Palomino

24

It was six o'clock the next morning when they got together for breakfast. And seven thirty when they finally made it to the ranch. They had decided not to shoot a sunrise on the first day, but to settle for full day shots, and eventually try for a sunset. But it was almost noon by the time everything was set up to the film crew's satisfaction and they were fully rolling with Henry Johns-Adams riding a good-looking black mare, which made Samantha long for Caroline's Thoroughbred stallion. This was no Black Beauty Henry was riding, but she was a pretty horse and would look good on film. She had a pleasing gait as they cantered again and again over the same hills, filming take after take, but the horse was as even tempered as her rider, and by the end of the day everyone was tired, but there were no frayed tempers. They were a good group to work with, and Samantha was pleased with the way it was going. She went over to talk to the ranch foreman and thanked him for letting them film on the ranch. She had already sent flowers to the ranch owner's wife and a case of bourbon to her husband, in addition to what they were paying per day in order to film there. But now she handed the foreman several bottles too, and he looked pleased with the gift and chatted with her. He was even more impressed when he learned that she had spent most of the year working on a ranch in California, and for a little while they discussed ranch business and horseflesh and cattle, and Sam felt almost as though she had come home. After a while she happened to mention Tate Jordan, wondered if he'd met him, and said that there was a commercial she wanted to use him in, if he ever crossed the foreman's path. She described him as a fine man and someone she respected a great deal. Out of respect for Tate's sentiments about ranch people knowing about his relationship with her, she didn't let on about that. The foreman took her card and assured her that he'd be happy to let her know if he came across Tate, and after that she went back to the others and drove one of the bulging station wagons back to the hotel.

She struck out equally in her search for Tate at each stop of their trip in the next three weeks, although the filming of the commercials was going brilliantly. The production crew knew that they had gotten the most beautiful footage they'd ever had, and so far the entire shoot had gone off without a hitch. As a result spirits were soaring, friendships were cemented, humors were good, and everyone was willing to work endless hours in the hot sun and seldom complained. They had even managed to get two perfect sunrises on film and several sunsets. Only Sam seemed to be dragging by the time they got to their last stop. They were filming at a ranch in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and Sam had just interviewed the last of the foremen and hung out for almost an hour with some of the ranch hands who had come by to watch them film. She knew now that if she found Tate it wouldn't be this time, and they were going home the next day, so once again her hopes had been dashed. She would go back to New York, and wait, and try again someday when she was near a ranch. And maybe, maybe, one day she would find him. Maybe. If.

As she stood looking at the mountains for a moment, she heard one of the men tell another that she had worked on the Lord Ranch in California. They knew of it, and the second cowboy looked her over with an appraising glance.

“Yeah?” She nodded. “I figured you knew horses, but I didn't know how. I saw you riding this morning. You got a good seat, good hands.”

“Thank you.” She smiled at him, but her sorrow had somehow crept into her eyes now. She looked tired and deflated and the man looked her over, wondering why she looked so down at the mouth.

“You see our new stallion?” he asked her, chewing on a wad of tobacco. “Got him last week. He's out in the far barn.”

“Could I See him?” Sam asked him the question more to be pleasant than because she had any real desire to see the stallion. She wanted to get back to the tiny motel where they were staying, wrap it all up, and get ready to go home the next day. For her, there was nothing left to stick around for. They had done the shoot, and she hadn't found Tate. But trying to look interested, she trudged after the old cowboy, and when she reached the barn beside him, she wasn't sorry she had come. What she saw in front of her was one of the biggest stallions she had ever seen, gray with a black mane and a black tail and a long white star on his forehead that seemed to make his eyes look even wilder as he pawed the ground. “My God, he's a beauty.”

“Ain't he?” The ranch hand looked pleased. “He's a little devil to ride though. Gave everyone a toss or two yesterday.” He grinned. “Even me.”

Sam smiled. “I've spent plenty of time down on the ground too. But this boy is worth it.” She ran a hand down his neck and he whinnied, as though he liked the feel of her hand on his flesh and he wanted more. He was so big and splendid an animal that just seeing him was almost a sensual experience. She told the ranch hand then about Black Beauty, about how she had ridden him and what a great ride he had been.

