Elizabeth Lowell (39 page)

When Janna vanished around a column of rock on the far end of the ledge Zebra nickered as though to call a foal back to her side. When that didn’t work, the mustang neighed loudly. Lucifer added a ringing, imperious command that carried from one end of the hidden valley to the other.

Janna popped back into view, sliding and skidding down to the ledge, desperate to calm the stallion before he alerted half of Utah Territory. Despite the need for haste, she slowed to a very careful walk while she negotiated the dangerous ledge. Zebra whickered softly in encouragement or warning, then nuzzled Janna when she was within reach once more. Having achieved his purpose in calling back a straying member of his band, Lucifer made no further noise.

“Lord, what a bugle you have,” Janna said to Lucifer, who ignored her irritation. She looked back at the ledge and shook her head. “I know, that’s a scary path even for humans. I can imagine what it must look like to you. But you didn’t give me a chance to find out if the rest of the trail—if it really is a trail—goes all the way to the top.”

After a few moments spent reassuring the horses, Janna started toward the ledge again. She had taken no more than two steps when she heard a barrage of rifle fire.

She froze, listening intently, trying to decide where the shots were coming from. The lighter, rhythmic barks of Ty’s Winchester resolved the issue beyond a doubt. The sounds were coming from the cleft that Ty had remained behind to guard. The Indians must have decided to try rushing the cleft’s entrance, or perhaps it was only a feint.

Either way, it wasn’t good. The number of shots that were being fired told her that renegade reinforcements must have arrived. If they timed their attack carefully, they could provide cover for one another while they reloaded their rifles.

But Ty was alone in the rocky cleft with no one to cover him while he reloaded.

The trip back down the ancient trail took much less time than the trip up had, but it seemed like an eternity to Janna. The instant it was safe to demand speed from Zebra, she kicked the mare into a hard gallop that ended only at the shadowed entrance to the cleft. Heart hammering, Janna leaped from Zebra and ran into the dark opening just as there was a renewed fusillade of rifle fire. The cleft distorted sounds, making them seem to come from nearby and far away all at once. She kept hoping to hear the carbine’s lighter sound but heard only her own breath and the erratic bark of renegade rifles.

Just as Janna rounded the last bend before the exit, Ty’s carbine resumed its rhythmic, rapid firing. She slowed slightly, almost dizzy with relief.

He heard her footsteps and looked over his shoulder. “You’re supposed to be sleeping.”

“Not likely with all the racket you’re making,” she said breathlessly.

His smile was rather grim as he turned his attention back to the land beyond the cleft. He fired quickly three times and was answered by a scattering of shots.

“I’m having a little help making noise, as you can see.”

“How many?” she asked.

“I saw enough dust for an army, but I don’t think there are more than ten rifles out there right now, and all of them are single shot.”

“For these small blessings, Lord, we are thankful,” she said beneath her breath. “I think.”

Ty’s smile was little more than a hard line of white beneath his black mustache. He wasn’t sure that it made a difference what kind of rifles the renegades were shooting. The chance of Janna and himself slipping past the Indians—much less of stealing a horse or two on the way by—had dropped to the point that it would be outright suicidal rather than probably suicidal to try escaping through the cleft.

But there was no other way out.

“I think I found a way out,” Janna said.

Her words echoed his thought so closely that for a moment Ty wasn’t sure that she really had spoken. His head snapped around.

“What did you say?”

“I think I found how Mad Jack got his gold into the ruins without our seeing him.”

A movement beyond the cleft commanded Ty’s attention. He turned, got off two quick shots and had the satisfaction of knowing that at least one of them had struck home. There was a flurry of return fire, then silence. As he watched the area beyond the cleft he began reloading methodically.

“How did he do it?” Ty asked.

“You know how the valley narrows out behind the ruins?”

“Yes.”

“I followed it,” Janna said.

“So did I about two weeks ago. It ends in a stone cliff.”

“There’s a ravine coming in before that.”

“There are at least ten ravines ‘before that,’ and those ravines branch into others, which branch into others. And they all end against a stone cliff,” he concluded flatly.

“Even the one with the ledge?” she asked, trying to keep the disappointment from her voice.

“What ledge?”

