Only His

17

Not until Willow was miles beyond the valley’s narrow entrance did she dismount and remove the shreds of her riding habit from Ishmael’s feet. The stallion snorted as the last thong was taken off and the scraps of material fell away. He stamped impatiently.

«I know,» Willow said quietly, stroking Ishmael’s neck, soothing her edgy horse. «The rags bothered you, but they kept your hooves from making noise on the rocks.»

Unhappily, she looked at the sky. Dawn lay just over the eastern horizon, bleaching stars from the night. She wished she could simply go to ground and hide for the day, but that would be certain disaster. It was much too close to the valley for her to be safe. She had to ride fast and hard through the day and the next night as well.

Tomorrow at dawn she would be able to picket Ishmael in some secluded meadow and sleep at his feet. Tomorrow, but not today.

Willow got back in the saddle and rode on down the mountainside, leaving the hidden valley farther behind with each moment. Around her the land slowly condensed from the night, revealing the silhouettes of distant peaks against the pale sky, and a mixture of grassland and forest nearby. She kept Ishmael just on the margin of the forest, where there was enough open space for speedy travel and enough cover nearby if she needed it.

The heavy shotgun lay across Willow’s thighs. It made for awkward riding at times, but she had discovered during the long night that she liked the feel of the smooth wooden stock and the reassurance of the twin barrels loaded and ready to fire.

Ishmael’s head turned suddenly to the left as he looked across the grassland to a place where a brook flowed between ridges on the way to joining a larger creek. The stallion’s ears pricked forward and his nostrils flared deeply as he tested the wind.

Without hesitation, Willow turned the stallion hard to the right, fleeing whatever he had scented, heading for the cover of the forest. Heart beating double time, she guided the stallion deeper into cover. When the trees were so close around her that the horse had difficulty walking — and she had difficulty ducking branches — she turned and urged Ishmael on a track parallel to the one they had abandoned.

No matter how carefully Willow listened, she heard nothing but the creak of her saddle, the muffled rhythm of Ishmael’s hooves on evergreen needles, and the soft sighing of wind. Gradually, the forest thinned to scattered groves and then scattered trees, and finally nothing but meadow grass, wildflowers, and willows growing on the margins of the stream. The park was at least a mile across at its narrowest and went on for five miles. It was more a basin than a river valley.

The route the journal indicated took her the full length of the grassland. Part of it could be taken along the edge of the forest. Most of it could not. The beginning was the worst. There would be two miles without any real cover.

Willow tightened her grip on the shotgun and the reins as she listened intently and watched the grassland for signs of life. It was difficult to see much in the dim, featureless pre-dawn light. Several shadows that were the size of deer moved slowly along the margin of meadow and trees. Nothing else moved but grass stirred by the wind. It was so quiet she could hear the high, wild cry of an eagle as it flew toward dawn, searching for the first kill of the day. Willow inhaled deeply. There was no smoke in the air, no obvious sign of other people, nothing but an eerie prickling on the back of her neck.

Suddenly, Ishmael shied and snorted. Willow didn’t know whether the stallion was sensing her own uneasiness or if he scented some other horse on the wind.

«Easy, boy,» she murmured. «I don’t like that open space either, but there’s no other way. Let’s get it over with before the sun clears the peaks.»

A touch of Willow’s heels moved Ishmael into a canter. Though smaller than Caleb’s Montana horses, the Arabian had a long, hungry stride.

A shout came from the forest behind and to Willow’s left.

That can’t be Caleb. After what he said last night, he wouldn’t follow me. And even if Matt made Caleb come along, it’s barely dawn. He and Matt are just getting up. Besides, the shout came from the wrong direction for the valley.

Another shout came. Willow looked over her shoulder. Four riders were coming toward her. Their horses were big, dark, long-legged bays. They came closer to her with each stride.

Willow lifted the reins and spoke to the stallion. Instantly, his canter shifted into a gallop. After a few hundred yards she looked over her shoulder. The riders were following, their horses running hard.

Clutching the shotgun, Willow bent low over Ishmael’s neck and spoke to him again, asking for more speed. His stride lengthened as he began to gallop in earnest, running close to the land, flattened out except for the elegant red banner of his raised tail.

Grass and bushes whipped by in a blur. Wind tore tears from Willow’s eyes and tried to drag the breath from her throat. Ishmael’s hooves made a continuousdrumroll of sound. The pace was far too fast for the uncertain light, and too demanding on the stallion’s strength, but there was no choice. She had to outrun the other horses.