“Thoroughbred, eh?” She nodded. “Gray Devil here looks as fine to me. He runs like a racehorse, but he's a little too frisky for ranch work. I don't know but what Mr. Atkins may sell him after all. Damn shame too. He's a fine horse.” And then, as though bestowing the ultimate gift on Samantha, he turned to her. “You want to ride him, miss? I warn you, you may land on your butt in the dirt, but I think you can handle him from what I seen you do today.” She had ridden just off camera from Henry, urging him on at sunrise, almost angering him to make him seem less complacent and ride as hard as she wanted him to. In the process she had driven the horse she was riding as hard as he could be pushed, and Sam herself had accomplished the whole performance with obvious ease. She was a spectacular rider, and her precision and ability hadn't been wasted on the men who had watched her. They had talked about her over lunch, one of them had said that she looked like a little palomino filly, and it was a pleasure now to offer her Gray Devil, as he stood in his stall, waiting, as though he had been meant for her.

“Do you mean it?” She was awed by the offer, knowing that it was both a compliment and a gift. “May I ride him?” It was going to be her last ride for a long time. She was flying back to New York the next day, and there were no ranches in her immediate future. Only hard work at her desk in New York. “I'd love to.”

“Go on. I'll get his saddle.” He did so, and a moment later he had him saddled for Samantha, although he had to do it carefully so as not to get kicked. He had twice the devil in him that she had seen in Black Beauty, and he seemed to be almost bursting from his skin, aching to be allowed to run free. “He's a little fresh. Go easy with him in the beginning… Miss…” He hunted for her name.

“Sam.” She smiled easily, suddenly anxious to get on the huge gray horse. He was even bigger than Black Beauty, and suddenly it was as though she could sense Tate beside her, shouting at her as he had about Caro's black stallion, trying to force her to ride horses like Lady and Rusty. She grinned to herself. Hell, he had left her. She could ride anything she wanted to now. And as she thought of it the full pain of having lost him ripped through her once again; she took the leg up the old ranch hand gave her, pulled the reins taut, and let the huge gray stallion dance her around. She didn't let him get out of hand, and his two efforts to toss her were fruitless, much to the old man's delight.

Slowly she walked past the big barn, toward the old corral. By then several of the men had seen her, at first they watched with interest, and then they began to cheer as they saw how she controlled the prancing gray beast. As though everyone nearby suddenly sensed an intriguing performance, they turned to watch Samantha as she rode Gray Devil through the ranch's main compound, past her crew, and Charlie, and Henry and his friend and the poodle; and then sensing her own passion for horses and the countryside surge within her, she forgot them all and began cantering out into the fields beyond. She cantered for only a few moments and then she gave him what he wanted, letting him free to gallop at his own speed, racing until it felt as if he were flying, his hooves beating hard on the ground. As Sam rode Gray Devil she was smiling, with the wind on her face and her heart pounding as they rode along. Riding this horse was like waging a special kind of battle, against the horse's strength and his mind, with only her capabilities and her skill on her side. But she was an even match for Gray Devil, and although several times he tried to throw her, he didn't succeed, and she felt all the tension and anguish and disappointment of not finding Tate well up within her, and she began to press Gray Devil forward, urging him to go even faster than he had before. She would beat him at his own game, if she could.

It was then that the crowd watching grew silent. Until then she had been a beautiful sight to see, her golden hair stretched out behind her, in sharp contrast to the black mane and tail of Gray Devil, as they flew across the fields. She moved as one with the giant stallion, her every muscle in tune with his. But now one of the ranch hands jumped off the fence to stop her, several others caught their breath, and the foreman shouted, as though she could hear him. But it was already too late. There was a hidden narrow stream out in the field she had just sailed into. It was narrow enough to jump with ease if she saw it, but it was also very deep, and if the horse stumbled, she would be thrown into a rocky ravine. The foreman was running now, waving wildly, and Charlie saw him and began to run too. It was as though both men knew what was coming, but at precisely that moment they saw her. The stallion stopped dead as he reached the stream he had seen before Sam did, and Samantha, unprepared, flew through the air with a wild, fearful grace, hair fanned out, arms extended, until she silently disappeared.

As Charlie saw it happen he ran for the station wagon, turned the key in the ignition, shoved it into gear, and surged forward-he didn't give a damn who he ran down. It was too far to run. He signaled wildly to the foreman, who hopped in, and they drove” off with the tires screeching on the gravel and then bumping terribly as they crossed the fields. Charlie made horrible guttural sounds as he muttered to himself, praying all the way. “What's over there?” he asked the foreman, without taking his eyes off the field. He was going almost sixty, and Gray Devil had flashed past him only moments earlier, hell-bent on the barn.

“A ravine.” The foreman looked tense as he answered, straining to see what was ahead. They could still see nothing and a moment later he shouted “Stop!” which Charlie did, and the foreman led the way through the grass, down a little incline to where Gray Devil had balked at the stream. At first they saw absolutely nothing, and then Charlie saw her, her white shirt almost torn from her body, her chest and her face and her hands lacerated almost beyond recognition, her hair fanned out around her, as she lay there broken, bleeding, and terribly, terribly still.

