Only You

by Lowell, Elizabeth

  When Eve looked into the coyote hole, there was no gleam of light from Reno’s lantern. Frantically she grabbed her own lantern and crawled into the narrow tunnel, pushing the light in front of her. There was so much dust hanging in the air that the light looked as though it had been wrapped in gauze.

  Within seconds Eve was coughing and choking from the swirling dust. She yanked her bandanna up and wriggled forward as fast as she could, ignoring the rocks that scraped and bruised her body.

  With every breath Eve took, she called Reno’s name. No answer came but the raw echoes of her own screams.

  The lantern hit something and refused to budge. Crying, calling for Reno, Eve battered blindly at the unexpected obstacle. Finally she realized what was wrong. Where the coyote hole should have emerged into the older, wider tunnel, the ceiling had given way. Now there was nothing but a wall of debris.

  Eve clawed at the loose rubble, pushing it away down both sides of her body. For every handful she removed, two more took its place.

  “Reno.”

  There was no sound in the tunnel but that of her own broken sobs.

  It was the same an hour later, when Eve finally realized that she didn’t have the strength to dig through the cave-in alone.

  DIRTY, disheveled, wild-eyed, Eve crept past the point where Reno had said Slater’s guards were posted. Though twice she sent pebbles rolling, no man called out or came after her. She hardly noticed her good luck. She was intent on what had to be done, bribing Jericho Slater with a combination of gold ingots and lead bullets.

  They want the gold, they can have it. But first they have to dig Reno free.

  And I’ll be standing over them with a loaded shotgun every inch of the way.

  A small corner of Eve’s mind knew that her plan was so foolish as to be suicidal. The rest of her mind just flat didn’t care. She wasn’t strong enough to dig Reno out of the mountain. Slater’s gang was.

  So she would go to Slater, and let the devil take the hindmost.

  Eve went through the marshy area like a gritty wraith. Her once white shirt was the gray-black color of the rocks. So were her pants. So was everything else but the guns she carried. She had wiped them down with a care Reno had taught her. The weapons were clean, fully loaded, and ready to fire.

  The second cascade was bordered by forest and brush. Silence was impossible, but that didn’t matter; the water was making enough noise to drown out a mustang stampede. Automatically Eve shifted the shotgun and bandolier so they wouldn’t catch on the shrubs and trees that reached out to snag her.

  Just before the cascade spread out across the boulder-strewn mouth of the larger valley, the water took one final leap over a slate ledge. Eve wriggled out on the rock to get a look at the camp. She had already decided that Jericho Slater was the first prisoner she should take. It was just a matter of finding out where he was.

  A quick look over the ledge told Eve she was lucky not to be a prisoner herself. Slater’s gang was camped about a hundred feet from the waterfall, back in a thick grove of evergreens. Horses were picketed around the meadow. A quick count gave her a total of twenty.

  Despair curled blackly in Eve’s bones. Ten men, she might have managed to watch. Even twelve.

  But twenty?

  There’s no help for it. Grab Slater, cut a deal, and get on with it. No matter how bad it looks for me, what Reno’s facing is worse, trapped in there without light or food or water.

  And he never liked the tunnels. He feels the same way about them that I do about those eyebrow trails over slickrock.

  I’ve got to get to him soon. I can’t leave him there alone.

  Eve refused to think about the possibility that Reno was already dead under tons of rubble, buried as the slave child had been buried, one more sacrifice to the golden tears of the sun god. Eve was certain she would know if he were dead. She would feel it just as surely as she felt her own life now.

  Wiping her eyes against her sleeve, she looked again at the camp. A swirl of pale gray caught her attention. Jericho Slater still wore the wrist-length cape of the Confederate army. The white planter’s hat was also familiar; he hadn’t removed it even when he sat at her table to play cards.

  I wonder how Slater feels about tunnels. Hope he hates them. Because until Reno is free, Slater is going to be spending a lot of time in the dark.

  Smiling grimly, Eve eased back off the slate overlook and into the cover of the trees.

  As soon as the green boughs folded around her, a man’s hand shot out and clamped over her mouth. Simultaneously a powerful arm clamped around her waist, pinning her arms to her body. Though she was holding a shotgun, she had no chance to use it.

