Gypsy Gold (6 page)

C
racking through the sunny morning came another gunshot. Then a yelp.

The dun colt bolted and Sam gathered her reins, ready to send Ace galloping after him until Nicolas shouted, “Let him go. He'll come back to Lace.”

When she heard a volley of barks, Sam knew she couldn't have set off after the colt anyway.

“Blaze!” Sam screamed.

“Stay here,” Jen ordered, but Sam didn't listen.

Galloping toward gunfire was a stupid thing to do, but she had to help Blaze. Shouting as she rode, Sam hoped whoever held that rifle would hear her
human commotion and stop firing.

When she rode into the clearing, the damage was already done.

Sam's heart almost broke when she saw Blaze on his belly, ears back and mouth open in a submissive grin, begging the shooter to stop.

Her dog was alive, but his mate wasn't.

Blaze didn't notice she was there. His eyes watched Linc Slocum.

Mounted on his sturdy palomino, Linc held his rifle butt snug against his shoulder, but the barrel drooped. Done shooting, he wore a satisfied smile.

Hadn't he noticed the grieving Border collie pulling himself across the ground toward the coyote?

She was dead. Sam didn't have to look twice to know the female coyote would never move again. Sprawled so that her soft belly showed, with her shoulder wrenched to one side, Blaze's mate lay where the bullet had spun her back and killed her.

Nostrils flaring at the blood smell, Ace swung his head away, but stayed where Sam had stopped him. Silly gave a low, worried neigh. Hooves struck wood somewhere behind her, making Sam wonder if Lace was kicking at the cart. Maybe she wanted to run away and Nicolas wouldn't let her.

Blaze whined.
Poor sweet, smart dog,
Sam thought. Instead of attacking the armed man, he acted submissive. Blaze knew guns were loud. Maybe he sensed they were deadly, too, because his front paws
dragged him closer to his mate, but he didn't growl.

Sam wasn't half as careful.

“What's wrong with you?” she shouted.

The smug grin slipped off Linc Slocum's face.

Jen said something. Nicolas did, too, but their voices were whispers next to the raging in her mind.

“Why do you have to kill things?” Sam yelled at Linc.

What if she rode straight at him, crashing Ace into Champ, knocking Linc to the ground so he'd know how it felt to be helpless?

The impulse evaporated as she stared at the black eye of the gun's barrel. She couldn't risk her horse. Or his.

A buzz like ten million killer bees droned in Sam's ears as she slid down from the saddle. Her knees didn't lock. She staggered a step before flinging her reins down, making sure Ace understood her order to stay ground-tied.

Blowing the horrible scents from his nostrils, the gelding stayed, but he didn't like it.

“That coyote attacked your dog!” Linc yelled defensively.

“No—” Sam began.

“She couldn't have. They were playing together last night,” Jen snapped.

Jen had a lot to lose by confronting Linc Slocum, Sam thought. But she stood up for what was right.

Sam sank to the ground beside Blaze.

“Poor boy,” she said. Her hands skimmed over his glossy fur. She saw no blood, but her fingers searched for hidden wounds.

Blaze lurched forward, crawling to the coyote's side, and Sam moved along with him.

A quick look showed a pink tongue hanging from the corner of the coyote's blood-flecked muzzle. Her teeth shone white. Her eyes stared brown and surprised.

Sam buried her face in Blaze's fur. She couldn't cry. She couldn't look weak when she stood up to Linc Slocum.

“I don't care what you say,” Linc spoke in a lofty tone. “I was just plinkin' at coyotes and I saw that one”—he gestured with his gun barrel—“set on your dog. Savin' him was the neighborly thing to do.”

“She was his mate.” Nicolas's voice was quiet but bitter.

Sniffing, Sam looked at him. So did Jen and Linc.

For a second, Nicolas looked down at the reins in his hands, but then his chin lifted and he took them all in with a single look.

“It attacked your dog,” Linc insisted. He jammed his rifle into his saddle scabbard, and cleared his throat.

When no one else spoke, he tried to shift their accusing stares away from him, to Nicolas. “I don't know who in heck you are. His ‘mate'? You, with your fancy pony cart, you don't know nothin' about dogs and coyotes, tellin' a tall tale like that.”

Lace couldn't have understood Linc's words, but she sensed their emotion. Her mighty front hooves lifted free of the earth. Her ears pressed back, disappearing into the thickness of her mane. Mouth opened wide, she threatened Linc with her teeth.

Nicolas drew back on the reins and murmured foreign, sweet-sounding words to her.

Sam felt a yell swelling her chest, but she tried to keep it from getting out by petting Blaze's head over and over again. He was panting now, uncomforted by her touch.

Without a chance to protect his family, his training had kicked in. Blaze knew he wasn't supposed to attack humans, but when his eyes rolled up to meet Sam's, they were filled with confusion.

