That’s when he found it, the wound, blood now dried across a deep cut in her scalp behind her ear. However she’d come to join him in this godforsaken place, she, too, had come accidentally. Nobody deliberately fell off a cliff. But what was he going to do? The rain hadn’t let up. It was too dark to see how to get back to the trail, and he wasn’t sure he was steady enough on his feet to get them there. His head ached like the devil.
If he could find some dry sticks or limbs, he could build a fire. Reluctantly he let go of her and waited for the next flash of lightning. Once he was reasonably certain that they weren’t sharing the cave with any animals, he began to explore, encountering the remains of a pack rat’s nest.
In the cantina he’d had tobacco and matches. He reached into his shirt pocket, hoping they were still there. They were, along with the half-breed’s gold nuggets and the watch fob. Now the bandits had another excuse for chasing him—the loot.
Shielding his meager makings of a fire from the wind, Tucker cupped his hands and struck the first match against a stone. It flared briefly, then died. There were only a few matches left. He couldn’t afford to waste another. By touch he found a tuft of dried moss and encircled it with his legs, planting his back to the cave opening.
Over the moss he crumbled tiny filings of dried leaves.Closing his eyes, he prayed for a moment of calm as he lit another match. This time the moss blazed up, igniting the sticks. Within moments he had a tiny fire going. By its light he could see other animal nests and a stack of pine cones. Wild animals hadn’t been the only ones to use this small cave. He hoped the Indians in the area wouldn’t decide to collect rent because he was using their firestarters. He also hoped he wouldn’t pass out.
With a fire going, he moved the woman farther into the cave. The heat brought out the smell of whiskey sopped up by his shirt when he’d knocked over the bottle at the card game. He wished he had it back. It would taste a hell of a lot better on the inside than out.
Though meager, the fire soon warmed the air inside the small cave. Tucker sluiced water through the woman’s head wound and winced at the depth of it. He didn’t know why she wasn’t dead. She could die still if he didn’t get her warm.
Removing his sheepskin jacket, he covered her, checking beneath her wet clothing for a sign that her body temperature was rising. It wasn’t. Finally, because he knew nothing else to do, he lay down beside her and pulled her against him. He didn’t intend to doze off, but the heat from the fire and the woman’s body soon made him drowsy.
As the storm raged outside, Tucker Farrell covered himself and the woman with his jacket. Then he did something he had never done with a woman before. He slept.
Sluggishly, Raven felt life return to her body. Half awake and half asleep, she snuggled closer to the source of the heat. The fire dried her skin and her hair. The rain ceased and the wind died down.
She dreamed of an old man. He was telling her a story about a lion and a raven. Foolishly the raven had chased after a small animal and been caught between two rocks at the top of a cliff. The cougar was reluctant to climb the rocks, but he couldn’t leave the silly bird trapped. Finally, seeing the raven near death, the cougar climbed up and freed the bird.
The raven flew away, squawking loudly, then turned back and landed on the cougar’s back. For the rest of the journey, the two unlikely allies traveled together, each owing the other his life.
By the time the sun threw brassy light across the canyon, Raven knew, even in sleep, that she was the bird and the presence beside her was the cougar.
Three hundred feet below, at the foot of the cliff, near the river’s edge, Luce Santiago lay, his blood staining the cream-colored sand. He would die here. His father had warned him. Now he’d brought about his own downfall by bragging about his treasure. It had been the cheap whiskey and the looks on the faces of the men who’d wanted no part of the old man.
For too many years, he’d felt their disdain, been laughed at, forced to barter for food. For once in his life, he’d been as good as they, better even, for he was the guardian of the mountain of treasure that his father’s father, the man who’d been part Indian, part Spaniard, had helped hide.
The words echoed in his mind from some long-past time. As a boy he’d been taken into the mountains, where he’d gone without food and drink to purify himself for what was to come. Naked and with his head shorn, the tattoos of his father’s people had been etched over his body. Afterward his father explained that from this day forward, he, too, would become the keeper of the trust.
“When the time comes for you to die, you may reveal the secret, just as I have done for you.”
“How?” he’d asked. But his father had only replied that when the spirits called to him, he should once again give up all earthly things. He should bathe himself, fast, shave the hair from his head. One would come to see that his body was buried at the base of the barren side of the mountain in respect to the spirits who’d trusted him with the secret. And he’d cautioned the boy that any man who touched the treasure would surely die.
The boy had believed his father and waited. Finally he’d lost his wife, his children, and he had grown tired and old. Soon it would be time for his spirit to leave. Just once before he left this hard life, he’d wanted to be a man respected.
Through the years, he’d crossed the mountain to the other side. Once, when the earth trembled, he’d found a way inside. Only one time had he allowed himself to remove a bag of nuggets and a piece of jewelry, just enough to buy food and supplies. He’d considered the gold small payment for his vigilant care of the mountain. But in the end, he couldn’t resist taking the jewel. He’d thought he’d be safe. He would have been, had he not been foolish.
Now with a mountain of gold his for the taking, he would die here as poor as the day he was born. But not yet. The one who would bury him according to the ritual had not come—the next guardian of the sacred mountain.
