Ishmael walked the last few yards to Trey, then stood head down, blowing hard, fighting for each breath in the thin air. Caleb helped Willow down, supporting her with one arm while he loosened the saddle cinch. When the wind was still, steam peeled away from the horses in great plumes and the rasp of their labored breathing was loud.
“I’ll—walk,” Willow said.
“Not yet.”
Caleb swung Willow up onto Trey, tied Ishmael on a long rope, and fastened it to Trey’s saddle. Caleb took the reins and began walking up the trail, leading the big horse. Willow looked over her shoulder, saw Ishmael following and Deuce limping not far behind, and prayed that the mares would be able to keep going.
The route became steeper, the snow deeper, until Caleb was sinking in to his knees at each step. The horses were no better off. Every few hundred feet Caleb stopped and let the horses blow. Even Trey was feeling it now. He was breathing like a horse that had been run hard and long. Willow couldn’t bear to listen. She knew her weight was making it worse. Despite the stabbing pain in her head and the nausea that stirred in her stomach, she started to dismount.
“Stay put,” Caleb said curtly. “Trey is a lot—stronger than you are.”
Caleb’s words were spaced for the quick, deep breaths that still couldn’t satisfy his body’s hunger for oxygen. He was accustomed to altitude, but not to being more than eleven thousand feet high. The thin air and days of hard riding had worn him down as surely as it had the horses.
By the time they reached the base of the last, steep pitch, Caleb was stopping to catch his breath every thirty feet and the horses were strung out for miles down the trail. The clouds had unravelled into separate patches nestling between ridges. In the distance, rich gold light glistened where the late afternoon sun poured into valleys between cloud-capped peaks.
Trey stood with his head down, his breath groaning harshly, his sides heaving. He might be able to walk farther, but not carrying even so light a weight as Willow. Caleb loosened the cinch and pulled Willow from the saddle. He put the heavy saddlebags and bedroll over his left shoulder, supported Willow with his right arm, and began to walk up the trail. He paused only once, sending a shrill whistle over his shoulder. Trey lifted his head and reluctantly began walking once more.
Wind had blown away the snow to reveal the rocky bones of the mountain itself. The rocks were dark, almost black, shattered by the weight of time and ice. The ghostly trail vanished, but there was no doubt of their destination. Caleb fixed his eyes on the barren ridge rising in front of him, blocking out half the sky. He barely noticed the receding clouds and the thick golden light washing over the land.
Willow tried to walk alone. She managed it for twenty breaths, then sixty, then a hundred. She thought she was still walking when she felt Caleb’s arm tighten around her waist, all but lifting her. Vaguely she realized that she would have fallen without his support. She tried to apologize.
“Don’t talk,” he gasped. “Walk.”
After several racking breaths, Willow managed to take a few more steps. Caleb stayed beside her, breathing hard, supporting her, urging her on. Together they struggled up the steep, stony ridge, hearing nothing but their own pounding heartbeats and the rasp of their overworked lungs. Every few minutes, Caleb would pause long enough to send another shrill whistle back down the trail, calling to Trey and Deuce, who had outpaced all the mares.
Caleb shifted the saddlebags and bedroll to his other shoulder, caught Willow up again, and resumed walking. He stopped for breath every thirty steps, then every twenty, but even that wasn’t enough for Willow. The long days of riding, the uncertainty, the fight with the Comancheros, the altitude, everything had combined to rob her of strength.
Grimly, Willow struggled onward, trying not to lean on Caleb. It was impossible. Without his strength she wouldn’t have been able to stand.
“Almost—there,” Caleb said.
Willow didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Her steps were only inches apart, more stumbling than true walking.
Caleb looked up at the route ahead and remembered with unnatural clarity the words his father had written in his journal to describe Black Pass: Steep, rough, and colder than a witch’s tit. But the pass is there all right, for any man with spine to take her. Up and over the Continental Divide, climbing until you’re looking in God’s eye, high enough to hear angels sing, if you can hear anything but your heart pounding and your breath sawing.
