High above, the circling hawk suddenly screamed. Blaze jerked upright, instantly alert. Lonesome’s ears pricked forward and he stopped.
The hawk had sighted something, not prey, but an enemy, or an intruder. The hairs on the back of Blaze’s arms stood up, and she knew, with certainty, that she was not alone. But where could someone, or something be hiding?
Blaze looked around her, but there was only rock climbing up and away to her left, and falling away downward to her right. The trail wound up and around to the left, spiraling toward the peak. She couldn’t see around the corner, but doubted anyone could hide there. From experience, she knew that the trail narrowed and rose to a sharp degree no horse could safely negotiate, especially so high up. One false step meant certain death. A lone person, however, or some lithe desert creature, might make it all the way to the top. Did something await her around the bend?
Blaze’s heart beat a little faster. This was the point where she had to turn around. Lonesome could not go any farther. It was time to head back anyway. In another couple of hours Ring and his crew would be coming by the house for their supper. She should turn around now and go.
But curiosity held her in a grip she could not loosen. Not only was she armed, she sensed no danger from whatever was ahead. Slowly, very carefully, she dismounted. Her foot dislodged a loose rock, and it bounced out of sight down the side of the mountain. She edged around in front of her horse.
The trail narrowed to barely the width of her stance. It also became extremely steep, forcing her to scrabble upward on all fours. As she rounded the corner, she was able to stand again, and gratefully straightened her spine. She found herself face to face with the man who called himself Bane.
A strange thrill ran through Blaze, a wave of warmth that washed over her and left her skin prickling with excitement when it withdrew. But it was wrong. So wrong. Blaze took an involuntary step backward.
A strong, brown, long-fingered hand fastened around her wrist. A bolt of fear shot through her heart, until she felt the ground begin to crumble beneath her right foot. She was too close to the edge; the trail was giving way. She was going to fall off the side of the mountain. Fear turned into the full shock of panic. But Bane had known she was in danger. Thank God he had grabbed her wrist. He drew her forward until she stood on solid footing once more.
“Thank … thank you,” she whispered.
He regarded her silently, a faint smile on his thin but handsome mouth. His eyes were startlingly bright above the high, sharp planes of his cheekbones.
“How have you come to this high place?” he asked Blaze at length.
“I rode,” she replied simply.
“Yes. I saw, and heard, you coming. But why?”
It seemed a strange question to ask. But then the whole situation was odd. The dreamlike quality she had experienced the last few days settled over her again. This time, however, it wrapped her tightly. She knew she could not escape, could not return down the mountain, even if she wished. This was a scene that had been written before, and now must be played out.
“Why?” Bane repeated. “Why come, alone, to the eagle’s peak?”
Why, indeed? She felt, somehow, he already knew. Certainly, he would know if she did not tell him the truth.
“I came to look on the land that has been my home,” she said at last. “Probably for the last time.”
Bane nodded slowly, as if considering her words. “Yet, you come from the high desert south of here. You knew my name, understood the language of my mother’s people, who live below the Gila River.”
His “mother’s people.” So. “Yes. My village was to the south.”
“‘Was?’”
Blaze remained perfectly still. She knew she had not given herself away by so much as the flicker of an eyelash. Yet he knew.
“So that is the fire that burns in you. Vengeance.”
She seemed to sink deeper into the dream. Even the edges of her vision became blurry, indistinct. She looked deeply into his light blue eyes and saw herself reflected.
“As it is with me, so it is with you,” Blaze said in a voice she barely recognized. “You are burned by the same fire.”
His expression never altered. His vague smile remained fixed in place. “There is no heaven for people like us,” he said finally. “Only hell.”
“Does it matter?” Blaze thought she heard him laugh softly, but couldn’t be sure. A long silence stretched between them. She did not find it uncomfortable. On the contrary, it seemed a natural part of the dream.
“You leave soon,” Bane said eventually, conversationally. “With the horseman.”
“I’m traveling north with him, yes.”
Once again, Bane nodded slowly. “So, your path leads you to the north. Are you sure of it?”
How much did he actually know? Blaze wondered. And how much did he surmise?
“I know that the people I seek are no longer in the southern deserts. My journey will begin simply by leaving here.”
Another span of moments spread between them. Bane rose from the edge of a rock on which he had perched.
“People who wish to see far come to this peak,” he said enigmatically. “They are few. And they are often lonely.”
His light eyes bored into her. An early evening breeze lifted the long, black hair from his shoulders. “We must go. Shadows will increase the danger of the trail.”
With a start, Blaze realized how low the sun had set. She started back toward Lonesome, then looked over her shoulder.
“I have my horse, and you’re on foot. Would you—”
Bane shook his head, interrupting her. He made a small sound with his tongue and lips.
Blaze would not have believed it if she had not seen it herself. From behind Bane, higher up on the trail, almost from the top, his black mare appeared. She bobbed her head, and her long, thick mane lifted from her neck. Her small, delicate hooves placed themselves confidently on the loose rock.
