Sandy shrugged. “It’s your call, boss. We gotta think about Miss Blaze, too.”
Ring wished Sandy hadn’t said anything. It added substance to the worry he was already trying to ignore.
“We’ll stay at our pace,” he said at last. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and the rains’ll quit up north.”
“Think positive, boss,” Sandy rejoined brightly. “This ain’t the time o’ year fer all that rain anyhow.”
“From your lips to God’s ears,” Ring muttered under his breath. But he didn’t have a very good feeling.
By dawn Blaze was about five miles south of Phoenix, and Lonesome was tired. She was going to have to let him walk a good way. She probably wasn’t going to be able to catch up with Ring and his crew until later in the day. Maybe not until after dark. She, too, was tired, and was going to have to stop and at least get something to eat.
When she had ridden away from the muddy banks of the Gila River, she had felt nearly invulnerable. So solid, so firm and strong was her determination, she thought it might carry her forever. The fire within her had burned more brightly than ever.
But she was not superhuman after all. She was exhausted and hungry. Also, she feared, a little nervous, edgy perhaps. How else to describe the feeling that someone watched her, tailed her maybe? For the hundredth time since darkness had fallen the previous evening, Blaze glanced back over her shoulder.
Nothing, no one was there. No one ever was. It was simply her imagination. It had to be. If she were in any danger, she would sense it. Her instincts were keen. Over the last several months they had been sharply honed. Nevertheless, she was grateful to reach the thriving town at last. Among other things, it looked like rain.
Two hours outside Phoenix, the full weight of exhaustion descended on Blaze. She had eaten, and brought hay and grain for Lonesome at the livery. They had rested an hour and set out again. Blaze had thought she would be fine. She couldn’t have been more wrong.
Blaze could hardly keep her eyes open, and Lonesome stumbled from time to time. Worse, however, was the haunting memory that had begun to torment her. A hard, thin mouth; high, angular cheekbones. And pale blue eyes that could see into her very soul. She was riding away from him. Farther and farther away. She would probably never see him again. Why did the thought send a spear through her heart?
Blaze did not wish to probe her emotions any deeper. Her task, her journey, was difficult enough as it was. Even the weather was making everything worse.
Blaze shivered, aware the thin flannel shirt was not going to be much protection. Early spring on the desert, even the low desert, was not very warm to begin with. With the sun hidden behind low-hanging clouds, and a stiffening breeze lifting the hair from her shoulders, she was growing colder by the moment. She should stop and extract her poncho from the bedroll, she knew. But that would mean another delay, and she was anxious to catch up with Ring. If it had been raining up north for long, as it looked like, Blackjack would be swollen, and he’d need help crossing the creek.
Blaze had barely had time to ponder the grim state of affairs when lightning rent the purplish-gray skies, followed by a crash of thunder that brought Lonesome’s head up sharply … Any moment it was going to start to rain.
But she was close now. The mountains reared up on either side of her. The valley floor rose, then leveled again. The stately desert saguaros were left behind and now boulders, mesquite, and prickly pear were her companions. Blackjack Creek was just ahead.
The first fat raindrops plopped on her nose.
Ring and Sandy had their hands full. Lightning and the ensuing roll of thunder had spooked the herd badly. They were milling and snorting, ears alternately pricked and flattened, senses alert to any danger.
“Go ’round ’em to the left,” Ring shouted over another rumble of thunder. “Head off the lead mare if she tries to make a run. I’m going back to check on Rowdy.”
Sandy merely nodded and took off in the direction Ring had indicated. Ring doubled back, toward the ever-swelling creek.
They’d gotten across just in time, but Rowdy’s mules had had a tough time pulling the heavily loaded wagon up the far bank. Ring wanted to make certain they’d made it safely onto high ground. He also hoped, prayed, he was going to see the most welcome sight of Blaze riding in his direction.
