more than she could push aside, she’d usually jump on Pawnee’s back and give the young horse his head. But today her son had Pawnee and she couldn’t outrun her memories.
It really was too bad Cord hadn’t gone out for football, she thought as the ground again claimed his attention. With his solid five foot, eleven inch frame, he could have anchored any defensive line. His palms were so broad and solid that he could manage a revving chain saw one-handed. She knew; she’d seen him do it. And he was quick, the kind of quick that took a person by surprise.
Despite herself, she vividly remembered that windy autumn afternoon just after she turned seventeen when she saw him behind the local grocery store. He’d been squatting on his haunches carrying on a nonconversation with one of the stray cats that lived there. While she stood still and quiet, Cord inched toward a cat with a nasty- looking sore on its side. Suddenly, so fast that she remembered the change from crouch to lunge as nothing but a blur, he’d launched himself forward. Despite warning squalls and nails buried in his forearm, he’d hung on. When he realized she’d seen him, he’d shrugged and then explained he wanted the vet to look at the cat and couldn’t think of any other way to get his hands on the animal. That was the first time they’d spoken one on one. It wasn’t the last.
Maybe it should have been. If she hadn’t started running around with Cord-they didn’t date in the usual sense-she wouldn’t have been pulled so deeply into his ebony eyes that she would have lost the way out. They wouldn’t have gone for long drives in his grandfather’s old pickup. They wouldn’t have surrendered to the power of teenage hormones.
But they had and that was why they were here today.
Despite telling himself he wanted to turn his back on Shannon and get back to doing what he’d come here for, Cord couldn’t put thought into action-not yet, at least.
She stood near the horses, absently running her hand over her gelding’s neck. She was muttering something to it, probably some secret to be shared with no one except a big-eyed, big-hearted animal.
The rain had pressed down on her, flattened her hair, plastered her clothes to her until she became part of the environment. The bottom of her jeans hung soddenly down around her boots. She’d stepped on the hems with her boot heels when she walked, fraying the fabric. There were bright splotches of color on her cheeks. By contrast, her nose and mouth looked unnaturally colorless.
His heart went out to her. It went without saying that he didn’t want her to be out here looking for their son. But beyond that, he would have given anything to be able to take her back where it was warm and dry.
Maybe she’d put on a little makeup and a soft blouse and a bra that crumpled down to nothing when he held it in his hand. He’d press his lips to her throat and breathe in a hint of roses, a reminder that she was an outdoor woman and he an outdoor man.
That had been a thousand years ago.
A thousand silences ago.
Silent. That’s what he had to be today. He hoped she understood.
Forcing his attention away from her and his inability to get far enough away from her to call the sheriff, he again stared at the ground as he looked for indentations made from two shod hoofs. The small craters would be filled with water, but at least the rain hadn’t been heavy enough to wash away all of the necessary signs.
That’s all he needed. A starting place. Given time and patience, he’d find where his-their-son had spent the night, and then he’d turn into a bloodhound. He’d do the job he’d spent most of his life doing.
That’s all he wanted. A job to accomplish.
That and an end to thoughts of what Shannon’s hair once felt like against his cheek.
Finally Cord located a small, steeply blanketed clearing where, he said, someone had tethered a horse yesterday. All thoughts of the past quickly vanished from Shannon’s mind-all that mattered now was that they were on their way to finding Matt. Cord ran his hands over the ground and told her that the horse was wearing shoes on only its front hoofs. Pawnee!
“Gray Cloud taught me how to use all my senses,” Cord said in response to her question about what he was doing squatting on his haunches and staring at mud and rocks. “My eyes tell me most of what I need to know, but sometimes when I lay my hand over a track, I find out more.”
She waited for him to say what that was, but he’d straightened and was walking away, head down, once again looking like a bloodhound on a scent. He’d already told her to remain where she was until he’d found what he needed.
He moved as if he had all the time in the world and the patience of the ages, but Shannon knew his demeanor belied his determination.
For several minutes she stared in the direction Cord had gone, then slumped forward slightly, ineffectively trying to wipe the mud off her pants leg.
She understood that tracking required keen concentration, and that Cord was used to working alone. Undoubtedly he knew things he wasn’t telling her; he had to be thinking about other times when he’d done this, and the way those situations had turned out.
When Cord returned, he simply stood a few feet away, unmoving and impassive, saying nothing. But because she understood at least a little about him, she knew he’d found what he needed.
Handling both horses, she followed after him as he led the way. They’d gone no more than a hundred yards when he stopped near a forked pine surrounded by saplings and pointed to the ground. At first she didn’t see anything. Then she made out indentations some six inches apart, one slightly ahead of the other. This was the message her son had left behind. Her knees felt weak; she fought to hold herself erect.
“He’s walking white man style,” Cord explained, his voice devoid of judgment.
“ ‘White man style.’ What does that mean?”
“With his toes pointing out and his feet cutting a wide path. A white man plows through the land. He invades far more space than he needs to.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“For tracking him, good. An Indian takes a narrow path, one foot in front of the other. He walks with his thighs and that uses less energy. The way Matt is walking, he’ll tire faster.”
“Then…maybe he won’t have gotten very far,” she said.
“Far enough.”
He was right, of course. “Do you have any idea how long ago he was here?”
“Yesterday.”
Yesterday was a lifetime ago. Not breathing, she wrapped her arms around her middle and took in her surroundings. Copper Mountain loomed over them, beckoning, standing in their way of returning to civilization. Her son was somewhere in that horrible vastness, and she wouldn’t leave this massive prison until she’d found him.
“I want to touch him.” The words came out a whimper; she couldn’t help it. “I need to touch him.”
“I know,” Cord whispered and stepped, surprisingly heavy-footed, toward her.
“It’s the same for both of us,” she managed, because that was what she desperately needed to believe. “Only-” She inched closer to him, then stopped, feeling too raw for anything except honest words. “Cord? Please tell me something. This has to be difficult for you, doesn’t it? You must have all those memories of times when… when you couldn’t do enough.”
“Yes.” He looked down at her. “It is.”
She wanted to weep, to hold and comfort Cord. To absorb his emotions through her senses as she’d never been able to do when they were so young and untested by life.
“Don’t think about that,” she said after a silence of her own making that went on for a long, long time. “It’ll only tie you in knots if you do. At least we now have a starting point. That’s what we have to concentrate on.”
“I know.”
She sucked in air and fought for control over something that threatened to swamp her like a giant wave. “From, uh, from what you can tell about the prints, how is he? I mean, does it look as if he has much energy?”
Cord ducked his head and slipped under a tree branch. His body telegraphed nothing except the message that he knew where he was going-at least for this moment. “A lot of energy.”
