Just before dawn she stirred, and Trace surged to his feet. This was what he’d been waiting for, and was also what he dreaded: the answers to all the questions banging around in his brain, not the least of which was what he would do with her. When she groaned and tried to rise, he reached her in two giant strides and prevented her with a firm but gentle hand.
“Easy, ma’am,” he said. “You need to rest.”
She groaned again. “What’s happened to me?” she murmured.
In the gray light, Trace couldn’t tell the color of her eyes, only that they were large and doelike. He held the lantern close, but she shrank from the light. He’d seen that many times before in people who’d taken blows to the skull.
“You were making off with my horse,” he said. “I called out a warning, but you didn’t heed it, and…I shot you.”
Clearly terror-stricken, she tried to rise in earnest.
“Whoa there!” he said, restraining her again. “I dug the bullet out, and you’re going to be fine—unless you undo all my work. You’ve lost a lot of blood, so you need to stay still and rest if you’re going to mend.”
“You can’t mean you…you…” She examined the shirt he’d given her. “You…?”
“With you bleeding to death, there was no time to stand on ceremony,” he said. “Your clothes were blood-soaked, and I never yet met a man who could dig lead out through frilly undergarments.” Her breath caught on a strangled gasp as he displayed her bloody shirt and camisole before consigning them to the fire.
“Wh-what do you mean to…do with me?” she panted, sinking back down again with a groan.
“That depends,” he said. She had a lot of explaining to do before he could make a decision.
“W-water…” she moaned. “Is there water?”
Trace snatched up his canteen and moistened her lips. “Go easy!” he cautioned. “Little sips. We’ve got enough to deal with as it is.” The command sounded sterner than he’d intended; he didn’t want to frighten her. By the same token, he needed to keep the upper hand.
She obeyed, and after a moment he set the canteen aside. “You’ve got some explaining to do, lady,” he said, hands on his hips. “But first off…I didn’t know you were a woman when I fired—”
“And if you had known?” Her eyes flashed.
“I didn’t, and that’s that,” Trace growled. “For your information, if I’d aimed to kill, you’d be dead. I can shoot the wings off a bee at fifty paces.” A slight exaggeration, of course, but her wide-eyed expression told him he’d made his point.
“Just for the record,” he went on, “I don’t hold with hard handling of women—any women, even a horse thief. I’d say you best start with telling me why you
were trying to make off with my horse.” That fact stuck in his craw. How would it look for a renegade rider—a wrangler who rode from ranch to ranch, returning stray and rustled horses to their owners—to have his own mount stolen right out from under him? His jaw muscle began to tick at the thought.
The woman didn’t reply.
“And what were you doing way out here all alone with no coat and night coming on?” he demanded. “Is somebody after you?”
“I don’t have to answer you!” she snapped, sounding stronger than she possibly could feel.
“No, you don’t,” he fired back. “You can answer to the sheriff at Flat Springs if you’d rather. Well? What’ll it be? Think careful now. That pretty neck of yours wouldn’t look good stretched by a rope.”
“You’ve got your horse back,” she pointed out.
Ignoring the remark, he asked, “Where did you learn to ride bareback like that?” She was a plucky little thing, gentlewoman or no.
“Back ho—” Her eyes flew wide, reminding him of a trapped animal. “None of your business!”
“Hmm. What’s your name? You can tell me that, at least,” he tried.
“Mae C—Mae
Ahern
,” she amended.
Mae was true, at least. He was sure of that. But she was frightened and clearly hiding something. Only, this didn’t help his problem. What was he going to do with her? How was he going to see her wherever she needed to go once she was fit for travel? He owed her that at least. But if she wouldn’t tell him where she was headed in such an all-fired hurry—
“I’m tired,” she moaned. “I hurt…and I’m tired.”
“I have nothing for the pain but whiskey. You’re welcome to what’s left,” he offered.
“I don’t drink strong spirits,” she huffed. It made him think of those lace dollies again.
“Not even for medicinal purposes?”
“Not for
any
purpose,” she flung at him.
Trace shrugged. “Suit yourself. You’re a stubborn filly, ain’tcha? Do you sass your husband like this, too?”
“What do you know of my husband?” she flashed.
