Winter Fire (19 page)

Yet the boy's steady green eyes said that he thought the older man was wrong.

I should have run when the running was good
, Case told himself.

Then he thought of the land calling to him and knew he couldn't run. At that instant he understood what it felt like to be a wolf in a trap.

Nowhere to run.

Nothing to fight but himself.

A lot of wolves died that way, bleeding to death when they gnawed off their own legs in a desperate try for freedom.

D
isgusted, Case
leaned on the shovel and stared down at the cold hole he had dug at the base of a finger of red rock. It looked a lot like the other holes he had dug in the past two weeks.

Empty.

Before he had started digging, there were signs that the ground had been a camping spot. But it was impossible to tell whether the rock had been blackened by a campfire three years ago, or thirty, or three hundred.

Or three thousand. The dry air of the stone desert preserved everything from wood to bones to broken pottery.

I'm a damned fool to be digging holes when I could be building a cabin of my own to live in
, he thought.

A cold wind wailing up the nameless canyon seemed to agree with him.

He was a fool.

Sweaty and naked to the waist despite the wind, he picked up the shovel and went back to work. The steel edge grated against a combination of dirt, sand, and rubble that was anywhere from the size of a penny to that of a pony.

I could be catching a few mustangs of my own
, he thought.
There's some promising horseflesh running loose out there
.

With Cricket as a stud, and a few good mares from California or Virginia, a man could breed some fine animals
.

The sound of something heavy being dragged toward Case scattered his thoughts. He straightened from digging and looked up the canyon.

“Damnation, Sarah!” he yelled, “I told you to leave the big stuff for me.”

“You should see—what I left—up there,” she panted.

Despite the wind and the frost that still sparkled in the shadow of north-facing rocks, she wore only doeskin pants and a shirt with a thin camisole beneath. Her pants were scarred by brush and stained from plain hard work.

Her jacket was hanging over a low bush about a hundred yards down the canyon, near the first hole he had dug. Her hat was on top of the jacket. From certain angles, the bush looked enough like a hunched-over man that Case had reached for his belt gun twice.

Even knowing what was really there didn't keep him from starting when he caught a glimpse of the man-shape from the corner of his eye.

Sarah dragged her prize another few yards and dropped it with the wood she had gathered while he was digging. For a minute she just breathed hard and looked at the mound of firewood.

“There should be enough for both packhorses, plus my own little mustang,” she said.

“Shaker is a better packhorse than a mount. Her trot would jolt teeth loose.”

“How do you think she got her name?”

He looked at the mound of firewood. The last piece she had added wasn't a branch—it was the whole trunk.

“You should have left that log for me with the rest of the big stuff up the canyon,” he said.

She ignored him.

He wasn't surprised. He had discovered in the past two
weeks that Sarah was very good at ignoring what she didn't want to discuss.

Sex was number one on her list of things to ignore.

Maybe I should just trip her, sit on her, and force her to listen
, he thought.
If I do it now, I sure wouldn't have to worry about getting her clothes dirty
.

In all, she was almost as dusty as he was. When she wasn't pawing through a pile of rubble from whatever hole he was digging, she was dragging downed wood back to where the horses grazed.

Sarah stretched her back, sighed, and reached for the crosscut saw that Ute had “found” along with the ax.

“I'll saw that last one up,” Case said.

“You dig. I'll saw what I can.”

His mouth flattened. As far as he was concerned, she worked as hard as two men.

“What about resting?” he asked mildly.

“What about it?”

“I'm tired.”

Immediately she was contrite. She set aside the saw and hurried toward him.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I keep forgetting about your wounds.”

So did he, but he saw no reason to mention it. He liked the concern in her expressive eyes as she came toward him. He liked the willowy strength of her body and the unconscious swing of her hips when she walked.

He liked every bit of her too much.

He kept remembering how she had felt and tasted at dawn, hot silk in his hands and honey on his tongue.

