by Cindy Dees
Her jaw sagged in shock.
It eventually dawned on her that she was just standing there, staring at him like a complete idiot. She lurched into motion awkwardly, stuffing things randomly into saddlebags. Her thoughts whirled wildly. Why had he told her that? Was he actually attracted to her? A hunk like him? To a scarred, crippled wreck like her?
Susan forcibly calmed herself as she approached the horses. She didn’t need four skittish Arabs on her hands right now. Leading the animals into the firelight, she directed Mac while he loaded the packhorse. But she tied down the load herself and set about saddling the riding horses. As she bent to lift the heavy western saddle onto her mare, Mac’s hands pushed hers aside. He hoisted the saddle easily and set it gently on the animal’s back. Susan cinched the girth just enough to hold the saddle in place. Mac helped her saddle his horse and Dutch’s, as well.
“Now what?” she asked.
Mac answered calmly, “Now we wait for Dutch to come back.”
“How long will that be?”
He shrugged. “No telling. Could be a few minutes, could be several hours. We can keep the fire going until he returns, or we can wait it out in the dark.”
The idea of sitting in the middle of a huge wilderness in pitch-blackness with a bunch of thugs out to kill her nearby didn’t sound at all appealing. It was bad enough having to be with Mac after that shockingly steamy kiss. Her insides were one giant, painfully tight knot. Surely she’d misread what he’d meant when he said he wasn’t acting. She wasn’t the beautiful, desirable girl she’d once been. Men didn’t find her attractive anymore.
“I’d prefer a fire,” she managed to choke out.
Mac tossed a handful of medium-sized sticks on the cinders. He sat down beside the fire and stretched out his legs. What was he doing? Bad guys were lurking just over the next hill! “Aren’t you going to stand guard or something?” she asked incredulously.
“Dutch has things under control. He’ll call if he needs help.”
How could Mac be so bloody relaxed? There was an armed killer out there, somewhere beyond the ring of firelight. She plunked herself down in a huff on the opposite side of the fire. After a couple minutes it dawned on her that Mac was just sitting serenely, peacefulness fairly radiating from him. What was up with that? Patience never had been his strong suit. Since when had he embraced this Zen ideal of calm?
“Mac?”
“Hmm?”
“What are you doing?”
He looked across the fire at her with a perplexed expression. “Come again?”
“I know you. You’re not this laid-back. What are you doing?”
“Ahh. I’m listening.”
Susan stilled, straining to hear what he did. There were a few crickets, and the grass rustled in a light breeze, but that was it. “I don’t hear anything unusual,” she ventured.
Mac nodded. “Exactly. There’s a certain rhythm to the night sounds. You can hear it if you try. If anybody approaches, I may not hear them, but I will hear a change in the rhythm out there.” He gestured beyond the circle of firelight.
“Oh.” She stared at the fire for a minute. “What are we going to do when Dutch gets back?”
“We’re going to ride as fast and as far as your horses can go tonight and put some distance between ourselves and Ruala’s guy before dawn.”
She frowned. “It can be risky to ride at night. The good news is the horses have had several hours of rest and a decent meal. So stamina’s no problem for us.”
Mac raised an amused brow. “Glad to hear it.”
She blushed and scowled. Leave it to Mac not to let her off the hook gracefully for her poor word choice.
He spoke seriously. “We stand a decent chance of getting away safely if your horses are as good as you say they are.”
“What do you mean, a decent chance of getting away? I thought you said I wasn’t in danger!”
His voice was tight. “You weren’t from a single scout. I can’t promise the same if Ruala and an entire gang of his thugs jump us. Once Dutch finds out what we’re up against, I’ll make a more accurate threat assessment for you.”
Susan swallowed hard. His words were spoken with precision, but the Zen act only went so far. She knew him too well to be fooled. Underneath his bravado, he was worried. Spiffy.
