Wild Mustang

“Tenderfoot,” Shane muttered to himself as he rode back to the ranch. Laura Walker, slim and fragile-looking, didn’t strike him as a woman who’d be a happy camper out on the range.

He’d cooperate as promised, but he hoped her mustang studies, whatever they were, wouldn’t take long. He had enough problems without shepherding a greenhorn around—the major one being his fear of losing his custody battle.

“You know I prefer leaving a child in the home she’s accustomed to,” Judge Rankin had told him last week. “But, face it, Shane, there’s no woman in your household. The child’s father has remarried and he and his wife offer a stable environment for the little girl.”

“The ranch is a good environment,” Shane had protested, deliberately misunderstanding.

Judge Rankin had given him a level look. “If you were married, I’d have no problem.”

Shane pressed the gelding into a lope. Married? Not a hope. Not ever again. He’d sworn off it.

After driving along several unmarked gravel roads, Laura pulled into the small oasis surrounding the Bearclaw ranch house. Her brother had told her the desert soil was fertile, all it needed was water and anything would grow. The greenery around the house proved him right. Besides the flowering shrubs near the house foundation, massive cottonwoods shaded the long, low building, testifying to how long people had lived in this spot.

As she left the car, she saw the neat green rows of a fenced-in vegetable garden. Otherwise the yard was left as the desert intended, with no lawn for water to be wasted on. Outbuildings in back included a barn with an attached corral. The house itself was adobe brick with a tile roof.

Before she reached the front door, it opened and a dark-haired girl of about nine or ten stood framed in the doorway. Unlike Shane, she had hazel eyes.

“Hi,” she said, “I’m Sage. You must be Ms. Walker. Shane said you were coming today, and I’ve been waiting. Grandfather has, too, but he doesn’t get antsy like me. You’re lots prettier than I thought you’d be.”

Shane’s daughter? Laura smiled at her. “Then I guess you couldn’t have expected very much.”

“Please come in,” Sage said, stepping aside so Laura could enter.

Ushered into a pleasantly uncluttered living room, Laura chose an attractively decorated leather chair to sit in.

“I made iced tea,” Sage told her. “Would you like some? It’s real tea, not out of a jar ’cause Grandfather hates instant stuff.”

“Thank you, I would,” Laura told her, touched by the little girl’s effort to be a good hostess.

It then occurred to her that the child might actually be the only hostess in the house. She hadn’t mentioned a mother, only a grandfather.

A carving of a horse—surely a wild mustang—on the mantel of the stone fireplace caught Laura’s eye. She rose to take a closer look and was admiring how well the carver seemed to have captured the mustang spirit when Sage came back with a tray.

“This horse is beautiful,” she told the girl.

Sage nodded. “Shane says he senses what animal is in the wood before he starts carving. Grandfather says that’s the mark of a medicine man. So now Shane’s learning all that medicine stuff.”

She set the tray carefully on a polished slab of wood masquerading as a coffee table and offered a paper napkin and a glass to Laura. “Do you take sugar or sweetener?” she asked. “’Cause I didn’t put any in, in case you don’t.”

“This is how I like my tea,” Laura said, resuming her seat, trying to integrate the scowling man who’d rescued her with the obviously sensitive sculptor.

“I like lots of sugar,” Sage confided. “So does Grandfather.”

As if that was a cue, a gray-haired older man, still ramrod straight, entered the room. His hair, like Shane’s, was long and tied back. His shrewd, dark eyes fixed on Laura.

“Grandfather,” Sage said, “this is Ms. Walker.”

The old man nodded. “Howell Bearclaw,” he told her. “I don’t like being called mister, and I don’t like being called Howell much, either. I prefer Grandfather. To us, that’s a title of respect.” Unexpectedly, he grinned at her.

“You don’t have to call me that till you find something about me to respect. What’ll we call you?”

She smiled. “I like being called Laura.”

Sage handed him a glass of tea. He tasted it, nodded in approval, and took the chair opposite Laura’s.

“You’ve come to count the wild horses on our land,” he said.

She shook her head. “Not exactly. My government grant is for determining the overall health of the mustang herds. Nevada, and your reservation, is my first stop. Later, I’ll be doing the same thing in the other states where they range. The Bureau of Land Management estimates Nevada has 22,500 of the 42,000 wild horses in the West.”

He grunted. “At least you don’t call them estrays like the BLM. What kind of word is that? Wild is wild.”

Recalling the stallion, Laura had to agree. Government agencies like the BLM had their own names for things, but wild was most certainly wild.

“My grandson’s going to ride out with you,” he said.

Though it wasn’t a question, Laura nodded. “I hope he doesn’t mind.” Thinking about her meeting with Shane, she was none too sure he was happy about it.

“He’s no grandson of mine if he doesn’t jump at the chance to escort a pretty woman,” Grandfather said.

“I already told her she was pretty,” Sage put in. “She’s nice, too.”

“Must be smart, too, to get that grant.”

Laura was somewhat taken aback at the turn of conversation—almost as though she weren’t there.

Sage turned to her and asked, “Are you married?”

Since there was no reason not to answer, Laura replied, “No, I’m not.” She didn’t add that she never would be, either. That was none of their business.

Sage and her grandfather exchanged a look.

What on earth is all this about? Laura asked herself.

“That makes three of us,” Grandfather said.

Sage giggled. “I’m too young to be married.”

Grandfather frowned at her. “And I suppose you figure I’m too old.”

They both gazed at Laura. What did they expect her to say? Like Goldilocks, that her age was just right?

“Marriage isn’t on my agenda,” she said flatly.

“We are not behaving like proper hosts,” Grandfather said. “We’ve embarrassed our guest by asking a personal question.”

“I’m sorry,” Sage said. “It’s just that Laura’s so pretty I thought she must be married.”

They were at it again, talking about her as if she weren’t in the same room. Though she was inclined to like both of them, she found this trait disturbing. She doubted it was a Paiute custom.