“Nothing. Never had the pleasure…that I know of. How could I? I don’t even know who you are. Neither do you, evidently, judging from the way you stumbled over your name just now.”
She blanched. “I don’t owe you any explanations. You shot me!”
“Making off with my horse. Let’s not forget that, lady,” he growled.
“I’m tired and I hurt,” she sobbed. “And I’m still thirsty.”
He sighed. “I told you, you’ve got to go easy on the water; it’s a ways to the next watering hole. I offered you whiskey for the…”
She shook her head in refusal, shut her eyes, and shrank beneath the blanket.
Well, wasn’t that a fine how-do-you-do? Trace didn’t know any more now than he did before, the sun was already sending pink-gold streamers over the canyon wall, and he hadn’t shut his eyes all night. He heaved a ragged sigh and stomped to where he’d tethered his burro the night before. Muttering under his breath, he fished the coffeepot from his pack. He groped for his sack
of Arbuckle’s coffee, his basin, and the fixings for pan biscuits he’d bake over the fire.
Squatting down, he built up the dwindling campfire, prodding it with a stick. This was clearly not the start of the day he’d planned. He’d been trailing wild horses with an eye toward getting an invitation to hire on at the next ranch on his list: the Lazy C. But he wouldn’t just be rounding up strays there. On good authority, he had it that the owner was responsible for half the rustled horses in canyon country. All he had to do was prove it. First, however, he needed the bait, and he couldn’t concentrate on getting that while he had Mae Whoever-she-was on his hands.
He glanced over to see if she was ready to talk yet, but her eyes were shut and she’d fallen back asleep. A half smile twisted his lips. “Little Renegade,” he whispered. His chest heaved with a small laugh.
She rested most of the day, but Trace enjoyed no such luxury. He didn’t dare, though he was passing exhaustion. He’d gone without sleep many times before, during the war and after, but he wished he hadn’t driven himself so relentlessly these past two days, not stopping to make camp, pausing only briefly to rest his animals in his hurry to reach the canyon; all this was taking its toll on him now. He could hardly keep his eyes open.
To beat back the exhaustion, he scavenged the area, stockpiling brush and firewood. He took advantage of Mae’s deep slumber to check her wound and apply a healing poultice made with the medicine bag given to him by the Navajos. They had taught him how to gather and dry roots and herbs, to grind them into powders
and potions. These had cured many injuries over the years, from toothaches to bullet wounds. Fortunately, Mae’s wound wasn’t deep, and she showed signs of healing nicely. So far, there was no taint of infection. Only, out here one couldn’t be too careful. He fashioned a sling from his last clean bandana and gently tied it in place.
Every so often he felt her face, but there was no sign of fever; her skin remained cool to the touch. The bruise on her head was a nasty sight, but it would mend. All in all, he was satisfied with his doctoring. He hadn’t been forced to do so much since the war, so it pleased him that he hadn’t lost his touch. He’d saved his own life more times than he could count.
As the day wore on, Trace repositioned the lean-to in order to keep the sun off Mae. He couldn’t help but worry that someone would come looking for her, maybe someone she didn’t want to see. It wouldn’t do to be taken unawares. Leaving a canteen and a couple of biscuits beside her, he climbed the ridge to scope the lay of the land.
That vista offered an eagle-eyed view for miles in all directions. The canyon wall sheered upward from sandy bottomland, which had a snakelike ribbon of water threading through it. To the north other canyons loomed, each more spectacular than the last, sweeping across the cloudless horizon in varying hues from red to purple to brown to gray. To the south the land fell away into plains and finally wasteland, shimmering like a silvery mirage in the sun. A striking mesa lay to the east, and in the west was more canyon country.
Distant mountain peaks rose like the Amat Avii
Kahuwaaly, Hualapai Mountain, veiled in lavender, a late afternoon haze. Somewhere in that purple distance was the Lazy C. Trace squatted on his haunches at the edge of the ridge for some time, his Winchester across his knees, looking for motion, a cloud of dust kicked up by horses in pursuit. Mae had been heading northeast when his shot brought her down. He looked long and hard to the southwest, but nothing met his eyes save broad-winged condors, silhouetted black against the clear blue sky. Meanwhile, he remained on alert for the wild mustangs he knew inhabited the canyon. They were led by an elusive broomtail sorrel stallion the Indians called Standing Thunder. All Trace had to do was locate them. Nothing met his eye.
