Run Away Home (6 page)

S
am had never studied the skilike things—skids, she thought they were called—that acted as helicopters' feet, but when this one banked away from her and Jen, and swung toward War Drum Flats, she got a closeup view. Too close.

Jen grabbed Sam in a hug.

“What—?” Sam began.

“I-i-if I can't hang on to someone, I'll be screaming like a k-kindergartner, so just humor me, okay?”

“Sure,” Sam said. She'd rarely seen Jen frightened. Jen was so logical and levelheaded, Sam wondered if it was a mistake that she wasn't scared, too. A few seconds later, when Jen's trembling ended, Sam said, “Crazy, huh?”

Jen shook like a wet dog. Then she flipped her white-blond braids back over her shoulders and asked, “Do you know what that was?”

“A helicopter flying for BLM?”

“No,” Jen said adamantly.

“I'm pretty sure it was,” Sam said gently. “The guy sitting next to the pilot was Norman White.”

Sam could practically see her friend's thoughts come together. Jen blinked owlishly, then said, “That may be, but the insignia on the helicopter says it's part of the predator and rodent control unit, and what scared me is—well, there are lots of rumors….” Jen looked up and wrapped her arms around her ribs, as if she were trying to hide herself. “At least I
hope
they're rumors—about them spraying poison and using automatic weapons.”

Sam felt a lurch of alarm, then told herself she shouldn't give in to her friend's fears. It was her turn to be the sensible one. She tried a joke.

“Regardless of how some senior boys act, we don't look like rodents,” Sam teased. “Probably not predators, either. Besides, you're almost home.”

“What about you?”

“I'll hustle toward River Bend, but from what I know about Norman White, I think I'll be safe. He's been a total jerk to Brynna and will be even worse to the wild horses, but he's also a by-the-book bureaucrat. He'd faint if he sprayed two innocent high school girls with—”

“Malathion?” Jen suggested.

“Right,” Sam said, guessing Jen had named some kind of poison.

“Okay,” Jen said, and Sam's common sense had erased the quaver in her voice.

Then, winter sun glaring on the helicopter's rotor blades made both girls squint after it.

“He's headed into Lost Canyon,” Jen said.

First War Drum Flats and now Lost Canyon,
Sam thought. Both areas had wild horse watering holes.

“He's coming up. Wait, no, he's dropping back down,” Jen said, standing on her toes as the helicopter vanished. “Probably to check out Arroyo Azul.”

Sam pictured the helicopter flying between the adobe-colored cliffs, following the turquoise stream twisting below. It was the first place she'd ridden the Phantom. The idea of the helicopter invading that place made her sick.

But wild horses were fast and elusive. She'd seen them outsmart humans many times, starting with the day she'd returned home from San Francisco.

She'd been riding with Dad in his old blue truck when a helicopter appeared, herding a band of wild horses. That day she'd felt herself running with the mustangs, feeling their fear, their determination to escape, and their excitement as they evaded capture.

That day, she hadn't known the names War Drum Flats, Lost Canyon, or Arroyo Azul. Now she did. Clearly she wasn't the only one. This helicopter wasn't
flying random patterns.

“They're after mustangs,” Sam said, feeling defeated.

“Not in that helicopter,” Jen insisted.

“I hope you're right,” Sam said.

Jen stopped at the path she'd follow to her house at Gold Dust Ranch. Before she said good-bye, Jen promised to call Sam if she discovered what was up with Rachel. In turn, Sam vowed to hurry home just in case the black helicopter really was spraying something toxic over the range.

True to her word, Sam took long steps and set her shoulders against the straps of her backpack as if she were a plow horse—not because she was afraid, but because she couldn't wait to talk to Brynna.

Sam scanned the winter range and shivered. Patches of snow showed in the shade of boulders. Clumps of sagebrush looked more gray than green. Though high desert plants were hardy, below-freezing temperatures tested them every night.

Winter was here. Sam missed the Phantom, but she hoped he was safely tucked away in his secret valley for the winter.

Glancing up, she saw that the ice-blue sky was empty. She didn't hear the helicopter, either.

Maybe Norman White had just been surveying the territory he was taking over, Sam thought. Or maybe the predator and rodent control guy was a friend, taking him for a ride.

Yeah, right,
Sam thought.

Just two days ago, she'd heard Norman call the Phantom a
troublemaker
. Then he'd declared that the gray stallion should be taken off the range. As that conversation resurfaced in her mind, Sam stopped walking.

