Whip was too surprised to answer.
“Let me put it this way,” Wolfe said sardonically. “If you know a woman called Shannon, she’s not staying with Willow and Cal anymore.”
“What? Where is she?”
Wolfe took off his hat, smoothed back his straight black hair, and settled the hat firmly into place once more. Whip had the look of a man on a hair trigger. Wolfe suspected that his next words would set his friend off.
“All Caleb said was the tracks went north and he couldn’t leave Willow alone to follow them,” Wolfe said. “Besides, Shannon wasn’t lost. She knew where she was going.”
Whip started swearing in a language none of the others had ever heard. But they knew it was cursing just the same. Whip didn’t have the look of a man strewing blessings.
He ran toward the corral, cursing fit to burn stone at every step.
“Stop by our place on the way,” Wolfe called out. “Jessi will give you a fresh horse to use along with your own.”
Whip jammed the rifle into the saddle scabbard and grabbed his bridle and saddle from the corral rail. He walked swiftly toward the hobbled horses that were a hundred feet away, grazing at the river’s edge.
Reno glanced at Wolfe. “Are you coming with us?”
“Do you need another gun?” Wolfe asked bluntly.
“Doubt it.”
“Then I’ll stay with Jessi.” Wolfe’s smile flashed, changing the predatory lines of his face to something much gentler. “She started losing her breakfast a week ago.”
Reno’s face lit up with an answering smile. “Congratulations! Other than losing her breakfast, how is Jessi taking it?”
“Just fine. Seeing Ethan born took away most of Jessi’s fears about childbirth. My biggest problem is keeping her from dancing around so much with joy that she wears herself out.”
Whip swung up onto Sugarfoot and cantered toward the house.
“Where should I meet up with you?” Reno asked.
“Avalanche Creek,” Whip said curtly.
“Which fork?”
“East!”
With that, Whip set his heels in the big gelding and headed out at a dead run.
16
SHANNON stood at the door to Cherokee’s tiny cabin. Prettyface was by her side, looking almost as healthy as before the fight. Above Shannon the wild Colorado sky seethed with clouds in every color from pearl to pewter to a strangely radiant midnight. A freshening wind swept over peaks and forests alike, making narrow stone ravines sing eerily and trees shiver and bow.
“Nice-looking mule,” Cherokee said from the doorway.
Shannon glanced back at the old woman. She was leaning on the cane she had carved to ease the burden on her ankle. Shannon suspected that the cane might become a permanent part of Cherokee’s life. The thought made Shannon frown. It was Cherokee’s stalking skills that had kept both of them alive the past winter, when snow had come early and stayed late.
“Last time I saw a mule like that was nigh onto two years ago,” Cherokee said, “when I dusted a Culpepper’s hat with two bullets from more than a thousand yards.”
“They thought it was Silent John doing the shooting.”
“Close enough. I used his long gun. Shoots true as a dying man’s prayer. I was grateful. No need to waste a fine mule with bad shooting.”
Shannon looked at the long-legged mule that was tied to a tree, waiting patiently while she visited with Cherokee.
“After the ride from the Black ranch, Razorback was too tired to go another foot,” Shannon said. “I don’t like riding a dead man’s mule, but there wasn’t much choice. Crowbait isn’t broken to the saddle.”
“Hell, gal, you been riding a dead man’s mule for years. Time you face up to it and get on with your life.”
Shannon winced. “Now that the Culpeppers are gone, I suppose there’s no real harm in folks knowing. Murphy is a weasel, but I can handle him.”
“Sic Prettyface on that old boy. Bet Murphy’s manners perk up something joyful.”
Smiling, fondling the dog’s big ears, Shannon glanced again at the wild sky. The wind rushed over her face, fresh and cold as ice water.
“I better ride soon,” Shannon said. “It smells like snow.”
“Won’t be the first time she snowed in July,” Cherokee agreed.
“A tracking snow would be a godsend.”
Cherokee straightened, shifting her weight gingerly. Though she had wrapped her foot and applied every poultice she knew, her ankle was being stubborn about healing.
