What he didn’t say was that if they rode down out of the mountains, they wouldn’t be far from Pueblo. Toward safety. At least for him. Innes, however, had been adamant that Winter Fawn would not be safe there.
Besides, he still had to get to the ranch. From Pueblo, he would still have to take the Taos Trail and ride right past the Arapaho camp. Or, he could head west out of Pueblo up Hardscrabble creek and over the Wet Mountains into Wet Mountain Valley. The eastern edge of Ute country.
“And west,” Winter Fawn said, “means higher up into the mountains, toward the snow.”
“With the possibility of more snow in the air,” Carson added. “Any way we look at it, we need to get over the pass.”
They mounted up and headed north. Not as familiar with the Wets as he’d like to be, he estimated that Hardscrabble Creek was just over five miles away. As the crow flies. Unfortunately, they could not travel like crows. They had the land to deal with, and the land enjoyed throwing obstacles in their path.
Carson’s concern over the weather grew with every step they took. The temperature dropped, the sky lowered. The wind picked up. He had to get off the side of the mountain, or they were likely to be blown off.
Later in the afternoon he found a wide, shallow stream with banks no more than a foot high. He headed upstream, which led them in a northwesterly direction. More or less.
Gradually the wide banks rose and the stream itself narrowed and cut deeper into the rocky earth, leaving an area of about a twenty yards of scattered aspen and pines on either side before reaching the tall banks. The banks themselves grew steeper and higher until they angled several hundred feet straight up from their base.
There was the chance that the stream would end in a waterfall that tumbled down from rocky cliffs above. A dead end for someone on horseback. But Carson noticed deer tracks heading their same direction, and deer weren’t likely to get themselves trapped in a dead end canyon.
Of course, the horse and mule couldn’t necessarily follow where a deer might go, but the red and gray streaks in the canyon walls were starting to look familiar. If this was the same canyon he had traveled before, he would find the bear-shaped rocks at the point where he would be forced up.
But if he took the side canyon that fed into this one from the north, he would end up in a wide grassy meadow, and maybe reach the pass before dark.
Suddenly the dirt and rock in the embankment to their left exploded. A jaybird squawked and took flight. The sound of a rifle shot echoed between the rock walls.
Winter Fawn sucked in a sharp breath. Her arms, around his waist, tightened.
Carson didn’t take the time to look around. He knew the shot had come from atop the right bank. From the Arapahos. So much for them not shooting at Winter Fawn, he thought with disgust.
He knew there was no way for the Arapahos to get down to them in the immediate area, but as soon as a way presented itself, they would take it, and he would be dead, and maybe Winter Fawn along with him.
Unless, of course, the warrior’s improved their aim. In which case he and Winter Fawn might very well be dead that much sooner.
All of this whipped through Carson’s mind in the same instant that he dug his heels into the horse and shouted. The horse bolted forward, the mule right on its heels.
Shaken to realize that the Dogmen, including her own uncle, would risk hitting her with a bullet, Winter Fawn hugged Carson’s back and held on tight.
Crooked Oak and Two Feathers were shaken as well, and furious at Talks Loud for firing.
Crooked Oak swung out with his own rifle and knocked Talks Loud’s weapon from his hands. “You dare!” he cried. “You dare to risk hitting Winter Fawn!”
“What is she but a girl?” Flexing his fingers, Talks Loud spat on the ground as the white man rode out of range. “I ride for revenge. I ride to kill the white man.”
Two Feathers nudged his horse up to Talks Loud’s other side. “You harm my niece, it is I who will ride for revenge, against you!”
Two Feathers might have lunged for Talks Loud’s throat then and there, so livid was he, so shaken that Winter Fawn had nearly been shot, but the sky chose that moment to open up. Tiny pellets of ice, each one as sharp as the finely honed point of a knife, stung and sliced exposed skin. Before the warriors could decide whether to brave the sleet and follow the canyon rim to keep their prey in sight, or make a dash for the cover of trees nearby, the sleet turned to hail.