There was a flaw in her plan to use her college money to pay the Phantom's adoption fee.

Norman White had said the Phantom was feral, not wild, and he said BLM should hold the Forsters responsible for trespass fees that had been adding up over the years the stallion had roamed public lands.

Sam sucked in a breath of chilly air and resumed walking. There was no way Dad would let her take that much money from her college account. After all, she'd be graduating in two and a half years.

Whup-whup-whup
.

The chopper had not gone home and landed. Sam heard it again.

The machine had managed to navigate the eastern canyons, and now it was circling back from the direction of Deerpath Ranch.

“No!” Sam shouted.

Two horses galloped below the helicopter. They crashed through the sagebrush side by side, veering around slippery snow spots, jumping thorny brush, and swerving around boulders.

A bay and a chestnut. Not from the Phantom's herd, but they looked familiar. Why did she recognize the horses?

The bachelors! When New Moon, the Phantom's midnight-black son had been evicted from his father's herd, he'd found companionship and safety with these two young stallions.

Yellow Tail and Spike, Mrs. Coley had called them, and though it had been a long time since Sam had seen Spike—a bay whose black mane stuck straight up—she'd seen Yellow Tail last fall.

Sam had a quick impression that Spike looked more filled out and male, but Yellow Tail had turned slim and graceful. His flaxen mane and tail rippled like silk. His coat was the color of gold in the heart of a flame.

Last year he'd looked pretty ragged from watching out for his two mares. He'd challenged the Phantom for a drinking place at the river and they'd fought. The battle had been confined to kicks until the stronger and more experienced Phantom had feinted a bite at Yellow Tail's foreleg and the golden stallion had tripped.

Sam couldn't imagine the chestnut confronting the Phantom now. Then the horses did something that intensified Sam's confusion.

With the helicopter right behind them, why were the young stallions slowing from a gallop to a lope? Why, with heads high and froth blowing from open mouths, were they slackening their pace even more, lifting their knees in a nervous trot?

Because the helicopter was herding them toward
the highway, Sam realized. The horses knew that danger screamed by on that asphalt river and they didn't dare cross it.

Or maybe, Sam thought as she noticed the horses' alert expressions, Yellow Tail and Spike had seen her and judged her as a nearer and more dangerous threat. Should she hide?

She was about to, when the two stallions displayed their strategy for escape. They turned sharply right, accelerated into a swift run, then skidded down the bank of the La Charla River.

A flock of wild geese burst up from the river. Disturbed by the stallions, the black-and-gray geese spread their wide wings and gave a few honks. Then they coasted on air currents above the water before climbing and banking away from the helicopter, making the manmade flyer look clumsy by comparison.

Running toward the river with her backpack slamming against her spine, Sam listened past her own panting. She didn't hear a splash or the clash of hooves on river rocks, not even the lash of willow branches on sweaty horsehide. She heard nothing but the hovering helicopter.

If the stallions headed upstream and veered west toward Aspen Creek, they could wend through white-barked trees and frosty black boulders. They'd be hard to pick out against that background, wouldn't they?

And if they traveled downstream…

Sam sawed her teeth against her lip, hoping they
wouldn't. There'd be little camouflage and they'd end up crossing the highway, after all, presenting themselves right into the sight of the men above.

But wait,
Sam thought. She could guess where the horses were going because she knew this land. Norman White didn't. To him, the creeks and gullies were lines on a map.

The helicopter floated above the river for a few minutes, then lifted higher and hovered. At last, it soared higher yet, drifted southwest, then flew toward Willow Springs Wild Horse Center.

Sam sighed in relief. For now, the two young stallions were safe.

 

“Brynna!” Sam yelled as she collapsed into a kitchen chair. “Gram?”

Sam heard only the grandfather clock's pendulum. Then there was a thump, followed by soft footsteps. The swinging door between the living room and kitchen opened. Brynna, in stockinged feet but otherwise dressed just as she'd been last night at dinner, wandered into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes.

“I'm sorry,” Sam apologized. “Were you napping?”

Brynna stared at Sam with a droopy smile. Then her eyelids fluttered closed.

“Oh no, you don't,” Sam said. She pushed out of her chair so quickly, its legs squeaked on the kitchen floor.

Just last week, Brynna had actually fallen asleep standing up. Outside.

That time, Dad had caught her, but she and Brynna were almost the same size, and Sam wasn't sure she could.

“Try this,” Sam offered, slipping a chair behind Brynna.