“Going hunting?” Cherokee asked.
“Sure am,” Shannon said with a cheerfulness that went no farther than her smile.
The old woman grunted, turned, and limped back into the cabin. When she returned, she had a box of shotgun shells grasped in her gnarled fingers. She held out the box to Shannon.
“Go on, take ’em,” Cherokee said impatiently. “I can’t hunt for a bit and there’s no sense in letting a good tracking snow go to waste. This way you won’t have to get so close to the critter you could skin it with a knife same as shooting it.”
“But I already owe you for doctoring Prettyface.”
“Oh, horseshit. It’s been share and share alike with us for nigh onto three years, and it was the same with Silent John and me for ten years before that. Take them shells and use as many as you need to bring back venison for us to eat.”
“But—”
“Now don’t go making me mad, gal. Prettyface wasn’t no problem at all. Skull like granite and a body to match. He healed hisself without no help from me. Didn’t you, you ornery mongrel?”
Prettyface looked at Cherokee, waved his tail, and turned back to Shannon. The bullet wounds on his body had shrunk to little more than healing scabs. It was the blood that had made the wounds look so awful at the time.
As for Prettyface’s skull, Cherokee was right. Solid stone from ear to ear. Other than a furrow in the thick fur on the dog’s head, there was little to show of the bullet that would have killed a less hardy and hard-skulled animal, or one not lucky enough to be cared for by a woman skilled with herbs.
“Thank you for taking such good care of Prettyface,” Shannon said, rubbing the dog’s muzzle gently. “He’s all the family I have, except for you.”
Cherokee’s shrewd brown glance saw in Shannon’s face everything that she had left unsaid, the dream of loving and belonging that had been stillborn in a yondering man’s eyes.
“Well,” Cherokee said, “I guess you won’t be needing this after all, seeing as how you’re alone again.”
As Cherokee spoke, she pulled a stoppered jar from her jacket pocket. A small bag hung from the neck of the jar by a rawhide thong.
“What’s that?” Shannon asked, curious.
“Oil of juniper and spearmint, mostly. The bag holds bits of dried sponge.”
“I’ll bet the oil smells wonderful. Why won’t I be needing it?”
“Because Whip’s a double-damned fool, that’s why. Or did he become your man and then walk out on you?”
Shannon’s face went pink and then very pale.
“Whip isn’t anyone’s man but his own,” Shannon said through her teeth. “But, yes, he’s gone.”
“Is there any chance you’re breeding?” Cherokee asked bluntly.
Shannon drew her breath in swiftly. “No.”
“You dead sure?”
“Yes.”
The old woman sighed and eased weight off her injured ankle.
“Well, I won’t need to worry about bringing on your monthly bleeding then,” Cherokee said, “any more than you’ll need that bottle of oils and such to keep from getting a babe that won’t have no pa to speak of.”
“Is that what you give Clementine and—”
“No,” Cherokee said, her voice curt. “Be a waste of time. If the oil’s gonna get the job done, you got to apply it careful like and at the right time. But when them poor gals is working, they’re drunk as skunks.”
Shannon tho
ught of the Culpeppers and other men like them and shuddered.
“I don’t know how they survive it,” Shannon said.
“Most of them don’t,” Cherokee said. “Not for long, anyways.”
The wind howled around the tiny cabin, foretelling the storm to come.
“I’d better go,” Shannon said.
She turned around—and saw a big man riding toward her out of the wild afternoon.
“Whip.”
At Shannon’s soft cry, Cherokee turned, saw the man riding up, and laughed out loud in triumph. Hurriedly she stuffed shotgun shells into one of Shannon’s jacket pockets and the bottle of contraceptive oil and sponges into another.
Shannon didn’t even notice. The lightning stroke of joy she felt on seeing Whip quickly turned to dismay. If he was happy to see her at all, it wasn’t reflected in his face. He looked angry enough to eat lead and spit bullets.
“What are you doing here?” Shannon asked.
