Even the stallion was gentle, though spirit visibly ran through him like lightning through a storm. His sorrel coat flashed red-gold fire at every motion of his body. A clean white blaze went from forehead to muzzle. A single white stocking marked his right front leg. When he moved, it was as though on springs, energy rippling with restrained power, coiled strength waiting for release. Centuries of intense, careful breeding ran through the stallion, apparent in each well-defined muscle and clean line of bone.
“That’s one hell of a stud horse,” Caleb said finally. “It will be worth your life to ride him out of Denver.”
“Ishmael is as gentle as he is strong.”
Caleb grunted. “It wasn’t his manners I was talking about. That stud is enough to tempt a saint into mortal sin, much less the kind of men we’ll see on the way to the San Juans. Every outlaw and renegade Indian in the territory will take one look at your stallion and start seeing himself in the saddle.”
There was nothing Willow could say. She had noticed on the stage ride that the farther west she came, the more interest her horses excited. Yet she could no more let them go than she could cut off her own fingers. She loved her horses. They were all she had of her past and her only hope for a secure future.
In silence Willow finished leading her four mares from their stalls. Two of the mares were sorrels as fiery as Ishmael. Two were bays with shiny brown bodies and sweeping black manes and tails. All four of the mares moved with the liquid grace of cats.
Any one of them would have been worth killing for.
“Mother of God,” muttered Caleb, looking at the five sleek animals. “Getting those horses to the San Juans without attracting every outlaw between here and Hell will be like trying to sneak dawn past the night.”
Saying nothing, Willow bent and checked each horse’s hooves for debris or loose shoes. The Arabians made it easy for her. No sooner had she touched a fetlock than a hoof was presented for her inspection. When she was finished, she ran a brush over Ishmael’s glossy back and slid the saddle blanket into place without ruffling any hair.
When Caleb saw Willow reach for the sidesaddle, he was tempted to stop her. A sidesaddle in rough country was hard on the woman and harder on the horse. No matter how accomplished a rider the woman was, her weight was always off-center on the horse’s back.
Yet Caleb watched Willow finish saddling her mount and said nothing, because it suited his purpose to be silent. Anyone posted to watch the stable would duly report that a woman wearing a long riding skirt and using a sidesaddle had left the livery stable in the dead of night. The men who followed would be asking about a woman in fancy clothes riding a clumsy saddle that was rarely seen west of the Mississippi.
But Willow wouldn’t be using that sidesaddle after a few days—not if Caleb had to drag her from it and slice the leather into pigging strings with his big hunting knife.
Caleb led his own two geldings from their stalls. Both animals were ready to travel. He lashed Willow’s carpetbag to the pack saddle, tied a tarpaulin over everything to shed rain, and led the horses into the wide aisle between stalls. Ishmael’s nostrils flared at the presence of the two big geldings, but his ears remained erect. He was curious rather than hostile.
Deliberately Caleb shook out a dark, finely woven poncho right under the stallion’s nose. The sudden snapping of cloth didn’t bother Willow’s horse. Caleb pulled the poncho on, then ran his palm down the stallion’s glossy, muscular neck. The flesh beneath was as hard as his own. The Arabian might look elegant, but it was the elegance of lightning rather than the elegance of a rose.
When Willow was done saddling Ishmael and roping the mares together for easy leading, Caleb walked over and checked each animal’s hooves. They permitted his handling with only a few restless motions. When he finished, he tested the strength and tightness of the sidesaddle’s girth on the stallion.
“Satisfied?” Willow asked.
“With that contraption?” Shaking his head, Caleb pulled on buckskin roping gloves that were worn and supple. “Glad it won’t be my butt banging on that useless leather.”
With a cool sideways look, Willow started to lead Ishmael past Caleb to the mounting block. His hand shot out and closed over the reins, stopping her.
“There won’t be any mounting blocks on the trail,” he pointed out. He bent and laced his fingers together, then looked up at her with clear topaz eyes. “Go ahead, honey. You’ve been wanting to step on me since you first laid eyes on me.”
