The Renegade by Terri Farley Page B

eerie.
    For close to an hour, the dog had stayed silent in the truck cab. If Karla Starr didn’t love her animals, how had she trained the dog to be so patient?
    Sam didn’t want to know.
    “C’mon, Ace.” She led the gelding by a handful of mane.
    Sweetheart was kicking fence rails in the barn corral. Out in the small pasture, Amigo arched his neck and pranced like a stallion ready to do battle. Teddy Bear, tied to the hitching rail, jumped back against his reins as Jake hustled out to plop Sam’s saddle into her arms.
    “I heard what he said, and this is a fool idea.”
    “Jake, he’ll be fine. Ace always behaves.”
    Jake ignored her, shaking his head as he frowned after Dad.
    “All I can think is that he was so glad you all gotaway with all your fingers and toes, he went loco himself.”
    Sam smoothed on Ace’s saddle blanket. “What are you trying to say? I don’t get it.”
    “That Karla Starr gives me the creeps,” Jake said. “She’s after something.”
    “It’s just like you to see a competent business-woman as a threat,” Sam told him, even though she didn’t trust Karla Starr, either.
    “Competent? Is that what you call it?”
    “Sure,” Sam said. Without being asked, Ace opened his mouth for the bit.
    “And she didn’t give you the creeps?”
    “Okay, it did bother me when she was sizing up the mustangs as bucking prospects.”
    “And flashing her business cards around.”
    “That didn’t bother me,” Sam said.
    “It did,” Jake said, “but you won’t admit it. I listen to my instincts.” Jake pulled Teddy Bear’s reins loose from the hitch rail and mounted. “Want to know why?”
    “No, but you’re going to tell me anyway.”
    Sam rode beside Jake. By silent agreement, they kept the horses to a walk as they crossed the ranch yard.
    “One night, I was trying to get to sleep. I was tossing and turning, feeling like bugs were crawling on me. I knew it was my imagination, ’cause I wasn’t camping, just lying in my own bed. Finally one of mybrothers--Nate, I think--yelled at rife to settle down.
    “I did, but I kept feeling like something was trailing on my arm. Really quiet, ’cause I didn’t want Nate to beat the tar out of me, I kind of flipped my arm to the side.”
    Even now, Jake shuddered.
    “Something hit the floor. Nate came roaring out of bed and I turned on the light, and there was this ugly black scorpion scuttling across our bedroom floor.”
    Rain was falling for real now, and Sam pulled up the hood on her slicker.
    “You get the point, Brat?” Jake said.
    “Yeah, yeah, instincts,” Sam, muttered.
    Jake rode close enough to grab Ace’s cheek piece. Because it was Jake, Ace didn’t shy, only stopped and flicked his ears in curiosity.
    “No, the moral of that story is: if you think something is creeping up to do you harm, don’t wait till it fills you with poison.”

Chapter Nine
    R ain came in sheets, wavering iridescent in the dusk. The sagebrush glowed silver-green as sunset sifted through thunder clouds. The land Sam had known all her life looked alien and exotic.
    Jake took the lead, and Sam let Ace follow at a gallop. The wind whipped something past Sam’s face. She thought it was a wildflower stalk, until Jake turned to look back over his shoulder. It must have been Jake’s leather string, the one he used to tame his long hair, because his black hair looked more like a mane than ever, blowing warrior-wild in the wind.
    A white smile showed in his rain-wet face. Thoughts of wild horses made her think Jake shouldn’t be confined, either.
    Jake liked school and excelled at everything that would make him the good rancher his family wanted him to be, but he wanted to be a police tracker. Sam thought that kind of far-ranging workwould suit him best.
    A rasping cry sounded overhead and Jake looked up. The hawk had no time for dropping feathers today. Her rounded red tail shifted like a rudder as she sought the safety of her nest.
    “Did you send a