The idea of any horse taking the trail down the plateau’s east face made Janna’s heart stop. She herself used the route only when she was afoot and wanted to go to Sweetwater by the shortest possible route. There were other, safer routes up onto the plateau. One route was on the north side, one on the south, and there were several on the western side. All of them were far easier than the eastern trail.
Climbing at a rapid rate, Janna worked her way up the trail until it dipped into one of the many runoff ravines that channeled the plateau’s east face. Safe from observation from any angle but directly overhead, Janna sat on a stone seat and awaited Ty’s arrival. She didn’t wait long. He had walked only far enough behind her to avoid the shower of pebbles disturbed by her passage.
Ty grunted and shucked off the heavy pack, using it as a seat while his breathing returned to normal.
“Hell of a path,” he said after a bit. “I didn’t see any sign of Zebra coming up, but she sure headed straight here like she had something in mind.”
“She did-avoiding a river of black rock about a quarter mile south of here,” Janna explained. “It’s too rough to climb over. To avoid it, you have to go several miles away from the plateau until the rock sinks into the dirt, or you have to climb partway up the east face of the plateau to go around the head of the rock river. That’s what Zebra usually does. Then she goes up onto the top by the southern route, which is easy.”
For several minutes there was silence while Ty looked out over the land from his new perspective, checking his memories against Janna’s words.
“Does the lava flow-the river of black rock-begin there?” he asked, pointing to what looked like a dusty black creek running out from the base of the plateau.
Janna leaned out to look, taking the opportunity to brush against Ty’s outstretched arm.
“Yes.”
Ty grunted. “I can see why Zebra goes around it. A lot of jagged rock and nothing much else.”
He looked for a time longer, waiting for Janna to withdraw the tantalizing brush of her body. She didn’t. He shifted slightly, ending the intimacy, for his blood was still running hotly. Even worse, he suspected that it was going to be a permanent condition around the ragged, too-feminine waif.
“How deep are those canyons?” Ty asked, pointing toward the shadows that looked rather like a network of black lightning fanning out from the base of the plateau.
For a few moments Janna considered moving closer to Ty in order to brush against him again, but then she decided against it. Next time she would choose her moment better, so that retreat would be impossible. In a place as narrow as this crevice, she shouldn’t have to wait long for her opportunity.
“The canyons are deep enough that the wild horses go around them,” Janna said. “The countryside is full of ravines and washes and canyons like that. Most of them are dry, but nearly every butte and mesa has at least a tiny seep or rock tanks that hold water almost year-round. Black Plateau is different. It’s big enough to have water all year up top as well as seeps and springs at the base. That’s why there’s so much grass and game.”
Saying nothing, Ty smoothed a patch of dirt with his hand, then began drawing on the surface with his fingertip. Knowing that the plateau was Lucifer’s preferred range, Ty had spent weeks scouting the area before he had decided on the best way to capture the wild stallion. Unfortunately Ty had ended up captured by Indians before he could try out his plan. Janna, however, had spent years on and around Black Plateau. If there were anything wrong with Ty’s plan, she would spot it.
“This outline is Black Plateau,” he said, pointing to the very rough rectangle he had drawn in the dirt. He added sides to the rectangle, showing depth as well as area. Only the western side remained untouched, suggesting the relative flatness where the plateau’s surface blended into the rumpled front of the Fire Mountains. “From what I’ve seen, the closer you get to Black Plateau from the east, the steeper and deeper the canyons, gullies and ravines get.”
Janna shifted position, brushing against Ty’s thigh as she did so. When she leaned forward to look at what he had drawn, she braced her hand on his thigh. Ty’s hand, which was drawing lines in the dirt, jerked. He said something beneath his breath and changed position until Janna’s hand was no longer resting on his thigh.
