Gypsy Gold (10 page)

“Now, he's decided to drive out here?” Gram guessed.

“Oh yeah,” Brynna said. “And his attitude hasn't been improved by the fact that he had to swerve off the road to miss two wild horses.”

“What did they look like?” Sam asked.

“They were both brown,” Brynna repeated in a flat tone. Then, holding her head in her hands with both elbows resting on the mahogany table, she mimicked Norman White, “‘Says here that you adopted an animal from that exotic herd yourself. That's a mighty interesting coincidence. I think I'll come out there and see that everything's as it should be.'”

“That creep,” Sam snapped.

“That's not the best part,” Brynna said, looking up at Sam. “I'm to detain Nicolas until Norman gets here, or ‘he'll know the reason why.'”

“He can't tell you what to do!” Sam said, then put down the dish she was drying for fear her tight fists would shatter it.

Just then, there was a knock at the door and all three of them looked at each other. Unless Norman
White had magical powers, it couldn't be him.

“Come in,” Gram called. “Dallas? What's wrong?” she asked as the old foreman opened the kitchen door.

Dallas whipped his battered hat off his silver hair, nodded toward Gram, then looked at Brynna.

“Ma'am, you might want to come out here and take a look at Blaze. That dog won't let me check under his right foreleg. He's pantin' like a lizard on a hot rock, but when I fill up his water dish, he ignores it. Truth is, I'm afraid he got creased with one of Slocum's bullets, after all.”

S
am hurried outside behind Brynna as a formation of geese flew honking over River Bend Ranch, not in their usual strict
V
but in tatters that looked more like part of a
W
. It seemed like a bad omen to Sam, and she wondered if she was just feeling guilty.

“Has Wyatt had a look at him?” Brynna asked as she followed Dallas.

“No, ma'am, everyone's over admirin' that Gypsy horse, and that's fine with me. I don't think this dog needs a lot of noise and hoopla.”

Dallas stopped next to the bunkhouse step. Sam heard Blaze panting in the dark, cool space beneath it.

“I really did check him over,” Sam told Brynna.

“Your dad told me there was a lot going on, with
Linc killing things and accusing people of who knows what,” Brynna said.

“Still, I did,” Sam insisted. She bit her lip hard enough that she felt a jolt of pain to match Blaze's.

“Let's just see what we can do to help him,” Brynna said. “Here, boy.”

Brynna squatted in front of the step, using both hands to keep her balance while she crooned to the dog.

“Come here, sweet dog,” Sam joined in, and she heard Blaze's tail thump in pleasure.

“That's about all he does,” Dallas said. “He was out here, and then when I noticed he was limping and tried to take a look at him, he slipped loose and hid.”

“It's probably nothing major,” Brynna said. “I'm sure Wyatt would have noticed if it were.”

“I know what to do,” Sam said. She flopped full-length in front of the step and dragged her palms over the dirt in front of her. “Crawl, Blaze, crawl!” Sam looked aside at Brynna for a second. “Dad hates him knowing tricks, but I taught him some.”

Blaze whimpered, but he slowly obeyed.

“Maybe that's not such a good idea,” Sam said.

“It will probably hurt him less than dragging him out by his front paws,” Brynna said. Then, as the dog emerged and rolled onto one side, she said, “Excellent dog. Let's have a look.”

Sam held Blaze's head and Dallas steadied his body while Brynna examined the Border collie. Gram
brought a first-aid kit from the barn and when Dad saw her, he strode after her.

“I've by golly had enough of Linc Slocum,” Dad said. He watched Brynna use first aid scissors to snip away Blaze's shiny fur so she could study the wound. “How bad is it?”

“Just a nick.” Brynna's voice was muffled as she bent to her work.

“From a bullet,” Sam said.

“Maybe,” Brynna said.

“Linc admitted he was shooting at them as they ran. That's why I think we should call the sheriff,” Sam said.

Brynna's concentration broke. Her eyes lifted to look at Sam, then Dad, before she kept working.

“It's not illegal, honey,” Dad said.

“Shooting dogs?” Sam demanded.

“Shooting coyotes,” Dad clarified.

“How can that not be illegal?” Sam asked, but when neither Brynna nor Dad spoke up, she had a feeling she was the one who was wrong.

But she'd sworn not to let Linc Slocum get away with this. What should she do next?

“I'm guessing this is from a bullet,” Brynna said, “but we won't know for sure unless there's a little piece of metal the bullet left behind.”

“I'm giving that man a piece of my mind,” Gram said. “What was he thinking? Shooting where there were kids and horses.”

“He didn't see us until we broke out of the woods,” Sam admitted.

