“I made a big pot thanks to your hunting, Rafe.” She began scooping, using a tin cup for a ladle.
“How’s Wendell?” Rafe quit leaning and came the whole five paces across the room to take the bowl from her hands.
“Careful, it’s hot.”
Rafe moved fast, setting it down on the table. “Told me that a little late.”
“Father is mostly asleep. His fever is steady, no sign of it going down.” Savory steam curled up from the pot as she pushed a towel into his hands and filled the next bowl. “I’m going to see if I can get him to take some broth. You three go ahead and eat.”
“We’ll wait for you.” He took the third and last bowl they owned.
“No, go ahead.” She turned to skimming liquid off the pot for Father. She used one cup, poured into another, because the edges of her ladle-cup were messy.
“We’ll wait.”
Glaring at him, she felt embarrassed to admit the truth. “We’ve only got three bowls. Eat now. I’ll have to wait anyway or eat out of a cup.”
Rafe looked around the tiny cabin. He muttered, “I have to get you out of here.”
Julia slammed both cups she held down on the table. “You have to get me out of here? You have nothing to say about where I go and what I do, Rafe Kincaid.”
Maggie whimpered in Ethan’s arms. Audra sat up straight, as stiff as one of Julia’s fossils.
“I have as much to say as any decent man. I’m not leaving you here with precious little food, a cabin that barely slows down the wind, and a lunatic climbing around in the treetops.”
When he put it like that, her whole life sounded as bad as her cabin.
Julia didn’t bother to argue. She didn’t want to upset Audra or Maggie. She clamped her mouth tight shut and picked up Father’s cup and a spoon. At least they had four spoons so the others could eat.
“We’ll discuss this after I’ve seen if Father can take any nourishment. Please eat so I’ll be able to when I get back.” She swished around Rafe, conscious of her messy hair. But she needed more time to deal with it. Maybe after everyone went to bed tonight.
She entered her father’s room and saw him sleeping. With a prayer, she knelt by his side.
CHAPTER
10
Rafe and Ethan slept outside, to guard the front door, and the next morning they did every chore they could think of short of building a new cabin. Rafe waited until Julia had finished her midday meal and Audra and Maggie settled for a nap. Through cracks in the cabin wall, Rafe saw Steele ride up. Ethan went out, and the two of them unloaded the pack animals, then led the horses away to graze.
When Julia finished tending her pa, Rafe said, “Come outside.”
Julia followed quietly. Rafe enjoyed this moment of obedience, knowing it was only because of the sleeping baby.
“I’m going to ride out to the west this afternoon. Come with me.”
“No, I need to stay close in case Maggie cries.”
“So you can snatch her out of the room so Audra can sleep the afternoon away.”
“And so if Father wakes up, I can check on him and try to get some food into him.”
“If Maggie or your pa wakes up, Audra can tend to them.” As much as he didn’t care for Julia’s bossy ways, he’d learned that she felt the need to protect and care for everyone else, leaving herself for last.
“Then can we go down into the cavern today?” Her eyes flashed with excitement.
“No.”
“You said we could go back down into the cavern.” She jammed her fists on her hips, her excitement replaced by temper. “When are we going to do that?”
Rafe thought she was about the prettiest little thing he’d ever seen. “After we catch whoever stranded you down there.”
“You said we could go.” Her green eyes flashed. “Ethan could guard the entrance. Steele could stay here and guard Audra. We’d be fine.”
“We’re not going down there until we find that man.”
“I’ll stay here, then.” She crossed her arms, a pretty picture of pure female stubbornness.
Steele and Ethan came walking up to the house. Steele gave Rafe a quick report on how things were going on the Kincaid spread. Rafe had a ranch to run. He really couldn’t stay over here much longer.
“I saw tracks on my ride over. A man’s footprints, no horse. Could be the same guy Ethan was tracking.” Steele gave Rafe the details.
“I want to have a look at those tracks.” He leaned close to Julia. “And I need to have a word with you about all this in private. I don’t want Audra to overhear.”
