"Be the change you want to see in world." –me writing multi chap Phantom Stallion fanfic in 2024.
Warning: this chapter (and the next one too) does contain some blood/injury/pus discussion. In my mind it's not graphic but if it makes you uncomfortable, feel free to gloss over those bits.
As for the horsemanship…I have tried to make this (the whole story, not just this chapter) realistic without completing taking the magic out of it. There are some points where you might think "that's not how it would actually happen; she's just saying that for dramatic effect" and you know what? You're right. I like dramatic effect. So there.
Sam didn't consider herself a particularly religious person, but by the time she and Brynna climbed into Dr. Scott's quite frankly disgusting Chevy, she had already prayed a number of rosaries and was Googling how to do the sign of the cross correctly. She needed it to be anyone but him, and pleading with God was the only way she could think of to make that happen. Any other horse. Anyone but him.
While Sam continued to pray and inwardly lose her mind, Dr. Scott's SUV bounced and rattled over the back country roads that would lead them to Ben Rowland's ranch. It wasn't far, at least- maybe fifteen minutes from Willow Springs, if you were as indifferent to traffic laws as Glenn Scott seemed to be. Not that Sam was complaining. Actually, she was grateful- almost as grateful as she was for her seatbelt- because every minute that separated her and this wild horse, that separated her from knowing, felt like it was taking months or even years off her life.
On the other hand, both Brynna and Dr. Scott were way too nonchalant about this. They were acting as if this was a completely normal day, not a day where a wild horse was injured and words like "dead lame" and "blood everywhere" had been used. Sam wanted to scream at them but discovered she couldn't find her voice. All she could do was sit and wait and hope and pray, and even that didn't do any good because when they got there, it was still him. It was still her Phantom, head raised proudly but with stiff posture betraying his pain- that and the crimson stains marring his silver-white coat.
"Stay in the car," Brynna ordered immediately. Her harsh tone- and the child lock Dr. Scott rudely activated- convinced Sam to obey. "Don't do anything that might scare him. We can't have him run off on us."
"He doesn't look in any shape to run," Sam murmured, her voice breaking as she stared at him through the window. They were three-hundred-some feet apart, but Sam still felt like she could see into the horse's very soul. He was looking right at her- maybe because the Chevy was a moving object and he was a prey animal, maybe because of their special bond- and she wanted nothing more than to bust out the car window and run to him, if that was what it took.
Dr. Scott pulled a pair of binoculars out of his glove box and rolled his window down. The whir of the window was a strange enough sound to put the Phantom on his guard, trotting back and forth a few paces with his tail held high. Sam winced. She didn't need binoculars to catch the painful limp on his right front leg, or the way his knee was swollen up like a balloon.
She waited with bated breath for Dr. Scott to say something- something more helpful than hmm. He adjusted the focus of his binoculars, his lips in a determined frown, and that in itself told Sam not to expect good news.
"Some kind of animal attack," Dr. Scott stated. "Canine, most likely. If it was a cat, there would be claw marks on the hind end as opposed to puncture wounds on the lower body."
Sam sucked in a big breath of air. She was all too familiar with the marks a wildcat would have left, thank you very much.
"Judging by the swelling, a severe infection has already set in, and he's clearly in a lot of pain." Dr. Scott lowered his binoculars and looked Sam- Sam, not Brynna- directly in the eye. "The most humane course of action would be to put him down."
"NO!" Sam cried, her voice way too loud for the confined space of the Chevy. She found she couldn't stop herself from babbling on. "You can't! I won't let you!"
"Sam," Brynna said gently. "I know how much this horse means to you, but you have to think about it rationally."
Sam certainly did not feel rational at this moment in time. She couldn't control her pounding heart or the tears streaming down her cheeks; did Brynna really think she was in a place to make grown-up decisions?
"Look at how badly he's limping," Brynna instructed. Indeed, the Phantom was barely putting any weight on his injured leg. "I know you love him, but that should mean you don't want him to suffer."
"I don't want him to suffer," Sam agreed. What she did want was to throttle the people in the car with her. How could they look at an injured horse and not even want to give him a chance? "Can't we treat him? A dart gun with antibiotics or something?"
The grown-ups exchanged a look Sam did not like at all.
"It's a little more complicated than that," Dr. Scott stated. He seemed to be having a hard time meeting Sam's eyes now. "A severe infection like that won't go away in just a couple doses. Think twice a day for two weeks- that's not realistic for a wild horse. Not to mention, decreased mobility makes him an easy target for predators. It would be much kinder to-"
"Then I'll buy him!" Sam cried. "Adopt him. Whatever. We can round him up and I'll do whatever it takes to get him better!"
Brynna pursed her lips. Dr. Scott drummed his fingers on the dashboard, clearly thinking very hard about what he was about to say.
"Sam," the vet said gently. "Let's pretend for a moment all the paperwork and bureaucracy doesn't exist and that was legal. You could bring him home, put all the time and money in, and he still might never be fully sound. Do you understand me?"
