«I would have showed you sooner,» Willow said quietly, «but the map really isn’t much help.»
Caleb gave her a sideways glance that could have peeled bark from a living tree. «You didn’t trust me and we both know it.»
Color flared on her cheekbones. «It wasn’t my secret to tell. It was Matt’s, and he said not to show the map to anyone. But I’m showing it to you now.» She thrust the paper into his hands. «Here. Look at it. You won’t find much I didn’t already tell you. Matt never was a trusting kind of person. He made it so no one could steal the map and get any use of it. Unfortunately, I can’t get much use of it either.»
Saying nothing, Caleb took the map, opened it, and glanced quickly over the paper. The major landmarks were easy enough to recognize, the rivers and the clustered mountains of the San Juan country. Various passes into the heart of the country were marked, but no one pass was preferred over another. Whether someone started in California, Mexico, Canada, or east of the Mississippi, routes into the SanJuans had been laid out to follow.
Caleb looked at Willow questioningly.
«Matt didn’t know for sure where anyone was,» she explained. «The letter came to our biggest farm with instructions to forward it wherever the Moran brothers were. I copied the letter and sent it to the last address I had for each of my brothers.»
«Where was that?»
«Australia, California, the Sandwich Isles, and China. But that information was years old. They could be anywhere now, even back in America.»
Caleb raised his eyebrows and looked again at the map. He grunted. «Your brother is a good hand at drawing maps.» Caleb frowned. «But he left off one detail. Where the hell is his base camp?»
«It isn’t marked as far as I could see.» Willow took a deep breath. «I think Matt was so cautious because he found gold.»
«I expect so. Some damn fool usually does.»
Willow stared, unable to believe the indifference in Caleb’s voice. «Do you have something against finding gold?»
He shrugged. «I’d rather raise cattle. When the going gets rough, you can eat them. You can’t eat gold.»
«You can use it to buy food,» Willow pointed out rather tartly.
«Sure. Unless you get yourself shot in the back by somegunnie who figures it’s easier to jump your claim than to stake his own.» Cold topaz eyes pinned Willow. «I’ve seen gold camps. They have the stink of Hell about them. Nothing but greed and killing and whores.»
«Matthew isn’t like that. He’s every bit as decent as you are.»
Caleb said nothing, but his mouth thinned at being compared to the man who had seduced and abandoned Rebecca. He stared broodingly at the map. At one point, deep in the heart of the SanJuans, five meticulously drawn triangles had been placed to indicate various mountain peaks. Despite the fact that there were many more mountains in the area, no more triangles appeared.
Across the map waswritten, Makea fire and I’ll come. Beneath it was a line of Spanish. Caleb translated itsilently. Threepoints, two halves, one gathering.
Willow stepped close and saw that he was looking at the writing.
«That was another thing I couldn’t figure out,» Willow said. «Why would Matt write the line in Spanish?»
«Do you know Spanish?»
«No.»
«Maybe that’s why,» Caleb said flatly.
He looked at the triangles again. Willow followed his intent, tawny glance.
«Where are we supposed to build the fire?» she asked after a minute. «Any one of those triangles could be his camp.»
«One is as useless as another. Those are mountain peaks, not camps. We could look for five years and never find anything but rough country.»
«You needn’t sound so happy about it,» Willow grumbled. «Why don’t you want to find Matt?»
Caleb looked at her almost fiercely before he spoke. «That’s rough country. Let me take you back to WolfeLonetree. He’ll protect you and the Arabians while I look for your brother.»
«If I’m not along, you’ll never get close to Matt. If he doesn’t want to be found, you have a better chance of catching moonlight on water than catching him.»
Caleb bit back a curse. That was exactly what it had been like chasing Reno — trying to catch moonlight on water.
But then I didn’t know where the son of a bitch was. Now I do.
Willow frowned over the map. «I can’t understand why Matt didn’t leave better clues. He isn’t a careless kind of person. He was the one who taught me how to navigate by the stars, taking reading and drawing lines and making angles of intersection.» She bit her lower lip. «All I can figure is if we light a fire at any one of those five peaks, he’ll be able to see us. You know the country. You can find a place that can be seen for a long way and we’ll light a fire and —»
«Get our fool heads shot off,» Caleb said flatly, interrupting Willow. «Nobody lights a signal fire in that country unless he’s looking to get his scalp lifted. Your brother knows it, too, or he would have been dead long ago.»
«But then why did he say it?»
«It’s a trap.»
«That doesn’t make sense. Matt wouldn’t want to hurt his brothers.»
«Are your brothers fools?»
Willow laughed. «Hardly. Matt is the youngest. He learned a lot of what he knows from his older brothers.»
«Then none of your brothers would be damn fool enough to light a fire in Indian country and wait like a staked goat for whatever came.»
Willow wanted to argue, but knew it would do no good. Caleb was right. None of the Moran brothers would be that foolish.
«A trap,» she said unhappily.
«Like you said, your brother is a careful man.»
«Then we’ll just have to climb each peak until we find his camp,» Willow said, taking the map from Caleb.
He heard the determination in her voice and knew she wouldn’t stop seeking her brother until she found him or died trying. Reno had written for help and Willow had answered in the only way she could.
«You’re going to find your brother come Hell or high water, is that it?»
«If you were me, would you do any less?» she asked, wondering at the tangible hostility in Caleb every time her brother was mentioned.
Caleb closed his eyes and tasted the pain that the future would bring, Willow’s screams echoing as she watched her beloved brother and the man she loved face each other over drawn weapons, gunfire echoing and death coming down like thunder.
Be sure you’ve got a good reason to draw on Reno, because a second after you do, both of you are likely to be dead.
«So be it,» Caleb said bleakly.
Fear went through Willow like black lightning. «Caleb?» she asked shakily. «What is it? What’s wrong?»
He didn’t answer. He went to his saddlebags, pulled out his journal, a pencil, and a ruler, and came back to where Willow waited, map in hand and fear in her heart. Saying nothing, he took the map, spread it on his journal, and began drawing lines.
«What are you doing?» she asked finally.
«Finding your goddamned brother.»
Willow winced. «But how?»
«He’s a careful kind of man. He was real careful how he drew these triangles, even though he stood them every which way on the paper.»
