But Meade knew what she was thinking. “Rayna, contrary to what is printed in the eastern press, rape is almost unheard of among the Apache. If they were . . . lying together, it wasn’t because Sun Hawk forced her.”
Rayna appreciated his reassurance. “I hope you’re right.”
“According to Case, your friend Gatana believes that Skylar is in love with Sun Hawk,” he reminded her.
“I know,” she said with a confused shake of her head. “But I find that so hard to believe. Sun Hawk is obviously a very courageous and skillful warrior, but he’s—” She realized how bigoted her thoughts were and stopped.
“But he’s an Apache?” Meade supplied. When she nodded, he told her,
“That’s very much the way I felt when Libby fell in love with Case.”
“Yes, but Case had lived most of his life with Jedidiah. You told me yourself that he was educated and almost courtly in his manner. But Sun Hawk, for all the fine qualities he might possess, has never known any way of life but that of the Apache.”
Meade could understand her confusion, but he had also recently learned that love wasn’t always logical. “That doesn’t mean she couldn’t fall in love with him, Rayna. Apparently love is something we mere mortals have no control over.”
We? Was Meade including himself in the category of people who had fallen in love? Rayna wanted desperately to ask him that question, but she couldn’t. And he didn’t seem inclined to say more.
Meade went back to laying the fire, and Rayna began unloading supplies from their bags of provisions. She went to the stream to fill the coffee pot 227
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with water, and by the time she returned, the campfire was blazing. She made the coffee, then set the pot on the rock rim of the fire to heat while she began filling a skillet with salt pork.
“I never did thank you for convincing Case that I should come along,” she said quietly. “I appreciate it more than you can know.”
A smile creased the corners of his mouth. “I was just trying to spare my brother-in-law the brunt of your wrath.”
She looked up sharply, but instantly realized he was teasing her. It had been a long time since they had been able to joke about her temperament. “I wouldn’t have damaged him too much,” she assured him. “A few broken bones, one or two cuts and bruises . . .”
Meade chuckled, but the sound died away as he fell under the intoxicating spell of her wistful smile. “This is the way we should always be, Rayna,” he said.
More confused than ever, she tilted her head inquisitively. “What do you mean?”
“Making each other smile. We do that very well.”
“We also make each other impossibly angry,” she reminded him, terrified that something was going to break the fragile thread that was holding this moment together.
“I know. But I’d rather live with the fights than have to survive without the smiles.”
“Meade . . . ?”
A noise somewhere behind Rayna signaled Case’s return, and the thread broke. Meade and Rayna both stood abruptly and peered into the gathering darkness. A moment later Case appeared.
“Did you pick up their trail?” Rayna asked anxiously as she came back to the reality of their situation. She wasn’t here to dally with Meade; she was here to find her sister.
“I found the same trail Black Rope found, heading to the south, but I lost it, just as he did,” Case replied, crouching by the fire. “Sun Hawk is very good.”
“So what now?” Meade asked.
“Tomorrow we will ride down to Littlefield’s.”
Rayna hated the fact that she knew virtually nothing about this part of the country. “Where’s that?”
“It’s the only ranch for thirty miles in any direction.”
“Surely you don’t think Sun Hawk would take Skylar to a ranch house,”
Rayna said in amazement.
“No, but if I were Sun Hawk, I would be thinking that it’s time they stopped traveling on foot. He can get horses for them at Littlefield’s.”
Rayna hadn’t considered that, and she frowned. “If Sun Hawk was responsible for the raids on the ranches to the east of the reservation, why didn’t he steal horses then? Why travel on foot for so long.”
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It was Meade who answered her this time. “Because horses are easier to track, and they sometimes create more trouble than they’re worth.”
“Because they have to be fed and watered?” she questioned.
“Yes, and because a rancher is more likely to pursue a horse thief than someone who just stole a few supplies.”
Case agreed. “Sun Hawk has been very careful until now to do nothing that would call attention to him.”
Libby frowned. “Why would he change that pattern now?”
“Winter is coming,” Case replied. “He has to go south. It’s been more than a month since he and Skylar escaped from Haggarty, and he can be relatively certain that any intensive search for them has stopped. He’ll take horses to make the traveling easier, and so that he won’t have to go to Geronimo empty-handed.”
That wasn’t something Rayna wanted to hear. “Why would he go to Geronimo? Didn’t his father tell you Sun Hawk didn’t like him?”
Case could see how much the news upset her, but he wasn’t about to lie. If everything Libby had told him about Rayna was true, she could bear to hear the truth. “That doesn’t matter, Rayna. Sun Hawk can’t stay in the mountains after the snows come, and there are too many ranches in the valleys.
Geronimo’s stronghold in the Sierra Madre is the last safe place for any Apache off the reservation.”
“Safe?” Rayna said with a gasp. “Between the Mexican government, the citizens’ committees, and Crook, who’s just waiting for permission to pounce, Geronimo’s people don’t have a prayer of surviving. How can you call that safe?”
“It is all a matter of perspective,” Case replied calmly.
“You mean Geronimo is the least of several evils.”
“Yes.”
“Then what are we supposed to do?” she challenged.
Case gestured toward the skillet of salt pork that sat beside the fire. “We eat and sleep, and tomorrow we ride hard and pick up their trail at Littlefield’s.”
“You make it sound so simple,” Rayna said, irritated by his calm confidence.
Case picked up the pan and held it over the fire. “It is.”
Despite everything she had been told about Case Longstreet’s incredible prowess as a tracker and about the visions that supposedly guided him, Rayna had serious doubts about his plan to go directly to the Littlefield ranch.
Granted, Sun Hawk’s trail out of the Nagona Valley had led south, but it could have been nothing more than a decoy—a feint south before he covered his trail and led Skylar farther into the mountains to the north. And, too, there 229
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was no reason to suspect that Sun Hawk knew of the existence of the ranch Case was leading them to.
If Case had considered those possibilities, he had discarded them without discussing them with Meade and Rayna. His belief that Sun Hawk would eventually make his way to Littlefield’s was unshakable, and Rayna had no choice but to trust him.
There was one advantage to his plan if he was right, though. They had started their trip at least three days after Skylar and Sun Hawk had left the Nagona Valley, but the fugitives had been on foot and had little choice but to keep to the mountains or risk discovery. Case’s party had no such liabilities.