There was nothing to say. It was simply an extension of the fantastic dream. Blaze walked down to her horse, squeezed by him next to the cliffside, and mounted handily. At her command, Lonesome turned in place until he was headed down the trail. She looked back and saw Bane follow. When he had reached a wider, more level part of the path, he waited for his mare. She came up next to him, and he swung onto her back with no apparent effort. Blaze squeezed her legs, and Lonesome started downward.
Not a word was spoken all the way down from the peak. The only sounds were of hooves on the trail, and loose rock slipping down the mountainside. Shadows were long by the time they reached the desert floor.
Lonesome trotted a step, as if glad to be off the steep, narrow trail. He stopped and briefly laid back his ears as the black mare drew even with him. Blaze looked at Bane and simply waited for the next part of the dream to unfold.
The setting sun cast a pinkish glow about them both. Failing light hid their expressions from one another. Then Bane lifted a hand to his forehead, as if in some silent salute. He wheeled his mare and galloped away to the west.
When the hoofbeats faded, Blaze turned her horse to the north. Unbidden, Lonesome broke into a lope. Moving into the night wind, she never felt the tears that streaked her cheeks.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THERE WAS NOTHING MORE BLAZE COULD DO IN THE small, tidy house. She had rendered it spotlessly clean, and eliminated all signs of her habitation. The home looked exactly as it had when she first entered it during the winter. Blaze sighed.
She did not leave this place happily. She had enjoyed greater comfort here than she had ever known in her life. Ring had been more than kind to her, and she had loved Sandy’s lighthearted company. Even Rowdy had grown on her. She walked slowly to the front doors and picked up her bedroll.
Sandy had shown her how to pack up efficiently. Within the bedroll were a few personal possessions; changes of clothing, a hairbrush, soap, and a sliver of mirror. It was fastened tightly with rawhide thongs and would fit ove
r Lonesome’s back behind her saddle. Blaze walked out onto the front porch and closed the door behind her.
She didn’t lock it. Mrs. Rainey, an old friend of Ring’s mother, had promised to watch the house. Blaze walked away and did not look back.
Blaze walked swiftly to the livery, not with anticipation, but determination. But she ran into Ring and Rowdy in front of the general store. They were loading supplies into the back of the cook wagon. Ring eyed her as she set her bedroll on the ground beside her.
“We’re not leavin’ ’til the morning,” he said.
“I know. I have something I need to do first. Somewhere I have to go.”
Ring’s eyebrows lifted a fraction. “Will you be … coming back?”
“I certainly plan on it. There are just some people I have to see, some questions I have to ask. If I’m not back by tomorrow morning, I’ll catch up with you.”
“We’ll be taking the same trail up we followed comin’ down. Might even stay a night in your old … ‘homestead’.”
Ring smiled and Blaze managed an answering one. The “homestead,” as he called it, seemed very far away, both in time and distance.
“Well, I guess I’ll see you some time tomorrow. Tell Sandy I’ll see him, too.”
Ring nodded. Rowdy’s eyes flitted briefly in her direction. Blaze picked up her bedroll and walked on to the livery.
The Gila River crossing was the first place she had heard word of the men who had massacred her family and the people of her village. When she had left, after burying everyone she had ever known or loved, she had walked into the mountains, either to heal or die. When her strength had returned, she crept into a farmer’s crude hut one night, and stole a shirt, trousers, and a pair of sandals. Then she had walked north.
In the early days, Blaze had hidden when riders approached. She was a woman, alone and unarmed. For although she had her father’s rifle, she had very little ammunition. If anyone had meant her ill, she would not have been able to defend herself for very long. Thus it was that she spoke to no one until she had reached the river crossing.
A small settlement had sprung up on the banks of the Gila. A group of Indians, friendly to both whites and Mexicans, manned the crossing and charged a modest fee. Blaze knew that if the men she sought had come this way, the Indians would know. She was correct.
The three men who tended the ferry that day eyed her warily when she approached. At the time she had not known about the streak of white in her hair, and wondered if that might have accounted for their curious stares. It was good, perhaps, she had not known, for she had approached them boldly.
“I’m looking for some men. They hunt scalps. They kill women and children, both your brothers and mine. One of them has a scar … here.” Blaze had slashed a line down her face. The Indians exchanged glances, and she knew then the men had gone that way. She waited for someone to answer her.
What appeared to be the oldest of the three men spoke at last. “Do you wish to cross the river?”
“Only if the men I seek crossed the river before me,” she replied without hesitation.
The man who had spoken issued a grunt. But her answer apparently pleased him.
“The one with the scar crossed,” he said.
“And the others?”
“The one who was their leader took sick with fever. He died. Here. The others rode away to the west.”
She had had to make a decision then. But it had not been too difficult. The man with the scar had hanged her brother.
“Will you take me across?”
“There is no silver in your pocket.”
Blaze thought she detected the ghost of a smile when the man said that. “You are clear-seeing,” she responded. “If you see into hearts as well, you know I will return to repay you when I am able.”