When Tucker Farrell opened his eyes, it was morning. A woman wearing a butter-colored buckskin dress was watching him. She didn’t look real, but he couldn’t be sure. He closed his eyes again.
“Who are you?” he asked and waited.
No answer. Carefully he cocked one eyelid, allowing bleary light to seep through the narrow opening. So far so good. He tried the other eye. The woman was still there, serene and ethereal in the shadows, with sunlight glaring against the ledge behind her.
“Are you hurt?” she finally asked.
Tucker drew one hand from beneath the sheepskin jacket which covered him and pressed it to the top of his head. Something had happened last night. His chest ached. He felt as if someone had attempted to lift his scalp.
“Hell, yes!” His voice was so gravelly that he could scarcely speak.
“Where is the injury?” She came up onto her knees and started to examine him.
“Lady—uh, ma’am—whatever on the west side of hell you are, keep your hands off me.”
She ignored him, slipping her fingertips beneath his jacket and his flannel shirt and through the buttons of his underwear to the bruised skin over his rib cage. As she touched him he jerked away, stunned more by his reaction to the beautiful woman than the pain caused by her fingertips.
“I can’t be certain that you are all right unless I touch you. What’s wrong? I don’t understand,” she said, looking at her hands in surprise.
“Hell if I understand, either,” he cut her off. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”
“I’m Raven Alexander.” Confusion filled her eyes. “And I, too, seem to have fallen.” She leaned back, turning her head from side to side as if waiting for some unseen presence to give her answers.
Tucker closed his eyes again. His frustration was due not only to the roaring pain in his head, but also the hot liquid quality of her voice. He took in her woman smell like an animal scenting danger and reacted just as strongly. “You don’t remember?”
“I was on the trail. Then—I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, we seem to have wandered into the same place last night.” He took a deep breath and winced.
“If you will tell me where you hurt,” she offered, “I’ll try to help.”
“Whoa! Listen, lady, you’re the one who’s hurt. There’s a hole in your head I could put a gun barrel in. I don’t even know how you’re sitting up.”
“There is no pain,” she said softly.
“And you’re offering help to a stranger. Aren’t you the least bit afraid?”
She looked around, considering his question. “Afraid? No. I knew you would come. But I didn’t understand that I would feel so odd—so shivery.”
This time, Tucker couldn’t hold back a scoff of disbelief. She felt shivery? He didn’t want to know what that might mean. “Who told you? I didn’t even know I was coming.”
“You came to me in a dream. I saw a cougar and a raven in a barren place. When the raven was trapped, the cougar freed it.”
“Ravens,” he repeated, remembering the flock of black birds. “After what I’ve been through, I can believe anything. Why this is happening is what I don’t understand.”
“It was foretold by the spirits that we should come together. I started on a journey and then I—I must have fallen. When I woke up, I saw you. Please, let me help you.”
The imprint of her hands on his chest still burned, sending ripples of heat downward. The last thing he needed was more examination from this woman who turned cold into hot.
“I don’t think you want to know what hurts, lady. And I’m sure as hell not in the mood for you to fix it. You just be still and let me see if I can figure out where we are.”
She gave him a curious look. “Of course.”
The woman moved away, gingerly touching the place behind her ear. He could tell she’d discovered the wound there, but, surprisingly, her expression showed no evidence of pain.
She seemed undisturbed by the situation, and Tucker sensed no fear. She seemed to accept his presence as ordinary. There were no birds, no fluttering wings, but something just as unreal was happening here.
“Is someone pursuing you?” she asked.
The bandits. Of course. They had to be, unless the birds had spooked them. At the shock of seeing her, he’d forgotten what had happened. Now upright, leaning against the cave wall, Tucker forced himself to remember.
Carefully he rotated his shoulders and moved his legs. The only pain he had came from the lump on his head, a few bruises on his back, and a rib that cut through him when he breathed. He hadn’t been attacked and nobody had shot him. He must have dozed off and fallen from his horse. That explanation didn’t make much sense, but it was the only one he had for now. But what about the woman?
Now that he was in reasonable control of himself, he turned to face her. She was young, slender, her skin a warm color, not from the fire but from being kissed by the sun, her voice soft and mysterious. Her hair was as dark as the night, her eyes as brilliant as the black stones he’d seen once in a necklace worn by a woman riding in a fancy carriage. He’d never seen anyone who could sit so still or be so quiet.
She wore her thick hair in a single braid that fell across her chest. The woman had an elegant beauty about her, a mystical way of tilting her head as if she heard unspoken words. But more compelling than any of these was the feeling of power that radiated from every part of her. He felt as if he were in the presence of the gods, and he didn’t like the awareness that she pulled from inside him. Everything about her left him even more dazed.
All of this he knew without her speaking a word.
“You’re an Indian.”
“I’m part Indian.” She looked down at her dress. “Does that bother you?”
He could have told her that it was the feel of her body against him for most of the night that bothered him. Indians weren’t his favorite people, but something about her trusting nature made him keep that to himself.
“Just tell me you’re not a Comanche. I’ve heard the women take male prisoners and turn them into slaves.”
“I’m Arapaho and you’re much too big for one woman to hold you as a slave.”