She gave his head a final kiss and stood up. Before she uttered a word, Linc straightened in the saddle, trying to make himself taller.

“You jumped to a conclusion instead of seeing what was right in front of you,” Sam said, doing her best to get through to him. “Jen's right. We saw Blaze and the coyote playing. You couldn't have mistaken that for an attack.”

“They weren't playing,” Linc said. “They heard me and took off running.”

Pride filled his voice. Was Linc glad the animals feared him?

Sam swallowed hard. Fighting to keep her voice level, she must have made a faint sound Blaze took
for a growl, because the dog scrambled to his feet. Lowering his head, he began to snarl.

Sam grabbed his collar. Linc deserved the punishment Blaze could inflict, but the man's hand hovered near the saddle scabbard, keeping his rifle within reach.

Linc hadn't snuffed out the coyote's life for food or because he was in danger. She didn't think he'd been afraid of the animal, either. Linc had killed the coyote simply because he could.

Linc stared at Nicolas, eyes darting from the brightly painted wagon to the beautiful horse. Then he shook his head. Sam didn't know what he was thinking, and she didn't care.

Jen urged her mare forward and looked down on the coyote. Last night, playing with her pup, the coyote's coat had shone like stardust. Not anymore.

“It was a clean shot,” Jen said, but her voice quavered.

Sam could tell the words were all Jen could offer to comfort her, but they both knew they weren't enough.

“There, y'see?” Linc gloated. “I been plinkin' at coyotes since I moved here. I'm no beginner at gunplay.” Linc puffed out his chest with pride. “Jennifer means she didn't suffer.”

“I know what Jen means,” Sam said. “But that coyote was just taking care of her family. You killed her for no reason.”

Linc dismounted in a series of clumsy movements. He swung one heavy leg over Champ's back. His body wobbled, the saddle shifted, and his left stirrup creaked at the sudden weight before Linc made it to the ground.

“They're vermin,” he said, slightly out of breath. “I'll skin this one out and hang its carcass on my barbed-wire fence to warn off the rest of his kind.”

“Her,” Nicolas said softly. He looked…not sick, exactly, but appalled. And interested.

Morbid fascination,
Sam thought. Wasn't that the term people used when they didn't want to stare at something awful, but couldn't look away?

Even though he was a college guy, he lived in the city. He'd probably never seen anything like this.

“Are coyotes preying on your livestock?” Nicolas asked.

“Not that you got any right to interrogate me,” Linc said, “but they could be. It's better to be safe than sorry.”

Linc didn't keep track of ranch affairs. He left that to his foreman, Jen's dad.

Sam's quick side glance caught Jen shaking her head.

“There haven't been any calf kills by coyotes,” Jen said.

Linc cleared his throat impatiently.

“If the sheriff hears about this—” Sam began.

“I'd have to pay a piddly little fine,” Linc scoffed,
then he shook his head with pity, as if Sam just didn't understand. “I've got enough money to burn a wet mule, if you get my meaning. And I don't have to put up with accusations from a bunch of kids. I think I'll call the sheriff myself and tell him you all are trespassing on my land.”

Sam didn't think they were, but the range was a patchwork of ranches and public lands. In these leafy woods, without landmarks, she couldn't be sure.

She didn't contradict Slocum, but she sure wanted to get to the sheriff first.

Nicolas had turned his attention back to Lace and Sam could see why. The mare's black-and-white tail swished with edgy energy. She launched a backward kick that struck the wagon, and Nicolas murmured to her.

“Who is that kid, anyway?” Linc aimed his question toward Jen. “And what kind of jibber-jabber is he talking?”

“I couldn't say,” Jen told him, and Sam shrugged.

“I don't like his looks,” Linc told them, as if Nicolas couldn't hear. Then he called out, “That's some horse.”

“Thank you,” Nicolas said.

“Where'd you get her?”

“She was a gift,” Nicolas said.

Linc snorted, then focused on Nicolas's frayed jeans and dark skin before he said, “Yeah, I bet.”

Sam wished Gram were here. Gram said you
should try to love everyone, but Linc Slocum made that impossible. With three words and a look, he'd accused Nicolas of being a liar and a thief.

“Come, Blaze,” Sam said. She patted her leg, trying to attract the dog's attention before he noticed Linc had squatted next to the coyote's body.

She didn't know what Slocum had in mind, but the fur bristled on Blaze's back.

She'd better get Blaze out of there, Sam thought.

“Let's go,” Jen said, backing Silly alongside Ace. She looked down at Blaze. “He'll come with us, won't he?”

“I hope so,” Sam said, then hesitated. “Don't you think we should stick around and hope the colt comes back? And”—she lowered her voice to a whisper—“what about the pup?”

