IRONHEART

by Rachel Lee

  "And that business about using me? Well, when I thought it over, I realized that you asked me some questions about Micah, but mostly I did the talking, and I was the one who came up with the idea of introducing you. So you weren't even being bad in a big way."

  Feeling terribly shy, terribly afraid, Sara dared a glance at Gideon. She had realized, somewhere in the hell of the last thirty-six hours, that she had jumped off the cliff all on her own. Gideon hadn't pushed her, hadn't abandoned her, hadn't done a damn thing except keep an intensely personal secret. And she, who had promised herself that she was going to love him regardless, had succeeded only in showing him once again that you couldn't trust the people closest to you, because they could turn on you at the slightest provocation.

  Gideon thought his heart was going to burst. Emotions locked his throat tight, made words impossible, as he looked at Sara's shy, uncertain face and realized she didn't think there was anything to forgive. That kind of acceptance had been so rare in his life that he could count on one hand the number of people who had given it to him. He swallowed hard and managed some gruff words. "After we find Joey, we'll talk."

  She nodded, then pulled her sunglasses from her pocket and slipped them on. The morning sun was strong now, dappling the open spaces between trees with a brilliant golden light. Gideon found himself remembering his dream, his vision, or whatever it had been. The red buffalo had spoken his grandfather's words, he realized now—that business about colors.

  But his life hadn't been colorless, he thought. At least, not until Barney's death. Maybe he hadn't painted it in all the colors of the rainbow, but he sure hadn't painted a black void. There had been Barney, of course, and good times, and plenty of excitement and thrills. Some of the colors had been missing, though, he admitted now. And since Barney's death, there hadn't been any color at all.

  Until now. It almost seemed the world was glowing from within this morning, as if trees and grass and even rocks were brighter than ever before. As if edges were clear and sharp and perfectly etched. As if he had suddenly donned a pair of new glasses that brought everything into focus. As if such beauty had always been there but he had simply failed to perceive it.

  "How much farther?" he asked Sara.

  "Another hour or so. We can't make a straight line because of the terrain, so it takes a long time to get to the tree."

  "I imagine you know every inch of the Double Y."

  "Just about. Exploring was one of my favorite pastimes as a kid. I never much wanted to hang around the house, and once I got my own horse, that was all she wrote. As long as I got my share of chores done, Dad didn't seem to mind, and Mom gave up all hope of turning me into a cook and housekeeper."

  "I can't imagine you as a cook or housekeeper," Gideon said after a moment. "I didn't quite know what to make of you when I first saw you, though. Not because you were a cop—there're women cops everywhere nowadays—but because something … didn't quite fit. It was as if you were trying to be tough when you really weren't."

  "Well, I was," Sara admitted on a small laugh. "I always feel a little like an impostor in this uniform. And with a brawl like that night at Happy's… I don't know what I would have done if somebody had argued with me. Some of the guys I work with would have waded right in and enjoyed the free-for-all. Not me. And I didn't want to pull the trigger on that shotgun, either."

  She turned in the saddle and looked at him from behind her mirrored sunglasses. "It's harder around here, I think, than it would be in a city, because all these guys know me. They remember when I was too tall, too gangly, and tripping over my own feet all the time. They remember when I forgot my lines in the junior play, and when Chuck Mangan made me cry by pulling my braids. It's kind of hard to be tough around that."

  "You did a pretty good job of it," Gideon said with a smile. "None of those guys gave you a hard time, did they? If you ask me, they've got a lot of respect for you, and it would never occur to them to challenge you."

  "Except you." Tipping her head, she looked at him over the tops of her glasses. "Your exact words, as I recall, were 'Who made you afraid to be a woman?'"

  Gideon winced. "I deserved a pop in the nose for that."

  "I considered it." Clucking softly, she heeled her gelding, urging him up a steep, rocky slope. "I didn't know I was so transparent."

  "I think it was more wishful thinking than transparency on your part."

  She tossed him a glance over her shoulder. "What do you mean?"

