Gypsy Gold (9 page)

“At church?” Sam squeaked.

“Right in the middle of the front row,” Brynna confirmed.

He's not as evil as Linc Slocum,
Sam thought. Still, Norman White was known by BLM colleagues as “No Way Norman.” He was so cautious in spending the bureau's money, he was the last person Sam wanted filling in for her horse-loving stepmother.

“But you're not going on leave until December, are you?” Sam asked.

“No, of course not,” Brynna said. “I feel great and I'll work until the very last minute. Nothing would make me happier than going into labor right there among the wild horse corrals. It would give him less time to mess things up.”

Dad's mouth opened. The emotion telegraphing down the reins to Blue made the Spanish Mustang jerk back and roll his eyes. Dad's expression said he was about to ask Brynna to tone down her statement.

But when Brynna whirled toward Dad with her hands on her hips, he didn't say a word. And neither did Sam.

E
ven to Sam, Brynna's declaration sounded a little crazy. But Brynna hadn't exactly been herself lately. Forgetful, uncoordinated, and—though she'd gained exactly the right amount of weight according to her doctor—embarrassed by her craving for sweets, Brynna was still devoted to the wild horses and she fought hard to prove that to everyone.

Just the same, Sam knew Brynna wouldn't do anything to endanger the baby. Something about Norman White's early arrival had her stepmother worried.

Sam had first met Norman White before Brynna and Dad were married. He had filled in as manager of Willow Springs while Brynna was on a business
trip to Washington, D.C., and he'd ordered the death of a dozen “unadoptable” wild horses.

Sam had heard about the mustangs' death sentence through Dr. Scott, a young vet who hated the idea of putting down healthy horses, and Sam had persuaded Mrs. Allen, their neighbor to the east, to go with her to just look at the doomed mustangs.

The horses had included Faith, a blind Medicine Hat filly, and her mother, plus other mustangs Norman White thought were too old or ugly to find homes. Sam had always wanted to ask him if he wondered what would happen to him when he grew old, lost his hair, and maybe had trouble moving around.

Luckily, Mrs. Allen's heart had gone out to the condemned horses. They'd been the start of her Blind Faith Mustang Sanctuary.

Now, Brynna smooched at Blue, and the wary mustang flicked his ears in her direction. Although he didn't leave his place beside Dad, he shifted his weight forward and extended his muzzle far enough that when Brynna reached her hand out, they touched. Their greeting made Dad smile.

“Why is Mr. White here so early?” Sam asked.

“To investigate some irregularities in my office procedures.” Brynna pronounced the words in a prissy way.

“Oh, B.,” Dad said, using his nickname for her as he gave her shoulders a squeeze.

“I'm not worried about it,” Brynna said. She
leaned against Dad so that he left his arm around her shoulders and looked up to tell him, “I've always followed policy to the letter.”

“So which ‘irregularities' could he be talking about?” Dad asked.

“He wouldn't discuss that at church,” Brynna said, “but—and I know this sounds paranoid—I got the distinct feeling he'd only come because he knew I'd be there.”

Sam believed Brynna. If Brynna thought Norman White was spying on her, he probably was.

Dad nodded. He believed her, too, but he offered another explanation.

“C'mon now,” Dad said. “Even old No Way Norman's allowed to have a yen for church, isn't he?”

“Sure,” Brynna said, “but once I spotted him sitting up front, I couldn't keep my eyes off him. I had a hard time paying attention to my own devotions, because I could see him writing something.”

“Writing? Like taking notes?” Sam asked.

“Like that,” Brynna admitted, “but when the service ended and we were all filing out, he dropped what he'd been working on and, well, I was right behind him.” Brynna touched the rounded front of her dress and laughed. “Norman was pretty surprised that I managed to bend down quick enough to swoop them up and return them to him.”

“What was it?” Sam asked.

“A couple things. I didn't get a good look at the
diagram, but I saw the computer spread sheet had dollar signs and the names of different herd management areas. I have no idea what he's scheming to do while I'm gone.” Brynna's tone verged on despair.

Ace mouthed his snaffle loudly, then swung his head against the reins. Sam followed his glance toward the hitching rail nearest the house. Jen and Jake were tying their horses. Sam couldn't blame Ace for reminding her that she'd already loosened his cinch. That usually meant he was done for the day.

“This doesn't sound like good news, but you've got almost a month to keep your eye on him, right?” Sam asked, and when Brynna agreed, Sam added, “I'd better go put Ace up.”

Brynna nodded, then pointed to Sam's saddlebags and bedroll.

“Hey! I didn't even ask how your camping and vulture-watching went.”

“It was great,” Sam said.