Round balls of ice the size of peas pounded down on them, bruising skin, bouncing on the ground, making the horses dance in pain. The six riders raced for the cover of the thick pine branches of the forest.
Down in the canyon, Carson and Winter Fawn sought the only close cover available, the scant shelter of a small stand of aspen. As Carson urged the horse toward the dubious cover, he swore. Two days ago Winter Fawn had taken an arrow meant for him. A few moments ago she had nearly taken a bullet meant for him. Now she was shielding his back from the hail and taking that. She was even, damn her, covering his head with her own hands.
How many times was the woman going to suffer on his account? He should have been carrying her before him on the saddle. It wasn’t the easiest or most comfortable way for two adults to share a horse, but Winter Fawn was still weak from her wound. If he had carried her, he could be shielding her now, rather than the other way around.
The aspens couldn’t have been more than seventy-five yards ahead when he’d started toward them, but it seemed to take forever to get there. Hail pounded them like rocks from a giant, angry hand above, bruising, slicing. Carson didn’t slow the horse until they were beneath the tree limbs.
The branches weren’t thick enough to shield them more than partially and the leaves had only just begun to unfurl from the fat buds. Hailstones, some the size of the playing marbles he’d had as a boy, tore through the leaves and buds, stripping them from the branches, littering the ground with bits of green among the white balls of ice piling up.
Quickly Carson twisted in the saddle and pulled Winter Fawn and her buffalo robe onto his lap.
“Wait,” she cried. She struggled out of the buffalo robe and, holding on to one corner, threw it over his shoulder. “Pull it up over your head. It will help.”
She was shivering in his arms—from being shot at and pounded by hail—yet she sought to protect him. Swearing again, Carson pulled the thick robe around his shoulders and up over his head, then bent forward and shielded her from the onslaught with his body and the fur.
Beneath them the horse flinched and shuffled each time a bruising ice ball stung through his thick hide. Beside them the mule did the same.
Carson took the time to peer out of his hand-held tent toward the far side of the canyon. There was so much hail that it obscured his vision. He could no longer see the rim clearly, but surely the warriors had sought shelter beneath the pines that grew back some distance from the rim.
“Do you see them?” Winter Fawn asked, her breath catching.
“No. I’m sure they’re under cover in the trees.”
She looked up at him, her eyes wide, her brow furrowed. “They shot at us.”
Carson met her gaze and read the shock in her eyes. “They shot at me.”
She looked away and whispered, “But they dinna care that I might hae been hit.”
The burr in her voice was thicker than ever. There was nothing Carson could say. The evidence had exploded right beside them when the bullet struck the rocky ground. The shot had come from slightly behind them. She could easily have been hit.
The hail pounded down, shredding buds, ripping small branches from trees, sending geysers of water shooting up out of the stream. It bounced on the ground and covered it in a thick layer of white in no time. Then, about ten minutes after it started, it stopped. Completely. All at once.
“Damn,” Carson muttered, silently cataloging dozens of new bruises as he lowered the buffalo robe. “Does this sort of thing happen often around here?”
Winter Fawn’s chuckle sounded strained. “Now and then.”
“Damn,” he said again. “Oh, damn, honey, look at your hands.” The backs of her hands were covered in round red spots. “You shouldn’t have tried to protect my head.” The red spots would be turning blue by tomorrow. Anger surged through him at her newest injuries on his behalf. “Don’t ever do anything like that again. If anything, you should have been protecting your own head.”
“My head disnae hae a big gash in the back of it,” she said tartly.
“No, now it’s just got bruises, along with your hands, because you were too busy protecting me.” He took her hands and lifted them gently to his lips. “I’m not ungrateful.” He brushed his lips across the red spots. “I just wish you hadn’t been hurt—again—because of me.”