Just before sunset he abandoned his vigil and climbed down. Mae was still sleeping—or pretending, since he noticed she’d eaten the biscuits he’d left. He couldn’t help the smile crossing his lips as he passed her. Trying to ignore the reaction, he set the kettle of frijoles he’d prepared earlier on a tripod over the fire.
Mae struggled to sit upright, giving a yawn, her brown eyes following his every move. She clearly knew she was in deep trouble for stealing his horse, but there was another story in her gaze: she recognized Trace’s guilt at shooting a woman.
“You hungry?” he asked.
She didn’t answer, just gave a faint nod.
Trace dragged one of his packs between the bedroll and the fire, and he created a makeshift table for the coming meal. While he worked, he debated on pushing her for answers. Then he recalled taming Diablo. It had been a step-by-step process, allowing the horse to approach
him in trust. He figured gentling a woman wasn’t too different.
They’d scarcely finished the grub when she set aside her plate and turned away. Blasted woman hadn’t even spoken a word, though she’d watched his every move while he ate, her smoldering eyes raking him with unabashed disapproval.
He ran a hand over the stubble on his face. Well, he
could
use a shave, and his hair was a mite shaggy. He usually got it cut when it started to fall in his eyes, but he hadn’t been near a town in a month of Sundays. Maybe that was the reason she regarded him with her pretty little nose in the air. He sniffed his shirtsleeve as inconspicuously as possible, then grimaced. There was no doubt about it; he smelled more like a horse than a man.
“Not so fast,” he said as she tried to disappear beneath the blanket. Enough of this silence; he needed answers. Too much time had passed already. If she was on the run from someone, which he readily assumed, then trouble was riding up on their heels, fast. He had to be prepared for what ever it was. “We’ve got to talk.”
“I have nothing to say to you,” she pronounced. “Do what you will with me and have it over with.”
“That’s just it,” he snapped. “I don’t rightly know what
to
do with you, unless you give me some idea who or what you’re running from. I figure me shooting you sort of squares us in regard to you stealing my horse. I’ll see you safe to wherever it is you want to go, wherever it was you were headed when I—”
“You can’t.”
Her answer came fast, and with a finality that rocked
him back on his heels. “For a horse thief you’re mighty quick with telling me what I can and cannot do. Maybe that knock on the head jangled your brain. You can’t be out here all on your own, half dressed with no horse and no provisions. You need help. Not telling me your troubles don’t change the situation. I’m sorry for my part in your miseries, and I’m trying to make amends, but—”
“You
can’t
…” she sobbed.
“There you go again with those can’ts. Lady, you’ve got two choices: I can see you safe to where you were headed when you stole my horse, or I can wash my hands of you, leave you with the sheriff at Flat Springs and let him sort you out. There are no other choices, and if you’re half as smart as I think, you know it. Now, what’ll it be?”
“Thanks to you, I’m hardly in fit condition for either of your choices at the moment,” she said. “I need time…to think. It’s only fair.”
He shook his head. “You know, it amazes me that you keep forgetting that you’re to blame for all of this. You make me out the villain, when it was you who were looking to make off with my horse. You just don’t go around stealing a man’s horse! It’d be kinder just to put a gun to his head and kill him on the spot, for that’s what it amounts to, and you damn well know it!”
Her eyes were big and brown, a frightened doe’s eyes staring down the barrel of a hunter’s rifle. They had the power to melt Trace. Something twisted inside—a part of him he’d thought long dead, belonging to a time when chivalry still lived—which made him want to put his fist through the nearby cactus. Maybe pain would bring him back to his senses.
He growled, “You don’t have much time, lady. Unless I miss my guess, and I rarely do, somebody’s hot on your trail. It’s been a full day since I shot you. A full day’s riding for them to catch up. I have an itch crawling up my neck, like when a bunch of Comanches are out for a scalp, telling me we’re about to have company. I’d say your time for reflection has just about run out.”
Trace jerked up his Winchester. He paused, waiting for a reply. When not one word came, he turned his back on her and stomped off to have a look around. Blasted female was going to be nothing but trouble.