Then, Sam heard the clopping of heavy hooves, which meant Nicolas was leading Lace this way for water, and she yearned to talk about something that wasn't serious. Homecoming week at school, maybe, or a spur-of-the-moment Halloween party. She wished she and her friends could just take a picnic lunch somewhere else, away from River Bend Ranch and its problems.

Dad looked at his dirty, horsehair-covered hands and said, “Better wash up and turn Blue out.”

When Brynna just nodded, Dad said, “We can talk more.”

Sam led Ace toward the pasture, then shouted back over her shoulder, “And we have company for lunch.”

Brynna was usually cheered up by visitors.

Sam freed Ace. As she hurried back toward the house, she saw Dad was still talking with Brynna. He hadn't gone to wash up or turn Blue out at all. Were they discussing something they didn't want her to hear?

Dad's head jerked up, and he said, “Besides, you're gonna like Sam's new friend.”

“I bet I will,” Brynna said.

Sam thought it probably revealed something significant about her social life that Brynna started glancing around the ranch yard at animal level. As if her stepdaughter couldn't have a new human friend.

“He's a kid with a horse and wagon. A real gypsy, isn't he, Sam?” Dad asked and there was something too hearty and totally un-Dad-like about the way he said it. “Sam?”

“Uh, yeah,” she said. “His name is Nicolas. Jen and I met him on the trail.”

Brynna frowned.

“He's a college student, but he and his family are gypsies, from England,” Sam explained. “He's the first Raykov—I think that's how you pronounce his
last name—born in the U.S., and he's taking this journey to kind of live the life of his ancestors for a semester,” Sam told Brynna.

“That sounds interesting,” Brynna said, but her vague tone contradicted her words.

“Jake likes him,” Sam offered. She'd learned that unfair as it was, Jake's opinion counted for more, with Dad and Brynna, than hers did.

“Is that him?” Brynna asked.

It was. Nicolas came around the corner of the barn and Lace followed, though she wore no halter and he held no lead rope. On playful hooves, the dun colt came with them.

“That's Nicolas and his horse Lace. She's a Gypsy Vanner. They're really rare and he's driving, if you can believe it, all the way from Seattle to Sacramento. He's carrying everything he needs for his six-month trip in his wagon. It's called a vardo. Jen and I—”

“Is there an unusual marking on that colt's forehead?” Brynna interrupted.

“No….”

“He looks a little skittish. Can you get close enough to pet him?”

What was going on with Brynna? Sam wondered. The colt was cute, but Lace was amazing. And rare.

“Sam, have you peeked under his forelock?”

“No, he's—”

“Wild?” Brynna finished for her.

“Not exactly,” Sam said, though she felt a flash of understanding. Part of Brynna's job was making sure mustangs weren't taken from the wild by anyone except the federal government.

“Samantha, tell the truth,” Brynna insisted. “Does your friend own that colt?”

Sam stared across the ranch yard, trying to remember everything Nicolas had said about the dun colt. She watched Nicolas stroke Lace's black-and-white shoulder as she drank, but she was remembering the way the dun colt had tried to join the Phantom's herd.

“He said it was a stray,” Dad cut in, casting an impatient look at Sam. “A leppie foal that started tagging along with the mare.”

“Where did he join them?” Brynna asked.

“I think he told me,” Sam admitted. “It was somewhere I'd heard of, but I can't remember. We can ask him, you know.” Then, when Brynna looked like Sam had been sassy, Sam added, “Can't you tell me what you're worried about?”

Brynna parted her lips to speak, but then shook her head.

“Not ten minutes ago he was offering that colt to Pepper,” Dad said. Sam could tell he was trying to coax the truth from Brynna, too. “He says he can't take the young one along with him travelin' the highway.”

Tempest, Sam's own black filly, called to the dun colt.

They must be about the same age, Sam thought, and when the little dun ran a bucking loop around Lace, Sam wished she could turn this baby out to play with Tempest.

“I'm probably being too suspicious,” Brynna stated, “but if I'm right, it's going to mean trouble. Sam, why did you have to bring that boy and his horses here at all?”

That didn't sound like Brynna. She was always sociable and welcoming to everyone.

“What is wrong?” Sam managed.

“If that colt's the horse I think he is, Norman White will recognize him. The herd of Spanish Mustangs that Blue came from has turned out to be genetically significant in a university study, and the adopters of the other horses have become pretty loud in accusing BLM of losing—or selling off—the last remaining stallion from the herd.”

“But that didn't happen,” Sam said.

The BLM hadn't known Blue's herd was almost pure Spanish, descended from the horses conquistadors brought to the New World centuries ago, when the herd was rounded up. The BLM had declared the horses' territory too sparsely vegetated to sustain them through winter.