  "Mouse darlin', from the instant I heard your voice my hormones started howling. It was kind of a crisis for me, in a way, because it had been a long, long time since I'd felt that hot that fast, and it kind of made me uneasy. So there I was, my insides getting stroked into a frenzy by your voice—thinking of black satin sheets, if you want to know the truth—and the person who was causing all that uproar was waving a shotgun, wearing a badge and talking as tough as Saturday night wrestling."

  "Ouch."

  "Ouch was exactly how it felt. I'd never been into dominance, you know? Especially from the submissive end. And all of a sudden I was panting for this tough… Ahh, forget it. This subject is a loaded gun, and I'm going to shoot myself in the foot if I keep on."

  Sara almost told him that he was doing just fine and not to worry. Hearing again that he'd been turned on by her at their very first meeting gave her a thrill like none she had ever imagined. After a decade of believing herself to be a failure as a woman, it was music to her ears to hear someone say that he didn't think she was.

  She tossed him another look over her shoulder. "Does this mean I can tie you up with my black silk stockings?"

  For a split second Gideon simply stared at her in disbelief; then his laugh rang out, bringing a new kind of light to the sun-bathed woods. "Anytime, Mouse," he assured her. "And bring your .45."

  * * *

  Their humor didn't last long, however. It had served to distract Sara for a little while, but inevitably her thoughts turned to Joey. They moved as swiftly as they could over the rugged terrain, but fast wasn't fast enough. Farther down the mountain, the search parties would already have set out, looking for any evidence of what had happened.

  Sara could have told Nate to hold off, and he might actually have done it, but she wasn't quite ready to risk Joey's life on a single roll of the die. If Gideon's vision had been wrong, it could cost Joey his life.

  But she didn't think he was wrong. She was here because this man had turned to her with certainty and told her that he had seen Joey. Because he had known of the blasted tree. Because in her heart she recognized the power in the beliefs of her grandfather and his friend. Because she had felt the power in Gideon.

  It was beyond rational explanation, but matters of the heart and soul always were. See with your heart, her grandfather had always said. She was doing that right now, following her heart on one of the wildest gambles she had ever taken.

  When the terrain leveled out a little, Gideon astonished her by reaching over and covering her hand with his. "I missed you, Mouse," he said.

  "I missed you, too," she admitted, and felt a prickle of tears in her eyes. Eventually he would leave, but for now … for now, she was following her heart.

  * * *

  The blasted tree rose in the center of a clearing. It rose straight and true to the height of a man, and there, from a blackened, twisted spot, suddenly split into two perfect trunks which, after curving slightly away from each other, rose just as straight and true as the original. High above, twin crowns stirred gently in the morning breeze.

  Gideon could easily see why Chester considered this a place of power. There was an unearthliness to the clearing, a sense of something different, that he had felt in only a couple of places in his entire life. It made the back of his neck prickle. All morning he'd been trying not to think of his vision of this place and what it meant that he had seen it in his mind before he had seen it with his eyes. Now he didn't want to think about the power he felt here, as if the strength of t
he earth below their feet were somehow magnified and broadcast here.

  "I don't see Joey," Sara said, her voice tight. She, too, felt the power of the clearing, and it reminded her of the hush in an empty church.

  "He's around." Gideon was even more sure of it now that he had actually come to the place he had seen in his vision. If that could happen, then Joey was here.

  Slowly he rode around the edge of the clearing, gradually becoming aware of the sound of rushing water over the rustle of the wind in the pines.

  "There's running water here?"

  Sara pointed. "Over there, just the other side of those trees."

  Guided by instinct, Gideon dismounted, and Sara followed suit. They tethered their mounts and then walked into the trees.

  "It's maybe twenty yards," Sara said, reaching back into her memory. "There's a deep gorge…"

  They emerged from the trees onto the edge of the gorge with almost startling suddenness. Gideon took one look at the rushing water thirty feet below and his vertigo hit him right in the face.

