13
Eve watched the blue roan scramble back up the head of the steep ravine. It was the fifth chute down the plateau Reno had tried in the past two hours. So far, each ravine had ended in a cliff that horses couldn’t descend.
This time, however, Reno had been gone at least half an hour. Though Eve didn’t say anything, she couldn’t keep a look of hope from her face. Without realizing it, she ran her tongue over her lips. No shine of moisture followed.
«Take a drink,» Reno said as he rode up. «You’re as dry as stone.»
«I can’t drink when my horse is so thirsty, she tries to crawl in my pocket each time I pick up the canteen.»
«Don’t let the sweet-faced fraud fool you. She sucked one of those littletinajasdry while you were a quarter mile back, trying to fall into that big slot.»
«Tinajas?» Eve frowned, then remembered what the Spanish word meant. «Oh. Those holes in the rock where rainwater collected. Is the water good?»
«The mustangs liked it.»
«You didn’t drink any?»
«The horses needed it more than I did. Besides,» Reno admitted with a slight grin, «I wasn’t thirsty enough to strain all those little critters between my teeth.»
Eve’s laughter surprised Reno. She was dusty, worn-out, scuffed from crawling over rock…and he had never seen a woman who appealed to him more. He tucked a tawny lock behind her ear, ran his fingertip over the line of her jaw, and touched her lips with the ball of his thumb.
«Mount up,» he said softly. «There’s something I want to show you.»
Curious, Eve stepped into the stirrup and rode alongside Reno as far as the trail allowed. To her surprise, the shallow ravine didn’t get deeper right away as the others had. Instead, it got wider and wider, descending gently through pinons and cedar.
Gradually the slickrock became buried under dirt. More and more small gullies joined the ravine, widening it, until they were riding through a valley that was nearly surrounded by steep walls of stone.
Eve turned and looked at Reno with hope on her face and a question in her eyes.
«I don’t know,» Reno said quietly. «But it looks good. I rode another mile and nothing changed.»
Eve closed her eyes and let out a breath she hadn’t even known she was holding.
«No water, though,» Reno added reluctantly.
For several miles there were no sounds but that of an eagle keening on the wind, the creak of leather as the horses walked, and the muffled beat of hooves on the dry earth. Though it was late in the afternoon, the sunlight still held an amazing amount of heat.
Clouds gathered into groups high overhead. Their color ranged from white to a blue-black that promised rain. But not on the plateau. It wasn’t high enough to trap these clouds. Only the mountains were. Nowhere had Eve seen running water on the plateau.
«Reno?»
He made a rumbling sound that said he had heard.
«Does it rain here?»
He nodded.
«Where does it all go?» she asked.
«Downhill.»
«Yes, but where is it? We’re downhill from something, and there’s no water.»
«The streams only run after a rain,» he said.
«What about the mountain streams?» she persisted. «It rains there all the time, and snow melts. Where does the water go?»
«Into the air and into the ground.»
«Not down to the sea?»
«From here to the Sierra Nevadas of California, I know of only one river that gets all the way to the sea before it dries up — Rio Colorado.»
Eve rode silently for a few minutes, trying to understand how there could be land and no water.
«How far is it to California?» she asked.
«Maybe six hundred miles as the crow flies. Hell of a lot farther the way we do it.»
«And only one river?»
Reno nodded.
Eve rode in silence for a long time, trying to comprehend a land so dry, you could ride for weeks and find only one river. No streams, no creeks, no brooks, no lakes, no ponds, nothing but red rock, creamy stone, and shades of rust where any vegetation stood out like a green flag on the dry land.
The thought was both frightening an oddly exhilarating, like waking into a landscape seen before only in dreams.
As the valley slowly dropped down to an unknown end, the buff-colored cliffs that rose on either side became more and more of a barrier. From time to time Eve turned and looked over her shoulder. If she hadn’t known that a way onto the plateau existed behind them, she wouldn’t have guessed it from the view. The rock wall looked seamless.
Gradually the valley changed, becoming more narrow as the stone ramparts closed in once more. Twice they had to dismount and lead the mustangs over a particularly difficult patch of land, squeezing between massive boulders and sliding down gullies floored with water-polished stone.
The sun descended as they did, but with more ease. Long shafts of light gilded the stones and painted dense velvet shadows behind the least irregularity of the land.
«Look,» Eve said suddenly, her voice low. «What’s that?»
«Where?» Reno asked.
«At the base of the cliff, just to the left of the notch.»
Silence, then Reno whistled softly and said, «Ruins.»
Air rushed out of Eve’s lungs. «Can we get over there?»
«We’re sure going to try. Where there are ruins, there’s usually water somewhere nearby.»
He glanced sideways at her and added, «But don’t count on it. Some of the Indians depended on cisterns that have long since cracked and let out all the water.»
Despite Reno’s warning, it was hard for Eve not to show her disappointment when they finally worked their way through the pinon and juniper to the rubble-strewn base of the cliff and found no sign of permanent water.
As the sun descended beyond the rim of the canyon, she sat on her tired mustang and looked at the broken walls, oddly shaped windows, and walled-up rooms of the ruins. The silence in the canyon was complete, as though even the animals avoided the broken reminders of people who had come and gone like rain over the face of the land.
«Maybe that’s what happened to them,» Eve said. «No water.»
«Maybe,» Reno said. «And maybe they lost too many battles to hold on to what they had.»
Half an hour after the sun slid behind stone ramparts, the sky overhead was still bright with afternoon light. Gradually the breeze shifted, coming from a different quarter. One after another, the mustangs threw up their heads, pricked their ears, and sniffed the wind.
Reno’s six-gun appeared in his hand with startling speed, but he didn’t fire.
Gooseflesh prickled over Eve as she saw an Indian walking toward them from the direction of the ruins.
«I thought Indians avoided places like this,» she said softly.
«They do. But sometimes a very brave shaman will go to the old places on a medicine quest. From the looks of his silver hair, I’d guess he’s come to ask his last questions of his gods.»