“I'm fine. Just sleepy,” her stepmother insisted, but she sat. Her eyes were open and alert as she tightened the holder around her low ponytail and asked, “Was I dreaming or did I really hear a helicopter?”

“I wish you'd been dreaming, but you weren't,” Sam said, and then she told Brynna what she'd seen.

Brynna shook her head vigorously. “I don't see how he could have received clearance for a gather yet. Not that it's my job anymore, but I'm calling my boss—my old boss,” she amended, “in Reno to double-check.”

“Good,” Sam said.

“It's interesting that you saw Yellow Tail with his bachelor buddy,” Brynna said.

“What do you think happened to his mares?” Sam asked.

Brynna gave an unconcerned shrug. “Few wild stallions under five years old actually win mares. They find them wandering and then a more mature stallion usually steals them. The Phantom is a rare exception.”

“What about New Moon?” Sam asked. “The last
time I saw him he had two mares—a red bay and a bald-faced mare with a foal.”

Sam didn't say she'd mentally named the foal Night the time she'd spotted the wild bunch up by Cowkiller Caldera.

“He might be like his daddy and hang on to them,” Brynna said, but a shadow crossed her face.

Was Brynna thinking about Norman's plan to remove half the wild horses from the range?

“He wouldn't take New Moon
and
the Phantom, would he?” Sam felt dizzy with dismay, and it only got worse when Brynna didn't answer.

If the Phantom and New Moon were rounded up, they'd probably be gelded, to make them easier to handle and more likely to find adoptive homes.

If Night was brought in, too, and the herds of both stallions were dispersed to adopters all over the country—and that was the
best
she could hope for, Sam realized—the bloodlines of the legendary Phantom Stallion would hit a dead end.

It would be as if the silver mustang had never existed.

“D
on't be surprised if it looks like the North Pole in there,” Jake told Sam as she rode into the ranch yard at the Three Ponies Ranch an hour later.

“It's cold?” Sam guessed as she dismounted, casting a glance at smoke curling from the ranch house chimney.

“No, decorations. For Kit,” Jake said. “I'll take Ace. You go on into Santa's workshop and do your
interview
.”

“Okay,” Sam said. She didn't trust Ace to many people, but Jake could take better care of her bay gelding than she could.

She started for the stone ranch house, then took a quick look back over her shoulder.

Jake had put a weird emphasis on that last word, but why? He'd sometimes implied he thought it was cool that she was on the
Darton Dialogue
staff. He'd even hinted that she'd done a good job on a locker vandalism story. So he wasn't putting her down.

It would be unlike him to be jealous, she thought, then corrected herself. Well, not
totally
unlike him. But the
Dialogue
had published a story about his cross-country running victories, so he and Kit would be even after she wrote up this interview.

“Hi, Samantha!” Mrs. Ely's cheeks were flushed, her blond hair flyaway, and she wore an apron over her teacherly slacks and shirt. “Come in and have some gingerbread. It's almost ready.”

Sam hadn't noticed Mrs. Ely's Honda outside and she was surprised her history teacher was already home. Mrs. Ely was one of those teachers who arrived early and stayed late, giving makeup tests, tutoring, and grading papers.

And the house—wow, Jake had been right. There were candy canes hanging everywhere. An arrangement of pine boughs, gold bells, and red bows took up so much of the kitchen table, the cooling racks of gingerbread boys and girls barely fit, and Sam did a double take when she spotted Kit sitting amid it all.

He raised one hand in greeting as Mrs. Ely asked, “Need a refill on that cocoa, honey?”

“I'm good, Mom,” he said, then, shrugging his shoulders inside what was clearly a brand-new plaid
flannel shirt, added to Sam, “She's spoiling me. Wanted to put glitter on my cast.”

He sounded so much like Jake, Sam had to smile.

“Well, it would have looked cute,” Mrs. Ely said, but Sam could tell she was laughing at herself for fussing over her adult son.

Jake and Nate jostled for space in the doorway, bringing a blast of fresh air into the warm kitchen.

“Digger's decided he's a rodeo bronc,” Nate said.

Sam pictured Nate's clean-limbed brown horse with the white chin spot as Nate pointed at Kit and added, “Must be your fault, bringing buckin' bugs home.”

“Good horse like him, just brace your arms, keep his head up, and drive him forward,” Kit suggested.

“Yeah,” Nate agreed.

“Smells good, Mom,” Jake said, but as he stripped off his leather gloves and held his hands near the open oven, he stared at Kit. Actually, more at Kit's arm, Sam thought.

