Only His

10

For several miles Caleb kept the pace at a hard gallop, taking advantage of what cover the land provided and keeping a watch on the gently rolling parkland to the right. They splashed through several small and three large streams. At the fourth big stream he reined in, checked the compass, and turned west to follow the stream back to its source in the towering mountains.

Despite the new direction, for a time the land itself remained unchanged. There were still grassy, gently rolling rises, occasional pine and aspen groves, and snow-shrouded peaks in the distance. Gradually, it became clear that the stream Caleb had chosen to follow cut deeply into the mountain range. Forested mountains began to close in on both sides. In some places the width of the park shrank to less than a mile. At times the forest swept down in long ragged fringes that almost met, choking the meadow grasses.

Caleb slowed to a fast canter, a pace he held even after sweat darkened the horses’ coats and lather began to appear in thin white streaks on shoulder and flank. The Montana horses were breathing deeply but easily. The Arabians found the pace harder to maintain. Dove began breathing audibly, great gulps of air that flared her nostrils as big as fists. Yet she kept running her heart out, spurred on by nothing more than Willow’s voice talking softly in her ear, praising her.

After what seemed an eternity to Willow, Caleb allowed the horses to drop back to a walk. It wasn’t kindness that forced the change, but necessity. The mountains were closing in once more and the land was rising so steeply beneath the horses’ feet that anything more than a walk would be foolish unless the alternative was immediate death. It hadn’t come to that yet, but he was betting it would.

«Get off,» Caleb said, dismounting as he spoke. «We’ll swap horses. Take a walk in the bushes if you need to. You won’t get another chance until full dark.»

Willow was more concerned with her tired mare than with herself. No sooner were Willow’s feet on the ground than she yanked at the cinch and stripped off the saddle so that Dove could breathe more easily.

Caleb looked up, saw that Willow had taken care of Dove, and went to Deuce.

«Put your saddle on Ishmael,» he said when she headed toward Penny, lugging the heavy saddle. «We’ve got a harder ride ahead of us than behind us.»

Willow stopped and stared at Caleb in disbelief. «Don’t you think we lost them?»

«No. I chose the closest pass out of that basin I know, but they’re sure to know about it, too. I can’t guarantee we’ll get over the divide before they catch up. So all we can do is run and keep running. But your horses still aren’t used to the altitude. TheComanchero horses are.»

«We’ve been heading south, haven’t we?»

Caleb nodded.

«TheComancheros rode south,» she said.

«They sure did.»

«What if we run into them before we even turn off for the pass?»

«Then we’ll be flat out of luck.»

Willow bit her lip. «But if we beat them to the pass trail, we’ll be all right?»

«Unless they get there first.»

«But how would they know we took a particular trail unless they came all the way back here and tracked us?»

«It’s the only decent pass for sixty miles in any direction,» Caleb said. «Even a drunkenComanchero can figure out where we’re going to be. Up this creek about ten miles there’s a place where another route comes in from the south and joins with the pass trail. We’ve got to beat them to that fork.»

For an instant Willow closed hereyes. Tenmiles. Her horses couldn’t run for ten more miles. The Arabians were doing worse than Caleb’s mounts even though they weren’t carrying as much weight.

Caleb jerked the pack saddle off Deuce and put on the riding saddle, talking while he worked. «Problem is, if we run much more, we’ll start losing the mares. Ishmael is stronger, so you’ll ride him. If the mares can’t keep up, they’re on their own.» Caleb looked at Willow, pinning her with the intensity of his golden eyes. «Tell me now, Willow. If there’s no other way, which would you rather be — dead or with theComancheros?»

Willow remembered Nine Fingers’ pale blue eyes watching her. Bile rose in her throat.

«Dead,» she said without hesitation.

For a long moment Caleb looked at her. She returned the look unflinchingly.

«So be it,» Caleb said in a low voice. «You would be dead pretty quick anyway. White women don’t last more than a few months withComancheros, especially blondes. Too many men lust after yellow hair. But the choice had to be yours.»

Willow turned away, saying nothing. There was really nothing she could say.

When she came back from the forest, the horses were saddled. Dove was still breathing hard, but the sweat was drying on her body. Caleb was standing by Ishmael, waiting to help Willow mount.

