Dark Sunshine (2 page)

S
AM SQUATTED
and hid. She wished the juniper foliage was more dense. She wished daybreak hadn't come while the rustlers battled the Phantom for his herd.

The three horses left behind didn't provide much of a distraction. Sooner or later, the men would see her.

The black yearling trotted a stride ahead of the bay mare and the stocky roan. Together, they formed a small herd and circled the pen made of portable steel panels. The buckskin shone like a spot of sunlight among the darker horses, but each time they reached her, the three horses veered aside. Just the same, the buckskin always kicked out a rear hoof in warning.

The mustangs showed no interest in her grain. They ran as if they could escape their captivity, and stopped only once, calling after the others as if their wild hearts would break.

Sam grabbed Ace's muzzle when his nostrils vibrated in response. He yanked his head from her grasp. For a minute, Sam felt a cold clutch of dread, but the gelding stayed quiet.

“Well, shoot, this wasn't hardly worth the trouble,” said one man. He climbed off his dirt bike, then snatched off his straw hat and swatted it against his pant leg.

Though Sam had seen her father make the same gesture a hundred times, on this man it looked wrong. He wasn't a cowboy, just a man dressed up like one.

“Old mare's so bony, don't think she'll weigh up to a hundred bucks,” said the man, and because his wide, freckled face looked good-natured, Sam disliked him even more.

Still mounted, the rider wrapped his rope into a neat coil as he spoke. “What we lose on the old one, we'll make up with the roan. Get 'em loaded. I'll be back.”

As he rode away, Sam wondered where he could be going. More than that, she wondered what the men were talking about.

Weigh up to a hundred bucks?

Sam tried to make sense of the conversation. But when the man in camouflage pulled a rifle, her brain could only focus on it. She had to stay hidden. She must keep Ace silent and still.

Sam tried to get a good look at the men. If the police caught them later, she wanted to be able to
identify them. It was difficult from where she was hiding. The man in camouflage had a broad and freckled face. The man who'd snatched off his hat had bushy white hair and eyes that bulged.

Before she had a chance to focus on the last guy, the men began tugging at the edge of a huge sort of blanket. It looked like a patchwork quilt made of feed sacks. As they pulled it away, Sam saw they'd used it to cover a small stock truck.

A sigh shuddered through Sam, but the men were too busy to notice. The feed sack quilt made a great disguise. She'd been staring at the hidden truck for at least twenty minutes, but she hadn't noticed it. From the air, it would look like part of the rough terrain. From below, it blended with the rock and juniper.

Although the Ford truck was a fairly new model, it was painted a muddy yellow that didn't shine, even in full sunlight. Hitched on behind was a gray stock trailer. An orange stripe, probably reflective, had been painted on its side. It was big enough to carry at least a dozen animals.

Sam didn't know how they'd driven the truck up the mountain or how they'd get it back down again, but the men set to work with an ease indicating they'd done this many times before.

How many horses had they kidnapped off the range, and where had they taken them?

Sam didn't know the man on the horse had
returned until he climbed into the pen with the mustangs. He moved like a cowboy, but he must be a crazy one.

Quickly, she saw he had nothing to fear. With each step he took, the frightened horses scattered.

He carried a thick-handled black bullwhip. Seeing this, the buckskin left her food and joined the other horses. Her shrill neighing began. Sam recognized it as the sound that had floated down the mountain as she and Jen had waited for the bus yesterday.

This close, the piercing sound hardly seemed equine.

Mustangs were usually silent, and the BLM freeze brand on her neck proved the buckskin was a mustang. But someone had taught her to scream.

The men on the outside dropped one panel of the corral. All four horses bolted for the opening. When they saw they were stampeding toward the truck ramp, they shied and turned back. But the man with the whip left them no choice.

The lash snaked outward, popping in their faces. The mustangs stopped, sliding back on their haunches, then wheeled toward the ramp.

That quickly, the animals were conquered. Heads low, their mouths made submissive chewing movements. In the language of wild horses, they begged for mercy.

The man only cracked his whip again.