Mac settled back into his listening trance. Susan shifted around, trying to ease the throbbing ache in her knee. After a few minutes Mac stood up and went to the packhorse. He opened one of the saddlebags and pulled out a blanket. As he walked toward her she couldn’t help noticing the long, muscular shape of his legs. Their lines, so powerful and perfect, were completley unlike her owned ruined limb.
Mac handed her the blanket. “Why don’t you catch a nap? It’s going to be a long night.”
Her fear had kept her alert so far. But now that he mentioned it, a sudden wave of exhaustion slammed into her. “You’ll be able to stay awake by yourself?” she asked him.
He grinned. “During Hell Week we stayed awake for more or less the whole week. Losing one night’s sleep won’t bother me.”
Susan shook her head. She’d forgotten for a minute that she was camping with superheroes. Taking the blanket, she wrapped herself in it and tucked her arm under her head for a pillow. She did her best to get comfortable on the hard ground but failed miserably. How cowboys slept like this for months on end was beyond her.
SHE JOLTED AWAKE some time later when Mac’s hand touched her shoulder.
He murmured, “Dutch just radioed me. He’s on his way.”
Susan roused herself. The air had gotten colder while she was asleep, and it was an extreme effort to force herself out of the blanket’s warm cocoon. Shivering, she fetched a jacket out of her saddlebag and packed away the blanket. By the time she tightened the horses’ girths and slipped on their bridles she felt awake.
Mac had just extinguished the fire when Dutch’s voice came out of the dark, startling Susan terribly. The horse beside her shied, too, and she soothed the animal while she listened to Dutch report in a low voice what he’d found.
“It’s him, all right. Ruala. He may look like that Ford character, but the way he moves, the way he talks—there’s no mistaking the bastard.”
It felt as if someone had just dumped a bucket of ice water over her head.
Dutch continued, “There are six men. They have two vehicles—an SUV and a four-wheel all-terrain-vehicle. They’re armed and generally well equipped, but their gear’s not state-of-the-art. We have an edge over them in that regard. They didn’t post a guard, so the scout didn’t get a good enough look at Susan to ID her. But, I did hear Ruala say he’d pick you two up in the morning and check you out.”
Mac interjected, “Then I suggest we be long gone by then.”
Dutch nodded. “Agreed.”
Susan piped up. “We can be halfway back to the ranch by sunrise if we push the horses hard.”
Mac shook his head. “Our plan is sound. If Ruala’s traveling by motorized vehicle, he would overtake us long before we got back to the ranch. We need to let the horses and the terrain give us a tactical advantage.”
Susan gulped. “What are we going to do?”
Mac answered soothingly, “First, we’re not going to panic. Dutch and I are trained to handle situations a lot worse than this, so I want you to relax. We will keep you safe. Okay?”
She took a deep breath. “Okay.”
Mac asked, “How long do you think it’ll take us to reach the heavy arroyos, Suzie?”
She thought fast. “The really rough terrain is still a good three- or four-hour ride from here.”
They mounted up in silence and headed out. Susan felt her horse’s confusion at this night ride, but the loyal mare dutifully forged onward. Even though she’d gotten a couple of hours’ rest, the stretch just before dawn was painful for Susan. Her whole body demanded sleep. She struggled to keep her eyes open and her body upright in the hard saddle. How did Mac go without sleep so cas
ually?
Finally, the sun began to peek above the horizon. Although the light roused her to a more alert state, it also brought the perils of daylight and good visibility with it. Renewed fear brought Susan the rest of the way to full consciousness.
She looked around and realized they had reached the beginnings of gully country. The land rose more sharply now toward the head of a huge valley. There were more undulations and rock outcroppings in the terrain than before, and boulders marred the horizon. Mac took the lead, and she noticed he used the contours of the land, following the ridgelines, but staying below them.
Malika was tired, and Susan began keeping an eye out for somewhere to stop and let the horses get a drink. They rode for another fifteen minutes or so before she spotted what she was looking for. “Guys,” she called out quietly, “we need to water the horses, and there’s a spring over there.” She pointed to a cluster of cottonwood trees announcing the presence of water.