«That’s not necessary anymore,» she said. «I can get on by myself.»

«I know.»

Caleb held out his hands, forming a stirrup for her. She stepped into it and was lifted into the saddle. For just a moment she felt his palm caress her calf gently, but the touch was so brief, and he turned away so quickly, she wondered if she had imagined it. His face had looked so grim.

«Caleb?»

He turned back toward her.

«No matter what happens,» Willow said in a rush, «don’t blame yourself. You warned me in Denver that my Arabians couldn’t take the pace. You were right.»

One long step brought Caleb back to Willow’s side. «Come here,» he said huskily.

When she bent down, his long fingers caught her face, held her for the space of a breath, and then he took her mouth in a swift, fierce kiss that ended before she could respond.

«Your horses have done just fine. In fact, they’ve been one hell of a surprise,» Caleb said against Willow’s lips. «And so have you. Stay right behind me, honey. Those are grand mares, but they aren’t worth dying for.»

Before Willow could say anything, Caleb released her and swung into the saddle. He lifted the reins and the big animal leaped into a canter. To Caleb’s surprise, even without Ishmael’s prodding, the mares clung like burrs to the stallion’s flanks, running free as mustangs. If they lagged, Willow spoke to them and was answered by a flick of ears and a faster pace.

Many times in the next ten miles Caleb heard Willow calling to her Arabians and saw the mares respond, working harder to keep the punishing pace. As the miles raced by, he found himself praying that the mares wouldn’t falter, for he finally understood why Willow had refused to leave them behind. There was a bond between Willow and the Arabians that couldn’t be described. They would run themselves to death for her, with never a whip or a spur laid against their silky hides.

«Almost there,» Caleb said, turning in the saddle until he could look at Willow. «See those trees? All we have to do is —»

Caleb’s words ended abruptly as rifle fire shattered the mountain silence. Deuce stumbled and went down. Caleb grabbed his rifle and kicked free of the stirrups. Three more shots came in rapid succession, then it was quiet again but for the thunder of hooves as the Arabians swept by. Caleb dove behind a fallen tree as a fourth shot rang out.

Willow hauled hard on the reins, spinning Ishmael around so tightly that great chunks of earth flew from beneath his hooves. There was no time for thought, no time for planning, nothing but the knowledge that Caleb was afoot in a place where to be afoot was to die. She bent low over Ishmael’s lathered neck and sent him back down the trail to Caleb, asking the stallion for everything he had. As the Arabian swept past the log, Willow called out to Caleb.

«Get on behind me!»

Rifle in his right hand, Caleb came up off the ground like a mountain cat. As Ishmael surged past, Caleb grabbed the saddle horn with his free hand and leaped on behind Willow. Despite the much greater burden, the stallion hit his full pace within three long strides.

Willow expected bullets to shower around them, but nothing came except adrumroll of hooves as Ishmael raced past the confused mares, sweeping them up in his wake. Trey appeared alongside, running hard. When Caleb looked back, Deuce was on his feet again and running raggedly after his trail mate.

A rifle went off very close, making Willow cringe in the instant before she realized it was Caleb firing.

«Cut right!» he yelled.

Instantly, Willow reined the stallion hard to the right. No sooner had the horse set off on the new course than shots sizzled past, kicking up dirt where Ishmael would have been had he not been turned aside.

«Get to the top of that rise before they can reload!» shouted Caleb.

Bending low over Ishmael’s lathered neck, Willow called to her straining stallion. He answered with a burst of speed despite the steepness of the way and the weight of two riders.

«I’ll drop off at the top in the boulders,» Caleb said. «Take the horses on into the trees. Hear me?»

«Yes,» she said loudly.

«Just another hundred yards,» Caleb said under his breath, looking at a clump of boulders that marked the end of the rise. «Run, you red demon.»

Ishmael’s steel-shod hooves dug into the slope, tearing out clots of earth as the stallion attacked the steep mountainside. By the time Ishmael surged over the top, the horse’s breath was coming in labored groans.

Caleb dropped off and landed running, rifle in hand. He took cover among the boulders as a bullet whined off granite four feet away. Three more shots were fired, but none of the slugs came close enough for Caleb to hear where they hit.

«Too eager, boys,» he muttered. «You have to take your time and aim. Especially when all you have are single-shot rifles.»

