Judith E French (35 page)

When she started back to the shack, the child met her, eyes wide. “You look like a princess in a fairy story. Do you have wings to fly?”

“No, I don’t fly, little one. But I am going to leave you here and ride my horse across the pass into the mountains.”

By the time the driver started to get worried about her whereabouts, the exotic Miss Alexander had been replaced by an Arapaho woman in a buckskin dress.

The stationmaster reached for his rifle.

The newspaperman gave a disbelieving whistle.

The mail-order bride fainted dead away.

Raven left her case and most of her clothing for the bride, mounted Onawa, and rode west toward the mountains, feeling freedom settle over her like a peaceful mantle.

This was her quest, her mission, the unknown she’d waited for. Energy bubbled to life within her, and she let out a cry of joy as the horse beneath her leapt forward.

“Aieee!”

On the third night, the moon rode high as Raven crested the peak, casting a light as bright as day. She could hear the labored breathing of her horse and regretted not making camp earlier. Traveling unfamiliar territory was difficult enough in the daytime. At night it was foolhardy. But Onawa never faltered, and as Raven climbed higher she had felt herself drift into a spiritual meditation.

Now the horse slowed her steps, slinging her head as if she were listening to some unseen voice. Raven, too, sensed something she couldn’t identify. They rounded a boulder, and the path she followed went dark as it intersected with another. Her horse stopped, waiting for direction. A shaft of moonlight suddenly found an opening in the overhanging ridge above her, casting a circle of pale silver around her that increased Raven’s unease. “Which way, Grandfather?”

But there was no answer. Never had she been so tired. Her food supply had been exhausted since she’d left the main trail the day before, and other than a few berries, she’d had nothing to eat since then. She could have foraged the countryside as she’d been taught by her mother’s family. But she felt driven and she hadn’t taken the time. The area where she rode had become more and more rocky, almost as if a playful child had picked up a handful of assorted boulders and dropped them in a heap. The trail was steep and barren, with little foliage and no wildlife, except for the wave of black birds that appeared periodically overhead.

Birds. For the past two weeks, she’d had recurring dreams about large black birds and a rangy, untamed mountain lion of a man with hair the color of the sun. Then the man had gradually changed into a sleek, tawny cougar whose power was as great as the control with which he contained it.

Always before, Mother Earth had protected and provided for Raven when she was alone. This time she seemed strangely distant, almost as if she were punishing the child of her loins.

From the time she’d left the stagecoach, Raven had moved south as Flying Cloud had directed, following some inborn instinct. Now she was confused.

“Oh, Grandfather,” she whispered, “show me the way to the guardian.”

You will know the way, my child. The secret is hidden in your heart, the path in your mind. The guardian is one of us
.
Soon
it will be clear
.

“You choose, Onawa.” Raven allowed the horse free rein. For a moment the small mare hesitated. Then, as if she’d been nudged, she turned to her left, taking the trail that continued upward.

Raven felt as if she were being watched over, but she was receiving conflicting images of her protectors. She had to be careful. She’d walk for a while, restraining the brave Onawa, who seemed suddenly eager to move ahead.

Searching inward, Raven reached out to the spirit world. Of late she was becoming more proficient at closing out the real world and taking herself to a place of communion with the spirits. Her sisters wouldn’t have understood how she could feel the presence of those who’d gone before, of the mountain, the moon, even the wind. But she was gaining the ability to make herself silent and listen.

There was a dangerous stillness in the night, a dark, powerful force that lingered in the wind. Above, the stars hung like teardrops in the black sky, so close that she could almost reach up and wipe them away. It was only then that she felt the dampness of her own tears on her cheeks. For a moment she wanted to turn back, call out to Sabrina, tell her that she needed to be the little sister again. But that life was over and gone. Every step took her farther away.

The savage call of a mountain lion echoed down the canyon, bouncing off the boulders and raking her nerve endings. Then came the answer, a response just as intense, but less aggressive. He was calling to his mate and she was answering in kind.

