Paint the Wind by Pam Muñoz Ryan

frantic scramble, whimpering, “I can’t lose her.… She’s all I have left.…” Willow limbs smacked her face. She pulled out from underneath the bushes, stood up, and looked at the deep and endless hedges. It would take forever to find it. Tears streamed down her dusty cheeks, leaving muddy tracks.
    Payton came up behind her. “What’s the big deal, anyway?”
    She wiped away her tears and turned to face him, her fists clenching and unclenching. “It was … It was mine.…”
    Payton taunted her. “If you’re so sad and you don’t like this place, make sure you tell Aunt Vi. Because I heard her talking to Moose this morning and he saidthat when he comes back, if this is all too much for you, he’ll take you to the ranch. Isn’t that great? You can leave. All you have to do is tell Aunt Vi that you hate it here. Then maybe things can get back to the way they should be, with just me and my grandpa Fig, and my uncle Moose and my aunt Vi.” He turned and ran.
    Maya hurried to the flat rock and collected the remaining horses in her kerchief and walked toward camp, swaddling the bundle next to her body. A wave of tears started again. She muttered under her breath. “I don’t hate it here. I hate … you .”
    â€œYou’re sure quiet this evening, Maya,” said Aunt Vi. “You didn’t come out of your tent all afternoon and barely touched your dinner.”
    Payton leaned forward in his chair, his voice dripping with fake concern. “Yeah, Maya, are you okay?”
    Maya pulled farther into her jacket. Payton would just love it if she spilled her guts to Aunt Vi, but she wasn’t about to give him that satisfaction. “Just tired, I guess.”
    â€œYou have every right to be tired,” said Aunt Vi. “You’ve had more changes in the last week than most people have in ten years. On top of all that, today was your first day on a horse. Let’s get to bed early. Payton, did you check the horses?”
    â€œYes. I belled and hobbled Catlin and Audubon.”
    â€œYou latched Wilson’s gate?”
    â€œYes, ma’am.”
    Maya gazed toward the corrals.
    â€œMaya, stir out that fire. Payton, help me wipe down the kitchen. Then let’s turn in.”
    After Aunt Vi and Payton left, Maya stood for a long time jabbing at the embers, which occasionally pulsed with a hot red glow. The wheels of resentment churned in her mind for everything Payton had: his parents, his brothers, an entire life of riding horses. He’d even had Aunt Vi, Fig, and Moose every summer. Maya gritted her teeth, pressed her lips together, and shook her head.
    When the embers quieted, she laid down the poker and headed toward the latrine tent, shining the flashlight down the path. But by the time she arrived, an idea had blossomed. She diverted behind the latrine tent and turned off the beam.
    Maybe if Aunt Vi saw how careless Payton was, she would send him back to the ranch for the rest of the summer. Maya smiled at that delicious possibility.



M AYA’S SLEEP WENT UNDISTURBED . A FTER THE FLURRY, travel , and exhaustion of the last few days, nothing stirred her. Not the high-pitched songs of the coyotes, the clangs of the hobbled horses, or the thwap of the tepee billowing with the wind. It wasn’t until she heard the revving of a motor that she awoke.
    As she dressed, Maya felt an unfamiliar tightening and soreness of the muscles on the insides of her legs, but she decided not to mention it to Aunt Vi. She didn’t want anything to interfere with her lessons.
    Maya walked slowly and stiffly to the breakfast campfire, where she found Aunt Vi staring into her coffee. On the hill, an unfamiliar truck hitched to a horse trailer pulled away from the corral area. “Who’s that?” she asked.
    Aunt Vi let out a long breath. “The vet. Wilson escaped last night. He wandered and must have caught a leg