“Oh, my God… oh, my God…” Charlie began crying as he rushed toward her, but the foreman was already kneeling beside her, with two fingers pressed gently to the side of her neck.

“She's still alive. Get in the car, go back to the house, call for the sheriff, tell him to bring the helicopter out here right away. And if he can get one, bring a paramedic, or a doctor, or a nurse.” The town of Steamboat Springs was not heavily endowed with medical personnel suited to the occasion. It was obvious from the position in which she lay, Sam had probably broken several bones, and possibly even her neck or her back. “Go on, man, get going!” he shouted at Charlie, who wiped his face on his sleeve and ran back to the car, shot back a little distance, turned around, and pounded on the accelerator, wondering frantically if Samantha would live. “Fucking horse,” he was shouting to himself as he drove back to where the others waited tensely. And then he jumped out of the car and gave orders.

He went back to Sam then and knelt beside her, trying to hold her and stanch the flow of blood from the cuts on her face with a towel he'd found in the car. And when he got into the helicopter beside her twenty minutes later, his face was grim. The two assistants were left to wrap up with the others. They were all to meet him in the hospital in Denver later that night.

It seemed to take forever for the helicopter to reach Denver, and by the time it did, it was obvious that Samantha's life was in grave danger. A paramedic had traveled with them, and for the last ten minutes of the trip he had given her artificial respiration as Charlie had sat anxiously by. He was aching to ask the paramedic if he thought she would make it, but he was afraid, so he said nothing and just watched them and continued to pray. They set her down as gently as they could on the lawn of St. Mary's Hospital, having alerted all air traffic that they were coming through and coming down with a code blue. Charlie desperately searched his mind for what that meant, and thought he remembered that it meant someone was literally almost dead.

A doctor and three nurses were waiting on the lawn with a gurney, and she was rushed inside as soon as they landed, with Charlie left to follow as quickly as he could. He never thought to thank the young paramedic or the pilot, all he could think of was Samantha, so broken and so still. The only thing still recognizable about the long narrow form he saw draped in sheets a few minutes later was the tangled mass of golden palomino hair. It was then that he finally made himself say it, as two nurses stood by monitoring her vital signs while they prepared to take her to X ray and possibly surgery. They had already decided that the lacerations on her face were only superficial and could wait.

“Will she make it?” His voice was barely a croak in the brilliantly lit white hall.

“Excuse me?” His voice had been barely audible, and the nurse spoke to him without taking her eyes off of Sam.

“Will she make it?”

“I don't know.” She spoke softly. “Are you the next of kin? Her husband?”

Charlie shook his head dumbly. “No, I'm-” And then he realized that maybe he should be. That if they thought he was family they'd tell him something more. “I'm her brother. She's my sister.” He barely made sense as he stood there, feeling suddenly dizzy and sick as he realized that Sam might not live. She already looked as though she might be dead. But she was still breathing faintly, the nurse told him, and before she could say more, two residents, the doctor, and a whole flock of nurses in what looked like blue pajamas came to whisk Sam away. “Where is she going? Where is she…?” No one listened and he just stood there, once again with tears coursing silently down his face. There was nothing they could tell him, they just didn't know.

It was an hour and a half later when they came back to find Charlie sitting frozen like a lost child in a waiting-room chair. He hadn't moved, he hadn't smoked, he hadn't even had a cup of coffee. He had just sat there, waiting, barely daring to breathe himself.

“Mr. Peterson?” Someone had taken his name when they had asked him to sign the admission forms. He had continued to claim that he was her brother, and he didn't give a damn if he lied, if it helped her, not that he was sure what difference it made.

“Yes?” He sprang to his feet. “How is she? Is she all right?” Suddenly he couldn't stop talking, but the doctor nodded very slowly and looked Charlie full in the face.

“She's alive. Barely.”

“What is it? What happened?”

“To put it to you simply, Mr. Peterson, her back is broken. Her spine is fractured in two places. Bones are shattered. There's a hairline fracture in her neck, but we can work around that. The problem right now is her spine. There are so many small broken bones, we have to operate in order to take off some of the pressure. If we don't, there could be permanent damage to her brain.”

“And if you do?” Charlie had instantly sensed that the sword had two edges.

“If we do, she may not live.” The doctor sat down and indicated to Charlie to do the same. “The problem is that if we don't, I can almost guarantee you that she'll be a vegetable for the rest of her life, and probably a quadriplegic.”

“What's that?”

“Entirely paralyzed. That means she'd have no control of her arms and legs, but could possibly move her head.”

