Heartbreak Bronco (6 page)

“Even the pigeons in the barn rafters,” Sam added.

“I didn't think usin' a horse to bring her down a peg was a good idea to begin with,” Dad said.

“You were probably right,” Brynna agreed. “But we won't know for sure until Sam's finished riding him today.”

Dad rubbed his fingertips over his brow. It was a gesture Sam usually saw him make at the end of a long day, not first thing in the morning.

He was afraid she couldn't ride Jinx.

“Dallas said Jinx was fine,” Sam told him.

“He was fine for
Dallas
,” Dad pointed out.

“I won't let her do anything risky,” Brynna promised.

“It's your call,” Dad said.

Sam felt a little sorry for Brynna. Dad had a way of making you take responsibility that sounded downright scary. “I'm going out brush-poppin' with Ross and Pepper, but I don't want to come home to any surprises.”

Brush-poppin' meant riding through ravines clogged with sagebrush, searching out cattle that might have hidden during the recent roundup.

Sam felt a little envious, but Dallas' story about Jinx had made her eager to lavish attention on the misunderstood horse.

As she walked away from the ranch house, Sam imagined how beautiful the curried and cared-for Jinx would look.

The sun had risen and it was almost too warm when she stepped inside the new bunkhouse.

“My hair's going to turn orange,” Crystal accused, grabbing Sam's arm to drag her into the bathroom.

Crystal pointed at the floor of the shower.

“Do you mean those streaks?” Sam said. “There's iron in the water. Just wipe it out.”

“I was worried about my hair, not your shower,” Crystal bawled, but as soon as she paused for a breath, Amelia cut in with a second complaint.

“Crystal's not wearing boots, so I'm not going to, either.”

“You have to wear boots. Both of you. Today it might not matter, but it will when we mount up. You might as well get used to them.”

Sam hadn't meant to sound so bossy, but taking back her words would be a mistake. A shoe without a heel could slip through the stirrup. If the rider fell and the horse kept moving, she could be dragged.

As Sam made up her bunk, she heard Crystal
mutter, “Who died and made her queen?”

Go ahead and hate me
, Sam thought as she opened the curtains on each window.

Ignoring their unmade beds, the girls stood together at the bathroom mirror. Amelia seemed to be mimicking Crystal's way of applying eye makeup.

“I'll meet you up at the kitchen for breakfast,” Sam said.

She sighed as she left the bunkhouse, but it wasn't the sound of her own breath that stopped her three steps down the path.

The whirring noise drew her eyes to the flat-topped boulder she'd sat on just an hour ago.

Nightmares were like this.

You looked.

You saw.

Your cry was strangled to silence by fear.

T
he snake lay across the boulder like a foot-long mosaic of beige and brown. His forked tongue flicked. The bumps on his tapered tail looked like rows of corn on the cob as they twitched from side to side.

Do rattlesnakes have to be coiled to strike? Can they bite through leather boots? How about jeans? Will it come after me if I back away?

The rattlesnake's seeking head raised off the rock. Its intent eyes glinted.

Sam couldn't remember what to do.

It's more afraid of you than you are of it.

She'd heard that about all kinds of wildlife. She hoped it was true of rattlesnakes.

Sam scuffed her boot on the dirt, trying to frighten
the snake. Like magic, it wove itself into a coil and its rattles beat louder.

Sam took a step backward. The snake didn't seem to notice. She took another silent step away, and another, until her back was pressed against the bunkhouse door.

It couldn't reach her from here. Then, even though she was watching, the snake disappeared. She couldn't say which side of the boulder it had flowed down. There was movement and it was gone.

Sam's breath rushed out and she rapped on the closed bunkhouse door. She didn't feel like turning her back on the path. It hadn't been a very big snake. What if its mother were nearby?

The door jerked inward and Sam staggered back a step, laughing in relief.

“What?” Crystal snapped.

Sam covered her mouth against the inappropriate laughter bubbling up in her. She pointed toward the path, and Amelia and Crystal looked.

“A rattlesnake was right there.”

“Oh, sure.” Crystal's surliness hadn't cured itself overnight.

“I don't care if you believe me. I need to tell my Dad.” Sam started toward the ranch house. “And if I were you, I'd stay in the middle of the path.”

Dubious but unsure, the girls looked around them.

To Sam, their ankles looked vulnerable above their sneakers.

“And you're idiots if you don't put on boots!”

Sam broke into a jog, suddenly desperate to tell Dad before he left the ranch.

“You can't talk to us like that!” Crystal shouted after her, but Sam kept running.

 

Brush-poppin' was put off for a few hours.