All that woman going to waste
.

No sooner did the thought come to him than he pushed it aside. What the hardworking widow did or didn't do about men and sex was none of his business.

Now, if only I can convince my dumb handle of that
, he thought dryly.

But he doubted he could. He came to a point like a
bird dog whenever Sarah walked by. The only thing that made the situation bearable was that she didn't notice her effect on him.

Or if she did, she didn't let on.

“Case? Are you feeling all right?”

He looked down into her beautiful misty gray eyes and realized that she had been talking to him while his mind had been somewhere else entirely.

Below his belt.

“Put the shovel down,” she said firmly. “It's time to rest. We'll have an early lunch. You sit there under the—”

The scream of bullets ricocheting through the canyon cut off the rest of her words.

Case grabbed Sarah and rolled between two pillars of rock before the echoes came back.

“My shotgun is—” she began.

His hand covered her mouth.

Here I am, facedown in the dirt again, chewing on his gritty leather glove
, she thought.
How come I always end up on the bottom?

But there was a difference this time, and she knew it to the marrow of her bones. He was using his body to shield her rather than to overwhelm her.

Motionless, together, they listened.

The distant sound of shod hooves somewhere on the canyon rim came back on the wind.

“Maybe five hundred yards off,” he murmured into her ear. “One mule. Maybe another horse. Can't tell.”

“How can you—oh, that's right,” she muttered. “Moody doesn't shoe his mustangs.”

In his mind Case constructed a picture of the lower part of the canyon. They were at the head of a treelike, branching network of dry canyons. Lost River Canyon was the main trunk. About where the little side canyon they were in bent south to merge with another, larger branch canyon,
there were several places up on the rim where a man could lie in ambush.

No more sounds came to Case or Sarah on the wind. When she would have spoken again, he muffled her mouth with his hand.

She bit the base of his thumb.

Gently.

Heat went through him like a firestorm.

Judas priest
, he thought.
Of all the times for her to get playful
.

Jaw clenched, he concentrated on listening for distant sounds rather than on the nearby soft breaths of the woman lying beneath him.

Case heard exactly what he didn't want to hear. Hoofbeats and the rattle of rock as mustangs or mules scrambled down a steep slope.

He rolled aside.

“Stay here and stay low no matter what happens,” he said softly.

“Where are you going?” she asked in an equally soft voice.

“After my rifle.”

“Where is it?”

“At the base of that pillar,” he said, pointing.

“I'll belly crawl to it.”

A hard, strong hand clamped over the back of her right thigh, pinning her in place.

“What the hell do you think you're doing?” he asked in a low, furious voice.

“Just what I said—getting your rifle.”

“Stay here.”

“My leg isn't wounded,” she objected. “Yours is.”

Case gave Sarah a look that would have etched steel.

“
Stay here
,” he said softly.

Her mouth flattened, but she stayed where she was.

“Whatever happens, don't show yourself,” he said.
“The first one who sticks up his head gets a bullet between the eyes. Patience is the game.”

“I understand,” she said very quietly. “I won't move from here.”

“Promise me.”

“Yes.”

A cold steel weight pressed against her right hand. A glance told her that it was his six-gun.

“If you see something you don't like, shoot it,” he said. “Beyond a hundred feet, the gun pulls a bit to the left. Over two hundred feet, shift the barrel one inch to the right. Anything farther away than that, ignore. Understand?”

Sarah nodded.

“There's a round in the chamber,” Case added very quietly. “Try not to shoot me by mistake.”

“I don't shoot what I can't see.”

“That would be a comfort if you weren't angry enough at me to skin me out for a rug.”

Her teeth flashed against her dusty skin.

“A mighty fine rug you would make, too,” she murmured. “I'm sure tired of that dirt floor.”

“If you don't shoot me, I'll cut you some flooring planks up in the mountains.”

“It's a deal.”

She couldn't see his face, but she sensed the amusement buried inside him.