Willow settled even closer to Ishmael’s neck, balancing her weight over his driving shoulders where she would be the least burden to him. The shotgun made the position awkward for horse and rider both. After several tries, Willow managed to jam the gun into its saddle scabbard.

When she judged that a mile had gone by, Willow looked over her shoulder. Fear squeezed her heart. The four horses had drawn closer. As she turned around, wind ripped her hat from her head and quicklyunravelled her hair until it streamed out behind like a ghostly flag. Blinking fiercely to clear her eyes of wind-caused tears, Willow leaned even farther toward, holding the reins only inches from the bit, burying her cheek against Ishmael’s hot neck.

As the second mile flew by, the Arabian slowly began pulling away from the pursuing horses. When the men realized it, they started firing.

The fierce pace and the vague light helped Willow. She heard the shots over Ishmael’s deep, hard breathing and the thunder of his hooves, but no bullets came close. Flattening against the stallion’s sweaty neck, Willow praised him and encouraged him while another mile raced by and dawn turned nearby peaks to burning gold.

The creek came out of nowhere, hidden by a fold in the grassland. Willow caught no more than a glimpse of the barrier of rock and water that had been thrown without warning across Ishmael’s path. She clung like a pale shadow as the horse’s whole body bunched in mid-stride, twisted, and then released in a gigantic spring that left the gully behind.

Caught off-stride by having to jump without warning, the stallion stumbled as he landed. Willow braced her feet in the stirrups and hauled up on the reins, lifting Ishmael’s head and literally pulling him back into balance. Catlike, he collected himself and within seconds was running flat out again.

Willow threw a quick glance over her shoulder. The pursuers were falling off the pace. One of the horses had given up entirely. They had been faster than the stallion over the first mile, had held their own for a second mile, but they had lacked the Arabian’s stamina for the long, grinding miles after that.

Relief washed over Willow in a wave that was almost dizzying. She turned back and leaned lower along the stallion’s straining neck. Her voice praised him, telling him how he was running the other horses right into the ground. Ishmael’s ears flickered back and forth, listening to his rider’s words. Though the Arabian was breathing hard, his stride was still even. He hadn’t come to the end of his strength yet, but he would soon. She could only hope that the other horses would be far behind by the time Ishmael could run no more.

As the fourth mile whipped by, a volley of shots came from behind Willow. She looked over her shoulder. All but one of the horses had given up. It had the long, racy look of a Thoroughbred. If it were indeed a racehorse, it wasn’t used to races that went on for miles. It, too, was falling off the pace, but slowly.

And it took the gully like the Irish hunter it was.

Talking over the thunder of Ishmael’s hooves, Willow asked for more of the stallion’s strength. His ears flicked and his neck stretched out a bit more. Willow flattened out with him, crying from more than the wind. She knew she was running her horse far too hard, too fast, too long. She also knew that she had no choice but to ask Ishmael for his last ounce of strength.

By the time the fifth mile went by, the stallion’s breath was sawing in and out of his mouth and lather covered much of his red body, but his stride was still hard and rhythmic. Fearful of what she would see, Willow waited as long as she could before she wiped her eyes on her forearm and looked over her shoulder.

The other horse was falling away rapidly, no longer able to run.

Willow wept with relief and pulled Ishmael back to a slower gallop, easing the strain on his heart and lungs. The long meadow swept past on either side, then bent around a tongue of stone thrusting down from the mountain. No one followed her into the sweeping curve. She pulled lightly on the reins again, slowing Ishmael even more.

And then she pulled back so hard that the stallion reared up and slid on his hocks.

In the first clear light of day, five horsemen were spread across the meadow in front of Willow, closing in on her at a run. Turning around and running from them was futile. Even if Ishmael could take another long race, it would only carry them back to the enemies he had just outrun. Escape to either side wasn’t possible, for the meadow was being pinched between the high, steep walls as the stream descended, eating through the mountain.

Willow did the only thing she could. She yanked out the shotgun and urged Ishmael into a hard gallop once more. Hair streaming out behind her like a golden flag, she raced the stallion toward the men who were dosing in on her.

CALEB saw the flattened grass where Willow’s bedroll had been, counted horses in the gray light, and felt adrenaline rush through his veins.

She couldn’t have run off. We’d have heard her.

