Ishmael broke into a quick canter, following the horses in front of him as Caleb led them into the cover of another low ravine. Willow adjusted to the new pace without thinking. Riding astride was easier on her, especially when Ishmael trotted or scrambled up and down steep slopes.
After the first few hours, Willow was able to keep her balance automatically, as though she had always ridden astride. Caleb had been correct about one thing, however. The saddle was indeed harder than Willow’s bottom.
Suddenly, Caleb’s horse came toward her from the darkness ahead. When the two horses were side by side, Caleb bent over until his lips were so close to Willow’s cheek that she felt the warm rush of his breath.
«I smell a campfire up the draw. I’m going to scout a way around. Hold onto Trey until I get back. And don’t let Ishmael start hollering if he scents other horses.»
After handing over the pack horse’s lead rope, Caleb vanished into the darkness.
Willow waited with increasing uneasiness, feeling the minutes move with the slowness of ice melting on a cool spring day. Just when she was certain something had gone wrong, Caleb materialized in front of her as silently as the night itself. At his gesture she followed him back down the draw, retreating from whatever lay ahead. A hundred yards later Caleb turned his horse and came alongside Willow.
«Trouble?» she asked very softly.
His hand snaked out, pulling her even closer. He spoke with a bare thread of sound that couldn’t have been heard a foot away.
«Two men with dirty clothes, clean guns, and fast horses. They were bragging about what they’re going to do with all the money they get from selling your damned fancy horses.»
One of them had also been wondering if Willow would be worth breaking to a different kind of saddle, but Caleb wasn’t talking about that. All that had kept him from drawing on the man right there was the fact that the sound of shots carried, and he couldn’t be sure there weren’t other gunnies camped nearby.
«Are they part of Slater’s bunch?» Willow asked.
«Doubt it. They were northern men. Slater is as southern as cotton.» Caleb listened for a moment, then continued. «There’s another draw a few hundred yards over. We’ll have to dismount so we don’t skyline ourselves. Can you walk in the dark without tripping over shadows? There’s no wind to mask any noise we make.»
«I sneaked past more than one soldier boy,» Willow said. «I got caught once. I never got caught again.»
Caleb thought of what might have happened to a girl caught by soldiers and felt a cold rage congeal in his gut. He wondered if that was why Willow had become a fancy woman-once lost, no matter how, a girl’s virginity couldn’t be regained. And after the first time, no man could know how many men had been there before him, so a girl might as well make the best of a bad situation. More than one widow had.
With quick motions, Caleb ducked out of the shotgun sling and settled it over Willow so that the weapon hung muzzle-down. A single motion would pull it into firing position.
«It’s loaded,» Caleb said tersely. «Any man gets close to you, blow him straight to Satan. Hear me?»
Startled, Willow whispered, «Yes.»
There was a whisper of sound as Caleb took the thong off his revolver and slid it in and out of the holster, making certain that the gun wouldn’t hang up if he had to draw quickly. He reined his horse toward a place which showed as a narrow shadow across the moonlit land. Holding Deuce to a walk, Caleb rode with his hand on his belt gun and his eyes searching the land. Behind him, the sounds of six other horses lifted into the darkness. A lazy breeze stirred, but it wasn’t nearly enough to cover the beat of so many hooves against the land.
Like trying to sneak dawn past the night, Caleb thought savagely.
He cast a bleak look at the sky. The clouds weren’t getting any thicker. The moon wasn’t getting any dimmer. And the crease in the landscape they were descending into was narrow and barely four feet deep.
As Caleb dismounted, he slipped his repeating rifle from its scabbard. Carrying the rifle in his left hand, he walked forward noiselessly. Deuce followed without urging. Roped together as they were, the mares had to walk so close together that they were all but stepping on one another. Inevitably, they made more noise than a horse walking singly would have.
It seemed to Willow that half the night had gone by before Caleb abandoned the inadequate cover and came back to lift her onto Ishmael’s back.
«Do you want to keep the shotgun?» he asked in a low voice.
«Yes, please. If you wouldn’t mind…?»
«I’ll get its scabbard.»
A few minutes later Caleb led the horses off in a northerly direction at a brisk walk. When they were beyond possible earshot of the two men, Caleb touched Deuce with spurs. He held the pace at a canter as long as the land and the illumination permitted. As moonlight waned beneath a thickening lid of clouds, he dropped back to a fast trot. Only when the land pitched up steeply did he allow the pace to slacken.
Not once did he dismount to rest the horses. Before dawn came, he wanted as much land as possible between Willow and the two men who had lounged at ease around their small fire, listening to the night with senses honed by years of living beyond the law.
As the dark hours wore on, Willow clung to the saddle numbly, balancing herself with saddle horn and stirrups, trying to move with Ishmael rather than against him. The first, faint sign of the darkness lifting had never been more welcome. Eagerly, she watched each hint of the coming transformation of night into day. When Caleb reined aside and led them to a small creek, she almost groaned with pleasure at the thought of hot food and a chance to stretch out full length on the ground. Dismounting, she braced herself for a few moments against her patient stallion before she began to walk slowly toward a nearby thicket.
Caleb watched the stiffness of Willow’s movements and considered stopping for more than the few minutes he had planned. Then he remembered the muscular, racy lines of the horses picketed near the gunmen’s campfire and knew he couldn’t take the chance. Those horses were deep-chested, long-legged, and in top condition, able to run all day. His own horses had hard days of riding behind them.
After Caleb put Willow’s saddle on one of the sorrel mares, he stripped the gear from his own big horses and switched riding saddle for pack saddle. By the time Willow returned, he was ready to ride once more. When she saw they weren’t going to camp after a long night of riding, she had to bite her lip against a protest.
Willow’s first effort at mounting failed. Before she could try again, Caleb lifted her into the saddle.
«The only way we can hope to stay ahead of those two men is by riding longer hours than they do,» he explained as he mounted his own horse.
«Do you really think they heard us going by?» Willow asked.
He looked into her hazel eyes, trying to measure her strength. Dawn showed the dark smudges beneath her eyes, silent testimony to her exhaustion.
«Two horses might have sneaked by that campsite, or maybe even three,» Caleb said finally. «But seven? Not a chance in hell. Along about first light those men will be casting around for our trail. Shouldn’t take them more than ten minutes to find it. The ground is damp, just right to hold tracks. Seven horses leave a trail a blind greenhorn could follow. Those men aren’t greenhorns. They’ll be able to track us at a dead run.»
Willow looked at her horses and knew what Caleb wasn’t saying. Without the Arabians, they would have a much better chance of evading any pursuit. Leading extra horses slowed the pace as well as churning the land with tracks.
«Our only chance of staying in front of anyone trailing us,» Caleb continued, «is to ride and keep on riding and pray that a good storm comes along to wash out our tracks.»
Shifting in the saddle, he reached back into a saddlebag and pulled out a dark bandanna that had been tied around the remains of their last meal. «Here’s what’s left of our bread and bacon,» he said, tossing the knotted cloth to her. «Eat when you have the chance. There’s fresh water in the canteen on your saddle.»
«What will you eat?»
«Same thing you will when that’s gone. Jerky.»
Before Willow could say anything more, Caleb touched his horse with spurs and set off at a hard trot.
The transition from night to day was so gradual that Willow couldn’t be certain when one ended and the other began. The clouds had thickened to the point that sunlight threw no shadows. All that was visible of the mountains were low ridges lightly clad with pine and wholly capped by clouds.
The land rose and the clouds lowered until no more than a thousand feet separated the horses from the
