Rescuing Diana (22 page)

Shaking off the sense of unease that had traveled with him, Tucker was satisfied that he’d escaped. It was time to give both himself and Yank a rest

Remembering his mad dash to safety, Tucker swore and reached back to examine his saddlebags. The pint of whiskey he normally carried was still there. He retrieved it and, with his teeth, pulled the cork from the bottom and spat it into his hand. He wasn’t normally given to heavy drinking, but he was not normally rescued by demon birds either. Tonight he could use a little courage. He lifted the bottle.

When the bottle was half empty, Tucker Farcell re-corked it and stuck it back into his pack. Not only was he wide awake, but all his senses seemed enhanced. Once, in the path of a tornado, he’d felt a sudden tingle in his skin that announced some startling event. Tonight he felt it again.

The moon had risen full and threatening, showering the trail with moonlight, making him an easy target to anyone watching.

Even Yank seemed unusually high-strung. He stumbled and came to a stop as he encountered a rock that had fallen from higher up. “Get on, you stubborn mule,” Tucker cajoled.

Yank, true to his name, bullied his Rebel master by following orders only when they suited him. Tucker swore. Getting himself killed was one thing, but injuring his horse was something Tucker would never do. It was time to find a place to bed down before he fell off and rolled back down the mountain to that godforsaken place he’d escaped from.

Tucker disengaged one foot from the stirrups, swung it over the saddle, and, leaning his upper body in the other direction, slid to the ground. Too late he realized that he should have dismounted on the side toward the mountain instead of the side toward the ravine. As he tried to balance himself the earth beneath his feet gave way and he slid straight down, bouncing only once before he hit his head on a rock and knocked himself out cold.

For most of her twenty-six years, Raven Alexander had been torn between two worlds. Three days ago she’d left them both.

Perhaps her life would have been different if her father hadn’t been Irish and her mother, Pale Raven, half Arapaho. But her kinship with her mother’s people and the Grandfather, Flying Cloud, had pulled at her, forcing her to follow a separate path.

The leaving hadn’t been easy. She’d had to fight her older half sister Sabrina’s disapproval from the moment she’d announced her mission. Expecting Sabrina to understand the difference in their backgrounds had always been impossible. Sabrina’s practical Irish mother had instilled such responsibility in her children that Sabrina would always consider herself head of the family.

Raven should have left in secret. That way, she’d have been saved having Sabrina accompany her to Denver, trying one last time to change her mind. “Raven, you are not going to New Mexico, alone, on some kind of crazy treasure hunt.”

Raven let her go on. All the Alexander sisters had learned that when Sabrina set her mind to something, there was no stopping her. Raven could only be grateful that the other three sisters had married and moved away. Otherwise she’d have been besieged on all sides.

“The country is changing,” Sabrina had argued. “The Comanche and the Apache are at war. The ranchers in the Southwest are bringing in gunfighters to stop the cattle rustling. And you don’t even know that the treasure exists.”

‘'It exists,” Raven explained once more. “And I must find the keeper of the mountain. He will show me the way.”

Raven didn’t know why she mentioned only one of the men. Explaining that she expected to find a man who came as a cougar was more than even she wanted to try.

“You’re just going to ride off into the sunset and wait for some old man to step up and say, ‘Look here, girl, I’m to be your guide.’ ”

Raven ignored her sister’s logic. She knew he would come. “It’s the Arapahos’ last chance, Sabrina. With the gold, we can buy land, good land, where all can live without being dependent on either crooked Indian agents or a government that changes the rules before the ink on the treaty is dry.”

“But Papa’s silver mine is producing now, Raven. And a share of it is yours. If you want to buy land, you can have the money. You may be part Arapaho, Raven, but you’re Cullen Alexander’s daughter too.”

“Yes, my father was an Alexander, Sabrina, but
my
mother was an Indian. My hair is as black as the bird for which I am named. My eyes are brown and my skin has been touched by the sun. We are sisters of the heart, but we are different. We each have our own purpose in life. I must follow my destiny.”

“Destiny, smestiny! You sound like some highbrow English novel. The Arapaho will be fine on that reservation in Wyoming. What you need is to come back home and forget about the Indians.”

“You forget, Sabrina, I am part Indian, more Indian now than white. But more than that, I made a promise. It was Grandfather’s dying wish that I journey to the mountains in the south and find the guardian. I gave my sacred word.”

“What guardian?”

“When the Arapaho tribe left the southern mountains, part of their people stayed behind to guard the sacred mountain. The secret of its location was left to those in the south, but one member of each succeeding generation in the north was given the means to find the treasure. Grandfather passed that secret to me. All I have to do is find the guardian.”

“And how do you plan to do that?” Sabrina asked in disbelief.

“I don’t know,” Raven admitted. “Grandfather said the spirits would guide me.”

Sabrina wrung her hands. “But why you?”

Raven tried to find the right words to explain. “Because those who are left are divided. Swift Hand and his followers want to challenge the soldiers. The elders are weary of fighting. There are fewer than a thousand Arapaho left, and they go to the reservation because they have no choice. I am the only one who can change that.”

In deference to her sister’s concern, Raven had donned proper traveling clothes and taken the stagecoach from Denver to Santa Fe. But her horse, Onawa, carrying her Indian dress and bedroll, was tied to the back.

More than once in the last two days, she had regretted her decision. Sharing her stage with a frightened mailorder bride and her small daughter and a newspaperman heading for Albuquerque made the journey seem endless.

“I’m Lawrence Small, a reporter for the
New York Daily Journal,”
the thin young man said eagerly. “Are you a native of the West?”

“I was born here, yes,” Raven had answered reluctantly.

“And do you know any outlaws or cowboys?”

Once she answered, “I’m afraid not,” he lost interest in Raven and began to interview the woman who’d answered an ad from a rancher who needed a wife.

Raven longed for her horse. Even her bones were sore from bouncing around the hard seat. She’d long ago given up on keeping the dust from her clothing, and the only way she could control her hair was by braiding and covering it with the absurdly small hat someone had devised as a way to torture its wearer.

Long before Santa Fe, she decided to leave the stage at the next stop, remove the travel dress with its tiresome bustle, and don her buckskins.

Taking in a deep breath of the crisp, cool air, Raven cast her gaze outside the window and studied the mountains looming larger in the lengthening shadows of late afternoon. It was early spring and snow still capped the tops of the peaks, giving their stark variegated edges the look of jagged hard candy dipped in sugar frosting.

She longed to lie beneath the stars in peaceful solitude. The moon would be full, a bright silver disk etched with lacy shadows, resting against a dark tapestry embroidered with pinpoints of starlight. The wind would sing to her. From the looks of the clouds beyond the peaks, she might even feel the cleansing rain sweep over the earth.

At times like this, the spirits would come. A kind of silver mist would fall over her, and everything would grow quiet. Then, from somewhere beyond her mind, a chorus of muted voices would begin to chant and she would experience what she had come to call her waking dreams, dreams so real that she could experience pain and fear. But all the while, she’d be divorced from danger.

Longing for some kind of reassurance, at the next way station she decided to carry out her plan. While the food was being prepared, Raven found a private place to change her clothing within a stand of cottonwood trees. The travel dress with the bustle was stored in the bedroll along with her slippers and petticoat. Her tired body welcomed the soft. buckskin dress and moccasins.

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.

Read on for an excerpt from Ruthie Knox’s
Ride With Me

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.