The Renegade (11 page)

“The first round of the chicken cook-off is at nine tomorrow morning--Samantha, is everything all right?”

Sam looked at the telephone receiver. She didn’t know what to say. “Everything’s fine. I miss you guys.”

“Well, we miss you, too. I’ll call you tomorrow night and tell you what we won. Good night, sweetie.”

It was the right thing to say, because Gram hung up happy.

Sam walked out to the front porch and faced into a warm breeze. She heard a night bird’s call, but not a single splat of rain dripping from the eaves. Dark and light flickered inside the bunkhouse, where the hands were watching television.

Sam stared into the night sky. She could see stars, not clouds. Maybe the storms had gone east. Maybe the wind and rain wouldn’t return for weeks. If she
left tonight, she’d have plenty of time. She wouldn’t rush or make mistakes.

In ten minutes, she’d pulled on her boots, hat, slicker, and backpack full of supplies. She left a few strategic lights and the television on, and started toward the barn.

Ace’s neigh floated through the night, urging her to hurry, and Sam felt better. Ace wanted to go.

By daybreak, they’d both be in the canyon. Ace would be home, and she would be relieved, watching sunbeams turn Zanzibar’s coat to silky silver.

A
ce knew he was going back to his first home. He loped through starlight, head high, breathing the fragrance of sagebrush and creosote bush. A few hours without rain had improved the footing. His hooves struck the dirt in a smooth rhythm as he swooped to miss puddles.

They headed toward War Drum Flats, cut left through a brushy ravine, and traveled up through a series of switchbacks. Ace negotiated the zigzags with such precision, Sam felt light-headed by the time they reached the boulder that nearly blocked the tunnel to the valley.

They slipped past it, and Ace’s hooves echoed on the rock floor. Sam pressed her cheek against his neck, staying low to avoid hitting her head on the stone ceiling. Along here, somewhere, cracks crossed the ceiling. She’d seen light shine through them before, sparkling on the Phantom’s coat.

Tonight there was only darkness.

“Whoa. Ace, ow! That was my head.
Whoa
. I’m getting off.”

The gelding danced in eagerness, so Sam kept a grip on the reins as she climbed down. She heard faraway sounds that could be questioning nickers or water running over rocks.

The Phantom had always greeted them before. Ace had bowed to the stallion’s authority and followed at his kingly pace. This time, Ace’s hooves clipped her boot heels and he shoved her along with his chest.

“No!” She turned to face him, but could barely see his outline. He filled the gloom as he tried to shoulder past.

“Ace, you’re only here for a visit.” Sam gave a light tug on the reins, reminding him he wasn’t returning to the wild.

The gelding blew through his lips and followed Sam.

She saw stone walls soar against black sky strewn with a million diamond stars. She saw shadowy horses, alert at this invasion, and then the stallion trumpeted a challenge and charged.

He wasn’t the Phantom.

In the instant before she clamored atop a boulder, pulling Ace out of harm’s way, Sam knew it was a different horse. This stallion was taller, darker, younger.

“Hey!” she shouted.

The horse veered, unnerved by her human voice.

Sam squinted, wishing she could see more than a murky shape, but as she huddled against the boulders, waiting for the light, it was enough to know the Phantom was gone.

Sam stared at her glowing watch dial, trying to guess when it would be light enough to see the entire herd and know for sure the Phantom wasn’t there.

She knew the charging stallion hadn’t been him, but what if the horse had defeated the Phantom and left him injured?

Sam rubbed her cheeks to keep them warm. Rain was pelting down again. She sat under a shelf of rock as she made a plan.

If the Phantom wasn’t there, Karla Starr probably had him. Sam tried to accept that fact without imagining details. Her job was to hurry home, phone the number Gram had given her for their motel, and put Brynna on Karla Starr’s trail.

If that failed, she’d call the telephone number on Karla Starr’s business card and find out which rodeo--if any--the woman had supplied stock for this weekend.

“And then--” Sam saw Ace look her way.

Intimidated by the new stallion, the gelding had stayed nearby, even after Sam turned him loose.

“--I’ll get Dallas to drive me to her ranch, or the rodeo, and I’ll get the Phantom myself.”

At last morning was brightening the sky, and
though her horsewoman’s heart rejoiced at the beautiful animals before her, Sam closed her eyes.

He wasn’t there. Sleek and wet, dozens of horses moved through the grass with their foals. Brown, red, gray, and tan coats shone darker from days of rain. The tiger dun mare stood guard, watching the new stallion. Her caution said she didn’t trust him completely, and Sam realized why.