“The one that goes along the western lip of the valley almost to the rim.”

“Are you certain?”

“I was on it until I heard rifle fire.”

Slowly Ty lowered his carbine and turned toward Janna. “You said ‘almost to the rim.’ How close is ‘almost’?”

“I don’t know. Zebra started whinnying when I got out of sight and then Lucifer set up such a ruckus that I came back to calm him down. Then I heard rifle fire and was afraid they were rushing you and you didn’t have anyone to cover you while you reloaded.” she closed her eyes briefly. “I got back here as quick as I could.”

“How close is almost?” Ty repeated calmly.

“A hundred feet. Maybe a hundred yards. Maybe a quarter mile. I couldn’t see.”

“Would you bet your life on that path going through?”

“Do we have a choice?”

“Probably not. If Cascabel isn’t out there soon, he will be when word gets to him. Until then, there are at least eight able-bodied warriors and two wounded renegades under cover out there, just waiting for something to show at the cleft.”

“What if we wait until dark?”

“We can try it.”

“But?” Janna prodded.

“Our chances of getting out alive through that cleft are so slim they aren’t worth counting,” Ty said bluntly. “The same darkness that would cover our movements also covers theirs. Even now the renegades are moving in closer, finding cover, covering each other, closing in on the cleft. By dark they’ll have the cork well and truly in the bottle. After that, it’s just a matter of time until I run out of ammunition and they rush me.”

Ty said nothing more. He didn’t have to. Janna could finish his bleak line of thought as well as he could.

“There’s something else to consider,” he said. “If you can find that trail from this end, sure as God made little green apples, a renegade can find it from the other end if he has a good enough reason to go looking—and your hair is a good enough reason, thanks to Cascabel’s vision.”

She nodded unhappily. The same thought had occurred to her. “We can take the horses most of the way.”

“But not all?”

“The ledge was made for men, not horses.”

Ty had expected nothing more. He bent, put his arms through the straps of his heavy pack and shrugged it into place. “Let’s go. We only have a few hours of light left.”

Janna turned to leave, then was struck by a thought. “What happens if the Indians rush the cleft while we’re still in the valley?”

“I’ve made the renegades real wary of showing themselves. But if they do—” Ty shrugged “—I can hold them off in the ruins almost as well as in the cleft. You’ll have plenty of time to follow the path.”

“If you think I’d leave you to—”

“If I tell you to take that trail,” Ty interrupted flatly,
“
you damn well will take that trail.
”

Without another word she turned and began working her way rapidly back through the cleft. Ty was right on her heels. When they came out into the little valley, Zebra and Lucifer were standing nearby, watching the opening attentively. Janna mounted and waited while Ty pulled the saddlebags full of gold out of a hiding place and secured them on Lucifer’s muscular back. As soon as he had mounted, Janna urged Zebra into a gallop.

The mustangs quickly covered the distance to the ruins. Janna didn’t slow the pace until the valley narrowed and the rubble underfoot made the going too rough for any speed greater than a trot. The sounds of stones rolling beneath the horses’ hooves echoed between the narrowing walls of the valley.

Walking, trotting, scrambling, always pushing ahead as quickly as possible, Zebra climbed up steeper and steeper byways, urged by Janna through the twisting web of natural and man-made passages. Lucifer kept up easily despite the double load of Ty and the gold. The stallion was powerful, agile, and fully recovered from his brush with Joe Troon’s rifle.

More than once Ty thought that Janna had lost her way, but each time she found a path past the crumbling head of a ravine or through places where huge sheets of rock had peeled away from the ramparts and smashed to pieces against stone outcroppings farther down the cliff. When Zebra scrambled over a ridge of stone and came to a stop, Ty wondered if Janna had finally lost her way.

He hoped not. He had begun to believe there was a way out of the hidden valley that had been first a haven and then a deadly trap.

Janna turned and looked back at Ty. “This is as far as the horses can go.”

Before Ty could answer, she slid from Zebra’s back, adjusted the small pack she wore and set off to traverse the narrow ledge. He dismounted, scrambled up the last few feet of trail and saw the ledge—and the sheer drop to the valley below.

“Sweet Jesus,” he whispered.