He didn’t particularly care if Audra overheard, but it was the kind of thing that would make Julia cooperate. She gave a short, hard jerk of her chin in agreement. Before she could think of some new way to be stubborn, he grabbed her by the hand and led her to the horses. It took the work of a few minutes to strap leather on two of them and toss her into the saddle. When she didn’t slap him, he figured he’d won. He mounted up and they rode away.
Rafe set a fast pace in the direction Steele had seen the tracks. The time to talk to her would come when they were far enough from her cabin that she wouldn’t just turn around and go back.
They skirted the ledge to the west of the house and wound down a mountain trail. There was some open space at the bottom. A trail curved along the base of a massive flat-topped mountain higher than the one they’d just descended, and Rafe thought to follow that a mile or so to the point it split west to Rawhide and northeast toward home.
Before he’d gotten far down the trail, and before he’d even started the serious talk he needed to have with Julia, he saw the first footprints.
“What’s wrong?” Julia came up beside him. Rafe was impressed at how quickly she’d caught on to trouble.
Pointing, he said, “A track right next to that talus slide.” The slide had spilled down the side of the mountain Rafe had planned to ride around. But the footprint was climbing right up the slope.
“Someone walked up that?” Julia looked doubtful. “Wouldn’t the footing on a slide like that give?”
“It could. I wouldn’t’ve thought of going that way if I hadn’t seen that track.” He looked up to the top of the slide and saw a black slit in the mountain. He couldn’t tell if it was dark-colored rock, a shadow, or a cave big enough to hide a man. “Let’s see what’s up there.”
Rafe couldn’t imagine anyone going up that way, but according to Ethan, they were dealing with a crazy man. Rafe swung off his horse and took a mighty careful step onto those shattered rocks.
They were as solid as . . . well, as solid as a rock. “I think these will hold. Lead your horse. Move easy.” He took a step toward Julia to help her down but didn’t get there before she was already on the ground. His fingers itched as he realized how much he’d been looking forward to getting his hands on her.
They really did need to have a talk. Rafe had some plans for the future concerning her and her little family.
“I’ve climbed a few talus slides in my day.” Julia fell in behind Rafe. The hooves clopped with a hollow sound as they scaled the slope. “If they’re old enough, they’re very safe. Looks like these are old.”
“The rocks work almost like stair steps. They’re easier to climb than if the side of this mountain was clear.” The stones didn’t slide or give a bit. They were packed together and worked into the ground beneath them. He climbed, alert and cautious, expecting any minute to feel the ground give under his feet. When he reached the top of the slide, the first thing he saw was a level trail leading into a black slit. It seemed to be a passageway into the heart of the mountain.
“Another cave.” Julia sounded so excited, Rafe prepared himself to lasso her and haul her home over his saddle.
Then he saw footprints.
He drew his gun and cracked back the hammer.
Julia came up to his side, her eyes wide. “What?”
“Someone’s in there.” Rafe eyed the ground. There were tracks
going in only. Boots distinctive enough he was sure it was just one man. And the prints looked fresh. “I need to get you out of here.”
“You think that’s the man who left me in the cavern to die, don’t you?”
“Could be.” Rafe tore his eyes away from the ground and looked at Julia. She was mad clean through, no sign of fear. “These are the prints of the man we tracked yesterday.”
“Let’s go have a talk with him.” Julia urged her horse forward so suddenly, Rafe didn’t have a chance to stop her.
He caught up just as she entered the cave. “Wait a minute.” He grabbed her wrist. “You need to get out of here. Let’s go back to your place. You stay there with Steele and I’ll come back with Ethan.”
He’d wanted to see the tracks, but mostly he’d wanted to get Julia off by herself. Women could surely mess with a man’s ability to control a situation.
Julia shook her head. “We may have this one chance to corner him in this cave and put a stop to him running around hurting people. We don’t dare take an hour to ride back to my cabin, and you know it.”
Rafe did know it.
