Raven and the Cowboy: A Loveswept Historical Romance (30 page)

Tucker figured they were within an hour’s climb of their destination. Lacy patches of clouds floated low, swirling around them and moving down the valley behind. An
eerie sense of forboding settled in with the fog. Even the birds had hushed. Tucker had spent the last two hours searching the rocks overhead and the slope behind.

He couldn’t explain the feeling he had. But if the area weren’t so barren, he would swear that they were being watched. The dream, he decided. It had spooked him and he couldn’t get rid of the image of Raven at the bottom of that crack in the earth.

“We’ll camp here for the night and wait for good light before we go higher,” he finally said.

“But we’re so close,” Raven argued.

“And in our haste we could make a mistake. We haven’t come this far to do something foolish.”

She could tell by his tone of voice that arguing would be useless, so she agreed. “We have nothing left but coffee.”

“I’ll see if I can find a rabbit before dark.” He checked his pistol and started across the side of the ridge, moving quietly but steadily. It was almost dark when he spotted the deep pool that bowed out from the stream. Two shadows flitted about the water.

Fish would be just as good as a rabbit, and they didn’t require him to fire his pistol. He didn’t want to call attention to their location. Besides, he hadn’t seen anything moving until now. He studied the pool. If he dislodged the rocks at the lower edge of the enclosure, the water would drain out. If he did it just right, he’d capture at least one of the fish.

He was lucky. The downward pull of the water kept the fish from moving back toward the stream, and by placing the rocks he moved at the upper edge of the pool, he kept most of the stream water from refilling the hollowed-out space. In less than ten minutes, he had two big trout, dressed and strung on a limb for carrying. Supper without firing a shot.

That was important. He knew in his bones that they were being followed by something or someone. He wished he knew whether it was the bandits or the Indians.

While Tucker was gone, Raven explored the area. The ridges were made of red boulders rolled downward from the red-and-tan limestone cliffs. Layers of clay seemed to hold the rocks together. Nestled among them were little pockets of greasewood and prickly pear, a cactus that promised retribution if they made the wrong move.

Tucker had been wise to bring them to a stop. Falling was probably the least of the potential dangers ahead. The silence was broken by a swarm of Mexican swallows swooping toward one of the cliffs protected from the sun by another ridge. The birds had built mud nests on the face of the rock, and she could see little heads poking through holes in the center of the cones. When the birds flew near, she could hear the tiny fledglings screeching to be fed.

As she headed back to camp, Raven was pleasantly surprised to come upon a patch of glistening green-leafed plants. With the wandlike blades thrusting out in all directions and a single stem in the center holding up clusters of white blossoms, she recognized the plants as sotol. With a knife she dug the dirt away from the bulb from which the roots dug down into a rare patch of rich earth. She chopped away the leaves, revealing a pineapple-shaped cone, which she buried in the coals of the fire. It would make a good meal if Tucker did not find meat.

When he returned with fish, she set a spit to cook them over the open fire. Later they split open the sotol bulb, peeling away the scorched and blackened exterior to get at the layers of fruit circling the core like that of an
onion. Blowing on their fingers, they ate the particles of hot, sweet-tasting food.

“It isn’t something I’d go out of my way to get,” Tucker admitted, “but it’s filling.”

That, the fish, and the coffee satisfied their hunger, leaving enough for tomorrow. After eating, they laid out their blankets, determined to get a good night’s sleep in order to get an early start.

In spite of her growing excitement, Raven willed herself to concentrate on her goal. Tonight she refused to have any fears or worries. She refused to think about Tucker or tomorrow.

Success meant buying the land for her people. Success meant Tucker could have his ranch in Oregon. Failure meant that the Arapaho would have to go to the reservation and Tucker would have no reason to go far away.

Success meant losing Tucker. Failure gave her a chance to keep him.

Success could bring great happiness—and great pain.

Tucker slept fitfully. Even when Raven moved over to his blanket, slid her thigh across his, and snuggled close, she felt no reassuring warmth as she had in nights past. But finally she slept.

At some point Tucker came suddenly awake. He couldn’t hear anything, but he knew that Raven was in his arms.

Where she belonged.

Still, he couldn’t rest easy. Were Swift Hand and his braves still looking for Raven? Where were Porfiro and his men? Where were Lucky and Jonah? Tucker made up his mind that if the newspaperman didn’t turn up by morning, they’d go back and look for him.

Where would they be tomorrow night?

The tone of their journey had changed the moment
Raven discovered the secret of the map. And tomorrow, if his dream became reality, their journey would end.

Tucker felt a great pain tear at his heart. Moisture gathered in his eyes. In the distance he heard the lonely sound of a mountain lion, voicing his feelings for all those listening to know.

Tucker understood the big cat’s pain.

It was just after dawn the next morning when a wet but reasonably clean Lucky heard Jonah’s weak squeal of outrage.

The feisty little animal was knee-deep in the wet sand left by the flood. Lucky’s first attempt at rescue resulted in his losing one shoe and almost getting stuck himself.

Remembering the hours of reading he’d done in his father’s library, he recalled his fascination with quicksand. This mess wasn’t that kind of mire, exactly, but it was the same principle. What he needed was something he could hook into Jonah’s saddle so that he could pull the burro out of the labyrinth.

There seemed to be nothing at hand.

Finally he tried laying fronds of brush across the sand. They floated. From broken leaves, he went to tree limbs. While not floating exactly, they managed to remain on the surface. Jonah seemed to understand that Lucky was trying to help him and, for the first time in their acquaintance, waited uncomplaining.

