“I can’t promise we’ll make it. You know that,” he whispered.
“I know.” Her lips trembled from the effort of saying the words.
Mason lifted a hand and gently brushed the hair from her face. It was the loveliest face he had even seen. He wanted to hold her, shield her, take her inside himself so she would be forever safe.
“Victoria, let…” he whispered shakily. He couldn’t have stopped himself if she had said no. But she didn’t, and he bent his head to lay his lips gently on hers. The softness of her parted lips was undeniably sweet and he trembled from his effort not to take more than she offered. When he raised his head her eyes were closed, but they opened slowly and looked deeply into his. They stood for a moment as if mesmerized, and then he said softly, “Ready?”
She nodded and reached for his hand. He held it tightly while he explained what they would do.
“Look right into the sun. Then lie down flat. As soon as the edge of the sun hits that granite ridge it will be about even with the ground. Start crawling. I’ll be right behind you. When we get to the hollow beside the place where the bushes start, I’ll see where the sun is by then. We may have to run, but don’t worry. I’ll help you.”
“All right. Mason, I wish it could have been different. I wish it hadn’t been you that Robert sold the ranch to.”
“I don’t. I’ve got the feeling that the day I met Robert McKenna was the luckiest day of my life.” He grinned, his swollen lips making him look wicked. “And not because of the ranch.”
Victoria felt her heart leap, then settle into a pounding that left her breathless. Suddenly she felt light and airy and unafraid. Mason pressed her down to the ground. She gritted her teeth to keep from crying out when her thigh touched the earth.
“Now?” The whisper came from behind her and she started forward digging her fingers and the toe of her good leg into the grass to push herself along.
Oh, Lord,she thought. Mason is behind me! If they start shooting they’ll hit him first. He did it to shield me! Please, let me hurry! Don’t let them shoot! Stark lines of pain and concentration creased her face as she dragged herself over the grass. She looked up every few seconds to be sure she was heading into the sun. Suddenly she felt Mason’s hand on her boot. He had moved up closer and was pushing her good leg against his hand. She moved faster after that.
To Victoria the seconds seemed like hours. She clenched her teeth to keep from making a sound when her throbbing leg dragged over a hard clod of dirt or a dried twig. Her body was wet with sweat and the buttons had come undone on her shirt. Desperately she dug her fingers into the dirt. How much farther? Oh, dear God, how much farther?
They moved along the ground in a series of jerks. Mason had to lay down the rifle each time he placed his hand against the sole of her boot so she could push. He knew what an effort she was making and his admiration for her grew. The pain in her leg had to be agonizing, yet not one whimper had escaped her lips. He wondered if she realized what an enormous chance they were taking, although the farther they got from the bushwhackers the better chance they had.
The ground seemed to go down hill and Mason raised his head slightly and took a quick look around. A few yards more and they just might be low enough so they could turn and inch their way toward the thick growth of aspen. Move on, my golden girl, he urged silently. We’ll make it and the bastards will pay, by God! They’ll pay for what they’ve done to you.
They reached the lowest part of the slight dip in the ground and Mason’s fingers closed around her ankle. She lay still and then moved her head so she could look back from under her arm. He jerked his head to the left and she began to move again, keeping as low as possible, trying to stir the grass no more than she could help. With each move she expected to hear the sharp crack of a rifle and was surprised each time at the silence.
It seemed an eternity before she inched behind the first bush, before the coolness of the shaded earth touched her wet face. Victoria began to try to move faster and heard Mason’s warning whisper.
“Easy. We don’t want to start a squirrel chattering or make a bird suddenly fly up. Just go easy. You’ve done very well.”
His praise gave her the strength to keep going. Another few minutes passed, and although they were well in among the trees Mason gave no indication they were to stop. Doggedly Victoria continued to crawl. Finally his hand closed around her ankle. She lay still, her face on her arm, until she felt him move up beside her, patting her shoulder, pushing the hair back from her face.
“We did it.” Her words were halfway between a question and a statement.
He smiled and his teeth showed white against his dirty face. “We did it.” Then a grimness came back to his face as if the smile had never been there. “But we’ve got to do more.” He turned over and sat up.
Victoria felt as if every nerve in her body were connected to her leg. She rolled over, but had to move her leg with both hands. When she was seated beside Mason she looked back at the way they had come. It had been a nightmare of a journey. Her hands hurt, the palms scratched and bleeding. Mason reached for her, alarmed by her pallor, afraid she was going to faint. She leaned against him and let the tears slowly trickle from between her tightly closed lids. Nothing had ever felt as good as the warmth of his solid strength. She felt safe, cosseted, and allowed herself a few minutes of the luxury of being held by him. Then firmly she pushed herself away.