“Help yourself,” Mrs. Ely said. Then, as she piled cookies on a plate, she smiled at Sam and asked, “Why don't you two take your interview into the living room?”

“Fine,” Kit said, standing.

As Sam took a small notebook and pen from her pocket, she noticed Jake reaching for a cookie. His mom whisked the plate out of reach and handed it to Kit.

Though every kitchen surface was covered with treats, Jake looked as if his mother had slammed a door in his face.

Kit must have noticed, because he jerked his head toward the living room and asked, “You comin', Baby Bear?”

Jake shook his head. Sam knew the lure of cookies and listening in on the interview wasn't enough to get Jake to answer to his childhood nickname.

She almost told Jake not to be such a baby. After all, he called her Brat all the time and she tolerated it, but when Sam tried to meet Jake's eyes, he turned away.

Sam followed Kit into the living room and jotted down a few setting details as background for her story.

She'd heard kitchens called “the heart of the house.” At River Bend, that was true. Here at Three Ponies Ranch, though, she'd give that title to the living room.

The bushy pinion pine tree, probably cut nearby, boasted about a hundred fat, multicolored lights and almost as many ornaments, made by each of the six brothers in elementary school.

Sam noticed a pink felt pig with one blue sequin eye, a handprint covered in aluminum foil with “Quinn” scrawled across it in smudged black crayon, a clothespin angel missing half of her glued-on hair, and leather pony ornaments with cutout middles that
framed photographs of each of the six boys on horses.

Turning her eyes from the Christmas tree, Sam saw an Indian print rug with geometric shapes in bright colors spread in front of the fireplace. Turquoise, amber, and purple bottles collected in the desert sat on glass shelves in every available window, casting multicolored beams as if the windows were made of stained glass.

A pine-planked wall displayed some of Mrs. Ely's photographs. Last year, she'd told Sam windows were her favorite things to photograph, and the pictures mingled with those of the Ely boys and their father, Luke. All black-haired and mahogany skinned, the Elys fished, barbecued, squatted awestruck next to a litter of barn kittens, and showed off every stunt humans could do on horseback.

“These make me wish I'd had brothers or sisters,” Sam said, but when she turned to Kit, she saw he wasn't listening. He frowned as he flexed the fingers sticking out of his cast.

Quickly, Sam stared into the fireplace, listened to the others banging around in the kitchen, and waited for Kit to say something.

Because he was a male Ely, she knew that it could take a while. Sam pretended she was fascinated by the wreath hanging over the hearth.

But it turned out Kit had been listening.

“Guess you'll have one soon enough,” Kit said. “A brother or sister.”

“That's true,” Sam managed as Kit gestured toward a scarred leather couch piled with pillows. “Thanks.”

She sat, and Kit walked slowly to the chair nearest the blazing fire. At first Sam thought his lazy stride was another family trait, like Jake's tomcat-sleeping-in-the-sun squint, but then she wondered if Kit's legs hurt.

What did a bronc's first jump out of the chute do to the knees you held on with?

She hadn't meant to be so obvious, watching him, but he caught her.

“We don't need this on,” Kit said. He advanced on the television, but only turned it down, not off.

Last year's Journalism class had taught Sam not to ask interview questions that could be answered with a yes or no, so she started out by taking Kit back to his Three Ponies childhood.

He remembered telling her that according to Shoshone legend, Jake had once been a horse and she'd been a mosquito.

“You guys were so little then,” Kit said. “I had to hold Jake up so he could sneak cookies off the kitchen counter, or get his boot into a stirrup. And when he couldn't catch up with the rest of us, I let him ride on my shoulders.”

This was so different from the dare he'd thrown down in the truck, about finding a couple of wild horses to see which of them was the real horseman of
the family. Sam wished Jake had been sitting right beside her to see the wistful look on Kit's face.

Since she couldn't exactly call Jake in and make him look, Sam continued the interview by asking Kit about his vision quest.

He looked surprised that she'd heard about it.

“I was here when your grandfather insisted Jake do his—” Sam broke off, not sure how to go on.

“Indian initiation ceremony?” Kit joked.

Sam nodded. “Jake caught and tamed this amazing pinto mare, and then he let her go.”

Kit gave a satisfied nod, but he didn't say anything, so Sam kept talking.

“Adam made a canoe, right? Nate was a fancy dancer, Quinn did drumming, and Bryan…I can't remember…”

“Built the sweat lodge. After I was gone, of course.”

Kit called his vision quest a week of sleeping on the ground, fasting, and thinking about what he wanted to do with his life.

