Free The Wild One by Terri Farley

fine, but Slocum—”
    Jake pointed and Sam’s eyes followed. The Phantom was leading the Thoroughbred across the desert.
    A pale wisp, he teased Slocum’s mount. Phantom let the Thoroughbred draw close enough that he must feel the Thoroughbred’s breath on his tail. Then the stallion jumped a clump of sagebrush and doubled back with impossible agility.
    More ghost than horse, the mustang disappeared in the middle of a hillside with Slocum still thundering after him.
    Sam told herself everything would be fine. The Phantom would escape. But that night in her dreams, she saw the stallion dashing through snow drifts, past a candy-cane North Pole, while Slocum followed in a sleigh, face fringed with a beard of ice.
    Â 
    Thunder woke Sam before dawn. She wriggled deeper in her sleeping bag and listened to the lowingof restless cattle. Raindrops pattered on the canvas tent. In the dimness, she saw Gram’s bed, neatly tied in a roll.
    Dallas called, “Boots on the ground, we’re burnin’ daylight.”
    â€œ What daylight?” Jake’s voice came from somewhere nearby. His spurs chimed and a horse snorted its bad mood as its hooves sucked across wet ground.
    Sam heard bacon sizzling.
    Moving like an inchworm, she scooted to the tent flap and pulled it back.
    â€œPsst,” she whispered.
    Jake heard her over the hissing curtain of rain, and stopped.
    â€œIs Slocum back?” she asked him.
    Rain dripped off Jake’s black hat brim as he shook his head and kept riding.
    Slocum had been out all night, after the Phantom.
    Sam pulled on her jeans. Four days of riding had finally caught up with her. She ached all over and the contortions required to tug up her socks made Sam bite her lip against a whimper.
    Dad was waiting by the campfire. He gave her a wink and a yellow slicker. Once she’d struggled into the raincoat, he offered her a warm pottery mug. Steam curled up from the creamy combination of cocoa and coffee and Sam sighed with delight.
    The cold sneaking between her upturned collar and pulled down hat made the hot drink taste even better.
    Pepper approached the other side of the fire and rubbed his hands together. He wore a long duster which must be oiled, because the water beaded on it.
    The bad weather had put him in a playful mood.
    â€œGreat day for crossin’ the playa ,” Pepper said, with a wicked grin. “Rain pourin’ down from on high and water bubblin’ up underfoot.”
    â€œIs it really?” Sam asked. She tried to look out of camp, past the herd, to the playa .
    â€œYou bet. Think of a hard-boiled egg. Y’know how you give it a whack so you can peel off the shell?” Pepper asked, and Sam nodded. “Well, the playa ’s like that. Little cracks all over the place, with quicksand underneath, just waiting to suck in your horse’s hoof and pull you down, down, down.”
    As Pepper’s voice quavered into the creepy tone you’d use to scare a child, Sam knew she’d been had.
    â€œHey, you don’t want to go scaring a dude like that.”
    Dude? Sam looked up to see which of Slocum’s cowboys the words had come from. She thought it had been Flick. Not that it mattered. They were all laughing at her.
    â€œQuicksand doesn’t suck you under,” Dad said, sipping at his coffee, looking patient. “It’s just a thick combination of sand and water. It doesn’t have a mind of its own.”
    â€œI know,” Sam said, but she didn’t.
    â€œThe main thing’s to keep the herd together andquiet. Don’t do anything to spook ’em.”
    Dad glanced at her, confirming that she knew what he meant. Cattle, horses, even people got edgy during a storm. The least little thing could spook them into doing something stupid.
    â€œIf a cow does go through,” Dad added, “we can rope her and pull her out.”
    Sam hoped he was right, but she remembered an adventure