“And right there,” Dad insisted, “is where Ballard's gonna get 'im. You've got to know who and what's around you before you go firing your weapon.”

Drawn by the sight of Sam, Dallas, Brynna, and Dad crouched over the Border collie, everyone but Nicolas left Lace and the dun colt to come see what was going on.

No sooner had they gathered around the worried dog, though, than the BLM truck driven by Norman White bumped across the bridge.

“I'm outta here,” Dallas said.

“Can you finish up alone?” Dad asked Brynna as he, too, began to walk away.

“Brock, brock,”
Brynna said, imitating a chicken, but Dad and Dallas didn't laugh or slow down.

“I'll go help Nicolas,” Jake said.

“Well, don't help him too far away from here,” Brynna said, placing a small pad over Blaze's wound, then unrolling a bandage to wrap around his body and hold it in place. “Mr. White's come to talk to him.”

Jake went still. He stood, thinking, then asked, “Slocum call him about trespassin'?”

“Maybe,” Brynna said. She wobbled as she tried to stand up, and Jake cupped his hand under her elbow.

There was something so considerate about the gesture, it made Sam blink. She'd have to stop thinking about Jake as a kid, because he was acting like a man.

“Thanks, Jake,” Brynna said, and Jake looked away as if she'd swatted him.

A shy man, Sam thought, grinning until Brynna continued talking.

“Mr. White is mainly here because I told him I thought the little dun was a BLM horse that went astray. And Norman had to come see for himself.”

But he's not a BLM horse,
Sam thought. The colt was wild. His mother might have died in captivity, but the colt deserved his freedom.

Sam stared toward Lace, Nicolas, and the colt and imagined she saw brush strokes of black branching over his coat. Those marks were the symbol of ancient horses, the kinds of horses painted on cave walls. His kind had survived in a hidden valley, just as the Phantom's herd had.

Would he have been accepted into the Phantom's herd, instead of driven away, if the honey-colored horse were still the Phantom's lead mare?

That's not even worth thinking about,
Sam told herself.

Phineas Preston, Mrs. Allen's fiancé, a former police lieutenant, loved the mare. She might have been the Phantom's lead mare, but before that she'd been Cha Cha Marengo, Mr. Preston's police horse. If he had anything to say about it—and he'd be sure
he did—she'd never run wild again.

And in this one way, the Phantom was no different from other herd stallions. He needed a lead mare to keep order while he fought off challengers for his band. If his attention was divided between his herd and another stallion, he'd likely lose battles, then his family of mares and foals.

“Thanks for sticking around,” Brynna told Sam, as Blaze trotted after the cowboys. Then, lowering her voice to a faint whisper, she said, “I know you don't like him, either.”

“Not a bit,” Sam agreed, and then, when Jen walked toward them from the barn, practically dragging her feet, Sam added, “Have you noticed it's just us girls?”

Her voice must have carried to Jen, because her best friend wound each of her braids into coils that looked like cinnamon rolls and said, “Have you noticed I smell like I spent the last two nights sleeping in the dirt? Oh yeah, that's right. I did.”

“I'm glad you're here, Jennifer,” Brynna said.

“I only stayed for the mashed potatoes,” Jen joked, but she tilted her head to one side, watching Norman White approach.

“I remember him from that day when we herded the horses back to Mrs. Allen's ranch,” Jen said. “He struts like a little general, doesn't he?”

Norman White wore the same style of khaki uniform Brynna put on for work, but Brynna just
looked pressed and pulled together. Norman White's military air—with his shoulders back, chest out, and chin high—matched his short-cropped crew cut. Still, he was no taller than Sam.

Humming something under his breath, Norman walked toward them.

Sam wasn't very good at “Name That Tune” games. Even though she'd heard the song—kind of a march—before, she turned to Jen and whispered, “What's he humming?”

Brynna raised her eyebrows in Jen's direction, too.

“Darth Vader's theme?”

Sam smothered her laugh into a snort, but Brynna broke into laughter. She tried to cover it by clearing her throat, then coughing.

“Nice to see you again, Mrs. Forster,” Norman said. “It's not a bad drive out here, though it's clear excess horses are going to have to be gathered for public safety. I had to pull off the road to avoid those two I mentioned and some brush scraped the truck.”

“It probably didn't go through the paint to the metal,” Jen observed. “I bet you can just rub out the scratches.”

“Have we met?” Norman asked.

“Jennifer Kenworthy of the Gold Dust Ranch,” she said, reaching way past halfway to meet his handshake.

Norman nodded, then glanced at Sam. “And
you're the stepdaughter.”

