph wild horses running at night.

“It is perfect,” Sam agreed. “But with the, uh, stuff that's going on—” Sam glanced over her shoulder.

Rachel gathered her things in slow motion, eaves-dropping. Mrs. Ely nodded that she knew what Sam was talking about. After all, Gram had called Three Ponies Ranch first when she'd been looking for Sam that night.

“The deadline's near Christmas,” Mrs. Ely said. “You've got plenty of time.”

The warning bell rang in the hall, and Sam jumped like a racehorse in the starting gate.

“I can't be late,” she blurted to Mrs. Ely. “If I don't earn all A's in citizenship, I can't ride.”

“What a tragedy,” Rachel murmured.

Even though Sam beat her to the door, she couldn't shake the feeling she'd given Rachel Slocum one more bit of ammunition to use against her.

 

Looking like he'd been to town on ranch business, Dad picked Sam up from the bus stop. By the time they reached home, Mikki was already there.

Gram told her Mikki had not only decided to go along with the guidelines for the HARP program, which meant, among other things, keeping a journal about her experiences with the mustangs, but she'd finagled an extension to the time she could spend at River Bend each day.

“Why, she just gobbled up the chocolate chip cookies I gave her, and as soon as Jake arrived, she followed him into the pen,” Gram said. “She couldn't wait to see Popcorn.”

Sam let her backpack fall to the floor and sat at the kitchen table to devour her own cookies and milk.

“That's great,” Sam said, but she didn't exactly mean it. What was wrong with her? Just yesterday, she'd been telling Jake she liked Mikki.

 

Whatever it was, Popcorn felt it, too.

Out of her school clothes and in riding gear, Sam peered through the slats of the round pen. Yesterday, though he'd stayed far away from Mikki, Popcorn had kept his side turned to her. Today, he was showing her his tail.

You couldn't fool horses
, Sam thought. Mikki would have to learn that.

Sam wanted to ride Ace. They both needed the exercise. But how could she get Ace out of the barn pen without giving Dark Sunshine a chance to bolt? She'd need to ask Dad for help.

That settled, she left the barn. Blaze met her with a wagging tail. Even he was keeping his distance from Dark Sunshine.

“What's going on with Mikki, huh, Blaze?” Sam rumpled the dog's ears and he whined with pleasure.

Had Mikki made gentling Popcorn a contest against Jake? Had she taken his standards as a challenge? Maybe she was trying to prove something to herself. Or, maybe she thought that if she did a quick job of riding Popcorn, she could take on Dark Sunshine.

“That's not going to happen,” Sam muttered to Blaze as the dog walked along with her. “No way.”

Blaze wagged his tail and looked up at Sam with openmouthed adoration, believing every word.