At the brush of his lips across the backs of her cold hands, Winter Fawn’s breath halted. Her heart raced. Heat spiraled through her. Never had she felt anything so tender, so caring, as his kisses on her hands. She had the strongest urge to reciprocate, to press her lips to his big strong hands. To taste his flesh.
Would his heart pound like thundering hooves in his chest, the way hers was?
He lowered her hands to her lap and urged the horse back out into the open as though nothing momentous had happened. But to her, it had. Her palms tingled where his fingers had brushed, as did the backs of her hands where he had kissed her.
The wind, howling down off the snow-covered peaks that were hidden by dark clouds, drove icy rain sideways directly into their faces and beneath the buffalo robe soaking them to the skin. It smelled like snow, then it was snowing, and Winter Fawn had never been warmer in her life. All because a man had kissed her hands.
Her own uncle, and a man who professed to want her for his wife, had been with whoever had fired the shot that could have killed her. Perhaps Two Feathers or Crooked Oak had fired it, but she didn’t want to think so. Still, that any of them would care so little for her was devastating. Yet now, mere moments later, she was so happy she wanted to sing. All because a man—this white man who sheltered her in his arms—had kissed her hands.
Carson was trying not to think about having kissed her hands. About wanting to kiss her lips. He needed to keep his mind on business. The icy rain on the heels of the hail had since turned to snow. Footing for the horse and mule was treacherous as the hail, large and small, shifted beneath each hoof. But the ground was warmer than the air, and the hail was melting, turning the earth muddy, making the going even more hazardous.
And that wasn’t counting the snow. Visibility was dropping as the snow thickened and the wind blew it sideways, directly into their eyes. By the time they’d gone a half mile farther up the canyon and reached the side canyon that would lead them up into the meadow and beyond to the pass, it was a full-fledged blizzard and drifts were accumulating around rocks and along the base of the canyon walls.
They needed shelter. Real shelter, not just a tarp and a buffalo robe. They would never make it to the pass in this weather. If the blizzard kept up, they wouldn’t survive a night in the open, not even under the sheltering branches of pines.
They would have to head for the cabin.
Carson prayed he could find it, and find it fast, before the going got even worse. The horse was just about played out. He’d carried two grown people over damn rugged terrain all day on a handful of grain. Now he had this to contend with. When the temperature dropped, this muddy ground would freeze, and ice would coat the rocks.
You just had to come to Colorado, didn’t you? See the West. Search for peace.
Hell, the only peace he was likely to find in the foreseeable future was the peace of the grave if he wasn’t careful.
Chapter Nine
The canyon ended at a rock wall, where the stream shot over the rim above into a pool at its base before tumbling on downhill.
There was a trail to the top. Somewhere. Carson knew, because he’d been up it. Once. A year ago. In clear weather.
But where, dammit? Where?
Then he recalled that he hadn’t seen the trail the last time until he’d rounded that big boulder beside the pool. Maybe that was what was left of pappa bear, he thought, remembering the rock formations he would find at the top.
“Are we trapped?” Winter Fawn called over the howl of the wind.
“There’s a way up,” he called back.
She eyed the rock wall and waterfall before them through the blowing curtain of snow. “You are certain?”
“I was here last year. There’s a cabin not far from here.”
“Shelter?” she asked as a shiver rocked her.
He knew just how she felt. He was doing a little shivering of his own. “Yes. Shelter. If it’s still standing.”
Thick ice had formed along the rock beneath the waterfall and along the edges of the pond. He urged the horse around the lone boulder and there was the trail, looking more like a mere depression in the snow than a well-traveled game and trapper route. But it was there, that’s all Carson cared about.
He rode to the base of it and drew the horse up. The path was steep and rock-strewn, with hail beneath the snow. Asking the horse to carry a double load up that trail was the same as asking for the kind of trouble they didn’t need.
“Hold on to the saddle horn,” he told Winter Fawn. He swung down from the horse, leaving the buffalo robe around her shoulders.
“What are you doing?” she cried.
“He can’t carry us both. I’m going to lead him.”