He fought against the need to call out to Janna to come back. All that made him succeed was the fear of distracting her from the trail’s demands.

The sound of rifle fire drifted up from the direction of the cleft, telling Ty that the renegades were on the move once more. He turned and looked toward the east. He couldn’t see the spot where the cleft opened into the meadow. He could, however, see that once the renegades spread through the valley looking for their prey, it would be just a matter of time until a warrior looked up and saw Janna like a fly on the wall of the valley’s western ramparts.

Zebra called nervously when Janna vanished around a bulge of stone. The stallion’s ringing whinny split the air, reverberating off rocky walls. Ty went back to Lucifer and clamped his hand over the horse’s nostrils. The stallion shook his head but he only hung on harder. He spoke softly, reassuring the mustang, hoping the horse’s neigh hadn’t carried over the sound of rifle fire.

“Easy, boy, easy. You and Zebra are going to be on your own again in just a little bit. Until then, shut up and hold still and let me get this surcingle undone.”

Lucifer snorted and backed away, tossing his head even as his nostrils flared. Ty threw himself at the stallion’s head, just managing to cut off Lucifer’s air before he could whinny again.

“What’s wrong with you?” Ty asked soothingly. “You’ve never been this jumpy. Now hold still and let me get this strap off you.”

Without warning Lucifer lurched forward, shouldering Ty roughly aside.

“What the hell?”

Ty regained his balance and followed Lucifer up the last few feet of trail. Ty was fast, but not fast enough. Lucifer’s demanding bugle rang out. Reflexively he lunged for the stallion’s nose. The horse shouldered him aside once more. Cursing, he scrambled to his feet, wondering what had gotten into Lucifer.

“Dammit, horse, where the hell do you think you’re going?”

The stallion kept walking.

Then Ty looked past the stallion and realized what had happened. “God in heaven,” he whispered.

Zebra had followed Janna out onto the ledge—and the stallion was going out right after her, determined not to be left behind.

Afraid even to breathe, Ty watched Zebra and Lucifer picking their way over the narrow ledge with the delicacy of cats walking on the edge of a roof. The worst part of the trail was halfway along the ledge, where rock had crumbled away to make an already thin path even more skeletal. All that made passage possible was that the cliff at that point angled back from the vertical, rather than overhanging as it did along much of the ledge.

When Zebra reached the narrow place where rock had crumbled away, she stopped. After a moment or two her hooves shifted restively. Small pieces of rock fell away, rolling and bouncing until there was no more stone, only air. The mare froze in place, having gone forward no more than an inch or two.

“Go on,” Ty said under his breath. “You can’t turn around and you can’t back up and you can’t stay there forever. There’s only one way out and that’s to keep on going.”

Zebra snorted. Ears pricked, she eyed the ledge ahead. Her skin rippled nervously. Sweat sprang up, darkening her pale hide around her shoulders and flanks. Trembling, she stood on the narrow ledge.

And then she tried to back up.

A hawk’s wild cry keened across the rocks. The sound came once, twice, three times, coaxing and demanding in one.

Janna had returned to the far side of the ledge to see what was taking Ty so long. A single glance had told her what the problem was, and how close it was coming to a disastrous solution. She began speaking to Zebra in low tones, calming the mare, praising her, promising her every treat known to man or mustang if Zebra would only take the few steps between herself and Janna.

Slowly Zebra began to move forward once more. Holding out her hands, Janna backed away, calling to the mustang, talking to her, urging her forward. Zebra followed slowly, placing each hoof precisely—and on her right side, part of each hoof rested on nothing but air.

Gradually the ledge became wider once more, allowing Zebra to move more quickly. She completed the far end of the trail in a subdued rush, barely giving Janna a chance to get out of the way.

Ty had little time to be relieved that Zebra was safe, for now it was Lucifer’s turn on the crumbling stone. The stallion liked it even less than the mare, for he was bigger and the saddlebags tended to rub hard against the overhang along the first part of the ledge, pushing the horse outward and toward the sheer drop to the valley floor. Unlike Zebra, Lucifer didn’t stop on the narrow section of the trail. He simply laid back his ears and placed each hoof with excruciating care, sweating nervously until his black coat shone like polished jet.