He tipped up her chin and his thumb gently wiped a tear from beneath her eye. She kept her lids lowered and refused to look at him.
“I was beginning to think you were as tough as boot leather, that beneath this woman’s face there was not woman after all,” he said tenderly.
She turned her shoulders away from him and fumbled with the buttons on her shirt, ashamed she had let him see her vulnerability.
Realizing that Victoria needed time to compose herself Mason carefully got to his feet. They would have thirty or forty minutes at the most before their attackers realized they were gone, he reasoned. After that he had no doubt that they would be able to follow the trail he and Victoria had left. Their only hope was to get as far away as possible so darkness would fall before the bushwhackers found them.
Mason looked down at Victoria and saw that she was licking her lips. She’s thirsty, and pale as a ghost! he thought despairingly. She’s lost so much blood she could go into shock if she doesn’t get water.
He hunkered down so he could see her face. “We must go. Are you up to it?”
As tired as she was she managed to smile. “I won’t know until I try, will I?”
He helped her to stand. She tried to put her weight on her injured leg and her mouth opened in a silent cry of protest.
“Can I have just a minute?” she asked.
“We don’t have a minute, Victoria,” he murmured huskily. He slung the rifle across his back, gripped her hand in his and brought his forearm up tightly beneath her armpit. “Let’s try this and if it doesn’t work I’ll carry you.”
“Oh, no! I’ll make it.”
The first few steps were agonizing. Victoria gritted her teeth to keep from crying out. After that their awkward gait took on a rhythm—a step and a hop. Mason was amazingly strong. She could feel his muscles like steel beneath her arm. After a while he asked her if she wanted to stop and rest. Wordlessly she shook her head and they stumbled on.
The softness of evening settled over the densely wooded area, and the air cooled. Night comes quickly in the mountains after the sun goes down. Each boulder, pine or clump of brash seemed to be only a spot of darkness. After what seemed like hours but could be measured only in minutes of slow progress, Mason stopped and drew up sharply against a pine. He listened while Victoria leaned against him.
“I thought I heard something,” he whispered in her ear. After a moment of tense waiting, he said, “I’m going to carry you for a while. I’ll lift you up and you hook your elbow over my shoulder and that’ll take the strain off my arm.”
“Oh, no! You can’t carry me. I’ll walk. I’ll go faster.”
“I’m going to carry you. Ready?”
He lifted her high and cradled her against his chest. She put her arms around his neck and he moved off swiftly through the trees. He could feel her shaking from the cold and wondered how she would ever make it through the night.
“Is there any water nearby?” he asked in a soft whisper.
She didn’t answer immediately and when she did her lips were close to his ear. “There’s a trickle of water that comes out of the rocks and runs off down the mountain, but it must be a mile or more from here.”
“I thought my horse might find it. He’s a mustang, mountain bred. Turned loose he’ll find water.”
“Please let me walk, Mason.”
“Are we going in the right direction to find the water?”
“Yes. But let me walk.”
“In a little while. But in the meantime talk to me.”
There was a brief silence. “I can’t think of anything to say.”
He chuckled. “Then sing me a song.”
Time passed and he had almost forgotten he’d asked when in a voice barely above a whisper she began to sing:
“Oh, that strawberry roan! Oh, that strawberry roan!
He goes up in the east and comes down in the west.
To stay on his middle, I’m doin’ my best.
Stay on that strawberry roan, stay on.
Stay on that strawberry roan!”
CHAPTER
* 8 *
A fire was out of the question. They had lost their pursuers for the time being, but even in this secluded, heavily wooded place it would be foolish to risk even a single puff of smoke.
They approached the water cautiously. Victoria almost whimpered in her eagerness to get to it. When at last she drank, the water affected her like an intoxicating wine. Her head swam, she felt giddy and light-headed.
Mason held her while she drank and then drank himself, never letting his guard down. They had not won freedom, only a temporary reprieve. Come morning whoever was on their trail would be there again. His tired mind had stopped wrestling with the question of who and why. He thought only of getting away.
Victoria, exhausted and shaking from the cold, slumped on the ground beside the small trickle of life-saving water. Her leg throbbed relentlessly. It seemed to her she had never known any other life than flight through the cold night. There was nothing but pain, no life without Mason.
“We can’t stay here, Victoria.” He knelt beside her. “We’ve got to move on.”
“I know,” she whispered and tried to get to her feet.