The deep voice and lazy smile sent quicksilver sensations through Willow. She smiled almost shyly in return and stepped into his hands as though into a stirrup.
Unlike a stirrup, Caleb was alive. And powerful. He lifted her weight with obvious ease. Willow’s right leg, covered with petticoats and heavy wool cloth, hooked around the off-center horn of the sidesaddle, helping to hold her in place on the shallow leather seat. The horn, plus the single stirrup on the left side, was the only purchase offered by the sidesaddle, which had been invented for fashionable turns around a park rather than for serious riding.
“Thank you,” Willow said, looking down into Caleb’s eyes.
“Don’t thank me. I’m leading you into the worst night of your life.” Caleb turned away, then stopped and looked over his shoulder at her. “Don’t you even have a decent hat or riding coat?”
“I was going to buy what I needed tomorrow.”
He hissed a word beneath his breath.
“My riding habit is warm,” Willow said. “It was made for winter.”
“In West Virginia.”
“We had snow there.”
“How often, how deep, and did you ride all day in it?” Caleb asked sardonically.
“It’s raining now, not snowing.”
Without a word Caleb pulled off his poncho and held it up to her. “Put it on.”
“That’s very kind, but I couldn’t take your—”
“I told you I’m not a kind man,” Caleb interrupted in a voice that was just short of a snarl. “Put the damned thing on before I stuff you in it like a pig in a poke.”
Mutinous hazel eyes glared at Caleb for a long moment before Willow took the poncho, pulled it over her head and down her body. Cut like a jerkin with riding slits, the poncho had fit Caleb’s wide shoulders and lean hips very nicely. It was far too big on Willow.
“Lord, you’re a little bit of a thing,” he muttered.
“I’m five feet, three inches and I was the tallest girl in our valley.”
“Damn small valley.”
Caleb pulled a leather thong from his pocket and cinched in the poncho around Willow’s small waist. Then he rummaged in his big saddlebags until he found a long wool muffler.
“Bend down,” he said.
Willow leaned down to Caleb. Even though she was mounted, she didn’t have to bend far. He was an unusually tall man. He wrapped the muffler securely around her head, tied the ends beneath her chin, and tried not to smile at the picture she made with her clear skin and red lips and his slate-colored muffler making her eyes gleam like smoked crystal.
Abruptly Caleb turned away to his own horse. He untied a heavy leather vest from behind his saddle. The vest was like everything else he owned—dark, unadorned, and made of the best quality material. Combined with his long-sleeved shirt of thick wool, the vest would keep him warm enough for the time being, if not exactly comfortable. He put on the vest, tied the mares’ lead ropes to the pack saddle, and mounted his tall horse with the casual grace of a man born to the saddle.
“Do you have gloves?” Caleb asked curtly.
Willow nodded.
“Put them on.”
“Mr. Black—”
“Try my Christian name, southern lady,” he interrupted. “We’re not real formal out here.”
“Caleb. I’m hot.”
The corner of his mouth turned up. “Enjoy it, Willow. It won’t last.”
Caleb urged his horse out of the barn and into the rain-lashed night. I
mmediately his pack horse followed, though no lead rope joined it to the saddle horse. After a brief hesitation, the mares followed. Ishmael nickered softly, distressed at being separated from his mares.
“It’s all right,” Willow said encouragingly to the stallion. “It’s all right, boy.”
Yet she was slow to rein the horse toward the barn door. Ishmael had no such reluctance. He trotted out into the stormy darkness, snorting at the cold whip of rain.
It’s got to be all right, Willow told herself, gasping as silvers of icy rain scored her cheeks. Because if it isn’t, I’ve just made the worst mistake of my life.
3
B EFORE they had gone three miles, Willow’s riding skirt and petticoats were soaked through. Wet cloth rubbed against her legs at every movement Ishmael made. Caleb set a hard pace through the storm, wanting to get as far away from Denver as possible before the rain stopped washing away the tracks of seven horses headed south on the treeless, well-beaten track that ran along the massive front range of the Rocky Mountains.