“Grandfather was so disappointed.” Kit shrugged. “I'm surprised he made the rest of 'em do it.”

“How could he have been disappointed?” Sam asked.

“He said I left home and never really came back,” Kit said with a sigh. “But I just figured out that I was in love with rodeo. College wasn't for me—at least not then.”

After that, Sam found it easy to get Kit talking about his life since leaving Three Ponies Ranch.

“Mostly it's boom or bust,” he admitted. “On a night that the broncs are good to me, I sleep in a hotel room with as many of my buddies as we can squeeze in, but not before we play cards and eat our fill of room service steaks and salads.”

“Salads?” Sam blurted.

“Yeah, most of us drive from rodeo to rodeo—the big guys fly, of course—but the way I did it, I had to eat too much fast food. It has to be something I can eat while I drive. So a big leafy thing that hasn't been fried can taste like heaven.”

Taking notes, Sam noticed that Kit talked about his career as if it were over. She shook her head and scolded herself for being so literal.

“And the bust part?” she asked.

Kit chuckled. “Next night, it'll feel like the broncs have been talking, deciding they let me off too easy, and since I spent all my winnings the night before, I'll end up sleepin' on a blanket in some fairgrounds barn.”

“That must be hard,” Sam said.

“It pays off, mostly. I mean, I almost made it to the Grand Nationals.”

So it had been true, Sam thought. She jotted a note—not that she'd need reminding later—that the boy from Three Ponies Ranch had made it to the top.

When Sam looked up, though, Kit was rubbing
the fingers on his casted arm. He met her eyes and gave a self-mocking smile.

“If I hadn't gone to that one last rodeo, training for the big time, I wouldn't have wrecked my arm or had to take out a loan on my truck to pay doctor bills.”

“I don't know much about it, but isn't there, like, medical insurance for you?” Sam asked.

“For the big guys,” Kit said again. “And the Justin Boot company has a cowboy crisis fund, but when you see what happens to some riders, this”—he lifted his cast—“is nothing. I'd be ashamed to apply.”

Kit looked down as his mother came into the living room followed by Jake and Nate. After leaving home and staying gone so much, was Kit ashamed to ask for help with his medical expenses? Had he arrived on foot because he'd had to sell his truck? Sam wondered.

“Kit, Sam, will it bother you if we sit in on your interview?”

“We're almost done, anyway,” Sam said. She glanced at the television and saw the evening news coming on. If she didn't hurry she'd be riding home in the dark. “I only have one more question, and it's kind of sappy.”

“Fire away,” Kit told her.

“All the kids at Darton High, your old school, will be wondering how it feels to live your dream. What would you tell them?”

Sam expected Kit to shrug, as Jake might have. Instead, Kit stared into the fireplace, then sat back in his chair.

When Kit spoke again, his voice had taken on the storytelling tone he'd used for the tale of Sitting Bull and the dancing white stallion.

“Well, Samantha, I've been pretty fortunate. That's all. I've drawn lots of mostly good horses and most times I've stuck on 'til the buzzer. I managed to duck injuries, trucks that broke down in the rain, and bad luck….

“After this heals,” Kit continued, lifting his cast, “I see myself back at the chutes, helping Pani—he's my best buddy, a cowboy from Hawaii, if you can believe it—tie on his riggin', havin' him give me a high five, even after I beat him out in the arena.”

“Is that really how it is?” Nate asked. “Your friends don't get mad if you beat them?”

“Most don't,” Kit said. “I've seen a man loan his ten-thousand-dollar horse as easily as you'd loan Sam here a pencil in school. And if a pal gets injured, we have fund-raisers and kick in whatever we can to help him.”

“But it's such a vagabond lifestyle, going from place to place without a family,” Mrs. Ely fretted.

“When you're that far from home, you kinda make your own neighborhood,” Kit told his mother. “Then you haul it around with you from state to state, rodeo to rodeo, like a snail with its shell.”

Kit swallowed so hard that Sam heard him, before going on, “Mom, I love rodeo. It's just flat-out different from other sports. Cowboys don't boo when the judge makes a call they don't like. Oh, there might be boots scuffin', or men pullin' their hats down a little harder than's called for, but that's all. The fans don't go out and trash the town for a celebration, either. That sort of behavior just ain't our style.

“Basically—and Sam, you know this from my brothers and your own dad—cowboys don't tolerate no whining.” Kit was quiet for a few seconds as he stared at his cast. “You just gotta take it as it comes.”