Mac veered his horse toward where she pointed.
It felt heavenly to slide out of the saddle, even if her feet did burn with a thousand needles of pain when she first stood on them. Her knee felt more like someone was jabbing knives into it. Big, sharp butcher knives.
While the horses drank, Mac and Dutch put their heads together, and Susan went behind a boulder to relieve herself. When she returned, they gestured her to join them.
“How are the horses holding up?” Mac asked.
“They’re tired, but they can go for another hour or two. Once it warms up significantly, they’ll need shade and rest.”
Dutch spread out the map for her. “Our GPS coordinates place us here. Does that jive with where you think we are?”
“Yeah, looks spot-on. We have to go this last bit, and then we should hit the big, nasty canyons.”
Dutch asked, “How long will it take us to get there?”
Susan cast back in her memory for what the terrain looked like ahead. It got steeper and rockier, and the footing for the horses deteriorated, too.
“If we’re cautious and don’t want to risk hurting the horses, I’d say an hour. If we have to hurry, I’d guess half that long. But the horses will be done if we go that fast.”
Mac nodded. “Good enough. Let’s get to it, then.”
They’d been riding for about twenty minutes when Mac said quietly to Dutch. “Here they come.”
Susan looked back over her shoulder and gasped. A puff of dust was just visible on the horizon behind them.
Dutch gazed through some sort of gadget that looked like a sawed-off telescope. “Three miles,” he announced.
Mac replied calmly, “Visibility’s pretty good out here. I’d have guessed they were closer than that.”
“How can you guys talk so damned placidly about this?” Susan demanded. “Can’t you at least sound a little bit worried?”
Mac actually laughed at her. “But we’re not worried.”
“And why not?”
“Because we have enough firepower in our packs to obliterate those men without leaving enough bits to tell how many bodies there were, let alone identify them.”
Dutch commented, “I’d hate to land Susan in the middle of a firefight, though. You remember what it was like when Kimberly Stanton got caught with Tex on that burning roof in a firefight.”
Mac rolled his eyes. “No kidding. I thought they were goners on that one.”
Susan simply could not believe it. They were reminiscing about old missions when killers were closing in on them. Fast!
About ten minutes later, Dutch looked through his spotter’s scope again and said, “We need to pick up the pace if we want to reach the rough country first.”
Susan nodded and urged her mare forward. The gallant horse responded by breaking into a careful trot. “Let me take the lead, guys. This mare is the most trail savvy of the horses we’ve got. She’ll find the best footing for the other horses.”
Dutch and Mac reined aside for her to go ahead of them. Susan gripped the reins lightly, staying out of Malika’s way so the mare could pick a path.
The horizon began to break up heavily in front of them. Crags and crevices became frequent, and the red, rocky soil shifted more and more into rough sandstone outcroppings.
The puff of dust behind them had become two distinct clouds of dust. She could even make out the dark spot of the larger vehicle. Dutch calmly announced the range as just over a mile.
Susan’s heart pounded, and her breath came too fast. Her shoulder blades itched. She hated being chased like a defenseless rabbit.
Her mind kept straying to thoughts of what Ruala would do to her if he caught them. She could only guess at how ruthless he would be. As Ruala and his henchmen closed in, terror choked her.
Mac commented, “The good news is, they’re about to start hitting some terrain troubles. The stuff we’ve been moving through should slow them down significantly.”
Susan’s panic abated. A little. “Why’s he coming after us so hard?” she asked.
Mac answered grimly. “He can’t take a chance that the woman his man saw last night is actually you. You can positively ID him, but he can positively ID you, too. And none of his other men can. He’s got to lay eyeballs on you, personally.”
Mac left unsaid the part where Ruala would kill her the moment he knew for sure who she was and that operatives from the Blackjacks were with her. All three of their lives depended on a narrow gap of terrain that was shrinking by the minute.