Wearing thick leather gloves, Dad and the cowboys searched out openings around every exterior door of the house and both bunkhouses and blocked them. They cut down brush that bordered paths, so that snakes wouldn't rest in their shade during the heat of the day.

After a nervous breakfast, Sam sat on the front porch, listening as Brynna gave Amelia and Crystal an impromptu lecture on rattlesnakes. Dad's voice carried as he and the cowboys worked around the barn.

“If the gap's big enough to stick a pencil through, a snake can slip in,” he was explaining.

Sam rubbed the gooseflesh from her arms.

“Most of the time we'll be working in the corrals, but when we're not, stay on the paths,” Brynna cautioned the girls. “Don't put your hands or feet where you can't see. If you're working with a horse and it snorts, shies, or backs away from what seems to be nothing, pay attention. And for heaven's sake, if you see a snake, don't try to move, touch, or kill it. Go around it. At least six feet around it.”

“But they're going to kill them, right?” Amelia's face was paler than before as she gestured toward the cowboys.

“No,” Brynna said. “At least, I don't think so.”

Sam would bet this was a subject Brynna and Dad might disagree over. Because she was a biologist, Brynna would focus on the balance of nature. But Dad…

Clearly Brynna and Dad hadn't yet discussed this topic during their short marriage.

“No?” Crystal said. “If you're not going to kill them, why have this whole snake hunt?”

“To keep us safe,” Sam said. “So we don't come upon one accidentally.”

Sam kept her voice level, but she couldn't stop thinking that she'd actually sat on that boulder this morning.

The snake had done the same thing she had, picking out a warm place on a cool morning.

“I'm trying to remember everything I know about rattlesnakes, but I'm a little rusty,” Brynna said. “I know most snakes around here are harmless. We've got gopher snakes, garter snakes, and king snakes in the mountains, but rattlesnakes are pretty distinctive. Their heads are more triangular and their tails are rounded at the tip—not like our other snakes, which have long, pointy tails.”

“Won't your dog chase them away?” Amelia asked.

Brynna glanced toward the house. Blaze stood on the other side of the screen door, panting. He wagged his tail, eager to come out, but Brynna shook her head.

“Snakes are more dangerous to Blaze than to you. Dogs bark until they've got the snake good and worried, then they stick their noses down where they can be bitten.

“Coiling and rattling are defensive behaviors. Rattlesnakes don't have very good eyesight, but if you're too big to be a tasty mouse, they're scared. They're telling you to go away and sometimes they'll even bite.”

“What makes you think they're scared, not mean?” Crystal asked.

“Sometimes they don't even inject venom,” Brynna said. “You can't count on that, of course, but once in a while they give what's called a dry bite.”

Sam had never heard of a dry bite, but she'd seen those fangs in action on a nature show. Poison or no poison, a snake's bite would hurt.

“Lecture over,” Brynna said. She stood and slapped her palms on her jeans. “Sam, while I get the brushes and combs for grooming, why don't you walk over and let Jinx know we're coming.”

Brynna took off toward the barn. Sam found herself a few steps ahead of Amelia and Crystal as they walked toward the metal pen, but she could hear them talking.

“I don't think there was any snake,” Crystal said. “They're doing this to keep us from sneaking out.”

“I don't know,” Amelia answered. “Sam said—”

“Of course she did. Do you think she wants to be up all night listening for us?”

“No, but—”

“Besides, even if there
was
one, I wouldn't be afraid of it,” Crystal bragged. “Think of the stories you could tell if you got one of those dry bites.”

“But it would hurt,” Amelia protested.

“I bet it would be just like getting a slap,” Crystal said. “And I'm not afraid of a little pain.”

Crystal's showing off could ruin everything. If she was bitten, the HARP program might hold her injury against everyone at River Bend Ranch.

“Hey Amelia,” Sam said over her shoulder. “Could you run back to the kitchen and get a carrot for Jinx?”

Amelia's arms crossed at her waist. “Why don't you do it?”

“Just go ask my grandmother for one,” Sam insisted.

“Go ahead.” Crystal gave Amelia's shoulder a push.

Looking scared and embarrassed, Amelia went.

“What?” Crystal said to Sam. Her feet were set apart and her hands perched on her hips. “You obviously wanted to get me alone to yell at me.”

Crystal focused her pale eyes on Sam.

“There
was
a rattlesnake,” Sam insisted. “It's no trick to keep you here.”

“Whatever,” Crystal said, rolling her eyes.

“Why did you even sign up for HARP?” Sam asked the question that had been brewing in her mind since she'd met the girl. “You don't want to be here. You don't even like animals.”