“Stick around? I told you,” Linc said, “you're trespassing and you can by God expect a visit from the sheriff.”

Linc looked annoyed that she didn't tremble at his threat.

“The sooner we get away from this spot, the sooner the colt will return to Lace. This is what scared him,” Nicolas said. He lifted his chin in a gesture that included the clearing, Slocum, and his gun.

“Okay,” Sam said. “He'll probably catch up.”

As they moved off, she glanced back and saw Linc pick up the coyote. Her limp body looked nothing like the light, dancing creature from last night.
She flopped like a rag in his hands.

Sam turned her attention to the trail leading home.

“Good boy, Blaze,” she said.

The Border collie walked so near Ace's front hooves, the gelding could have stepped on him.

Sam tried to be cheered by each stride Ace took away from the clearing, but dark thoughts followed her.

Linc Slocum was worse than careless and big-headed.

She'd seen him holding the lifeless bodies of two mother animals—first a cougar and now the coyote. Both had left young behind. The young cougar had turned dangerous. She didn't know what would become of the coydog.

She did know that Sheriff Ballard and Phineas Preston, the retired police officer engaged to Mrs. Allen, didn't trust Linc. Both lawmen were working to connect him with a ring of horse rustlers.

Shooting this coyote would be more evidence that Linc was a criminal, Sam thought. The minute they rode over the bridge to River Bend Ranch, she'd tell Dad, Gram, Brynna, and anyone else who'd listen what had happened. Then she'd call Sheriff Ballard. And Preston. She'd keep telling people until she stopped Linc Slocum.

He won't get away with it this time,
Sam vowed.
I won't let him.

S
am drew in a breath of yellow leaves and damp tree bark.

They'd progressed in silence for about twenty minutes, all eager to leave Slocum behind.

Sam gave Ace's warm bay neck a pat. Her movement caught Blaze's eyes. Sam clucked her tongue at the dog and told him “Good boy” once more.

The Border collie whined. Was he favoring his right side?

Holding her breath, Sam watched the dog keep pace with Ace and Silly. He glanced over his shoulder at a tinkling sound from Nicolas's wagon, then trotted on.

Blaze looked all right. And she'd felt him all over
for injuries, but what if she'd missed something? Linc had admitted he'd shot after the animals as they ran. Had one of his bullets grazed her dog?

“Is he limping?” Nicolas called out over the sound of wagon wheels.

“Maybe,” Sam said, flashing Nicolas a grateful look. Blaze wasn't his dog, but he was concerned. “I was just watching him.”

“He can ride in the wagon,” Nicolas offered. “There's room in the back, or up here beside me.”

Sam darted a quick look at Jen to see if her opinion of Nicolas was rising, too, but Jen looked like she was in a world of her own, staring at the trail ahead.

“Thanks, but I don't think he'd do it,” Sam said. “Blaze is really suspicious of moving vehicles.”

“That's sensible,” Nicolas said.

“I don't know,” Sam said, watching Blaze as he sniffed through some trailside brush. “Even if he was really hurting, I bet he wouldn't let me wrestle him up into your wagon. He won't get in my dad's truck without a fight.”

“Do you know how much I hate Champ belonging to him?” Jen blurted.

“Yes,” Sam said. So it seemed that Jen couldn't get the image of Linc's palomino out of her mind. Sam explained Jen's apparent tangent to Nicolas, telling him how Jen's family's ranch and palomino breeding farm had failed and Linc Slocum had appeared out of nowhere to rescue them with an offer to buy the
ranch and let her family remain in the foreman's house.

“According to my maps, this is public land we're traveling over,” Nicolas said, reminding them of Linc's threat to report them as trespassers.

“Not all of it,” Jen said, and for some reason, she suddenly looked brighter. “This area's been resurveyed recently and there were all kinds of mistakes in the old maps.”

“So that's what Linc was talking about,” Sam said. “Brynna's been studying maps lately, too.”

Her stepmother had been staying up late and getting up early to analyze maps rolled out to cover the kitchen table. The BLM and local ranchers were revising boundaries, and it was Brynna's job to puzzle out how the new border lines would effect Nevada's wild horses.

“Why do you look like that's a good thing?” Sam asked Jen.

“Can you guys keep a secret?” Jen asked, lowering her voice.

“Sure,” Sam said.

“Yes,” Nicolas answered, looking surprised.

“Last year, remember, right after your dad and Brynna's wedding, how my mom and I went to visit relatives in Utah?” Jen asked.

“Yeah,” Sam said slowly.

Jen and her mom had left for the holidays and her dad had remained behind, because Jen's parents had
been fighting. Big time. People who knew them had feared they were on the brink of a divorce. Why would memories of that time bring a sparkle to Jen's eyes?