How could people accuse the BLM of losing or
selling off the last remaining stallion when he—Blue—and his yearling colt had been gelded and adopted?

“You told me one of the mares from that Good Thunder Meadows bunch died,” Dad said slowly. “And when you got interested in the bloodlines, because of Blue, your boss put you in charge of tracking down her missing foal…” Dad's voice faded as he stared at the dun colt and shook his head.

“Do you think that's him?” Sam asked.

“Honey, that's a terrible long shot,” Dad told Brynna, but suddenly Sam knew it wasn't.

Dad had researched the place Blue had come from. Good Thunder Meadows had earned its name because an ex-cavalryman had lived in that high mountain valley and when a severe winter left his Indian neighbors hungry, he'd used his rifle to bring down game for food. They'd named the sound of his rifle “good thunder.”

Now, Sam remembered the glow of firelight on Nicolas's face as he'd told her and Jen that the foal had showed up in the area of Good Thunder Meadows.

“Don't you think it would look pretty fishy if I'm investigating the colt's disappearance and he ends up here?” Brynna asked. “This is not a good time for me to be in possession of stolen government property. Norman's certainly read the description. He'll recognize the colt just like I did.”

“That's not going to happen,” Dad said soothingly. “At least not right away.”

“It might, since your mother”—Brynna wore a wry smile as she tapped Dad's chest with her index finger—“asked Norman White over for lunch. He'll be here any minute.”

I
f Nicolas felt three pairs of eyes watching him as he stood beside Lace at the water trough, he didn't show it. He sang to his horse, soothing her with the same melody he'd used in the forest the night before. Even though the darkness and trees had given way to a sunlit ranch, the words gave Sam chills.

“Gypsy gold does not clink and glitter, oh no,” Nicolas's voice soared, even without the violin to guide it. “It gleams in the sun and neighs in the dark, ah yes.”

“His voice.” Brynna uttered the words in awe.

“The tune reminds me of that old song,” Dad said, and silently snapped his fingers as if the gesture would bring the title to mind. And it did. “‘Oh
Shenandoah,' is that what it's called?”

“It has that same lonely quality,” Brynna said, but she used a dismissive tone. When she glanced toward the bridge over the La Charla River and the highway beyond it, Sam knew her stepmother's attitude wasn't linked to Nicolas's song. “But right now, before we have more company, I need to have a look at that colt's forehead. The one that got away had a distinctive marking.”

Sam didn't know how they were going to do this without making Nicolas feel like he was suspected of something, but somehow Brynna managed.

Maybe her big belly and bouncy ponytail didn't look threatening, Sam thought. And maybe Nicolas would have reacted differently if Brynna had been wearing her uniform, but she wasn't. After admiring Lace and Nicolas's ambitious trek down the West Coast, she told him the little dun might be the orphan colt of a Spanish Mustang mare from a desolate area near the Oregon border.

“It sounds like him,” Nicolas said. “He fell in with us around Good Thunder Meadows. At least, that's what the sheepherder called it. It wasn't on any of my maps.”

“I wonder if you can bring him close enough that I can check his brow,” Brynna said. “He was described as a dun with a marking like two upside-down
V
s, one inside the other, where you might expect to see a star.”

“That's it,” Nicolas said. “It's a lot like the markings on his knee. They look like they were done in fountain pen, and then got rained on.”

Brynna smiled at the description, but then Nicolas's brows rose and his jaw dropped slightly. “Described by who?” Nicolas asked with a fleeting breathlessness. “If he belonged to someone and escaped, why is he so wild?”

“He was probably born wild,” Brynna said. “He was brought in with the rest of the Good Thunder Meadows mustangs by the Bureau of Land Management. Now we know he's a valuable little horse, but then…” Brynna shrugged. “He got separated from the rest somehow.”

“And his mom died, you said,” Nicolas repeated. “So, sure, I can trot Lace around, he'll follow, and his forelock will blow back. You can take a look, but what happens to him after you're sure?”

“I have to think about that,” Brynna said.

Nicolas's eyebrow quirked up skeptically and his lips flattened into a line.

Gram picked that moment to shove open the squeaky screen door.

“Dinner will be on the table in five min—” She must have been in a hurry, because the door slammed before they heard the rest, but no one doubted the meal was on its way.

If Nicolas had wanted to avoid giving Brynna time to identify the colt, he could have taken the
chance right then, but he didn't.

“We'll hurry,” Nicolas said.

Without a halter or a lead, he began jogging next to Lace. Tossing her head up in high spirits, she walked beside him and Sam could tell Nicolas would have to pick up the pace if the huge mare was going to trot.