Following his own advice, Caleb chose his target carefully from among the seven that were offered. An instant after he squeezed the trigger, he was rewarded by a scream of surprise and pain from down the slope as aComanchero threw up his hands and fell from his horse. The other six scattered to either side, seeking cover in the meadow. Caleb stood up and fired shot after shot, knowing he would never have a better chance of shortening the odds.

But the range was five hundred yards and increasing with every second. In the end Caleb managed to hit only two more men before he had to take cover again himself. As he dropped behind the boulders he mentally counted the bullets left in the rifle. Five. He would have to let the remainingComancheros get in damned close and then finish them off with the pistol. At least he could reload that weapon with bullets from his belt. And when he ran out of bullets for the six-gun, there was always his knife.

Caleb smiled sourly at his own thoughts. The raiders were greedy and over-eager, but not totally stupid. They wouldn’t make things easy for him. Either they would wait until dark and rush him, or they would spread out and come in from all sides at once. They might easily have reinforcements on the way. Numbers, time, and geography were on the raiders’ side. They had taken cover smack across the route to the only pass around.

Deuce’s ringing whinny came up the slope and was answered by Trey. Like the Arabians, the Montana horses had been raised together. They would stick close to each other if they could. Trotting raggedly, Deuce struggled up the slope despite the bullet wound gleamingredly across his chest.

Caleb thought longingly of the extra ammunition tucked into the saddlebags that Deuce carried. He considered making an attempt to get into them, but discarded the idea. If he whistled the horse over, the raiders would guess he was going after more ammunition or weapons and would shoot Deuce dead before the horse got close. If he tried to get to Deuce, Caleb would be shot dead. The horse was a hundred yards wide of the boulders and there was nothing but grass for cover in between.

Caleb watched Deuce vanish into the trees, then turned his attention back to the raiders. Nothing was moving. The men had gone to ground in whatever cover they could find. Methodically, Caleb began checking the field of fire on all sides, sighting on possible bits of cover and gauging the range.

When Deuce limped up to his trail mate, Willow grabbed the reins and spoke soothingly to the frightened animal. As soon as Deuce would allow it, she unfastened the saddlebags, knowing that was where Caleb kept his spare ammunition. She wanted to loosen the cinch to ease Deuce’s breathing, but was afraid to. They might have to mount up and ride with no warning.

Deuce was too edgy to allow Willow close to his chest, but she saw enough. The wound was shallow, as much a burn as a gouge. It was the swelling on the horse’s left foreleg that spelled trouble. She doubted that Deuce would be able to carry a rider at all, much less one of Caleb’s size.

Nor could the mares carry Caleb. Not right away. They were still breathing hard, trembling, all but run into the ground. Ishmael was hard used. So was Trey, but of them all, Trey was in the best shape.

Don’t think about the horses, Willow told herselfgrimly. Youcan’t do anything for them now. What you can do is get these cartridges to Caleb.

As Willow dug quickly through the heavy saddlebags, she found five boxes of ammunition. Two contained shotgun shells. Three contained cartridges, but one of the boxes had a different size of ammunition than the other two. She didn’t know which would go with the rifle and which with Caleb’s pistol. There was also the spyglass, a compass, and other miscellaneous personal items.

In the end Willow decided to take everything, not knowing what might be useful to Caleb. She grabbed the saddlebags, dragged them into place on her shoulder, picked up the shotgun, and walked cautiously to the edge of the trees. Caleb was a hundred feet away from her at almost the same elevation, separated from her by a low runoff channel. The distance was too great for her to throw a box of ammunition, much less the saddlebags. But if she crawled and was quick about it, she shouldn’t be visible from below for more than a few seconds.

«Caleb,» Willow called softly, «I’m coming in behind you.»

He spun around, ready to tell her to do no such fool thing.

It was too late. She was on her hands and knees already, crawling toward him with no more cover around her than the low ditch could provide.

Swiftly, Caleb turned back and began firing at places where raiders had gone to ground, hoping to pin them down while Willow crossed the trough. Realizing what he was doing, Willow scrambled to her feet and raced toward the rocks. Just as she threw herself down beside Caleb, bullets began whining off the nearby boulders.

«You little fool!» Caleb said savagely. «You could have been killed!»