“And if you do operate, that won't be the case?” Charlie suddenly felt a desperate urge to throw up, but he fought it. What in God's name were they discussing here, like buying carrots and onions and apples, move her head or her arms or her legs or… Jesus Christ!

The doctor was careful with his explanation. “She'll certainly never walk again, Mr. Peterson, but if we do operate, we might salvage the rest of her. At best she'll wind up a paraplegic, with no use of the lower half of her body. But if we're lucky, we can save her mind. She might not be a vegetable if we go in now.” He hesitated for an interminable moment. “The risk is much greater though. She's in bad shape, and we could lose her. I can't make you any promises.”

“All or nothing, isn't it?”

“More or less. In all fairness I should tell you even if we do nothing for her, or if we do everything we can, she might not live through the night. She's in very critical condition.” Charlie nodded slowly, suddenly understanding that it was his decision and feeling desperately sorry that it was. He knew Sam had family still alive, but he had gone this far, and besides, she was closer to him than anybody… Oh, poor sweet Sam.

“You want an answer from me, Doctor?”

The man in the white coat nodded. “I do.”

“When?”

“Right now.”

But how do I know you're any good, Charlie wanted to ask him. What choice do you have? another voice asked. Not to operate meant that Sam would die in effect, there would be nothing left but a lot of blond hair and a broken body, no mind, no heart, no soul-he choked at the thought. To operate meant they might kill her… but… if she lived, she'd still be Sam. In a wheelchair, but still Sam.

“Go ahead.”

“Mr. Peterson?”

“Operate. Operate, dammit… operate!” Charlie was shouting and as the doctor hurried away, Charlie turned and began to pound the wall. It was when he stopped that he went to buy himself cigarettes and coffee and that he huddled in a corner, like a frightened animal, watching the clock. One hour… two hours… three… four… five… six… seven… At two o'clock in the morning the doctor returned to find him wide-eyed and terrified and almost green with anguish as he waited, convinced that by now Sam must have died. She had died and no one had told him. And he had never been so frightened in his life. He had killed her with his lousy goddamn decision. He should have told the man not to operate, should have called her ex-husband, God, her mother… He didn't even begin to think of the consequences of his decision. The doctor had wanted an answer…

“Mr. Peterson?”

“Hmm?” He looked at the man as though he were in a trance.

“Mr. Peterson, your sister is all right.” He gently touched his arm, and Charlie nodded. He nodded again, and then the tears came, and then suddenly he was clasping the doctor tightly in his arms.

“My God… my God…” was all he could whimper. “I thought she was dead…”

“She's all right, Mr. Peterson. Now you should go home and get some rest.” And then he remembered that they were all New Yorkers. “Do you have a place to stay?” Charlie shook his head and the doctor jotted the name of a hotel on a piece of paper. “Try that.”

“What about Sam?”

“I can't tell you much. You know the stakes we were playing for. We reconnected as much as we could. Her neck will be fine. Her spine… well, you knew… she will be a paraplegic. I'm almost sure there was no brain damage, neither from the fall, nor from the pressure before we operated. But we just have to wait now. It was a very long operation.” One could see that much on his face. “We'll just have to wait.”

“How long?”

“We'll know a little more every day. If she makes it until tomorrow, we'll have much better odds.”

Charlie looked at him then, realizing something. “If she… if she lives, how long will she be here? Before we can take her back to New York?”

“Ohh…” The doctor exhaled slowly, staring at the ground as he thought, and then looked back into Charlie's face. “That really is hard to say. I would say though that if she does exceptionally well we could move her in an air ambulance sometime in the next three or four months.”

Three or four months? “And then?” He dared to say the words.

“It really is too soon to even think about all this,” the doctor chided, “but you're looking at at least a year in the hospital, Mr. Peterson. If not more. She's going to have to make a lot of readjustments.” Charlie shook his head slowly, only beginning to comprehend what lay in store for Sam. “But first, let's just get her through tonight.” He left Charlie then, sitting alone in a corner of the waiting room, waiting for the others to arrive from Steamboat Springs.

They got there at three thirty in the morning, found Charlie asleep, hunched over with his head on his chest and snoring softly, and they woke him to hear the news. He told them what he knew, and there was sober silence among the others, and then quietly they left together to find a hotel. When they got there, Charlie sat staring in agony out the window at Denver, and it was only when Henry and his friend came to sit with him, that at last he let it all go, all the pain and the terror and the worry and the guilt and the confusion and the sorrow, and he sobbed for over an hour as Henry held him in his arms. And from that moment on, as they sat with him through the night and brought him solace, they were his friends. It was the darkest night that Charlie could ever remember, but when they called the hospital in the morning, it was Henry who dropped his face in his hands and cried. Samantha was still alive.