Like the experienced camper she was, Carla had set everything out before she went exploring. Two sleeping bags were stretched over individual strips of foam mattress. A campfire was laid out, ready to ignite with a single match. Cooking gear and firewood were stacked nearby. Someone who came in cold, wet and tired could be comfortable within a few minutes.
Luke turned his back on the overhang and went looking for Carla. Beyond the protection of the slanting stone, her tracks showed clearly against the countless dimples raindrops had left in the dust. Even though her tracks were obvious, Carla had left a small pile of stones that indicated the direction she had taken. Luke followed quickly, knowing that she would mark any changes in direction by another pile of stones.
Ten minutes later he climbed up the shoulder of a tongue of land that poked out into September Canyon. From where he stood, he couldn’t see the overhang where Carla had set up camp, but he could see three miles down the creek itself to the point where it joined Picture Wash. The view was wild, untouched, unchanged since man had first come to walk the land thousands upon thousands of years ago. Indigo storm clouds seethed in slow motion, impaled on shafts of pure light thrown off by the setting sun. Red cliffs wept streams of silver tears, fragile waterfalls whose lifespan could be measured in hours. There was no wind, no rain, no sound but that of silence itself, an immensity that embraced sky and untamed land alike.
And watching it all was Carla, standing at die very edge of the rise, a smile on her lips and serenity in every line of her body.
Slowly Luke walked toward Carla, watching her watch the land, hungry for her in ways he couldn’t name, savoring the fact that she so obviously loved the untouched vista of stone and sunlight, silence and cloud. She had had every excuse in the world to drive into Boulder’s concrete excitements and enticements, but instead she had headed even deeper into the uninhabited land.
But only for a few days, Luke told himself savagely. Remember that. She just came here for a few days of vacation. That’s a hell of a long way from being able to take a lifetime of isolation. No woman wants that, and no man has the right to ask for that kind of sacrifice.
And no matter how beautiful the Rocking M might be, it was isolated. There was no doubt about it, no finessing it, no forgetting it.
"You’re damn lucky it’s me rather than some stranger following your tracks up here," Luke said roughly.
Carla spun around, her eyes wide with surprise. "Luke! My God, you scared me sneaking up like that!"
"Sneaking?" Luke looked at his cowboy boots.
"Schoolgirl, I couldn’t sneak up on a corpse wearing these."
"Maybe not, but you crept up on me just fine. What are you doing here?"
"You took the words right out of my mouth."
"I’m taking a vacation, just like I planned."
"Not quite," Luke said tightly. "Last I heard, Cash was still in Boulder."
"Only until the Jeep gets fixed."
"And meanwhile you expected me to let you stay out here alone?"
"Why not? You do several times a year. Cash has more than once."
"That’s different."
"It sure is," Carla agreed. "Neither one of you can cook worth a damn. It’s a wonder you haven’t starved to death. I won’t have that problem. I can cook."
"Carla, damn it – " Luke took off his hat and raked his fingers through his hair in frustration.
"What?" she asked calmly.
He hung on to his temper. Barely. "Listen, schoolgirl, this may be a joke to you but it isn’t to me. What would you do if you got injured while you were all alone up here?"
"The same thing you or Cash would," Carla said matter-of-factly. "I’d treat myself as best I could and then drive out. If I couldn’t drive, I’d make the best shelter I could and wait for someone to miss me, follow my trail markers and help me."
"What if we weren’t in time?"
"What if there were a blizzard and I froze to death?" she countered.
"In August?"
Carla laughed. "That’s exactly what I said to Cash when he dragged up a blizzard as an excuse for me not to come here alone."
Luke snapped his Stetson against his thigh in taut anger. He closed the distance between himself and Carla, not stopping until he was only inches from her.
"What if some man found you here alone?" Luke demanded in a low, hard voice.
"That’s less likely to be a problem here than in so-called civilization," Carla pointed out, warily measuring Luke’s anger. "In cities women are mugged, beaten or worse. Having other people around is no guarantee a woman is safe from a man."
The sudden wariness in Carla’s eyes cost Luke what small hold he had on his tongue. For an instant all he could see was the Carla of three years ago, a girl scared and trembling as his fingers bit into her resilient hips, pulling her close, dragging her up against his hardened body.
"Don’t get scared and bolt, schoolgirl," he said coldly. "I won’t attack you."
Carla’s head came up proudly. "I never thought you would."
"You must have thought it once," he shot back, "because you ran like hell and stayed away for three years."
With a tight motion of her body, Carla turned away, looking back over the land once more.
"That was humiliation, not fear," she said finally. "I was naive enough to believe I had something to offer you. You pointed out my foolishness in very unmistakable terms. I was mortified, but you had every right to say what you did and I knew it. That’s why I was so ashamed."
Luke looked at Carla for a long moment. His mouth flattened in a line of anger and pain. When he spoke, his voice was resonant with restrained emotion.
"I’ve regretted that night like I’ve regretted nothing else in my life."
Carla turned back toward Luke, a wondering kind of surprise showing clearly in her blue-green eyes. He was looking at the sky, not at her.
"Rain coming on," he said, replacing his Stetson with a smooth motion. "We’d better get back to camp."
Her thoughts in turmoil, Carla followed Luke back to camp. There was little conversation while she cooked dinner and even less talk while Luke helped her wash dishes. She poured coffee while he added wood to the campfire, increasing the delicate, searing dance of flames. When she handed him a cup of coffee, he thanked her with a nod and then turned his back to the fire and to her, concentrating on the view of September Canyon.
During supper, the last of the red light had drained from the sky, leaving a luminous indigo twilight. Isolated clouds had expanded, flowed outward and joined with others of their kind in a slow embrace. In the darkness soft rain began to condense.
There was no dazzling flare of nearby lightning or fanfare of thunder, simply the gentle persistence of water drops materializing from the night and free-falling through darkness until they caressed the rugged body of the land. Gradually the vast silence became alive with the whispers and sighs and fragmented murmurings of tiny waterfalls gliding over massive stone cliffs.
Carla sat cross-legged near the campfire, looking across the flames at Luke. His yellow slicker had been cast aside beneath the protective overhang. His open-necked shirt, worn jeans and boots were first revealed and then concealed by the languid rise and fall of flames. The metal camp cup he held in his large hand gleamed like quicksilver. He reminded her of the land itself, enduring and powerful, full of unexpected beauty and deep silences.