  Spinning, splintering blue sky…

  "Gideon!" Sara grabbed his arm and shook him. "Gideon!"

  He drew a long, deep breath and opened his eyes. He was facing the gorge, facing the demons that haunted him.

  "Are you all right?"

  He turned, looking into her concerned face. "Yeah. Just got dizzy for a second."

  "Let's get you away from here."

  But he shook his head and looked across the gorge. "Is there any way to get over to the other side?" Something was compelling him, pushing him, just the same as something had compelled him to climb the mountain in his vision last night. Something was … guiding him.

  "The easiest way is to go north from the ranch house and avoid the worst of the gorge altogether. This is the same creek that feeds into the glade where we picnicked."

  He nodded, beginning to see it in his mind. "They brought him up the other side, then. He's over there, Sara."

  She stared up at him, opening her mouth to ask how he knew. Then she thought better of it. There was no explaining how anybody knew something like this. "It'll take hours to go back down and come back up the other side," she said tightly. "Hours. Joey…"

  Gideon turned, looking up the gorge, then down. There had to be a way. Then he saw the felled tree, maybe eight inches in diameter, that lay across the deepest point a hundred yards farther up. "I'll cross up there."

  Sara followed his gaze and drew a sharp breath. "Gideon, no! You can't! Your vertigo—"

  "My vertigo can go hang," he said roughly. "That boy is over there, Sara. If I can't get over there to help him, then I deserve to fall."

  Her hand shot out and clutched his arm until her nails dug into him through the thick wool of his shirt. "I'll cross. I don't get dizzy…"

  "And I used to do this eight hours a day, babe. I have a better chance of doing it in one piece than you do." Bending, he astonished her with a hot, wet, almost savage kiss.

  "But maybe he isn't—"

  "He is." There was no doubt in him. He had the feeling that this was a moment of destiny, then dismissed the notion as nothing short of absolute lunacy. Too much time with Chester and Zeke, he told himself. Those two old Indians were turning him into a mystic. Just what he needed, another crazy quirk in his mind.

  Sara climbed the rugged slope beside the gorge right behind him. She had insisted he wait until she retrieved the knapsack with the blankets and first-aid kit from the saddlebags, and now he carried it slung over one shoulder, taking the climb as easily as a mountain goat while she stumbled behind. It was not the first time she had noticed how surely he moved, leaving nothing to chance. But if a man were going to walk narrow beams nine hundred feet above the ground, he undoubtedly had to assess each step before he took it and stay perfectly balanced as he moved. For her part, she slipped a couple of times, but he was always there to help her up, or to catch her with his good arm.

  Finally they stood at the point where the fallen tree made a narrow bridge over the deepest part of the gorge. The drop at this point was thirty-five or forty feet, and the cleft was narrow, almost straight-sided. Gideon kicked at the fallen tree, testing whether it would roll, and found that it had been there long enough to have settled fairly well. A scan along its length told him it was not yet visibly rotted anywhere. As good as he could ask for, under the circumstances.

  "Oh, my God," Sara whispered suddenly. "Gideon … Gideon, I see him! There's Joey!"

  He turned and looked where she pointed. The opposite side of the gorge was a foot or two lower than where they now stood, and at first all he could see were the low-growing shrubs and grasses that took root in any sunny crack in the ground. But then he saw the dark shape beneath one of the trees, a huddled bundle of denim and leather.

  "I see him. I'm going over."

  With Sara's help, he ditched his cowboy boots. They were meant for riding, not footwork, and their slippery soles and high heels would be a definite danger in what he was about to do. Then he slung the knapsack over his good shoulder and put his bare foot on the end of the log.

  The world seemed to shift as if from an earthquake. For a wild, terrifying instant he felt as if he was swaying back and forth on a falling swing, as if he would tumble end over end with the sky splintering above him. Cold sweat beaded his brow, his stomach heaved.

  "Gideon … Gideon, don't. Let me."