Just as he turned away, he saw the pale flash of paper tied to a bush. He stripped off the note, read it, and felt as though he had been dropped in ice-water.

Willow had gone alone into the night rather than face a dawn that held Caleb Black.

«Find her?» Reno asked as he watched Caleb stalk toward him.

«She took Ishmael and rode out last night,» Caleb said flatly.

«We’d have heard her,» Reno said immediately. «She must be hiding in the trees.»

«Her stud’s gone and so is she. She wrapped her horse’s hooves in cloth,» Caleb said. He knelt, wrapped up his bedroll, and tied it behind the saddle he had used as a pillow.

«She left a note dividing up her mares.»

«But why?» Reno asked.

«She loves those mares like a mother loves her kids, but she hates me more. She’d ride through Hell itself to get away from me.»

«Willy’s not a fool,» Reno said. «Where does she think she’s going? She doesn’t know these mountains.»

«She took my shotgun and my journal.» As Caleb talked, he pulled two boxes of ammunition from a saddlebag and shoved them into the pockets of hisshearling coat. «Getting lost will be the least of her problems.»

«Slater,» Reno said, shocked. «She knows he’s out there somewhere. My God. What the hell did you do to Willow last night?»

«I wasagentleman,» Caleb said savagely. «She told me she wanted to sleep alone. I let her. But don’t worry, Reno. I’ll never be that stupid again.»

As sunlight brushed the highest peak, Caleb’s whistle shredded the dawn silence. Two dark horses trotted toward him. He grabbed a bridle, saddle, and saddlebags and headed for Trey as Reno turned and ran back to his own camp. He reappeared a moment later with a bridle in one hand and a saddle thrown over his shoulder.

A short time later, Caleb and Reno emerged from the thicket that protected the entrance to the little valley. Reno didn’t bother to tie the branches together behind them. He simply vaulted into the saddle and began looking for signs. Caleb was ahead of him. He made a sharp gesture, then turned and trotted downstream, making no effort to hide his tracks in the water.

Reno didn’t object. Concealing the location of his valley was the least of their problems at the moment. Finding Willow before Slater did was all that mattered. Their best hope was that Willow had been traveling by moonlight and trying to be quiet. Caleb and Reno were traveling in better light and didn’t give a damn who knew about it. They should overtake her quickly.

Suddenly Caleb reined in and held up his hand in a signal for silence. Both men stood in the stirrups, turning their heads slowly, trying to decide if they really had heard rifle shots, and if so, from which direction.

The sound of a ragged volley came from down below, followed by the boom of a double-barrelledshotgun.

Ruthlessly Caleb spurred Trey, sending the big horse hurtling down the trail at a breakneck pace. Reno was right on his heels. Both men had their rifles out and little hope of getting anywhere in time to use them. The shots had come from downhill and miles away. By the time Caleb and Reno got there, nothing would be left but tracks and spent shells.

WolfeLonetree was waiting for them just where the big meadow began. His horse blocked the tracks made by Ishmael while Willow had looked over the grass for the signs of man.

«Slater’s bunch has the girl and the red stud about five miles down the trail,» he said to Caleb and Reno. «She’s not hurt and not likely to be hurt for a bit. Slater is trying to get her to tell where you are, but if we come charging up, he’ll cut her throat just to spite you. You know his reputation.»

«Yes,» Caleb said in a dipped voice. «I know it. Can you get us close to where he’s holding Willow?»

Wolfe nodded and reined his horse into the meadow. The mare was an odd blue-gray with black mane and tail, a color found in mustangs that were throwbacks to their Spanish ancestors. Three abreast, the horses cantered across the grassland on a long diagonal that finally brought them to a fringe of forest. Once there, they reined in to a walk, resting the horses for whatever might come. Without making a fuss about it, Wolfe made certain his horse was between Reno and Caleb. Speculatively, Wolfe’s indigo eyes went from one man to the other, trying to figure out if Caleb knew who Willow’s husband really was.

After a moment, Wolfe said dryly to Reno, «You must be Matthew Moran.»

«Most people call him Reno,» Caleb said, but his eyes never stopped searching the land ahead.

Wolfe smiled slightly and relaxed. «I always have. Didn’t know you were married, Reno.»

«Willy is my sister,» Reno said. «She’s going to be Caleb’s wife.»

Deep blue eyes went from Caleb to Reno and back to Caleb again. «Wife,» Wolfe repeated softly.