“At least let me lead the way.” He let go and surged ahead. The cave was too narrow for them to walk two abreast.
“Why, so you can take the first bullet?” She was sounding stubborn again.
“No, so the one with the gun—me—can defend the one without the gun.” And also so he could take the first bullet. But he was smart enough not to admit that. “How am I supposed to shoot back if you’re between me and the lunatic?”
Julia shrugged one shoulder. “I guess that makes some sense.”
“Let’s keep the horse between us and anyone who’s in there.”
“I wonder how deep this cave goes into the mountain.” Julia sounded like she was lagging.
“Keep quiet. We need to sneak up on whoever’s in here.” Rafe looked over his stallion’s shoulder.
Julia had stopped and was running her hand over the wall. “This looks like a vent for a volcanic flow of lava.”
“What? I’ve heard of a volcano. They’re a lot hotter than this.”
“Yes, if they’re active. But this may be an old one that hasn’t blown for a while.” Julia gasped so loud it echoed in the tunnel. “Wait a minute. This is a fossil.”
Rafe moved toward his horse’s back end, running a soothing hand on its chestnut rump. The animal wasn’t that happy to be walking into this cave, and Rafe didn’t want to earn a kick from iron-shod hooves.
“Jules, we need to keep moving. If this is anything like that cavern back by your cabin, someone could be hiding in any one of a hundred places. We need to keep our attention focused on finding the man we’re trailing.”
She ignored him like he was a buzzing gnat. Pulling a knife out of her skirt, she used the tip of it to pry on the wall.
“What are you doing?”
“This is a bone. Look at this. It looks like maybe a jawbone”—she leaned so close, her nose almost touched the wall—“with a fang of some kind attached to the jaw. A large sort of triangular tooth.”
“So you found a long-dead wolf. So what? We need to pay attention.”
“No, maybe not a fang. Rafe, this looks like something I found in Seth’s Cavern. I think this might be a fish, too.”
“More lunch?”
Julia turned and glared at him. “This is no trout.”
“I’ve seen some pretty big ones.”
“Hmmph.” She turned her back on him and began chiseling with more energy. “If this is an old vent for a volcano, we could find some perfectly preserved fossils in here. I’ve done extensive studying on fossils and this doesn’t look familiar.” She looked up, a smile so bright on her face that Rafe hated to insist she use the brain God gave her.
“Have you ever heard of dinosauria?”
“What?”
“The writings of Sir Richard Owens contain reference to many creatures, now extinct. He called them ‘dinosauria.’ There are people doing research on them all over the world. If I could discover a new species, they might even name it after me.” Julia looked away from her chiseling, and even in the dim light of the cave, Rafe could see her excitement, and maybe just a touch of fanaticism. Well, as fanatics went, liking old bones wasn’t such a bad thing.
Unless people were apt to start shooting at you.
“If he named them, why didn’t he name them Owensauria, instead of dinosauria?”
“Because dinosauria means terrible lizard.” Julia went back to chiseling as if he hadn’t spoken a word.
“Okay, then we should name this Terrible Trout.” Rafe leaned closer. “That tooth looks more like a pig tusk. Terrible Pig, what word would that be in geologist talk? Wait, you want it named after you. So, Julia the Terrible Pig.” Rafe was going to have to drag the stubborn little thing away from her wall. “Does that sound like a good idea to you?”
“Look at the size of this fang . . . tusk . . . tooth. Oh, I need to study this. I have to refer to my books. And there are several articles in my copies of the Proceedings Quarterly. I can read about— Rafe! Oh, Rafe, look!” The tap and scrape of a knife on rock echoed throughout the whole cave, like she was begging someone to come find her and shoot her. But just in case it wasn’t enough, now she’d gone to yelling. “The jaw. It could definitely be another fish. Up this high. Do you realize what this means?”
No. But he didn’t say so out loud.
“Look, I can see part of it. I think I can get it out in one piece if I—”
“Leave it for now.” He hissed the words and heard them echo. “Julia, come on. We need to stay on our guard.”
