Читать книгу The Long Road Home - Lynn Patrick - Страница 9

PROLOGUE

A SKITTER OF hoofbeats drummed through his subconscious, gradually awakening him. With a start, Sam Larson sat up in bed. No dream, the sound was coming from outside the cabin. A rush of hoofbeats and whinnies and snorts...

He shot out of bed and into his jeans, then hopped across the room while pulling on his boots. The door opened to a Wisconsin night swept by a warm breeze and silvered by moonlight. Before he could step outside, one of his horses whipped by the open doorway.

Sam whistled. “Cloud, whoa, girl.” He whistled again.

The Pinto stopped, the skin along her spine quivering. When he called a second time, she turned and trotted back to him.

“What are you doing out here?”

She snorted in answer.

He threaded calloused fingers through the mare’s black mane and coaxed her back toward the pasture, and from a distance saw that the grassy expanse was empty. The gate was open. Horses scattered, prancing nervously, spooked, one heading for the opening in the property fence that would take him directly onto the highway.

“Tomcat!” Letting go of Cloud, Sam moved toward the gelding, calling him with a sharp series of whistles.

Tomcat slowed and threw his head in Sam’s direction. His eyes rolled and he still moved sideways toward the opening, as if he was trying to make up his mind whether or not to listen.

“C’mon, boy, you don’t want to go out there.” His heart thundered with dread at the idea of the horse getting onto the road where he could be run over...or, rather, run into, a thousand pounds of flesh versus a ton of metal. Sam stalked him. What the heck had gotten into his small herd? “C’mon back here where it’s nice and safe.”

Another sharp whistle convinced the horse. His big head hung low, Tomcat switched direction and lumbered toward Sam.

“Where did you think you were going?” He patted the horse’s neck and looked back to see Cloud directly behind him. “You could have gotten killed out there.”

Grabbing onto their manes, he spoke in a low soothing voice as he walked them to the pasture, saw them inside and closed the gate. A glance around told him the other horses were settling as if already forgetting whatever had riled them in the first place.

He rounded up the horses and got them back in the pasture one at a time: Chief, Acer, Lightning, Marengo, Rain Dancer.

They were calm now, but something—or someone—had spooked them.

That gate didn’t open itself. And those horses didn’t just calmly wander out of the pasture.

Sam ran a shaky hand through his hair. Back in town for less than a month and his new business could have been ruined before it even got revved up. But surely no one had reason to want that. No doubt it was some wild kid playing a trick on him. He’d been wild enough himself as a teenager, had gotten into more trouble than his father would stand.

He looked over to the farmhouse he’d grown up in and thought about the reasons for his return to Sparrow Lake. More trouble, and this time not of his own making. He shook his head and wondered if he’d made a huge mistake in coming home.

Wondered if he should report the incident to the authorities.

Even as he thought it, he knew he wouldn’t. The horses were okay. And he didn’t know how that gate got opened. Not to mention he’d rather deal with the situation himself. Bad run-ins with the authorities in the past meant he didn’t exactly trust them in the present.

Some say the past can come back to haunt you, whether for good or ill.

Sam hoped his luck would finally change for the better.