The horses were beginning to labor in their breathing. It was time to slow them down and give them a blow. But it wasn’t as if they had any choice about pushing onward. She spoke encouragingly to her mare and prayed she wasn’t causing the horse any lasting damage.
The next few minutes were an interminable nightmare. The vehicles behind them did, in fact, stop gaining ground. But they had to push the horses to their limits to stay ahead.
Finally Susan’s mare stepped through a narrow opening bounded by sheer walls of stone that reached some twenty feet up into the air. Susan had to lift her legs high to squeeze through the opening. She’d bet Dutch and Mac had to raise their legs practically over their horses’ necks to squeeze through it, too. No way could a motor vehicle pass through that.
She looked back in time to see the packhorse get stuck. Oh God. And then the little gelding tugged his way through the pass.
Susan reined her mare to a halt. Malika stopped instantly, her head hanging low, breathing hard. “There. That ought to slow that jerk down a bit. No way will a car fit through that crevice.”
Mac grinned. “You did good, Suzie. We made it.”
She grinned back. “Thanks.”
Dutch interrupted. “When you two are done gushing at each other, we still need to put some distance between us and Ruala. He’ll find a way around this gap eventually, and a couple of his men will keep chasing us on foot in the meantime. I expect they’ll be ticked off enough to shoot at us when they find us.”
Susan groaned mentally. Dutch was right, but it was killing her to keep asking her courageous horse for more.
Mac seemed to understand her agony. “Just a little bit, farther, Suz, and then we’ll let these horses rest as long as they want to. Lord knows they’ve earned it.” He reached down to pat the neck of his own exhausted mount.
Reluctantly she picked up the reins. At least Malika had gotten a few seconds to catch her breath.
The sound of an engine drifted to them on the breeze. Susan jumped. She urged her mare onward, praying the horses had enough strength left to climb into some truly hostile terrain. The horses seemed to pick up on their riders’ urgency and had one burst of energy left. They scrambled and scrabbled, goat-like, into and through several steep, rocky gullies.
Finally Dutch called out quietly, “That ought to do it, Susan.”
She sagged in her saddle and brought her stumbling horse to a halt. Thank goodness. She slid to the ground, her legs as limp as noodles. Her left leg collapsed, but she expected i
t and was hanging on to the saddle when it went. She turned around and was startled to find Mac hovering right behind her.
“You okay?” he murmured.
She nodded, too tired to tell him to stop worrying about her.
“You’ve got grit, babe,” he said with quiet pride.
A warm feeling flooded her as Mac turned to Dutch and said, “I’ll take the first watch. You two take care of the horses.”
Susan watched Mac scramble off into the rocks, back the way they’d come, amazed at his reserves of energy. She couldn’t help but notice the lethal-looking rifle he carried with him. It had a large telescopic sight and an ungainly, curved clip protruding from its underside.
She shuddered and turned to the horses. Dutch was already stripping off the saddles. She used a towel to wipe off the worst of the lather and sweat from the animals’ heaving sides.
“We need to get them water if we can,” Susan told the blond man.
He nodded. “That may have to wait a little while, but as soon as one of us can get away safely to scout around a bit, I’ll see what we can do.”
“Thanks, Dutch.” Susan added, “By the way, where did you get that nickname?”
“My last name is Dutcher, and I suppose my coloring had something to do with it.”
His rugged good looks were distinctly Nordic. But she preferred Mac’s startling coloring—the sable hair, fair skin, and sapphire eyes of the black Irish. She cast a look around. Forbidding looking walls of stone surrounded them on all sides. “What’s next?” she asked.
“We set up camp and get some rest.”
“Ruala won’t come looking for us?”
Dutch grinned. “Nah. He doesn’t know what to make of us right now. He’s not even sure we’re worth the trouble of tracking down. He’s gonna sit and think about it for a while.”
“If you say so,” she responded dubiously.
He gave her a kind look. “We’ve been in this business a long time. We know how this guy thinks. That’s why we’re better than he is. We’re inside his head and he doesn’t even know it.”