His first wish was granted. Rowdy and the team were coming toward him, pots and pans clanging in the back of the wagon as they bounced over rocks and ruts in the road. Thank God. Blackjack was running faster, foaming and rushing at its banks, reaching ever higher. Ring’s spirits dropped into his boots.
Even if she came now, she couldn’t make it across. It might be days before the creek was back to normal. He had no choice. He was going to have to leave her and go on. Ring tightened his grip on the reins, preparing to turn his mare and return to the herd. And then he saw her.
Blaze muttered an unladylike curse under her breath. The situation was clear to her the moment Blackjack came into sight.
Ring and the herd had crossed the creek. Just in time, apparently. She was too late. Lonesome snorted and tossed his head when she halted him on the southern bank.
“Go back,” Ring shouted.
Blaze stubbornly shook her head. “You go on,” she yelled back. I’ll camp here until I can cross. I’ll catch up.”
“No,” Ring bellowed, his apprehension growing so rapidly it seemed to crowd out the very air in his lungs. “You don’t understand. Get back … get away from the bank!”
She didn’t understand. Not at first. Then fear took a stranglehold around her throat until she felt she couldn’t draw a breath. The ground was disappearing from beneath Lonesome’s hooves, crumbling away into the rising waters.
Blaze hauled hard on the reins. Lonesome responded instantly, and pivoted where he stood. His front legs came off the ground as he prepared to make a great, noble-hearted leap to safety. For naught.
The ground simply vanished. The brown bank dissolved into the churning creek. Blaze felt the sensation of sinking, felt Lonesome struggling beneath her, valiantly reaching for stable ground.
But the water dragged them. Blaze felt its wetness on her lower legs, to her knees. She felt Lonesome’s hindquarters swing out as his back legs lost what little purchase they had maintained. Then the water was over her thighs, up to her waist. She clung, desperately, to Lonesome’s mane as his front legs separated from the bank. They were swept to the middle of the wide, raging creek.
Blaze thought she screamed once. She wasn’t sure. She became separated from her horse. The last she saw of him was his head, barely held above water, rushing away from her around a bend. Then she went under.
Everything was black. There was no sun, no light, no air in the world she had entered. She fought for the surface. With every ounce of strength, she pulled for the daylight.
Blaze bobbed up once. She opened her mouth and took a great gulp of air. Then something hit her in the back of the head. Pain blossomed like a white light behind her eyes. She swallowed muddy water.
And knew no more.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE DARKNESS WAS DARKER THAN NIGHT. THERE were no dreams. There was only the endless abyss. She had no breath, no heartbeat, no rhythm of life. She floated in the void. There was simply nothing.
And then a sensation. Cold. Bone-numbing, heart-stopping cold. She was in the belly of a monster formed of ice. She had been swallowed and could not escape. She wished for death. She descended back into the void.
The cold returned. It was not painful this time, however, merely unpleasant. Blaze was aware of shivering. She shook so hard she felt she had no control whatsoever of her limbs. Her teeth clacked together painfully.
Slowly, the chill retreated. The shivering lessened. She felt the beginnings of warmth against the length of her body. She allowed herself to slip back into the dark place. This time, there was no fear.
Dreams rocked and lulled her. She lay in a meadow, fragrant and green. The scent
of grass, and good, rich soil filled her nostrils. Sunshine beat upon her, and warmed her; breast, belly, thighs. She felt warm and wonderful. The dream slowly faded.
Consciousness returned. Blaze knew she was awake because of the terrible dryness of her tongue. She was unable even to lick her lips. Her eyes seemed to be glued shut.
But it was all right, she thought, to keep them closed a little longer. Because the dream was gone, but the memory of warmth remained. Her entire body felt pleasantly heated, and comforted. Memory tugged at the edges of her mind, but she thrust it aside. Everything could wait until she waited, rested, just a few more precious moments. Blaze snuggled into the warm spot just a little tighter.