"I don't care," she replied honestly. "I don't ever need to ride him. I just want to give him a chance."
"And if you gave him that chance…" Brynna chose her words carefully, not wanting to sound like she was agreeing to anything. "And if you gave it your best, and he was too far gone to heal, could you accept that?"
"Yes," Sam replied again, although she wasn't really being honest this time. Giving up on the Phantom wasn't an option, not for her, at least.
Brynna raised her eyes to the high heavens, as if she was consulting the lord on this important decision. "I know exactly what your father is going to say about this."
Sam's hopes soared. "You mean…I can do it?"
Her stepmother shot her a stern glare. "I'll have to call in every favor I'm owed and you're definitely not getting a birthday present...but if Dr. Scott gives his blessing, we can attempt to rehabilitate him at the ranch."
Sam turned pleading eyes to the vet, who nodded agreeably. "With aggressive medication and a little luck, he could go on to live a comfortable life. He's been an exception to every rule already. Why not give it a shot?"
Failing to read the room or control herself, Sam double fist-pumped. Brynna frowned. "Do not celebrate yet. You need to call your father and I need to call Maxine."
Sam mentally compared her kind-hearted history teacher to the notably gruff Wyatt Forster. "…can we switch?"
"No," Brynna said firmly, pulling her phone out of her pocket to show the conversation was over.
Sam took a deep breath and got her own phone out, her thumb hovering over the "call" button. Unfortunately, she couldn't agonize over it for very long. There was so little time to waste.
Sam dialed.
Wyatt picked up on the first ring. "Hello?"
"Dad!" Sam wasn't sure if she was relieved to hear his voice or not. Probably not, honestly. "Okay, Dad, I need you to listen to me now and get mad at me later, alright?"
Wyatt correctly guessed exactly where this was going. "Does this, by any chance, involve a horse?"
"Yes. There's been an emergency at work." So far, all of that was true. "There's an injured wild horse that needs to be rehabbed at our horse. Brynna and Dr. Scott are here and they're on board with it, so please, please, please say yes." Also true. She was great at this.
"Well, it doesn't exactly sound like I have much of a choice, do I?" he huffed. Sam's shoulders sagged with relief. That was an agreement if she ever heard one. "Let me talk to Brynna."
It seemed like Brynna had finished her conversation with Mrs. Ely, so Sam passed her the phone. Her stepmother instantly started talking a mile a minute, and Sam actually found herself a little intimidated. Work Brynna was scary.
After several minutes of businesslike conversation- mainly focused on exactly how the yard should be set up- Brynna returned Sam's phone. Her jaw was set in a way that made Sam wonder if it hadn't gone well. Not that she dared to ask.
"Why did you call Maxine?" she asked instead.
"We'll need a big group of riders, and she can usually round up three or four of her boys on short notice," Brynna replied.
"Riders?" Sam repeated. "Why do we need riders?"
"Well, I don't think you'll be able to just halter and lead him back to River Bend, and we all know how he feels about being roped, so running him in is my backup plan," Brynna said dryly.
Sam looked out the window at the Phantom, still staring them down. His knee was easily twice its normal size, and he was barely putting any weight on it. "We're going to run a horse that lame? It has to be five miles to home."
"Quite frankly, it's the lesser evil," said Brynna. "Trailering him would involve building a chute and a catch pen while he's in it, which we have neither the time nor the money for. Not to mention, the trauma of loading a wild horse like that…"
She made some good points, but she sounded so infuriatingly practical that Sam couldn't help being irritated with her. This wasn't just any wild horse; it was the Phantom. There was nothing neutral or practical about it.
Unfortunately, Sam was treading on thin ice already. Instead of arguing further or trying to come up with another way, she just responded with "alright".
Dr. Scott and Brynna continued to speak to each other in hushed tones, but Sam waited for the Elys in silence. Watching the Phantom, mainly. Somehow, he still managed to look noble with the bad leg and the bloodstained flanks. Sam's heart ached for him in a hundred different ways.
This isn't how it was supposed to go, she thought bitterly. All I wanted was for him to be free, but I want him to be alive even more than that…right?
All in all, it felt like a decision she wasn't qualified to make, but it was fully in her hands. Fighting for him seemed like the right, or maybe even the only choice to Sam, but she wondered, with a slight sinking feeling, if the Phantom might choose death over captivity if it was up to him.
When the Elys rode up over the hill, Sam craned her neck for the best possible look. Mostly, she was curious about who Maxine had managed to round up. All seven of the Ely boys were older than Sam, so it was anyone's guess who would be hanging around their parents' house at any given time. All Sam knew was that Jake was still at college and Kit was still in Hawaii, but it could be any of the other five.
There were four riders in total. Maxine and Luke, the parents, and Quinn and Bryan, two of seven sons. Sam was somewhat disappointed to see they hadn't brought along a spare horse for her, but she was relieved, too. It might be better to just wash her hands of the whole time, keep her head down while she still could.
Mainly, she didn't want the Phantom to know the part she had in this little round-up. But that was a cop-out and she knew it.
