The route the journal indicated took her the full length of the grassland. Part of it could be taken along the edge of the forest. Most of it could not. The beginning was the worst. There would be two miles without any real cover.
Willow tightened her grip on the shotgun and the reins as she listened intently and watched the grassland for signs of life. It was difficult to see much in the dim, featureless pre-dawn light. Several shadows that were the size of deer moved slowly along the margin of meadow and trees. Nothing else moved but grass stirred by the wind. It was so quiet she could hear the high, wild cry of an eagle as it flew toward dawn, searching for the first kill of the day. Willow inhaled deeply. There was no smoke in the air, no obvious sign of other people, nothing but an eerie prickling on the back of her neck.
Suddenly, Ishmael shied and snorted. Willow didn’t know whether the stallion was sensing her own uneasiness or if he scented some other horse on the wind.
“Easy, boy,” she murmured. “I don’t like that open space either, but there’s no other way. Let’s get it over with before the sun clears the peaks.”
A touch of Willow’s heels moved Ishmael into a canter. Though smaller than Caleb’s Montana horses, the Arabian had a long, hungry stride.
A shout came from the forest behind and to Willow’s left.
That can’t be Caleb. After what he said last night, he wouldn’t follow me. And even if Matt made Caleb come along, it’s barely dawn. He and Matt are just getting up. Besides, the shout came from the wrong direction for the valley.
Another shout came. Willow looked over her shoulder. Four riders were coming toward her. Their horses were big, dark, long-legged bays. They came closer to her with each stride.
Willow lifted the reins and spoke to the stallion. Instantly, his canter shifted into a gallop. After a few hundred yards she looked over her shoulder. The riders were following, their horses running hard.
Clutching the shotgun, Willow bent low over Ishmael’s neck and spoke to him again, asking for more speed. His stride lengthened as he began to gallop in earnest, running close to the land, flattened out except for the elegant red banner of his raised tail.
Grass and bushes whipped by in a blur. Wind tore tears from Willow’s eyes and tried to drag the breath from her throat. Ishmael’s hooves made a continuous drumroll of sound. The pace was far too fast for the uncertain light, and too demanding on the stallion’s strength, but there was no choice. She had to outrun the other horses.
Willow settled even closer to Ishmael’s neck, balancing her weight over his driving shoulders where she would be the least burden to him. The shotgun made the position awkward for horse and rider both. After several tries, Willow managed to jam the gun into its saddle scabbard.
When she judged that a mile had gone by, Willow looked over her shoulder. Fear squeezed her heart. The four horses had drawn closer. As she turned around, wind ripped her hat from her head and quickly unravelled her hair until it streamed out behind like a ghostly flag. Blinking fiercely to clear her eyes of wind-caused tears, Willow leaned even farther toward, holding the reins only inches from the bit, burying her cheek against Ishmael’s hot neck.
As the second mile flew by, the Arabian slowly began pulling away from the pursuing horses. When the men realized it, they started firing.
The fierce pace and the vague light helped Willow. She heard the shots over Ishmael’s deep, hard breathing and the thunder of his hooves, but no bullets came close. Flattening against the stallion’s sweaty neck, Willow praised him and encouraged him while another mile raced by and dawn turned nearby peaks to burning gold.
The creek came out of nowhere, hidden by a fold in the grassland. Willow caught no more than a glimpse of the barrier of rock and water that had been thrown without warning across Ishmael’s path. She clung like a pale shadow as the horse’s whole body bunched in mid-stride, twisted, and then released in a gigantic spring that left the gully behind.
Caught off-stride by having to jump without warning, the stallion stumbled as he landed. Willow braced her feet in the stirrups and hauled up on the reins, lifting Ishmael’s head and literally pulling him back into balance. Catlike, he collected himself and within seconds was running flat out again.
Willow threw a quick glance over her shoulder. The pursuers were falling off the pace. One of the horses had given up entirely. They had been faster than the stallion over the first mile, had held their own for a second mile, but they had lacked the Arabian’s stamina for the long, grinding miles after that.