“Mom was mad when we left,” Jen explained, “and she took along some money of her own that she'd been investing since before she and Dad got married.”

“But—” Sam interrupted.

“It wasn't enough to save the ranch,” Jen said. “In fact, her investments didn't start doing well until last year, but she was thinking of buying a house up there.”

A house? Sam shuddered. No wonder Jen had been so cranky and depressed during Dad and Brynna's wedding.

“But she didn't do it. Did she?” Sam asked.

“No, but what she did do was something that would have made Dad insane if he'd known,” Jen told her.

“Should I be hearing this?” Nicolas wondered aloud. He shifted on the driver's seat of the wagon and both girls laughed at his discomfort.

“Who would you tell?” Jen asked sensibly. Then, she went on, “One of Mom's cousins was working for a small newspaper, and got a chance to buy it, but she needed help. Financial help. So Mom loaned her some money.”

Jen covered her mouth at her mother's daring
and Sam could see why. Ranchers depended on nature and other unpredictable factors from season to season. That was a big enough risk without loaning a relative thousands of dollars.

“So, your mom's kind of a gambler,” Sam joked. Maybe the thought was more amusing because it was a break from brooding over Slocum, or maybe Jen's excitement was contagious.

“In a good way, it turns out, because…” Jen drew out the suspense, then finished, “A national chain of newspapers wants to buy my cousin's newspaper and they've offered her a million dollars for it.”

Nicolas chuckled, but Sam could hardly catch her breath.

“It's in the hands of lawyers right now,” Jen said airily. “But when we get our share—”

Sam couldn't smother her delighted shriek. When Ace flattened his ears in irritation, she simply leaned forward and kissed his mane.

“Nothing's settled,” Jen cautioned, but her smile stayed in place.

“Still,” Sam said. “Wow.”

That explained why Jen had confronted Linc Slocum so fearlessly. Maybe the Kenworthys could stop depending on Linc Slocum for their house and every penny they spent on food, clothes, and horses.

“Would you leave”—Nicolas gestured at the countryside—“this?”

“No way,” Jen said. “We'd buy back our ranch.
At least part of it. We hope. Then we'd get our Fire and Ice palomino breeding program up and running again and, best of all, we'd get out from under that monster's thumb.”

Sam took one hand from her reins and jabbed a celebrating fist skyward. She didn't think Ace would put up with a round of applause.

Jen sighed. Relief from telling the secret made her sink a bit in the saddle.

“Will Linc sell?” Sam asked gently.

Jen held up crossed fingers, but Sam's brain had already swerved away from reality to start tallying possibilities.

“If Linc gets in trouble for shooting the coyote, his offenses against the wild horses might resurface, and if someone digs up the shady real estate deals out of his past—remember, the ones you told me about, Jen? You said someone actually committed suicide over the scam Linc pulled?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, I remember,” Jen said.

“And then,” Sam said, “if he went to court as part of the horse-theft ring—”

Sam broke off. Maybe all those things couldn't come together in the same trial, but wouldn't a judge hearing even half of that just be itching to send Slocum to jail? And with Linc Slocum jailed, the Gold Dust Ranch—

“Sam, stop,” Jen said. “You're about to chew a hole through your lip.”

“I am not,” Sam said, but she touched a knuckle to her bottom lip. It was already sore because she'd been biting it as she concentrated. “Still, if there's any justice—”

“There's always that big
if
,” Jen said.

“We've got to hurry and tell Sheriff Ballard what Linc did before he reports us—”

“I don't think you have any reason to worry,” Nicolas broke in. “Or hurry.”

Sam had almost forgotten he was there, but she turned to listen.

After all, Nicolas was a college student, and as an outsider, he might be in a better position to observe.

“Did we miss something?” Sam asked.

“There's a saying attributed to Napoleon,” Nicolas began.

“Who conquered most of the civilized world of his time,” Jen said to Sam.

With a wave of her hand, Sam brushed away Jen's explanation. She had heard of Napoleon.

Sam twisted in the saddle to face Nicolas and said, “Tell me.”

“It's something like, ‘Never interrupt your enemy while he's making a mistake.'” Nicolas paused to let the words sink in and both girls smiled.

“I love that,” Jen said.

“Me too, and Linc's always making mistakes,” Sam said.

“Let him make this one,” Nicolas suggested.
“Don't race to report him. That way he'll be making himself look bad, by admitting to the sheriff that he shot the coyote. Then you two can step up as concerned citizens who just happened to have witnessed his crime.”

“What are you studying in college?” Jen asked Nicolas.

“Pre-law,” Nicolas confessed. He shrugged as if he didn't want them to think he was showing off. “My grandfather claims he's never met a gypsy lawyer, though I'm sure he's wrong.”

“Perfect,” Jen said, with a contented sigh. “I'm glad you're on our side.”