FOR ANNA’S FIRST TWO MONTHS ON THE LEONARD ranch, wariness was her constant companion. She had the proper papers to prove Shiloh’s Star belonged to her, so Abe’s doubts in that regard were quickly quashed. But worry that her cousin Luther would find her was driven away less easily. It wasn’t like him to give up. Had she hidden her escape route so well he couldn’t find her? She had a hard time believing it. She’d been lost, wandering without direction, and too desperate to keep moving to try to hide her tracks.
As the days passed, one by one, she began to believe her cousin wouldn’t find her. And then she began to believe she and Shiloh’s Star had found a safe haven. A new home and even a new family. Not that anyone could completely fill Daddy’s and Mama’s shoes.
Nights were the worst times. Bad dreams were all too frequent. Dreams of a soldier standing on their front porch with the news about her father. Dreams of her mother lying so pale on the bed, her breath rattling in her chest. Dreams of Anna’s vile cousin, Luther Poole—a second cousin twice removed, she liked to remind herself—lurking in the hallway, a living, breathing threat. A man who liked to touch, who liked to strike.
But even the nightmares began to fade with the passing of weeks.
Because the ranch was a good piece from the town of Kings Meadow, Violet Leonard—once a schoolteacher—offered to tutor Anna instead of sending her to school by horseback five days a week, especially since winters could be harsh in the mountains. Anna was grateful. She loved to learn, had always been a good student, but the less she was seen outside of the ranch, the better.
In the crisp days of autumn, when Anna wasn’t working on her school lessons, she spent a good deal of time outdoors, helping with the chickens and cows, mending fences, and working with Shiloh’s Star.
“You know your way around a horse,” Abe commented one hazy October afternoon. “Where’d you learn so much so young?”
In a steady rhythm, Anna ran a brush, followed by her free hand, over Star’s back and rump. “My father. Only thing Daddy loved more than horses was Mama and me.” She smiled even though her heart ached at the memory. “That’s what Mama always said to him. And he always said he loved us more, but he understood horses better than any female.”
Abe chuckled. He had a nice laugh.
“Before he went to war, Daddy bought Shiloh’s Star and promised that when he came back, we were going to raise champions by him one day. That was his dream. He worked hard to make it happen. Now it’s up to me.”
“Where’d your horse come from?”
“Texas. His bloodlines trace right back to Shiloh himself.”
Abe leaned his forearms on the top rail of the corral. “Afraid that doesn’t mean anything to me.”
Anna turned to look at him, her eyes wide. How could anyone not know that name? She’d heard about the famous stud since she was a toddler. “Shiloh’s one of the foundation sires of the Quarter Horse breed.”
“Sorry. Never been around fancy horses. You know, with pedigrees and such. The ones we’ve got on the ranch are here to ride and to pull. They work hard, like everybody else on the place. Doesn’t matter if they’re thoroughbreds or mustangs.”
“Maybe you oughta think about raising Quarter Horses. All it would take to get started is a couple of good brood mares, and Star could do the rest.”
Abe’s gaze shifted beyond the corral, looking over the land where cattle grazed. “My grandpa came to this valley back in 1864. The gold rush was raging up in the Boise Basin. All of those miners needed food, and they liked their beef when they could afford it. So he raised cattle to sell to them. Before I was born, my pa managed to triple the size of the original ranch. People knew they could come to the Leonards and get a fair price for beef on the hoof.” He rubbed a hand over his face, as if to wipe away a bad memory. “The Depression was hard on us. I was fourteen—your age—when the crash happened, but I was old enough to notice how the years that followed turned my pa into an old man. Then Grandpa George, his father, died, and not long after, my mother passed too. Pa just gave up. Gave out, more like it.” Abe fell silent for a while, then continued. “By the time he passed away, I was already managing the ranch, married to Vi, and making sure we could hold onto the place. We’d weathered the Depression without losing it or selling off chunks of it. Even in hard times, folks want to eat beef. I reckon the same can’t be said for horses.”
In the months Anna had lived with the Leonards, those were the most words she heard Abe say at any given time. He was a tall, quiet sort, even around his wife. A wife he loved, sure and true. The way Daddy had loved Mama.
Anna swallowed the lump in her throat and went back to brushing Shiloh’s Star. Another time she would talk to Abe again about raising horses. She wasn’t going to give up on her father’s dream, a dream that was now her own, and she couldn’t help believing God had brought her to Kings Meadow to see that dream fulfilled.
Somehow she would make Abe Leonard believe it too.