Ronald got up to answer the door when he heard the manual ringer sound its tune. "I wonder who that could be?" he said curiously. They had few visitors, and those who came unannounced were even rarer.
"Probably a salesman," Elaine said. "We're not expecting anyone, are we?"
"Not that I know of. Well, we'll know in a minute."
The family had been in the den after supper, watching a movie. Samantha and Elaine heard excited voices but couldn't quite make out the words. A moment later Ronald came back to the den with a huge grin on his face. He was accompanied by Jennie and by Gene Rawlings, their erstwhile guard on their move from Texas."
"Jennie! Gene!" Samantha yelled enthusiastically and ran toward them. She hugged them both with almost equal fervor.
Elaine stood up, a puzzled expression on her face. So far as she knew the two weren't even acquainted and here they were together. And Gene was supposed to be leaving soon. Ronald was equally curious but had been too polite to say anything as yet.
"I'm sorry to be disturbing you this time of the evening but it's important," Jennie said as she came into the den with Samantha holding hands with her on one side and tugging at Gene's hand to hurry him along on the other. They were both dressed casually, as most residents of the area did.
"Let's put some coffee on, or would you rather have something else?" Elaine asked.
"Coffee's fine," Jennie said. As soon as Samantha released her hand she brushed an errant strand of her taffy-blond hair from her forehead. The wind blew almost as often here as in Texas, she thought.
"Coffee's good for me, too," Gene echoed.
"Well, sit down and tell us what's going on. Sammie, would you mind making the coffee?"
"Yes ma'am. I'll have it ready in a jiff."
Once the unexpected couple were seated, Ronald raised his brows in a voiceless query.
Jennie leaned forward from the chair where she had been seated. "I guess the easiest way to explain is to just tell you that someone has been worried about Sammie, what with all the crazies and other nefarious type people at large. So worried, in fact that the person hired Gene to stick around the area and serve as her protector, sort of."
Ronald frowned and Gene quickly spoke up. "It's not like I'm going to be a pain in the... a pain to you all or to Sammie. Mostly, you won't even notice when I'm around and I certainly don't want to interfere with yours or Sammie's social life. However, you know the kind of people who might want to harm her and you never know when they might turn up." He looked quickly to be sure Samantha was still tied up in the kitchen with the coffee then continued quickly. "There might be terrorists or agencies of other governments--or even our own government, for that matter, who wouldn't hesitate to hurt or kidnap Sammie for their own purposes. I know Jennie's spoken to you about this, hasn't she?"
"Yes. Yes, she has. This still seems kind of odd. And how do you figure in this, Jennie?"
She hesitated before answering. "I guess you could say I'm sort of an intermediary. I contacted Gene and convinced him to take the job. That's with your approval, of course."
Sammie returned and stopped. She scanned the serious faces and asked, "What's wrong?"
"Nothing, nothing at all," Elaine said. "It's just kind of sudden."
"What's sudden?"
"Sammie, how would you like to have Gene hang around the area and make sure no bad people bother you like they did in Lufkin?"
"Are they coming
here
?" she cried out despairingly.
"Not that we know of," her mother said soothingly. "But if they do, Gene will run them off before you ever see them."
"Really? That would be great. I hate those people."
"Most of them are just delusional, Sammie," Jennie told her. "There are some real baddies in the world, though, and someone thought you'd be safer with a sort of body guard."
"You mean you'd be with me all the time, Gene?" She liked the big man but she knew instinctively that she wouldn't care to have him constantly at her side.
He held up his hands, palms facing outward. "Oh, no, no, Sammie. You wouldn't like that. I'm sure you don't want me to see you kissing your boyfriends do you?" he grinned. "What I'll be doing mostly is checking anyone new in the area to make sure they're okay and patrolling the roads around your house at odd times and, oh, all the things a security specialist like me does, some of which I won't even talk about. I promise, I won't get in your way."