Caleb nodded.

«Well, if ever a woman could put a bridle on you, that blond warrior I saw this morning would be the one.»

«You saw her?» Caleb demanded.

«See that bald knob up there?» Wolfe asked, pointing.

Across the grass and about a thousand feet higher up, there was a stony knob.

«I see it,» he said curtly.

«I was sitting up there with my binoculars, keeping an eye on Slater’s bunch,» Wolfe said. «The girl was a few hundred yards out in the meadow when she saw Jed Slater and some of his men break cover behind her. She didn’t waste time wringing her hands. She sent that red stud of hers into a dead run. Slater was on that big racehorse of his.»

Unhappily, Reno shook his head and said something beneath his breath.

«Then she never had a chance,» Caleb said aloud.

«That’s what Slater thought, too,» Wolfe said. «He let that big horse run. A mile later he had cut Willow’s lead to a hundred yards. Two miles later he was working hard to stay even. Three miles later he was losing ground. He tried shooting, but it was too late.»

«I’ll kill him,» Caleb said.

Wolfe slanted the other man a sideways look. «Wouldn’t surprise me. God knows he’s earned it.»

«Is that when Slater caught Willy?» Reno asked. «Did she pull up when he started shooting?»

Wolfe shook his head. «Hell, no. She kept that red horse at a dead run every foot of the way, shots or no shots. They jumped a hidden gully that had to be every bit of twenty feet across. The stud nearly went down on the other side, but she hauled him back onto his feet and had him collected and running again in nothing flat. And they just kept on running. Never seen anything like it.»

«What?» Reno asked.

«That red stud,» Wolfe said simply. «Your sister ran him flat out for more than five miles. She never raised a whip, never beat him with her heels, never did one damn thing but stick to his neck like a burr. Slater’s big horse is game, but he just didn’t have the heart of that little red stud.»

«Then how did Slater catch her?» Caleb demanded.

«He didn’t. He had split his bunch to look for sign. Half of them were in front of her. She came around a curve in the meadow and there theywere.»Wolf looked at Caleb suddenly. «Are you sure you want to marry her?»

«Dead sure.»

«Damn. I’ve got to tell you, Cal, if it were anyone but you, I’d make a run at her myself.»

Caleb threw Wolfe a narrow look. «Forget it.»

Wolfe’s smile flashed against his dark features. «Don’t blame you a bit. That’s one hell of a girl. She saw the men in front of her and pulled her horse right back onto his hocks. By the time he got four hooves on the ground again, she had seen her best chance and she took it.» Wolfe shook his head, remembering. «She aimed that red stud for the biggest gap in the horsemen, yanked out her shotgun, and headed for the men at a dead run.»

Reno looked shocked. «Willow did that?»

Wolfe nodded, then glanced at Caleb. «You don’t look surprised.»

«I’m not. When theComancheros jumped us, my horse went down. Willow turned around and came back for me and damn the rifle fire.»

«I can see how that would put a man in a marrying frame of mind,» Wolfe said, smiling. «Just watching her take on Slater’s bunch gave me a few ideas in that direction. Those London ladies I met were as lovely as dawn, and would have lasted just about as long out here.»

«Willow did fine as soon as I got her some decent clothes,» Caleb said.

«Thought I recognized those buckskins,» Wolfe said. «It took Slater’s men a minute to figure out it was a girl riding up. Once they did, they sort of settled back, expecting it to end without a fuss. By the time they got their rifles out she was on top of them. They fired a couple of rounds to turn her, she fired back, and one of the men grabbed her right out of the saddle when the stud ran by.»

Caleb’s hand tightened on the rifle stock. «Did he hurt her?»

«Not as much as she hurt him,» Wolfe said, satisfaction in every syllable. «Hemightas well have grabbed a wildcat. By the time I got down off that rock and up to the men, Willow was hog-tied on the ground and the man who had caught her didn’t have enough skin left on his face to be worth shaving.»

Wolfe didn’t mention that Willow looked a little worse for wear, too, her pale cheeks showing the clear imprints of a man’s hand.

«Then Slater came up and started asking questions about you,» Wolfe continued, glancing at Caleb. «Willow said she didn’t know where you were, that she was lost.»

«Did Slater believe her?» Reno asked.

Unhappily, Wolfe took off his hat, ran his fingers through hair as thick and black as night, and snapped his hat back into place. «No. He found a book of some kind she was carrying. Seems there was a map and a lot of notes in it.»