«I —» The need to breathe shut off Willow’s words. Panting from a mixture of altitude, exertion, and fear, she fought for oxygen.

Caleb took the short-barrelledshotgun from Willow’s hands, pointed itdownslope, and waited for movement. When it came, he let go with both barrels. He didn’t expect to kill anyone at that range, but he sure could raise welts on their hides withdoubleaught buckshot. At the very least, theComancheros wouldn’t stick their heads up for a minute or two.

When Caleb reached into the saddlebag for more shotgun shells, the correct box was thrust into his hands. He reloaded quickly, fired, reloaded, and glanced back to see how Willow was doing. She had two other boxes of ammunition out and opened, ready to be used, and was puzzling over how to reload his rifle. Though she tried to conceal it from him, her hands trembled when she wasn’t actually using them.

«I’ll do that,» Caleb said. «Take the shotgun and sit with your back to me. If you see anyone sneaking up, don’t waste time telling me about it. Just shoot.»

Willow nodded and took the shotgun, relieved to have something to do with her hands. She sat cross-legged and looked from side to side, hoping she wouldn’t see a man creeping up on them.

They aren’t men. They’re coyotes jumping around on their crooked hind legs.

Silently, Willow repeated Caleb’s grim reassurance and watched for movement. At the back of her mind she counted the shells Caleb was loading into his rifle with a speed that spoke of great familiarity.

«Youarea one-man army,» she said finally.

«You’re not half as surprised as those raiders were,» Caleb said, smiling wolfishly. «They were sure they had me after I fired that one lone shot. It won’t last, though. Sooner or later they’ll find someone to sell them repeating rifles. Then the civilized folks will be in a hell of a mess.»

Rifle fully loaded once more, Caleb shifted position until he could peer through a notch between two boulders. The raiders’ wiry, ugly little ponies were scattered across the meadow, feeding eagerly, indifferent to the booming of guns around them.

«How bad is Deuce?» Caleb asked.

«He’s burned across the chest. His left foreleg is swelling, probably strained when he fell. I don’t think he’ll be able to take a rider very far.»

«You’d be surprised, honey. Is he bleeding much?»

«No.»

«Any other horses hurt?»

«The mares are done,» Willow said, trying to keep her voice as unemotional as Caleb’s. «They’ll follow as long as they can, but —»

A big hand squeezed Willow’s shoulder gently. «What about Ishmael?»

«He’s tired, but still strong enough to take me anywhere I tell him to go.» «That’s one game stud,» Caleb said admiringly. «Makes me understand why Wolfe is so set on mustangs.»

«What do you mean?»

«Mustangs are descended from the Spanish horses, which came from Arabian stock. Don’t judge all mustangs by those ponies out there. They’re as mongrel as their riders. Tough, though. Damned tough. Give them a hatful of hay and less water and they’ll go a hundred miles a day for weeks at a time.»

While Caleb spoke, he reached into one of the saddlebags and came out with the spyglass. Methodically, he began covering the ground in front of him, quartering from side to side. The glass brought up each blade of grass, each shift from sun to shade, each suspicious bit of color or movement. Caleb looked up from the glass, then through it, mentally marking the spot of every raider the spyglass picked out.

The glass confirmed what Caleb had already suspected. TheComancheros were scattered out in such a way that there was little or no chance of sneaking through them to the pass trail — especially with seven tired horses.

Caleb turned and began studying the land behind him through the spyglass, seeking anything that looked like a possible route out or enemies sneaking up. He saw nothing human moving, even after several very careful sweeps. Yet something kept nagging at his mind, something about the shape of the land itself.

«Dad’s journal,» he whispered suddenly.

«What?»

«Switch places with me.»

Willow scrambled around Caleb.

«If something starts movingdownslope, shoot,» he said.

While Willow kept an eye on the raiders, Caleb pulled his father’s journal out of the saddlebags and flipped through the pages quickly. He studied first one page, then a second, then the first again, flipping back and forth and checking the peaks rising behind the boulders.

«There’s another pass,» Caleb said in a low voice, reading quickly. «It’s a righteous bastard, eleven thousand feet and then some, but it can be climbed by a horse.»

«Do theComancheros know about it?»