Although frightened by the hollow pounding of their hooves on the ramp, the horses went. They didn't know what lay before them, but they fled the whip.

The buckskin was last. Her legs and body trembled so much, Sam feared she would collapse.

Gathering her courage, the buckskin leaped toward the ramp. As she did, the man in camouflage got a foothold on the metal fence, swung up, and leaned toward her. Before the buckskin could swerve away, he grabbed at the red bandanna around her neck and tugged it up to cover her eyes.

She stopped, standing still as the man laughed.

“She done it again,” he said, laughing. “Never quite figures out she's not goin' with 'em, does she?”

His cruelty almost made Sam burst from her hiding place. Now she understood. The buckskin mare had been starved and used to lure wild mustangs into this trap many times before.

Each time the wild ones were loaded into the truck, the buckskin thought she'd escape. Each time, she was left behind in darkness.

Sam swallowed hard, making the mare a silent promise. As soon as the men left, she'd free her.

The man in camouflage stowed the rifle on a gun rack inside the truck cab. That made Sam's determination more solid. She'd been quick and agile when she played basketball for her middle school team.
Without that gun to fear, she could outmaneuver those men and release the buckskin.

Yes, she might be stealing, but Sam didn't care. She'd just figured out where the rustlers took the wild horses.

Only one kind of business purchased mustangs by the pound—the kind that made them into horse meat.

 

The mud-yellow truck swayed from side to side, gears grinding, engine laboring. The horses inside couldn't possibly stay on their feet. The truck's engine made a weird pinging sound as it slogged down the back side of the mountain, safe from eyes that might have seen it go down the front side, toward the highway.

Though Sam had watched all three men climb into the truck, she still didn't move. Where was the horse the cowboy had ridden? Where had he gotten that whip? Was someone else still around?

She could climb back on Ace and ride fast, back the way she'd come. She glanced at her watch and was amazed to see it was only seven o'clock. She could get home and report the men to Brynna Olson at the BLM and still save the mare.

Unless they delivered the horses to someone nearby and returned to collect the abused buckskin who did her job so well.

Sam had started to sip from her canteen when she noticed the buckskin had no water. The corral was empty of anything but the plastic grain bucket.

“That does it,” she muttered to Ace. “You've got a new friend, boy.”

After all the commotion, it wouldn't be fair to trust Ace to ground-tying. If he had any sense at all, he'd head for home. And she couldn't let him. Sam knotted the reins around a thick piece of brush, then surveyed the area one last time. Nothing moved except the buckskin mare.

“Things could get a little weird, Ace,” Sam whispered. “If they do, just think like a mustang, okay?”

She gave Ace a final pat and started toward the corral. Sam walked boldly, wondering how fast she could run back, untie Ace, vault onto his back, and escape if anyone hollered “Stop!”

The buckskin's ears were a beautiful dark gold edged in black, and they swiveled to catch each one of Sam's steps.

Sam paused outside the gate. The man who'd pulled the bandanna up to cover the mare's eyes had done it with little fuss. Sam thought she could probably pull it down, except that the mare wasn't anywhere near the fence.

The bolt on the fence clanged back. If anyone was around, he would come charging out now. Sam held her breath and listened. A shadow surprised her, until
she realized it was a hawk sailing on updrafts around the snowy peak.

She left the gate ajar. Running in boots was next to impossible, but if someone appeared, she'd try sprinting back to Ace. She'd trust her life to his speed and surefootedness.

She should have been worrying about the mare.

Black forelegs thrashed through the air as the mare leaped toward Sam.

Like a cougar
. The words flashed through Sam's mind as she flung herself left, out of the buckskin's path, and rolled in the dirt. Instinctively, her arms came up, shielding her head as the buckskin came even with her. Sam's eyes were clamped shut, awaiting that awful slam of hooves on skull.

Darkness closed around her like a swarm of bees, but Sam didn't pass out and the buckskin's kick never came.

As the buckskin's hooves retreated, Sam rolled and regained her feet. The buckskin was still blindfolded, but free.

Sam worried as she jogged back to Ace. The trail to the top had been a challenge with her eyes and Ace's working overtime. How could the buckskin stampede down the hill sightless?