«My journal,» Caleb said. «She took it.»

Wolfe’s eyes narrowed, but he asked no questions despite his curiosity. «Slater told her to point out where she had been. She looked him right in the eye and told him she couldn’t read. He threw the journal in her face and told her she had until the horses were cooled out to learn.»

«How much time do we have left?» Reno asked.

Silently Wolfe scanned the countryside and the angle of the sun. «Maybe another hour. Those horses were lathered from their fetlocks to their ears. That’s why I took a chance and came looking for you. If I hadn’t found you in five more minutes, I was going back.»

Caleb’s mouth flattened. He knew what Wolfe wasn’t saying — Jed Slater was a man accustomed to getting what he wanted in the most efficient manner possible. His reputation for applied cruelty had been earned during a particularly cruel war.

Wolfe looked at Caleb’s harsh expression and knew what the other man was thinking. Hesitating, knowing he shouldn’t, Wolfe nonetheless found himself asking the question that had eaten at him since the first moment he had realized who Slater’s men were pursuing.

«How did you get separated from Willow?» Wolfe asked.

Caleb said nothing.

Reno swore and admitted, «She wrapped her stud’s feet in cloth and sneaked out of the valley.»

There was silence while Wolfe thought about what Reno had said.

«She got past both of you,» Wolfe said finally.

«Yes.»

«Be damned.» He sighed. «Any idea why she took off?»

Reno didn’t wait for Caleb to speak. «Willow thinks Caleb seduced her to get even for me seducing Caleb’s sister.»

«Bloody hell,» Wolfe said, shocked into using a kind of English he had sworn to forget. «Why did —»

«The horses have rested enough,» Caleb interrupted. «Let’s ride.»

Without waiting to see if the other men would follow, Caleb touched spurs to his horse, sending it forward at a fast canter. A minute later, Wolfe passed him, taking the lead. Nothing more was said until Wolfesignalled for a halt.

«We have to leave the horses here,» Wolfe said.

While Reno tied the horses out of sight, Caleb pulled off his boots and switched to moccasins. Wolfe started up the steep shoulder of a ridge that poked out into the grassland. When all three men were belly down just below the crest, they took off their hats and crawled up the last few feet.

Slater’s camp was at the bottom of the slope, a thousand feet away. There was little cover on the slope itself, for it was too steep and too rocky for anything to survive except bits of grass and scattered, very stunted trees. The only other approach to the camp was up a grassy meadow where ten hobbled horses were grazing and five horses were being slowly walked while lather dried after their long, exhausting run.

Ishmael was one of the horses. Though they had been walked for half an hour already, it would be at least another half hour before they were cool enough to be turned out with the other horses. Then Slater would come back and begin questioning Willow.

Before that happened, Willow had to be gone.

Taking care that no sunlight flashed off the spyglass, Caleb searched until he found Willow. She was off to one side of the camp, tied hand and foot among the supplies. Her arms were pulled awkwardly behind her back. A rope went from her wrists, around a waist-high stump, and from there to her ankles.

Ten feet behind her, a man lay propped against a saddle, cutting his fingernails with a pocket knife. His face looked like he had tangled with a wildcat.

Willow straightened. The movement caught Caleb’s eye. For a moment, the hair on her cheeks slid aside, revealing the livid marks of a man’s hand. A stillness came over Caleb for the space of one breath, two, three. He took a long look at the guard. Only then did Caleb resume quartering the area around Slater’s camp, marking out the positions of other men, of available cover, of possible ambush sites.

While Caleb used the spyglass, Wolfe talked in a low voice that carried no farther than the men who were stretched out on either side of him. «If Slater follows his wartime practice, there will be a man guarding Willow and another guard about thirty yards out from camp where you’d least expect it. At the first sign of trouble, both guards will shoot Willow.»

«I saw a man in the rocks off to the right,» Caleb said softly. «I’ll take care of him on the way in.» He collapsed the spyglass and handed it to Reno. «Same for the man close to her, the one with the scratched face. I’ll take particularly good care of him.»

Reno scanned the slope and the approaches to the camp while Caleb took off his heavy coat and made certain his six-gun was secured in the holster.

«You can’t get close to them without being spotted,» Reno said finally, lowering the spyglass. «And if you shoot them, Willow will be the next to die. We’ll have to wait until dark.»

