Mustang Moon Read Free Page A

living room wasten years old. Gram and Dad didn’t own a VCR. Dad watched the news every night, but rarely anything else. She knew Dad did tiring, physical labor each day, but Sam couldn’t imagine going up to bed at eight o’clock if you weren’t sick. And all Gram did after dinner was read novels and piece together quilts.
    They were driving back toward the ranch, when Sam shivered. Something told her the Phantom was nearby. Sam studied every bush moving in the breeze and every dark rock in the distance.
    But it was Gram who spotted the Phantom first.
    War Drum Flats spread out like a beige tablecloth below them. From the road, Sam saw a basin scooped from the sagebrush and piñon landscape. Gram glanced at where the brush faded to dusty green and gave way to a trampled-bare area around a pond. A dozen thirsty horses jostled for room at the water’s edge.
    â€œThat’s a fine-looking band of mustangs,” Gram said. Then she added, “Oh look, there on the ridge.”
    Sam sucked in a breath, following Gram’s gesture. Sam stared past the pond and up the hillside. On a ridge marked by wind-twisted pine trees, the silver stallion stood guard.
    From here, he was just a proud outline against the blue summer sky, but Sam recognized her horse. The pine ridge looked so high, windy and far away, Sam wasn’t sure the drinking band and stallion were together.
    Gram swerved to the roadside. She shut off theengine, opened her car’s glove compartment, and withdrew a pair of binoculars.
    Distance made him no more than a sparkling toy, but Sam knew the Phantom by his kingly stance. She could hardly believe Gram recognized him.
    â€œOh my, it’s him, isn’t it? Your little lost colt, all grown up.” Gram’s voice held a mixture of awe and disappointment.
    Had she been hoping Sam would really give in to that old idea of out of sight, out of mind?
    Gram sat up straighter and angled the binoculars down. Sam figured Gram was studying the mares and foals. Though they looked like miniatures from here, Sam recognized two distinctive blood bays and a mouse-colored horse she’d noticed in the Phantom’s band before.
    â€œAnd who’s this, I wonder?” Gram asked.
    At Sam’s mew of frustration, Gram passed her the binoculars.
    â€œI’ve never been able to focus these silly things,” Sam muttered.
    â€œTake your time,” Gram said.
    Easy to say. Mustangs could vanish as you stared right at them. It had happened three times with the Phantom.
    â€œOh, come on,” Sam growled at the binoculars. She pressed them too hard against her eye sockets, then held them too far back, so her eyelashes ticked across the eyepieces.
    This was important. Who’s this? Gram had asked and her voice had sounded suspicious.
    The first horse to come into focus had tiger-striped front legs.
    â€œYeah.” Sam sighed. She remembered the dun with the prehistoric markings from her visit to the Phantom’s secret canyon.
    The mare stared across the pond and shook her ears. The other horses moved into a tighter bunch around her, then fell back as she trotted around the end of the pond. She must be the herd’s lead mare , Sam thought.
    Then, the mare proved it. She flattened her ears, bared her teeth, and made a threatening run at an intruder.
    â€œThe hammer head!”
    â€œThe what?” Gram’s dubious voice told Sam she’d spoken aloud.
    â€œThat other horse.” Without lowering the binoculars, Sam pointed at the heavy-headed stallion. “I’ve seen him before.”
    She didn’t dare say she’d seen him at midnight the night before on River Bend Ranch, but she was almost sure he was the same horse.
    His big head, long mane, and stocky conformation were unusual. By daylight, she could see he was the color of jeans that had been washed about a million times. A blue roan.
    â€œWhoever he is,” Sam said, “he thinks