Someday I'm going to sneak up on that man's blind side and catch him smiling
, she vowed.

He left the cover of the red pillars like a hunting cat—on his belly. Using the insides of his feet, his elbows, and the sheer power of his body, he wriggled forward.

Never once did he raise his head above the level of the brush and rubble surrounding him. His dusty clothes and skin blended perfectly with the landscape.

Sarah had to squint to be certain that it was Case she
was watching, rather than shadows cast by wind-stirred brush.

No wonder he's such a good hunter
, she thought.
He can sneak close enough to reach out and grab the game by the throat
.

Case vanished.

A chill went over her. She blinked and blinked again. She saw nothing.

He was gone as completely as a flame blown out.

At that instant she understood with chilling certainty how he had survived the night when three attackers hadn't.

Yet despite his unnerving skill on the stalk, he had come very close to dying out there in the night. Some of the men he was stalking were as expert as he was.

Sweat gathered coldly in the small of her back. Part of her fear was for Case. Part of it was for herself. She didn't like the idea of a shadow creeping up on her and killing her before she even had a chance to scream.

Very slowly she inched the six-gun up along her side until she could sight over its barrel. The gun was too heavy for her to hold in place for long. Blindly she felt around for pieces of stone. When she had enough, she built a small mound for the barrel of the pistol to rest on. Sighting over it, she watched the land.

And she waited.

A rifle shot split the silence. Instantly there was return fire from the direction in which Case had vanished. Bullets screamed off rock and ricocheted through the narrow canyon.

Even as Sarah flinched, she lined up the barrel of the six-gun with the lower part of the canyon and prayed that Case wasn't hurt.

The sound of a running horse came up the canyon. The stone walls of the canyon caused each hoofbeat to echo and reecho, overlapping the sounds, making it impossible for her to be certain where the horse was.

Abruptly Case's head and rifle showed for an instant over the brush. He fired, levered in another bullet, fired and levered and fired again. The bullets were so closely spaced they sounded like a single burst of thunder.

The sound of the running horse slowed and then faded into silence.

Bullets screamed from a different direction.

She waited, but Case didn't return the fire.

It was the same as the night the raiders had attacked. Waiting and listening with her heart beating like a captive bird and terror lying cold in her belly.

Is he hurt?
she thought fearfully.

Lying there waiting and worrying and wondering was against her nature. She itched to go out and check on Case. There was no Conner to sit on her and make her endure not knowing.

Yet she didn't move.

She had given Case her word that she would stay where she was.

He wouldn't be expecting to find her crawling around out there. If he was alive, she didn't want to distract him. If he was dead, she didn't want to give away her position. If he was hurt…

The thought was unbearable.

Holding the six-gun steady, she bit her lip and prayed that Case would come back to her.

After a time, a hawk called softly.

Lips trembling, she gave an answering whistle.

Moments later Case snaked through the brush and into the shelter of the pillars. He was sweaty, dirty, and scratched.

The rifle he held was clean and ready to fire.

“How many?” Sarah asked very quietly.

“Three.”

“Where?”

“Two of them are coming up the canyon,” he said.

“Where's the third?”

“On his way to hell.”

She made a low sound.

“Don't feel bad for him,” Case said quietly. “When I got him, he was shooting holes in your jacket as fast as he could.”

Suddenly her mouth was very dry. “Did he think it was me?”

“He didn't care whether it was you, me, or Conner.”

The thought of her brother being murdered between one heartbeat and the next changed Sarah's expression.

“I hope the raider enjoys hell,” she said in a low voice.

“I hope he doesn't.”

The cool finality of Case's tone sent another chill over her.

“Now what?” she whispered.

“We wait.”

“For what?”

“Whatever comes,” he said.

“What if Ute or Conner heard the shots? Sometimes sound carries for a long way in these canyons.”

“Ute knows better than to ride blind into a gunfight.”