Winter Fire (13 page)

“I will.”

The stubborn set of her chin told him that the subject could be argued from sunrise to sunrise and nothing would change.

Shaking his head slightly, he sighed and smoothed his hand over the cinnamon silk of her hair.

“If only Conner and Ute hadn't baited the raiders,” she said after a moment. “Maybe they would have left us alone.”

“Maybe, but I doubt it.”

“Why?”

“Moody's boys are too bone-lazy to raid very far from camp.”

“What about the Culpeppers?” she asked.

“They used to be that lazy, but it looks like most of those boys finally learned not to dig their outhouse too close to their drinking water.”

“Damn those raiders.”

“Amen.”

Closing her eyes, Sarah sat very still for a time.

Then she opened her eyes and started talking about an idea that had been growing in her mind. She talked fast, for she really didn't want to ask.

Yet she had no other choice except to wring her hands while Conner was killed by raiders who were older and far more cunning than her impulsive younger brother.

“If you keep the raiders off my back while I hunt silver I'll give you half what I find,” she said in a rush.

It took Case a few moments to figure out what she was talking about. When he did, he shook his head.

“No,” he said simply.

“You don't think I'll find the silver.”

“Even if you did, it wouldn't matter. Silver, gold, paper money—none of it is worth dying for.”

“What is?” she asked bitterly.

“Half of Lost River ranch.”

Sarah felt her blood drain away, leaving her as pale as salt.

Half of Lost River ranch
.

Then she thought of her brother lying dead somewhere, ambushed by raiders.

She tried to speak, but couldn't. She swallowed painfully.

“Half the ranch,” she agreed, her voice hoarse. “But you must promise you won't tell Conner.
Promise me
.”

“Done.”

She sat very still, listening to the echoes of the bargain she had made. She was glad that she had finally cried all her tears.

Only she would know how much the loss of her beloved ranch grieved her.

B
reath from
the horses hung in the air like silver smoke. Though the sky was every color of peach and pale blue known to man, daybreak hadn't come yet.

“Are you still fussing over your horse?” Sarah asked impatiently.

Case looked up from the cinch he was tightening around Cricket's sleek barrel. Sarah was sitting astride one of the mustangs he had first seen in Spanish Church, wearing a pack saddle.

Normally she rode bareback. This morning he had insisted that the little horse she called Shaker wear one of the saddles the dead raiders no longer needed. As far as Case was concerned, riding bareback in rough country was too dangerous.

The mustangs that had belonged to the outlaws were now scattered along the creek close to the ranch, mixed with Sarah's stock. The new animals had quickly decided that the graze at Lost River ranch was better than Spring Canyon's sparse feed.

“Well?” she persisted.

“The silver has been lost for centuries,” he said reasonably. “It will keep another minute while I take up the cinch.”

Visibly she bit back impatient words.

Lips compressed, she looked off toward the rim. She couldn't see Lola, but knew the older woman was sitting somewhere up there, a loaded shotgun across her ample lap.

Ute and Conner were still abed, worn out from long nights of broken sleep. Someone was always up on the rim, even though the raiders hadn't come back since four nights ago, when Case had taught them that sneaking up in back of the little cabin was a good way to die.

With an easy motion he stepped into the stirrup and swung onto Cricket.

“You're sure you feel good enough to ride and hike?” she asked for the third time. “Sometimes it's really a scramble.”

“I'm sure,” he said for the third time. “And I'm damned sure we should be scouting firewood instead of wasting time looking for dead men's treasure.”

“Scout all the firewood you like,” she shot back. “I'm looking for silver.”

With that she reined her little brown mustang around and sent the mare at a lope toward the distant mouth of Lost River Canyon.

“Easy, Cricket,” Case muttered, reining in the stallion. “No need to rush off into a cold dawn.”

He settled his hat firmly in place. Then he checked the shotgun and rifle in their separate saddle sheaths. He didn't really need to look over the weapons, but it gave him an excuse to get a better grip on his temper.

Sarah has been going her own way too long
, he told himself.
Real good at giving orders and no damned good at taking them
.

It's a blazing wonder Conner didn't sit on his sister sooner. And harder
.

With a quick motion, Case returned the shotgun to its sheath. The instant he lifted the reins, Cricket shot forward, eager to overtake the little mare.

“Easy, you puddinghead,” he muttered. “She's not going anywhere you can't go faster.”