  An instant later Eve was lifted off her feet, helpless but for her wildly kicking feet.

  “Slow down, wildcat,” a deep voice said quietly in Eve’s ear. “It’s Caleb Black.”

  Eve went still, then looked over her shoulder.

  Caleb’s whiskey-colored eyes looked back at her. The warmth she remembered in his eyes was lacking. He looked just like what Reno had once called him, a dark angel of vengeance.

  Eve nodded to show that she understood she was safe. Slowly Caleb set her down. When she was standing on her own feet, he jerked his thumb, silently telling Eve to get deeper into cover.

  As soon as she did, another man stepped forward. His hair was the same black as Caleb’s, but the resemblance ended there. Caleb’s hair had a slight curl. Wolfe Lonetree’s was straight as a ruler. His eyes were an indigo so dark as to be nearly black. His face showed the high cheekbones of his Cheyenne mother and the sharply defined mouth of his Scots father. Though not as big as Caleb or Reno, Wolfe moved with a physical confidence that was more impressive than size alone would have been.

  Caleb’s hands moved in sign talk that was as graceful as it was precise. Wolfe nodded and moved past Eve, touching his dark hat in silent greeting as he did. The hand he lifted to his hat was holding two boxes of shells. His other hand was wrapped around two repeating rifles.

  Eve stared for an instant, then eased farther back into the trees, pulled by Caleb’s hand on her arm. As soon as it was safe to speak, she did.

  “There was a cave-in. Reno’s trapped. There are two guards at the next cascade.”

  Caleb’s eyes narrowed. “Is he alive?”

  She nodded, unable to say anything for the fear drawing her throat tight.

  “Is he hurt?” Caleb asked.

  “I don’t know. I couldn’t get to him.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Nothing. He couldn’t hear me.”

  Caleb didn’t ask how Eve knew Reno was alive. He had seen both the wildness and the soul-deep determination in her eyes.

  “I took care of the guards,” Caleb said. “Go back to the marshy area and wait. We’ll be along shortly.”

  “But Reno—”

  “Go. We can’t do a damn thing for Reno as long as Jericho Slater is settin’ up to shoot us in the back.”

  Caleb turned away, then stopped and looked over his shoulder at Eve.

  “Rafe Moran is somewhere around here. So if you see a man as big as Reno coming at you, blond hair, easy-moving, with a bullwhip in one hand and a six-gun in the other, don’t shoot him.”

  Numbly Eve nodded.

  “There’s a pint-sized redhead called Jessi Lonetree about a mile back down the trail,” Caleb continued. “She’s supposed to stay put, but she might take a notion to come looking for her man after the shooting stops.”

  “Jessi? Then that was Wolfe?”

  Caleb grinned. “Sure was. Now, go on up to the marsh and wait for us. With Wolfe and a repeating rifle up on that rock preaching to them about the wages of sin, Slater’s boys will soon see the error of their ways. There will be a regular stampede of converts heading down the mountain.”

  “I can help.”

  “You sure can,” Caleb agreed. “You can get your rump up to the marsh and stay safe. If anything happens to you, no one would kn
ow where to look for Reno.”

  “Then I’ll go back to the mine. He might be calling for me.”

  “Don’t go inside that mine until I’m there,” Caleb said flatly.

  Eve opened her mouth to argue.

  “I mean it, Eve. I’ll tie you like a chicken for the spit if I have to.”

  “But—”

  “Get it through your head,” Caleb said roughly, overriding her attempts to speak. “Without you, we don’t have a chance in hell of helping Reno.”

  Slowly Eve nodded and turned away, not even noticing the tears that were once again making silver trails through the dirt on her cheeks.

  She was halfway up the cascade when Wolfe Lonetree opened up with his rifle. Shot after shot screamed through the high mountain air, echoing back from stone peaks. From below, other rifles returned fire in a crescendo of noise.

  By the time Eve reached the marsh, the rifle shots were coming less frequently. As she climbed the second cascade, a six-gun opened up in measured intervals. Silence returned to the mountain before she reached the tiny valley that held the mine.