M
ae
wasn’t all that steady on her feet, though she’d practiced that afternoon while her captor was up on the ridge. She didn’t want the man to know her exact condition. Clearly, she couldn’t have left—not then, in broad daylight—even had she found the strength, so she’d bided her time and waited for the right moment.
He was asleep now, his snores a comfort. They’d cover any sounds of her withdrawal from camp. As she tiptoed past, she couldn’t help but notice the long, lean length of him, rolled up in that blanket too short for his frame. He’d given her all his other covers, keeping only this for himself, and his horse’s worn saddle blanket, which he’d used over his saddle for a pillow. Poor man, he’d likely awaken with a stiff neck.
Divested of his Stetson, his chestnut hair lay in waves and fell carelessly over his brow and around his earlobes. The front locks were streaked by the sun, glinting coppery in the firelight, which also showed faint traces of silver at his temples. His was a strong profile, with rugged, angular features and a handsome cleft chin that three days’ growth of beard couldn’t hide. Shadows obscured
his deep-set eyes. She had noticed them in earlier furtive glances, those steely blue eyes, piercing beneath a ledge of sun-bleached brows. She had avoided looking directly into them as much as possible. No one could hide from such eagle eyes. They had the power to hypnotize. They also made her uncomfortable in ways she didn’t want to think about.
More than once on her way to where he’d hobbled Diablo, she glanced over her shoulder to be certain he hadn’t heard her. Thankfully, he slept like the dead. Mae breathed a ragged sigh. He seemed a nice man, genuinely sorry he’d shot her. But then, her poor judgment had played her false too many times. Oh, how she longed to trust him—to trust
someone
. She was so desperately alone. He’d shot her, yes, but the man was within his rights. Even so, he’d doctored her. She shuddered to think of her fate if she’d encountered one of the more unsavory sorts that infested the West like fleas.
Her skin still tingled from the gentle touch of Trace’s hands feeling her brow for fever and fastening the sling about her neck when he thought her asleep. That’s what she’d wanted him to think. She could still feel his body heat and smell his scent: provocative raw maleness, laced with leather and tobacco. Different than any other man. Though the shirt he’d given her was clean enough, it smelled the same. How that scent swam over her! She fingered the soft blue flannel absently, several wishes going unspoken.
All at once blood coursed through her veins, surged hot to her temples, and prickled along her scalp. Have mercy! She nearly lost her footing as she recalled the truth: the man had seen her naked to the waist. Oddly,
he hadn’t taken advantage of her. Many men would not have been so respectful, so kind. He was evidently cut from the cloth of a gentleman—something to which she was unaccustomed. The fool had even offered to take her wherever she wanted to go. If he only knew where that was! And it was impossible, especially after what she was about to do.
At her approach, Diablo greeted her with a soft nickering. Mae’s blood jumped, but she quickly soothed the stallion to silence with gentle strokes and soft words. Bending over, she unbuckled his hobbles, whispering to him all the while and responding with reassuring hands as he nudged her with that velvety black nose. Taking the bridle, she eased the bit into his mouth and then fastened it around his ears and forehead.
Casting one last look back, she stared, fixed upon her captor sleeping soundly beside the fire. Sadly, she didn’t even know his name. But perhaps it was best that way. For a moment, she’d hesitated, sorry for what she was about to do, but there really wasn’t any other choice. One thing he’d said rang true: someone would be coming after her. Indeed, she could already almost feel his hot breath on her neck. No, the stranger was right. She’d run out of time and forfeited her choices.
Her head was reeling. She was by no means up to the task at hand, but there was nothing left but to suck in a deep breath and carry through. She couldn’t mount Diablo bareback in her weakened state, and wouldn’t even if she could. Not here. The risk of being caught out was too great. Dang wranglers never slept soundly; she’d learned that the hard way long ago. His sitting up
and caring for her for a full day gave her a small edge. Poor man was exhausted.
Swallowing dry, she gripped the horse’s reins in her right hand and slowly walked him out into the canyon. There was a break in the wall some yards off, where rocks had sheared away from the ridge above, allowing her to climb to a height where she could more easily mount the stallion. Pain seared her shoulder with every movement, and to keep from crying out she bit into her lip until she tasted blood. When at last the dizziness subsided, she took a deep breath of sweet spring air and turned her eyes one last time toward the campfire where her captor slept. Tasting regret, she gently nudged the horse with her knees and disappeared into the starlit night.