Relief washed over Willow in a wave that was almost dizzying. She turned back and leaned lower along the stallion’s straining neck. Her voice praised him, telling him how he was running the other horses right into the ground. Ishmael’s ears flickered back and forth, listening to his rider’s words. Though the Arabian was breathing hard, his stride was still even. He hadn’t come to the end of his strength yet, but he would soon. She could only hope that the other horses would be far behind by the time Ishmael could run no more.
As the fourth mile whipped by, a volley of shots came from behind Willow. She looked over her shoulder. All but one of the horses had given up. It had the long, racy look of a Thoroughbred. If it were indeed a racehorse, it wasn’t used to races that went on for miles. It, too, was falling off the pace, but slowly.
And it took the gully like the Irish hunter it was.
Talking over the thunder of Ishmael’s hooves, Willow asked for more of the stallion’s strength. His ears flicked and his neck stretched out a bit more. Willow flattened out with him, crying from more than the wind. She knew she was running her horse far too hard, too fast, too long. She also knew that she had no choice but to ask Ishmael for his last ounce of strength.
By the time the fifth mile went by, the stallion’s breath was sawing in and out of his mouth and lather covered much of his red body, but his stride was still hard and rhythmic. Fearful of what she would see, Willow waited as long as she could before she wiped her eyes on her forearm and looked over her shoulder.
The other horse was falling away rapidly, no longer able to run.
Willow wept with relief and pulled Ishmael back to a slower gallop, easing the strain on his heart and lungs. The long meadow swept past on either side, then bent around a tongue of stone thrusting down from the mountain. No one followed her into the sweeping curve. She pulled lightly on the reins again, slowing Ishmael even more.
And then she pulled back so hard that the stallion reared up and slid on his hocks.
In the first clear light of day, five horsemen were spread across the meadow in front of Willow, closing in on her at a run. Turning around and running from them was futile. Even if Ishmael could take another long race, it would only carry them back to the enemies he had just outrun. Escape to either side wasn’t possible, for the meadow was being pinched between the high, steep walls as the stream descended, eating through the mountain.
Willow did the only thing she could. She yanked out the shotgun and urged Ishmael into a hard gallop once more. Hair streaming out behind her like a golden flag, she raced the stallion toward the men who were dosing in on her.
CALEB saw the flattened grass where Willow’s bedroll had been, counted horses in the gray light, and felt adrenaline rush through his veins.
She couldn’t have run off. We’d have heard her.
Just as he turned away, he saw the pale flash of paper tied to a bush. He stripped off the note, read it, and felt as though he had been dropped in ice-water.
Willow had gone alone into the night rather than face a dawn that held Caleb Black.
“Find her?” Reno asked as he watched Caleb stalk toward him.
“She took Ishmael and rode out last night,” Caleb said flatly.
“We’d have heard her,” Reno said immediately. “She must be hiding in the trees.”
“Her stud’s gone and so is she. She wrapped her horse’s hooves in cloth,” Caleb said. He knelt, wrapped up his bedroll, and tied it behind th
e saddle he had used as a pillow.
“She left a note dividing up her mares.”
“But why?” Reno asked.
“She loves those mares like a mother loves her kids, but she hates me more. She’d ride through Hell itself to get away from me.”
“Willy’s not a fool,” Reno said. “Where does she think she’s going? She doesn’t know these mountains.”
“She took my shotgun and my journal.” As Caleb talked, he pulled two boxes of ammunition from a saddlebag and shoved them into the pockets of his shearling coat. “Getting lost will be the least of her problems.”
“Slater,” Reno said, shocked. “She knows he’s out there somewhere. My God. What the hell did you do to Willow last night?”
“I was a gentleman,” Caleb said savagely. “She told me she wanted to sleep alone. I let her. But don’t worry, Reno. I’ll never be that stupid again.”