He couldn’t hold back a smile. “I don’t know. You seem to have strange powers.” That statement was certainly true. “I’ve managed to travel alone for thirty-two years. This is the first time I can remember waking up with a woman I didn’t go to bed with.”
“Don’t try to understand. Just accept what has happened. We were meant to come together. Have you had no dreams of birds?”
He gave her an odd look. “Dreams? No, but hundreds of them saved my life yesterday. Black birds. I never saw such a flock of black birds before. They got me out of a pretty bad mess. Did you have anything to do with that?”
“No,” she answered simply.
This was all too much for Tucker. He licked his dry lips. “Don’t suppose you happened to bring a canteen with you?”
She shook her head. “I have this. An earlier occupant must have left it here on the ledge. The rain filled it with water.” She reached for a piece of broken pottery and handed it to him.
He swallowed the liquid as if it were the tonic once made by his mother, the one he’d had to hold his nose to swallow every spring. To his surprise the water was sweet and cool, and in a few minutes his head began to clear.
“It’s been a long time since a drink of water had that effect on me,” he said, beginning to consider the possibility that this woman might not be what she seemed.
She was studying him quizzically. “One cannot understand the workings of Mother Earth. She sends many gifts that we accept without question.”
“If you’re telling me that Mother Earth sent those birds to save my neck, don’t. I don’t understand and I don’t want to. Right now all I want to do is get back up there and check on my horse. Don’t guess you saw any sign of a ladder, did you?”
“No, but while you were sleeping I looked around. There appears to be a kind of path around the wall heading up. Whoever used this cave in the past had to have a way to get down and back. I didn’t follow it because I didn’t want to leave you. It’s very narrow.”
Tucker groaned. No point in telling her that he’d likely look down and pass out cold. If he didn’t fall, the height would paralyze him and he’d end up a mummified corpse stuck to the side of this godforsaken cliff.
“I think we should hurry,” she said suddenly, tilting her head. “Riders approach from the south.” Too quickly she tried to stand, swayed unsteadily, and caught Tucker’s arm.
“Whoa there!” He grabbed her, sliding his arm around her as he had last night when he’d pulled her into the cave. It all came flashing back, the feel of the woman against him, the way she nestled close. He groaned and would have let her go had she not looked up at him with such trust in her eyes.
Damn! What was he going to do with her? He couldn’t leave her there, yet he couldn’t be sure he could get his own self back to the trail. “Riders? How can you tell?”
“I hear the horses’ hoofbeats in the rock. Listen, you can hear them too.”
“Riders? Hell!” Tucker listened, but all he could hear was the pounding in his head. Could it be the bandits? Why weren’t they following the old miner? Tucker didn’t know where the treasure was. If they discovered Tucker instead of the prospector, they were going to be even madder. A second escape was unlikely, especially now that he was not alone.
Tucker picked up his jacket, offered it to the Indian girl. When she refused, he threaded his arms through the sleeves. Wearing it was easier than carrying it.
Taking one final deep breath, he whistled and waited for Yank’s answering neigh. A second horse echoed Yank’s reply, and as Tucker closed his eyes and stepped out on the lip of the rock, he heard the two animals moving above them.
“I hope that second horse is yours.”
“Yes, Onawa follows us. Do we go?”
“We try.” Taking a chance, he looked down and swore.
This was not going to
be easy. He had to find a way to think about something other than his body bouncing off the rocks below.
“Onawa. What does it mean?”
He delayed. She trusted him to get her out of this mess when his feet refused to move. How in hell was he going to force himself out onto that ledge?
“Onawa means wide-awake,” she said. “Don’t look down. Just stick close to the wall and I’ll be beside you.”
She gave him a nudge and tried to find something to take his mind off his fear. “Do you have a name?”
“Several.”
“Which of them shall I call you?”
He finally took a step, a deep breath, then another step.
“The name I was born with is Tucker, Tucker Farrell.”
For a long minute, he hugged the cliff, his arm still supporting her, his nose pressed against the hard rock wall. Then his foot hit a loose pebble, which rolled to the narrow edge and fell. There was no sound of it hitting bottom.
He froze again.
“Tucker Farrell,” the woman said softly. “I like that name. A proud defender.”
He would have argued that the only thing he defended was his own life, but he had a sudden flash of the miner back in the cantina. Coming to his aid had been a temporary aberration. He wondered if the old man had gotten away, how badly he’d been shot. For a moment, Tucker allowed himself to admit that he’d done a good deed. Then he remembered the necktie party and what had almost happened.
“Don’t count on me, ma’am. I’m just a drifter, a misfit. Nothing valiant about me.”
“Your animal power comes from the cougar, Mr. Farrell. You are, or you will become, that proud creature. I know. I have dreamed it.”
As Tucker stewed over that bizarre observation, he forgot his fear and took a step, then another. “Where’d you get a name like Raven?” he asked.
“That was my mother’s name. It is tradition. I am considered a spirit woman.”
“Spirit woman. Of course. I should have known that.” As he considered that revelation, they reached the top of the trail.
Raven and the Cowboy: A Loveswept Historical Romance Page 3
