Elizabeth Lowell

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Ty stood and praised the stallion for a long time, until at last the horse let wariness slide away and weariness claim his big body. With a huge sigh, Lucifer allowed his head to drop until it all but rested against Ty’s chest. Standing three-legged, favoring his injured hip, the stallion took no more notice of the man than if he had been a foal.

  Slowly Ty bent until he could release the hobbles on Lucifer’s front legs. The stallion’s shoulder muscles flinched and rippled as though shaking off flies, but that was all that he did when he realized he was free.

  “That’s real good, son,” Ty murmured, stroking the stallion’s black hide. “Now let’s see if you’re going to try to kill me the first time I tug on that hackamore.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  As Ty slowly tightened the lead rope, Janna watched with breath held and her hands so tightly clenched around the spyglass that her fingers ached.

  “Be good, Lucifer,” she prayed. “Don’t go crazy and hurt Ty when that hackamore gets tight.”

  The horse’s head came up sharply when the hackamore began to exert pressure behind his ears and across his upper neck. He snorted and shook his head, but the gradually increasing pressure didn’t diminish. Trembling, sweating nervously, ears swiveling forward and then away from the man’s gentle voice, the stallion tried to understand what was happening, how to meet the new threat. When he attempted to back away from the pressure, it got sharply worse. When he stood still, it got slowly worse.

  But when he limped forward, the pressure lifted.

  “That’s it,” Ty murmured, slacking off on the lead rope immediately. He petted Lucifer, praising the horse with voice and hands. “Let’s try a few more steps, son. We’ve got a long way to go before we’re safe.”

  It didn’t take Lucifer more than a few minutes to understand that a pressure urging him forward meant walk and a pressure across the bridge of his nose meant stop.

  “You’re not an outlaw at all, are you?” Ty asked softly, stroking the horse’s powerful, sweaty neck. “Men have chased you, but thank God no man ever had a chance to ruin you with rough handling.”

  Lucifer flicked his ears as he followed the calm sounds of Ty’s voice while the man backed up, paying out lead rope as he went.

  “All right, son. It’s time to get you out of this hole.” Slowly he tightened the lead rope. “Come on. That’s it…that’s it. One step at a time, that’s all.” His mouth flattened as he saw the stallion’s painful progress. “That hip sure is sore, isn’t it?” he said in a low voice. “Well, son, it’s going to get worse before it gets better, I’m afraid. But you’ll live, God willing.”

  Ty coaxed the limping stallion along the bottom of the ravine until they came to a place he had spotted from the ridge above, where the sides of the gully were less steep. He climbed halfway out, turned and began applying a steady pressure on the lead rope once more.

  “Up you go. It will be easier to walk once you’re on sort of level land again. Come on...come on...don’t go all mulish on me now, son. It’s not as steep as it looks.”

  Lucifer disliked the idea of climbing the gully, but he disliked the slowly tightening vise of the hackamore even more. Suddenly he lunged forward, taking the side of the ravine in a hurtling rush. Ty leaped aside just in time to avoid being trampled and scrambled up the slope after the stallion. Once on top, Lucifer came to a stop and stood three-legged, trembling from nervousness and pain.

  Janna left her lookout place on the ridge and ran down to meet Ty, slowing to a walk so as not to frighten Lucifer.

  “No one in sight,” she said quietly.

  “All right.” Ty lifted his hat, wiped his forehead and resettled the hat with a hard tug. “How’s your arm?”

  Surprised that he had noticed, she hesitated and then shrugged. “Better than Lucifer’s haunch.”

  “Hand over your pack.”

  She tried not to wince as he helped her out of the rawhide straps, but she couldn’t conceal her left arm’s growing soreness. With gentle fingertips he traced the dark bruise where one of Lucifer’s hooves had struck a glancing blow.

  “Any numbness?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “All your fingers work?”

  Silently she wiggled each of them in turn.

  “Can you scout for us?” he asked, releasing her arm, caressing her all the way to her fingertips.