«Doubt it. According to Dad, no one had used the route for a long time when he saw it. It’s from the time before Indians had horses, when going twenty miles out of the way for an easier pass meant losing a lot of travel time.»

The silence was destroyed by a single shot that whined off the rocks shielding them. Despite herself, Willow flinched and made a low sound.

«It’s all right,» Caleb said, setting aside the journal and sighting down the barrel of his rifle. «They just want to see if we’re still awake up here.»

The rifle leaped and a crack of sound made Willow flinch. Even before the echo reverberated, Caleb shot again and again, pouring bullets into the areas where he had seen raiders through the spyglass. He fed shells into the rifle in the pauses between shots, mentally thanking Winchester’s cleverness in making a weapon that could be reloaded almost as fast as it could be fired.

Several choked screams told Caleb that his aim had been good. He kept firing until one of the raiders broke and ran for better cover. Carefully, Caleb shot once more. The runner took a step and fell face down. He didn’t move again. Two shots came in return, but only two. The remainingComancheros weren’t in any hurry to collect the bounty on Caleb’s scalp.

Sound cracked through the area, making Willow flinch in the instant before she realized that it was thunder rather than rifle fire rolling down the mountainside. Before she could take another breath, a barrage of water pelted down, announcing the beginning of the afternoon thunderstorms. Within minutes it was raining so hard that she couldn’t see more than a hundred feet in any direction.

«Take the shotgun and run for the horses,» Caleb said as he fireddownslope once more, hoping to discourage theComancheros from coming up the slope under the cover of rain.

«What about you?»

«Run,» he commanded.

Willow ran.

Caleb’s shots rang out behind her, yet by the time Willow saw the horses, he had caught up and was running right beside her.

«Watch for raiders,» Caleb said curtly.

While Willow watched theirbacktrail, Caleb yanked the riding saddle off Deuce, relieving the injured horse’s burden. For a moment he considered using one of the mares as a pack animal, but a single look at their hanging heads and the lather dissolving on their coats beneath the driving rain told Caleb the mares were worse off than Deuce. Working quickly, he transferred as much equipment as he could to the saddlebags and bedrolls tied on behind the riding saddles. When he was finished, Deuce was carrying less than thirty pounds, none of it vital for their survival.

Caleb pulled on hisshearling jacket and lifted Willow into Ishmael’s saddle.

«It will be a hard, steady climb,» he said in a low voice. «Stick with it even if Deuce and the mares don’t. Promise me, Willow.»

Biting her lower lip, Willow nodded.

Caleb reached up and brushed her cheek with his fingertips, leaving a trail of warmth in the cold rain. Then he swung up on Trey’s back.

«I’m not going to stop short of the summit,» he said. «We need every bit of daylight to get over that pass.»

Even as Willow started to say something, Caleb merged with the rain and vanished. The horses filed out in the driving rain, with Deuce limping in the rear.

After the first thirty minutes, Willow stopped listening forComancheros and looking over her shoulder every few minutes. After the first hour, she stopped checking to see that the Arabians were following. They were keeping up well enough, but Willow didn’t know how much longer the mares would be able to go on. Despite the slow pace, they were breathing as though they had been trotting for hours. True to Caleb’s prediction, Deuce kept on coming despite his game leg, walking quickly enough to overtake the slowest mare.

They climbed steadily, relentlessly, until Willow couldn’t remember a time when the land hadn’t tilted steeply in front of her. Willow alternated between a headache and a lightheadedness that made her fear for her health. Beneath heavy curtains of rain, the dark shape of spruce trees appeared more frequently among pines and aspen. Every few minutes she peered through the sheets of water to where Caleb was, clinging to his presence as the only certainty in a world gone the color of rain.

Thunder boomed occasionally, but no longer startled Willow. They forded a stream and climbed a forested, rolling ridge on the far side. Gradually the route leveled out somewhat, then ascended into another grassy park. A clean, racing creek boiled down the center of the clearing between shrub-covered banks. Caleb crossed the water and turned upstream. The land rose steadily beneath the horses’ feet once more, making even a slow walk an effort.

Once, when it was very steep, Caleb dismounted. Willow followed suit before she led Ishmael toward the rain-shrouded figures ahead. After thirty feet she went to her knees and swayed dizzily.

