in. It’s twice the size of this one.»
She stood and brushed herself off. «There’s something funny about that big tunnel, though. The arrows point the other way. At least, they used to. Someone scratched out the head of the old arrows and put a new head on the tail.»
Reno frowned, pulled out his compass, and checked.
«Which way does the coyote hole turn?» he asked.
Eve pointed. «The other tunnel comes in from that direction, too.»
Reno turned to orient himself with the hidden tunnel and its twice-drawn arrows.
«Same angle, or does that change, too?» he asked.
«It goes up about like this,» Eve said, holding her hand at a slant.
«Are you bothered by those tight tunnels?»
She shook her head.
«You sure?» Reno pressed.
«Very. I’ll take tunnels over ledges perched like God’s eyebrow over a thousand-foot drop,» Eve said wryly.
Reno’s smile flashed in the lantern light. «I’m just the opposite. I’d rather be on God’s eyebrow than down in coyote holes any day of the week.»
She laughed. «Want me to see where that double-headed tunnel leads?»
He hesitated, then reluctantly agreed. «But only if the walls are rock. I don’t want you crawling through any of the crumbling stuff we’ve seen. Understand?»
Eve understood perfectly. While the coyote holes didn’t bother her the way heights did, she had no desire to end as the slave child had, buried alive.
«Go on, then,» he said reluctantly.
Before she turned to leave, Reno pulled her close and kissed her hard.
«Be careful, sugar girl,» he said in a rough voice. «I don’t like this one damn bit.»
Reno liked it even less as the sounds of Eve’s passage through stone faded into silence and the minutes crawled by as though nailed to the stone floor. The third time he dug out his watch, stared at it, and discovered that less than thirty seconds had passed, he swore and began counting slowly.
Finally he heard the sound of Eve half crawling, half scrambling through the coyote hole. As soon as her head and shoulders appeared, he pulled her out and gave her a hug that all but squeezed the breath from her.
«That’s the last time you go into a coyote hole alone,» Reno said flatly. «I aged ten years waiting for you.»
«It was worth it, sugar man,» Eve said breathlessly, laughing, kissing him. «I found it! I found the gold!»
TWO gold ingots gleamed in the firelight, gold as pure and uncorrupted now as the moment when slaves had first poured the molten metal into molds to cool. Reno looked from the ingots to the girl whose eyes were the exact shade of the Spanish treasure she had found hidden in darkness.
Eve looked back at Reno, smiled, and then laughed softly.
«I can’t believe there are sixteen more just like that one,» she said. «You should have let me go back and get them. I could have had them all out in the time it took you to widen the coyote hole that connects the two big tunnels.»
«The gold has waited this long. It will wait until tomorrow.»
«With both of us working, it shouldn’t —»
«No,» Reno said flatly, cutting across her words. «You’re not going into that coyote hole again. The part where it cuts the second tunnel is too damned dangerous.»
«But I’m smal —»
«The reason they closed out that second big tunnel,» Reno said over her, «is that the middle section isn’t stable. It collapsed more than once. Each time they cut a coyote hole around the cave-in and kept digging until they mined out the good ore, and things kept on caving in. Finally they came at the ore from the other side, where we started.»
«Do you really think that second big tunnel goes all the way to the alcove?»
He shrugged. «The rock layers looked the same.»
«Dear Lord.» Eve shivered. «That mountain must be honeycombed with holes.»
«Are you cold?» Reno asked, noting the shiver that had passed over Eve.
«No,» she whispered. «I was just wondering how many slaves died for those eighteen ingots of gold.»
«Not to mention the other forty-four ingots that are hidden somewhere down there,» he said.
Another shiver passed over Eve. She knew that Reno was going to search for the missing ingots. The thought of him hunting through the mountain’s lethal coyote holes for gold that might or might not be there made her wish they had never found the mine.
«I didn’t see any other coiled-snake symbols chiseled in the wall,» Eve said. «Maybe the Jesuits took most of the gold with them. Maybe it would be a waste of time to search.»
«Maybe they didn’t have time to spend chiseling snakes into rock walls to mark where treasure was buried,» he said dryly. «Maybe they just piled the ingots in a coyote hole and got the hell out of there before the king’s soldiers came and dragged them back to Spain in chains.»
Reno finished the last of his coffee and began scattering the embers of the small fire. Soon there was no illumination but that of the moon.
«It’s worth staying until the weather changes to look for forty-four gold ingots, isn’t it?» Reno asked.
The dark velvet of his voice acted on Eve like a caress. Suddenly she knew he wasn’t asking about staying for the gold; he was asking if she would stay here with him awhile longer.
Until we find the mine, you’ll be my woman.
And the mine had been found.
«With or without gold, I’d stay,» Eve said softly.
Reno held out his hand. When she took it, he kissed her palm, and led her to the place where he had cut evergreen boughs to make a bed. It was several hundred feet away, for any intruders would expect to find them by the campfire.
The tarpaulin rustled as Reno and Eve sank down on the bedroll together.
«I’ll never forget the smell of lilacs,» he whispered against her neck. «Or the taste of you.»
Before Eve could answer, Reno took her mouth in a long, deep kiss. By the time it ended, both of them were breathing quickly and flushed with heat. Long fingers moved over Eve’s shirt, baring her to the waist. The camisole gleamed like silver in the moonlight. Slowly he bent and brushed his lips over the rapid pulse in Eve’s neck.
«The first time I saw you in your camisole,» Reno said, «I wanted to take it off and bury my face in your breasts.»
Smiling, Eve unlaced the camisole and shrugged it aside.
«Lilacs and rosebuds,» he whispered. «God, but you’re sweet.»
«It’s my soap.»
Reno smiled slowly. «No, sugar girl. It’s your breasts.»
Reno kissed first one tip, then the other. The silky caresses of mustache and tongue drew Eve into velvet peaks. She made a murmurous sound of pleasure that became a gasp when he began taking tiny, gentle, repeated bites of her.
«I could eat every bit of you,» he said. «Head to heels and back again. Would you like that, gata?»
«Do I get to nibble on you, too?»
For an instant Reno went still. Then a sensual shudder went through his whole body.
«You don’t have to,» he said. «I’ve never asked that of a woman.»
«I want to,» Eve whispered. «I want to know you every way a woman can know a man.»
Between kisses and gliding caresses, they undressed each other until nothing lay between them but moonlight and the crisp air of mountain night. Reno pulled a blanket over them as he wrapped Eve in a long, naked hug.
«I wanted to do this, too, that first time I saw you,» he said. «I wanted to feel your body all bare against
