She hovered around the campfire, feeding fuel into it, testing the water, and wondering if fire burned colder in the high mountains. Surely it didn’t take this long to heat water at the cabin.
«I’ve got the hot spring at the cabin,» Shannon reminded herself. «It takes no time at all to get a bucket of hot water for washing clothes.»
Sighing, Shannon tested the water for the fifteenth time. It was passably warm.
«Finally. Now I can do the wash. Thunder and blazes, I can see why folks run around in dirty clothes a Comanchero would be ashamed to wear. Heating water for baths and such could make a body crazy.»
Just as Shannon bent to take the bucket from the tripod, Prettyface broke into a savage kind of barking that was more a snarling howl of rage than anything else.
A shot rang out.
Water sloshed as Shannon slammed the bucket handle back over the tripod and ran for the shotgun. The sound of another shot overwhelmed the dog’s furious sounds.
Whip’s shout came as Shannon broke into a run, heading for the aspen thicket. As she ran, she understood what her ears had been trying to tell her — the «shots» she was hearing were the sounds of a bullwhip at work, not a rifle.
The bullwhip cracked and then cracked again, splitting the air like lightning. Whip shouted something that Shannon couldn’t understand.
Then came a terrifying kind of chomping, snarling cough, as though the mountain was clearing its throat. Shannon had never heard the sound before, but Silent John had described it often enough.
Grizzly.
«Whip!» Shannon screamed, running harder than she ever had before in her life. «Oh, God, you don’t even have a gun!»
She leaped a fallen log, staggered for an instant on landing, then gathered herself and raced on, cocking the shotgun even as she ran.
Shannon saw the grizzly before she saw Whip. The bear was reared up on its hind legs, taller than Whip, wider, terrifying in its strength. The enraged bear was snapping its jaws together. Saliva showed stark white against the dark muzzle. The grizzly’s massive paws swatted at the bullwhip that cracked again and again around its head.
Naked to the waist, Whip stood with his back against a thicket of aspen that was too dense for him to penetrate. It wouldn’t have done any good even if he could have hidden among the trees — the grizzly would have broken through the aspens at a gallop.
Nor could Whip outrun the bear, even if the terrain had been flat and open. On level land, grizzlies were as fast as horses. On broken land, grizzlies were faster.
Prettyface leaped and snarled behind the bear, fangs slashing, seeking the grizzly’s hamstrings beneath the thick coat of fur. With horrifying speed the bear turned and slashed at the dog with claws longer than Shannon’s hand.
The bullwhip cracked and the grizzly straightened. It spun away from the dog and raged deep in its chest, jaws working as though crunching through bone. Blood glistened redly above the grizzly ’s right eye, proof that the bullwhip had reached flesh despite the protective fur.
But rather than driving the bear away, the slashing bullwhip seemed only to enrage the grizzly further.
It was obvious that sooner or later one of the bear’s massive paws would tangle with the long whip, ending its usefulness. Or the grizzly could simply charge the man like an enraged bull. Then the uneven fight would end very quickly.
Shannon ran harder, knowing she had to get in close enough to be certain of killing the bear. Silent John had warned her that a wounded grizzly was the most dangerous animal on earth.
As Whip’s arm moved, launching the lash like a bullet right at one of the bear’s eyes, he caught sight of Shannon running at the grizzly from the side.
«Get back!» he yelled.
If Shannon heard, she ignored him.
Whip worked the lash with startling speed, creating a high, ripping crackle that held the bear’s attention while Prettyface snapped at its heels.
Shannon kept running until the shotgun was almost touching the grizzly’s side. She triggered both barrels at a spot just under the bear’s left arm.
There was no time for Shannon to brace herself before she fired. The shotgun’s fierce recoil knocked her flat in an instant. The grizzly gave an outraged roar and swung a massive paw at the place where Shannon’s head had been only an instant before.
Deadly leather coils whistled and snapped tightly around the bear’s neck. Whip set his feet and jerked hard, making muscles stand rigidly all the way down his back. Grimly he dragged the choking, mortally wounded grizzly off balance, forcing it to fall away from Shannon’s motionless body. The bear hit the earth, bucked and roared savagely, and slashed out with claws at an enemy it could no longer see.
Abruptly the grizzly jerked and went still.
The grove became silent but for the ragged sawing of Whip’s breath and Prettyface’s snarls as he stalked stiff-legged toward the unmoving grizzly.
«Get back!» Whip ordered.
Prettyface froze.
A deceptively lazy movement of Whip’s wrist sent the tip of the lash flicking over the bear’s open eyes.
The grizzly neither flinched nor blinked. It was truly dead.
Whip ran to Shannon’s side and knelt in a rush. He let out a rough sound of relief when he saw that her eyes were open and she was breathing.
«Where do you hurt?» he demanded.
Numbly she shook her head.
«The hell you don’t hurt,» Whip muttered. «I saw that grizzly hit you.»
Whip’s hands hadn’t shook during the fight, but they were shaking now as he gently touched the back of Shannon’s head, searching for the wound he was sure she must have.
«I’m — all right,» Shannon said jerkily, trying to catch her breath and speak at the same time.
«Easy, honey girl. Just lie still until I see how bad you’re hurt.»
«Just — breath. Shotgun — knocked me —»
Whip’s hands hesitated. He looked down into the beautiful sapphire depths of Shannon’s eyes.
«Recoil?» he asked.
She nodded and concentrated on breathing.
Saying nothing, Whip probed Shannon’s hair with long, surprisingly gentle fingers. When he found only the warmth of her scalp, he moved on down her body. His hands ran over every bit of her and found nothing but heat and a silky female softness that made him feel like he was caressing fire.
Abruptly Whip came to his feet. He looked down at the breathless but otherwise uninjured Shannon for a long, tense moment.
Then he held out his hand to her.
«Can you stand?» Whip asked quietly.
Too quietly.
Warily Shannon looked at Whip’s eyes. Where there had been tender concern a moment before, now there was only wintry gray. His eyes were almost opaque.
She had seen Whip look like that only once before, when the Culpeppers were baiting her. Whip had been furious then.
He was furious now.
Shannon scrambled to her feet without touching his outstretched hand.
«I’m fine,» she said. «See?»
«I see that you’re a fool, Shannon Conner Smith.»
She winced. «Why are you yell —»
«You could have been killed!»
«But you were —»