Caleb appeared from the rain and caught Willow up in a hug. «You should be riding, honey. You’re not used to the altitude.»

«It didn’t bother me — this much — in Denver,» she panted.

«You were four thousand feet lower in Denver. We’re almost two miles high here.»

Willow looked at Caleb with dazed eyes. «No wonder — my horses —»

«Yes,» he said. «But they keep on going just the same. Like you.»

For the first time Willow noticed the bruise on his forehead.

«You’re hurt!»

«I’m all right. You’re dizzier than I am and there’s not a mark on you.»

The relief in Willow’s hazel eyes was as transparent and intense as her concern had been. Caleb held her even closer, savoring her emotion. It had been a long, long time since anyone but Willow had worried about him.

«Thank you,» he said finally.

«For what?»

«For coming back after me when bullets were flying and a lot of men would have cut and run. For having the sense to know I’d need the saddlebags and the courage to bring them to me. For laughing when other women would have cried or whined or yelled at me. For being a hell of a good trail partner.»

Willow’s eyes widened in the instant before she looked away from Caleb, feeling lightheaded again. The blaze of his whiskey-colored eyes warmed her as no fire could have.

«That’s very kind of you,» she said huskily.

«I’m not a kind man.»

«Yes, you are. I know I’ve caused you trouble. Because of my stubbornness about the Arabians, you’ve had to risk your life again and again.» Willow smiled wearily and glanced up at him from beneath her eyelashes. «So when I want to scream or yell or whine, I think of what it would be like without you and I keep my mouth closed.»

Caleb laughed and held Willow even closer. He heard her ragged sigh, felt her body leaning trustingly against his, and tried not to think about a man called Reno.

She’s far too good a woman for a rounder like Matthew Moran.

No sooner had the thought come than it crystallized into a vow within the silence of Caleb’s mind. Willow’s capacity for courage and loyalty and passion deserved better than a man who seduced and abandoned young girls. At the very least, Willow’s deep sensuality deserved better than a man who left her alone for so long she forgot how to kiss.

But not how to respond. She hadn’t forgotten that. The memory of her headlong passion and soft, sultry body was an ache and a wild hunger within Caleb.

No woman who loved another man could respond like that — so quick, so deep. She’ll be mine before she sees her fancy man again. I’ll seduce Willow so completely that when he’s dead, she’ll turn to me instead of mourning a fancy man who isn’t worth a single one of her tears.

She can’t love him. She simply can’t.

Caleb bent and caught Willow’s mouth beneath his own, sealing the silent vow. The kiss was unlike any he had ever given a woman, tender and yet so deeply passionate he felt as though he was sinking into Willow, sipping from her very soul. When he finally lifted his head once more, she was trembling. He carried her to Ishmael and put her in the saddle. The look he gave her was as intense as the kiss had been.

«Stay close to me,» he said almost roughly.

Before Willow could answer, Caleb had turned away. He mounted Trey, turned the big horse upstream, and began leading the way toward the remote, difficult notch in the ramparts that his father had named Black Pass.

Wind moaned down from the unseen heights, ruffling the horse’s long manes. Caleb knew what waited on the far side of the pass, for his father had fallen in love with the series of high valleys leading down into an immense park. The park was known to white men, for eventually it provided a much more accessible passage between high peaks and mountain ranges than Black Pass. The side valleys leading up to Black Pass were unknown to white men. Even Indians avoided them, for game could be found in far easier places. Ancient tribes, however, had used the pass for their own reasons. No man knew what those reasons were, but the ghostly trail still remained, whispering of men long dead.

Caleb turned aside from the stream, for beavers had built several dams, killing the pines and gnawing down the aspens for a thousand feet in all directions, turning the meadow to a shallow lake. Several creeks came in. A few miles beyond, another valley joined the first, isolating the ridge whose flank they had been following in order to stay beyond the reach of the bog that edged the beaver pond.

After an hour the beaver dams receded behind the horses. The meadow narrowed to no more than fifty yards across, then forty, then ten. The route climbed up, leaving the stream to cut its way through solid rock below them in a canyon far too steep for a horse. The forest thinned, vanished into a kind of scrub, then reappeared as they descended the shoulder of the mountain into another valley where they could walk beside the stream once more.