  Suddenly breathless, she nodded.

  “Cat got your tongue?”

  She smiled and stuck her tongue out at Ty.

  “Is that a promise?” he drawled. He smiled and touched her lips with his fingertip. “Stick it out again, sugar.”

  “I don’t think—”

  That was as far as she got before he bent and took what she had promised to him a moment before. Surprise stiffened her for an instant before she sighed and invited him into the softness and warmth of her mouth. Almost shyly she touched his tongue with her own, retreated, then returned to touch fleetingly again and again, until there was no more retreat, just two mouths in a seething, seamless mating.

  When Ty finally lifted his head he was breathing too hard, but he was smiling.

  “It occurred to me when that stallion was doing his best to trample me into the dirt,” he said, “that a man shouldn’t die without tasting a woman on his lips. You taste good, like Christmas and Thanksgiving and my birthday all rolled into one. And if you don’t turn around and get busy scouting, I’m going to be walking bent over double and in damn near as much pain as Lucifer.”

  She smiled up at him, caught between shyness and pleasure. His eyelids lowered and desire changed his expression, making it both harder and more sensual. For an instant she thought that he was going to kiss her again, and she longed for it.

  Then he reached out, turned her around and swatted her lightly on the rear. She would have said something about the trail she was going to take to the east, but the swat had ended with Ty’s hand tracing the curve of her buttocks with loving care. Suddenly she found herself breathless and aching.

  “I’ll head east and a little bit south unless you come and tell me otherwise,” he said. Quickly he removed a handful of bullets from his pistol belt. “Take these.”

  The bullets felt smooth, cool, and heavy in her s hand. She put them in her pocket and prayed she wouldn’t need them. While she could shoot a pistol, she couldn’t hit much at any range greater than a hundred feet. If she was forced to use the weapon at all, its greatest benefit would probably be as a warning to Ty that he had better take cover.

  And he would need that warning.

  Unable to hide his tracks, forced by Lucifer’s injury to go slowly and to take the easiest—and therefore most open—way available, Ty would be a sitting duck in a pond surrounded by hunters. Both he and Janna knew it.

  She set off to the southeast at a steady trot. Her knee-high moccasins made almost no sound over pine needles and grasses, and she left few marks of her passage. She ran without pausing except to listen for any wind-carried conversations or for the sound of distant gunfire. She heard nothing but the normal calling of birds, the scolding of squirrels, and the restless murmuring of the wind as it tried to herd together enough clouds for a storm.

  Behind her, Ty talked to the black stallion, praising him as he limped over the land. For his part, Lucifer moved as quickly as he could. A lifetime of running from man had given the stallion a relentless wariness that worked to Ty’s benefit. The horse was as intent upon reaching a safe place as the man was.

  And like Ty, the stallion knew instinctively that safety wasn’t to be had in the wide-open spaces of the plateau. Space was useful only if you could outrun your enemies. At the moment, Lucifer couldn’t outrun anything that was worth fleeing from in the first place.

  Initially Ty walked ahead of Lucifer, encouraging him with a steady pressure on the hackamore. After the first hour, the horse no longer needed to be reminded that he was supposed to keep walking. When the man moved, so did the horse. When T
y stood, Lucifer stood. When Ty walked, Lucifer walked with his head even with Ty’s left shoulder. The hackamore’s lead rope remained slack.

  “You’re some kind of special,” he said, talking to Lucifer as they walked. “You’re as gentle as a lady’s hack. Makes me wonder if maybe you weren’t paddock raised and then got free somehow. Of course, it simply could be that we both want the same thing right now—a safe place to hide. You might be a lot harder to get along with if you wanted one thing and I wanted another.”

  Lucifer’s only answer was a brisk swish of his long black tail as he drove off flies attracted to his wound. Ty checked the gash, saw that it was bleeding again and knew that nothing could be done for it.

  “Better a wound that bleeds than one that festers,” he reminded himself, drawing on his battlefield experience. “As long as it doesn’t bleed too much.”