Without warning, Caleb and Willow were there, standing on the brink of heaven, heart pounding and breath sawing and angels singing all around. Caleb’s arm loosened around Willow, allowing her to slip to the ground. He dropped the saddlebags and bedroll next to her, sank down, and pulled her against his chest.
She slumped gratefully against him. For a long time she fought desperately for breath. Finally her breathing slowed. She realized that Caleb was cradling her, gently stroking her hair and cheeks, telling her again and again that the worst was over…they had finally reached the highest point in the pass. She gave a long, shuddering sigh and opened her eyes.
Caleb saw the color returning to Willow’s skin and felt a relief so great it was almost pain. He gathered her even closer, shifting around until she was looking toward the setting sun. The clouds were all but gone, reduced to incandescent golden banners flying from the highest peaks. The snow that had fallen was already melting, threading back down the mountain peak in silent black tears.
“Look,” Caleb said, pointing.
Willow looked at a hand-sized patch of snow that blazed nearby in the dying sun, weeping tears of gold. She watched a drop form and slowly separate from the still-frozen snow, falling away in the first instant of its long journey back to the sea.
The water was flowing west, toward the setting sun.
11
W ILLOW awoke with the sun in her face and the sound of Ishmael’s frantic whinny ringing in her ears. Heart pounding, she sat up suddenly. It took her a moment to remember where she was—in a tiny hanging valley on the western slope of the Great Divide. The whole valley was barely three hundred acres of grass surrounded on three sides by steep, forested ridges. The fourth side fell away so sharply that the stream was as much a waterfall as a cascade.
“Caleb?”
No one answered Willow’s call. Belatedly, she remembered that Caleb had left long before first light, riding Trey and seeking the four mares that hadn’t found their way into the valley by moonrise. She had wanted to go with him, but had fallen after she took three steps. He had carried her back to the blankets. She had dreamed she was following him and had wept each time she awakened to find herself alone and her mares lost.
Now Willow could sleep no more. She crawled out of the bedroll, picked up the shotgun Caleb had left for her, and went to see what was bothering Ishmael. The angle of the sun told her that it was mid-afternoon. She had slept all night and most of a day.
Ishmael snorted and tugged against his picket rope, whinnying wildly.
“Take it easy, boy,” Willow said, glancing in the direction the stallion was staring. “What is it?”
The stallion’s call split the silence again.
Riding on the wind came an answering cry. A few minutes later three of the missing mares walked wearily into the meadow. Willow took the stallion off the picket rope and led him to a rock. Shotgun in hand, she leaped from the rock onto the stallion’s bare back. Instants later, he was cantering eagerly toward the mares, nickering a welcome. Willow stared at the forest beyond the three mares but saw no sign of Caleb, his big Montana horse, or Dove, the only mare still missing.
With rising uneasiness, Willow waited while Ishmael sniffed over the mares, assuring himself that they were indeed the same ones he had lost. After a few moments, the mares began cropping grass ravenously, ignoring the delighted stallion.
“Ishmael, that’s enough. Let’s go see what happened to Caleb.”
Willow had no sooner reached the edge of the meadow when Ishmael’s ears pr
icked and he whinnied softly. An answering whinny came from the forest. Trey trotted into the open. A page from Caleb’s journal had been torn out and tied to the saddle horn. Willow worked the paper free and opened it.
I’m walking Dove in. The other mares perked up and started tugging to be free as soon as they got below nine thousand feet. They were headed in the right direction so I turned them loose, and Trey, too. Give them some grain.
Dove is done in, but still game. I’ll stay with her as long as she’s standing.
Tears scalded Willow’s cheeks at the thought of her tired mare. Dove, more than any of the horses, had borne Willow’s weight through the long days on the trail. That was why she was so exhausted now.
A glance at the angle of the sun told Willow she had better get to work despite the tiredness that sapped her strength. The valley was more than eight thousand feet high—lower than Black Pass, but nowhere near as low as she was accustomed to. She led Trey to the campsite, stripped gear from him, and turned him loose in the meadow. While she poured out grain for the horses, he rolled in the thick grass, drank deeply from the stream, and fell to eating grain as though starved. She knew how the horse felt. It had been more than a day since she had eaten, and then it had been only a bit of jerky.