“Come on, slowpoke,” Nicolas teased the mare.

Lace dipped her head, then flung it high. Her mane tossed in variegated glory, and Lace lifted her knees to pursue her master.

“
She
's his, that's for sure,” Brynna said quietly, and then the dun colt kicked up his heels and ran after the big mare.

His black scrap of forelock lifted on the wind and there on his brow were the two black shapes, pointing upward like twin arrowheads.

“Yep,” Dad said finally.

“Thanks!” Brynna shouted, and Nicolas's pace slowed immediately. “He looks a little muddled by all this.”

“Nicolas or the colt?” Sam asked.

“The boy, of course,” Brynna said.

“Now what?” Dad asked.

Brynna's answer was to motion Nicolas toward the house, so Sam guessed Brynna wasn't about to blame the colt's disappearance on him.

“Now lunch,” Brynna said to Dad. “I'm starving, and if Norman White is much later, I might just eat
his pie and mine, too.”

Then she strode toward the house, and only Sam saw her dip into her daisy-shaped pocket, pull out a candy bar, and finish it off before reaching the kitchen.

 

Six chairs were arranged around the oval mahogany table. As usual, for Sunday lunch—which Gram called dinner—Sam had been asked to set the table with candles and cloth napkins. It made a pretty setting, but Gram gave Nicolas less than a minute to express admiration and thank her before pointing out his seat and asking him to take it.

During the meal, Brynna kept everyone's focus off Nicolas, as if his declaration that he wanted to leave the colt behind moved him beyond suspicion.

At least as far as Brynna was concerned, Sam thought, but would Norman White be so easily convinced? If he ever got here. It was rude that he hadn't called to say he wasn't coming, and it didn't fit with his attention to detail.

Sam was glad he hadn't shown up, but his absence put off the discussion between him and Brynna about the colt's future. The little dun couldn't be returned to Good Thunder Meadows alone.

“They must be awfully rare,” Gram said, snagging Sam's attention back to the dinner-table conversation. “Brynna, what sort of natures do coydogs have?”

Brynna held up a finger, signaling she had to
finish chewing before she could answer, but Jen stated an opinion to fill the gap.

“I've read that coyotes are raised by both parents,” Jen said, pushing her glasses up her nose. “And I don't see how Blaze could have been doing his part.”

“Hey,” Sam jumped in to defend her dog. “How could he? Every time he wandered away, we went looking for him.”

“I'm not blaming him,” Jen said. “And he was treating the coydog like his puppy.”

“Jen's right. The males usually have a big part in raising the pups,” Brynna said finally. “That's probably one reason coydogs are unusual.” She broke off then, frowning. “Has anyone looked Blaze over? Made certain he wasn't injured?”

“Sam did,” Jen said. “I saw her palpating him—” Jen flashed a condescending look at Jake. “That means examining him with her hands.”

“Thanks, doc,” Jake said. He winked before forking a bite of chicken-fried steak into his mouth and trading amused glances with Nicolas.

“Anyway,” Brynna went on, “there should have been more than the one pup.”

Dad shook his head slowly. “Still some around here who believe in denning.”

“What's that?” Sam asked.

“Never mind,” Gram said, casting a worried look at Brynna.

Sam didn't insist on an answer. She had heard of people putting dynamite or poison in coyote dens and she was afraid it was something like that. Her imagination didn't need more awful details to process.

“Now, you boys,” Gram said, “let me get you seconds on mashed potatoes. You, too, Jennifer. Heaven knows you could use a little meat on your bones.”

“Isn't she great, Nicolas?” Jen asked in a dreamy tone.

“Absolutely,” Nicolas said, then he leaned toward Sam. “She's exactly like my grandmother.”

“How old was he?” Brynna asked. “The coydog?”

Sam, Jen, and Nicolas looked at each other, at a loss even to guess.

“Probably less than a year,” Sam said.

“That's about right,” Brynna said, nodding. “Although, I'm going largely on what I know of coyotes. The parents start bringing the pups solid food at about a month, and they're usually weaned around nine weeks. They leave their dens and run around with their parents, learning to hunt and hide, at about this time of year.”

Once more, Sam thought of all the nights they'd stood on the front porch, calling for Blaze. Had he felt torn between his ranch family and the one in the wild?

“How long do they stay together?” Jen asked.

“Until autumn,” Brynna said. “About now they kind of split up for the winter.”

“So,” Nicolas said sensibly, “sad as it is, having the young one on his own now isn't”—he searched for a word—“unnatural?”

“Not at all,” Brynna said. “He'll probably come through the winter all right.”