And so she had crossed the Gila and continued to walk northward. She had met no one else who had seen, or would admit to seeing, the man with the scar. Odd, menial jobs had kept the meat on her bones until she had come to the mountain town of Mayer. She had earned her bounty money, and run into Ring and Sandy. She was about to head northward again. But she had a debt to pay first.
The older man was still there, and he recognized her. He brought the ferry over to the north side and grunted, which, she now knew, was a sign of approval. Blaze climbed off her horse.
“I’ve come to repay my debt.”
He took the money without counting it and put it in his pocket. “You look better than the last time I saw you.”
Blaze couldn’t help laughing. The man’s lips never moved, but his dark eyes twinkled with mirth. Then he grew abruptly serious.
“I am glad of your return,” he said somberly. “I have much to tell you.”
Blaze instantly felt an icy hand clamp over her heart. Her knees felt weak. She waited for him to continue.
“Soon after you came, we heard from a traveler of a village that had vanished. Only a mass grave was to be found.”
It took every ounce of courage and determination to remain expressionless. The man’s eyes narrowed, multiplying the wrinkles in his already-lined face.
“You did honor to your people,” he said at last, quietly.
She was unable to respond, even to blink.
“After that, I asked many people about this man with a scar, for I knew you would return. I learned that he has spent much time to the south of here, into Mexico. It is said he once had an Apache woman, but this I do not know for certain. Our Apache brothers do not speak of him with glad hearts. He hunted their scalps, as you said. And I do not believe one of their women would have lain with him willingly.”
“Have you … have you seen him?” Blaze forced herself to ask. Her voice sounded very small to her.
“No. And neither have any of my people. So I would tell you this.”
Blaze realized she was holding her breath.
“The scarred man rides away in fear. He has made too many enemies in the land that was once his home. He will not come this way again, I think. He will go north, to the plains, where there are many more scalps to take, many more enemies to make. Although he has already, I think, made the one enemy who will kill him.”
The sun hugged the rim of the horizon by the time Blaze left the Gila. The sky was aflame with crimson and gold. Somewhere nearby a coyote yipped. She put a reassuring hand on Lonesome’s neck.
She would have to ride through the night, alone, but she didn’t mind. She did not fear the desert. She no longer feared anything but failure.
When darkness stole away the last of the light, she walked Lonesome until a nearly full moon came up. By its glow they jogged along the road. It was curious, Blaze thought, how calm she felt. Perhaps because she knew exactly where she was going, and what she had to do. Not many people she had ever known had such firm direction in their lives.
Blaze also felt, curiously, that she had a kind of guardian angel watching over her. She felt no fear whatsoever, even alone in the darkness. It was as if someone watched over her. She could almost feel their gaze upon her.
Some high, thin clouds blew away overhead, and the winking stars added their brightness to the night. Blaze let Lonesome move into a slow lope, and rode steadily toward dawn.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE HERD OF HORSES, TRAILED BY THE COOK WAGON, started out at first light. Ring had to resist an almost-constant urge to look behind him and see if she was coming. She had said she would catch up with them, but he couldn’t help worrying. Especially the way she’d been acting recently.
A sharp whinny brought Ring back to the present. But it was only one of the mares feeling sassy in the cool dawn air. He sank back into his thoughts.
He knew from the first she would be dangerous to love. She was driven by something dark and terrible that had changed her forever. Her course would never be smooth, or simple. He had told himself that over and over again. To no avail.
Something on the trail spooked one of the horses, and he galloped ahead. T
he others followed, and for a minute or two Ring and Sandy had to step up their pace. The herd eventually settled back to a slower pace, and Ring drew Duchess to a jog. He looked back over his shoulder. No sign of her.
He tried to stop thinking about Blaze, but it didn’t happen. Even with his eyes closed Ring could see her face before him, smooth, olive-toned skin and wide, dark, almond-shaped eyes. He touched a finger to his own lips as he recalled the full, sculpted lines of Blaze’s mouth. He had once thought to feel that mouth against his.
A now-familiar sadness welled in Ring’s heart. He had been so sure, that day they had ridden out into the desert, she wanted to talk to him about her feelings. Feelings he had imagined were kindly toward him. Then the incident with the farmer and the Apache braves had occurred, and everything seemed to change. After that Blaze had withdrawn into herself, almost as if the outer edges of a molten core had begun to harden. Or was it something else?
Although it gave him no pleasure, Ring could not help but remember the tall man, the half breed with the pale eyes. There was something about him, a commanding presence. And more. Something Blaze identified with. Was it something that had stolen her heart from the path he once hoped it might take?
Ring shook his head. He had to stop thinking that way. He had enough troubles on his mind.
There was the sky up ahead, for instance. He hurried his mare’s pace a notch, and caught up with Sandy.
“What do you think?” Ring jutted his chin in the direction of the clouds massing over the mountains.
“It’s definitely rainin’ up there,” Sandy replied. “We might have trouble if we don’t reach Blackjack Creek soon.”
“That’s what I thought.” Ring found himself glancing backward one more time. “We could push the herd, get there by dark. But I’m not sure Rowdy and the wagon could keep up. Then we’d be stranded anyway.”
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