By laying the limbs in a grid pattern, Lucky was able to lie flat across his creation and inch himself forward until
he could reach the beast. After an initial flurry that threatened to pull Lucky into the mush, he managed to tug Jonah across the end of one of the branches. When he didn’t sink, the quick-thinking burro allowed himself to be pulled by Lucky, who backed away from the trouble.

Finally back on firm ground, Jonah paused long enough for Lucky to grab bread and cheese from the pack before he took off up the valley toward the place where he’d been swept away. Lucky, wearing only one shoe, was forced to travel more slowly.

As if he knew what he was doing, the burro stopped to graze, allowing Lucky to catch up. Nightfall brought them to a flat ridge at the base of the peaks where he discovered Raven and Tucker’s camp. From its location he guessed it was from the night he went back for Jonah. Lucky decided to make camp there. Walking in the daylight was bad enough. The dark would only bring him a broken leg. At least, with Jonah’s return, he had his bedroll and supplies. After writing up his extraordinary adventure in his notebook, Lucky bedded down for the night.

It was the next morning when he heard the ponies approaching. Quickly Lucky came to his feet and searched for Jonah, who was nowhere to be seen.

Lucky started up the slope, then, realizing not only that he’d be seen, but that he’d leave a trail, he backed down the way he’d started until he reached a stand of fir trees. Tree climbing was another activity he’d never learned, but when in danger of being caught, he found it was easier than he’d expected.

Perched near the trunk of the tree on a limb with heavy foliage, he watched in the olive gray of the dawn as four bandits passed beneath his hiding place.

Porfiro, in the lead, rode slowly, studying the ground. Suddenly there was a call from someone riding closer to
the stream. The four riders turned under the tree and rode out of sight.

All Lucky understood from their conversation was the word “Raven.” Porfiro’s men had found something that drew their attention. Obviously the bandits had found Raven and Tucker’s trail.

At that moment he caught sight of Jonah, just barely visible, halfway up the ridge. He seemed to be moving in a circular direction, and as Lucky watched, the burro disappeared from sight.

Taking a deep breath, Lucky slid back down the tree and took off, following the tree line as far as it went, then crouching behind the rocks until he found a narrow path.

Lucky took a quick look back and saw the Spanish ponies about two hundred yards across and halfway down the ridge. The bandits had dismounted and were studying the ground.

Lucky didn’t know what had held up their ascent, but he said a small prayer that he was ahead of them. He’d reached a point where he could zigzag back and forth behind the rocks and not be seen. Beneath his feet, in the soft mud, he could clearly see Jonah’s hoofprints.

For better than an hour, he climbed before coming to an open place with little shelter. He could be seen by the Mexicans below. Did he dare risk exposing himself?

Did he dare not?

If they attacked him, he’d just fling his arms about and yell like a madman. It had worked for the Indians. If the picture of a man going crazy in the wilderness didn’t scare them to death, at least it would warn Raven and Tucker—if they were still alive—if they were anywhere around.

He took a deep breath and slipped the last few feet and climbed into the open space, pausing for a moment as he listened for a sign of recognition.

None came.

But he did find Jonah, waiting behind an outcropping of rocks.

“All right, Jonah, let’s find our friends.”

As if on command, the scrawny beast took off an at angle away from the Mexicans and headed up.

Lucky almost made it to the rocks.

Almost, but not quite.

A shout from below said that he’d been seen.

“Did you hear something?” Raven asked, inclining her head to listen.

“Just falling rocks and the wind,” Tucker answered, wiping the perspiration from his face with his bandanna. “Are you sure this is where we ought to be? It seems too easy.”

After the flat section below, the travel up had followed a wandering trail, steep but reasonably open. Tucker attributed its smoothness to the mountain goats that occupied the area.

“If the treasure is concealed in a mountain, it has to be a place where the treasure could be carried,” she said.

“Who had it, and who carried it?”

“Flying Cloud said that his people took it from the conquerors who stole their land. That’s all I know.”

“Well, I’m beginning to think that the whole bunch of them dreamed this up during a peyote party.”

As she turned to answer he saw it, on a rock just over her head. A crude red drawing of what appeared to be a sun being blown off course by wavy lines. “Look, Spirit Woman. You were right.”

She turned back toward the side of the mountain. It was there, the symbol on her mother’s carrying bag. Worn
by the elements, chiseled into the uneven pattern of the rock, but still there.

For a long second, she just looked, her knees wobbling, her breath caught in her throat. “You were right, Grandfather. You were right.”

As she stood an even greater weakness swept over her. The familiar sound of drums and chanting began. Then came a thrumming in the earth beneath her feet. She could feel them, the clip of hoofbeats, the movement of animals up the same trail they’d just covered. The air grew thick. Sunlight faded to a blur of hazy movement. And suddenly she was there beside the burros, watching them as they moved into the mountain, one by one, each burdened down with the spoils of the armor-clad thieves who had stolen the treasure from the Indians in the South and West. After raping the area of treasure, they were moving it to the ships along the Gulf of Mexico, taking what they’d stolen back to Spain.

“No,” she whispered, “it isn’t yours.”

“Raven? What’s wrong?” Tucker asked. But she didn’t answer.

Then, as if she were alone, she began to move through the rocks, leaving the present behind. Tucker let go of Yank’s reins and followed. Sliding through crevices and into space that wasn’t there one moment and seemed to open up before her the next, she moved.

Driven. Drawn. Finally she reached a low, narrow opening that looked as if an animal had scratched it out. As if she suddenly remembered Tucker’s presence, she stopped and turned back to him.

“We need torches.”

“How? What?”

“Use my petticoat. Tie it on a limb. Dip it in the jar of bear grease in the saddlebags and bring it here. And get
the shovel,” she instructed. Then, inclining her head, she listened. “Someone comes. We must hurry.”