He was one of the bachelors, the young black horse that Mrs. Coley had called New Moon. A son of the Phantom, he’d returned to the herd and discovered his father gone. Without a fight, he’d taken over.

Sam tacked up Ace and hurried toward the tunnel. Before she left the enchanted valley, she looked back.

“Don’t get too comfy, Moon. I’m coming back, and when I do, I’m bringing your dad.”

Going back through the tunnel was even scarier than usual. Sam imagined the tons of rocks overhead. An earthquake could bring them crashing down or an avalanche could sweep the entire tunnel off the mountain’s face.

When she reached the mouth of the tunnel, she couldn’t believe the water. It was like facing a waterfall.

Sam looked back into the tunnel. Should she stay until the downpour slacked off or risk Ace’s legs on
the shale-shingled mountainside?

If Dallas had come over to the house, he’d see the lights she’d left on and hear the television. If she didn’t answer his knock at the door, he might think she was sleeping. Or he’d notice Ace gone and know she’d ridden out.

“What do you think, Ace?” Sam stood next to him, arm slung around his neck. His body warmed her, even through the slicker. “You know the desert better than I do. I sure wish you could talk.”

Since he couldn’t, Sam swung into the saddle and tried to read each movement. His ears pricked forward, seeming eager to go, and he moved out. For a few steps his head lowered, trying to escape the pelting rain. When he found that impossible, he ignored it, picking his way down the hillside on a path only he could see. Somehow, he seemed to miss most of the plate-size disks of slate that could slide them in directions they didn’t want to go.

Far below, she saw the river. It looked wrong. Not placid and blue-green, but squirming across the range like a chocolate-brown anaconda.

Sam looked away.

About halfway down, Ace couldn’t sidestep the storm’s damage. Water had run in the mustang trails, making them into channels, then overflowed, branching into many-fingered streams and connecting the paths. Lower down, water had cut through shelves of dirt and crumbled them off in chunks.

They were almost down when the trail began collapsing at the touch of Ace’s hooves. Just ahead lay War Drum Flats, but it didn’t look right. The water hole was filled. It had overflowed its banks and washed out the dirt road leading down from the highway.

“Back up,” Sam told Ace. “We’ll just have to forget about the path. We’ll go along the hillside and look down for a place that’s not too steep.”

When they crashed through the brushy ravine where mustangs hid, they found it full of cattle. Ace tossed his head up, and balked, but the white-faced animals didn’t spook. In fact, when Sam reined Ace aside, they followed him.

If he hadn’t been so tired, Ace would have resisted as more lowing cattle and their calves fell in around them. He snorted, knowing he should be chasing them, not the other way around.

Sam understood. Riders not only herded the cattle to better pastures, they’d brought the Herefords out of dangerous situations before. These cattle were insisting--in loud, bawling voices--that she should get busy helping them, now.

One heifer with a face splotched brown and white made a panicky sound like a cuckoo clock.

Ace pinned his ears and lunged at her, teeth bared, before Sam could rein him around.

“
Whoa
, darn it! We’ve got bigger trouble than her. Aren’t we right across the river from the ranch, Ace? Where is it?”

Sam stared into the rain, which had softened into a wet fog. She couldn’t see the bridge or the lights she’d left on upstairs or a place to cross. The flood had washed away landmarks. The one willow tree she thought she recognized had stood on the wild side of the river. Now it stood at midstream.

There
. At last she saw the house and barn. They were on higher ground. If she could just get the cows and calves across the river, they’d be safe--if crowded--in the pens.

And it looked like there might be a place to cross. Sam tried to understand what her eyes saw. Just upstream from where the bridge should be was a spit of land. It was shaped sort of like a cooking spoon, except with handles on both sides. And the farthest one--’the bridge of ground leading home--was skinny.

As they rode closer, Sam was amazed. The water was so churned up it really looked like cocoa covered with foam. Uprooted sagebrush rode the waves. A board, painted yellow and hinged, hit a submerged rock and launched into the air.

Sam pulled Ace back a step. His hooves splashed. Water was everywhere.

Suddenly, the brackle-faced heifer dashed past. Ace was still gathering himself when the cow belly flopped into the river.

Sam jerked Ace around, using his brown body to keep the other cattle from following. She flapped her
hat toward the eye-rolling white faces. They didn’t follow, only looked after the heifer. She wasn’t swimming. She was being swept downstream by a surge of muddy water.

“Poor silly thing.” Sam blinked then, suddenly aware of what she was seeing.