He reached down and lifted her, and deep within him something warm grew tall and strong. What a woman! What a glorious woman! If she were not with him he would turn back and hunt their hunters. It went against his grain to run and hide. He would rather carry the war to them, yet he had Victoria to think of. Her safety came first.
Mason risked a whistle for his horse then waited, all ears. Only the usual night sounds answered. He heard no answering whinny from his mustang. Damn! He had hoped his horse would be within call of the water.
“If I could find a place to hide you, I could walk to the ranch and be back by daylight with some men and the buckboard,” he whispered.
Victoria, standing with her forehead against his upper arm, drew away. He felt her try to put her weight on her injured leg, heard her stifle a groan of pain. She was silent for so long he thought she hadn’t heard him.
“Victoria…” He put a finger beneath her chin and tilted her face to him. Even in the darkness her eyes were like twin stars, shimmering bright.
Blind terror had struck with the thought of him leaving her alone in the blackness, but she managed to answer without giving in to the sobs welling up inside her. “If you think that’s what we must do.”
Suddenly he knew he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t and wouldn’t leave her alone. She might go into shock, become delirious, and wander right into the hands of the men who were trying to kill them. He pulled her to him again, so she could lean on his strength.
“I won’t leave you! Hear me, Victoria. I’ll not leave you!” he whispered in her ear. Mason felt something wet on his shirt and knew Victoria was crying. Damn it! he swore silently. Leaving her had been a stupid thought, anyway. There were plenty of men who could track in the dark and he and Victoria had left a trail a yard wide. Any fool could look at that trail and see that one of them was wounded. Maybe the bastards would hole up and wait or maybe they were on their trail right now. “Come on, let’s move,” he said gently. “Do you want another drink of water before we go?”
Victoria insisted on walking for as long as she could. When the pain became almost unbearable, Mason swung her up into his arms and carried her. Her body was shaking violently with a chill and his was sweating and trembling with weariness. She clung to him like a sick child and whispered that she was sorry to be such a burden.
Mason was suddenly filled with rage at what had been done to her. He turned sharply and attacked the rocky hillside. He strained every muscle as his feet searched and found footholds. His fury drove him on. The veins swelled in his brow, his throat grew parched, and a stabbing pain came to his side as he climbed. He ignored the sound of crackling brush beneath his boots and the clatter of small stones rolling downhill. His chest heaved with effort and his lungs felt as if they were about to burst when he came to a small shelf made by a pine tree growing on the hillside. He kicked the pine needles into a pile and eased Victoria down upon them.
She stirred. “Mason…where are we?” Her teeth chattered as she spoke.
“Sh-sh-sh. We’re not moving another step. Lie still. I’ll be right back.”
Working swiftly, he piled as much dry brush as he could find along the path he had taken up the hill. He sighted long the large rocks to determine if the spot was well protected. Then he cut an armload of soft pine boughs and went back to where Victoria lay, hugging herself with her arms.
“I’m so cold!”
Mason put down his rifle and unbuckled his gunbelt. Making sure it was within easy reach, he unbuttoned his shirt, lay down beside her, and pulled the leafy branches over them. He reached for her and she came willingly into his arms. He folded his shirt and his arms around her and drew her close. She pressed her face into the curve of his neck; her cold nose felt like ice on his warm skin. His hands moved over her back in an attempt to bring some warmth to her body.
“Open your shirt, Victoria, and let me warm you.” She obeyed without hesitation, her cold fingers clumsy on the buttons. She pressed her breasts, bare except for her thin shift, against his furry chest. “Put your hands up under my arms. There…you’ll be warm soon. In just a few minutes you’ll be warm.”
Farther up the hill a squirrel chattered inquiringly. Keep talking, squirrel, Mason thought. As long as you’re talking I know you hear only us. Around them all was silence, except for the squirrel. A slight breeze whispered through the pine tree and caused a cone to fall, now and then, to the cushion of needles.
Victoria’s body was taut as a bowstring. He held her to him as tightly as possible without hurting her leg and rubbed her back and shoulders, hoping to quiet and relax her as well as warm her. Gradually the tension began to leave her, and he felt her muscles slowly relax. She lay quiet for a long time. After a while she moved her face so her lips were near his ear and they lay cheek to cheek.
“What will we do in the morning?” Her voice was merely a breath in his ear.
“I don’t know. How far are we from the ranch?”
“Papa figured the pass to be about two-thirds of the way to town.”
“Then we’re about ten miles from the Double M.”
Forever, Victoria Page 13
