Run Away Home (10 page)

While Ace and Silly licked the snow at their feet, Jen studied the mountains, then steadied her glasses on the bridge of her nose.

“Something tells me that would be the perfect place for an avalanche,” she said.

“What are you talking about?” Sam asked, rubbing her gloved hands over her numb cheeks, trying to stimulate a little feeling into them.

“When my mom was still home-schooling me, avalanches were something I wanted to study. You could say I got kind of obsessed with them. For instance, most people think that the most dangerous time for avalanches is in the spring, when the earth
warms up and snow thaws and slides down.”

Sam thought about the slab of snow that had slid down the barn roof onto Tempest that morning. “That's what I thought,” Sam agreed.

“Well, it's true, but only by a few percentage points,” Jen said. “And around here, if you're talking about naturally released avalanches, not something triggered by hikers, the time immediately after a storm, like during the first twenty-four hours—”

“Like now?” Sam asked.

“—is the most dangerous for blocking highways, smashing buildings, and stuff like that, and yeah, like now.”

The wind moaned through the trees up on the ridge. Sam thought if she were the kind of person to imagine snow banshees, she might be shivering in her saddle. As it was, she knew she was only shivering because she was freezing.

“Look!” Jen said, pointing. “See that?”

“Give me a hint what I'm looking for,” Sam said, squinting.

“The wind direction just changed. See, up there? Where it looks almost like white smoke swirling along the mountaintop?”

“Yeah,” Sam said.

“That's because the wind is blowing up the far slope and down the closest one, scouring off snow from the other side and carrying it over the summit. What's really cool about that, though kind of danger
ous, is that it could build up a cornice on this side.”

“I don't know what that is,” Sam admitted. “But it looks too light and powdery to be dangerous. I think you're joshing me, partner.”

“Not at all,” Jen said seriously. “A cornice is like, well…imagine a breaking wave. You know that top part where the crest kind of curls over? A cornice is like that, only it's built up of those ‘light and powdery' layers of snow. And it freezes, but if it breaks off for some reason, it could start an avalanche.”

Jen sighed, reveling in the wonders of science, but Sam just stared. Though the blowing snow didn't look scary to her, she didn't like the thought that a snow wave could be poised and ready to break, right where the Phantom and his herd felt safest.

O
verhead, the sky lay flat and white as a bedsheet, except for an ocher smudge of sun.

Returning from her ride, Sam listened to the tap of Ace's hooves on the cold earth and really looked at the road from the highway to the bridge over the La Charla River. Instead of just packed-down dirt, she saw two parallel paths with grass in the middle. The grass wasn't high. After all, trucks and cars mashed it down each time they passed, but today the grass stood up straight and white-tipped. Wheel marks on each side were filled with snowmelt that might have been water earlier in the day, but it had turned slushy now.

“It's probably close to freezing,” Sam told Ace.

Her bay gelding flattened his ears, impatient to return to the warmth of the saddle herd.

“I've got a better deal for you than that,” Sam told Ace. “If you're a good boy, you can spend the night in the barn with Tempest. She's in your old stall and pasture.”

Ace's trot lengthened, and Sam kept studying the road. If that slush froze up, she'd have to remember to ride with extra care.

Dad and Ross had pulled off all of the horses' shoes for the winter because they believed “barefoot” hooves had better traction in mud and snow. But what about on ice? She'd read that police horses in cold cities had studded shoes to dig into the slick surface of the ice.

“If it gets that cold, we're not going out,” Sam muttered to Ace, but the gelding gave a short-tempered swish of his tail as if he heard the hollowness of her promise. “Yeah,” Sam said, rubbing the gelding's withers just in front of the saddle. “We both know if he needs us”—Sam glanced toward the Phantom's Calico Mountain home—“we'll ride out, no matter how cold it gets.”

What if Norman White decided that the snowy range made it easier to spot wild horses and, on the bright cold days when there weren't storms—which was most days—he sent helicopters up to chase the horses into traps? Of course she'd go out and try to save the Phantom from captivity. He might have been
her tame colt once, but he'd been a wild herd stallion for years now and she couldn't stand the idea that he would be rounded up, gelded, and sold to the highest bidder.

 

Sam spent the rest of her snow day logged onto the family computer. At the same time, she talked on the phone with Mrs. Allen and her fiancé, Preston.

Since they'd given Dad the gray paper flyer to show Sam, the couple had made progress planning and publicizing the program to raise funds and awareness for rescued wild horses.

“This is great,” Sam said, watching their website take shape on the computer screen.

DREAM CATCHER WILD HORSE CAMP
came alive as a montage of watercolor paintings, photographs, colorful lettering, and small blocks of information.

“I love the name and your artwork,” Sam said. There was no sense mentioning how much more she loved Mrs. Allen's horse paintings than her portraits of carnivorous plants.

“And we used your photographs,” Mrs. Allen pointed out.

