The Wildest Heart (11 page)

T
he storm didn't break that night. Or the next morning.

And the Phantom had vanished.

Because he was gone, Sam talked herself into doing more work for Mrs. Allen. After the paint explosion, Sam had figured she was done with the fence until Mrs. Allen returned and bought more, but when she'd forced herself to look in the barn where the first few cans had been, she found even more.

It had been awkward, carrying all the gear out to the fence on horseback. But Ace had proven himself the perfect, unflappable ranch horse again.

While he grazed a few yards off, Sam stood at the
new section of fence the Elys had built, painting it to match the rest.

That's what I
look
like I'm doing, Sam thought.

In fact, she was hoping Dr. Scott would just drive up and give her tons of advice on how to help the Phantom.

“Not gonna happen,” Sam told herself.

Dr. Scott had a busy practice among horse owners in Darton, as well as local ranchers. If he had anything to tell her, he'd call, not drive out to Deerpath Ranch.

Besides, Pirate needed any extra time the vet could spare.

The fancy-marked bay colt had stolen Sam's heart the first time she'd seen him. If he survived the physical and emotional trauma from this accident, Dr. Scott would deserve all the credit.

Maybe she could convince him to adopt the colt!

Yeah,
Sam thought as she swished the paintbrush around in the thick red paint.

“Ace, wouldn't that be perfect?” She looked over her shoulder at the bay gelding and was surprised to see he was staring past her.

Sam whirled. Could Ace have spotted the Phantom?

But she didn't see him. No matter how long she stared, he simply wasn't there.

She had to keep painting. She had to fight the
desire to saddle Ace and search for the stallion, because she wouldn't find a wild mustang who didn't want to be found.

He'd come to her when he was ready, just as he had yesterday, when she'd been sitting under the cottonwood tree.

The Phantom would be fine without her.

Wild things took care of themselves.

She'd learned that lesson before, but she kept forgetting, or thinking she knew best. Most of the time, the Phantom didn't need her help at all.

When Sam rode Ace back to Deerpath Ranch for lunch, she discovered Callie had taken down all of Mrs. Allen's curtains.

Sunlight flooded the house, revealing Persian carpets in brilliant jewel tones—emerald green, ruby red, sapphire blue.

“I never even noticed there were rugs in here,” Sam said.

“Aren't they cool? I love this!” Callie said. Her fuchsia hair was covered with a kerchief and her glasses were nearly opaque with dust.

“You love doing housework?” Sam asked. She felt her eyebrows disappearing under her bangs.

“I like revealing stuff,” Callie explained. “I think that's part of what I like about doing hair. You can take someone with just one good feature, and by arranging their hair right, make them look beautiful.”

“Don't look at me like that,” Sam said, holding her hands before her face.

“Like what?” Callie said, but she didn't stop.

“Like you're searching for my one good feature,” she said, raising her voice as Callie protested.

Then Sam thought of something more important.

“Dr. Scott hasn't called, has he? He promised he would.”

“No, but hey, Mrs. Allen called again,” Callie said from the laundry room, as she tugged wet curtains out of the washing machine.

“What did she have to say?”

“She said Gabe was a little better, but he's all wrapped up in worrying.”

“Gosh, I would be, too,” Sam said.

“She said he's worried about his summer school class, his friends who were in the accident, what the kids who weren't in the accident are saying about him….”

An unexpected vision of a hospital room—white, crammed with monitors and anxious faces—replaced the sunny ranch kitchen. She'd been in a room like that for days, following her accident.

Of course Gabe was worried, now that he was conscious. There wasn't much else to do.

As clearly as if she'd been there yesterday, Sam saw that white room with crayon drawings taped up on one wall. She couldn't remember who'd sent them to cheer her up, but she remembered Dad's anguished
face buried in his brown, scarred cowboy's hands.

“…building up to something,” Callie was saying pointedly.

“What?” Sam said, jerked out of her memory. She filled her glass with water, cranked the faucet off, and focused on Callie, standing framed in the laundry room doorway.

“I said,” Callie repeated, “I can tell from her voice that Mrs. Allen is building up to something.”