Sammie had blushed at the mention of kissing boyfriends. She was too embarrassed to tell him that she didn't have a boyfriend at present, although she was kind of working at acquiring one.
Gene and Jennie stayed an hour while they all enjoyed remembering the good times in Lufkin, especially laughing over Meriweather's abrupt downfall. After securing Ronald and Elaine's approval for Gene acting as a security specialist on their behalf, they left together in a single vehicle. The two had become good friends since Jennie had been contacted by Anton McAllister and asked to solicit Gene as a guard for Samantha. She still had no idea why the girl's talent was so important and Gene obviously knew even less. In the week since her quick trip to see McAllister, while Gene was considering the job offer, he had shown her around the area. At her insistence they hadn't gone to visit the Douglas family until Gene accepted the job. She wanted to bring some good news for a change when she made her appearance. She liked the land and the people she met, and since she had no real ties to Houston and could do her work from a base almost anywhere, she had decided to stay in the general area of the Sanctuary. After all, if Samantha should need protecting, two would be better than one. Besides, she admitted to herself, she liked Gene. A lot.
"Would you like to stop for a drink before I take you back to your motel?"
Jennie laughed. "Sure. Just about any place would be better than there. Despite the scenery and nice people, you have to admit it's not overgrown with good places to stay." She had spent the last six nights in a rather shabby motel but she would have had to drive another sixty miles for anything better.
"It certainly isn't. I probably grabbed the last decent place around here to stay in for any length of time."
Gene had rented a small vacant house when he took the job with the Sanctuary and had not yet given his notice. She had already visited him there several times during the day.
The house was tucked into a nest of ponderosa pine and scrub stock. It was barely visible from the gravel road. The small, neat two bedroom brick home sported a large fenced back yard, garage and utility shed. Inside it was clean and neat, a welcome change from some bachelor abodes she had been in.
Once they had drinks in hand and were sitting side by side on a small couch. Gene sipped at his drink and then unexpectedly laughed.
Jennie glanced at him. He still had a smile on his face. "What's funny?"
"I was just thinking, I accepted the job and I still don't know who's paying me."
"Does it matter?"
"Mmm, probably not, although once I had time to think about it, the idea of a rich philanthropist seems a bit of a stretch. The same as you do functioning as an emissary."
Jennie had to chuckle. He wasn't a security specialist for nothing and evidently he was a good one. "Gene, it's really best not to ask. I'll admit I know more than you do but that still doesn't cover much. All I can say is that some people feel Samantha is important, but I don't know why. Just being able to communicate well with animals doesn't seem like enough reason but evidently it is."
"I take it you work for those people?"
"I'm an investigative reporter, Gene."
"But that's not
all
you are."
She smiled. "Guilty, but I can't tell you anything else."
"Or you'd have to kill me?" he said with a grin.
"Oh, I doubt it would go that far. I don't do much of that kind of work, anyway. For one thing, I'm not trained well enough in it, though I do carry a handgun. Besides, once Sammie's grown maybe we'll both find out what the deal is, I hope. In the meantime we just want to keep her safe and let her develop naturally."
"You do realize I've looked into her background on the internet, don't you?"
"I would have expected no less."
"Jennie, can she really talk to animals?"
"You'd have to ask her about that. When you get right down to it, no one but her knows for certain, although a number of people believe she can. Reputable ones, not those left handed wing nuts."
"Okay, I'll leave it at that. Just thought I'd ask. Another drink?"
"Okay."
That one turned into another as they laughed and talked, mostly about Samantha and what a sweet young girl she was.
"Polite, too," Gene said. "That was one of the first things I noticed about her. You know how most kids say 'yeah' and 'nah' to their parents and other adults?"
"Yeah," she said facetiously and grinned at him.
"I've never heard Sammie say anything but 'yes ma'am' or 'no ma'am' and 'yes, sir' or 'no, sir' to her parents or adults."
"Uh huh. And she knows how to say please and thank you, too. She even uses the terms when she's talking to animals."