“Yes, yes. Coming.” She chipped away at the stone. Bits of rock spit out from the wall.
She was absolutely not coming.
“Just give me one more second. I wish I had my mallet and chisel.”
“I thought you had to pack fast because your pa decided to move suddenly.”
“I did.” She kept tapping away.
“But you brought copies of fossil books and a chisel?” Anyone with a lick of sense would have grabbed another dress or a few more bowls, or maybe a chair.
“This knife isn’t enough. I need my tools.”
Rafe’s jaw tightened, and he clenched his fists to keep from dragging her away. “It will still be there later. It’s obviously been there for a long time. Let’s—”
“Here’s where the fang attaches to the jaw. I’ve never seen anything like this before.” Then suddenly Julia gasped, quit with her knife and stepped back.
Rafe went for his gun. “What is it?”
“I was too close.” She was still looking at the stupid pig or fish or lizard or whatever it was. It looked like part of the rock. “I can see more of it. We need lanterns. If only I was a hand at drawing a sketch.”
“That does it.”
“Then I could— Ah!”
Rafe grabbed her and dragged. “We don’t have time to dig up a whole animal right now.”
Julia looked at him, fuming. With a huge effort, she nodded. “You’re right, of course.” The longing glance over her shoulder almost made him smile. “It’s just . . . that’s not like any bone I’ve ever seen before. It’s definitely not a pig. From the shape of the little bit of jaw, I think it might be—”
“Julia, let’s go.”
“I have so much research to do in the other cavern. And now this one might—”
“We’ll come back, I promise.” Rafe regretted saying that the minute it came out of his mouth. “But for now, we’ve got to pay attention. There’s a curve up ahead.” He leaned to speak into her ear. “We’ve got to assume he can hear us since you’ve been yelling your head off. Let me go ahead until I can see around that bend.”
Julia swallowed, sneaked a peek at her fish-pig, and nodded.
“You hold the horses. And keep your attention on this cave. You want to live long enough to dig your Julia-pig-osauria out of the wall don’t you?” He gave her the reins. Maybe
it’d make her feel useful. He eased his back against the wall, his gun pointed toward the cavern roof and—one sideways step at a time, his eyes wide open for trouble—looked around the corner to find . . . another corner. He looked back to see Julia coming. She hadn’t minded him about waiting, but at least she hadn’t gone back to chiseling.
Thank you, Lord God.
He kept moving, feeling like he was walking right into the belly of the mountain. At least here it felt like he was walking in through the wall of the belly, instead of sliding down the beast’s throat like the cavern on Kincaid land.
They left sunlight behind, and Rafe wished for a lantern, although it might have revealed more bones and that would’ve slowed them down. He couldn’t see well enough to be sure if the tunnel divided. He prayed as he moved that, in the darkness, he wasn’t missing someone hiding.
Julia came steadily behind with the horses. The tunnel was wide enough for the horses to walk single file with their heads up, but that was about the limit of the space. Rafe hoped it didn’t narrow. When he went around about the fifth curve, he saw the tunnel grow lighter ahead. Blinking in disbelief, he kept moving. The tunnel was visible again, the walls smooth and solid with nowhere for anyone to hide.
Rafe rounded yet another bend and blinked at . . . sunlight.
An exit.
Had they curved around so much they’d gotten back to where they’d started?
When he reached the mouth of the cave, he stopped, stunned.
Julia came up behind him. “What is this place?”
The cave opened to a valley, the likes of which he’d never seen before. A valley so lush, his heart hammered in his chest.
Rafe clamped his mouth shut, aware it had gaped open. “It’s beautiful.”
They were standing in a bowl. A massive bowl created by a huge scoop taken out of the top of a mountain. He could see for miles across waving grass and stands of stately oaks. Spinning and quaking in the wind, aspens climbed the walls that closed around the valley. Water splashed out of cracks in several places, cascading down, running together, forming a brisk creek that cut across one corner of the place.
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