“Like what?” Sam sipped the water.

“Bringing him here to stay, maybe,” Callie mused.

“No way. Not until he's totally out of danger,” Sam said, dismissing the idea. “Emergency medical care out here hasn't improved that much since my accident. It's too risky. The power goes out and the phones don't always work.”

Was she replaying some mental tape of Dad's voice, trying to explain why she had to move to San Francisco?

“We're not on Mars,” Callie said, with a faint scolding in her voice. “Darton has Angel Flight rescue helicopters.”

“Whatever,” Sam said abruptly.

It had taken months to build up her nerve for riding. She didn't want to think of that hospital anymore.

Callie shrugged and Sam knew she should go help Callie fold the unwieldy curtains, but she felt light-headed.

Worse, thoughts of the hospital had kindled a new idea. Could the Phantom feel the way she had? Knowing he was someplace safe, but hating it?

Sam gathered a jar of peanut butter, bread, and a knife, then started searching for jam. Oh, good, Mrs. Allen had blackberry jam, homemade by the look of the label. Sam set to work building a sandwich.

Then, just so the awkward silence with Callie wouldn't spin out too long, she asked, “Did you tell her about the fire?”

“Uh-huh,” Callie said.

“What?” Sam dropped the messy knife and walked in to face Callie.

“I told her there was a lightning strike, a brush fire that scorched a few acres of her property and the only thing that burned was a piece of fence that the Elys fixed, and you were painting.”

“What did she say?” Sam asked, but she could guess. Callie's explanation didn't make the fire a catastrophe. It sounded like they'd been lucky.

“She congratulated us on handling things, and said a little vacation over at your house would probably do Imp and Angel some good.”

“I don't know,” Sam said as she returned to the kitchen and picked up the peanut butter knife, which had landed on the cutting board. “The cowboys will treat them like dogs, not royalty.”

As Sam finished making her sandwich, she wondered if Callie's positive attitude got the credit for
making so many things turn out right.

Sam was just ready to bite into her sandwich when Dr. Scott called.

“Sam, I'm sorry I haven't been more help to you girls, over there alone…” he began.

As usual, the young vet sounded so busy and concerned, Sam felt sorry for him.

“No big deal,” she said. “If anything had gone wrong, we would have called you. Except for that burn on the Phantom's neck, the mustangs seem fine.”

“Good. That's what I wanted to hear. What about the Boston bulls?” he asked.

Startled, Sam said, “Imp and Angel? They were fine last time I saw them. They're over at River Bend. Why, was something wrong? Were you treating them for something?”

Sam rubbed her forehead. If Mrs. Allen had forgotten wet laundry, she could have forgotten a list of pills they were supposed to give the dogs. So much for keeping a positive—

“No, I'm not treating them for anything. There's no cure for being spoiled rotten,” he joked. “I just wondered if they'd developed worse-than-usual sniffles. Dogs with their facial structure—pugs and boxers, for instance—can have sinus problems, and I was just thinking—huh.” He ended the sentence with a grunt of surprise, but seemed willing to drop the subject. “I'm glad they're doing well.”

The silence that followed made Sam uneasy. Dr. Scott hadn't mentioned Pirate. For the first time, she realized his injuries could have been fatal.

“The bay colt,” Dr. Scott said slowly, “is still hanging in there.”

“How badly was he hurt?” Sam managed.

“Real bad,” Dr. Scott said bluntly. “Definitely traumatized, but I'm not questioning our decision to save him.”

Sam ached for Pirate. Dr. Scott's words told her he
had
questioned the choice. When he went on to list Pirate's first-and second-degree burns, complications from smoke inhalation, and his refusal to eat, Sam wondered, too.

But could she have let him die? No.

“He's a beautiful colt, and smart,” Sam told Dr. Scott. “He's worth saving.”

“I know. And he's a fighter. He'll make it,” the vet said. His heavy sigh made Sam wonder how much sleep he'd gotten since taking in the colt. “But I don't think he's ever going back on the range, Sam, and somebody's going to have to do some major work to make him a happy horse.”