“That’s right,” she said. “The plateau’s east face rises very steeply from the flatlands.” She leaned forward again, and again braced herself on Ty’s leg, ignoring his attempts to evade her touch. “Black Plateau is really part of the Fire Mountains,” she added, drawing a series of pyramids along the plateau’s western flank to represent the mountains. “According to Indian legends, the spirits fought each other until the earth cracked and bled and everything the blood touched became fire. Long after the earth healed, the angry spirits roared and spit fire among the peaks of the Fire range, and sometimes new blood flowed over the plateau and dripped down into the desert, where it turned into black rocks. The angry spirits still live beneath the earth around here, turning water so hot that there are springs that cook food faster than a campfire.”
Ty tried to concentrate on Janna’s words, but the presence of her hand on his leg was burning hotter than anything in the Indian legend. He would have retreated to the side again if he could have. He couldn’t. The crevice in the plateau’s side where they had taken shelter was simply too small. He was up against a black boulder right now-and her hand had slipped around to the inside of his thigh. She was so involved in the map he had drawn that she didn’t seem to notice.
Talk about being between a rock and a hard place��� Ty told himself, disgusted because the hard place was in his own lap. He pulled off his hat and dumped it between his legs, hiding the growing evidence of his discomfort in the only way he could.
“There are two good trails up on top of the plateau on its western side,” Janna continued, flexing her fingers slightly as she shifted position. Now that she had discovered it, the heat and resilience of Ty’s leg fascinated her. “The first trail is here, about two miles from the southern boundary. It’s called the Long Mew Trail.” She leaned down and forward until her ribs brushed Ty’s leg as she marked the trail on the map he had drawn in the dirt. “That’s the easiest way up. The Indians have used it for as long as anyone can remember. The second trail is here.” She made another mark. “The trails are about twenty miles apart as the crow flies. Walking it doubles the distance. The second route up is called Raven Creek Trail. It isn’t as easy as the Long View Trail, and it doesn’t lead immediately to water or good grazing, so Raven Creek Trail isn’t used except by Indian hunting parties.”
“Or war parties?”
Janna nodded. “Cascabel has his camp at the base of the plateau, where Raven Creek empties into Santos Wash. Mustang Canyon,” she added, pointing to the northern edge of the plateau, where a large notch had been cut into the stone foundations of the land, “is here. There’s good grazing all year and a trail to the top of the plateau that only deer and mustangs use, and occasional crazy mustangers.”
“And you?”
She smiled. “And me. But Zebra grew up on that trail. Sometimes I think her mama was a goat. Zebra is as surefooted as one. Besides, most of the time I get off and walk. There’s one slick rock patch that gives me nightmares.”
Ty smiled thinly. “You? Nightmares?” he scoffed. “You’re too tough to be afraid of anything.”
Janna said nothing, though she couldn’t help remembering all the nights after her father had died when she had jumped at the smallest sound, biting off screams that would have given away her position rather than summoning the help she needed. Even years later, certain combinations of sounds and smells could set her heart to hammering hard enough to break her ribs.
“Is your keyhole canyon about here?” asked Ty, pointing to a place near the southeast corner of the plateau.
“Yes.”
Steadfastly ignoring the gentle crowding pressure of Jan-na’s body, Ty looked at the map
and mentally began turning the plateau’s neat edges into a fringe of varying lengths, for that was closer to the truth of the landscape. The plateau’s north, east and south edges were fringed with sheer-sided stone promontories and cliffs, as well as canyons and ravines of varying sizes and depths; and the larger canyons had side canyons, which in turn branched into finger canyons, which branched into runoff crevices.
The result was a maze in which a person could stand on one canyon edge and look at the opposite edge only a few thousand feet away-and it would take a day of circling around to get to the other side. Most of the hundreds of nameless canyons that fringed the plateau were blind; ultimately they had only one outlet, and that was down onto the flatlands rather than up onto the top of Black Plateau itself.
“Do you know of any other trails up to the top?” Ty asked, marking the ones Janna had already mentioned. “What about all these fringe canyons? Could a man on foot climb out of some of them and up onto the plateau itself?”