Trace awoke, chilled in the darkness before dawn. The fire had gone out, and his first conscious thought was of rekindling it for Mae’s comfort. He yawned, stretched, and rolled over…only to stop dead, his eyes fixed on Mae’s bedroll. Her empty bedroll. As his heart stuttered, he tried to tell himself that maybe she’d slipped off to heed the call of nature.
A quick glance to the far side of the encampment confirmed other fears. Diablo’s hobbles lay abandoned on the ground. Trace scrambled to his feet and rushed toward them, wincing at the sharp stones beneath his stockinged feet. Snatching them up in an iron fist, he scanned the black distance in all directions for some sign of Mae. Nothing.
“Hellfire, horse feathers, and damnation!” he roared
as he hurled Diablo’s hobbles to the ground. Not content with that, he let loose a string of expletives, which in turn evoked a
hee-haw
from the burro staked nearby. Marching over, he vented his spleen on the fool varmint. “Shut up, you lop-eared jackass! Why couldn’t you make that god-awful racket when she was making off with Diablo?”
It was beyond bearing. He was a renegade rider, and he’d had his prize stallion rustled from right under his nose not once but twice—and by a woman, no less. When this got out, and it surely would, he’d never live it down. He’d be the laughingstock of the whole territory.
Trace raked a hand roughly through his hair, trying to think. The blasted hobbles caught his eye again, and he drew back his foot and kicked them into the air with all his strength, remembering too late that he hadn’t taken the time to pull on his boots. His yowl, and the one-legged dance that followed, elicited another chorus of braying from the burro. Trace loosed another string of curses, more colorful than the last, and then stalked back to build up the campfire.
He was used to night tracking, but the circumstances were too serious to risk losing the trail in the dark. Dawn was nigh, so after tending the fire he set out a pot of Arbuckle’s to brew, awaiting first light.
After drinking half his second cup of coffee, he doused the fire by slinging the remainder into the flames. He’d decided not to break camp. In her condition, he doubted she would stay in the saddle for long. “Stupid woman wants to get herself killed,” he muttered, gathering what he’d need. “If she hadn’t lit out with Diablo, I might leave her to do just that.”
Despite his grumbling, Trace knew that wasn’t so. There was something vulnerable and panicked in her brown eyes that touched his heart in a way he couldn’t explain. It made a man want to step forward to defend her, no matter what she was running from.
Giving the donkey a glare, he told it, “Don’t you go getting yourself stolen, too, you hear?” Then, armed with his pistol, his Winchester, and a full canteen, he put on his Stetson and strode past the burro.
Mae and Diablo’s trail was easy to follow, and he tracked them on foot across the canyon to the sheerfaced wall to a shelf where she had obviously mounted. Such resourcefulness encouraged him somewhat, but the fact that she couldn’t just jump up on the stallion told him that Mae wasn’t up to making any escape. His white-lipped anger dissolved into a troubled frown. He would find her any minute, unconscious on the canyon floor; he was sure of it. He just hoped she was still alive.
Diablo’s tracks were clear and fresh; the stallion was running at a full gallop. He wasn’t branded, but Trace had notched the horse’s hooves and shoes as a means of identification to prove ownership in just such a situation as this. The trail stopped at the narrow stream snaking through the canyon, one of many tributaries that fed the Colorado River farther down. The stream was shallow here, and not too wide to cross on foot. The water barely reached midcalf at its deepest. Frustratingly, the prints didn’t pick back up on the other bank.
Looking up at the hot sun rising high in the sky, Trace sighed. “Blamed woman is smarter than I gave her credit for.” Mae had evidently ridden Diablo straight through the center of the stream to avoid leaving a trail.
Picking up his pace, Trace waded into the water and zigzagged back and forth from bank to bank for some distance. At a bend in the canyon wall, the rising water reached his hips. Then his waist. The depth and swirling eddies were a growing problem, and Trace had to struggle to keep his balance and to hold his weapons up to keep them dry. This was good news, however. Diablo was water-shy.
