Golden Ghost (5 page)

T
he door opened behind Dad.

Brynna stepped out, pulling a black fleecy coat on over the khaki uniform that made her look like what she was: the director of the Bureau of Land Mangement's Willow Springs Wild Horse corrals, the woman who'd backed down Linc Slocum and other bad guys, the one who'd helped save the Phantom twice.

She didn't look like a traitor.

Maybe that was a traitor's secret. First, she fooled you into thinking she was on your side.

“I'll probably be late,” Brynna said, flipping her red French braid out of her coat collar. “I'm getting a late start, and there'll be lots of things left undone while we were gone.”

Brynna perched on her tiptoes to give Dad's cheek a kiss.

Dad's free arm hugged her to him, but he nodded
toward Sam as if Brynna needed a reminder that they weren't alone.

Sam swallowed hard when Brynna turned toward her, grinning.

“Good morning,” she chirped.

Sam didn't know what to say, so she glanced meaningfully at her watch. It was almost noon. Not that she cared if Brynna was late for work.

“Hi,” Sam managed, but she heard her own voice and knew she'd addressed Brynna with the same enthusiasm she'd use for a rattlesnake she found curled up in her boot.

“What's up?” Brynna asked. Her voice was casual, but a frown line appeared between her blue eyes.

When Sam didn't answer, Brynna glanced at Dad.

“Algebra,” Dad said.

“Oh, right.” Brynna sighed, looking relieved. She jingled the car keys in her coat pocket and crossed the porch. She leaned toward Sam as if she'd give her a peck on the cheek, too.

Sam glanced toward Jake. One hand rubbed the back of his neck as it did when he was uncomfortable. Jake hated scenes. Sam was pretty sure he'd thought everything was settled, or he wouldn't have shown up.

By looking away, Sam had dodged Brynna's kiss. She couldn't really say if she'd done it on purpose,
but Brynna stood close enough that Sam saw her disappointment.

Well, what did Brynna expect? To just march in here and start changing things?

Sam felt justified and guilty at the same time. This stepmother thing wasn't going to be as easy as she'd thought.

Once more, Brynna's keys jingled.

“I'll take care of it,” Dad said.

It?
Now she was an
it
? Sam clenched her fists so tightly, she felt her fingernails against her palms.

“Thanks,” Brynna answered, then blew Dad a kiss.

Another kiss. How many did that make? Like, a dozen before she even got off the porch?

Brynna didn't make another move to touch Sam, but she gave Ace a quick pat as she went striding toward the white BLM truck parked between Dad's truck and Gram's old yellow Buick.

Sam crossed her arms and looked up at Dad. Slowly, he came down the porch steps until they were nearly eye-to-eye.

“On the morning of the wedding, I stopped in town,” Dad began, and Sam knew this was going to be bad if it had been brewing that long. “I stopped by the post office and there was a notice from the school saying you were failing algebra.”

“They send those out to everybody,” Sam protested.

Dad splashed the last bit of his coffee on the dirt that would be a flowerbed, come spring. Then he gave Sam a skeptical look.

“Okay, not everybody,” Sam amended. “But it doesn't mean I'm failing for sure.”

“Good, because this is high school you're in now. If you fail at the semester, you'll lose your credit. That means you'll repeat algebra in summer school. And that's
all
you'll be doing, Samantha.”

Sam could actually feel the embarrassment. Her face flushed hot as if she'd opened an oven door. Dad was telling her she wouldn't be working with cattle or horses or even with the HARP girls this summer, if she didn't pull up her grade.

“But I can improve before the end of the semester. After we go back to school, I've still got two weeks,” Sam told him.

“We're going to make it two and a half.” Dad brushed his hands together, then hung a thumb in one of his back pockets. “Every morning, before you go riding, you'll spend two hours working on algebra. That doesn't mean you skip your regular chores, either.”

“Two hours?” Sam gasped.

“At least two hours. Jake is here to go over whatever graded work you've got stashed in your backpack. He'll do sort of a diagnosis and tell me if it should be more.”