Soon the route began climbing again. Mountains closed in on either side and the land pitched up beneath the horses’ hooves. The forest crowded in, but somehow Caleb always found a way around deadfalls and aspen groves where the trees were so tightly interwoven they offered no passage to a man, much less a horse. The sound of the stream became deep-throated and the way steep.

Caleb checked his compass every time a side creek came in, searching for the brawling little ribbon of water that would lead to another, higher valley, and from there to yet another and another until finally the highest level of the notch was reached and the divide was crossed.

There were no pines now, only spruce, fir, aspen, and a stunted form of willow that grew in avalanche chutes and in the small, boggy meadows cut by the stream. Caleb sensed the increasing openness of the country around him, the falling away of lesser peaks and ridges as the horses climbed up the backbone of the continent. His father had said the view from the top was as breathtaking as the altitude. Caleb had no way to check his father’s observation. Rain fell steadily, obscuring anything farther than a few hundred feet away.

Lightning danced on the heights of an invisible peak, sending thunder belling repeatedly down the mountain, violent cannonades that sounded like explosions and rifle fire mixed together. Heads down, ears back, the horses walked into the teeth of the storm with tall, dark evergreens whipping and moaning overhead. The surrounding forest shielded them from the worst of the wind, but not from the ice-tipped rain that gradually turned to sleet.

They climbed with the violence of the storm all around them, sound and light hammering down until Willow screamed in fear but the storm drowned even that, leaving her feeling as though she were suspended in a cauldron of sound so overwhelming it became a punishing kind of silence. The air thinned until she was breathless just sitting on Ishmael and doing nothing more than hanging on with hands numbed by wet and cold.

And still the trail climbed. Sleet slowly was transformed into fat white flakes of snow swirling on the wind like petticoats of icy lace. Thunder came less frequently, at a greater and greater distance, finally becoming a muttering of the air, as much sensed as heard. Snow fell until it was ankle deep. The stream took on a dark, oily sheen.

Caleb checked his compass, turned Trey to the left, and began a long, ascending diagonal across the mountainside. In the fresh snow, the ancient, abandoned trail gleamed in a different shade of white than the snow falling on ground that had never been disturbed by the passage of man. Caleb looked at the ghostly thread snaking away to the overhanging clouds and wondered if any of the horses had the strength to take it.

The aspen vanished first, then the fir, then the spruce, until the forest was nothing more than a black-and-white fringe licking down sheltered ravines that lay a thousand feet down the mountain. Caleb and Willow were suspended between a mercury sky and a white ground. Veils of snow lifted and rippled, sporadically concealing and revealing the sweeping landscape. Far below, the creek was a black ribbon coiling through a steep, narrow, snow-choked ravine.

Gusts of wind tore aside the falling snow, unveiling a lid of clouds across rugged mountains whose very tops were still hidden in mist. For the first time Caleb saw an end to the climb…but not soon. There was at least another mile to go, another thousand feet to climb on a ghost trail slanting across broken rock, clawing up and up until finally the last ice-shattered ridge was climbed and melted snow flowed west, not east.

Caleb reined in and dismounted. Ishmael and Deuce were within two hundred feet of him. The mares were more spread out as they struggled upward. The last two mares were lost in the veil of snow that the others had climbed free of. Caleb waited, but no more Arabians appeared. Then the wind wailed and pushed aside more curtains of snow, revealing two mares a mile below, laboring slowly up the trail.

Ishmael walked the last few yards to Trey, then stood head down, blowing hard, fighting for each breath in the thin air. Caleb helped Willow down, supporting her with one arm while he loosened the saddle cinch. When the wind was still, steam peeled away from the horses in great plumes and the rasp of their labored breathing was loud.

«I’ll — walk,» Willow said.

«Not yet.»

Caleb swung Willow up onto Trey, tied Ishmael on a long rope, and fastened it to Trey’s saddle. Caleb took the reins and began walking up the trail, leading the big horse. Willow looked over her shoulder, saw Ishmael following and Deuce limping not far behind, and prayed that the mares would be able to keep going.

The route became steeper, the snow deeper, until Caleb was sinking in to his knees at each step. The horses were no better off. Every few hundred feet Caleb stopped and let the horses blow. Even Trey was feeling it now. He was breathing like a horse that had been run hard and long. Willow couldn’t bear to listen. She knew her weight was making it worse. Despite the stabbing pain in her head and the nausea that stirred in her stomach, she started to dismount.