"It says a lot about how well Ron and Elaine raised her, too. They've done a great job, not even considering the stigma Sammie's been under since... Alaska?"
"You're fishing, Gene, but yes. There's more to her than just being pretty and polite, though. I don't think she's ever been given an IQ test but Elaine told me she's had phone calls from other parents in the area who supervise the kids' schooling. They've been telling her that Sammie's learning speed is just about off the charts."
The big man mused for a moment before commenting. "I suspect she's never been in an environment like here, where she can advance at her own speed. That little school in Alaska certainly didn't have much to offer and didn't have much of a library, either. She had a computer but no internet because the mountains blocked access to satellites. They had phone service but it was land lines powered by a generator and used just for local calls. The phone company was a co-op and subsidized by the state."
"You really have done your research. Sammie told me once that when they moved to Texas and she got a smart phone and access to the internet she thought she'd died and gone to heaven. I doubt that Ron and Elaine realize just how much internet access has enhanced her learning environment."
"It's not just that, Jennie. Or not entirely. She's a reader, too. Having a city and school library and broadband internet has broadened her range of reading so much that she sometimes feels odd about spending so much of her spare time with her nose in a book. Most of her peers are playing games or doing other things with their computers and phones while she's busy reading or studying. She said they were always connected to each other in one of the media social groups or trading photos and videos, stuff she's just not much interested in. She confided that to me when I rode with her and Elaine on their trip up here."
"She's an amazing young lady, alright," Jennie said. She reached to the side table for a sip of her drink. When she leaned back it was into the circle Gene's arm. She faced him with a smile then met his descending lips with her own.
Jennie didn't get back to her motel that night, and only went back the next day to pick up her luggage. A week later she flew to Houston to put her small amount of household goods into storage. A week after that she packed a couple of suitcases, drove her car back and moved in with Gene.
***
"Mom, would it be alright if I went horseback riding with someone?"
Elaine glanced up from her sewing basket where she was mending a blouse during commercial breaks from the program she and Samantha were watching. Ronald was in a room he had turned into an office, busy correcting some erroneous environmental surveys from years ago.
"I guess it would depend on who you're going with."
"A boy."
"How old is he?"
"Seventeen. He's in school with me except when he has to help his Dad."
"What does his father do?"
"Him and Ray have a horse ranch."
She frowned. "Oh, yes, I believe I've heard of them. The Zimmermans?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"A few people in the area think they're strange."
"Mom, he's not strange! He's just shy and... and withdrawn. His Mom died when he was real young."
"Yes, I know, Sammie. Mr. Thomas is acquainted with them and he thinks they're fine, other than that Mr. Zimmerman took it hard when his wife died. He said it's a shame he never remarried so Ray would have had a mother growing up."
"Then I can go?"
"Who's going to take you?"
"You or Dad, I guess. He said he would but he doesn't trust his pickup right now. It dies suddenly and won't restart for a long time. He doesn't know what's wrong with it but he doesn't want to take a chance on stranding us."
"That's thoughtful of him. When do you want to go?"
"Saturday."
"Alright. I'll take you."
Elaine and Samantha, along with Shufus, got out their SUV in front of the Zimmerman ranch house Saturday morning. Fussy remained at home with Caw-Caw. Ray and his father were already at work in a nearby corral but both came to meet them when they saw the arriving vehicle. Samantha introduced Ray and his father to her mother. The elder Zimmerman looked down at his boots and mumbled a few words. Ray tentatively put out his hand and said, "Glad to meet you, ma'am."
"I'm glad to finally see you, too. I've heard good things about both of you," Elaine said.
Mr. Zimmerman looked up at those words. Ray's face brightened. Samantha knew he was more used to hearing criticism.
"Sammie, I'll be back to get you at four. That will give you time to get home and get cleaned up for supper."
"Thanks, Mom. I'll be here."
After her mother had left Mr. Zimmerman opened up a bit. "That's a fine looking dog you have there, young lady." He frowned. "He won't bark or spook the horses, will he?"