As sunlight brushed the highest peak, Caleb’s whistle shredded the dawn silence. Two dark horses trotted toward him. He grabbed a bridle, saddle, and saddlebags and headed for Trey as Reno turned and ran back to his own camp. He reappeared a moment later with a bridle in one hand and a saddle thrown over his shoulder.
A short time later, Caleb and Reno emerged from the thicket that protected the entrance to the little valley. Reno didn’t bother to tie the branches together behind them. He simply vaulted into the saddle and began looking for signs. Caleb was ahead of him. He made a sharp gesture, then turned and trotted downstream, making no effort to hide his tracks in the water.
Reno didn’t object. Concealing the location of his valley was the least of their problems at the moment. Finding Willow before Slater did was all that mattered. Their best hope was that Willow had been traveling by moonlight and trying to be quiet. Caleb and Reno were traveling in better light and didn’t give a damn who knew about it. They should overtake her quickly.
Suddenly Caleb reined in and held up his hand in a signal for silence. Both men stood in the stirrups, turning their heads slowly, trying to decide if they really had heard rifle shots, and if so, from which direction.
The sound of a ragged volley came from down below, followed by the boom of a double-barrelled shotgun.
Ruthlessly Caleb spurred Trey, sending the big horse hurtling down the trail at a breakneck pace. Reno was right on his heels. Both men had their rifles out and little hope of getting anywhere in time to use them. The shots had come from downhill and miles away. By the time Caleb and Reno got there, nothing would be left but tracks and spent shells.
Wolfe Lonetree was waiting for them just where the big meadow began. His horse blocked the tracks made by Ishmael while Willow had looked over the grass for the signs of man.
“Slater’s bunch has the girl and the red stud about five miles down the trail,” he said to Caleb and Reno. “She’s not hurt and not likely to be hurt for a bit. Slater is trying to get her to tell where you are, but if we come charging up, he’ll cut her throat just to spite you. You know his reputation.”
“Yes,” Caleb said in a dipped voice. “I know it. Can you get us close to where he’s holding Willow?”
Wolfe nodded and reined his horse into the meadow. The mare was an odd blue-gray with black mane and tail, a color found in mustangs that were throwbacks to their Spanish ancestors. Three abreast, the horses cantered across the grassland on a long diagonal that finally brought them to a fringe of forest. Once there, they reined in to a walk, resting the horses for whatever might come. Without making a fuss about it, Wolfe made certain his horse was between Reno and Caleb. Speculatively, Wolfe’s indigo eyes went from one man to the other, trying to figure out if Caleb knew who Willow’s husband really was.
After a moment, Wolfe said dryly to Reno, “You must be Matthew Moran.”
“Most people call him Reno,” Caleb said, but his eyes never stopped searching the land ahead.
Wolfe smiled slightly and relaxed. “I always have. Didn’t know you were married, Reno.”
“Willy is my sister,” Reno said. “She’s going to be Caleb’s wife.”
Deep blue eyes went from Caleb to Reno and back to Caleb again. “Wife,” Wolfe repeated softly.
Caleb nodded.
“Well, if ever a woman could put a bridle on you, that blond warrior I saw this morning would be the one.”
“You saw her?” Caleb demanded.
“See that bald knob up there?” Wolfe asked, pointing.
Across the grass and about a thousand feet higher up, there was a stony knob.
“I see it,” he said curtly.
“I was sitting up there with my binoculars, keeping an eye on Slater’s bunch,” Wolfe said. “The girl was a few hundred yards out in the meadow when she saw Jed Slater and some of his men break cover behind her. She didn’t waste time wringing her hands. She sent that red stud of hers into a dead run. Slater was on that big racehorse of his.”
Unhappily, Reno shook his head and said something beneath his breath.
“Then she never had a chance,” Caleb said aloud.
“That’s what Slater thought, too,” Wolfe said. “He let that big horse run. A mile later he had cut Willow’s lead to a hundred yards. Two miles later he was working hard to stay even. Three miles later he was losing ground. He tried shooting, but it was too late.”
“I’ll kill him,” Caleb said.