Afraid anything she said would sound sarcastic, Sam just nodded and brushed off the front of her shirt, which was still dusty from lying on her belly to talk to Blaze when he was under the porch.

“About the colt,” Norman said, turning back to Brynna. “I'm sure you're right, there's nothing to worry about, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.”

Jen gave Sam a gentle elbow in the ribs, but Sam had already realized that both Norman White and Linc Slocum had used the same expression to cover another motive altogether.

Linc hadn't shot the coyote to be safe. Norman White hadn't driven to River Bend Ranch to see if Nicolas, a twenty-year-old college student, was some kind of threat. Both men were busy showing everyone who was boss.

Norman insisted on checking out the dun colt before he met Nicolas. Walking around with a printout attached to a clipboard, he studied the colt as it tried to hide behind Lace. Check marks were placed with such broad movements, no one doubted the man who'd be Brynna's substitute had agreed with her assessment that this was the missing colt from the Good Thunder Meadows herd.

When Brynna introduced Nicolas to Norman White, the man inclined his head as if he were royalty and Nicolas was a peasant. Nicolas pushed his black hair away from his forehead, and the focused
intensity in his expression reminded Sam that Nicolas planned to be a lawyer.

“Norm,” Brynna said, interrupting their analysis of each other, “the colt mothered up with Nicolas's mare, and clearly it's the one that went missing from Good Thunder Meadows. Even at a glance, you can see he fits with the other grullas and duns from that area.”

“Clearly,” Norman said.

“Now we need to backtrack, find out what happened between the capture point at Good Thunder Meadows and the truck that took the horses to the adoption point.”

“That's pretty clear, too,” Norman said with a look at Nicolas that could only be called a leer.

“No, it's not,” Brynna said. “No one mentioned theft until a possible suspect appeared.”

It took Sam a few seconds to understand Brynna's response to Norman's hint that Nicolas had stolen the colt from the capture site.

“You must admit it's pretty suspicious that this drifter just showed up with the most valuable—and portable—member of the herd,” Norman said.

Sam couldn't believe Norman White was talking this way in front of Nicolas. And how could Nicolas tolerate it in silence?

“But if he stole the colt, why would he turn up here at my ranch?” Brynna asked.

“Mrs. Forster,” Norman said in an embarrassed
tone, “you'll have to answer that.”

Sam recoiled. She couldn't believe he really thought they were trafficking in stolen horses. It made her angry, but Brynna refused to be baited into an argument.

“Come on now, Norman, remind yourself of what we thought before Nicolas showed up. We were pretty sure that the BLM misplaced the horse, right?”

“Well, yes,” Norman admitted. “Still, this issue deserves more study. Let's load the colt into my truck and I'll drive him up to Willow Springs where he can't go missing again.”

“Since this case is still mine to study and I haul horses all the time, how about if I bring the colt up to Willow Springs on Tuesday, after tomorrow's Nevada Day holiday,” Brynna suggested.

Norman looked dubious, but before he could accept Brynna's suggestion, Nicolas interrupted.

“Excuse me.” Nicolas's smooth tone startled the bureaucrat.

“Yes?” he said.

“Mr. White, what can I do to put your mind at rest before I get on my way?”

Wow, Sam thought, when Nicolas became a lawyer, that voice would come in handy. It was not only charming, but soothing.

“You can leave the colt behind.” He said it like a dare.

“Fine,” Nicolas agreed.

Norman White exhaled loudly. “But your departure isn't imminent.”

Norman must have seen the flash of defiance in Nicolas's eyes, because he added, “I want you to stay here for a few days until we can establish how you came into possession of the colt.”

Nicolas folded his arms and, for the first time, Sam noticed his shirt. White with billowing sleeves, it looked like something a pirate—or a traditional gypsy—would wear. Nicolas drew a patient breath, then explained, “The colt followed my mare, and tagged along with us for a few weeks. Even if I stayed, I could tell you no more than that.”

Norman White set his jaw in what was supposed to be a tough look. “You'll need to stay.”

Sam chewed her lip. She knew Brynna had some law-enforcement authority. Did Norman?

Apparently Nicolas wasn't about to ask.

“I hope you'll forgive me,” Nicolas said, moving back toward the barn, “but I'm on a tight schedule and I'd like to put a couple hours in on the road before dark.”

He clapped his hands and Lace pulled the vardo around the corner of the barn. The gypsy cart glowed green, red, and gold in the afternoon sunlight. Jogging alongside was Witch, carrying Jake.

Jake had said he was going to help Nicolas. It seemed they'd decided the best thing they could do was plan a confident departure. Sam wanted to ride
along with them, but she'd already unsaddled Ace.