Sam had noticed, of course, and she felt chills at how professional they'd made her snapshots look. In one, Mrs. Allen's grandson, Gabe, extended his hand to the colt he'd named Firefly. Another showed Callie, pierced nostril and all, playing her flute as wild horses grazed around her in the sanctuary field.
Sam's favorite was the photograph she'd shot of Faith, running through a summer pasture dotted with yellow dandelions. Most people looking at the picture wouldn't realize how brave the filly was, because she was totally blind and running into darkness.

“Hope we didn't presume too much, giving you a title.”

Sam heard Preston's voice for the first time and realized the older couple must be talking from different phone extensions.

“Of course not, Phineas,” Mrs. Allen scolded, “this was all Samantha's idea.”

“You gave me a title?” Sam asked.

“Look on down the page,” Preston told her.

Sam scanned past information on five- and ten-day school vacation sessions. She saw announcements for parent-child wild horse camps, church and school field trip details, and then, amid the contact information, she picked out her own name.

Samantha Forster, mustang mentor,
she read, and maybe she made a little gasp, too, because Preston said, “Grammatically, I'm not sure that's right. It might mean you're mentoring the horses instead of the kids.”

“That's perfectly all right,” Mrs. Allen said. “She'll be mentoring both of them. And Samantha, I've talked with Grace about this, and I know you're busy with your own horses and school, and heaven knows every one of you Forsters will have your schedules
turned upside down when the baby arrives, but we want you to be as much a part of our Dream Catcher program as you like.”

“According to Trudy,” Preston said, “she wouldn't be helping the wild horses if it weren't for you.”

Sam's throat tightened. More than anything, she wanted to help the wild horses. And she'd actually done it. She wasn't finished, either.

She tried to joke past the surge of emotion. “Did she say whether I got the credit for that, or the blame?”

Preston chuckled and Mrs. Allen laughed before answering. “That's still under discussion.”

“Now, about tomorrow,” Preston said, refocusing the conversation. “We sent out a mailing—electronic and paper,” he clarified proudly, “to about three hundred school counselors, 4H advisors, and tack shops, and posted links to our website every place we could think of, but with the holidays and bad weather, we'll only have three confirmed visitors.”

“Maybe that's good, for the first camp,” Sam suggested.

“That's just what I said. It will be our trial run,” Mrs. Allen put in.

“There'll be a father and son from Topeka, Kansas, and a twelve-year-old girl, all on her own, from Pacific Pinnacles, California.” As Preston went on, Sam heard echoes of the strict police lieutenant he'd been before retiring. She knew everything
would be as organized as possible.

In minutes, Sam finished taking notes that told her to meet the school bus driven by Mr. Pinkerton, and ride it to the airport in Reno. There, she'd meet the three campers and accompany them back to Blind Faith Mustang Sanctuary.

“This first time, we'll just be putting them up in the house, like guests,” Mrs. Allen said.

“And we're hoping, with your superior knowledge of the area, you can act as sort of a travel guide, pointing out local landmarks, wildlife, and so on,” Preston said finally.

“It sounds great,” Sam said.

“I had hoped to get Jake Ely to help you out with this,” Mrs. Allen said, “but…” Her sigh gusted loudly into the phone.

But what?
Sam wondered. She bit her lip, hoping Mrs. Allen would tell her what Jake had said, but she didn't. When Sam couldn't take the quiet on the line any longer, she said, “Don't worry. I can handle it alone.”

 

The next morning, Sam woke to two entirely different words than she had the morning before.

“Cold snap,” Dad said, rapping on her doorframe as he came down the hall.

It was still dark on the first Saturday of winter vacation. Sam didn't want to get up.

“'Kay,” she told Dad, then scooted down farther
in her bed, burrowing under the warm blankets.

Nightmare,
she told herself. She must be having a nightmare, because Dad wouldn't really clomp into her room, stand next to her bed, and romp her plush horse Jingles up and down her blanketed body.

Sam opened one eye and saw Dad's silhouette looming over her. She wasn't dreaming.

“Cold snap?” Sam mumbled without bothering to lift her head.

Dad brushed away the locks of auburn hair covering her face. His touch was gentle, and Sam wished he'd sit down on the bed and keep doing that, like he had when she was a child. That would be so cozy and comforting. He could sit there and stroke her forehead until she fell back to sleep.

With each heartbeat, Sam sank toward a second slumber.

“Listen, sleepyhead, I need your help,” Dad said. “Until the ice is broken, no animal on this ranch will have water.”

“No,” Sam moaned, but her legs were already peddling under the covers, imagining the saddle horses licking the surface of their frozen trough and the range cattle stamping at the river, then falling in and dying of hypothermia because of her.

“I'm up,” she said, and stood with her hands on the hips of her nightgown, weaving from side to side before she remembered to open her eyes. She stood there all alone. Not even Cougar was in her room.
Dad had known the combination of responsibility and guilt would get her going.