The stallion shortened his stride, but not by much. He hated having any horse in front of him.

The small brown mustang loped along Lost River. The horse was following a vague trail left by game and Indian hunters long before Hal Kennedy built his rough cabin and started hunting for Spanish silver.

Sometimes a low cottonwood branch forced Sarah to flatten out against Shaker's neck. At other times fallen logs lay across the way. The little horse leaped the logs with a lack of fuss that meant the nearly invisible trail was a familiar one to the mustang.

And so was the speed.

Often Sarah checked the position of the sun. It hadn't peeked over the rim of the canyon yet, but it would very quickly.

I should have been on the trail an hour ago
, she thought in irritation.

But Case had refused to let her ride off in the dark, even if he was with her. She had tried to argue, cajole, and reason her way to an agreement to leave earlier. Nothing had worked.

When Case refused, he meant it.

Stubborn, disagreeable creature
, she thought.

One mile blurred beneath Shaker's hard little feet, then two, then three. The wiry mare didn't even breathe hard. She could lope at that pace all day long.

Occasionally Sarah looked over her shoulder to check on Case's progress. Each time she did, Cricket was in the same place, about a hundred feet back. The stallion showed no sign of tiring, even though he was carrying easily twice the weight the mustang was.

Irritating males
, she thought uncharitably.
Thick of limb and thin of brain
.

But it was hard for her to sustain her bad mood in the face of the golden light that came washing over the land.
Between rosy clouds, the sky was a blue so pale it shone like clear glass in the dawn.

How can I leave this land?
she asked silently.

It was a question that had come often to her in the days since she had made her bargain with Case. The only answer she had was the same one that had gotten her through the months after her parents had died.

I will do what I must. For Conner, who deserves better than life gave him
.

She had never regretted the choices forced on her by circumstance. She was simply grateful that she and Conner had survived when too many others had not.

After the sun peeked over the canyon rim, the land slid by in countless shades of ochre and rust, red and gold. She slowed only when one of Lost River Canyon's many side canyons opened onto the river's edge. Then she let the mustang pick a careful way through the slickrock, boulders, and dry creek beds that marked the mouth of each smaller canyon.

Case's pale green eyes roved the countryside constantly. He wasn't just looking for danger. He was memorizing landmarks from every angle so that he would be able to find his way back over the trail without a guide.

As he learned the land, he marked the flight of eagles and hawks, the bursting speed and sudden stillness of rabbits, and the abundant sign of deer. Once he was certain he saw cougar tracks hardened in a patch of dry mud at the mouth of a side canyon.

Half of this is mine
.

That fact kept echoing through him with every new sign of life, every wild new vista. Each time the realization came, he felt a measure of calm touch parts of his soul that had known only turmoil since the war.

The certainty that he belonged to the land grew greater with every moment, every breath.

He would die, but the land would not.

The land would go through eternity untouched by the hell that lived within the worst of men.

For Case, the land's unchanging reality offered the possibility of a calm that was more than skin deep. Through his bond with the land, he was part of something greater than the sum of all evil caused by men.

The thought was balm for an agony that had known no ease for so long that he had stopped noticing it; he simply accepted agony as men who had lost limbs learned to live without them.

When Sarah finally reined in her mustang to a walk, he let Cricket come alongside the little mare.

“Nothing like a little run to work off your temper,” he said casually.

She gave him a narrow look and said nothing.

“Need a few more miles?” he asked. “This time you carry the saddle.”

As always, her sense of humor won out over her irritation. She laughed and shook her head.

“You and Conner,” she said.

“What about us?”

“You both can get around me in no time at all.”

“That's because you're not hard enough for this world,” Case said.

She groaned. “Not you, too.”

“What?”

“Ute believes I'm an angel,” she said.

Case didn't look at all surprised.

“I mean it,” she said. “He truly does.”

“A man wakes up sick and hurting and sees lantern light shining around your hair and feels your hands all cool and gentle on his skin…”

His voice died. Then he shrugged.

“Ute can hardly be blamed for seeing you as a sweet angel of mercy bending down to touch him,” Case said.

Sarah flushed.

“I'm no angel,” she said. “Ask my brother.”

“Oh, I'm not doubting you. It's Ute who needs convincing.”

“I've tried. It's like trying to talk Shakespeare to a rock.”

“You have to remember that Ute is comparing you to the other women he has known,” Case said dryly.

She winced.