«Stay put,» Caleb said curtly. «Trey is a lot — stronger than you are.»

Caleb’s words were spaced for the quick, deep breaths that still couldn’t satisfy his body’s hunger for oxygen. He was accustomed to altitude, but not to being more than eleven thousand feet high. The thin air and days of hard riding had worn him down as surely as it had the horses.

By the time they reached the base of the last, steep pitch, Caleb was stopping to catch his breath every thirty feet and the horses were strung out for miles down the trail. The clouds hadunravelled into separate patches nestling between ridges. In the distance, rich gold light glistened where the late afternoon sun poured into valleys between cloud-capped peaks.

Trey stood with his head down, his breath groaning harshly, his sides heaving. He might be able to walk farther, but not carrying even so light a weight as Willow. Caleb loosened the cinch and pulled Willow from the saddle. He put the heavy saddlebags and bedroll over his left shoulder, supported Willow with his right arm, and began to walk up the trail. He paused only once, sending a shrill whistle over his shoulder. Trey lifted his head and reluctantly began walking once more.

Wind had blown away the snow to reveal the rocky bones of the mountain itself. The rocks were dark, almost black, shattered by the weight of time and ice. The ghostly trail vanished, but there was no doubt of their destination. Caleb fixed his eyes on the barren ridge rising in front of him, blocking out half the sky. He barely noticed the receding clouds and the thick golden light washing over the land.

Willow tried to walk alone. She managed it for twenty breaths, then sixty, then a hundred. She thought she was still walking when she felt Caleb’s arm tighten around her waist, all but lifting her. Vaguely she realized that she would have fallen without his support. She tried to apologize.

«Don’t talk,» he gasped. «Walk.»

After several racking breaths, Willow managed to take a few more steps. Caleb stayed beside her, breathing hard, supporting her, urging her on. Together they struggled up the steep, stony ridge, hearing nothing but their own pounding heartbeats and the rasp of their overworked lungs. Every few minutes, Caleb would pause long enough to send another shrill whistle back down the trail, calling to Trey and Deuce, who had outpaced all the mares.

Caleb shifted the saddlebags and bedroll to his other shoulder, caught Willow up again, and resumed walking. He stopped for breath every thirty steps, then every twenty, but even that wasn’t enough for Willow. The long days of riding, the uncertainty, the fight with theComancheros, the altitude, everything had combined to rob her of strength.

Grimly, Willow struggled onward, trying not to lean on Caleb. It was impossible. Without his strength she wouldn’t have been able to stand.

«Almost — there,» Caleb said.

Willow didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Her steps were only inches apart, more stumbling than true walking.

Caleb looked up at the route ahead and remembered with unnatural clarity the words his father had written in his journal to describe BlackPass: Steep, rough, and colder than a witch’s tit. But the pass is there all right, for any man with spine to take her. Up and over the Continental Divide, climbing until you’re looking in God’s eye, high enough to hear angels sing, if you can hear anything but your heart pounding and your breath sawing.

Without warning, Caleb and Willow were there, standing on the brink of heaven, heart pounding and breath sawing and angels singing all around. Caleb’s arm loosened around Willow, allowing her to slip to the ground. He dropped the saddlebags and bedroll next to her, sank down, and pulled her against his chest.

She slumped gratefully against him. For a long time she fought desperately for breath. Finally her breathing slowed. She realized that Caleb was cradling her, gently stroking her hair and cheeks, telling her again and again that the worst was over…they had finally reached the highest point in the pass. She gave a long, shuddering sigh and opened her eyes.

Caleb saw the color returning to Willow’s skin and felt a relief so great it was almost pain. He gathered her even closer, shifting around until she was looking toward the setting sun. The clouds were all but gone, reduced to incandescent golden banners flying from the highest peaks. The snow that had fallen was already melting, threading back down the mountain peak in silent black tears.

«Look,» Caleb said, pointing.

Willow looked at a hand-sized patch of snow that blazed nearby in the dying sun, weeping tears of gold. She watched a drop form and slowly separate from the still-frozen snow, falling away in the first instant of its long journey back to the sea.

The water was flowing west, toward the setting sun.