Wolfe slanted the other man a sideways look. “Wouldn’t surprise me. God knows he’s earned it.”
“Is that when Slater caught Willy?” Reno asked. “Did she pull up when he started shooting?”
Wolfe shook his head. “Hell, no. She kept that red horse at a dead run every foot of the way, shots or no shots. They jumped a hidden gully that had to be every bit of twenty feet across. The stud nearly went down on the other side, but she hauled him back onto his feet and had him collected and running again in nothing flat. And they just kept on running. Never seen anything like it.”
“What?” Reno asked.
“That red stud,” Wolfe said simply. “Your sister ran him flat out for more than five miles. She never raised a whip, never beat him with her heels, never did one damn thing but stick to his neck like a burr. Slater’s big horse is game, but he just didn’t have the heart of that little red stud.”
“Then how did Slater catch her?” Caleb demanded.
“He didn’t. He had split his bunch to look for sign. Half of them were in front of her. She came around a curve in the meadow and there they were.”Wolf looked at Caleb suddenly. “Are you sure you want to marry her?”
“Dead sure.”
“Damn. I’ve got to tell you, Cal, if it were anyone but you, I’d make a run at her myself.”
Caleb threw Wolfe a narrow look. “Forget it.”
Wolfe’s smile flashed against his dark features. “Don’t blame you a bit. That’s one hell of a girl. She saw the men in front of her and pulled her horse right back onto his hocks. By the time he got four hooves on the ground again, she had seen her best chance and she took it.” Wolfe shook his head, remembering. “She aimed that red stud for the biggest gap in the horsemen, yanked out her shotgun, and headed for the men at a dead run.”
Reno looked shocked. “Willow did that?”
Wolfe nodded, then glanced at Caleb. “You don’t look surprised.”
“I’m not. When the Comancheros jumped us, my horse went down. Willow turned around and came back for me and damn the rifle fire.”
“I can see how that would put a man in a marrying frame of mind,” Wolfe said, smiling. “Just watching her take on Slater’s bunch gave me a few ideas in that direction. Those London ladies I met were as lovely as dawn, and would have lasted just about as long out here.”
“Willow did fine as soon as I got her some decent clothes,” Caleb said.
“Thought I recognized those buckskins,” Wolfe said. “It took Slater’s men a minute to figure out it was a girl riding up. Once they did, they sort of settled back, expecting it to end without a fuss. By the tim
e they got their rifles out she was on top of them. They fired a couple of rounds to turn her, she fired back, and one of the men grabbed her right out of the saddle when the stud ran by.”
Caleb’s hand tightened on the rifle stock. “Did he hurt her?”
“Not as much as she hurt him,” Wolfe said, satisfaction in every syllable. “He might as well have grabbed a wildcat. By the time I got down off that rock and up to the men, Willow was hog-tied on the ground and the man who had caught her didn’t have enough skin left on his face to be worth shaving.”
Wolfe didn’t mention that Willow looked a little worse for wear, too, her pale cheeks showing the clear imprints of a man’s hand.
“Then Slater came up and started asking questions about you,” Wolfe continued, glancing at Caleb. “Willow said she didn’t know where you were, that she was lost.”
“Did Slater believe her?” Reno asked.
Unhappily, Wolfe took off his hat, ran his fingers through hair as thick and black as night, and snapped his hat back into place. “No. He found a book of some kind she was carrying. Seems there was a map and a lot of notes in it.”
“My journal,” Caleb said. “She took it.”
Wolfe’s eyes narrowed, but he asked no questions despite his curiosity. “Slater told her to point out where she had been. She looked him right in the eye and told him she couldn’t read. He threw the journal in her face and told her she had until the horses were cooled out to learn.”
“How much time do we have left?” Reno asked.
Silently Wolfe scanned the countryside and the angle of the sun. “Maybe another hour. Those horses were lathered from their fetlocks to their ears. That’s why I took a chance and came looking for you. If I hadn’t found you in five more minutes, I was going back.”
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