When Willow was done saddling Ishmael and roping the mares together for easy leading, Caleb walked over and checked each animal’s hooves. They permitted his handling with only a few restless motions. When he finished, he tested the strength and tightness of the sidesaddle’s girth on the stallion.
«Satisfied?» Willow asked.
«With that contraption?» Shaking his head, Caleb pulled on buckskin roping gloves that were worn and supple. «Glad it won’t be my butt banging on that useless leather.»
With a cool sideways look, Willow started to lead Ishmael past Caleb to the mounting block. His hand shot out and closed over the reins, stopping her.
«There won’t be any mounting blocks on the trail,» he pointed out. He bent and laced his fingers together, then looked up at her with clear topaz eyes. «Go ahead, honey. You’ve been wanting to step on me since you first laid eyes on me.»
The deep voice and lazy smile sent quicksilver sensations through Willow. She smiled almost shyly in return and stepped into his hands as though into a stirrup.
Unlike a stirrup, Caleb was alive. And powerful. He lifted her weight with obvious ease. Willow’s right leg, covered with petticoats and heavy wool cloth, hooked around the off-center horn of the sidesaddle, helping to hold her in place on the shallow leather seat. The horn, plus the single stirrup on the left side, was the only purchase offered by the sidesaddle, which had been invented for fashionable turns around a park rather than for serious riding.
«Thank you,» Willow said, looking down into Caleb’s eyes.
«Don’t thank me. I’m leading you into the worst night of your life.» Caleb turned away, then stopped and looked over his shoulder at her. «Don’t you even have a decent hat or riding coat?»
«I was going to buy what I needed tomorrow.»
He hissed a word beneath his breath.
«My riding habit is warm,» Willow said. «It was made for winter.»
«In West Virginia.»
«We had snow there.»
«How often, how deep, and did you ride all day in it?» Caleb asked sardonically.
«It’s raining now, not snowing.»
Without a word Caleb pulled off his poncho and held it up to her. «Put it on.»
«That’s very kind, but I couldn’t take your —»
«I told you I’m not a kindman,» Calebinterrupted in a voice that was just short of a snarl. «Put the damned thing on before I stuff you in it like a pig in a poke.»
Mutinous hazel eyes glared at Caleb for a long moment before Willow took the poncho, pulled it over her head and down her body. Cut like a jerkin with riding slits, the poncho had fit Caleb’s wide shoulders and lean hips very nicely. It was far too big on Willow.
«Lord, you’re a little bit of a thing,» he muttered.
«I’m five feet, three inches and I was the tallest girl in our valley.»
«Damn small valley.»
Caleb pulled a leather thong from his pocket and cinched in the poncho around Willow’s small waist. Then he rummaged in his big saddlebags until he found a long wool muffler.
«Bend down,» he said.
Willow leaned down to Caleb. Even though she was mounted, she didn’t have to bend far. He was an unusually tall man. He wrapped the muffler securely around her head, tied the ends beneath her chin, and tried not to smile at the picture she made with her clear skin and red lips and his slate-colored muffler making her eyes gleam like smoked crystal.
Abruptly Caleb turned away to his own horse. He untied a heavy leather vest from behind his saddle. The vest was like everything else he owned — dark, unadorned, and made of the best quality material. Combined with his long-sleeved shirt of thick wool, the vest would keep him warm enough for the time being, if not exactly comfortable. He put on the vest, tied the mares’ lead ropes to the pack saddle, and mounted his tall horse with the casual grace of a man born to the saddle.
«Do you have gloves?» Caleb asked curtly.
Willow nodded.
«Put them on.»
«Mr. Black —»
«Try my Christian name, southern lady,» he interrupted. «We’re not real formal out here.»
«Caleb. I’m hot.»
The corner of his mouth turned up. «Enjoy it, Willow. It won’t last.»
Caleb urged his horse out of the barn and into the rain-lashed night. Immediately his pack horse followed, though no lead rope joined it to the saddle horse. After a brief hesitation, the mares followed. Ishmael nickered softly, distressed at being separated from his mares.
«It’s all right,» Willow said encouragingly to the stallion. «It’s all right, boy.»
Yet she was slow to rein the horse toward the barn door. Ishmael had no such reluctance. He trotted out into the stormy darkness, snorting at the cold whip of rain.
It’s got to be allright, Willowtold herself, gasping as silvers of icy rain scored hercheeks. Becauseif it isn’t, I’ve just made the worst mistake of my life.
3
Before they had gone three miles, Willow’s riding skirt and petticoats were soaked through. Wet cloth rubbed against her legs at every movement Ishmael made. Caleb set a hard pace through the storm, wanting to get as far away from Denver as possible before the rain stopped washing away the tracks of seven horses headed south on the treeless, well-beaten track that ran along the massive front range of the Rocky Mountains.
Alternately trotting and cantering, walking only when the land became uneven beneath the horses’ driving hooves, Caleb led Willow through the night and the icy, intermittent rains of early June. After the first several hours he no longer checked over his shoulder every few minutes. The Arabian mares were keeping pace with his mountain-bred horses, which meant that Ishmael wasn’t far behind. The stallion would follow his mares into the mouth of Hell itself, a fact which Caleb had counted on.
What surprised Caleb was that Willow managed to ride Ishmael with grace despite the handicap of flapping skirts, awkward sidesaddle, and storm. Yet no matter how well Willow rode, Caleb doubted that she was comfortable. He certainly wasn’t. Cold rain dripped constantly down his face and under his collar. Though his torso remained reasonably warm beneath layers of wool and leather, water was seeping down into his boots. His legs were cold. They would get colder before they got warm.
Caleb didn’t dwell on his own discomfort. He had known before he began the ride that it would be hard, long, and uncomfortable. In fact, he had counted on it. Outlaws were lazy men, more interested in their own pleasures than anything else. They would be slow to stir from their warm beds and the women they had rented along with the rooms.
As Caleb and Willow pressed on through the night, the storm gradually abated. Distant lightning still flared, but the thunder that followed was so far away as to be barely a grumble. Rain still fell, but the wet veils were being torn apart by gusts of wind. Soon there would be no more rain to dissolve the sharp edges of thehoofprints that stretched back in the night behind the seven horses like a twisted ribbon.
The land pitched up again in one of the many long folds that stretched out from the granite wall of the mountains. Caleb didn’t let his big gelding fall back into a walk, but instead touched him with the brass cavalry spurs that were a legacy of his brief, turbulent stint as an Army Scout in the New Mexican campaigns of the War Between the States. Even while still in the Army, Caleb had filed off the sharp rowels of the regulation spurs, much to the anger of his superior officer. It was just one of the many ways Caleb had defied regulations that made no sense to him. A horse gouged by sharp spurs was a nervous horse, and a nervous horse was useless in a battle, a fact which Caleb appreciated even if the inexperienced lieutenant who led them had not.