“But Dad—”

“That's it,” Dad said. “Go have yourself something to eat. Your gram's apparently not gonna quit cooking until next Christmas, so help her out. Then get to work. After that, come on down to the barn. And wear your oldest sneakers. No boots for the chore I have in mind.”

Sam stared after Dad as he walked toward the barn. This ruined everything. How could she use the rest of vacation to save Jen from moving, if she was confined to the kitchen table with an algebra book?

Shaking her head in disbelief, Sam turned to Jake.

To his credit, Jake looked embarrassed for her.

He removed his hat and fanned himself with it, although the temperature was probably near freezing.

“C'mon Brat,” he said, and together they went indoors.

The kitchen smelled like pumpkin pie.

Gram turned from the stove so fast her denim skirt swirled and her gray hair, twisted and held up with a clip, threatened to break loose.

“Can I interest you two in some dessert, completely unencumbered by a meal?” Gram asked.

She didn't wait for a response before pulling little pastry turnovers off a cookie sheet. She shook her fingers from the heat and put a plate of four on the kitchen table.

“These are pumpkin
empanadas
. They can cool while you run up and get your backpack,” Gram said.
“For your second dessert course, I'm making
sopapillas
.”

She sounded too darn happy, Sam thought.

“This is a plot,” she muttered. “You're all in on it, aren't you?”

“Of course, dear,” Gram said.

 

Algebra went down better with a plate of dessert, Sam decided, later.

Together, she and Jake had finished off a platter of
sopapillas
, little pillows of fried dough drizzled with honey.

They'd eaten so many, Sam felt a little queasy, but they'd certainly sweetened Jake's mood. By the time he'd finished sorting through her graded algebra papers, Jake told her that she wasn't doomed to failure.

“I don't think you're that bad at it,” Jake said, tapping an “F” paper with a sticky index finger. “But I bet you're not paying attention.”

“It's so boring,” Sam moaned, but Jake's face said he wasn't sympathetic. “So what are you going to tell Dad?”

“Two hours should be enough.”

Sam rocked in her chair. This wasn't the best news Jake could have given her. Or the worst.

She could keep her mind on algebra two hours a day. She stared at the clock on the whitewashed kitchen wall. If she got up at her normal time and got
all her chores done early, two hours would mean it was only about ten o'clock.

The ride to Nugget wouldn't take more than an hour. She and Jen could work together on their project at the same time they tried to catch Golden Rose.

Jake was asking her something about an integer, but the ticking of the kitchen clock reminded Sam of hooves. Careful hooves. A watchful horse…

“How could we tell if someone was stalking the Phantom's herd for horsemeat?”

Jake pushed back his chair. “That's what's getting you in trouble. Not concentrating. Do this,” Jake said, tapping a list he'd made for her. “And I'll check it day after tomorrow. Now, I'm out of here.”

“Is he paying you for this?” Sam said, following Jake to the door.

He flashed her a white smile as he lifted his black Stetson from a front porch hook, but he didn't answer.

“To come make fun of me and eat Gram's cooking?”

“You bet,” Jake said.

As the door closed behind him, Sam remembered one of Linc Slocum's dopey Western sayings. It suited Jake perfectly.

He looked as happy as a dog with two tails to wag.

 

“You're going to be jogging the pasture,” Dad told Sam when she arrived in the barn. “In weather like this, the horses get lazy. I want you to go out and jog outside the fence line of the ten-acre pasture and get them stirred up.”

“From outside, I can't exactly chase them,” Sam said.

“You won't have to,” Dad said. “They'll chase you. It's the herd instinct.”

“Are you sure?” Sam asked.

“Never seen it fail,” Dad said. “'Course, there's other work to be done.”

Dad glanced toward the feed room. There was an awful closet in there, full of everything that wouldn't fit elsewhere. They called it Blackbeard's Closet. She guessed it was named for Blackbeard the pirate, because
Blue
beard's closet was in a legend about some guy who kept the bodies of his curious wives in his closet.

So, Blackbeard's closet was better, but for months, Dad had been threatening her with “straightening” it.