Caleb would be ravenous when he returned, for he had taken no food with him.
Working as quickly as she could, stopping from time to time to catch her breath, Willow dragged the saddles and packs in under the overhanging cliff that protected the campsite on one side. She dragged downed wood into camp, started a fire, rigged a tripod for cooking, fetched water, and flet as though she had been running uphill carrying a pack. She had long since abandoned her heavy jacket and Levis. Now she unlaced the buckskin shirt, unbuttoned the flannel beneath, and thought longingly of a bath. But there were too many other things to be done and not enough time before the sun set behind the looming peaks.
Just as the last shaft of light abandoned the high valley, Caleb and Dove emerged in the meadow, startling deer that had drifted out of cover to feed near the horses. After a few seconds the deer resumed browsing. It had been so long since they had been hunted by man they had lost much of their fear of humans.
Dove didn’t notice the deer or anything but the grass and water. She nudged Caleb’s hand, asking to be released from the pressure on the halter that had kept her walking long after she wanted to stop. Caleb stroked her neck, spoke softly to her, and released her to join the other mares.
Willow grabbed the canteen, poured in coffee, snatched up a handful of fresh biscuits, and hurried across the meadow. She was breathless by the time she reached Caleb, who had just finished pouring out some grain for Dove.
“Is she all right?” Willow asked.
“Played out, but nothing that rest and food won’t cure. Her breathing doesn’t rattle, so her wind wasn’t broken.”
“Thank God,” breathed Willow. She held out the canteen and biscuits. “Here. You must be starved. Thank you for getting the mares. I dreamed I was going back for them, but when I woke up I was still here and I didn’t know how I could—”
Caleb drew Willow close and kissed her. When he straightened, he was smiling despite the exhaustion that lined his face. He made a sound of enjoyment and licked his lips.
“You taste like coffee and biscuits,” he said teasingly. “And something else…”
“Venison stew,” she admitted, laughing despite the color flooding her cheeks. “I cooked up what was left.”
“You taste like heaven,” he corrected, brushing his lips over her mouth again. “Sheer, sweet heaven.”
Caleb stretched and yawned, trying to revive himself. Willow uncapped the canteen and held it out. The rich aroma of coffee drifted up. He took the canteen and drank deeply. The liquid was strong and black and hot enough to steam. He made a thick sound of pleasure and drank again, feeling warmth expand through him like a second sunrise. He took a biscuit, popped it whole into his mouth, and chewed. Two more biscuits disappeared in the same manner, to be washed down by more coffee.
“Come to camp,” Willow said softly. Her clear hazel eyes measured Caleb’s exhaustion in the slowing of his reflexes and the darkness beneath his tawny eyes. “You’ve barely slept in days. Eat some hot stew and sleep. I’ll stand guard.”
“No need,” he said, yawning again. “See those deer?”
She nodded.
“We’re the first people they’ve ever seen,” Caleb said.
“But I saw the marks of other fires against the cliff.”
“They burned a long, long time ago, before the Spanish brought horses. At least, that’s what my daddy figures, and he knew more about Indians and wild land than any man alive.” Caleb’s eyes searched the heights that all but surrounded the small valley. “He figured he was the only man in centuries to see this place.”
“Why did the Indians abandon it?”
“Horses, I imagine. From what I read in the journal, the trail out of here is almost as rough as the one over the top. Fine for a man on foot who’s used to altitude, but damned hard on a horse.” Caleb smiled crookedly. “It’s quicker and a damn sight easier to use lower passes and let a horse do the work. Man is a lazy creature, given the chance.”
“You aren’t,” Willow said. “If it weren’t for you, my mares would be stranded in the rocks on the other side of the pass.”
“They came too far to let them go,” Caleb said simply. “How is Deuce?”
“He must have strained his left foreleg when he went down after being shot. It’s swollen below the knee.”
