«You might get a basin bath out of the spring,» he said evenly.
The purring sound of pleasure Eve made did nothing to decrease Reno’s sensual awareness of her.
«Is it at the end of this valley?» Eve asked.
«This isn’t a valley. It’s the top of a mesa.»
She looked at Reno, then at their back trail.
«Looks like a valley to me,» she said.
«Only if you come at it from this direction,» he said. «You come at it from the desert, you have no doubt. It’s like climbing up onto a big, broad step, then another and then another until you come to foothills and then real mountains.»
Eve closed her eyes, recalling the maps from the journals, thinking of how different the land had looked to her than it had to the Spanish, who often were approaching from a different direction than she and Reno took.
«That’s why they called it Mesa Verde,» she said suddenly.
«What?»
«The Spanish. They first saw the mesa when they were in the desert. And compared to the desert, the mesa was as green as grass.»
Reno took off his hat, resettled it, and looked over at Eve with a smile.
«That’s been bothering you for days, hasn’t it?» he asked.
«Not anymore,» she said with satisfaction.
«The Spanish might have been fools for gold, but they weren’t crazy. What something looks like depends on how you come at it, that’s all.»
«Even red dresses?» Eve asked.
The instant the words left her mouth, Eve regretted them.
«You just never give up, do you?» Reno asked coolly. «Well, I’ve got bad news for you. Neither do I.»
For a long time after that, nothing broke the silence but the sound of hooves striking the ground in a rhythm so familiar, it was like a heartbeat, unnoticed unless it changed suddenly.
The valley that wasn’t really a valley began to descend with increasing steepness. As it slanted down to the stone maze, the land changed, rising slowly on either side of the dry wash Reno had chosen to follow.
The wash was lined with stunted cottonwoods whose leaves were a dusty green that gave shade but little coolness. Plants that required surface water to survive had long since flowered, gone to seed, and died back to brittle stalks that rustled with every breeze, waiting for the seasonal rains to come.
The farther the wash went to the west and north, the higher the walls on either side became, and the more narrow the passage between. After a time, Reno slipped the thong that held his six-gun in the holster and pulled his repeating rifle from its saddle scabbard. He levered a round into the firing chamber and rode with the rifle across his lap.
Reno’s actions told Eve that there was no other way to go but the one ahead. And that one led farther and deeper into what was rapidly becoming little more than a crack in the dry body of the land. She pulled the old double-barreled shotgun from its worn scabbard and checked the load.
The dry, metallic sound the shotgun made as Eve broke it open to put a shell in each firing chamber turned Reno’s head. She closed the gun and rode as he did, with a gun across the saddle, its muzzle pointed in the opposite direction of Reno’s rifle. The look on her face was intent and wary, but not frightened.
At that moment Reno was reminded of Willow, who once had stood with her back to him and a shotgun in her hands, waiting to see if the next person coming out of the forest would be Caleb or a member of Jed Slater’s savage gang.
It had been Caleb who came out of the forest, but Reno had no doubt that Willow would have shot anyone else.
He didn’t doubt Eve’s courage, either. Not in that way. She had spent too many years defending herself to flinch from what must be done.
They learned to leave me alone.
Reno’s eyes moved ceaselessly, probing shadows and the random turnings of the stream bed. The blue roan mustang he rode liked the narrowing wash no better than he did. Her ears swiveled and pricked at the least sound. Despite the long trail behind, she carried herself lightly, muscles coiled, ready to leap in any direction at the first appearance of danger.
The lineback dun was equally edgy. Eve could feel the mare’s wariness in her quick movements and nervously lashing tail. Even the two Shaggies were skittish. They crowded up on the dun’s heels as though taking no chance on being left behind.
Dry watercourses came in from the right and the left, yet still the main channel narrowed, eating deeper and deeper into the land. The bluffs on either side became cliffs that rose high enough to cut off the sun.
Abruptly Reno reined the mare into one of the side channels. The other horses followed. When Eve would have spoken, he gestured curtly for silence.
Long minutes later, a small band of wild horses trotted past the mouth of the narrow side canyon. The sound of their passage was all but smothered by the sandy ground. The horses were heading back the way Eve and Reno had come.
Eve felt the dun’s barrel swell as the horse drew breath to whinny. Immediately she leaned forward in the saddle and clamped her fingers around the mustang’s nostrils.
The motion caught Reno’s eye. He saw what Eve had done, nodded approvingly, and went back to watching. Long after the last wild mustang had gone by, he waited.
Nothing else moved.
Reno considered the tiredness of the horses, the time of the day, and the map in his mind.
It didn’t take long to decide.
«We’ll camp here.»
THE spring was marked only by the shocking green of growing things. Where water overflowed, there was a narrow ribbon of fern and moss that gave way almost immediately to plants better suited for surviving the relentless sun. Yet even those plants didn’t last long, for the air drank water more quickly than any growing thing. Fifty feet from the spring, the trickle of water vanished into sand and pebbles.
Reno sat on his heels, studying the tracks leading to and from the water hole. Deer had been to drink. So had coyotes, rabbits, ravens, and horses. None of the horses showed clear signs of being shod, but something about the tracks disturbed Reno just the same.
He had used various herds of wild horses to hide the tracks left by his own horses. There was no reason to think that Slater was any less clever at disguising his own tracks. But Reno couldn’t prove that it had happened here.
Reluctantly he stood, mounted Darlin’, and rode back up the wash to the place where Eve and the packhorses waited. After a hundred feet he turned to look at his own back trail. Darlin’s shod hooves left clear marks in the damp, churned earth at the fringes of the spring.
«Has Slater been here?» Eve asked with outward calm as Reno rode up.
He had been expecting the question. The hours and days on the trail had taught him that Eve was accustomed to using her eyes and her brain. Even though there was no trail marked in the journals that Slater could have taken to get in front of them, that possibility still remained.
The Spanish hadn’t found all the ways through the wild land. Nor had the U. S. Army. The Indians had; some of the men who rode with Slater might easily know things that no white men did.
«Couldn’t prove it by the tracks,» Reno said.
She let out a silent breath of relief.
«Couldn’t disprove it, either,» he continued. «Not all of Slater’s men are riding shod horses.»
«They were in Canyon City.» Then, before Reno could say it, she added dryly, «But we’re not in Canyon City anymore.»
The corner of his mustache lifted in a smile.
«Comancheros aren’t welcome in Canyon City,» Reno pointed out.
«Couldn’t the tracks you saw have been made by mustangs?»