Janna shrugged. “Ask Mad Jack the next time you see him. He knows things about Black Plateau that even the Indians don’t. But the canyons I’ve seen end in sheer cliffs, the kind you’d have to be crazy or running for your life to try to climb.”
“Does Lucifer graze in blind canyons?”
“The biggest ones, yes. The narrow ones, never. Some mustangers must have trapped him once. He won’t even go near the entrance of any canyon that isn’t at least a quarter mile across. He’s smart and wild as they come.”
“No wonder he’s still running loose,” Ty said, admiration and disgust mixed equally in his voice. “I was lucky to get as close as I did before Cascabel nailed me. What are the chances of startling Lucifer and getting him to run headlong into a small blind canyon before he knows what’s happening?”
“It’s been tried by every mustanger who ever came here.”
Ty didn’t ask what the result had been. He didn’t need to. The stallion still ran free.
“No wonder Troon decided to try creasing that black devil,” iy muttered.
Janna thought of the rifle shot they had heard and bit her Up.
Ty saw and had to look away. The idea of gently biting Janna’s lip himself was too tempting. In fact, everything about her was too tempting. Though she was no longer leaning over to add marks to his rough map, her hand was still resting on his leg, sending heat spreading out in all directions through his body, tantalizing him with how close those slender fingers were to the very part of him that ached for her touch.
Cursing silently, viciously, Ty tried to ease away from the intimate contact. Half an inch away he came flat up against the crevice’s stony limits. Close beside him, Janna’s stomach growled audibly in the taut silence, reminding Ty that she hadn’t eaten since they had left Keyhole Canyon yesterday morning.
“Scoot over so I can reach my pack,” Ty muttered.
Even if Janna didn’t move, the pack was within a long arm’s length of Ty-if he were willing to press against her in order to increase his reach. She gave him a sideways look and decided not to point out how close the pack was. Without a word she eased backward and to the side an inch or two.
“More.”
Ty’s curt command irritated Janna. “Haven’t you noticed? There’s not much room in this crack.”
“Yeah, and you’re taking up at least three-quarters of it,” he retorted. “Quit crowding me.”
“Crowding you? My God, you’d think I had fleas or something,” Janna muttered beneath her breath. “Seeing as how you’re the one who’s been to Ned’s saloon recently, you’re more likely to have fleas than-”
“Janna,” Ty interrupted, his voice threatening. “Move!”
“All right, all right, I’m moving.” She pushed herself to the far side of the crevice and hugged the wall as though there were a cliff inches away from her feet. “This better?”
Ty snarled something Janna chose not to hear. A pocketknife appeared in his hand. He grabbed his pack and began rummaging through it. A few moments later he pulled out a tin can. He punched the point of the blade twice into the top of the can. The second time he rotated the knife, making a wider opening. He handed the can to Janna.
“Here. Drink this.”
Janna lifted the can, tilted, sipped and made a sound of disbelief as the thick, sweet, peach-flavored liquid trickled across her tongue. She took two long, slow swallows before she reluctantly handed the can back to Ty. He refused to take it with a shake of his head.
“Finish it,” he said.
“I can’t do that. Preacher charges a dollar a can for his peaches.”
A look at Janna’s clear eyes told Ty that arguing over the peaches would be futile. He took the can, drank two small sips and handed it back over.
“Your turn,” he said flatly.
She said nothing, but she took the can and drank slowly, savoring each drop. Her undisguised pleasure made Ty smile with the knowledge that he had given her a real treat. He had spent more than enough time on the trail to know how much a person began craving something sweet and succulent after weeks or months of dried meat and biscuits and beans.
The can was passed back and forth several times, and each time Ty swore that the metal became warmer to his touch. He tried not to think about the lips that had been pressed against the rim before his own lips drank. In fact, he was doing fine at controlling the direction of his thoughts until Janna tipped the can up and waited for several seconds for the last sweet drop to fall from the rim onto the tip of her outstretched tongue. The temptation to suck that drop from her tongue with his own lips was so great that he had to turn away.
“Now what?” she asked, holding the can under Ty’s nose.
