Only then did he turn to Caleb.
«Tell Willy good-bye for us.»
Reno sprang into the blue roan’s saddle like a big cat. A swift motion of his hand jerked Shaggy One’s lead rope free of the corral rail. He wheeled Darlin’ around and touched her with his spurs.
The mustang headed out of the yard at a brisk canter. The two Shaggies and the lineback dun followed.
So did Caleb’s voice.
«Run while you can, you hardheaded son of a bitch. There’s nothing stronger than a silk rope. Or softer!»
RENO knew they were being followed. He pushed the horses hard from dawn until dusk, covering twice as much ground as a normal traveler would, hoping to wear down Jericho Slater’s horses.
Right now Slater had the advantage, for his long-legged Tennessee horses were faster than the mustangs. In the desert, the advantage would quickly switch. The mustangs could go faster and longer on less food and water than any horse Slater had.
Not once through the long hours of riding did Eve complain about the pace. In fact, she said nothing at all except in response to a direct question, and Reno had very few of those.
Gradually Eve’s anger gave way to curiosity about the land. The high, open country was slowly filling her with both peace and a heady sense of being on the edge of a vast, undiscovered land.
To her left a high, ragged mesa rose, covered with pinon and juniper. To her right were the rolling slopes of low, pine-covered ridges. Behind her was a beautiful valley bounded by granite peaks, rugged ridges, and the immense, shaggy mesa with its cliffs of pale stone.
Even without the journal to guide her, she knew they were slowly descending from the green and granite heights of the Rockies. The land itself was changing beneath the agile feet of the mustangs. Foothills melted into plateau tops separated by steep, stream-cut ravines. Rocky stream banks had been replaced by dirt banks deeply cut and sandy tongues in river bends. Sandstone and shale had replaced granite and slate.
Graceful aspens and dense stands of fir and spruce had given way to cottonwoods and pines, pinon and juniper. Scattered, big sagebrush appeared in place of scrub oak. Clouds gathered and thunder rolled down from the peaks, but no rain fell at the lower elevations.
And over all loomed the dark mesa. Eve could not take her eyes from the ragged thrust of land, for she had seen nothing like it before. Plants grew on the mesa’s steep sides, but not enough to conceal the starkly different layers of stone beneath. No rivers or creeks drained its ragged length. No water winked from its ravines. No tall trees grew on its crest.
The map in the Spanish journal hinted that the mesa was only the beginning of the changes. It was the lip of an enormous, high plateau that was as big as many European nations. Ahead, beyond the setting sun, the plateau’s highlands fell away in immense stone steps that ultimately unraveled into countless stone canyons.
Eve couldn’t see the stone maze, but she sensed it just over the horizon, an end to the mountainous terrain that had begun in Canyon City and had continued for hundreds of miles.
The stone maze was a land of awesome dryness where no rivers flowed except after storms, and then only briefly. Yet at the bottom of the deepest canyon was a river so mighty that it was like death itself; none who crossed its boundaries returned to speak of what lay on the other side.
Eve wanted to ask Reno how such a thing could be, but did not. She would ask for nothing from him that wasn’t part of the devil’s bargain they had struck.
And the thought of having to keep that bargain — of giving herself to a man who thought her a liar and a cheat — was like ice congealing in her soul.
Surely Reno can’t keep on believing that. The more we’re together, the more he must see that I’m not what he thinks I am.
As Reno had all through the day, he turned and checked the back trail. At first Eve had thought it was concern that she would cut and run that kept Reno so alert. Gradually she had realized it was something else entirely.
They were being followed. Eve sensed that at the same instinctive level as she sensed the woman-hunger in Reno whenever he looked at her.
She wondered if Reno was like her, remembering the two rods touching, clinging, joined by secret currents, shimmering with unknown possibilities. She had never felt anything like it in her life.
Throughout the long hours on the trail, the memory haunted Eve. Each time it returned, it sent frissons of wonder and excitement through her, undermining her anger at Reno.
How could she be angry at a man whose very flesh and soul matched hers?
He felt it as clearly as I did.
He can’t believe I’m no better than my cheap red dress.
Surely he understands. He just too mule-stubborn to admit he was wrong about me.
The thought was as alluring to Eve as the possibility of Spanish gold somewhere ahead in the wilderness, hidden from all other people, waiting to be discovered by whoever was brave or foolish enough to risk the dangerous stone maze.
«WAIT here.»
Reno said no more. Nor did he need to.
Eve reined in her tired mount, took the lead rope of Shaggy One, and watched Reno leave without asking where he was going or why. She simply sat on her horse and waited for his return with a patience that came from exhaustion. Around her, the last colors of the day drained from the sky, leaving twilight behind.
It was full dark when Reno reappeared as silently as a wraith. The Shaggies and the dun were too busy cropping the scant grass to bother calling a greeting to their trail mate. The blue roan felt the same way about wasting energy on ceremony; as soon as Reno allowed, she fell to grazing with the hunger of a mustang that had grown up rustling its own feed.
Reno waited for Eve to ask where he had been and why. When she didn’t, his mouth tightened with irritation.
«Are you going to sulk all night, too?» he asked.
«Why do you care what a liar, a cheat, and a saloon girl does?» Eve asked wearily.
She pretended not to hear the word Reno hissed beneath his breath as he dismounted. He began unsaddling Darlin’ with quick, angry motions. After he upended the saddle on the ground to let the fleece dry, he turned to face Eve with his fists on his lean hips.
«Beats me why women get upset when a man calls them what they are,» he said bluntly.
Eve was too tired to be polite, much less cautious.
«I can understand how a rude, blind, stubborn, cold-blooded lecher like you might feel that way,» she said.
There was a taut, electric silence while she dismounted.
And then Reno laughed.
«Sheathe your claws, gata. You’re safe from me tonight.»
Eve gave him a wary, sideways look.
«I may be lecherous,» he said dryly, «but I’m not a fool. As long as Slater is on my trail, I’m not going to get caught with my pants undone.»
Eve told herself she wasn’t disappointed that she would get none of Reno’s disturbing, compelling touch that night — or any night soon. It was better that way.
Only one thing a man wants from a woman, make no mistake about it. Once you give him that, you better be married, or he’ll go off down the trail and find another foolish girl to spread her legs in the name of love.
Yet even the echoes of Donna Lyon’s bitter advice couldn’t keep Eve from seeing Reno with his nephew, smiling and gentle, and with his sister. The love in him had been strong enough to touch.
Eve wanted to touch it. She wanted to make with Reno the home she had always dreamed of, the safe haven from a world that didn’t care whether she lived or died, and the babies no one could take from her arms and send away.
The realization of how deeply and in how many ways she yearned for Reno frightened Eve. Unlike the Spanish needles, she wasn’t made of iron. They weren’t hurt by the eerie currents that joined them. She doubted that she would be so lucky if she gave in to her complex, unexpected hunger for Reno.