She was a rancher’s daughter, and the ranch was already in trouble. One heifer lost was a heifer who wouldn’t calve, who wouldn’t go to market, who was a loss the River Bend could not afford.

All week Dal and the hands had herded cattle to higher ground. But this contrary bunch had returned to the riverfront pasture.

Now, no matter how much she wanted to get back home, it was Sam’s turn to herd. For the animals’ own good, she must scare the heck out of them and hope they ran for the mountains.

Sam loosed the rope on her saddle and shook out a loop: She had no intention of lassoing a single cow. She couldn’t, with all her shivering. But the cows didn’t have to know that.

Sam whooped. She flashed the rope at the cows’ pink noses.

“Git, git, git!” she shrieked.

The cattle understood exactly what this meant, and so did Ace.

“Go on, cows!” Sam yipped like a coyote and snapped the rope at furry red haunches.

The cattle crowded away, rolling their eyes and
making short, hooting bellows.

Ace grunted, shoving the cattle before him while Sam wielded the rope like a bullwhip.

They bolted and ran. One calf slipped, righted herself, and crashed into her mother in her rush to escape the wailing human on her heels.

Ace chased the herd until they were running toward the Calico Mountains.

I should follow them. That would he the safest move
. But even as Sam thought it, she was pulling Ace into a wide turn back toward the river.

If Pepper, Ross, and Dallas thought she was in danger, they’d come after her. For their safely, if not to stay out of more trouble, she must try to cross that spoon-shaped spit of land.

She wasn’t the only one with that idea.

Dead ahead were more cows. While her back had been turned, a handful of cattle had tried the same thing, then stopped.

“We’ll take them home,” Sam told Ace. “B-B-Buddy will enjoy the company.”

Not only was she shivering, her head hurt as if she were getting sick, and icy rain sluiced down her neck. She should put her hood up under her hat, but her hands were so numbed with cold, she was afraid she’d drop her hat.

What was that sound? As Ace poised to step on the land bridge, Sam thought the bumpy brown earth looked like the spine of a sunken dinosaur. And that
grinding sounded like something with stone teeth. …

Stop it
, Sam told herself. She clucked to Ace and he walked calmly toward the milling cattle crowded on the little hilltop that had turned into an island.

Then Sam saw the source of the sound. There was no dinosaur in the river, but the truth was almost as bad. The mighty current had scoured the range and swept everything along. Now it was bouncing boulders along like basketballs.

The River Bend bridge was close; it had never looked more welcoming.

“Let’s go home, Ace,” Sam said.

As the gelding moved, two Herefords rushed away from him. Clumsy from fear, they hurried side by side along the dirt tightrope to shore. It crumbled beneath them.

With the instincts of a great cow pony, Ace tried to go after them. Sam yanked her reins tight. No way in the world would she risk him, no matter the cost.

A whirlpool spun the heifers until they couldn’t tell which direction to swim. Sam was glad the foggy rain hid them from her before she had to watch them drown.

She and Ace must weigh less than the two summer-fat Herefords, but should she risk it or go back? Sam looked over her shoulder. The way back was twice as long, and fingers of muddy water were spreading across it.

She could stay where she was with seven panicky Herefords and her horse. If she stayed, she might still
be there when the water covered the little island completely.

Sam leaned forward and hugged Ace hard. She had to decide for both of them.

And for the Phantom. If something happened to her, the BLM might not know he’d disappeared for years.

They had to go on and hope the cattle didn’t try to follow. Once she got across, she’d try to rope each cow and pull it to shore.

“We can do this, Ace.” Sam gathered her reins and analyzed the path leading home.

About as wide as her rib cage and two car lengths long, it wouldn’t challenge Ace at all if it weren’t for the roaring river and forlorn cows.

“We’ll be back for you, ladies.” Sam hoped it was true.

She balanced in the saddle, trying to make her position perfect for Ace. “Step lightly, boy.”

Before Sam gave Ace the cue to move, a voice came through the stormy commotion.

“Samantha!”

She knew the voice, but she couldn’t see the speaker.

“Stay put for a second. I’ll toss you a loop and you’ll knot it around your waist.”

A shadowy horse and rider took shape on the bridge.

“Tie it right. You know how. Then put Ace to that
little dirt trail. He’s a good pony. But if he falls, I’ll pull you to shore.”

It was Dallas. He sounded young and sure. Sam brushed aside thoughts of his stiff walk, his arthritis, and bad back. She hoped he felt as competent as he sounded. Her life might depend upon it.