“What the hell do you think I’m doing?” Whip asked bitterly, reining in just short of Shannon’s toes. “I’m chasing a girl who has no better sense than to leave a fine home and come back to a miserable shack where she’ll like as not starve to death this winter, if she doesn’t freeze first!”
“You left out the part where a grizzly eats her,” Cherokee said dryly. “But since she’ll be froze to death first, it don’t make no never mind, do it?”
“That’s not true,” Shannon retorted. “I’ve lived alone here for—”
“Howdy, Whip,” Cherokee called cheerfully, overwhelming Shannon’s words. “Nice horse you got. Look of speed about him.”
Whip didn’t even look away from Shannon when he spoke. He did, however, scratch the ears of the hound that had put his front paws on Whip’s thigh and was panting happily up into his face.
“I left Sugarfoot to graze around the damned hovel Shannon calls home,” Whip said. “This is one of Wolfe Lonetree’s horses.”
“Thought so. Get down and set awhile.”
“Thank you, no,” Whip said, still not looking away from Shannon. “Likely it will be snowing before we get back to Silent John’s leaky old shack.”
“It’s not leaky,” Shannon retorted.
“Only because I shoved half the mountainside into the cracks,” Whip shot back.
Cherokee snickered. “Well, children, I’ll leave you to it. My bones ain’t up to the chill.”
With that, Cherokee backed away and shut the cabin door against the cold, questing wind.
“Can Prettyface make it to your shack?” Whip asked.
“You’re the man with all the answers, what do you think?” Shannon retorted.
“I think you’re a damned fool.”
“How quaint. Cherokee thinks the same of you. So do I. You’ve had a long ride for nothing, Whip Moran.” Shannon’s head came up, giving Whip a clear view of her eyes. “I’m not going back to the Black ranch.”
Whip hissed a foreign word between his teeth. Not until he saw the anger in Shannon’s eyes did he admit how much he had wanted to see joy because he was back.
Cherokee is right. I’m a damned fool.
“Get on the mule,” Whip said curtly.
Shannon spun on her heel and stalked toward the mule she had named Cully. She mounted swiftly, unaware of her own grace.
Whip was aware of it. Just seeing her walk raised undiluted hell with his body.
Deliberately Whip looked away.
“If Prettyface starts limping, holler,” Whip said curtly. “He can ride across my saddle. Moccasin won’t mind. Wolfe breaks his horses to take anything in their stride.”
Shannon reined Cully in behind Whip’s horse. It was a lean, longmuscled chestnut with the look of a hard ride just behind it.
The man looked the same.
By the time they reached the cabin, Shannon was stiff from the cold wind and the emotions churning behind her expressionless face. She dismounted, stumbled, and reached out wildly.
Whip grabbed her. Though he was wearing gloves and Shannon was wearing heavy clothes, he swore he could feel her heat and sweetness radiating up to him, setting him on fire. Her eyelashes trembled, then opened fully, revealing eyes whose hunger and confusion matched his own.
But there was no confusion about one thing. Shannon was his. All Whip had to do was take her.
With a vicious word, Whip set Shannon on her feet and backed away even as she reached for him.
“No,” he said coldly. “Don’t touch me.”
Stunned, she froze in place, her hands held out to him, the love she felt for him so clear in her that Whip couldn’t bear looking at her. Nor could he force himself to stop.
“Whip?”
“I mean it,” Whip said fiercely. “Don’t touch me. I came here to dig gold, not to dig a deeper hole with you. When Reno and I find enough gold to see you through the winter, I’m gone. Do you hear me, Shannon? I’m gone! You can’t hold me with your body. Don’t even try.”
Waves of hurt and humiliation swept through Shannon, making her cheeks alternately pale and flushed.
“Yes,” Shannon whispered through trembling lips. “I hear you, Whip. You won’t have to say it again. Ever. I’ll hear you pushing me away until the day I die.”
Whip closed his eyes against the humiliation he saw in Shannon’s eyes, her face, her whole body. He hadn’t meant to hurt her like that. He had just felt a cage door closing and had lashed out without thinking about the cost.
