Two years after being thrown by her horse, Blackie, in a near-fatal accident, Sam returns to her family's ranch and meets a mustang that could be the missing Blackie, or the legendary Phantom, or both.

Terri Farley has always loved horses and is overjoyed that she outgrew her childhood allergy to them. She taught middle school and high school language arts and journalism in inner-city Los Angeles before moving to the cowgirl state of Nevada. Now she rides the range researching the books that have made her an award-winning author and an advocate for the West’s wild places and wildlife—especially wild horses. Through school and library visits, Terri continues to work with young people learning to make their voices heard. She lives in a one-hundred-year-old house with her family, which includes her dog, Willow. In true collie fashion, Willow rescued the youngest member of the Farley family, an orphaned kitten named Tamarack.