Maybe you?
Sam thought, crossing her fingers as the vet went on.

“Even though I've kept him pretty sedated so I can work on him, he's confused and…I wouldn't trust his lungs to function through a winter on the range. A severe dust storm would be bad, too. Shoot,
just running from predators might be too much for him.” The vet was quiet for a minute and Sam heard what sounded like a pencil tapping on a desk. “It sorta comes down to ‘what price freedom,' y'know?”

What price freedom?

Sam had never heard the expression, but she knew instinctively what it meant. Was freedom worth dying for?

“I think you'll bring him around, Dr. Scott. You did it for the Phantom, and you're a really good vet. Everyone says so.”

“They do? Well, that's good to know.” His tone was grateful and somehow lighter. “Thanks, Sam. Ever since I watched how that buckskin of yours improved, I knew I could count on you.”

 

Rain and rumbling thunder came in the afternoon, and the wild horses scattered.

Standing in the barn with her arm draped around Ace's neck, Sam stared through the gray curtain of rain, hoping the mustangs had sought the sheltered gulches farther out in the pasture.

When lightning crackled overhead, Sam held her breath, but no explosion brightened the sky or shook the ground.

Where was the Phantom? Did he see the lightning and remember the storm that had taken his hearing? Was he afraid?

With a snort, Ace shifted his weight and leaned
against Sam as if she were another horse.

“Hey, boy, is the sound of the rain making you sleepy?”

The hissing downpour didn't last long. Soon Sam could hear single drops pelting a tin roof.

“The storm's moving on,” Sam told Ace, and at first, when he straightened and tossed his head, she thought he was responding to her weather prediction.

Then Ace's ears pointed at the pasture. A silent neigh shook through him and his eyes fixed on something Sam could not see.

“What is it, Ace?” Sam's pulse pounded in her throat. She stared until her eyes burned, but the muddy pasture remained empty.

There! Just as lightning glimmered inside a far-off cloud bank, she saw a pale form. Without Ace's trembling attention, she would have dismissed it as wishful thinking, because the ghostly beast with floating mane and tail might have been ripped from the clouds and formed into a horse by her imagination.

Drawn like a sleepwalker into the departing rain, Sam left the barn and headed toward the pasture.

She blinked the raindrops from her eyelashes. It was him. Every cell in her body recognized him.

Racing and rearing, soundless as a spirit horse raging in a nightmare, the Phantom rose on his hind legs, hooves reaching for the sky, as if he were fighting back.

Water splashed behind Sam. Tires splattered through puddles and Sam turned to see Dad's truck driving toward her.

She searched for one last glimpse of the stallion, but he was gone.

Sam walked toward Dad's truck, pushing her dripping bangs back from her eyes.

“Hey there. I hear you're the boss of this outfit,” Dad joked.

Sam smiled. Someday, she
would
be the boss of an entire ranch.

Dad's eyes swept over her sodden hair and clothes, telling her she could have used a hat and slicker like he did, but he didn't say it.

Then Imp and Angel jumped from the truck cab, landed in the mud, gave their coats a quick shake, and ran in barking ecstasy for the house.

“Guess they're glad to be home,” Dad said. “Pesky little critters. They're not fit to be in the house with a cat, that's for sure. Truth is, though, I think Dallas was getting to like them.”

“Dallas?”

“Yeah, I couldn't help noticing that all the time he was calling them overgrown rats and saying they were good for nothing but fishin' bait, he was feeding them dinner scraps and scratching behind their ears.”

Sam laughed, then made a pretense of going out to check the bolts on the pasture gate. She hoped that would explain why she was standing out in the rain.

“Good job,” Dad said. “We need to change some of our latches, or make sure they're shut, because we've had too many loose horses over the last year or so.”

Sam winced. It didn't look like a coincidence that she'd been there both times Dark Sunshine had escaped.

Dad shook his head at her guilty expression.

“Not sayin' any of it's your fault. In fact, I'm darn proud of you, honey. Especially with what you're doin' over here. I've managed to stay away and let you run the show, but your Gram's been askin' around.”