And felt her flesh rub against something soft. She was immediately aware that she was entirely naked. What she lay against was deer hide, but she wasn’t wearing it. She wriggled again.
There was something hard beneath the deerskin. Furthermore, she now realized there were two hard, muscular arms encircling her naked form. The heat she felt emanated from the long, lean body pressed against her own.
Panic flooded Blaze’s body as effectively as both the cold and the warmth had done. The fear racing through her blood lent strength to her exhausted limbs, and she leapt to her feet in the space of a heartbeat. She found herself looking down into a pair of pale blue eyes.
It was as if the doe had come unexpectedly upon the wolf. Blaze froze, eyes wide, too terrified to run. Too frightened to decide which way to flee. She simply stared down at the man who sprawled on the ground at her feet; at the long, lean form clad in his tight, beaded buckskins; the long, shining, blue-black hair spread beneath his head like a satin pillow; the high, hard jut of his cheekbones and the bowlike curve of his upper lip.
Fear leaked from her as water from a damaged vessel. In its place came another feeling. But it was one that left her equally weak and trembling. Blaze licked her lips. What was happening to her? The question faded into insignificance when she realized the state she was in.
One hand reached to cover the evidence of her womanhood. The other pulled her long hair over her shoulders to hide the swell of her breasts. A low sound issued from Bane’s throat. It might have been a chuckle. Or a groan of desire. Blaze felt the fire of humiliation burn in her cheeks.
“Here. Cover yourself.” Bane rose to his feet in a single, fluid motion. He handed her the colorfully woven blanket they had been lying on.
Blaze snatched it from him and quickly wrapped herself in its length. Slowly, she felt the heat drain from her face. The trembling in her knees did not abate. “Wh … what … how?” she stammered.
“Come and sit by the fire. I will tell you.”
For the first time Blaze noticed she was in a small campsite. A fire crackled within a ring of stones. Her wet clothes had been spread on the branches of a sage bush to dry. Memory came back like the flood she had been washed away in, and Blaze spun around.
“My … my horse. Is he …”
“I have not found your horse.”
He made the statement flatly, but Blaze thought she detected a note of sympathy in his tone. It pushed her tears even closer to the surface. Lonesome. Blaze swallowed.
“I have some quail,” Bane resumed. “I haven’t had time to roast them. It seemed wise to put some heat into you instead.”
To her chagrin, the furious blush returned to her cheeks. Unbidden, the memory of his long, hard body pressed to hers returned. The heat drained from her face to warm the rest of her body. Then the mention of quail penetrated her consciousness. She was starving. It must have shown in her expression.
“Don’t worry,” he said encouragingly. “They won’t take long.”
Blaze saw Bane had already expertly cleaned the savory birds and skewered them on fire-hardened sticks. Moments later they were crackling over a fire. Her mouth watered uncontrollably.
“Sit.” Bane had his saddle blanket laid on the ground by the fire. “And tell me how you came to be in the belly of the river.”
Blaze closed her eyes and shuddered. She sank, cross-legged, onto the saddle blanket. “Stupidly,” she replied simply. “I never should have ridden onto the bank. The water was too swift, the footing too dangerous.”
“Too dangerous,” Bane repeated. “Yes.” He nodded slowly. “I heard the cowboy shout to you to go back. I would have added my voice to his, but it was too late.”
Blaze stiffened as the realization washed through her. “You … you saw?”
“Yes. And feared I would not be able to outrun the river and pull you from its grasp.”
Openmouthed, Blaze stared at the man who now sat beside her, also cross-legged. “How … how did you get ahead of me?”
Bane nodded toward the black mare tethered a short distance away. “In the Apache tongue, she is called ‘Drinker of the Wind.’ She came by her name for good reason.”
Blaze glanced at the valiant mare gratefully, only to be sharply reminded of Lonesome. Tears welled in her eyes once again, and she looked away quickly.
“I’m grateful to you,” she whispered. “More grateful than you know.”