There was no idle chit-chat or discussion of the plan. The Elys seemed to know exactly what to do, and they fanned out around the Phantom in perfect sync. Sam chewed her lip as she watched her horse's reaction; he was obviously unhappy with the situation, but he was in no shape to retaliate like he normally would have. His trumpeted challenge didn't carry the same weight when he was hopping lame on the right front.
It was enough to make Sam tear up, but she found she couldn't look away, her nose pressed to the glass. Quinn took the lead with his bay roan cutting horse, Chip, and waved a hand to get the Phantom moving. The stallion flinched and tossed his head, but he stood his ground for the moment. With that bad leg, "flight" wasn't an option, and a horse's other survival instinct was "fight".
"C'mon, Blackie, they're trying to help," Sam murmured to herself, not caring if anyone else heard her. She watched as Quinn swung the end of one split rein at the Phantom, convincing him to move off the spot he'd rooted himself to. The Phantom reared and spun, and for a moment, he looked like his old self, except the only reason he chose that move was because it kept all of the weight on his hind end.
The rest of the family was on him in an instant, pushing him northwest, towards River Bend. The Phantom pinned his ears; it wasn't in his nature to obey, but in this situation, he really had no choice. Even though the Elys weren't pushing him very hard, he pushed himself into a trot, and Sam's breath caught in her throat. None of his usual elegance, gliding across the desert like a ghost- today he was a lurching Frankenstein's monster of a horse, his head sinking lower with every stride.
"Must be some kind of puncture wound," said Dr. Scott, breaking the thick silence that had settled in the car. "That degree of lameness is usually only associated with abscesses or fractures. And if he's a typical wild stallion, it's actually much worse than he's letting on."
It hurt Sam physically to think the Phantom might be in even more pain than he was alluding to. For a brief moment, she understood why the vet had suggested they put the Phantom down. They were asking him to do something incredibly difficult now, and it would certainly get worse before it got better- after all, they still had four-point-nine miles to go.
That didn't mean she was changing her mind. It just meant that, if Sam was given the choice, she'd be the one to walk five miles on a bad leg, and the Phantom would be safe in the car. Not that that would work out well for anybody, she supposed.
It was hard to watch, but the Elys slowly drove the indignant Phantom off the rancher's property. Dr. Scott followed from a distance, never getting in the way, but always keeping the riders in sight. Sam chewed her lip until it bled. Lunchtime came and went, but she didn't feel hungry. The only thing she could feel was worry, both for her horse and herself.
She worried the most about the river crossing. Making up for last year's drought, the rain had poured heavily all spring, and the normally-tame La Charla was now pushing whitewater rapids. A healthy horse would have no trouble fording it, but the Phantom was nowhere near full strength.
"Maybe he'll just cross the bridge," Dr. Scott suggested when Sam voiced her worries.
"I doubt it," Sam murmured. The Phantom had crossed bridges before, but he'd learned to hate all things human now. It was unlikely he'd choose the rattling metal crossing over the water.
She held her breath as the Phantom approached the river. His silver flanks were drenched with sweat, a testament to how much the "run" had taken out of him, even though he hadn't once gone past a trot. He wavered on the banks, pawing at the muddy water. It became clear to Sam right then that he was going to jump in, and he wouldn't even consider taking the easy way out.
In a last-ditch effort to push him towards the bridge, Maxine Ely approached on the left and waved an arm at him. The stallion didn't hesitate to wade into the river; the water was all the way up to his swollen knee. Sam's heart pounded in her throat as the Phantom splashed through the fast-flowing creek. Every step seemed slower than the last.
"What happens if he goes down?" Sam asked desperately, almost certain she didn't actually want to know.
"He won't, Sam," Brynna assured her, although her eyes never left the struggling white horse.
As usual, Brynna was right. The Phantom staggered out of the water, tripping a little on the loose rocks, but overall, no worse off than he was before. Sam let out a shaky sigh of relief as the Elys gently nudged him into the front yard, where Wyatt had, true to his word, set up a catch trap with a number of extra panels. Starting at the spare round pen (thank God they were the kind of people who had two round pens) a line extended from both sides of the gate at a wide angle, appearing inviting but eventually leaving the Phantom no choice.
It took some fine horsemanship to get him all the way through. The Phantom was too familiar with pens and gates to cross that line willingly, and his bad leg didn't stop him from wheeling around and trying to double back a few times. It didn't help that, from his own pen, Windy was screaming bloody murder the whole time. He'd only been gelded a couple days before arriving at River Bend, and it seemed that had not really kicked in yet.
Quinn pushed Chip into the Phantom's space, and finally, the stallion yielded, trotting into the catch pen with his tail streaming behind him. The second-youngest Ely jumped off his horse and slammed the gate, signaling the end of the chase.
Sam couldn't tell if she was relieved or not, but she knew she should decide quickly. The screen door swung open, announcing her father's presence, and it looked like she might have to explain her choices sooner than originally planned.
I'm having so much fun with this. Please read and review!