  Caleb had been right. Slater’s gang hadn’t liked facing Wolfe Lonetree’s lethal skill with a rifle.

  22

  “Y OU’RE not making sense,” Eve said flatly.

  Hands on her hips, she faced the three hard-looking men and the slender redheaded woman who had gathered in front of the mine.

  “You’re the one who isn’t making sense,” Caleb said. “First you were going to take on Slater’s bunch with a shotgun, and now you’re talking about going down alone into that hellhole and—”

  “I went after Slater because I didn’t care if I killed some of his gang digging out Reno,” Eve interrupted. “You have a wife and child waiting for you.”

  She turned to Wolfe. “And you have a wife right here who needs you. I’m the only one who knows how to get to Reno, and I don’t have a soul who looks to me for anything at all. Besides, there’s only room for one to dig at a time. When I can’t dig anymore, you can draw straws.”

  As Eve spun around to go inside, a bullwhip snaked out and curled tightly around her knees, holding her in place without hurting her in the least.

  “Wait up, miss. I’m going with you.”

  Eve spun and confronted the big, blond man who smiled and spoke and moved so much like Reno, she could hardly bear to look at him. The color of the eyes was different, gray rather than green, but their catlike tilt and clarity were so similar, it was like a knife in her heart.

  And like Reno, Rafe’s eyes could be as cold as winter ice when he was determined to get something.

  “Don’t waste my time arguing,” Rafe said bluntly. “Either I go with you or I go alone. I’m no stranger to mines and Reno’s trail signs. I’ll find him.”

  Eve didn’t doubt it.

  “All right,” she said in an aching voice. “I’d be obliged. I’m not nearly as strong in the shoulders as you are.”

  Rafe flicked his wrist. The long bullwhip fell away from Eve. Ignoring Wolfe’s and Caleb’s objections, she grabbed a lantern and went into the mine’s entrance. Rafe dropped the whip and followed, pausing only long enough to grab a shovel and a lantern.

  Caleb and Wolfe were right behind them, sharing a third lantern between them. Jessi stayed just inside the mouth of the mine with a shotgun, standing guard on the off chance that one of Slater’s Comancheros had run the wrong way when the bullets started flying.

  Eve heard the sounds of more than one person following her, looked over her shoulder, and felt warmed. Though there truly wasn’t room for more than one man at a time to dig, it made her feel better just knowing that so many hands would be available to help.

  Rafe ducked lower and lower as the ragged ceiling of the mine came down. At every branching of the tunnel, he noted the signs Reno had left.

  Eve went through the big, rockbound tunnel with a speed that set the lantern to swinging. Rafe followed her like a large, muscular shadow. Caleb and Wolfe kept back a bit, marking the branching tunnels in their own way.

  A dust as fine as talcum powder still hung in the air back where the collapsed coyote hole cut away from the main tunnel. Rafe took in the place with a single glance. When he saw the pile of gold bars, his eyes widened. He looked swiftly at Eve. She paid no more attention to the gold than she would have to a similar pile of river rocks.

  “This goes back about ten feet before it’s blocked,” Eve said, pointing to the coyote hole. “I shouted and shouted, but he didn’t answer.”

  Rafe’s mouth thinned, but all he said was, “Let me try it. My voice carries a lot farther than yours.”

  Eve nodded tightly and watched as Rafe knelt and set aside the lantern. The coyote hole looked about as inviting as a grave. He glanced down at the shovel. In that narrow opening, he would be lucky to have enough room to use it as a bludgeon.

  “Surprised Reno went in here,” Rafe muttered. “He never cared much for dark, tight places.”

  “Maybe he never had Spanish gold waiting on the other side,” she said tersely.

  “There’s more?” Rafe asked as he crawled over the stacked ingots and into the dark, tight hole.

  “Two ingots that we know of. Supposed to be a lot more buried somewhere down here. For all of me, they can stay buried.”

  The only sound that came from Rafe was a low curse as he forced himself over the ingots and into the narrow coyote hole.

  Eve sank to her knees and leaned against the cold wall of the tunnel. Distantly she realized that she was trembling. When Caleb touched her shoulder, she started wildly.