In the silence, she could hear the gentle slap of water against the rocks below. The fresh wind added its whisper to the scuff of the horse’s hooves and the animals’ cries, all merging in a rhapsody of lonely sound.

Then a sense of purpose stole over her, a sense of direction, an eagerness that quickened her pulse. She was being drawn by something in the rocks above her.

Something, or someone, waited.

1

COMPANION WANTED. TransAmerica Trail. Will start in Astoria, OR, on June 1 and wrap up in Yorktown, VA, by the end of August. Camping as much as possible, with the occasional hotel. I’m easy to get along with and am looking forward to a grand adventure! E-mail
[email protected]
.

Tom wiped the chain grease off his hand and answered the shop phone. “Salem Cycles.”

“I found you somebody,” his sister said.

“What are you talking about?”

“For tomorrow. I found you somebody to ride across the country with.”

They’d had this argument months ago, when he’d first told her about his plan to bike theTrans Am this summer, and he’d thought they were done with it. He should’ve known she was merely engaged in a strategic retreat.

“Taryn—”

“Just hear me out. I found a guy, Alex, through an Adventure Cycling ad. He’s taking the same route you want to take, and he needs somebody to ride with him. You don’t even have to talk to him if you don’t want to. He cooks, and he’ll pay half on the camping fees. How bad could it be?”

It could be a nightmare. What Tom wanted was to spend a few months on the road alone, listening to the pavement under his tires and taking in forty-two hundred miles of sights. He didn’t want a buddy. He didn’t
do
buddies.

“I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Please, Tom. You can’t ride your bicycle across the country alone. It’s insane. You’ll end up being slaughtered by a serial killer.”

“Taryn, I’m thirty-five, single, tattooed, and antisocial.
I’m
the serial killer.”

“Okay, point taken. But you could get hit by a car and bleed to death by the side of the road.”

“How would riding with another person prevent that?”

“It wouldn’t, but he could call me on his cell phone so you could tell me you love me with your dying breath.”

Tom started pacing the small workspace, weaving around the bike stands and massaging his temple with the fingers of his free hand. He recognized Taryn’s tone of voice. There was something she wasn’t telling him, and whatever it was, he wasn’t going to like it. “I’ve toured alone before. There was the South America trip. Australia. Death Valley last winter. Why worry about me now?”

“I always worry about you. Worrying about you is my job. But for those trips, you didn’t give me enough notice to do anything about it. You just called me from the road to say, ‘Ta-ta, Taryn! I’m off to pedal across the Outback like a crazy person! Try not to lie awake at night imagining dingoes eating my corpse!’”

Tom winced. It was true, he’d deliberately left the country before telling Taryn about his plan to ride the Canning Stock Route in Western Australia, but it had been for her own good. He’d spared her months of fretting—and saved himself a lot of nagging. He’d have done the same thing this time, too, if she hadn’t caught him studying the TransAm maps at his kitchen table one afternoon and managed to worm the information out of him.

Tom wasn’t about to let his sister’s irrational fears stop him from doing what he wanted to do, but given that she was his only nonestranged family member and pretty much his sole friend, he hated to make her unhappy. Taryn had stuck by him through the trial, and he owed her for that. She was probably the only reason he wasn’t living in an unheated cabin in the woods by now, composing paranoid manifestos about secret government conspiracies and mailing them off to
The New York Times
.

Not that she’d managed to turn him into a ray of sunshine. There was a good reason why the guy who owned the bike shop didn’t ask Tom to work the counter unless he absolutely had to. Tom would be the first to admit his social skills were rusty, and he tended to intimidate the customers. He spent his days alone, getting paid to fix bikes and riding them for free, and that was the way he liked it. But Taryn at least made sure he went out to eat now and then, even threw the occasional date his way, and he appreciated her efforts to keep him connected to the land of the living. However tenuously.

“Ground Control, Major Tom,” she said. “We’re having a conversation here, remember?”

“Right.” Another hazard of being a loner—one tended to lose the knack for polite discourse. “There aren’t any dingoes to worry about on the TransAm. It’s thoroughly civilized. Paved, even.” He considered his options, then offered a concession. “I’ll call you from the road every few days if you want. But I’m not going to ride with a partner. It’s not a vacation for me if I have to talk to someone.”