Alternately trotting and cantering, walking only when the land became uneven beneath the horses’ driving hooves, Caleb led Willow through the night and the icy, intermittent rains of early June. After the first several hours he no longer checked over his shoulder every few minutes. The Arabian mares were keeping pace with his mountain-bred horses, which meant that Ishmael wasn’t far behind. The stallion would follow his mares into the mouth of Hell itself, a fact which Caleb had counted on.
What surprised Caleb was that Willow managed to ride Ishmael with grace despite the handicap of flapping skirts, awkward sidesaddle, and storm. Yet no matter how well Willow rode, Caleb doubted that she was comfortable. He certainly wasn’t. Cold rain dripped constantly down his face and under his collar. Though his torso remained reasonably warm beneath layers of wool and leather, water was seeping down into his boots. His legs were cold. They would get colder before they got warm.
Caleb didn’t dwell on his own discomfort. He had known before he began the ride that it would be hard, long, and uncomfortable. In fact, he had counted on it. Outlaws were lazy men, more interested in their own pleasures than anything else. They would be slow to stir from their warm beds and the women they had rented along with the rooms.
As Caleb and Willow pressed on through the night, the storm gradually abated. Distant lightning still flared, but the thunder that followed was so far away as to be barely a grumble. Rain still fell, but the wet veils were being torn apart by gusts of wind. Soon there would be no more rain to dissolve the sharp edges of the hoofprints that stretched back in the night behind the seven horses like a twisted ribbon.
The land pitched up again in one of the many long folds that stretched out from the granite wall of the mountains. Caleb didn’t let his big gelding fall back into a walk, but instead touched him with the brass cavalry spurs that were a legacy of his brief, turbulent stint as an Army Scout in the New Mexican campaigns of the War Between the States. Even while still in the Army, Caleb had filed off the sharp rowels of the regulation spurs, much to the anger of his superior officer. It was just one of the many ways Caleb had defied regulations that made no sense to him. A horse gouged by sharp spurs was a nervous horse, and a nervous horse was useless in a battle, a fact which Caleb appreciated even if the inexperienced lieutenant who led them had not.
“Come on, Deuce. Shake a leg,” muttered Caleb as a gust of wind drove cold fingers of rain across his face.
The big horse obligingly picked up the pace to a fast trot. It was the least comfortable of a horse’s gaits for the rider, but it covered the most territory for the least effort on the part of the horse.
When Ishmael increased his speed to match that of the mares in front of him, Willow bit back a groan. In the sidesaddle there was no easy way to lift her weight or post as there was when riding astride with two stirrups. She could tighten her leg around the saddle horn and simultaneously lift up her body by standing in the single stirrup, but the posture was awkward and very hard to maintain. The alternative was to have her backside meet the saddle nearly every time one of Ishmael’s four feet hit the ground. Not only was that hard on her, it was hard on the horse as well.
Willow grabbed the saddle horn with both hands, uncurled her right leg, and lowered it until she was riding astride. The relief was only temporary. The saddle had been constructed to carry weight off center, which meant that the horn was impossibly placed for riding astride. Even worse, there was only one stirrup on which to balance a rider’s weight. Despite that, at a trot Willow’s awkward posture was easier on Ishmael than having his rider bumping up and down with every step.
Unfortunately, due to the sidesaddle’s peculiar construction, riding astride wasn’t easier on Willow. She soon had a stitch in her side from the unnatural posture forced on her by sitting astride in a sidesaddle. She took her mind off her difficulties by fishing out a small tin of candies from time to time and putting one of the potent peppermints in her mouth. The flavor made her think of summers past, warm and sultry, the sun a burning benediction in a hazy, silver-blue sky.
By the time the wind finished tearing apart the storm clouds, Willow was certain dawn couldn’t be far away. She was so certain that when she saw the position of the moon she thought they must have somehow turned around in the darkness. Bracing herself on the padded horn, she looked for the Big Dipper. It wasn’t where it should have been at dawn. In fact, it wasn’t even close.
