Secret Star (7 page)

Sam sagged against the kitchen counter.

“I'll do the dishes,” she offered, in relief.

And Gram took her up on it.

“I
think that's great, Gram,” Sam said.

She looked over her shoulder as far as she could with her hands still in the sudsy sink, then smiled, so no one would suspect the twinge of selfishness she felt as she imagined coming home to an empty kitchen with no cookies and milk or, on cold days, cookies and cocoa.

Still, she agreed with Jake's mom when she said, “Grace, you'll be perfect. You're good with children and you know horses, but with all this”—Mrs. Ely's hands spread, indicating all the duties of running a ranch—“do you have time?”

“Lands,” Gram said, shaking her head. “It will only be a couple of days a week, but I see a lot of
plusses to it. After the baby's born, Brynna will want a little time for just the two of them—”

Brynna made a little sound of protest, but Gram kept talking.

“—and I feel like I still have something to contribute, old as I am, even if I do say so myself.”

This time Sam turned quickly from the sink as she exclaimed, “Gram!”

She didn't think of Gram as being that old. It sounded like she thought other people thought she was useless!

“Your hands are dripping soapy water, Samantha,” Gram said. “Be careful. We don't want anyone to slip.”

“Somethin' to contribute,” Dad said slowly. “Besides keeping the ranch accounts, payin' the bills, helpin' plant the crops, the garden, known' when to breed and gather livestock, and cookin' a few tasty meals along the way?”

“That's enough, Wyatt,” Gram said. “Perhaps you and Samantha are right that I've no reason to feel at loose ends, but it just seems that Sweetheart and I aren't doing all we could. We have something to give outside our little ranch world.”

Sweetheart? Sam was about to ask Gram what Sweetheart had to do with anything, when Inez spoke up and Sam realized the trainer had been listening just as attentively to this family talk as they had listened to her descriptions of the movie business.

“I think that's incredibly generous of you, Mrs. Forster,” Inez said. “It would be a better world if more people thought like you do.”

“Well, I don't know about that,” Gram said modestly. “All I do know is that I have an angel food cake sitting over there, and strawberries sweetening, and if I don't hurry and whip the cream, everyone will be wanting to go to bed before we've had dessert.”

 

Once they were full of the sweet summer dessert, they all walked out to the corral to see Bayfire.

“My reason for living,” Inez said, dipping an arm toward the stallion.

“What?” Mrs. Ely yelped.

“What I meant was, my reason for living in my camper every time he's in a movie,” Inez amended.

“Okay,” Mrs. Ely said, as if that made far more sense.

“I'm still not exactly clear on what's wrong with him,” Brynna said.

“He's not acting like himself,” Inez said, repeating what she'd told Sam earlier.

Brynna gave a patient smile. “I'm a biologist and I guess that makes me sort of literal. What do you mean by ‘he's not himself'?”

“He's bored, just moving through his behaviors by rote, and once in a while”—Inez paused, glancing at Sam as if she knew she'd remember the bite—“cranky.”

“You told me that much on the phone,” Brynna said. “I guess I'm wondering if you've worked up a training strategy to put the spirit back in him.”

“I'm considering several things,” Inez said, “but I'll take suggestions. You see, most of the actors' work is finished, but Bayfire's major stunt is still ahead. If that sparkle he's famous for doesn't show on film, the director may reshoot the scene with another horse.”

“He looks lively enough,” Maxine said.

Bayfire's eyes swept over them as they stood outside his corral. His ears and nose pointed at Inez, but he sidestepped and turned his head, as if considering the others from different angles would make them less of an audience.

He wasn't lively. He was concerned, Sam thought.

“Here now, nothing to worry about,” Dad told him gently, but the furrows over Bayfire's eyes grew deeper and he looked even more anxious.

Even now, Inez wouldn't exactly focus on the stallion's attitude.

“Since our location manager spotted the perfect non-waterfall to shoot our jumping over the waterfall stunt,” she said, pretending confusion, “I thought I'd take the next couple days to accustom him to the terrain and costuming.”