“Lola is a good woman,” she said. “Hard, but decent.”

“You've got that half-right,” he muttered.

“What?”

“Big Lola is a legend in some parts.”

“That was then,” Sarah said firmly. “Since she came to Lost River ranch, she hasn't done anything that needs apology. Except cursing, and that doesn't count. Not really.”

The corners of his eyes crinkled.

“Cussing doesn't count?” he asked neutrally. “Well, that explains it.”

“What?”

“An angel of mercy with a vocabulary that could scorch hell. Of course, I only heard that at secondhand. Could be an outright falsehood.”

Her cheekbones burned with more than the crisp winter air.

“I said I wasn't an angel,” she pointed out.

The suggestion of a smile deepened around his eyes.

Sarah kept glancing at him, but no matter how often she tried, she couldn't see if Case was actually smiling.

“I should have shaved you,” she said.

“Why?” he asked, surprised by the change of subject.

“I swear you're smiling underneath all that chin fur, but I can't tell for certain.”

“It's too cold to go without fur” was all he said.

“It wouldn't be too cold if you slept in the cabin.”

She didn't know why it still rankled her that he had moved out of the cabin, but it surely did.

“I spent too long in your bed as it was,” he said bluntly.

What he didn't say was that her rose-scented bedcovers haunted his dreams even when he slept outside. He woke up as hard as the cliffs. When the savage ache finally subsided, it was never for long. It ambushed him at the most inconvenient moments.

Such as now.

Cursing silently, he shifted in the saddle.

It was useless. In his condition there just wasn't any comfortable way to ride.

“Why don't you sleep next to Conner?” she asked. “There's plenty of room near the stove.”

“Your brother thrashes around like a young bull.”

“But what are you going to do when it snows?”

“What I always have.”

“Which is?” she asked.

“Survive.”

The single bleak word went into Sarah like a blade of ice.

“There's more to life than survival,” she said.

“Yes. There's the land.”

“I meant hope and laughter and love.”

“They die with people. The land doesn't. It endures.”

His look and his tone said that the subject was closed.

For a time she was silent. In the end, her curiosity about his past was too great.

“What happened?” she asked baldly.

“When?”

“Why don't you have hope and laughter and love?”

Case didn't answer.

“Is it something to do with Emily?” Sarah asked. “Did she run off with another man and break your heart?”

His head whipped around toward her. The look in his eyes would have frozen flame.

“What did you say?” he asked softly.

Her mouth went dry. She wished she had never let cu
riosity get the better of common sense. She swallowed, tried to speak, and swallowed again.

“You called her name,” Sarah said. “When you were out of your mind with fever. Over and over. Emily, Emily, Em—”

“
Don't ever say that name to me again
,” he interrupted savagely.

Silence expanded like the wind, filling the land.

“Is she dead?” Sarah asked finally.

There was no answer. Case didn't even so much as look her way.

The pain she felt surprised her.

Well
, she thought,
I guess that answers one of my questions. Case loved Emily and she betrayed him
.

“All women aren't like that,” Sarah said.

The silence kept expanding.

Suddenly she was glad that she hadn't shaved Case. She didn't want any better idea of what he was thinking than she already had.

“Fine,” she said. “Close up like a bear trap. But hasn't anyone ever told you that talking about something can ease the pain?”

He gave her a sideways look.

“So tell me about your marriage, Mrs. Kennedy,” he said, his tone sardonic. “What was so awful that you decided never to ‘suffer' a man again?”

“That's none of—” Abruptly her mouth snapped shut.

“—my business?” he finished smoothly. “Then why is what did or didn't happen to me
your
business?”

Again silence competed with the wind.

In the end, silence won.

When Sarah finally reined her little mare up into a side canyon, she hoped that Case's thoughts were happier than hers.

But she doubted it.

“I suppose there's a reason you chose this canyon out
of all the others we've passed,” he said, breaking the long silence.

“Yes.”

“Mind telling me why, or is that another thing that's none of my business?”

She looked sideways at Case. Her eyes were the color of hammered silver. Her voice wasn't any warmer.

“There are ruins halfway up on the south side,” she said distinctly. “There are also fingers of red rock where the canyon branches up toward the rim.”

“What kind of ruins?”

“Like castles, only different.”

“Well, that tells me a whole lot. Now I know exactly what I'm looking for.”

“What you're looking for is a good dressing-down,” she muttered.