Hell of a question, he thought savagely. Wish I had an answer I could live with.
Using swift, vicious strokes of the pocketknife, Ty cut the lid from the rim, speared a peach half and held it out to Janna. She took the lush golden fruit with her fingertips, ate with delicate greed and waited her turn for another. They traded turns eating until only one piece of fruit was left, a piece that stubbornly eluded Ty’s knife. Finally he speared it and held it out to Janna. As she slid the fruit from the knife blade she sensed Ty’s intense interest. She looked up to find him watching her mouth. His eyes were a smoky green that made frissons of heat race over her skin. Without thinking she took a bite of the succulent fruit and held out the remainder to him with her fingertips.
“Your turn,” she said huskily.
For a long, aching moment Ty looked at the sweetness dripping from Janna’s slender fingers. Then he stood up in a controlled surge of power, grabbed his pack and strode out of the crevice without a word.
Chapter Nineteen
A late-afternoon storm had swept across Black Plateau, making the rocks and trees shine as though freshly polished. The slanting golden light transformed the winding meadow into a river of glistening gold. Once Janna would have felt the beauty of the land like a balm over her hungry soul; today she only saw what was absent rather than what was present. Lying on her stomach, using a row of evergreen seedlings for cover, she scanned the length of the long meadow in front of her once more, staring through the spyglass until her arms trembled with fatigue.
Ty didn’t bother to go over the land again with his own glass. He knew he would see what he and Janna had seen for the past five days-grass and water and wind in abundance, but no Lucifer standing guard over his herd. Cascabel’s renegades had been present, however. They were the reason that Ty and Janna had had to tiptoe around the plateau like thieves, able to get only as close to the mustangs as the tracks they had made yesterday or even the day before.
“I don’t understand it,” Janna said, finally lowering the spyglass and wiggling backward deeper beneath the cover of the pines that grew right to the meadow’s edge. “Even if Lucifer had been caught, wouldn’t we at least see some of his herd wandering around? No mustanger is going to want the older mares or the spring foals. Besides, we haven’t seen or heard any
sign of Troon or any other mustanger since we came up the east trail.”
“Except for that flurry of rifle shots yesterday,” Ty said. “That didn’t sound like the hunting parties we’ve been hearing. Troon could have run afoul of Cascabel.”
Janna frowned and said reluctantly, “I suppose I should scout Cascabel’s camp.”
“What?” Ty asked, astonished.
“That’s how I found you,” she explained. “I heard gunfire, ran over, saw where the tracks of two shod horses were crossed by a bunch of unshod Indian ponies. The ponies turned to follow your horses and so did I. Eventually the tracks led to Cascabel’s camp. I couldn’t get to you right away to free you, so I hid and waited for a chance to help. It finally came when you got through the gauntlet and were still able to run.”
Ty thought of the danger Janna had risked to save a total stranger and shook his head in wonder. That deceptively slender body hid a lot of plain old courage, but there was no need to spend it on a swamp Yankee like Joe Troon.
“Is Troon a friend of yours?” Ty asked.
Janna gave Ty a startled look. “Joe Troon? I wouldn’t cry one tear at his funeral,” she said in a low, flat voice. “In fact, he���”
Her voice died. She didn’t like to remember the time Troon had trapped her and started stripping off her clothes before she managed to break free and run. He had spent hours searching for her. The whole time he had yelled just what he would do when he caught her.
The combination of fear and dislike on Janna’s face told Ty more than he wanted to know about Janna and Joe Troon.
“Janna,” Ty said softly, pulling her out of her unhappy memories, “from what I’ve heard in towns where I bought my supplies, Troon is a drunk, a thief, a coward, a woman beater and a back shooter. He deserves whatever Cascabel feels like giving to him. Besides, you don’t even know if Troon has been captured. He could be back in Sweetwater right now, getting drunk on Ned’s rotgut. There’s no point in either of us risking our butt to scout a renegade camp for a no-good bit of swamp gas like Joe Troon.”
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