Sun Hawk gathered her into his arms and held her as tight as he dared. It was not appropriate for a brave to feel fear; it was an emotion that blocked out reason and made a man careless. Fear was to be controlled, mastered, and rel-egated to a place where it could not cause damage.
But when he felt Skylar’s heart beating heavily next to his and he imagined never knowing that joy again, he was afraid. More afraid, in fact, than he had ever been in his life.
“We can make camp just ahead there,” Case told Meade and Rayna as they stopped at a brook Skylar and Sun Hawk had crossed only a few hours earlier.
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He dismounted and studied the ground, finding the places where their horses had grazed and the spot on the bank of the brook where they had knelt to drink. It bothered Case greatly that Sun Hawk was no longer making any attempt to cover his trail.
Rayna reluctantly dismounted and let her horse drink. Though she was exhausted from their hard ride, she hated the thought of stopping. Case was right, though. It would soon be too dark to read the signs, and the little canyon they were in was a likely spot to make camp.
“We’re not gaining on them, are we?” Meade asked as Case returned to the stream.
“Very little, but that isn’t surprising,” he answered. “Sun Hawk knows we’re following him, and he’s forsaken stealth for speed. If we continue like this, it will simply be a matter of whose horses wear out first.”
“Then what are we going to do?” Rayna asked, arching her back and rubbing at the aching muscles.
“We are going to do nothing,” he said cryptically, and Rayna frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Case took a deep breath and prepared for a fight. Over the last few days he had developed a healthy respect for everything about Rayna—including her formidable temper and her iron will. “I want you and Meade to stay here and rest tonight I’m going on ahead.”
Rayna shook her head adamantly. “No. If you go, we all go.”
“I’m sorry, Rayna. I don’t want to wound you with my bluntness, but I will never be able to catch Sun Hawk and Morning Star with you and Meade along.”
Rayna started to protest, but Meade spoke up before she had the chance.
“They won’t stop tonight, will they?”
“I wouldn’t, in Sun Hawk’s place.”
Rayna didn’t have to be told that one of the things that made the Apache so hard to track and catch was their uncanny endurance and their ability to travel day and night. But Skylar wasn’t accustomed to such rigors, and Rayna reminded Case of that, using a little bluntness of her own.
“I know,” he replied patiently, “but we are a threat to them, and Morning Star will do whatever she must to escape. Even if it means traveling all night.”
Rayna wasn’t sure what bothered her more, his calm, dictatorial manner or the fact that he always referred to Skylar as Morning Star. It was so hard to think of him as Skylar’s brother. “Then that’s all the more reason for me to go with you, Case,” she argued. “If Skylar sees me—”
Case was shaking his head. “Rayna, Sun Hawk won’t let us get that close.
Unless we have absolute surprise on our side, he’ll hide Skylar and then turn on us and fight. That’s a corner we don’t want to force him into.”
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She knew he was right, but Rayna couldn’t bear the thought of staying behind. As she stood indecisively, trying to force herself to let go of her instinct to continue the pursuit, Meade moved closer to her and placed his hands on her shoulders, turning her to him.
“Trust him, Rayna,” he said gently. “He’s been right about everything else.”
He wasn’t ordering her to stop fighting; he was merely giving her the reassurance she needed to let go. All the combativeness flowed out of her, leaving only weariness in its place. She nodded and turned to Case. “All right. You go ahead, and we’ll follow your trail tomorrow.”
“Thank you.” Case collected his horse and a few moments later was gone.
Rayna stood quietly, watching him leave, and Meade stood quietly, watching her. “You’re not thinking of doing something foolish, like sneaking off after him tonight, are you?”
Somewhere inside her she found the remnants of a weary smile and gave it to him. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not that impetuous. Unlike Case, I can’t track even with a nearly full moon, and I know nothing about this country. I’d be hopelessly lost in an hour.”
“By God, I think there may be hope for you yet.”
His teasing grin was Rayna’s undoing. If he’d been harsh or abrupt with her, she could have found the strength to fight him, but kindness stripped her of everything—even her defenses against her own fears. She searched his face and finally abandoned every last shred of her pride. “I need you, Meade,” she said softly.
It was the one thing Meade had never expected to hear her say, and it was what he needed to hear most. “I’m here,” he told her, enfolding her in his arms.
She clung to him, and they stood there for a long time, giving strength and taking it, renewing hope and calming fears. It wasn’t a passionate embrace, but when they finally stepped apart and began making camp, they both knew that everything between them had changed.
Case no longer needed to see the trail to follow Sun Hawk and Morning Star. His quarry was taking the path of least resistance out of the mountains, but even that made little difference to Case.
For twenty years the spirit of the eagle had guided his way. It had led him to Gato, the renegade who had murdered his parents, and had given him back the necklace that Gato had taken from his mother. It had warned him of danger and shown him visions that had never failed to come true. It had even given him Libby, the greatest gift of all.
Now the eagle was leading him to Morning Star, and he had never seen the way ahead more clearly than he did that night.
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If Case was right, and Meade had no reason to believe otherwise, it was finally safe to build a fire. They had done without one the last few nights, and despite the fact that they were coming gradually out of the higher elevations of the mountains, the weather was turning beastly cold.
Without Case there, Meade and Rayna fell into the old habits they had formed on the trail from Holbrook to Fort Apache. He gathered wood while she unpacked supplies for supper; and while Meade cooked, she tended the horses.
Sitting on opposite sides of the fire, they ate, talking very little but gathering a strange kind of comfort from the silence. Meade didn’t have to wonder what Rayna was thinking about, and he wished he had more to offer her than the tired refrain he’d recited to her so often.
“He’ll find her, Rayna,” he said confidently.
She looked up from the deep blue flame she’d been staring at in the center of the fire. “I know he will.”
“Then why are you so pensive?”
She shrugged. “Because I’ve let myself believe it was over too many times.
I believed it just before my first meeting with General Whitlock, and again before I saw Crook. I wanted to believe that Case was going to come riding into Eagle Creek with Skylar. When we reached the Littlefield ranch, I just knew it was nearly over.” She shook her head. “I’m afraid to believe again, Meade. And mostly, I’m just plain afraid.”