“He has to wear a costume?” Jake asked

“Plastic armor, some caparison, you know, that
kind of fluttery skirtlike stuff you see on knights' horses in movies. He's learned to ignore smoke and explosions, cameras, and swords, so that's no problem.”

“Really?” Brynna said. “I'm impressed.”

“In
Redcoat's Daughter
, he had to strut in a manner that suited the arrogant general on his back, then carry Violette—playing the general's daughter—through a war scene, and find her on the battlefield after she'd fallen.”

“I remember that! And that was your horse,” Maxine Ely said. Admiration filled her voice, even when she added, “Though there were some historical inaccuracies—not your mistakes, of course—it was a really touching scene. It makes me tear up just thinking about it.”

“Thank you,” Inez said. “And though I give Bayfire most of the credit, please do tell Violette when you see her. She had a bit to do with it.”

“I want to see that movie!” Sam said.

Jake gave a sarcastic moan.

“It wouldn't do you any harm to watch a quality movie,” his mother said.

Jake shook his head, not about to quarrel like a kid in front of witnesses, but Sam could almost read his mind. She'd bet he was thinking of Violette's rudeness, her rumpled hair and clothes, and wondering where “quality” fit in.

“Anyway, before we try jumping him over the place where they'll computer-generate the trickle into
a roaring waterfall, I need to work with Bayfire. I'm hoping to shake him up a little and remind him who he really is.”

“If anyone can help you with that, it's these two. I know they're just kids, but to lots of people, not just their biased parents, they are horse wizards,” Mrs. Ely said.

Jake looked at his mother in astonishment and Sam could only grin.

“Okay,” Inez said, and Sam noticed there was still a reserve in her voice. “My plan is to relax him and work on a little muscle conditioning.”

“And socialization,” Jake put in.

Sam frowned at Jake. Couldn't he tell Inez didn't want to talk about Bayfire acting vicious?

“What's that about?” Brynna's voice was mild, but Sam saw her stepmother tense up.

“It's not like he needs a party,” Inez joked.

“Jake?” Brynna asked.

“He's been acting a little rough,” Jake said, darting a look at Inez.

“And nipping,” Inez admitted.

Though that was a huge understatement, Sam was glad Inez had owned up to that much. Brynna's knowledge of horse behavior might really help.

“How old is he?” Brynna asked.

“Five,” Inez said carefully.

Nodding, Brynna turned to watch the horse for a few minutes.

“It's a male vice,” she said finally, and Sam noticed her stepmother flashed a look at both Dad and Jake, daring them to contradict her. They didn't. “If they're raised with other colts, they usually get it out of their system. Or at least they understand the consequences.”

“What do you mean?” Sam asked.

“If you bite, you get bitten back,” Brynna said. “But, if it hasn't been a problem before, I'd guess something else is going on. What do you think, Wyatt?”

“Stallions this age get to thinking they need harems of their own,” Dad suggested.

“But I keep him busy and he's incredibly well trained,” Inez protested.

Brynna bit her lip and Sam could tell she was trying not to contradict Inez.

But Brynna's studies meant she linked most behavior—human and animal—with primitive impulses.

When Brynna crossed her arms above the bulge of her baby, Sam saw the “we'll wait and see” expression on her face. Brynna didn't believe training could overcome instinct.

 

Where was the Phantom?

As Sam lay in bed that night, staring at the swoops and bumps in her plaster ceiling, she couldn't stop thinking of the wild silver stallion who'd once
been her own. Had those been dust wisps she'd seen along the ridge top that morning just before she'd seen Jake? Had they been stirred by the stallion and his herd as they climbed the stairstep mesas and hid in the pinion and sage thickets?

What if Violette's aerial acrobatics had stirred up the mustangs?

Maybe the Phantom would come to the river tonight. Sam shivered at the thought. Every moment she spent with the wild horse was a gift.

But the plane could have had the opposite effect, too. The snarling, swooping thing could have spooked the mustangs. The Phantom might have decided to elude the strange mechanical creature by returning his band to the security of his hidden mountain valley.