  Rafe’s deep voice boomed through the coyote hole as he called for Reno. Silence followed. Rafe called again. More silence followed. It was no different the third and fourth time Rafe yelled his brother’s name.

  “Cal, Wolfe, cart that gold up to Jessi,” Rafe said after a minute. “It’s just in the way down here.”

  The sound of a steel shovel blade ramming into rocky rubble came back through the tunnel as Rafe began to dig.

  “You’ll need someone to haul rubble out of your way,” Caleb said.

  “It will have to be Eve. Two men just flat won’t fit in here.”

  Wolfe bent, shone the lantern into the coyote hole, and began swearing in a combination of Cheyenne and British English.

  “He’s right, Cal. The bloody thing fits Rafe like a stone skin.”

  Caleb bent, looked, and began picking up the heavy gold ingots, swearing fit to raise blisters on the rock about the connection between fools, gold, and the kind of hell you didn’t have to die to discover.

  The rhythm of the shoveling never varied as Rafe dug through loosely piled stones and crumbling rock, pushing the debris to either side of his body and praying that the rest of the coyote hole would hold.

  While Rafe bored through the darkness like a grim, living drill, Caleb and Wolfe came and went until a stack of big ingots grew at the mouth of the mine. Eve barely noticed the absence of the bars except that it made her job easier as she crawled into the hole and dragged debris out, giving Rafe a bit more room to work.

  “Send Eve when you need someone to spell you,” Wolfe said as he picked up the last ingot.

  Rafe grunted an answer and kept digging.

  In time, the first spectral flickers of lantern light gleamed through the rubble piled in front of Rafe.

  “I see light!” Rafe called back.

  “Is Reno there?” Eve called.

  “Can’t tell. The ceiling keeps—”

  Rafe’s words were cut off by a shower of stones. He cursed in the kind of searing invective learned in the toughest ports on earth. And as he cursed, he dug, knowing with every stroke of his shovel that he could be digging his own grave.

  No matter how hard Rafe dug, he could not keep a hole open that was big enough to crawl through. The grim set of his mouth when he wriggled back out into the tunnel where Eve waited told her more than she wanted to know.

  “The more I dig, the f
arther away I get,” Rafe said bluntly, wiping sweat from his eyes. “I got the biggest rocks out of the way, but the small stuff keeps coming down. It’s like digging through a riverbed. I can barely open up enough space for a cat, much less for a man my size.”

  “Any sign of Reno?”

  Rafe looked at Eve’s shadowed golden eyes and pinched face. He stroked her tangled hair with surprising gentleness.

  “I got the shoved through to air twice,” Rafe said. “More stuff came down each time. I shouted through the opening, but…”

  He looked away, unable to confront the anguished hope in Eve’s eyes.

  She didn’t ask for any more information. If Reno had called out in return, Rafe would have heard.

  “Well, we’re better off than we were,” Rafe said. “At least we know there’s new air going in through the hole, and enough space on the other side to echo when I shout, and there was enough air all along to keep Reno’s lantern burning.”

  Eve nodded, but her attention was on the coyote hole.

  “If he wasn’t killed outright,” Rafe continued, “he’s probably knocked out or in another part of the mine, looking for a way out.”

  “Shall I get Caleb or Wolfe?”

  “No,” Rafe said curtly. “You were dead right. That hole is no place for a family man.”

  “Rest for a few minutes,” Eve said in a shaking voice. “There’s water in the canteen. It’s yesterday’s, but I don’t suppose you’ll mind.”

  Rafe’s teeth were a white flash against his gritand sweat-streaked face.

  “I sure won’t,” he agreed.

  He set aside the shovel and went to the canteen, which Eve had put back up the tunnel, out of the way.

  As soon as Rafe picked up the canteen, Eve grabbed the shovel and scrambled into the coyote hole. By the time he turned around and realized what she had done, she was beyond his reach.

  “Come back here!” Rafe yelled. “It’s too dangerous. That ceiling is set to come down at the first excuse!”

  Eve’s only answer was, “I can get through any hole a cat can. Ask Reno. He calls me gata.”