“Shannon,” he whispered in agony. “Shannon.”
There was no answer.
Whip opened his eyes. He was alone with the cold wind.
He told himself that it was better this way, for Shannon and for himself, better to hurt now than to spend a lifetime regretting a choice made because his blood was running hot and she didn’t have enough sense to say no.
It’s better this way.
It has to be.
Nothing else would be worth the pain I saw in her eyes.
SHANNON awoke at the first unearthly notes of the panpipes. She had never heard the tune before, but she knew it was a lamentation. Grief resonated in the keening, minor key harmonies and shivering, wailing echoes, as though a man was breathing in pain and exhaling sorrow.
The haunting music closed Shannon’s throat and filled her eyes with tears. As remote and desolate as moonrise in hell, the music mourned for all that was untouchable, unspeakable, irrevocable.
“Damn you, Whip Moran,” she whispered to the darkness. “What right have you to mourn? It was your choice, not mine.”
There was no answer but a soulful cry of loss and damnation breathed into the night.
It was a long time before Shannon slept again, and she wept even in her sleep.
When Shannon awoke again it was still dark. There was nothing to hear but the peculiar hush of a fresh snowfall mantling the land in silence. Shivering, she went to the badly fitted shutters and peered out.
Beneath a clear sky and a waning moon, snow lay everywhere, soft and chill and moist. Too thin to survive the coming day, the layer of snow waited for its inevitable end in the rising heat of the sun.
But until that came, every twig, every leaf, everything touching the snow would leave a clear mark. Especially the hooves of deer.
Hurriedly Shannon dressed, forcing herself to think only of the coming hunt. Thinking about yesterday would only make her hands shake and her stomach clench. If she was to have any chance at all of bringing down a deer, she would have to have steady hands and nerves.
Don’t think about Whip. He’s gone whether he’s here or on the other side of the world.
He doesn’t want me. He couldn’t have made it any plainer if he had carved it on me with that bullwhip of his.
The unexpected weight of her jacket made Shannon check its pockets. The first thing she found was the shotgun shells. The second was the jar and its accompanying bag.
With a grimace of remembered humiliation, Shannon shoved the jar onto a cupboa
rd shelf. The shotgun shells she kept, for she would have a use for them. Blindly, forcing herself not to think of anything but what must be done, Shannon shrugged into the jacket, grateful for its warmth. She felt cold all the way to her soul.
Shivering, she lifted down the shotgun from its pegs, checked it, and found it clean and dry and ready to fire. She grabbed a handful of jerked venison, drank a cupful of cold water from the bucket, and eased out of the cabin into the dense, featureless darkness that preceded dawn.
Breathing softly, Shannon stood just beyond the door and waited to see if Prettyface was going to object to being left alone. As much as she would appreciate his company, he still wasn’t fully recovered. He tired too quickly and was a bit stiff in his hindquarters where he had been shot. Another week would see the dog entirely healed, but she couldn’t wait that long to go hunting. A tracking snow such as this one was too good to pass up.
Prettyface whined at the door and began scratching to get outside.
“No,” Shannon whispered.
Quickly she moved to the side of the house, where the wind couldn’t carry her scent inside.
Prettyface’s whining increased in volume and intensity. So did the scratching sounds.
Shannon knew Prettyface well enough to predict what would happen next. He would start to howl. That would awaken Whip, wherever his campsite was, and he would come investigating.
The thought of having to face Whip again made Shannon’s skin clammy and her stomach churn.
Even if she could face Whip, he would pitch a fit about her taking off to hunt by herself. Yet that was exactly what she had to do. She had to hunt and hunt successfully, without depending on Cherokee. If Shannon couldn’t manage that, she faced death in the coming winter or a lifetime of taking care of other people’s homes, other people’s children, other people’s lives.
And never having her own.
Shannon wasn’t certain which was worse, dying or never having lived in the first place.
“Quiet.”
The low command stilled Prettyface for a few moments. Then he began a high whimpering that would soon escalate into true howling.
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