Assuming the horse would be too hard for her to handle, Trace crossed over, and just as he expected, he found the beast’s tracks again on the south bank. He followed them east-southeast for some time until the canyon wall gave way to flat tables and shelves leading to higher, rockier ground that would cloak Diablo’s hoofprints. Mae had ridden straight for it.
“Son of a bitch.”
And Trace cursed again when he spotted the other tracks. “One…two…three, no,
four
riders, riding hard.”
A short distance ahead, it was clear where they had overtaken and surrounded Mae. She had almost escaped them. Almost. The violent marks left behind on the sandy canyon bottom told the story. Diablo’s tracks, for the most part, were hind-hoof prints, showing he’d reared and spun in a vain attempt to break free of the circle of horses closing in around him. Trace imagined the confrontation only too clearly.
He followed. Mae had not gone willingly. She had fought her attackers, both on and off Diablo. She’d been dragged off the stallion by the look of it, broken free, and run. One man had jumped from his horse and gone after her. She hadn’t gotten far. There had been a
skirmish then. The imprint of two struggling bodies was clearly visible in the red sand, along with ruts from Mae’s boots as she was dragged off.
“Poor, stupid fool. She never had a chance.” Trace removed his hat to mop sweat from his brow, blinking back tears. Why hadn’t she stayed with him? He could have protected her.
He put together what had happened next. The riders had headed southwest, Diablo with them, bucking and rearing to the last. But Trace lost their trail in the rocks, and blind fury set his blood boiling. How could she have courted this fate rather than confide in him? Double damn, it was his fault. He’d spooked her.
Farther up ahead, a swatch of blue caught his eye: his kerchief. The same one he’d fashioned into a sling for Mae. He picked up the pace and, squatting on his haunches, dragged it from a tumbleweed. The knot was still tied. There was blood on it.
A flaming sun died on the horizon, painting the sky over the western hills with bands of crimson, gold, and turquoise blue, that majestic beauty almost taunting Trace as he limped back toward his camp. He was thirsty, hungry, and sore to the bone.
“On top of that, I must be hallucinating,” he grumbled—and pulled up short. The tantalizing aroma of fresh coffee, biscuits, and what smelled like hot son-of-a-bitch stew threaded through his nostrils, riding on the fragrant smoke of burning sagebrush.
Cocking his Winchester, he crept along in the shadows of the rocky shelf. He could have sworn he had doused the campfire. Taking aim, he leveled the rifle
on a wizened, rags-clad figure in a floppy slouch hat. He was seated on the ground, stirring part of the aforementioned hallucination with a long-handled spoon.
“Don’t move a muscle,” Trace warned the intruder.
“I heard you coming, young fella,” the man replied without turning. “Heard you before you rounded that ridge back yonder. Not too smart. You want to watch that. Could get you killed.”
“You’re the one courting death, old-timer, messing with another man’s camp,” Trace growled. “Who in hell are you?”
It was as though Trace hadn’t asked the question. “Them Navajos didn’t teach you much, did they?”
Trace stood slack-jawed.
The old man did turn then, and presented him with a sly wink and a gap-toothed smile. “No magic. I found your medicine bag,” he explained.
Trace shook his head to clear it and tossed the man’s words back into his face. “Do you always make free with a man’s belongings without so much as a howdy-do? Not too smart. You want to watch that. Could get you killed.”
“Now, ain’t that gratitude for you?” The intruder laughed. “Here I fix you vittles, feed your jackass, and keep watch over your outfit for you, and what do I get for my pains? Piss and vinegar, that’s what. Didn’t your mama teach you no manners?”
“Leave my mother out of this. Answer my question,” Trace demanded. “Who gave you leave to go rummaging through my kit?”
“Why, nobody,” the old man said. “You see anyone around here to say yea or nay, except that fool burro?
I stumbled onto your camp—coffee still warm in the pot, that jackass over there with his tongue hanging out for want of water, hobbles on the ground, with no horse in them…and tracks I take to be yours, leading off into the canyon. Seemed you lit out in a hurry. I got tired of waiting for you to come back, so I had me a look-see through your packs to find out if you was worthy of some of my stew. Ain’t as good as I usually make, sorry to say—not enough critter parts. Mostly beans, some wild onions. But an empty belly makes everything tastes better, eh?”