“Oh no,” Sam said. Holding her hands up like a shield, she started backing toward the barn door.

“Make sure Buff gets a good workout,” Dad said. “He's carryin' a little extra girth he could do without and I don't think I'm gonna get to him today.”

“Okay,” Sam said.

Buffalo was a dark-brown River Bend gelding
who'd been in town for the summer. About twelve years old, with thick hair and the temperament of a pet, he could herd cattle and baby-sit young riders. When a friend of Gram's asked if River Bend would rent her a horse for her grandchildren's summer visit, Dad had trailered Buff into town and asked only that they keep him healthy and well fed in exchange.

Sam sprinted toward the corral before Dad could give her something else to do, and five minutes later, she'd decided this was her favorite chore on the ranch.

The ground was dry, covered with sparse grass. Though the air was still cold, dusk hadn't settled in yet and the sky was bright.

There were eight horses in the ten-acre pasture right now, six saddle horses and two mustangs-in-training for the Horse and Rider Assistance Program. Ace and Sweetheart brought the count of the home herd to ten horses, and Sam had no doubt they'd be jealous as soon as the other horses began running.

Dark Sunshine and Popcorn, the two mustangs, marked her arrival before any of the other horses. The buckskin mare and albino gelding stood shoulder to shoulder, with their heads held high and ears pricked to catch Sam's sounds. If this scheme of Dad's really worked, she'd bet the mustangs would be first to join her herd.

Sam jiggled the gate to get all the horses' attention and Buff took notice of her, too. He trotted a few
steps closer and gave a low nicker.

“No treats for you, boy,” Sam said, and the brown gelding swished his tail as if he were insulted.

She made sure the gate was closed and latched.

“Here goes,” she said.

Sam started jogging.

All the horses were clustered at the far end of the pasture, but each head lifted at the sound of her running steps.

Who would be the first to join her?

Sam was amazed when the first horse to toss his head in excitement was Amigo.

The old sorrel was graying around his eyes and lips, but Dallas said he was still the best roping horse on the place. Sam wouldn't contradict him. Dallas had been riding Amigo the day he had to rope her and Ace and drag them from a flash flood sweeping down the La Charla River. Clearly, Amigo was now interested in having fun. With ears pricked forward and eyes fixed on Sam, he stared across the top fence rail and jogged beside her.

Nike fell in next. The blood bay had the lanky conformation of a running Quarter horse. Pepper, the young cowboy from Idaho, loved riding him. Within seconds, Strawberry, Tank, and Buff added themselves to the herd.

Amigo had fallen back with the others by the time Sam had made a full circuit of the pasture.

Jeepers-Creepers, the rat-tailed Appaloosa that
Brynna had been riding lately, decided the gathering was safe, and became a part of it.

It was really working. Sam kept a steady pace as she listened to the horses cavorting alongside and behind her. To them, it was a game, and she felt lucky to be part of it. She thought of the lonely, foggy afternoons she'd sat at the bay window in Aunt Sue's San Francisco flat, pining for the ranch and its horses. She was back now and she loved it. She offered a silent thanks that she had returned.

Hot breath on her neck made Sam run faster. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Buff had taken the lead. His trot extended to catch her and he bumped into the fence in his excitement. When his head tipped to one side, he looked like he was smiling.

“Fall back a little, can't you?” she huffed. “Or pass me?”

But Buff stayed right behind her, sniffing for sugar cubes.

A chorus of sudden neighs came from the mustangs. Dark Sunshine and Popcorn shook their heavy manes and launched into the band.

It was perfect, simply perfect. Her fantasy of running with the Phantom's band was almost coming true. He wasn't here, inside the fences of the ranch where he'd been born. And she hoped he never was, but she could pretend.

Wind combed her auburn hair back from her face. Blue-gray sky and fence rails and faraway
mountains smeared into a dizzy circle around them. She smelled crushed grass, cold dirt, and horses. The muscles in her thighs stretched and bunched and stretched again.

All around, nickers and snorts mingled with the thud of hooves.

It had been a long time since she'd played horses with girlfriends on the elementary school playground, and it had never been like this.