  He turned his head and looked straight into Sara's frightened brown eyes. "I'll do it," he said. Because if he didn't do this now, he would never be a whole man again. Because he couldn't let Sara take the risk.

  He stepped up onto the log, every instinct screaming at him not to do it. Then, with his eyes straight ahead, he stepped out over the gorge. Arms out, making minor adjustments for the weight of the cast and with all the grace he had learned over the years at the top of the world's tallest buildings, he walked the length of the tree.

  Twice his balance suffered as his mind deceived him, trying to convince him that he was falling. Twice he caught himself with instinctive ease. If Sara said anything, her words were drowned by the rushing cataract of the water below.

  And then he was over. For an instant the whole world seemed to spin and he thought his knees would buckle. Almost as soon as the weakness assailed him, however, it vanished in a flood tide of rediscovered confidence and strength. He'd done it. He'd faced the demon and won. He gave himself a moment, a mere moment, to savor his victory, then hurried over to the huddled heap that was Joey.

  Kneeling, he touched the boy's shoulder. "Joey? Joey, do you hear me?"

  Joey groaned and shifted a little. His face was swollen and bloodied, and it appeared that his nose had been broken. It was then that Gideon saw he had been chained to the tree.

  "Sonofabitch!" he muttered. Dropping the knapsack, he rose and cupped his hands to his mouth. "Sara! He's alive, but he's chained here. I'm going to have to try to break the chain."

  She waved, signaling her understanding. Then he saw her lift her hand to key the radio mike that was attached to her collar. He hoped her transmission would reach the base station.

  They'd chained him here. Gideon thought about that as he hunted up a heavy rock to use as a hammer. Chained him here to die of exposure, or to make dinner for one of the bears in the area. Damn! He couldn't believe that kind of mind. Couldn't even finish their own dirty work.

  He found a good-size rock, maybe ten or twelve pounds, that he could hold in his one good hand and swing down against a length of the chain. Then he hunted up another rock, a flat one this time, to place beneath the chain.

  For a man accustomed to swinging a sixteen-pound hammer as a normal part of his daily activity, smashing the chain was relatively easy. Fewer than a dozen blows weakened the link enough to shatter it.

  The sound roused Joey to a kind of foggy awareness. He was a little hypothermic, dehydrated, tired. Maybe bleeding internally. It was impossible for Gideon to tell. He was just grateful that the boy surfaced
to a semiconscious state.

  "Joey? Joey, I'm going to have to tie your wrists together so I can carry you over my shoulders. Joey?"

  "'Kay."

  He had to be content with that. First he wrapped the boy mummy-style from his armpits to his ankles in the wool blanket that was in the knapsack and tied him into it with a length of rope. The wrapping would serve the double purpose of warming him up and keeping him still while they crossed the gorge. Then he took a roll of gauze bandage and bound Joey's wrists together.

  He slung the boy over his shoulder, one of his arms over Gideon's good shoulder, the other arm under Gideon's other shoulder. With his hands bound, there was no way Joey could slip away from him.

  "Now, don't move, Joey. Just keep still for a few minutes." Only a faint groan answered him. Gideon scooped up the knapsack and started over the gorge. Sara stood on the far side, hand pressed to her mouth as she watched.

  Joey jerked once, on the way across, and Gideon did a quick little tap dance as he regained his balance. He managed to give Sara a grin as he steadied himself and finished the crossing.

  "Piece of cake," he told Sara when he stepped off the log on the other side. "Piece of cake. Let's get this boy down the mountain."

  * * *

  Chapter 13

  « ^

  Gideon stood quietly in the far corner of the hospital room while Sheriff Nathan Tate questioned Joey. Sara stood near the bed, her hands tightly clasped as she listened. Zeke occupied the room's one chair.

  Joey looked a lot worse for wear, Gideon thought. His face was so swollen and bruised, it was a wonder he could even talk. His nose was broken—evidently the cause of the spattered blood Gideon had found—and one eye was so blackened he couldn't even open it. Other than bruises, however, he had suffered no real damage.