Sam rolled on her side and stared at her white curtains. The light wind billowing them inward was chilly.

Summer was ending. Wild animals usually came down from the cool mountains to graze the lower, warmer range in winter.

She didn't know the altitude of the Phantom's valley. She'd ridden to it, heading sharply uphill and steeply downhill, squeezing along a tunnel that cut all the way through a mountain. The horses had sought refuge there in all weather.

Of course it wasn't a magical place, even though it felt like it. She'd heard Gram talk to her gardening
club friends about microclimates, though. Sometimes, due to air currents or something, one little piece of earth could be warmer than the land around it.

Sam yawned, but she wasn't sleepy.

She missed the Phantom. A lot.

Sam sat up in bed, pulled her knees against her chest, and circled them with her arms. She longed to hug the stallion's neck as she had when he was a colt. But he was an adult now, and wild, and if she could just sort out her thoughts, she had a feeling that he could help her figure out what was wrong with Bayfire.

The Phantom and Bayfire were stallions of about the same age. They lived in totally different worlds, of course. Still, what if Brynna was right? Maybe the nature of horses didn't change all that much because of where they lived.

A snort sounded outside. A stallion's snort.

Sam swung her legs out from under the covers. Her bare feet barely grazed the floor before she was at her window, pushing her curtain aside.

Be him,
she pleaded silently.

She stared into the darkness, toward the bridge.

Nothing moved except the river.

She couldn't see much of the ranch yard from here, so she listened. She heard restless hooves and the snort came again.

It was probably Bayfire, tense and puzzled, on this first night in a strange place with unknown
horses. Only Inez was familiar to him, and he'd decided she was no longer his friend.

What was the bay stallion thinking, Sam wondered.

Horse thoughts, about food and family? But Inez was his only family.

That's it, Sam thought, yawning. From birth, Bayfire had trusted Inez to be his herd leader, to feed him, protect him, and entertain him. Now he needed something else, something he couldn't explain to her, and she wasn't coming through for him.

Sam told herself to quit thinking in circles. Tomorrow, they'd get busy and change Bayfire's attitude, or at least his daily routine.

They'd start the morning with a hill ride for fitness and a trip to Mrs. Allen's hot springs for relaxation. For socialization, the stallion would have Ace and Witch. And, if they were lucky, the Hollywood horse would experience some nose touching over the fence with captive wild horses at the Blind Faith Mustang Sanctuary.

Sam blew her breath against the window. It was just cold enough to condense, and she used her fingertip to draw the outline of a horse. She couldn't see how well she'd done because her room was so dark.

He's not himself
, Inez had said about her stallion, and Jake had accused her of the same thing. Maybe they were both wrong.

Maybe Inez was expecting the stallion not to act like a horse.

And maybe Jake, not her, was the one who'd changed.

Where did that come from? she wondered.

Jake had been her friend for as long as she could remember. Even though he could be infuriating, she could always count on him.

Before today, she might have told herself Jake didn't let his life get crazy. She'd often thought that was because he was the youngest of six boys. Since his parents had had five other boys to practice on before they got to him, he'd just turned out just right.

That might still be true, but he was acting different today, almost as if cutting his hair had changed him.

No, Sam thought, yawning, it had to be the other way around. Jake had cut his hair because he was changing. She wasn't sure she liked the difference, but going away would be a lot harder for him than it would be for her.

Her mind was too muddled to keep going.

Sam crawled back into bed and pulled up the covers against the night wind and closed her eyes.

T
hey didn't ride out early the next morning.

Sam, Jake, and Inez had been reviewing their plans for Bayfire for about an hour.

They sat wedged in Inez's camper with cups of tea and microwaved breakfast sandwiches.

“These are delicious,” Sam said as she licked a gooey string of cheese from one finger. “But you can never tell my Gram I had it. Deal?”

“Of course,” Inez said, then she smiled at Jake.

Sam loved the playhouse coziness of the camper with its bed on a shelf and mini kitchen, but Jake kept bumping his shoulders. He just didn't fit.