  He kept an eye on the stallion’s injury. After a few miles it became apparent that the bleeding was more of a steady oozing than a serious flow.

  Janna, using her spyglass, had reassured herself on the same subject. Lucifer was bleeding, but it wasn’t a problem yet. Despite his limp, he was moving at a good walking pace. With luck they would reach the edge of the plateau before dark. Otherwise they would have to find a place to sleep, because nothing short of the most extreme emergency would force her to take on the east trail in full darkness while leading an unbroken, injured mustang.

  Ignoring the steady throbbing of her arm, she trotted across the plateau’s wild surface, scouting both for enemies and for the easiest, quickest way to reach the trail down the east face. She used what cover she could find but didn’t waste time trying to be invisible. It was more important that Lucifer and Ty reach the east edge of the plateau before dark than that she leave no trail.

  As the day wore on, she ranged farther and farther ahead, checking on Ty and Lucifer less and less often. They had agreed that if she didn’t check back before Ty reached the east rim, he would take Lucifer down the trail and keep on going toward the keyhole canyon. He was reluctant to stop for a rest, much less for a whole night, because he knew that Lucifer would stiffen up badly once he stopped moving.

  By the time Janna reached the last, long fold of land that lay between her and the eastern edge of the plateau, it was late afternoon. She climbed the long ridge at a diagonal, heading for two tall pines. From the top she knew she would be able to see out across several hundred square miles of plateau, including the eastern edge and a bit of the low country beyond. She hoped that she would see only the usual things—pines, grass, sky, rivers of black rock spilling down ragged slopes, wild horses grazing, perhaps even an antelope or two. What she hoped not to see was any sign of man.

  Just below the crest, she dropped to her stomach and wormed her way up until she could see over without giving away her own presence to anyone who might be on the other side. The first thing she saw was a hawk patrolling just below the ridge top. The second thing she saw was Zebra grazing with a scattering of Lucifer’s mares.

  Immediately she put her hands to her mouth. A hawk’s wild cry floated from her lips. Zebra’s head came up, her ears pricked, and her nostrils flared. A soaring hawk cried in fierce answer to Janna’s call, but Zebra didn’t even turn her head toward the bird. Janna’s high, keening cry came again. The mare spun and cantered eagerly toward the ridge, whinnying her welcome.

  “Hello, girl,” Janna said, standing up, as pleased as the mare was. “Did you know that you’re the answer to a prayer? Now I’ll be able to cover three times the ground and not have to worry about tracks.”

  Zebra nickered and whuffled and pushed her head against Janna’s body, nearly knocking her off her feet.

  “I hope you’re as eager for a run as you look, because you’re going to get one. Hold still, girl. My arm is as stiff as an old man’s knees.”

  Janna’s mount wasn’t very elegant, but she managed to finish right side up on the mare, which was all that counted.

  “Come on, girl, let’s check on your lord and master.”

  Eagerly Zebra responded to the pressure of Janna’s heels. Cantering swiftly, the horse ate up the distance. Janna guided the horse in a long, looping curve, wanting to check more of the land on the way back to Ty. The mare sped quickly through the open country, going from tree shadow to full sun and back again, a kaleidoscope of light and darkness flowing over horse and rider, and always the earth flying beneath the mare’s hooves.

  Janna was only a few minutes away from where she had left Ty when she saw the renegades.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Zebra spun aside and leaped into a full gallop in the same motion. Janna didn’t try to slow or turn the horse back toward the place where Ty was. She simply grabbed a double handful of flying black mane and bent over the mare’s neck, urging her on to greater speed. Behind her the Indians shouted and fired a few shots as they gave chase.

  Janna had ridden Zebra at a gallop before, but nothing like this frantic pace. The mare’s speed would have been frightening if it hadn’t been for the fact that she was fleeing an even greater danger. As it was, Janna flattened down against Zebra’s sleek, driving body, urging greater speed and trying to make herself as light a burden as possible.

