Heartbreak Bronco by Terri Farley Page B

jump,” Dallas said. “And then, I expect it just got to be sort of a game.
    â€œIn fact, I remember drivin’ by Potter’s spread and seein’ that pretty blue colt tryin’ it. Made me think he’d make a good ropin’ horse. You know how they skid to a stop in a cloud of dust and set back on their heels against the rope?”
    Sam nodded, considering Jinx’s muscular quarters.
    â€œDid they use him as a cow pony?” she asked.
    â€œAfter a while. First they kept him in a pen, hoping the swelling in his stifles would go down. He tried to charge the fences in the ranch yard, too, and some hand of Potter’s got the puny-brained idea to stand on the other side of the fence and snap a bull-whip in the colt’s face every time he did it.”
    Sam sighed. “So did that work?”
    â€œSure,” Dallas said. “But I pity the fool that takes out a whip around this horse.”
    â€œDo you think he remembers?” Sam asked.
    â€œI’d say that’s the sort of thing a horse don’t forget. Hard to tell, though. Never heard stories about his breakin’, so he must not have taken the saddle and bridle too hard.”
    â€œWhy did they name him Jinx? Do you remember?” Sam asked.
    â€œWell, I don’t know what he was called when he was first added to Potter’s string of saddle horses, but I know one day soon after, Potter was mountin’ up in the rain, and he slipped. He’d just been raising his boot toward the stirrup and his other boot slithered through the mud.”
    Sam shrugged a little. That was nothing that should give the horse the designation Jinx.
    â€œPotter tried to break his fall by stickin’ out his arm, and darned if he didn’t fracture his wrist, instead.” Dallas shrugged. “Claimed he never could rope after that.”
    Sam sighed. Even in modern times, a rider with a rope could solve problems a rancher in a truck couldn’t. He could pull a cow from a river, and move rocks or branches that had fallen in a storm and blocked a road.
    â€œAnd that was just the beginning,” Dallas said. “I can’t remember all of it, but you know how things seem monstrous important once folks start looking for them.”
    â€œThey seem to find what they’re looking for,” Sam said, nodding. She couldn’t help remembering when Rachel Slocum tried to make people at school think Sam had brain damage from her riding accident. Other students had watched her so intently, Sam had started wondering about herself.
    She wished there was a way to tell Jinx she understood.
    â€œAnd then there was this pack of feral dogs harassing Potter’s stock. Those dogs had already downed a calf when they got to the pasture where Jinx lived. They were about to set after the horses, but when the leader of the pack—a big black Chow with a purple tongue, as I heard it—jumped up, he hit a fence rail and flat knocked himself unconscious.”
    â€œBut wouldn’t that be good luck instead of bad?” Sam asked.
    â€œDepends on your point of view,” Dallas said. He seesawed his hand from side to side, and Jinx shied to the end of his reins.
    Sam clucked her tongue quietly and walked toward Jinx with her palm held flat. The gelding raised his head, and though he didn’t sniff for a familiar scent, he kept his side glance fixed on her.
    â€œI guess the last straw was that Potter was riding Jinx on the day he got word a handful of his heifers had some bovine fever, and the entire herd wouldhave to be quarantined. That meant missing the best prices for his beef, and I guess he was looking for someone or something”—Dallas nodded toward Jinx—“to blame for his misfortune.”
    â€œIt didn’t help cure his superstitions, when, just after he sold off Jinx, the offer came to sell his property for a subdivision with six houses per acre.”
    Dallas shook his head at