“So, here's what we've got to figure out,” Sam went on. “What does it mean—in Bayfire's world—to be a stallion?”

“That's like asking, What does it mean to be a man?” Inez said.

“Right,” Sam said. She squinted out the camper window at Dad and the hands, gearing up to go back to the hayfield once more. “Like, my dad—”

Jake gave a short laugh. “
You're
answering what it means to be a man?”

“Look, Jake,” Sam told him. “I happen to have a perfect example. Really. Like my dad usually loves his job, because mostly it is cowboying. But right now he hates haying, but he has to do it to feed the cattle, and since he's selling some off as a cash crop, he has to do it to feed his family, too.”

“Yeah?” Jake said, as if the example didn't make any sense at all.

Apparently Inez agreed with him.

“I'm trying to follow you, Sam, but you're confusing me. I understand the part about Bayfire having a job, but he doesn't have a family.”

“Of course he does,” Sam insisted. “It's you. You're his herd of one, and even though you're asking him to do something he doesn't want to do, for the most part, he's doing it.”

“Okay,” Inez said, though Sam could tell the explanation still hadn't clicked for her.

Jake was starting to get it. As usual, though, he kept quiet.

That didn't mean he stayed still. Jake jiggled one foot. He leaned back. He tried to link his hands behind his neck. He banged his elbow on a cupboard.

“In the wild,” Sam explained to Inez, “a stallion's job is a constant battle, for food, for mares, and for territory.”

“She's right,” Jake admitted, but Inez looked at Sam and Jake as if they were speaking some Western dialect she couldn't understand.

“Is that all?” she asked.

Sam thought for a minute, and a revelation hit her.

“No, they have fun, too! They play in the river, roll in the dust or the mud, and run for the pure joy of it. If we give him today and tomorrow to enjoy himself, maybe he'll be ready to work the next day.”

Inez rubbed absently at her injured shoulder and tilted her head to one side.

“Maybe you're right,” Inez said. “At first his work was like play, but maybe that's changed.”

Jake shot to his feet, hunching his shoulders and keeping his head low so he didn't bang it on the camper's ceiling.

“Chuck my idea outta the window if you like, but here's what I think,” Jake told Inez. “He's a horse. Maybe he just needs time to act like one.”

By the time they made their way out of the camper, Dark Sunshine and Tempest were neighing for breakfast.

Sam hurried toward the barn. Before they left to take care of Bayfire, she had to care for her own horses.

“Come and get it!” Sam called. Dark Sunshine and Tempest followed Sam's voice into the barn.

Sunny nickered her approval as if she could measure the extra half scoop of grain with her eyes, and barely noticed Sam locking the door that would have allowed them to go back out and keep Bayfire company over the fence.

Jake had Witch saddled and ready for the trail. He'd tied her where Bayfire could see her, and by the time Sam emerged from the barn, Jake had caught Ace and was leading him to stand beside Witch.

“Now you want me to saddle your horse,” Inez said as she took Ace's saddle and bridle from Sam.

“Just to make Bayfire jealous,” Sam said.

“Uh-huh,” she teased. “Well, I think you're just trying to get out of a little work.”

Bayfire watched Inez, though he pretended not to.

Sam looked over in time to see the stallion bob his head, then extend his neck, looking to make sure his eyes weren't deceiving him.

“Yes, it's true,” Sam called to the stallion. “She's saddling another horse.”

“Sam, that's embarrassin',” Jake said.

“Look,” Sam retorted, “Bayfire might not understand what I'm saying, but he knows Inez is paying attention to Ace, not him.”

“Next, you think I should go in and clean Bayfire's corral, right?” Inez asked as she picked up a rake.

“Yeah,” Jake said, unlatching the corral gate. “He's not actin' aggressive, not like he was yesterday, but if he tries anything—”

“I remember,” Inez said, but Sam knew Inez wouldn't use the rake against her beloved horse unless her life was in danger.

Eyes fixed on the stallion, Jake eased the gate open so Inez could enter the corral. The bay stallion saw her coming and trotted to the far fence. Then he turned his tail on her.