  Zebra stretched out her neck and ran as though fleeing hell. The force of the wind raking over Janna’s eyes made tears stream down her face. Her hat was ripped from her head. One of the chin strings snapped and the hat sailed away. Soon her braids had unraveled and her long hair was streaming out behind her like darkly burning, wind-whipped flames.

  The sudden appearance of her distinctive hair cooled the urgency of the chase for the Indians. There was little sport and even less glory or booty in capturing a homeless girl. There were also the uncomfortable whispers about the true nature of that girl.

  Bruja. Witch. Shadow of Flame.

  That was what she looked like as she bent over the wild horse she rode with neither bridle nor saddle, her body all but lost in the flying mane and her own unbound hair streaming behind her in the wind like a warning flag.

  And surely only a spirit horse ridden by a spirit woman could be so fleet.

  Janna didn’t try to guide Zebra, for the mare knew the plateau’s twists and turns and traps as well as anything alive. All that Janna cared about was that the horse was racing away from the eastern trail and therefore away from Ty and the injured stallion. She made no attempt to use the revolver that was digging into her body as she rode the wildly galloping horse. Drawing the weapon would have been difficult enough. Shooting accurately would have been impossible.

  With every passing minute it became more obvious that Zebra was outrunning the renegades. Well fed, well rested, carrying only Janna’s insignificant weight, Zebra not only had more speed than the renegades’ horses, she had more stamina, as well. After a few miles the renegades became certain that they were spending their horses in a losing cause. First two warriors dropped out of the chase, then a third, then a fourth, until finally only one man still pursued the bright banner of Janna’s hair. Finally he, too, gave up and stopped whipping his laboring horse.

  Zebra knew before Janna did that the chase was over. Even so, the mare kept galloping for a time, putting more distance between herself and her pursuers. Janna sensed the difference in Zebra’s pace and knew that the immediate danger had passed. Cautiously she shifted her grip on the mane, wiped her eyes and looked over her shoulder. There was nothing behind her but Zebra’s tracks across an empty land.

  When Zebra breasted a ridge, Janna urged the mare into the cover of some trees and then checked her trail very carefully, using the spyglass. The renegades weren’t anywhere to be seen. What she could see of the land ahead of her looked equally empty.

  For a few minutes she considered the various ways and means of hiding Zebra’s tracks in order to confuse any followers. Every way she thought of, including dismounting and letting the mare go free once more, would make it impossible for Janna to get to the east rim of the pla
teau before dark. She would have to keep Zebra with her and count on the mare’s speed to thwart any more pursuit.

  “All right, girl. Let’s go back and see if Ty and Lucifer are all right.”

  At a touch from her rider, the mustang turned and began cantering at an angle to her old trail. Though Janna watched warily, she saw no sign that any human had been along recently. Wild horses grazed undisturbed until Zebra appeared, and then the horses spun and raced away. Janna urged Zebra to detour into the three groups of horses she found, mixing the mare’s tracks with those of her mustang kin, making it all but impossible for anyone to follow Janna from that point on.

  By the time Janna spotted Ty and Lucifer, it was midafternoon and she was only a mile from the eastern trail. Clouds that had been frail and white earlier in the day had matured into towering, seething billows, which were creamy on their curving tops and blue-black on their flat bottoms. The Fire Mountains were already hidden beneath dense clouds. Distant thunder rumbled down from the invisible peaks.

  Soon the plateau would be engulfed by sound and fury and tiny, icy hammer blows of rain. Lightning would strike the plateau’s promontories, and lone trees would run the risk of being transformed into torches.

  It would be no different for a man caught in the open on the exposed, eastern face of the plateau. If they hoped to get down the east trail today, they would have to move quickly.

  As though sensing her rider’s urgency, Zebra cantered to the edge of the plateau. There, wind and rain had unraveled the land into countless crevices, gullies, ravines, and canyons. There, at the head of an insignificant ravine, began the sole path down the plateau’s rugged east face.