Winter Fawn moved as if to slide from the horse. “Then I will lead the mule.”
“The mule doesn’t need leading.” Forgetting about her wound, he wrapped his hands around her waist and shifted her into the seat of the saddle. “Hail Mary is more sure-footed than any horse, and she’s got more stamina. And I’ve got on sturdy boots. You don’t. Your feet would freeze in five minutes.”
Winter Fawn did not waste her breath arguing, for she knew he was right. Afoot she would be not only useless, but would soon become even more of a burden to Carson than she already was. “At least take the robe.” She pulled it from her shoulders.
“No,” he said adamantly, shaking his head. “You keep it. It’s too heavy to carry on foot. I’ll get blankets.” So saying, he took two blankets from the bedroll and wrapped them around his shoulders.
After making sure Winter Fawn was covered as much as possible with the heavy robe, he took the reins in hand and started leading the horse up the trail that zigzagged up the rock wall.
The path was narrow, the going slippery. The mule appeared to have no problem at all. Same for the horse. Carson wished he could claim to be as surefooted. He slipped twice and barely caught his balance both times before tumbling off the edge of the trail.
Winter Fawn hated every minute it took to make the climb. Oh, how she hated it. Her mouth was as dry as desert sand. Her heart stopped altogether one minute, then fluttered like the wings of a hummingbird the next. Her hands and feet, relatively warm earlier beneath the buffalo robe, turned to ice. She wanted nothing more than to squeeze her eyes shut and pretend she was somewhere else. Anywhere else. Somewhere warm. And flat.
But she was here, on this trail scarcely wider than the horse’s ribs. If she were somewhere else, she would not be with Carson. And she very much wanted to be with him, she admitted. But she did not want to watch him freeze or witness him tumble to his death off the edge of this path.
Oh, please, Man-Above, guide his steps, keep him safe.
Carson looked over his shoulder and saw Winter Fawn’s lips move, noticed her eyes were closed. He didn’t blame her. He’d been doing a little praying of his own during the past few minutes. His toes were going numb, not to mention his bare hands.
When they finally reached head of the trail and stepped out onto the high shelf, the wind sliced through him like a bayonet. He could no longer disguise his shivering or the chattering of his teeth.
The rock formation was there, right where he h
ad prayed it would be. The cabin was less than half an hour away. On a good day. Since this was damn near the worst day he’d spent since his last battle, he figured it would take them an hour or more to reach their goal.
While waiting for the mule to join them, he stroked the horse’s neck and murmured his thanks for a job well done. When Hail Mary reached the top, Carson stroked her also. He checked both animals’ hooves and breathed a sigh of relief that neither had picked up any stones.
When he stepped beside the horse to re-mount, Winter Fawn turned stubborn on him. She refused to scoot up and let him mount behind. Instead, she slid back over the cantle and onto the skirt, where she had ridden for most of the day.
Too cold to argue with her, and considering that she had the warmer wrap, he climbed awkwardly into the saddle. The instant he was seated, she pressed herself to his back and reached around his shoulders with the buffalo robe to envelope him in the meager warmth with her.
They rode into the teeth of the blizzard. The world was reduced to stinging white, not even swirling, but driving directly into their faces.
They kept their faces down.
Carson wasn’t sure how he found the cabin in all that white nothingness. He wasn’t above believing in miracles just then. But suddenly there it was, gray and squat and abandoned, and as welcome to him in that moment as would have been the mansion at Greenbrier had his former home popped up in front of him.
He dismounted before the cabin and shoved open the door. It was dark and dirty and smelled like the south end of a north-bound skunk, and was just about the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
He turned back toward the horse and caught Winter Fawn and the robe up in his arms as she was climbing down from the saddle. He thought for a minute that he was weaker than he’d realized. She seemed so much heavier than she should. Then he remembered that the thick hair on the buffalo robe wrapped around her had gotten soaked. It was covered in ice and snow, adding nearly as much weight again as Winter Fawn herself.
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