“Is he putting weight on it?”
“He favors it, but he moves more easily since I bound it with cloth from my riding habit.”
Caleb grunted. “Best use for the damn thing. What about the bullet burn?”
“I was afraid it would be infected, but it looks as clean as that brook going through the meadow.”
“Daddy was right about that, too,” Caleb said, yawning agian. “Not much gets infected up here. Something about the thin air, I guess, or the lack of human beings. How much of that stew did you leave for me?”
“About two quarts.”
“I’ll eat slowly so you can cook more.”
She smiled and took his hand, leading him toward the campsite. “I made lots and lots of biscuits.”
In camp, Willow watched from the corner of her eye as Caleb made short work of the stew, biscuits, coffee, and wild greens.
“No trout?” he asked lazily, mopping up the last bit of gravy with the last biscuit.
Willow smiled and shook her head. “They all ran from me.”
“Guess I’ll just have to teach you how to catch them all over again, won’t I?”
Color burned on Willow’s cheeks as she remembered the last time Caleb had told her how to catch trout.
“Don’t worry, honey,” he said, stretching out on the bedroll. “Right now I’m too done in to sneak up on my own shadow.”
Caleb was asleep before he took another breath. Willow waited until he was sleeping too deeply to be disturbed. Then she pulled off his boots, eased his gunbelt and hunting knife off his hips, and covered him with the thick blankets. She wrapped up the gunbelt and placed it within reach, exactly as he would have done if he hadn’t been too tired.
Willow put the shotgun close to her side of the bed and crawled in next to Caleb. Even though the sun had been gone from the valley floor less than half an hour, it was already chilly. The heat radiating from Caleb was wonderful, luring Willow closer and closer until she sighed and relaxed against his big body. He shifted, drawing her even more tightly against himself, holding her as though he, too, was cold. Smiling, holding him in return, Willow fell asleep with the familiar feel of Caleb’s heartbeat beneath her cheek.
WILLOW awakened on her side, tucked spoon fashion against Caleb, her head on his upper arm, his chest warming her back, her bottom snug in the cradle of his thighs…and one of her breasts cupped in his right hand, which had s
lid between buckskin and flannel to seek the silky warmth beneath.
When Willow realized the intimacy of Caleb’s touch, her heart turned over. She froze, caught between the knowledge that she should retreat and the pleasure of lying so close with Caleb while sunshine poured into the tiny valley, filling it to overflowing with golden light.
After a few minutes, Willow’s heartbeat settled down, but not the sensations that glittered over her without warning, shortening her breathing and tightening the breast within Caleb’s grasp until the hard nipple nuzzled against the center of his broad palm. An odd ache claimed her, a desire to arch against his palm like a cat being stroked. The feeling was so strong and so unexpected that she held her breath, wondering what was wrong with her. She tried to ease free of his hand without distrubing him, but he was too deeply tangled in her clothes.
Half awakened by Willow’s cautions retreat, Caleb made a low, sleepy sound and gathered her more closely against himself. His free hand moved, seeking the warmth and silk of her body but settling for the soft weight of her other breast muffled beneath layers of clothes.
Willow’s breath wedged firmly in her throat as she felt herself cupped and cuddled through clothing until that breast, too, tightened in an aching rush. She shivered, fighting the desire to twist slowly against Caleb’s hands, increasing the pressure of his touch on her breasts.
I must be losing my mind, Willow thought, shivering.
Breathing shallowly, not wanting to move for fear of waking Caleb and embarrassing both of them, Willow lay stiffly and waited for the normal movements Caleb made while asleep to remove her from the unintentional, sensual cage of his embrace.
Release didn’t come. Tension did. Unable to bear it any longer, Willow eased the blanket off her body as the first step toward freeing herself. But removing the blanket was a mistake. The sight of one of Caleb’s big hands on her breast and the other hand buried deep between rawhide laces and through a gap in her flannel top made Willow forget to breathe. Frantically she closed her eyes. After the first rush of embarrassment passed, she opened her eyes again.
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