“Whistle while you work,” Jake suggested.

“I'm a lousy whistler,” Inez said, but she made a breathy sound between pursed lips and started raking.

Bayfire stamped. He swished his black tail and called to Witch, who flattened her ears in reproof.

So much for socializing, Sam thought, but Inez's part of the scheme was working.

Bayfire glanced back over his gleaming right shoulder. Inez ignored him. The stallion glanced over his left shoulder. Inez pretended she hadn't noticed.

Amazed, the stallion turned to face her, but kept his distance.

“Hey there,” Inez said to the horse, and now she was raking nothing but dirt.

The plan was working perfectly, and when the stallion extended a forefoot as if he'd take a step, Inez leaned the rake up against the fence and stuck her hands in her pockets.

“This is really weird,” she said. “It's like starting over again with a new horse.”

It had been Inez's idea not to use Bayfire's name and to keep her hands in the pockets of her jeans so that she couldn't accidentally give him a signal.

“That's right, boy,” Inez said as the horse came a step closer, “you're just a regular old saddle horse today, nothing special.”

Sam gave a quick glance at Ace. He wasn't looking at her. He pulled against his tied reins and stretched his lips, hoping he had enough slack to catch a piece of straw that was blowing along the ground just out of reach.

A sniff made Sam look back at Inez and Bayfire.

The stallion had slung his head over her shoulder, and though she still kept her hands in her pockets, Inez rubbed her temple against the stallion's neck.

“It's like a reunion,” Sam whispered to Jake. “He doesn't like being mad at her.”

“He doesn't like being ignored,” Jake corrected.

Still, they stared at each other and smiled. Step one had worked just fine.

 

As they rode past the house on their way out of the ranch yard, Gram called out, “Inez, would any of your crew members in Alkali like to come out here for dinner?”

“Thanks Mrs. Forster—”

“Please, call me Grace,” Gram suggested.

“Thanks Grace, but there are only five of them, and from what they tell me, they've set up pretty comfy headquarters in Clara's parking lot. They're making field trips out to the spot in Lost Canyon where we're supposed to shoot, but other than that, it sounds like they're shoveling down chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes with gravy, and all kinds of fresh cakes and pies at Clara's.”

“Humph,” Gram said, narrowing her eyes in a competitive frown. “That doesn't mean they can't drive out for a single dinner. I always have plenty.”

“I'm sure the food isn't half as good as yours,” Inez assured Gram. “They're just doing their part, trying to keep good relations with the folks in Alkali, in case we have to come back for a reshoot,” Inez explained. “Some people don't like film companies moving in and stirring things up, especially in small towns.”

“I haven't heard a single complaint,” Gram said. “And I would have, if things weren't going the way they were supposed to.”

“That's good, but I wouldn't blame them if they were glad to see us go. We have all these electrical cords and bright lights that can turn night into day, and we need places to park huge trucks and, well, even though the little store there doesn't have much of what they want, Clara does. So, by spending time and money there and showing people we can be nice instead of stereotypical Hollywood snobs”—Inez
paused and shot Jake a smile when he loudly cleared his throat—“we can make sure we're welcome.”

“That makes sense, I suppose,” Gram said. “But please don't hurt my feelings by not coming to dinner yourself.”

“I shouldn't impose a second night,” Inez said. “Really, I have a little kitchen in my camper and I've trained myself to open cans and run the microwave.”

“Do that, Ms. Garcia,” Gram said, folding her arms and tapping her toe, “and you'll have gone past hurting my feelings directly to insulting me.”

“Well, I wouldn't want to do that,” Inez said with a laugh.

“Dinner's at six,” Gram said, and then, just before closing the door, she called, “Jake, I mean you, too, of course.”

“Yes ma'am,” Jake shouted back over his shoulder.

Sam was smiling, feeling relaxed and cheerful, when Gram had to go and spoil her happy mood by adding, “After all, Jake, we don't know if we'll have you around here for dinner next August. This might be our last summer together, so we'd better make the most of it.”