Full Summary:
Becki Williams has grown up on a horse ranch her whole life. During her end of the year exam, she day-dreams of her home and does not finish her last exam. When she returns home to the ranch, all she wants to do is ride her horse, Shadow. When her father finds out that she is in danger of being kicked out of school, he sends her away from the ranch, away from her family and animal friends and to Glenoak. Will Becki ever be able to ride her beautiful horses again? Can Ruthie get her to write her essay so that she'll be able to go back to school? And will Becki be able to save the mustangs that have been taken from the Mustang Sanctuary on her ranch? Will she be able to show her father that she is responsible for her actions?
Becki Williams:
I love living in the mountains of California, on my family's horse ranch, nearly 40,000 acres of land. Not only do we raise pure quarter horses, but we also rescue wild mustangs from being harmed. We also sell our quarter horses to respectable owners. My father says that my older brothers will run the ranch one day, but my brothers have no need for ranching. They want to go off to college and have their own life. I on the other hand want to show my father that I was responsible enough to run the ranch.
You see I was the only daughter of an all boy ranch. My father only had brothers and his father had brothers and one sister. I had a great aunt, but she died when I was five. You'd think I'd be used to my life by now. And I was, but I still had to go to school like everyone else. That was the problem; I was too caught up in my ranch life to keep my head in my studies and that was the reason I was out here right now, Shadow grazing on the hillside behind me. I was laying on a downed tree, resting my legs on its limbs, my boots scuffing up as I moved off the tree. I saw only what I needed to see when I was out here on our ranch. We lived up in the mountains, living off the land in order to keep our ranch and Mustang Sanctuary running properly.
With my father down in his study, I knew I had to go back sooner or later. I got up off the tree and grabbed Shadow's reins. Pulling myself back up onto her bareback, I swung her around and made my way back home. That's how I preferred to ride, bareback. You could communicate with the horses better. I had tamed Shadow and his sister Storm after they were cut off from the herd of Wild Mustangs on our land.
Shadow and Storm were siblings that much we knew. Shadow was more stubborn then his sister. Storm tamed quietly. She was a great saddle horse, but Shadow was a different story. Shadow made it hard for my father to trust anyone around him. He forbade anyone from going into the paddock where we kept him. Everyone listened to him, everyone that was except me. I snuck out at night and started earning Shadow's trust. After awhile, I knew I would be able to ride him, but Shadow only let me on him until I opened the paddock and started to walk him out of the paddock.
Once Shadow saw the open road that led him back to his home, he started running towards the rest of the horses, started bucking and that's when I hit the ground. I bruised some ribs, but my father lost all trust in me. He tried to get rid of Shadow, but my mother, brothers and the ranch hands finally stood up to him and all put their foot down together. Shadow was mine and he couldn't do anything to take him away from me.
Then the letter from my school came, telling him that I was in danger of failing my junior year of high school because I had turned in a blank essay paper for my last midterm in American History. That was all he had to see to know that I wasn't responsible enough to take care of anymore horses. He got in contact with a friend of his down in the valley and the next thing I knew, I was in Glenoak with a Reverend and his family. However, they weren't going to take my freedom.
Shadow had somehow found his way to me in Glenoak. A wild mustang walking the streets of Glenoak looking for his owner was all it took for my father, the reverend & his family and the rest of the community to see that I had a connection with the horses I tamed. Ruthie also saw a whole new person in me when she saw me with Shadow.
Now all I had to do was convince my father that I could live up to his expectations and run the family ranch…