The conversation veered away from the coydog before anyone suggested a future for him, but Sam thought Jake looked far more thoughtful, moving his fork through the last of his gravy, than the task really warranted.

 

“Okay, I'm going to do it,” Brynna said after Gram had ordered her to sit quietly while Sam cleared the table.

Watching everyone else troop outside into the blue and gold afternoon to learn more about Gypsy Vanner horses might have made Sam cranky, if she hadn't made a plan. She'd already figured out Dad's feelings about bringing the coydog to civilization, but he'd deferred to Brynna's expertise, before she'd gotten home.

Now, all Sam had to do was get Brynna on her side.

“See that you do,” Gram said to Brynna, as Sam handed her the neatly stacked plates, ready to slip into the sudsy dishwater.

“Actually, I was talking about Norman White, not sitting quietly.” She smiled at Gram as if she should have known. “If I don't keep him in the loop, I can't
expect him to take appropriate actions. And by appropriate, I mean doing things the way I would,” Brynna admitted. She took a quick breath then, and winced in a way Sam had come to know as her reaction to the baby kicking. “It's still early, but it's possible I could go into labor any time, so I've got to make sure Norman and I agree on a few things, now.”

In the quiet that followed, Sam looked over to see Brynna leaning her chin into her palm, thinking.

“After all,” Brynna said, “I must have scared him off, somehow. Otherwise, he would've come for lunch.”

“I'd say his rudeness matches what you told me about his accommodations.” Gram turned both handles, hot and cold, on full blast into the sink.

“It wasn't worth taking a stand over,” Brynna said.

“His accommodations? Where's he staying?” Sam asked.

“In my office.”

Gram made a quietly disapproving noise.

“He's staying there? Like sleeping there, too?” Sam demanded.

“That's how it sounds,” Brynna said.

That was more than pushy, Sam thought. It was creepy. And Brynna had said he'd brought BLM papers and the wild horses with him to church. That had to mean he was going through Brynna's files. He probably had a right to do that, but couldn't he wait
until he'd taken over Brynna's job?

“I don't like it, either,” Brynna said to Sam and Gram. “Just the same, I'll phone him, so there's no question about everything being aboveboard. Not that it isn't,” Brynna hurried to add. “I believe every word Nicolas said about the colt, and the fact that he's willing to leave him behind speaks for itself.” Brynna drained her glass of milk. “But Norman White is dedicated to the bureau above everything else.”

“Except maybe his own ambition,” Gram muttered.

Sam knew what that meant.

Over the last few months, Norman White had been a self-appointed campaigner for the federal government's new program, which required the BLM to sell horses over ten years old—like Blue—or young horses that hadn't been adopted after three tries—to the highest bidder.

Usually, the highest bidder was a slaughter-buyer like Baldy Harris of Dagdown Packing Company, which processed horses into meat.

So far, Brynna had managed to turn down every offer on technicalities, but Sam knew her refusal to go along with the new plan had been noticed. Brynna was running out of excuses, and Norman White wouldn't bother.

He praised the sell-not-adopt program as an efficient way for the bureau to make back money it had spent protecting mustangs.

“Samantha, you look like you're sucking a lemon,” Gram pointed out.

“Worse than that, huh, honey?” Brynna asked.

Sam nodded and released a deep sigh.

“Still, I'd better tell him what's going on so that Nicolas doesn't get implicated in something dirty. If I know Linc Slocum, he's already found a way to turn this into something else.”

“He did say we were trespassing,” Sam said.

“That's nonsense,” Gram muttered, but then Sam could tell she made an effort to rinse the dishes more quietly.

She and Gram listened while Brynna dialed her own office and talked to Norman White in a way that was downright pleasant. Reciting the alpha angle identification mark from Blue, she asked Norman to check her files for the detailed description of the missing colt.

“Um-hm,” Brynna said, and when she held a pen poised above a pad of yellow paper without writing anything down, Sam knew Brynna had gotten everything right, from memory. “Yes, I do. It is, a real coinci—” Brynna stopped and Sam turned in time to see alarm in her stepmother's eyes. “Really. So my call was forwarded to your cell phone and—are you all right? Young stallions can be unpredictable and one of our local ranchers was feeding horses at the roadside not long ago, luring—” Brynna broke off her list of excuses, but Sam couldn't figure out what
else was going on. “Oh, Norm, that's not necessary. Of course, you're still welcome to stop by. The colt, however, isn't a major issue for us.”

Brynna listened in silence for a while, then said, “If you insist. It sounds like you're about ten min—Yes, right over the La Charla River. Sure. We'll be watching for you.”