“Yeah, well, here’s the thing. I knew you were going to say that, so I didn’t exactly wait for your permission.”

Bracing a hip against the cluttered workbench, Tom resisted the urge to stick the phone in the stand clamp and press down on the handle until the plastic handset shattered. No one was a more creative meddler than his sister, and her self-satisfied tone told him she’d concocted something extra special this time.

“What did you do?”

“Like I said, I found you a guy. Alex Marshall. You’ve been e-mailing him on and off since April to hash out your plan for the tour, and he’s really excited to start the ride tomorrow. In fact, he sent you a message this morning to confirm he’ll meet you on the beach in Seaside at six
A.M.”

“You set me up on a blind date with a riding buddy?”

“Oh, I’d say you’re a little more committed than that. Alex is counting on you to go all the way with him. To Virginia, that is.” He could practically hear her winking over the phone. Taryn was pleased with herself.

“So call it off.”

This was absolutely not his problem. But he had the sinking feeling he was going to have to be the one to solve it.

“No way. Alex is at a motel in Astoria as we speak, packing up his gear and getting totally stoked to meet you in the morning.
I’m
not going to be the one to disappoint him.”

Ah, hell. She was going to play it like this. Now he had a picture in his head of friendly old Alex Marshall waiting on the beach in his best jersey, map at the ready, panniers all packed, hopes high, looking around for a riding partner who wasn’t going to show—unless Tom drove a hundred miles out of his way to meet him. Taryn certainly wouldn’t be coming to the rescue. Once his sister made her mind up, she was stubborn as a pit bull. She would be perfectly happy to leave Alex dangling on the beach as bait for Tom’s heroic impulses.

He kicked the corner of the workbench with one boot-clad toe, causing a few boxed tubes to tumble to the floor.

Taryn knew his weakness for hopeless cases. Achilles had that bum heel, and Tom had an unshakeable compulsion to champion the underdog. It never worked out for him any better than the heel had worked out for the Greek. If Tom hadn’t insisted on playing the hero, he wouldn’t have ended up testifying against his own father, destroying his family and his marriage in one disastrous blow. He’d still be a suit, rather than a guy with grease ground so deep into his fingertips it didn’t wash out.

It’s not like he wished he could be that other person again. But it would be nice to feel as though he had choices.

He sighed into the mouthpiece. “Why are you always backing me into corners?”

“It’s the only way I can make you do things my way,” she countered, sounding amused.

“You’re such a pain in my ass.”

“Ha! I knew it would work. You’re going to Seaside, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” he admitted. “And you’re going to drop me off. But I swear to you, I’m not riding with this guy all the way across the country. I’ll meet him and keep him company until we can find somebody else to be his riding partner, and then I’m taking off.”

“You could change your mind,” she said brightly. “Maybe you’ll like him.” Tom already hated Alex Marshall. Six
A.M.
, and he was standing around on a beach in Seaside waiting for the guy instead of sleeping in his own bed.

According to Taryn, Marshall had insisted they needed to begin the ride by dipping the wheels of their bikes in the Pacific Ocean. The moron was actually going to be riding in from Astoria to ensure he didn’t miss any of the officially mapped miles. Which was particularly stupid because it was only just now getting to be light out. Alex must have left Astoria in something close to darkness. Tom hoped the guy had flashers and a headlight, at least.

He’d just as soon have met up with Marshall at his own place in Salem. It was only a few miles off the route. What difference did skipping the first hundred miles make when the trail was more than four thousand miles long? No difference at all, except to people who were totally inflexible or inexcusably sentimental. He didn’t know which Alex was, but neither possibility inclined him to like the guy.

It didn’t help that he was late. There was nobody on the beach this early but Tom and some woman who’d rolled up at the other end of the parking lot a few minutes ago. She was obviously about to start the TransAm herself—she had a sweet steel-frame touring bike and a trailer for her gear. Looked like she was waiting for someone, which made sense, since women tended not to ride alone.