«Slater isn’t a patient man,» Caleb said. «I’m not going to sit here and watch him ask questions and then cut her to ribbons with his steel-tipped quirt when she doesn’t answer. That’s what he did in Mexico when a woman wouldn’t tell him where her husband was.»

Wolfe’s powerful hand damped around Reno’s arm, holding him down when he would have surged upright. «Easy, Reno. Cal likes it even less than you do, but he’s right. If anyone can get Willow out of that camp alive, he can.»

«Here,» Caleb said, handing over his rifle to Wolfe. «Cartridges are in my jacket pocket. At this range, the gun pulls about a half-inch to the left. Willow and I might be in your line of fire for the first fifty feet. After that, I’m taking her up the ravine at the rear of camp. When we’re over the top, we’ll go to ground and wait for you to bring the horses to us.»

Wolfe nodded and began sighting over the rifle, getting the feel of the new weapon.

Caleb turned to Reno. «How quiet are you on a stalk?»

«He’s better than most and not as good as you,» Wolfe said before Reno could answer. «But then, neither am I, and I was raised among the Cheyenne.»

Caleb grunted. «Reno, you can stay up here with your rifle or you can come part of the way with me and we’ll find out how slick you really are with that six-gun.»

Reno smiled wolfishly. «I’ll be stepping on your heels every bit of the way.»

He was talking to himself. Caleb was already moving. Stalking human game took time, and they had damn little of that left before Slater came back into camp.

WILLOW looked out from behind her screen of hair, saw that the horses were still being walked, and went back to trying to get out of the ropes that bound her. Desperate to be free, yet worried about attracting attention from her guard, she jerked and yanked at the bonds under cover of her long hair. Pain raked up from her wrists. Fear helped her to ignore the hurt. She never wanted to see the cruel promise in Slater’s eyes again. TheComanchero Nine Fingers had made her feel unclean.

Slater horrified her.

Despite Willow’s efforts, the ropes felt no looser now than they had when she first began twisting her wrists until the skin was rubbed raw. Fighting the despair that threatened to overwhelm her, she jerked first one wrist, then the other, hoping if she made herself bleed, her wrists and hands would be slippery enough to evade the tight bonds.

A glance at the guard told Willow that he must have finished hacking at his fingernails. He was lying on his back, his mouth open, dead asleep.

Willow began yanking openly on her bonds, taking advantage of the guard’s midday nap.

«Don’t move, honey. I don’t want to cut you.»

For an instant, Willow thought she had gone mad and was hearing things. Then she felt her bonds giving way and had to bite back a cry of relief and joy.

«Ease your ankles around to the right,» Caleb said in a voice that was barely audible.

There was a soft rustling sound as Willow inched her feet around toward the back of the stump. For a moment she felt a sensation of pressure on her ankles, followed by a slight rocking motion. The rope at her ankles fell away.

«Back up slowly until you’re behind the stump. No! Don’t watch the camp. That’s my job. You watch what you’re doing.»

Willow scooted in slow motion until the stump was between her and the camp. Caleb was lying on his stomach, his body flat to the ground.

«Lie down real slow and crawl like a snake past me toward that little crease in the grass. See it?»

She nodded, lay down, and began wriggling along Caleb’s length. When her head drew even with his chest, he gave her more terse directions, his voice so low she wondered if she was really hearing the words at all.

«The crease leads to a gully that’s about a foot deep. Go left and keep snaking along uphill until you get to the rocks. Your brother is on the left, behind them. Whatever youdo, keepdown. Reno and Wolfe will have to shoot over us if we’re spotted.»

Willow wanted to ask questions, but a look at the bleak yellow clarity of Caleb’s eyes closed her throat. She ducked her head and pushed herself forward on her stomach, feeling as exposed as an egg on a fence rail. Each time she looked up to see how far she was from the gully, it seemed that she had made no progress at all. But if she started to go faster, Caleb’s hand clamped around her ankle, forcing her to go so slowly she wanted to scream with frustration and fear.

When Willow finally reached the gully, she discovered that it provided scant cover. Less than a foot deep, with wide, shallow, gently sloping sides, the gully was little better than grass when it came to hiding Willow and Caleb. The rocks he had mentioned were more than a hundred feet away. Willow put her cheek dose to the ground and pushed herself along with arms that were trembling from the strain of moving so slowly and so awkwardly.

They were fifty feet from the rocks when one of Slater’s men glanced over and discovered Willow was missing.