Dawn was at least four hours away. Perhaps even five.
Dear Lord, isn’t Caleb ever going to let the horses rest? Even the stage animals were changed at regular intervals, and they had no saddles rubbing them.
As though Caleb sensed Willow’s silent question, he reined in Deuce to a walk. Willow let out a sigh of relief and resumed a normal position in the sidesaddle once more. Normal, but not comfortable. The sensitive skin of her inner thighs was chafed from the knees up. The cold, wet fabric of her riding outfit irritated her more than it protected her.
After a time Caleb pulled Deuce to a stop and dismounted. Willow didn’t wait for an invitation. She slid off Ishmael in a tangle of wet fabric. Her feet hit the ground with enough force to make her wince. She wasted no time groaning, for she had no way of knowing how long the rest stop would be.
Working as swiftly as her cold hands would allow, Willow began unsaddling Ishmael. When she finished, she upended the saddle on the wet ground, draped the saddle blanket over it, and began rubbing down Ishmael with a handful of grass. Warmth rose in waving sheets of steam off the stallion’s back where the saddle and blanket had rested, but other than that he showed no sign of the hard ride. Moonlight didn’t reveal any raw spots on his back. Nor did he flinch away from her vigorous rubdown.
“I’m glad we had all those miles from West Virginia to toughen you up,” Willow said softly to Ishmael as she worked over him. “I’d feel terrible if my awkward riding rubbed sores on you. The good Lord knows that my clumsiness is rubbing sores on me. The stage might have been uncomfortable, but at least it kept out most of the rain.”
Sighing, Willow thought of the long ride from the Mississippi. For the first time she understood what a luxury it had been to be able to go from stage to horseback and then back to the stage again, depending on the weather.
Ishmael turned his head, nickered softly, and lipped the cold cloth of Willow’s riding habit.
“Go ahead. Eat the useless thing,” she muttered. “I can’t be much worse off without it than I am with it.”
After a taste, the stallion lost interest in the fabric.
“I don’t blame you,” she said, sighing.
“Don’t tell me your fancy saddle rubbed a hole in that stud’s hide after only a few hours.”
Startled, Willow gasped. She had heard no sound to warn her that Caleb was approaching. After giving him a sidelong glance, she returned to rubbing down her horse.
“Ishmael’s hide is just fine,” she said.
“How about yours?
” Caleb asked, looking at the wet, heavy folds of cloth clinging to Willow’s legs.
She said only, “Excuse me, I have to check on the mares.”
“They’re fine. The little sorrel with two white feet had a stone in her shoe, but it hadn’t been in long enough to do any damage. I wouldn’t ride her for a day or so, though, just to be sure.”
“That’s Penny, and thank you for checking,” Willow said, absently wiping off her cheek on her arm as she groomed the stallion. “I’ll ride Dove—the other sorrel—when we switch horses.”
The lock of hair that had been draped wetly across Willow’s eye soon slithered back. She rubbed her face against her arm again. Again the lock moved, only to slide back a few moments later. A gust of wind raced over the land with a husky sound. Shivering, Willow gave a final swipe to Ishmael’s muscular back before she turned away and picked up the saddle blanket. She shook it out thoroughly before she placed it dry side down on the stallion’s back once more.
Caleb watched with eyes made dark by the moon-shadow of his hat brim, impressed despite himself by the fact that Willow was caring for her horse before she cared for herself. When Willow reached for the sidesaddle, his long arm snaked out. He took the saddle and swung it into place on Ishmael’s back. Despite the fact that Caleb used only one hand, the weight of the saddle landed as delicately as a feather on the stallion.
“You’re stiff,” Caleb said curtly. “Walk around. We’ll be riding soon, and we won’t stop again until just before dawn.”
“I see,” Willow said, sighing unconsciously.
He hesitated, then added, “Coffee in my canteen. No cup, though.”
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