Without a thought for her appearance, Sam dressed in long underwear, wool pants, and a down jacket. She grabbed a pink knit cap to pull on under her old brown Stetson, a scarf, and her warmest gloves. The fuzzy mittens Gram had knitted for her were tempting, but with all the chores Dad had assigned her, she'd need the finger mobility of her waterproof gloves.

Downstairs, Blaze was curled up in front of the hearth. Dad had already built a fire.

Sam stood staring at the orange flames and listened to their cozy crackling. Why had he started a fire when no one would have time to enjoy it?

“We'll just keep it going,” Dad said, leaning through from the kitchen. “We've got plenty of wood cut and stacked, and if there's a power failure, we'll be set. Besides, I'm hoping Brynna will sit right there and read, kind of take it easy on the couch all day.”

Sam rolled her eyes, but not in envy.

That wasn't going to happen. Brynna hadn't been going to her office every morning, but that didn't mean she wasn't working. No corner of the house was safe from her dusting or polishing, and she'd started studying kitchen shelves, looking for things to throw away. Gram claimed Brynna was “nesting,” and that it meant Brynna would deliver the baby soon.

But the baby wasn't due for two more weeks and, according to Brynna, she had no other symptoms indicating that labor would start sooner. She told Gram, nicely but firmly, that “nesting” was an urban legend.

“You mean it's an old wives' tale,” Gram had said, “and you needn't pretty it up.”

Brynna had laughed, so Sam didn't know if she'd heard Gram add, “But it's true, all the same.”

Sam shook her head to make herself quit staring at the fire.

“Come on, boy,” Sam called to Blaze.

Without opening his eyes, the Border collie gave two apologetic thumps of his tail and stayed where he was.

“I'm going to tell Singer you're a slacker,” Sam told him, but Blaze simply rearranged his plumy tail to cover his nose.

Turning away from her dog, Sam wondered if Jake had brought Singer inside, to sleep in his room, or left him in his barn kennel. If things had been different, she might have called and asked.

When Sam entered the kitchen, Dad handed her a cup of sweetened, milky coffee. How early was it, she wondered, if Gram wasn't up yet? Just then she heard the floorboards overhead squeak, and she smiled. Gram was no slugabed.

“Drink it,” Dad said, “and you can have breakfast later on. Right now we need to help the stock.”

When Sam walked outside, she saw the surface of the snow was glazed with ice. It wasn't shiny, exactly, but the rising sun picked out ice crystals. They shone like long silver glitter, and in some places the crystals were multicolored.

The bundled figures of Ross, on his bald-faced bay Tank, and Dallas, on the rat-tailed Appaloosa Jeepers-Creepers, moved slowly toward the bridge.

Yesterday the snow had been silent underfoot. This morning it crunched and each of Sam's steps broke through to the softer snow underneath, wetting her past her boot tops.

As she walked past a tree she'd cleared off yesterday, she heard the snap of a twig. Then the ungrateful tree showered her with snow.

It was warmer inside the barn. Ace and Tempest crowded close, sharing their body heat and breathing excited puffs of hay breath as they followed Sam. They watched her use a short shovel to break the ice on the water in their small corral. Instead of shattering, the icy surface came loose in a gray disk. Sam held her breath and grabbed the big, flat ice cube with her gloved hands, then threw it onto the ground.

Immediately, Tempest went to investigate, pouncing like a cat at the new object, then sniffing it all over. Ace watched and yawned, showing Sam his long tongue.

“I wish I could stay and play with you,” Sam said, giving her horse a one-armed hug, “but I can't.”

Sam grabbed the iron digging bar Dad had told her to use to break up the river, and carried it along with the little shovel. The digging bar weighed over thirty pounds. After her boots slid on a slick patch of snow and she had to juggle both tools, she had a new admiration for the cowboys who'd done her jobs in years past.

She broke the ice off all of the troughs around the ranch yard. Then, raising the scarf she'd tied around her neck to cover her nose and mouth, Sam picked her way across the bridge boards. She was supposed to keep them safe and clear, but the bridge and the road to the highway had thawed enough that no snow covered them.

In fact, the road felt hard under her boot soles, as if the dirt had frozen. Grateful that there was no snow to shovel, Sam kept walking toward the river.

She dropped the shovel, grabbed the digging bar, and aimed it point-down toward the frozen surface. Ice flew up like shards of glass, so she kept repeating the up and down motion, ignoring her burning muscles.

Until she looked up, Sam thought the sound she heard was ice hitting the ground. Smiling, she realized she'd heard the clatter of hooves.

Alerted by the sound of her breaking the ice, the cattle came running, red coats bright against the gray morning. All the Herefords except one stopped, wide-eyed and wary, when Sam called, “Buddy!” at the sight of the young heifer who'd been her pet.