Bane remained silent. Blaze risked a glance at him from the corner of her eye. She could not help but recall her thoughts as she had ridden away from Phoenix. She had feared she would never see him again. Now he had saved her life. Something odd seemed to be happening in the pit of her stomach. And a burning question seared her tongue. She could only quench the fire by giving it voice.
“You … saw me at the creek bank,” she said at last in a small voice. “Have you been … been following me?”
There it was, finally; a smile she could be certain of. The corners of his gracefully curved mouth rose ever so slightly.
“I follow only my destiny,” Bane replied enigmatically.
Whatever was wrong with Blaze’s stomach was getting worse. “You’re headed north, then, as I am,” Blaze said cautiously.
“Like you, I have discovered that the prey I hunt no longer dwells in the valley of the sun. I, too, must go where my trail leads me.”
It was Blaze’s turn to hold silence. She tried to remember every word Bane had said to her. It wasn’t difficult. Their meetings had been few, and every moment of them had been etched into her memory. Finally, she took a deep breath.
“You’ve said before we have a common goal. Vengeance.” When she paused, Bane nodded almost imperceptibly. Blaze continued. “Is it possible you think our shared purpose would be better served riding together?”
“Is it possible you do not know it is for this reason I have followed you?”
Blaze’s breath caught in her throat. She recalled the feeling of being watched. The way he had come to her and Ring’s aid with the band of Apache braves. Her arrival on the mountaintop to find him already there. A sense of unreality fell upon her like a fur-lined mantle settling about her shoulders, so soft she could barely tell it was there. She looked deeply into his light eyes.
“Why have you been watching me?” Her voice was so low she barely heard it herself. “And how long have you followed me?”
Bane’s expression was inscrutable. He took a long, slow breath into his lungs. Blaze watched his chest expand, relax.
“The path we follow,” he began at length, “is a lonely one. I think I do not need to tell you this.”
Blaze thought she gave a small shake of her head, but she could not be certain. She seemed transfixed by the gaze and the words of the man beside her.
“I saw you first when you rode out from the town on your horse of the Nez Perce,” Bane went on. “I knew who you were at once, for rumor has swifter wings than the insect eaters that fly at night.”
Bane paused and his mouth compressed into a thin, white line. Blaze could not tear her eyes from his, and her breath came rapidly through parted lips.
“You are she who buried her village,” Bane murmured in a thick voice. “Who walked naked into the mountains. Who comes, like legend, back to the valley of the sun. Yes, I know you.
I know your purpose is as mine. It could be no other. The only thing I do not know is the face of your enemy. But, I will aid you as long as our roads run in the same direction. And perhaps along the way I will find who I seek as well.”
It wasn’t possible. Yet it was happening. He had been watching her. He wished to join her, to help her.
“What … what about your … those braves? The ones—”
“Comrades of the moment, no more.”
“But they … they looked to you as their leader, and they were, I mean, they might have—”
“I led no one, but rode with the brothers of my blood because I chanced upon them along my road.”
“But they … they …”
“It is hard to be Indian,” Bane said sternly. “We have little left to call our own. Our land disappears like carrion beneath the hunger of the vultures. Our herds have been hunted until there is nothing but their blood that soaks the ground. There is little to eat, less to do. But much, much anger.”
Blaze wondered that she did not feel chastised. She felt only a deep well of sadness. “Why do you choose to share their fate,” she found herself asking, “when there is white in you also?”
A tic jumped under Bane’s left eye. He turned his head and spat onto the dry ground. “Do you wish my company on your journey?” he asked abruptly.
“I—” Blaze snapped her jaws shut. She clenched her teeth tightly.
Not even an old grandmother could make up such a night tale as the one Blaze found herself living. Why should she not have the company of this man of mixed blood? Other things even more fantastic had already happened to her. Why shouldn’t she travel in the company of someone whose heart beat to the same rhythm as her own?
Blaze of Lightning Roar of Thunder Page 9