Breathing hard, Sam stabbed her thumb on the juniper as she jerked Ace's reins loose. She glanced up to see the buckskin picking her way across the
slick granite. Then she started down the twisting trail.

Instinct had kept the buckskin from following the scent of the Phantom's herd over the cliff, but did she know where she was going?

Sam swung into the saddle. The gelding was eager, but with the buckskin just ahead of her, Sam kept Ace reined in.

“Easy, boy,” Sam said, leaning close to his neck. “You're going to have to help me do this.”

They followed the mare at a distance, until she stopped at the wide spot in the trail where water seeped from a crack in the rock. Sam remembered this spot. They were almost down.

Still blindfolded, the mare lapped at the moisture.

Sam watched and waited, giving the buckskin a chance to drink.

The mare was tiny, thirteen hands or a little taller. Her black mane tangled down to her shoulder. Her ribs stood out with hollows in between.

Ace nickered, and there was something excited and hopeful in the way the little mare turned to him. She risked a step in his direction, slipped on hooves that hadn't been trimmed in a long time, then took one more step and returned his inquiring nicker.

That's it
, Sam thought. She trusts Ace.

Sam remembered Brynna's tale of her blind mustang, Penny, who followed her rider's cues out of
trust. And Sam remembered the Phantom, galloping down a hillside in the dark beside Ace, out of trust.

Sam would stay silent. Scary as it was, she'd leave the red blindfold in place and hope the mare followed Ace all the way home.

 

Sam kept her eyes on the horizon, on clouds like dandelion fluff against the blue sky. She didn't glance toward the buckskin for fear the mare would sense it.

When Sam heard the rushing river and saw the soaring wood rectangle that marked the entrance to River Bend Ranch, she knew they'd reached the final tests.

The mare would hear her hooves clack on the wooden bridge. She'd scent strange horses and humans.

And Sam had her own test to pass: Dad.

In the months since she'd been home, Sam had hinted, suggested, and implied that she wanted to adopt another mustang. Each time, Dad refused. Animals needed to earn their feed, he insisted.

Sam thought of Strawberry, Banjo, Ace, and Tank, just a few of River Bend's sensible, hardworking cow ponies. Then she thought of the buckskin. Even filled with expensive feed, she might remain skittish and nervy. But one thing weighed in the mare's favor: Dad wouldn't have been able to leave her behind, either.

For nearly an hour now, the buckskin had followed Ace. He seemed to understand his responsibility. If the mare lagged behind, Ace shortened his stride. If she kept pace a quarter mile to the gelding's right, Ace's ears swiveled in her direction. Once, she'd come so close that her skeletal barrel had bumped Sam's stirrup.

Sympathy had welled up in Sam, but she stayed quiet. Words wouldn't comfort a horse who'd received only pain from humans.

Almost there
, she thought.
Little horse, you're almost safe
.

Gram must have glimpsed them from the kitchen window, because she was standing on the front porch as they rode up. A breeze blew Gram's denim skirt against her legs and picked at the gray hair pinned into a tidy bun. She wiped her hands on her blue apron, watching Sam, Ace, and the buckskin clatter over the bridge and into the ranch yard.

Gram smiled, and Sam knew that look on her face. Gram was wishing she could tell Mom all about it. Even though Sam's mom was dead, Gram said she talked to her daughter-in-law in prayers, every night.

The buckskin hesitated when a tide of horses gathered at the fence of the ten-acre pasture. The sound of those hooves, without being able to see if the other horses were welcoming or rejecting her, must have frightened the mare. But she stayed next to Ace until he stopped near the round corral.

Jake was inside gentling a horse for a neighbor, but the gate hinges squeaked. Any second now, Jake would appear, wondering what she'd done this time.

Jake was sixteen, older than Sam by three years. Right now, he looked even older. Shoshone black hair tied back with a leather thong, fringed chinks buckled over his jeans, Jake took in all there was to know in a single glance.

Raising his brown eyes to Sam's, he nodded, assuring her that he wouldn't frighten the mare by speaking.