way, gata. I’m coming through.»
Eve pushed away from the opening that still looked too small to admit Reno’s broad shoulders. As she watched, two gold ingots appeared. They gleamed in the lantern light as though freshly poured.
With a muscular twist of his body, Reno emerged from the small opening. His face was streaked with sweat and grit. So were his clothes. His weapons were clean, however. He had stacked them to one side of the coyote hole before he crawled in.
Reno picked up a heavy ingot in each hand and placed them with the others he had retrieved.
«Sixteen down and two to go,» Reno said, stretching.
«Let me get th —»
«No.»
Reno heard the flat rejection in his voice and prayed Eve didn’t hear the fear for her safety that lay just beneath it. He forced himself to smile as he tilted her face up for a quick, hard kiss.
«I’ll be back before you know it, with a gold bar in each hand.»
Eve wanted to argue even though she knew it would be futile. Instead, she made herself smile as she brushed her fingertips over his lips.
«Hurry back, sugar man,» she whispered.
After Reno disappeared back into the coyote hole, Eve crouched by the black opening and prayed.
She was still praying when she heard a rumbling, grinding sound. A burst of air gusted out from the mouth of the coyote hole, bringing with it a cloud of grit and the sound of rock rushing down.
The coyote hole had collapsed.
«Reno!» Eve yelled. «Reno!»
Nothing came back to her but the gnashing sounds of rocks as they found a new place to lie.
When Eve looked into the coyote hole, there was no gleam of light from Reno’s lantern. Frantically she grabbed her own lantern and crawled into the narrow tunnel, pushing the light in front of her. There was so much dust hanging in the air that the light looked as though it had been wrapped in gauze.
Within seconds Eve was coughing and choking from the swirling dust. She yanked her bandanna up and wriggled forward as fast as she could, ignoring the rocks that scraped and bruised her body.
With every breath Eve took, she called Reno’s name. No answer came but the raw echoes of her own screams.
The lantern hit something and refused to budge. Crying, calling for Reno, Eve battered blindly at the unexpected obstacle. Finally she realized what was wrong. Where the coyote hole should have emerged into the older, wider tunnel, the ceiling had given way. Now there was nothing but a wall of debris.
Eve clawed at the loose rubble, pushing it away down both sides of her body. For every handful she removed, two more took its place.
«Reno.»
There was no sound in the tunnel but that of her own broken sobs.
It was the same an hour later, when Eve finally realized that she didn’t have the strength to dig through the cave-in alone.
DIRTY, disheveled, wild-eyed, Eve crept past the point where Reno had said Slater’s guards were posted. Though twice she sent pebbles rolling, no man called out or came after her. She hardly noticed her good luck. She was intent on what had to be done, bribing Jericho Slater with a combination of gold ingots and lead bullets.
They want the gold, they can have it. But first they have to dig Reno free.
And I’ll be standing over them with a loaded shotgun every inch of the way.
A small corner of Eve’s mind knew that her plan was so foolish as to be suicidal. The rest of her mind just flat didn’t care. She wasn’t strong enough to dig Reno out of the mountain. Slater’s gang was.
So she would go to Slater, and let the devil take the hindmost.
Eve went through the marshy area like a gritty wraith. Her once white shirt was the gray-black color of the rocks. So were her pants. So was everything else but the guns she carried. She had wiped them down with a care Reno had taught her. The weapons were clean, fully loaded, and ready to fire.
The second cascade was bordered by forest and brush. Silence was impossible, but that didn’t matter; the water was making enough noise to drown out a mustang stampede. Automatically Eve shifted the shotgun and bandolier so they wouldn’t catch on the shrubs and trees that reached out to snag her.
Just before the cascade spread out across the boulder-strewn mouth of the larger valley, the water took one final leap over a slate ledge. Eve wriggled out on the rock to get a look at the camp. She had already decided that Jericho Slater was the first prisoner she should take. It was just a matter of finding out where he was.
A quick look over the ledge told Eve she was lucky not to be a prisoner herself. Slater’s gang was camped about a hundred feet from the waterfall, back in a thick grove of evergreens. Horses were picketed around the meadow. A quick count gave her a total of twenty.
Despair curled blackly in Eve’s bones. Ten men, she might have managed to watch. Even twelve.
But twenty?
There’s no help for it. Grab Slater, cut a deal, and get on with it. No matter how bad it looks for me, what Reno’s facing is worse, trapped in there without light or food or water.
And he never liked the tunnels. He feels the same way about them that I do about those eyebrow trails over slickrock.
I’ve got to get to him soon. I can’t leave him there alone.
Eve refused to think about the possibility that Reno was already dead under tons of rubble, buried as the slave child had been buried, one more sacrifice to the golden tears of the sun god. Eve was certain she would know if he were dead. She would feel it just as surely as she felt her own life now.
Wiping her eyes against her sleeve, she looked again at the camp. A swirl of pale gray caught her attention. Jericho Slater still wore the wrist-length cape of the Confederate army. The white planter’s hat was also familiar; he hadn’t removed it even when he sat at her table to play cards.
I wonder how Slater feels about tunnels. Hope he hates them. Because until Reno is free, Slater is going to be spending a lot of time in the dark.
Smiling grimly, Eve eased back off the slate overlook and into the cover of the trees.
As soon as the green boughs folded around her, a man’s hand shot out and clamped over her mouth. Simultaneously a powerful arm clamped around her waist, pinning her arms to her body. Though she was holding a shotgun, she had no chance to use it.
An instant later Eve was lifted off her feet, helpless but for her wildly kicking feet.
«Slow down, wildcat,» a deep voice said quietly in Eve’s ear. «It’s Caleb Black.»
Eve went still, then looked over her shoulder.
Caleb’s whiskey-colored eyes looked back at her. The warmth she remembered in his eyes was lacking. He looked just like what Reno had once called him, a dark angel of vengeance.
Eve nodded to show that she understood she was safe. Slowly Caleb set her down. When she was standing on her own feet, he jerked his thumb, silently telling Eve to get deeper into cover.
As soon as she did, another man stepped forward. His hair was the same black as Caleb’s, but the resemblance ended there. Caleb’s hair had a slight curl. Wolfe Lonetree’s was straight as a ruler. His eyes were an indigo so dark as to be nearly black. His face showed the high cheekbones of his Cheyenne mother and the sharply defined mouth of his Scots father. Though not as big as Caleb or Reno, Wolfe moved with a physical confidence that was more impressive than size alone would have been.
Caleb’s hands moved in sign talk that was as graceful as it was precise. Wolfe nodded and moved past Eve, touching his dark hat in silent greeting as he did. The hand he lifted to his hat was holding two boxes of shells. His other hand was wrapped around two repeating rifles.
Eve stared for an instant, then eased farther back into the trees, pulled by Caleb’s hand on her arm. As soon as it was safe to speak, she did.
«There was a cave-in. Reno’s trapped. There are two guards at the next cascade.»
Caleb’s eyes narrowed. «Is he alive?»
She nodded, unable to say anything for the fear drawing her throat tight.
«Is he hurt?» Caleb asked.
«I don’t know. I couldn’t get to him.»