“That's driving you crazy, isn't it?” Crystal said in a low voice. “Well, I have my own reason for being here, and there's nothing you can do about it.”

 

An hour of brushing and currying transformed Jinx. His roached mane looked cocky rather than disreputable, and his glossy tail flowed like black water. His smoky silver-blue coat shone in the June sun. His ears were tipped and edged with dark-chocolate brown, and so were his face and shoulders.

The screen door slammed. Though Gram had been watching from the window, now she came out to the hitching rail and applauded.

“He looks wonderful, Sam,” Gram said. “Like sterling silver with a little tarnish in places. Trust you to see his possibilities.”

Gram walked closer while Brynna described the horse's markings to Amelia and Crystal.

“That's called leg barring and that's a dorsal stripe,” Brynna said, pointing out the shadows on Jinx's hocks and the dark stripe that ran along his spine.

“Like sterling silver,” Gram repeated to Jinx as he
nuzzled her hand. “When it hasn't been used for a while.” She reached up to rub his poll, then added, “Just polish a little and it shines like new.”

Sam stood holding the brush while Gram talked to the horse. Finally, Gram gave him a pet good-bye.

“Just a beauty,” Gram was still muttering as she went back inside the house.

As if he'd follow, Jinx pulled back against the halter rope tethering him.

“I guess it's time to saddle up,” Brynna said at last.

Saddling was the easy part. Mounting turned out to be impossible.

As Sam poised to swing into the saddle, Jinx began breathing hard. He flicked his ears front, back, and sideways.

“What's wrong, boy?” Sam crooned.

Jinx wasn't acting like a lazy horse. He was scared.

After Sam realized that, Brynna's voice faded to a drone.

Sam was pretty sure Brynna was describing each step she took in coping with the anxious horse, but Sam's mind was locked on Jinx.

“Let's try this slowly,” Sam told the gelding.

She took her time gathering her reins, arranging the loose ends over Jinx's right shoulder and placing her left hand at the base of his Mohawk mane. She clucked to him and prepared to bounce up into the stirrup.

Ears pricked toward Sam, Jinx swung his
hindquarters away. He snorted and danced in place.

Five minutes later, when the gelding's flanks and neck had darkened with sweat and she was still trying to mount, Sam asked, “What's scaring you, boy? You are such a good horse,” Sam told him. “You're not bucking, kicking, or biting to make your point, but you sure don't want me up there.”

Ten minutes later, Jinx was lathered white and Sam's legs shook from her failed attempts to swing into the saddle.

“This isn't normal.” Brynna's voice cut through Sam's concentration. “Girls, this happens sometimes, when a horse has been mistreated. You have to read his mind, guess what went wrong in his past and convince him it won't happen again.

“Sam, try taking him into the barn, then put his right side up against the wall and mount him there.”

“I can do that,” Sam said, nodding. She heard her own breathlessness and she was glad for Brynna's suggestion.

With one side against the barn wall, Jinx couldn't sidestep away from her.

“Once you're up, ride on out and we'll have the gate open to the barn corral. I've already locked Dark Sunshine and Tempest in their stall, so you and Jinx will have the corral to yourselves.”

“Good idea,” Sam said. Then, with pretend confidence, she led Jinx toward the barn. Whatever bad
experiences he'd had must have come from a rider. He'd liked her fine until she'd tried to mount.

As they clopped past the ten-acre pasture, Ace neighed longingly. When Jinx answered, Ace swished his tail and bared his teeth.

“You're still my best boy, Ace,” Sam called. She heard Crystal's derisive laughter, but she didn't care.

These horses were more important to her than Crystal.

Despite Ace's glare, Jinx tried to swing toward the pasture. Sam didn't let him.

“Yes, I know you're a herd animal,” she said, forcing him to walk beside her. “And I know you want to stay with your new friends, but we're only going across the ranch yard. You'll like the barn. It smells like food and there are horses in there, too.”

Jinx allowed himself to be led the rest of the way.

Dark Sunshine's buckskin head bobbed above the side of her stall as Sam and Jinx entered.

Tempest's hooves pattered and jumped. She squealed and shoved her mother, trying to see what was going on.

“That's right,” Sam encouraged the mare and foal, “you girls cheer him on. See, Jinx? They know you can do this.”

Sam positioned Jinx next to the barn wall, petted him in slow, understanding motions, then exhaled.

“One more time, boy,” she said. Then, before Jinx
could move away, Sam touched her boot to the stirrup, and vaulted aboard.

Sam crossed her fingers as she settled in the saddle.

Jinx trembled beneath her, but he didn't bolt or buck. Everything was going to be okay.